Lots of morning fishing

I have to admit to fishing for a couple hours every morning this week.  I was mostly at Meadows Creek Pond in Roy but I also did some fishing at Steed and Syracuse Ponds.

I noticed two days ago that the water in Roy Pond was incredibly clea, r.  In some areas you could actually down 10 feet to the bottom of the pond.  I know from experience that on sunny days with clear water you use dark patterns.  I’ve been using black wooly leeches every morning that the water is clear and I have been catching some 40 trout a day.  Part of that catch included some albino rainbow trout.  Most of the catch included some brook trout also.  You can really tell when you hook a brook trout because they fight much harder than rainbows.  Brook trout also strike differently, smaller rainbow trout have a very quick grab and spit strike technique, if you don’t set the hook quickly you don’t stand a chance.  Medium sized rainbows grab and pull the fly, I have landed more medium sized trout than anything probably because of trout demographics in the ponds and the way they strike my flies.  Large rainbow trout seem to grab the fly in their mouths and swimming off, the effect is a slow steady pull of my fly line.  Brook trout on the other hand seem to hit my flies sideways.  This morning I caught three brook trout; two were about 14 inches and one close to 21 inches and they both struck the fly the same way.  All three times I noticed my fly line moving either against the current or faster in the current.  I think the brookies are taking the fly in their mouths and either swimming directly up or downstream with the fly in their mouths.  I have caught probably 40 or so brown trout and they seem to pop the fly.  I seriously wonder if an angler could identify a species of trout by the way they strike the fly or fight when hooked.

Yesterday my two new fly rod blanks were delivered in the mail.  I got a grey 6 weight and a dark blue 8 weight.  My reel, reel seat, cork, and other things have been ordered and are on the way.  I think I am going to build my 8 weight first because I want to fish for muskie and bass with it.  I ‘ll let you know my progress.

Tomorrow is Saturday and I am going to use wooly leeches again tomorrow for a couple of hours at Roy Pond.  Unfortunately, my wife is opening up the honey do jar and I don’t think there are any scraps of paper that say go fishing,

Woolies in Steed Pond

I rolled out of bed at seven this morning.  I slept great and feel like a million bucks.  I got lots to do today but I think I can squeeze in some fishing this morning.

Since I had lots to do I decided to fish close and headed to Steed Pond off 1000 W in Clearfield.  The weather was fair but the fishing was great.

I started off with zebra patterns under a strike indicator, nothing.  Egg patterns under a strike indicator, nothing.  Wooly leeches under a strike indicator, nothing.  I took off the strike indicator and started stripping in a black leech, nothing.  Changed to a brown wooly bugger with a long strip, one trout.  I shortened my strip and caught another trout.  I switched to a green wooly leech with a brass bead head and used a slow long strip.  Bam, five trout in 10 minutes.  I ended up hanging a brown wooly bugger 18 inches below the green leech.  I caught and caught about 30 trout in all before I had to leave.

It never ceases to amaze me how different the rivers and ponds are around here.  What works at Steed Pond today won’t work at Syracuse Pond until next week and worked at Roy Pond last month.  The same goes for different sides of a pond.  A grey scud pattern will catch fish all day long on the North side of Steed Pond but won’t work on the East side of the pond.  A fly or tandem fly setup that works on one area of a pond or river might not work at all if you move five feet!

Birthday Fishing

I haven’t really been feeling well lately and I’ve had to curtail my fishing.  I’ve not been feeling well for about three weeks now but that probably won’t stop me from fishing. 

Today is my birthday and the wife asked what I wanted to do today.  Steak, movie, and fishing.  So we had steak lunch, saw an early movie and dropped by Meadows Creek.

Wooly buggers and leeches were working great.  After some 10 fish I decided it was time to go because she was getting cold.  Its nice to get out and fish while my wife is there.

Swimming with the brassies

     Here’s a good story for ya.  I was at one of the outlets at Syracuse Pond and there was a rainbow trout swimming around just feet off the shore.  The trout was probably waiting for insects to drift out of the inlet.  Several other fishermen in the area had tossed flies and jigs at it but he wasn’t biting.  On a whim I tied on a brassie with the intention of letting it drift out of the inlet to the trout.  I tossed the brassie out into the lake near the swimming trout thinking I would get the fly wet first before I dropped it in the inlet.  Just as I was pulling the brassie up out of the water the big rainbow saw the fly and lunged at it.  I was surprised and immediately tossed the behind him.  When that fish turned towards the fly I jerked it several inches.  That’s all it took, he jumped on it and I landed him with a #16 brassie.  Here’s his photo. 

