Bryon Anderson

Truth!

Impressive work all around! You are a man of many talents for sure.

Wow! Those are some whopper Smallies! Nice - looks like a great day

Every once in a great while I'll find a Largemouth in the Grand or Muskegon - but yeah, they are mostly in lakes over here too. I would love to find a lake with Smallmouth in it that I can fish in my kayak. Only ones I've found that have Smallies are big ones like Pere Marquette Lake or Muskegon Lake, and those have lots of "big-boy boat" traffic. Props and big wakes make me nervous...

Went out yesterday to a nearby lake that I'd been meaning to hit all summer. My expectations were low - I thought I might find a few Bluegills at best, so I just rigged my 5 wt. and took some small poppers. Ended up having a better evening of Largemouth fishing than I previously knew it was possible to have with a fly rod in Michigan. My camera setup on the kayak never lets me do the fish justice size-wise, so you'll have to take a fisherman's word 😉 that these range from 13-18+". All on a #6 yellow Booglebug. Just an absolute blast.

Beautiful little jewels 😊

It is getting to be swappin' time again for me, but...I think I'm going to sit this one out, too. I don't really fish nymphs, so I'd just end up with a box full of flies that won't get used. I am looking forward to getting into the swaps this fall and winter though.

Beautiful spot! John Gierach once said that the measure of a good fisherman was not how big a fish they could catch, but how small a fish they could catch without being disappointed--and without losing faith that there could be bigger ones in there. Something to that effect...I tend to agree.

Right after I posted yesterday, our agent sent us a text saying that he was, in so many words, "on it". We'll see, I guess. DFoster, your experience sounds like it was truly awful; I'm sorry you had to go through all that. Poopdeck, I hear what you're saying, too -- it might be time for us to take our business to a company that will actually do what we pay them to do going forward.

Thanks - to say insurance is dragging its feet is an understatement. After we finally got a reputable contractor out here to do an estimate (the first outfit sent someone out to take photos, measurements, etc., then proceeded to refuse to send us the estimate or to even return our calls or texts), the insurance company (Liberty Mutual) took a good week to let us know they thought that estimate was too high, and they wanted one of "their" contractors to do the estimate. We're still in the process of trying to make that happen. Very frustrating to say the least.

Very true - we got off quite easy compared to many here in our area. Our neighbor burns wood to heat his home and I have offered him any tree that's partially or completely fallen. Hoping to hear from insurance by tomorrow and get repairs scheduled by the end of this week.

Beautiful knives and sheaths, Mark! I don't hunt myself, but have friends who would love one of those. Will keep that in mind come gifting season... 🙂

A few weeks ago, my wife and I got a literal rude awakening. Around 5:30 a.m., she (who sleeps with earplugs in) and I (who sleeps like the dead) were jolted awake by what sounded like a jet airplane buzzing our house, but in actuality was 75+ mph "straight line" winds generated by a powerful storm system over Lake Michigan. As we peered out the sliding screen door between our bedroom and a small deck outside, between flashes of lightning we could see nearly every tree in our woods being whipped violently around, and we could hear the ominous creaking and cracking of limbs being ripped off. About the time it registered that maybe we should take cover somewhere, a large mature White Oak came crashing down on our little deck, about a foot in front of our noses. It tore some gutter down, but, incredibly, didn't contact our actual roof. Once the sun came up a bit, we could see the full aftermath of the winds. At least 10-12 mature trees in our woods were either completely felled, or had been literally twisted apart, their trunks in splinters and shreds. It was just an awesome sight to see. 5 or 6 trees had fallen across our 1/4-mile-long driveway, which meant we couldn't leave the property. And (naturally) the power was out for miles around. After we were able to get a tree crew out to clear our driveway and remove the tree from our deck, I was able to walk down to my pole barn, which serves as my wood shop. It had sustained much worse damage than the house - a lot of siding ripped off, along with the boards that the rafters rest on (I don't know their actual name). We're still waiting to hear what our insurance is going to cover. We were very lucky, in the big picture; many of our neighbors had their roofs and vehicles crushed by falling trees. We're very grateful to have gotten off as lightly as we did, comparatively speaking. I am, however, keenly feeling the inability to get into my shop and work. I'm hoping to have it repaired and power restored to it by September. Mother Nature giveth, and she also taketh away.

There are so many places I would consider "must fish" if they didn't require passports and overseas travel. The only one I would endure that for is New Zealand. I want to do the Canadian lodge/daily fly-out giant brook trout thing before I get too much older. (If giant Pike and/or smallmouth were on offer as well, so much the better.) That leaves the realm of the more realistic trips, all of which include weeks of bouncing around the American West, hiking to small mountain streams every day and camping in my car at night.