There is something about the first fish of the year that gets the blood pumping. Whether it’s an omen of the year to come I don’t know, but it always starts me anticipating a productive year of Fly Fishing. This year the first fish was especially exhilarating since not being able to brake out the long rod in two months. Saturday an opportunity for me to toss flies on a small Arizona creek arose and I jumped all over it. It’s a bit early in the season to expect much out of this stream but I could not help spending a few hours tempting the creek to give up a prize.
As would be expected in February the temperature was brisk. The clouds were struggling to decide whether to send down snow or rain and between the two it ended up a wet and soggy day.
It was not to far into the trip when the indicator sucked below the surface. I quickly realized how rusty my fishing skills were when I found myself with my rod tip to high and excessive slack in the line. Frantically I scrambled, striping slack out of my poorly managed line so I could set the hook. Despite the late hook set and the line tangled between my legs and pack I somehow managed a hook set and was rewarded with an orange flash, the tell tell sign of a Brown on the line. Maybe it’s because of being inundated with stocked Rainbows with pail colors and mangled fins over the years, but I really get excited whenever I can get into Browns. Given the way he was taking line from my fingers he was a decent size for this Creek. Somehow I managed to get the line untangled from my pack and legs just in time to feed him line as he ran. After a short fight the reward was a bold colored 15″ Brown and the 2010 fishing season is on.
I know I normally only talk about Fly Fishing. But considering all of my time lately has been spent launching our new Real Estate Brokerage I have not had any time to break out the fly rod.
With that said I am excited to announce that we are going to be opening the doors to our new office in Tempe, Arizona later this month.
We have also recently launched our TV advertising campaign with ABC15. ABC has also made us their exclusive real estate company for their website www.abc15.com. So far the results have been through the roof with up to 400 users per day using www.BlueRoof.com to search for homes. We are thrilled by how excited everyone is getting about the site. I would love to get some feedback on our first TV commercial shown below. Please note that our advertising budget is not huge, but I think it turned out fairly well.
I have been meaning to post about my recent fishing trip through Utah but since I don’t foresee me having the time to write the post anytime soon, I thought I would at least post a little fish porn from the trip. Fished 3 days, 2 of the days were spent on different sections of the middle Prove, and a couple hours on the Sevier in Central Utah. Never saw another fisherman the entire trip, that could be because the temperatures were anywhere from 9 (yea, you read that right) to 30 degrees. I have often had my guides freeze up while fishing but this was the first trip I had to repeatedly thaw out my reel. It was well worth having the river to myself.
For Christmas this year my parents tracked down this old picture of a wonderful childhood memory that had previously been lost.
I caught this King on the second cast of my first fishing trip in Alaska when I was 15 years old. Although there were many other fish caught on this surreal trip to Alaska, none held a candle to this one. It’s nice to finally have the picture to validate the many stories I have told of this river running giant.
Spent Christmas week with the family, creek side in Oak Creek Canyon. We stayed for the week and I especially enjoyed not having any cell reception, TV’s, or internet. It’s often hard to get into the Christmas spirit in 70 degree weather and shorts, so it was nice to sit back and enjoy the cold weather with plenty of wood to burn in the fire place while 6″ of snow fell. I did not get a lot of fishing in however I did manage to sneak out for a few hours and land a few fish in while we were there.
Here is a picture I took while fishing the morning after the storm. The cabin we stayed in is on the left.
It’s a rare day that I can take off in the middle of the week for a fishing trip. This past week Steve, a Fly Fishing bud invited me to hit the stream mid week. Given the amount of grief I have dished out to him over the past several months when he bails because [...]
After weeks of sitting at home agonizingly watching fall set in while temperatures dropped as I could only dream of Brown Trout the color of fall leaves, I finally had an opportunity to break the rod out and run for the hills. Between family vacations, Halloween, and work, I was beginning to worry that the [...]
Sorry I know this has nothing to do with Fly Fishing but I had to share what happened to me today.
Today while I was at home working on my computer when someone knocked on our door. I didn’t answer it because I was “working”. On the third knock I began to get suspicious. Then I [...]
My family and I just got back from our annual (soon to be semi annual) trip to X-Diamond Ranch. While there are several great places to fish in Arizona if I was forced to name favorites I believe X-Diamond Ranch would have to be in my top three. Not only is the fishing fantastic, the [...]