    I was catching them all day long on wooly patterns but its kinda neat that I caught him on a brassie.  I tied up 6 #16 brassies but until today had caught nothing on them.

Going fishing and checking the guides

     Well I got up this morning and decided to go fishing but first I checked the epoxy on the guides.  Bone dry!  I guess the ghetto mixer worked perfectly.  Check out this kewl looking fly rod.

    It was cloudy this morning and rainy but I’ve never been a fair weather anything, my Mom used to tell me that I didn’t have enough sense to come out of the rain.  She also used to tell me that I would catch my death of cold from getting wet in the rain.  Never understood that comment because how does the cold know if I am wet from rain, shower, or the swimming pool.  I could never understand how you could catch a cold from getting wet in the rain but not from swimming in a lake.  I guess those cold germs are pretty darn smart.

     I ended up catching 17 trout this morning while standing out in the rain catching my death of cold.  Nothing like killing yourself to catch some trout and it was awesome!  I was standing at the north end of Meadows Pond at the inlet.  You could see the albinos swimming around, they really stand out in the water but I couldn’t catch any of them.  I finally dropped a wooly bugger near them and slowly stripped it to the surface.  I had three albinos following it, when one of them hit the fly I was able to set the hook and land him.  Here is his portrait:

I ended up catching three of them and a whole mess of rainbow trout.

     This time of year is very special to me.  Its nice and cool down in the valley but the Rockies are still covered with snow.  Today there was no wind and it was cloudy but there was enough light that I could still see down in the water with my glasses to see the fish.  It rained every now and again but that just added to the atmosphere.  I love it right before it starts raining, you can smell the salty rain drops as they make their way down to the ground.  I think the falling drops disturbs the air because there is a slight movement in the air, you can see the ripples on the water and you know its going to rain.  When it first starts raining the trout will jump out of the lake and try to eat the splash the rain leaves on the surface of the lake, they probably think its bug hitting the water.  I am going to make sure I get as much fishing as I can in the next couple of weeks.

Got some guides done.

     I’ve been working on my fly rod yesterday and today.  I mounted the guides onto my fly rod with the thread.  Nice choice of colors, brown and gold.  I used the gold thread to highlight the brown and it turned out nice.  The guides that I decided to use are also gold so it worked out great.

     Last night after I finished threading the guides I put on three coats of color preserver and set them down to dry overnight.

     In the morning I loaded my ghetto mixer with some epoxy and started it going.  I let the epoxy mix five minutes.  My ghetto mixer is nothing more than a Craftsman cordless drill held up in a wooden bracket I whipped up from scrap pine I had from a previous project.  I drilled a 1/4” hole in the bottom of one of the plastic glasses I use for mixing epoxy (actually they are plastic shot glasses I found at a grocery store, I got 25 of them for 99 cents).  I placed a quarter inch bolt with a machine screw head into the hole of the plastic shot glass and bolted that together.  I put the end of the quarter inch bolt into my drill.  I loaded another plastic shot glass with the two parts of the epoxy and dropped in a 7/16” ball bearing in with it.  I used  a piece of duct tape to hold down the trigger on the drill and set it to turn at a very slow pace.  I put the glass with the epoxy into the other shot glass I had mounted into the drill and let it mix for five minutes.  I’ve been having tons of trouble mixing this epoxy since I started practicing putting on guides and threading.  Hopefully this will help with the mixing problem.

    After the epoxy mixed for the five minutes I applied it to the threads holding the guides down and then put the fly rod in my rod dryer and let it turn for three hours.  This is a picture of my rod dryer turning the fly rod with my rod threader in the foreground.

     Here’s a video of my workspace for making my new fly rod.

     After the three hours of drying were up I tapped on of the threads with my finger, man was it tacky.  In the past my inability to mix the epoxy left it sticky, even a week after I applied it to the rod, I’m hoping that the epoxy just needed more time to dry.  I will check it again in the morning.

Finally!

     OK, I was at Commissioner College taking some classes them morning when I got a text from my wife, my fly rod is here, finally!

     Turns out it was a little bit lost in the mail but I finally got it.  As soon as I got home I marked all the locations for the guides and found and marked the belly of the rod.  Starting Monday I will attach the guides.

Bifecta!

