October Steel

Yes, I know it's December and I'm finally getting around to adding this to the blog. This year, my brothers Andy, John and I met in western NY to open a can of whoop ass on some steelies. This year (like last year) we were once again screwed by drought conditions, so the only creeks that were reasonably fishable were Cattauraugus Creek and later on, we moved east to the Salmon river in Pulaski, NY. One other we did fish with a small amount of success was 18 Mile Creek in the vicinity of Hamburg, NY. No special places, just public water.

Fishing was so-so. Some days we'd have 10-15 hookups, which isn't bad, but it's certainly not great. It was enough to keep the trip from being a total flame out.

I didn't fish the beads this year. I caught enough shit for that last year, but maybe I will break them out in the spring or next fall. I fished mostly pink eggs and sucker spawn. Pink always works well for me for some reason. Much better than orange or oregon cheese, red or virtually any other color. The only color that comes close is white.

At the Catt, we tried a few spots, but the reservation was the most consistent. Nothing at all in Gowanda. We also tried the Zoar recreational gorge, but nothing doing there. Perhaps we were too early for the fish to be up that high. I've also heard it said that fish will rip right through that area, but I don't know if this is true, or if anyone's gotten any data to prove it. I'm thinking probably not. It's more likely that it's such a long walk down to there, that if you get the skunk one day, you're likely to not return, which makes it easy to assume there's no fish holding down there.

Anyway, enough with the dialogue. Here are a few photos:

A few from the Catt



























Andy at the Salmon River


































I have a few more photos on my other PC that John took. I'll try to get them up in the next few days.

Wet Flies

Been busy at the vise recently, working on wets. I plan to fish them almost exclusively this upcoming season. Hopefully I will become proficient.

Here are a few photos of just some the the wets I've been tying:

Woodcock Hare's Ear









Kelso









Hares Ear








Alexandra








Peter Ross








Muddler Daddy








Invicta








Partridge and Yellow

Trip to Canada part Deux

Wow - it's been a LONG time since I put any fresh material up (as if the world was anxiously awaiting on my next posting). Just to backtrack a little, Nora and I took a trip up to the Gaspé peninsula back in the summer and I only posted roughly half the trip up, so here is the other half.

The second leg of our trip found us leaving Tadoussac, QC, taking the ferry across the St. Lawrence river, then driving along the northern edge of the Gaspé peninsula, reaching our destination of Forillon National Park(pronounced For-ee-on ~n silent). I won't put you to sleep with all the boring details of actually getting there, but the scenery was pretty much fantastic once we got above the city of Rimouski. It was one of those drives where you go around the corner and go "holy shit, look at that!" Much of the road is right on the seaway, so it's hard to keep your eyes on the road. Picturesque towns dot the way and sometimes we just had to stop and try to take it in. One of the things that caught our attention was the windmill "fields" for lack of a better term, that we saw. Curiously, only about 20% were actually operational.

Here are a few photos of the drive up:

Remember ESSO?





















WELL....

Finally after a very long drive and some anxiety over whether or not we'd actually find a campsite at Forillon, we arrived at our destination. Luckily and incredibly there were plenty of campsites available. National park, middle of summer, no reservation required. Who da thunk? Dog tired, we were treated to this view after we entered the park:
















Spectacular to say the least and it would keep getting better. We only had a couple of days to spend here, so in the morning we woke up early, had hearty breakfast and took off on a 16 or so mile hike that would take us to the tip of the peninsula. We hiked up to a lookout tower where we had fantastic views, through some pretty active bear country, and along pastoral seaside paths that eventually led us up to the lighthouse at the very tip of the peninsula. On the way back, we actually saw some whales breaching out in the bay, waterspouts and all! Fantastic.





Here are some photos from that day - starting with the hike over the stem of the peninsula up to the lookout tower:

































Incidentally, we had binoculars with us and you could look down from the tower and see seals playing/eating/surviving/doing whatever the F seals do down in the surf below. Pretty cool.























