Royal Coachman and Beetles

One of our families favorite flies is the classic and very common Royal Coachman. It is a fairly easy fly to tie. The day after Christmas I got out the fly tying table and tied some up with the new materials that I got in my stocking. Santa knows how to pick out quality materials!The past few nights I have been busily tying nymphs and I wanted a break so I thought I would tie something fun and very different. Beetles. I had to put the in a box to take the picture because they kept crawling away!. It is nice to tie them because they are VERY simple and they are made of foam so it doesn't really matter how much the weigh! They will still float! Here are the little buggers.

Fishing Report

We went to Thistle to do some winter fishing and it was a great time. It snowed on us the entire time and we didn't catch a thing but we really enjoyed every minute of it. The snow falling and the gently rushing water was badly needed and helped us all realize the beauty around us even though it was about 10 degrees out. He are some pictures that we took . Thanks to all of our wives for letting us take off for a few hours and freeze our butts off and love it!Rigging up for the day.Daniel picking out a fly.Selecting a fly... so many to choose from.Nate Barker trying to remember how to tie an overhand knot... I had to show him or we would have frozen to death.A beautiful hole that we should have pulled a fish out of but no luck.Nate fishing.Both Daniel and Nate trying a different fly.Daniel has a nice cast. Most of the time I wish I could cast and fish as well as my brother.Daniel contemplating the next hole.Here I am tossing a line into the next hole. By this time my gloves were pretty wet and not doing much good for me.Nate and I standing in the river.

Christmas Haiku

Christmas is now here
Hope you have your shopping done
If you don't, too late!

Goin' Fishin'

Tomorrow Danny and Nate and I are going fishing. We are going to Thistle Creek and the forecast says snow so it should be a fun afternoon. In anticipation of fishing I tied up three patterns tonight. the first was a little local pattern used to imitate a midge pupae. It is tied with orange silk crystal flash and a glass bead head. In this case I used green because it is what i had.The next pattern is a Copper Nymph. It is a generic fly used to imitate a hatching midge, caddis or other insect.The last was a made up fly taht I came up with tonight. it is another hatching insect. Red wire, muskrat thorax and a green glass bead head. I call it Christmas dinner for fish!I will get back with you and let you know the results of the day of fishing!

P.S. One of these days I will get around to getting some better lighting for my photos of flies.

Response

In response to my brothers post HERE I am posting the following:

I know mom knows us both well and understands that you (Daniel) are emotionally fragile. She works hard to protect your tender feelings and takes every precaution not to make you feel less than you should. She sent you the ornament to make you feel good. In spite of this we all know that mom loves me more and therefor sent me the same ornament.
She didn't want you to feel bad so she sent you one too. I am sorry to be the one to break the bad news to you be we all know you are mentally imbalanced (As evidenced by your recent post about IV's) and you are not the favorite. If you would like to go on believing that then that is fine but I am posting this so that the rest of the world knows... I am moms favorite.

Snowshoeing with my Best Friend

Nate moved to Texas a while back and we have not been able to spend a ton of time together when he comes to visit. He has family in town that he needs to see. Every once in a while we get out and do something fun together while he is in town. Today we packed up the snowshoes and went up to Big Springs. It is only the second time that I have snowshoed up there and it is quite different from the time I spend up there in the summer.
The snow was deep and about half of the trail was either very lightly traveled or not traveled at all which made for some fun time cutting new trail! We were able to spend time talking about our families, goals, books, politics, the past and tons of other stuff. Nate made the comment that it is nice to be able to be away from each other for a long time and then just pick up where we left off. I agree and it is too bad that we go so long without talking to each other at times. For my Christmas present Nate brought me a bottle of Throwback Mountain Dew... our drink of choice and we enjoyed it when we got to the top. It has real sugar instead of corn syrup! If the stars align and everything works out right we will be going fishing with Daniel on Tuesday! Thanks for spending some time in the great out doors with me Nate!

Dad's Dinner Night

When I got home from work today I could tell it had been a rough day and Kris was behind on a project for a Christmas present. I did what every good husband would do and offered to make dinner. Now let me explain a little of what happened. Kris thought that was a fine idea and proceeded to tell me that we had chicken and beef that I could do something with. In my mind I was thinking..."Mac and Cheese, crab melts, salad, or any other easy thing that I could put together in 10 minutes or less." Well long story short, Lo and dad went to Smiths, picked up some chicken, rolls and potato salad. Instant dad dinner!