The Mad Duck

The Bluegills are FINALLY starting to bite again. They have spawned twice this year and I found a couple of beds that a few fish are on again. Thanks so much for the repair job. I loved that rod and now I can love it all over again!!!

I went to my little ponds today. I had a bit of a delay and ended up fishing the heat of the day. 93 degrees and 90% + humidity, UGH. Anyway, the fishing was pretty good for the heat of the day,but, the most important thing that happened today was the return of an old friend. My Dad gave me a nice 5/6 TKR rod and a Teton 5 Wt reel for my 25th birthday. About 10 years ago, I broke the rod on a fish. It just crushed me. I had caught Thousands and thousands of fish on this rod up to that point. A buddy found out about the rod breaking and said his dad could repair it. At that point I figured it was beyond repair, so I gave it to my buddy's dad to work on. He repaired it,but not too well. He basically inserted a metal pin through the broken section. It broke again on about the 3rd cast. I took it home and put it in a rod tube. I couldnt force myself to throw it away since it had been given to me by my Dad, who at that point had recently passed away. Fast forward to present day. I took some photos of the broken parts and sent them to Steve to see if there was ANY hope of repairing this rod. He said he thought he MIGHT be able to salvage my rod. I received an email while I was in Tennessee fishing last week. He had a tip top left over that matched the blank the rod was made with, so he went to work. He had to re-space eyes and add a new ferrel connection,BUT, he did it! The rod sat at a Post Office in Detroit for several days and up until this morning showed "In transit" Well as I was packing up to go fish, the little Post Office girl drove up and handed me a tube with my refurbished "OLD" rod in it. I took it with me today and caught several fish with it. It casts just like I remember it casting. The balance is just a tad different, but hardly noticeable. The second and third photos are my newly repaired rod A H U G E THANK YOU to Steve for taking this project on. It felt really great to be reunited with my old friend

I tie an extra length of the fibers,top and bottom, at the back. When I'm done, I cut the tail off square, then notch the tail to give it a "split" look.

Hard to let go a girlfriend of 20+ years

I was out in the backyard this afternoon doing my daily ritual with my Lab, Katie. I get her out of the kennel and air her,then do some drills and throw some bumpers for her. After that, she cools off for a few and eats while I hose out the kennel. Today, I decided that I would move her dogloo and spray out from under it and then move the pallet she likes to lay on and do the same. I moved the dogloo and got it cleaned,then turned and sprayed under the pallet. I did that thinking that under that pallet would be a good place for a snake to be laying on a hot summer day. I sprayed under the pallet again and heard a loud whistling noise. Now, two days ago, I put a new end on the hose,so I thought it had come undone. I looked at the hose and it look fine. I shrugged and leaned down to pick up the pallet. About a millisecond before my hand touched the pallet, a groundhog shot out from under the pallet and headed for the woods, with Katie in hot pursuit. I called her and got her stopped just before she went through the barbed wire fence. At that point, I did a quick assessment of myself. Ok, no pains in the left arm or chest, so no heart attack. No blood on my fingers,so no bite, and no brown stains in the back of my shorts, so ...., well, you know. Anyway, I took a few steps towards towards the thin strip of woods that separates my yard from the neighbors cattle pasture and, what did I see?????? The groundhog that had just about taken my life,about 20 feet up a tree. Dont believe me? The wife asked me not to shoot him and I agreed....THIS time. I told her that the next time I saw his little rodent azz, he was going to meet my new AR15. My backyard is sure an interesting place.

Mike....., We actually started off running them fast, but really didn't start hooking up with any consistency until we slowed them down and worked deeper pockets. That was a real pain keeping the baits off of the bottom. We had MORE than one snagged line to retrieve.. Also, The water was slightly higher than normal but was dropping. The water was also just a smidge more stained than normal. The fish were just off.On a regular day ,in this river,50-75 fish isnt out of the norm. It sounds like on your fishing day, you were provoking reactionary strikes with the faster speed. Jack...I think that day, they needed to see it more. We were using gold blades on the spinners and having to run them slowly. That was the only thing they wanted and the only presentation that worked. Steve...You should have seen me leaning over the side of the boat, camera in one hand and rod in the other. It was an accident waiting to happen..ha ha

July 3rd was Smallmouth fishing day. We put in and strung up the rods with a variety of Bass type flies,Large Poppers, Clousers and Large Crease Flies. We worked for 2 hours throwing surface, subsurface and heavy sinking flies,but never got a single hit. At that point It was obvious that the fish were not looking up,so...plan B..Spinning gear. I've fished long enough to always have a back up plan! We started with Flukes,Ned Rigs, Chatterbaits, but nothing was working.The fish were just not biting. I went old-school and broke out a Rooster Tail in line spinner in Chartreuse. The next cast a small fish blasted the spinner and the stink was off of the boat. My buddy connected on a fish on a Panther Martin,Black with Chartreuse spots,and he hooked up again on the next cast. We both switched over to the Panther Martin. A few casts later, I hooked up, and, fortunately, had my camera out. I was fishing the fish with one hand and shooting photos with the other, no easy task. We ended up with 10 fish total, none over 14 inches. It was a slow day by any measure, but we DID manage a few fish, got some good photos and had a lot of fun

The last couple of photos are fish we caught right before take out. Totals for the day 22 Browns 3 Rainbows 1 Brook Trout

More of the fight...and the end result. We watched more fish start to rise about 10 feet in front of where the initial fish was and cast to them. We pulled 4 fish total from our lunch spot. I had to put the camera down, so I could fish.

