Black Friday

Made the run to the river for Black Friday and finally found some steelheading weather.  At 11 am it started to rain and instantly both Matt and I hooked up.  The exciting part about this was Matt getting his first steelhead and on the swing!  It took three trips going back to last winter, but he persevered and found success.  Unfortunately for both of us our first fish came unbuttoned before we could get some pictures.  On another note, it's been a weird fall weather wise.  Here it is after Thanksgiving and we still haven't seen any snow and the temps are warm for this time of year.   Don't know if I'll make it up again till after the new year.

 
 Matt's first brown on the swing

A small but very feisty buck that fought like like hell

 Matt just after he hooked his first steelhead, very happy.

Its not All About the Fishing

   This past weekend I found myself on the water with a great group of guys.  On one of our long walks in search of open water I found myself deep in conversation with one bud and he was saying that these trips are now less about the fishing and more about the company.  That being said it was a tough weekend fishing wise.  We fished hard and covered a ton of water with little to show for our efforts.  With 4 guys getting 11 days (6 of those days swinging with myself and Geoff getting 5 of those days) on the water total we got 1 fish to hand via the swing and 6 via nymphing.  We didn't see anyone else killing it either, this included the pinners and bottom bouncers.  Regardless of the fishing it was one of the most enjoyable trips I've ever had.  Great friends, great food, fishing hard and tons of laughing make for a great weekend.   Some images from the weekend.

 

Red Tail

 Went out this morning for a little bird outing and captured this immature Red Tail Hawk.  Love seeing all types of raptors and getting close is even better!

 

My House of Worship

 I'm not a religious person but I do consider myself a spiritual person, so in that vein this past Sunday I spent some quality time in my house of worship. I went out to one of the local areas where it is fairly common to see Marsh Hawks aka Northern Harriers.  They are a unique bird of prey that hunts on the wing for small rodents and birds.  They nest on the ground and hunt by flying low over the ground.  Their heads are disc shaped  to funnel sound to their ears.  Watching them work the fields over and over, probing the ground for an easy meal mesmerizes me and keeps me enthralled.   Over the coarse of the two hours I was privileged to witness their activities I took hundreds of photos.  As is the case of any photographer I only ended up with a few that I liked.  Such is the nature of bird photography especially without the big dollar lenses that the pros use.

 

A little carp from this past summer

Video taken from this past summers carp outing.  So much fun, very frustrating fishing at times but very rewarding.  Now as my friend Pat say we have to suffer through steelhead season until spring. 

A lil friend

Went for a walk last week during my son's music lesson and came upon this little guy. 

Montauk

I got a special invite a week ago to hit the famous waters surrounding Montauk.  Although I have a boat it is not up for the trip across Long Island Sound especially if it gets windy.  I tend to stay close to shore and in the more protected water.  After hearing all of the incredible stories of Montauk it was great to finally get to see it in person. That being said it is still fishing and nothing is guaranteed.  We got there mid morning due to fog and there must have been 200 boats ranging from skiff (only a few) to 40 foot cabin cruisers all plying the waters for fish.  We stayed outside a bit hunting for albies and didn't venture towards shore where more bass tend to be found.  The bait was spread out a great deal and we had to work hard for the albies that we found but between the 3 of us we must have hooked 20 albies.  I must admit that I got schooled by my friends who live on the coast and had the correct flies and I did not.  They did offer pity on me and gave me some of the magic flies after letting me flog the water from the bow of the boat for a while.  All in all it was a memorable day and one that I hope to repeat next year.

 

 albie,the inshore rocket ships

 Love the colors of albies

 "Hardcore" hooked up

 The famous point.  If you carefully you can see a guy up to his neck in-front of the guy on the rock.

 The Montauk lighthouse