ed felker
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Thanks for sharing this, Joel. ScottP, funny you mention French hikers, we encountered a couple of French hikers between the first and second meadows too!
Fantastic recap of a really special trip, Joel! You have some great memories captured there, I love the shot of you both in the snow. Debbie really did get some beautiful fish! But that brook of yours has to be my favorite. Thanks for sharing!
I don’t know anything about sturgeon. But you are right about the Planet Earth series. Stunning. (Especially in HD!) I’ve only seen the first three installments but have a couple others recorded.
Is there a formula like that for smallmouth? Seems like it would be different than for trout. I didn’t even actually weigh this one and I know people regularly catch much bigger ones than this. From the butt of the rod to the top of the cork is about 11″. Anyway, just curious if I could calculate weight in the future based on measurements (roughly).
Zach, I’m enjoying the board a lot. Not sure why it took me so long to get here.
I changed my name and tried to add a picture, we’ll see how that turns out…
Phil, what kind of snake is that one in the water???
I used to be very uneasy about snakes, then we actually bought one. Fascinating. I have a new fondness for them now. This is a Florida King snake named Belle (short for Cabelas).
I love them all! But that third one is my favorite too.
Eric, would you mind if I posted that on my blog? Occasionally I’ve been doing a ‘photo of the week.’ Let me know, and where you’d like me to link to you. Thanks. Ed.
I floated the North Branch a couple years ago, very early in my fly fishing career. I missed a lot of fish (my fault), and would like to do it again now that I’ve refined my skills a bit.
But the thought I wanted to convey here is, and I was really surprised by this, but the North Branch of the Potomac is a flat out stunningly beautiful place to fish.
I caught mostly rainbows (small) but did get one beautiful brookie (smaller).
The guy who lives directly across the street from us, we have gotten to know them because we keep a couple horses there. They have a little pond that has sunfish in it. No other predators. So tons of tiny, business-card sized sunfish, but then some monster sunfish too! I take my 3-weight and a couple cold beers over there and have a lot of fun in the summertime.
I almost forgot why I brought that up. A blue damselfly pattern is about the most successful fly I catch those on. They love it the second it hits the water! Never caught a trout on one, but the sunnies love ’em.
I like to pay a guide when I’m trying something new (winter steelheading was my most recent new fishing experience), or when I’m going to a new place (paying for a float trip in Montana this summer!).
I have mixed feelings about clubs, although I’d never belong to one (even if I had the money I think I’d rather spend it on guided trips in all sorts of different locations).
I just had the opportunity to fish, for free, a privately owned stretch of trout water in Virginia. The owner has put massive amounts of time, money and labor into transforming that stretch of water into a first class fishery, not to mention he buys fish to put in it. If it was on public land there might be a few trout in it but if it were stocked they fish would disappear because there are no c&r regulations there outside of his farm. I know some private clubs are very, very unpopular, and I’m not defending everyone. But if I was rich, owned a stretch of trout stream, transformed it into a really excellent trout stream, I wouldn’t hesitate to take steps to keep the riff raff out.
Man, that looks like fun!
Do you happen to have a picture of that superbugger fly?
I see carp pretty regularly while smallmouth fishing around the Potomac, I really want to try to get one of those ugly bastards…
All my reels are Orvis. I’m getting away from Orvis rods for one reason or another, but my reels are still Orvis and I’ve never had even a hint of a problem with any of them.
Someone else mentioned the Battenkill large arbor, I picked up a IV at a show once (that’s the size that’s been discontinued) and have been using it on my 8wt for salmon. It gets a heavy duty workout with salmon and works really well. It’s too small for that 8 though, I’m getting a 7 next month and look forward to using that reel for that, my new smallmouth rod.
(I’ve searched high and low for a spare spool for that IV, by the way, if someone has one let me know.)
Thanks for the reply, good advice. This entire setup I’m talking about will be used almost entirely for smallmouth (although I might try it for steelhead too). And smallies don’t seem to be very leader shy so short tippet will work fine I imagine.
Thanks again.
I’m happy to see some people here saying good things about those interchangeable tips. I’ve been trying to come up with a good setup for smallmouth fishing on fairly large water (Shenandoah and Potomac). I think I’m just not getting deep enough. So I was thinking of a 7wt 9′ or 9’6″ rod, with the interchangeable tips to get streamers down deep no matter what the flow conditions are.