     I finally did something I’ve read about many times but have never done.  I was fishing with what some people call a tandem setup.  In a tandem setup you have two flies tied on the line.  In this case I had a green wooly leech tied about 18” above a brown wooly bugger.  I had been catching trout on both the flies.  Occasionally, when you are fighting one trout another trout will see the dangling fly and strike it.  My guess is the first trout sets the hook on the second trout and you end up with two trout on one line.  I was fighting the first fish when all of a sudden the fish got really heavy, I had no idea that I had hooked a second fish.  That was a blast.

     I’ve been fishing with those wooly patterns that I made recently, the patterns have been fishing great.  I’ve noticed that each pond requires you to strip the woolies in differently to catch fish.  At Steed Pond you really have to pull that fly in fast, at Meadows it takes a moderately fast strip and on Syracuse the fish want a very, very slow retrieve.

     My fly rod blank was supposed to be here on Monday but it still hasn’t showed up yet, its killing me.

A Day Phenom

 

     I started out at Steed Pond and I caught one lousy trout the size of a sardine.  This guy walks up and tells me they just stocked Meadows Creek Pond with albino trout several days ago.  Off I went.

     WOW is all I can say, I caught close to 40 trout, one was an albino.  Meadows Pond was really high from all the runoff from the last snow storm.  The inlet into the lake was really flowing fast.  I normally hate to fish the inlet at the Pond when its running so high and fast but I saw it as an opportunity to practice my river fishing.

     Fishing in the Ogden and Weber Rivers is really different from fishing a pond or lake because the water is always moving.  In moving water I have been taught to put the fly twice the depth of the river beneath a strike indicator.  You then cast upstream and let the strike indicator drag the fly beneath it.  It worked great at Meadows Creek Pond, I even caught am albino trout, here’s a picture of him.

Kewl huh,

     That;s not all.  At Meadows Creek there is a small portion of the creek that is designated as no fishing and no trespassing so the bass can reproduce.  That area had a huge albino in it, here’s a video:

Its not what I want but what I Steed

     I haven’t written for a while, not that I haven’t been fishing but I have been building tools for my up and coming project; making my own fly rod.  I needed a break from all that heavy labor and dropped by Steed Pond to do some fishing.   

     It seems like wooly patterns are what’s called for this time of year.  I tied a mess of them the other day, close to 70 of them.  I tied them in brown, black and olive green.  Sometimes a mix of colors work but I like to minimize what I have to lug around, those flies can get heavy.

     I ended up landing six trout this afternoon with only an hour of fishing.  When I first got there a young boy, about 11 or 12, asked me what I use to catch fish from here.  He said his name was Xavier and he had never caught a trout on his fly rod before.  I assumed he got it for Christmas.  I gave him an olive green wooly leech with a gold bead head.  I watched him fish with it for a while but he was doing it wrong.  I showed him how to strip it in and he caught a beautiful 14” rainbow within five minutes.  Kewl.

     I haven’t fished much at Steed Pond but its pretty close to my house, but difficult to fly fish there because of all the trees and bushes.

     Here a picture of the woolies that I have been tying lately.

Rod Wrapper

    I finished my rod wrapper on Thursday evening and waited for the parts that were glued together to finish drying.  Its not bad, here’s the pic.

It cost me around $20 to make.  I can move the rod and thread holders around as I need to.  After wrapping a hook keeper on my existing rod and watching some videos of wrapping on Youtube I decided to add some more features.  I had trouble keeping my thread tight as I was wrapping the hook keeper so I think I need to add some eye hooks and springs to help with tension, I also want to add a thread guider.

     Here is a picture of the hook keeper that I wrapped on my rod.

This is a 4 weight 2 piece rod that I got with my first fly rod kit.  My first kit was one of those $50 specials that I got at the BX on Hill AFB.  I have already upgraded my reel but I am still using the same old rod.  I decided to try a two color wrap.  It took me about six tries before I got a wrap to hold but I was able to do both wraps in one pass.  Total time with all eight wraps was about 45 minutes.  After I finished the wraps I used some color sealer to protect the color of the thread.  Unfortunately, I used some 5 minute epoxy to seal the threads that I got from Wal mart.  Big mistake.  I don’t know if you can see it in the photo but the epoxy globbed up as I was putting it on the threads.  No biggie though, its only a $25 dollar rod and now I have a hook keeper on it so that I don’t damage my cork grip anymore.