July 2 was the first day of my yearly mountain fishing trip. We started off wading because the tailwater river we were fishing didnt start generating water until 11:00am. We dropped the boat in the water to fish about a 1/4 mile stretch to kill time until the generating started. While my buddy ran the truck/trailer up the road, I stayed with the boat and wade fished for 15 minutes or so. The 3rd cast with a little Beetle pattern, I caught about an 8 inch long Brook trout. I waded a little up stream and connected with a small Rainbow a few minutes later. When my buddy got back and asked if I had caught anything, I told him about the Brookie. He said there were no Brookies in this river. I guess the Brook trout didnt get that message. We got in the boat and started drifting and immediately started catching fish. We managed 2 Rainbows and 2 Browns on that small stretch of river. We pulled the boat out and moved upstream,closer to the dam and put in again. As we drifted down, we started into a section that has mostly Brown trout. We caught fish on a steady basis all the way up to where we stopped for lunch. We were tossing either a Japanese Beetle pattern, a double nymph rig and had a rod strung up with a sulphur pattern. There had been several weeks of nice sulphur hatches daily. We pulled up on a shaded bank and dropped anchor and broke out our sandwiches. This is where things got interesting. About 1/2 way through eating and sitting there talking, a Brown trout about 14 inches long came up and slurped a bug, literally 4 feet from the boat, right on the edge of a seam or running and flat water. We sat there watching this little fish feed. At that point, I broke out my camera and took a few photos. This first photo is the fish just hanging out. The second photo is him, lining up to take a bug. The third is a miiisecond after slurping the bug. We sat and watched this fish feed for 10 minutes. I told my buddy that I bet the fish would eat the sulphur tied up on the rod.Andrew eased the rod up and flipped the fly about 10 feet in front of the fish and the fish immediately lined up on the fly. When it got close, he rose up and ate the fly,in a violent manner. The 4th photo is the fish out of the water on the take. And....Off to the races.

Big saltwater hooks are the worst. I took a 6/0 SS through the webbing between the thumb and forefinger once. We were offshore and had to cut it in half to get it out. That hurt like hell. I took a hook through the earlobe when a buddy was fly fishing. That also hurt badly. That had to be cut too. I make it a habit to carry wire cutters with me when I fish

Welcome to the world of fishing😎

I caught two of the biggest Brown Trout I've ever caught on a cicada pattern. Its been 17 years and we're going after the Browns in a couple of weeks. The cicadas are back!

Well, since I have several split bamboo rods already, and the current climate of the USA, The AR made more sense. 😎

Annnd, After 25 rounds I have it sighted in and shooting 2 inch groups at 100 yards. Ar-15 in 5.56. Loads of fun to shoot. I took it to the basement today and laser bore sighted it, so It should be about 1 inch groups when I get out to the range again. It started off 6 inches low and two inches off center to the left.

Looks like a stinkbug. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brown_marmorated_stink_bug

My concealed carry instructor told us..."If someone is in your home, uninvited, after dark, they are NOT there to borrow your pajamas."

I have caught literally TONS of Stingrays,but never on a fly rod. I expect that was some kind of pull. They are some massively STRONG fish. Congrats

You are welcome to ALL of this rain. I'm sick to death of it and we have WAY m ore than we need right now. A late afternoon thunderstorm gets the rivers and creeks out of their banks right now.

Mike, They were so similar that I checked closely to see if it was the same fish. If you'll notice the "web" between the first and second ray on the dorsal fin, of one fish, is just a touch deeper than the other. Other than that, It could be the same fish. It supposed to be nice tomorrow, but, scattered T-Storms tonight. More water and cooler water temps, so tomorrow may be a shooting day

Since it has rained for the past 2 weeks, I was able to finally get back out. The fishing was so so, at best. 9 Bream, none huge and 2 Bass, One about 1.5 lbs and the other maybe a half a pound. I did find that the big Bream are back on the beds in the same places as they were 45 days ago. I packed up literally 3 minutes before the rain started again. The water temps were about 5 degrees cooler than normal and the water looked like chocolate milk. Not really good conditions. Most of the Bream came out of the smallest pond on the property and they always have a different color that the Bream in the other two ponds. I might head back out tomorrow, but, I have a new toy I need to get out and shoot. The first two Bream pictured came from the small pound and could have literally been bookends, caught on two consecutive casts into the same little holes in the submerged weeds. The last Bream was caught in one of the larger ponds. Notice thats its darker and a lot less green colored.

Well, The rain has FINALLY stopped (mostly). It has rained here for almost 2 weeks now, with 2-3 sunny days mixed in, so I finally had a chance to get the new 8wt out today. I caught one decent bass 1.5 lbs and one little guy on it.

I have learned that after 50, a prescription of 500MG Ibuprofen is a MUST. I do not go on a hunting, fishing or kayaking trip without it. That big old pill has made more than a few trips more comfortable.

EP style Bluegill