'Tis the Season

Sorry for the lack of updates. Brett is a worthless troutbum and I've been busy being a productive citizen. Thought I'd take a moment to let y'all know that the Nukeular Rainbow Run is upon us. Proof's in the puddin'...

Friday Fish Porn: Steelhead in Short Shorts edition.

With fall inching closer along Lake Erie's southern shore Dudewater is pleased to bring you "Steelhead in Short Shorts" featuring dude, Jim Lampros.

Castin' and Blastin'

Spent roughly 14 hours afield yesterday in search of a couple of firsts for the season. The goal was to finally beat the September steelhead skunk, and to bag my first goose. I guess 1 out of 2 isn't too bad...

The day began with yet another fruitless trek east despite the fact that conditions hadn't changed a bit since my last trip. Even with practically non-existent river flows we did see a few fish pounded into submission by The Pennsylvania Steelhead Militia. I guess that's encouraging, right? We opted to stick to the surf and did have a very brief shot at some fish crashing bait on the surface, which kept our interest just long enough for about 1,000 more fishless casts.

John and I met up with Alex in the evening to take a crack at goose hunting before the early season closes on Wednesday. After about an hour it looked like we we're going to get skunked altogether as there was little to no water in the marsh we had planned to hunt. With daylight dwindling we weighed our options and the guys made a last-minute decision to set up in a field adjacent to the marsh.

Birds flew, John called 'em in, & the rest is history.

I'll be packing up boxes all day today so it was great to spend yesterday outside. Can't wait to take a crack at ducks in October...

Real gangsta-ass guides don't nymph fish...

A good friend of "agua de los hombres" has been blowing up the big screen! We're clinking a Dudewater to RA and his posse for their recent success at the Drake Mag's Fly Fishing video awards...

Get the first-hand scoop here at RA's blog.

You gotta' go to know

Reports from your buddies are great and all, but sometimes you need to find out for yourself what the 411 is on the rivers. So for the second time in three days I ran a kamikaze mission to the dark side of the steelhead moon to see if I could find fish. At least this time I convinced a buddy to tag along...

Even if you don't get into fish, you've got to love sunrise on the southern shore

Didn't get tight to any chromers, but did see some. We managed to beat the skunk though...

Nice fish Juan, but I'm not so sure about that salad you're rockin' these days...

I'll let the rivers rest and revisit my quest for chrome next week. I plan to fill the void by killing some birds this weekend - details to follow.

Friday fish porn..

Hopefully we'll remember to do this every week...

Searching for Chrome

I finally gave in to my alarm around 5:10 this morning. After about 20 minutes of fumbling around the apartment in the dark trying to find all my crap, I was on the road heading east. The plan was to hit the beaches close to some eastern tributaries in search of early fall chromers.

As I wadered up the weather was promising - cool and overcast. I'd heard whispers of a couple curious fish nosing into the mouths of the tribs last week, so needless to say I was optimistic. Unfortunately, as you can see in the picture above the lake was a mess. Big, turbid waves crashed the shore and howling winds made casting a challenge.

Despite finding this unfortunate specimen, I did see some signs of life - a small jack taken by a hardware guy, and a couple bigger fish rolling just upstream. I'm thinking next time out could produce the first fish of the season, but we'll have to wait and see...

Some Choice Images From The Big D

John Miller Sent me the following images from this past weekend. Thanks John, These are great!

West Branch Weekend Recap

Well, tomorrow it's back to the grind after a great couple of days in New York with the Boys. Just like old times, eh fellas?

The boys got a head start on me and were able to squeeze an afternoon float in on Saturday. I got in late Saturday night and was greeted with fist bumps and cold brews all around. After a couple hours of catching up around the fire we figured we'd better hit the hay given that we were planning to be on the water at dark-thirty the next AM...

On the water and pulling streamers by 6:15, fish in the boat by 6:20. Thought it might be a banner day, but ended up being your typical streamer trip - a lot of casting, a bunch of fish moved and a few good ones to the boat.



John had to roll after our morning float but was kind enough to leave us his boat and help us run a shuttle for our second float. The evening trip ended up being a little more productive, with the exception of several errant casts on JD's part...

This morning we opted for a slightly less aggressive start time and enjoyed a nice breakfast at the camper.

There were tricos-a-plenty but the trout were disinterested.

Fishing was sub-par so rather than force the issue we did a lot of kicking back and enjoying the scenery, even spotted a baldy on the hunt...

A solid weekend on and off the water. I know each of us is looking forward to doing it again as soon as possible. Thanks again to John Miller for playing host! Looking forward to seeing his pictures on here soon...

More shots from the Gunpowder...

Who would've thought that there were trout like this...in Maryland.