Kaysville Ponds

 

     We finally made it out here.  I was at the truck still putting my fly rod together when Copper John called out.  He had hooked one of the brood stock they have been placing around the area.  I have to admit that I was surprised because the stocking reports by the UWR doesn’t show any brute stocking recently.  The trout was really colorful.  I caught two trout myself not any brutes but still some nice trout, at least I wasn’t skunked there. 

     Kaysville ponds is a collection of three ponds lined up North to south.  John and I fished the first and second ponds from the North.  I only had one hit on my wooly leech in the first pond and I landed him.  At the second pond I had some really big hits but I was more interested in watching the geese than I was fishing I guess.  I need to concentrate more, I wasn’t there to watch geese I was there to fish.  The edges of the ponds are really muddy.

    John was using a brown #6 pistol pete, with medium silver wire ribbing.  I was using a #14 green wooly leech with a silver bead head.

Huge trout at Meadow Creek Pond

   

     I was at Meadows Creek Pond stripping in some wooly leeches, didn’t do too bad.  I was curious if the wooly patterns would work as well there as they did at Syracuse Pond, they do.

    It looks like the UWR has been busy stocking the pond with some brutes.  I saw about eight of them at the inlet, here is a cool video of some of them.

Stocked Big Trout Swimming In Meadows Creek Pond

Pistol Petes, Wooly Buggers, and Wooly Leeches

 

     What a day!  It took us a couple of hours to figure out what they were biting on but the day at Syracuse Pond turned out great.  For some reason the trout were not biting on wooly patterns under a strike indicator but take off the strike indicator and strip the pattern in slowly with about one foot strips and they would take it.  Sometimes the trout would just barely bump the fly, sometimes they would hit it hard and really pull and other times it was like they were taking the fly in their mouths and try to swim away with it.

     At any rate the day belonged to Copper John with 17 trout over 16” and two smaller trout.  I ended up with seven trout over 16” and a whole host of smaller ones.  There was a pretty good mix of species: Brookies, Rainbow, Brown, Lake, and Splake were all caught today!

     Here are some pictures of some of the trout we got.

Oh, Just Fishing Around

     Today, I picked up Copper John and we hit the Odgen River.  I wore my new waders and wading boots.  Man, do waders rock.  I was able to get right down onto the trout in the river, too bad I didn’t catch any.  There is still plenty of brute planters on the Odgen but they didn’t want anything I tossed at them.  One cool note, I did get to see a ghost.  As Copper John and I were leaving we were showing another guy where the fish were when a big white flash streaked by in the water.  Everyone was saying it had to be an albino trout but I thought it might be a whitefish.  John said it was too yellow to be a whitefish.  I tried for about 15 minutes to catch it but got no bites.

     We left the Odgen and drove to Meadows Creek Pond.  I caught a ton of little rainbow trout on a brown pistol pete with gold beads and propeller.  John was getting lots of hits but caught nothing.  I asked him if he wanted to go to the pond in Syracuse.

     At Syracuse I caught a huge brown trout on that pistol pete without a strike indicator.  John put on a pistol pete with silver beads and propeller and started reeling them in, about 8 brutes in all, ranging from 16 to 24 inches.  He needed it to because he’s been stressed out.   

     I have been thinking about building my own rod for some time now.  I have done some research and think that I will build an entry level rod.  I plan on logging my progress.  I will also build my own tools to make the rod.  Angler’s Den here in Roy have everything to build the rod except for the blank.  I think I will buy a cheap one off eBay, it probably will be better than the one I have now.

     My wife is going to spend some time with a friend of hers for a couple of hours tomorrow.  John told me to tie some red egg patterns for the trip but won’t tell me where we are going.  He called it, “his secret spot.”  It sounds really cold.

Another Blog Started

     I have been posting the pictures of the flies I tie, and some videos of how I tie them to this blog.  I found that it was pretty difficult to find the pictures or videos when I needed them.  I decided that I needed a way to store the information I have gathered on the flies that work and how I’ve tied them.  Another blog seemed like a perfect way to do this.  You can find information on tying the flies at:  http://7ofclubsflytying.blogspot.com/

Stocked, yet again?

     I had to go with my wife this morning to Salt Lake City.  Several days ago she got a rock chip in the windshield of her truck.  The company that replaced the windshield back in September offers free rock chip repair but they closed their Riverdale office.  Off to Salt Lake City we went, while she was attending her meeting I went to Diamond Glass and got the repair.  One the way to SLC I got another call from Copper John.

    Guess what?  Meadows Creek Pond is being stocked again.  Wow, two days in a row with Rainbow and Brook brood stock.  I got home about 1pm and drove over to the pond.