Now for the seaside part of the hike. This is along the south shoreline of the tip of the Gaspe. The path is part of the international Appalachian trail, which is an extension of the original AT. This part starts at Mt. Katahdin in Maine and the terminus is the tip of the Gaspe. The trail goes through an old fishing village that the national park service bought out in the 1970's and many but not all the buildings are preserved. Anyway, I'll let the photos do the talking.































Nora and Dave at the very tip of the Gaspe!








The lighthouse:























Here are some photos from the walk back to the car. As I said before, the area is infested with bears. They feed on Osier and Raspberries. We didn't see any on our hike, but we found plenty of evidence:

























OK, at this point, my ADHD is kicking in and I'll just post a few more photos of the rest of the trip, which includes a sunrise on the beach (we actually came across a porcupine in the path) and the drive back through the touristy town of Perce and it's famous Perce Rock:


























Perce Rock




















So, that's pretty much about it - we had a stop or two along the way, we stopped to visit some of Nora's friends from New Milford who actually have a cottage on the Gaspe that they paid 10G's for, remarkable... I wish I had the camera when we walked out their back yard to the ocean, incredible scenery.

One of the funny parts of the trip was the border crossing when we were coming back to the states and being interrogated by border patrol: "uh, so where you folks goin' tonight?" I reply, "well sir, we're trying to make Caribou." Nora got a grand kick out of that... like we were in the middle of a snowstorm and Caribou was 500 miles away. Here it is the middle of August. She still laughs about it. Ok, I can take it.

Nora and Dave's trip to Canada

It's been way too long since I last posted, so I'm going to make up for it starting with this rather lengthy addition.

We left for Canada last Sunday, specifically to do some whale watching from the vantage point of sea kayaks, to the picturesque town of Tadoussac, Quebec. Tadoussac is one of the oldest settlements in all of Canada and is situated about 3 hours northeast of Quebec City, on the north shore of the St. Lawrence river, and at the confluence of Saguenay river. The mouth of the Saguenay forms one of the few natural fjords in Canada and is reknowned for it's concentration of all sorts of whales; Minkes, Belugas and a host of others. Apparently, krill concentrate there in the summer months and the whales come in to fatten up for the winter months ahead. To get to the village of Tadoussac, you have to cross the Saguenay via ferry, several of which run non-stop.

Here are some photos of the crossing:





At the end of the first day, we camped on the outskirts of Tadoussac at Domaine des dunes. Not a great campsite, as sites are very close to each other and offer very little privacy, but it was a place to settle in for the next couple of nights. At this point, after about 10 hrs of driving, we were happy just to have a place to sleep for the night.

Day 2 - Tuesday

Today, all we had on our minds was sea kayaking and hopefully seeing some whales.
But first, we had a couple of hours to kill, so we took a hike along the fjord and here are some of the views:




The village of Tadoussac


Put your shirt back on!


Nora taking in some sun, or fumbling with her pockets, or something...


Everyone we talked to who had been to Tadoussac told us we would see tons of them. Sadly, this would not be the case! In fact we would not see a one during our 2 hr kayak tour of the fjord, but we did have a great time, cruising up the fjord and back to the harbor. Later on we'd still have an opportunity to see some on the second part of our trip, a few nights in Forillon National Park, which is located on the very tip of the Gaspe peninsula.

Here are a few photos of the kayak trip:


Our kayaks with the company Azimut Adventures


Nora paddling in front - view looking up the Saguenay fjord


The others who made the trip with us


Nora enjoying the ride!


Dave at the stern


Nora and Dave

Later that same day, we drove out to Saguenay Provincial Park in search of beluga. This particular area is supposed to be a sanctuary for belugas. After mountain biking down a trail, we came to a lookout point with an observation deck. There was a naturalist there with high powered binoculars taking notes, looking for belugas. She had seen some during the day, but while we were there, none were to be found. 0 for 2 so far, but the scenery was gorgeous:






Nora looking and hoping to spot some belugas

More later - on to the incredible Forillon National Park!