    I ended up catching a ton of little ones and two brood stock, both Brookies.  The first brute was pretty big and gave a good fight but the second trout was huge.  This is the first time I had to use my drag to tire out a trout to get him in.  He was about 19” long with a firey orange-red belly.  I wish I had my camera with me but I forgot it because I am working on a new video at home.  Oh well, there will be more trout.  I caught both of them on purple wooly leeches.

     Tomorrow we home to hit the lower Odgen River.

Meadows Creek Pond Stocked

     I got a call from Copper John this morning, it seems like Meadows Creek Pond is being stocked again, with brood stock.  I couldn’t go when he called but did get to go in the afternoon.

     One thing that was different with this stocking was some really big fish were hanging out right next to the shoreline.  I found that if I dropped an orange scud right in front of them and dangled it for a couple of seconds they would strike it.  It was pretty interesting because I got to see how trout feed.  The would either sip it, inhale it, or lunge at it and grab it.  The trout that sipped the fly didn’t fight at all.  I ended up catching two brutes off the shore and a host of smaller fish.

     Here’s a video I made during in November of the DWR stocking the pond.

Preparing for Odgen River and a little Mysty trouble

     On Saturday night I got a book for the library that mentioned that fishing East of Wall Street on the Odgen River has some big brown trout in it.  The book suggested wooly buggers, crayfish, and muddlers. 

     Using a larger pattern on top of a smaller pattern worked so well that I decided to use it again.  I tied some big pistol petes and some smaller wooly leeches to hang beneath them.  I tied a crayfish but it doesn’t look so hot, I think I need some practice tying them.

     I wanted to practice tying some crayfish patterns but I got into some trouble with Mysty.  Mysty is one of the kittens that I trapped (rescued) from Glassmans Pond in Odgen.  On Saturday afternoon I noticed that Mysty has crawled in his cage and went to sleep.  Very unusual, Mysty usually cries to be let out of his cage.  Sunday all he wanted to do was sleep, he wouldn’t purr or eat.  This morning he ate a little and purr some so I thought he was getting better.  I noticed that he had bad breath and at one point I had trouble getting him to wake up so I took him to the vet.

     It turned out that Mysty’s blood work showed an infection somewhere in his little body.  He got a shot of antibiotics that will last him two weeks and he has to spend the night with the vet to make sure he eats and drinks.  Over the past couple of weeks Mysty has decided that I am his human.  He gets jealous when another cat is in my lap, he follows me around.  Mysty is quite the little lovable kitten, I hope he pulls through OK.  That kind of ended my fly tying for today because I keep thinking about the little guy.  The vet thinks that he will recover just fine and I am supposed to pick him up tomorrow sometime after 10am.  If he is doing better I will put him in his cage to sleep and hit the Odgen River in the afternoon,

     Here is a picture of Mysty sitting on my lap.

Little fishing a big fish

      I can’t believe it was 45 degrees out there today, I had to drop a line in some water.  I read an article last night that you tie a fairly big midge about one and a half to two feet above a smaller midge pattern.  The bigger midge is supposed to get the attention of the trout who see and hit the smaller midge.  I tied on a #10 sexy chironomid and hung a #16 brown chironomid beneath it.  It worked, whatever it does, it worked.  The first trout I caught with it was at least 18”.  The second and third about 15” apiece.  I couldn’t fish long I am still hanging out with 4 little kittens.

Ogden River

     Today I called John and we went to the Odgen River for a couple of hours.  I had read a fishing report for the Odgen and Weber Rivers that #18 brassies and scuds were what was catching fish.

     On Google maps I noticed a screen that is used to keep stocked trout from getting into the 21st Street Pond; I reasoned that there might be some trout up against the screen so that’s where we went.

     On the way up the trail we found a still water break with a huge trout in it, the biggest I have ever seen.  I could see him swimming around and I was able to put my flies right in front of his face.  He nosed past my brassies, scuds, and eggs.  I am pretty good with wooly leeches so I tied one on my line.  About five times he moved towards my leech by at the last second he would turn away.  I finally had a good profile on him.  He was swimming about 10 feet away from me crossing left to right.  I had tossed the fly over towards him and stripped the fly in until it was above him.  I let it sink down to about three inches off to the left of his face.  I jerked the leech just once and he pounced on it. 

     Here’s a nice picture of him.  Keep in mind that my reel is about three inches across.  Using the reel I measured him at 26 inches long, my biggest  trout to date.  This is a hatchery fish. You can tell because Utah keeps the fish in concrete ponds until ready to release. I've been told that the concrete walls of the tank wears down the fins of the fish. Had this been a wild fish it probably would have been 28 inches or more longer. If you look closely at his upper lip you can see the wooly leech. Unfortunately, this was the only fish we caught after three hours of fishing.

2010, in review

Seems like everyone is doing a year in review, so why can’t I do one?

During the summer this year I was considering quitting fly fishing altogether.  I couldn’t cast and after hours and days of fly fishing I hadn’t caught anything.  I met a kindly gentleman named Dale at Meadows Creek Pond in Roy, Utah and he gave me some awesome advice.  I followed what Dale told me and I had enough success to get excited about fly fishing again.  When the weather is warmer my wife likes to join me for a couple of hours of fishing.  She saw how the other fly fishers were casting and gave me pointers on the back cast.  Under the right conditions (I feel good, no wind, light fly) I can back cast up to 60 feet.  I can roll cast about 40 feet.  One of the things I tried to do was to catch as many trout as I could in one calendar day, I caught 72 on a fly that I not only tied but changed to meet the hatch.

I’ve been tying my own flies for several months now and I have even posted a few videos of how I tied them on Youtube.  One of the videos was picked up on a web site in Japan.  I have invented several flies that work great; the sexy chironomid and leechasaurus.  I have even figured out an easy way to make spoon bodies for flies.

I caught and tamed four feral kittens.  The kittens that I caught at Glassman Pond in Odgen are awesome.  We just had them fixed and they are recovering.  One of my worst fears has been realized, my wife and I got attached to all of them.  The people who wanted the kittens either backed out of the deal or couldn’t adopt them.  My wife told me last night that we would keep them all.  Just after Christmas my wife and I were able to pick Shadow up and put her in a blanket.  Shadow started purring.  The next day we had Shadow tested and she was negative for FIV and FLV so we introduced her to our other two cats (yes, we now own six cats, my wife loves cats.  I would go to hell for my wife, six cats is a small price to pay).  We got a small ferret cage and are keeping her in it until she is comfortable enough and big enough to be released in our house.  Mysty’s surgery was botched.  The vet thought that Mysty was a female and opened him up to spay, unfortunately, Mysty is a little boy so he has a 1.5 inch incision in his gut as well as being neutered.  We put Mysty in another ferret cage to watch him.  What a little sweetheart Mysty is.  After we got him away from the other cats he started being a lap kitten.  Mysty loves to be rubbed and snuggled and play.  Smoky is still downstairs with Buddy.  Smoky loves to eat and be rubbed.  Bring down a plate of food and Smoky will come out of hiding to eat and get rubbed.  We found out that Buddy was the alpha cat.  I saw was because I am the alpha.  Buddy learns quick and is very smart.  Buddy loves to be rubbed and has a purr that sounds like a diesel truck.  I didn’t want to keep all the kittens but my wife wants them.  I can imagine a day in the future when I wake up with six cats sleeping next to me. 

I had two surgeries this year, I hate being cut open but it turned out to be a good thing.  I feel much better.  Thanx docs.

For Christmas I got a brand new fly reel.  A Martin 3/4 weight.  I love it!

I quit my job, my last day was the 15th of November.  I had an appointment with a VA counselor and the fact that I quit my job came up.  She seems to think I have PTSD and now I have an appointment with the VA about it.  I guess just short of 26 years as an air traffic controller and two tours in the Middle East took its toll.  I got a fairly good lead on a job on Hill AFB but they announced a job freeze. Ouch.  Its alright, I will keep looking.  At least the wife has a good job and I get my USAF retirement check and some money for disability from the VA.  Life’s good!

I got involved with troop 719 at the Golden Spike Elks Lodge.  What an awesome bunch of guys.  I am really looking forward to hiking and camping with them this summer!

I’m really looking forward to the new year.  I can’t wait for the summer when I can hike up to some of the lakes in the mountains and fly fish.  The videos that I have been making on fly fishing are actually puzzles for geocaches.  If you didn’t know to look for the puzzle you would never see it.  I have three videos and geocaches that I am working one in my spare time which is quite a bit at the moment.  I am going to hide some geocaches up at these mountain lakes.

Well, I would like to write some more but I got to go change a litter box.  We changed the kittens food to different brand with higher protein and it gave Shadow the squirts.  I didn’t know that cats could fart.