Finally

For a while I have been trying to get one of these bastards, Today I finally got one. And then another one! Grass carp are fun!

I bet Rod likes the hat!

When the dam breaks, you feed the undesirables to Tuesday.

The fish remaining in the lake most likely would not survive being transported to another lake, "and even if we could, most are carp," the VP said. "Where would we put them? Most urban lakes are always looking for ways to get rid of carp."

So what do you do? Feed them to alligators, of course. Duh.




...and the rest of the fish were washed to a dry grave when most of the 3,065 acre-feet of water blasted down the usually dry Salt River wash bed.

I can only imagine there was a Phoenician opportunist downstream somewhere furiously stripping a crayfish pattern through the muddy deluge hoping to become a legend when he pins some poor confused bastard large mouth bass where no fisherman has gone before.

I will be the guy wading around in the mud rigged to the teeth loading up on my roughfish hero shots.

In the end, it's just one less fishy place in this damn desert, at least for a couple years.

More story here and here.

-A

Pond X.2

Bass, Carp, and Gills.


Another ninja fishing adventure, Aaron and i today decided to check out a pond I have been to 2 times before. First time I went alone without trying to fish, i just wanted to see what the pond was like and see all the signs posted everywhere. Apparently as in Aaron's words, if we get caught, "We the violators will be Prostituted"....... thats right not "Prosecuted"!

Thinking right now Aaron may not know how to read, or on second thought he must just have a good ol' hooker on his mind..... like normal.



Now me being armed with my sage launch that I have not caught a fish on yet, My new goofy ass terminator reel, ok its a Airflow Balance 7-9 reel, and this things looks funnier than shit I flipped a shad colored zonker into the base of the reeds and pulled this little beauty out. The carp where everywhere but nothing wanted to take our delicious zonkers. Aaron however managed to pull about 10 gills out in the hour, hour and a half of our fishing. Sometimes where the fishing is good, and you dont want to leave, you have to quit while you are ahead. Though I must say getting Arrested for fishing would not be all that bad. Not like I stole a car or some shit.





Aaron and Kyle- We think trespassing is cool

In order to fall off the wagon, you have to get on it first.

I bitched, whined and complained. I kicked my feet and threw my fists and screamed till I could not scream any more but it happened anyway. The Carp Slam was over, my plane was departing, and I had to leave Colorado. I brought with me 994 images, a back ache, and a greater understanding of life. If you did not have the pleasure, I will give you a hint:

partying

fishing

-Alex

Another another preview of things to come...

Enough never is, and if I die under a smothering pile of too much I will die a happy man. This weekend I will be back in CO covering the Carp Slam, doing my damnedest to bring you the real story--the dirty brown filth that will inevitably have to be foul-hooked and dragged backwards and upside-down till close enough to be beaten into submission.

I know a large fish will sooner break a man than be turned into a trophy, and with cash and prizes and fame on the line, I cannot imagine and am excited to be able to witness first hand the last acts of these soon-to-be desperate men.

May carp have mercy on your souls.

-Alex who knows that this weekend, in some form of another, asses will get kicked on the Platte.

Fly fishing Colorado through the eyes of the Fat Guys

It was warm outside, those with xeriscaped lawns might call it muggy. My pack and camera case weighed heavily on my shoulders as the double doors slid open and I stepped out onto the shaded asphalt. I spotted the hoard of moderately attractive, middle aged women and knew that I was in the right place.

A bald man stepped out of his SUV to post-pubescent screams of lust and after pushing his way through the crowd, extended his hand. “It’s good to finally meet you.” This was the first time I met the man known as Michael Gracie.

We pushed through the swarm, threw the mildly-smelling-of cat-crap gear in the back of the vehicle and punched the go button, off to destinations unknown to me.

Pleasantries spouted, and hey-how-are-ya’s done and over with, we drive his modest cleaner-than-most bachelors abode, drop off the gear, and head to the local fly shop.

Discount Fishing Tackle is a non-descript storefront in a non-descript strip mall paralleling Sante Fe Drive. One fat guy, and one three-quarters fat guy pulled into the parking lot.

The man often known as MG turned the key and leaned over my way. “There is something I have to warn you about before we go in there,” he said. “As soon as we walk in, if the guy behind the counter calls me a [explicative] or a [explicative]…. don’t worry about it.” They say forewarned is forearmed, and I had a knife in my teeth and a blunderbuss in hand as we breeched.

“Oh shit, look who is here!” The stubbly counter guy exclaimed as the door beeped MG and I walked in.

There is fishing stuff on the walls, there is fishing stuff on the floor, there is fishing stuff falling out of and bulging from every crack, nook and usable cranny. My kind of shop.

The guy behind the counter smiles as he walks around the corner. “How you doing, I’m Tom.” I shake his hand and he shifts his glance to Gracie, “What’s up, bitch?”

This is the one, the only... Tom Teasdale.

My situation explained, Tom browses the fly selection, picking out all the flies I will need to, as a fellow named Nate Taylor would frequently exclaim thereafter, “crush some huge fish.”

Paid up, and paid out; rung up and run into the parking lot Gracie and I stowed our booty and headed home. Me with a new box full of flies and Gracie with some pimp new shades and net were ready, apparently, for any fish to come our way. A half a bottle of peppermint schnapps and a 12-pack later we were ready for bed.

A few hours later the coffee was brewing as we prepared for a day on water when the doorbell rang and in walked the aforementioned Mr. Taylor.

Dressed in white from head to toe, closely resembling a Bermudian cricket player, Nate seemed a little sleepy but nonetheless ready to throw flies. The drive to “this particular section” of the South Platte River allowed to sun time to crawl out from behind the Front Range and warm the preparing anglers.

I was told that because we had been so late in leaving the house, (what had once been a enthusiastic 2:30am departure time faded into a partially-hung-over 4:30am) that between four and eight cars would be cooling off in the river parking lot, and their passengers already beating the waters before us.

But it appeared that on this Saturday morning we were ahead of the curve as we pulled into an empty dirt lot and began to gear-up in the fresh morning light.

The air was crisp, and the mosquitoes many, as took to the trail and headed down stream.

The fish were plentiful but all small stockers as we threw and walked west downriver, and the aforementioned Mr. Taylor soon made an executive decision to halt westerly progress and head back up stream in search of larger fish to “crush.” That he apparently knows are there.

I shrug and begin the walk back through the grass and shin-stabbing bushes to find Gracie, who had intentionally fallen behind to beat up the pools we had turned our noses up to in our hunt for larger prey with stimulators and trailing emergers.

After a drink back at the car, and a short walk in the opposite direction, the little rainbows that had been so plentiful before started to disappear. And for good reason... the fish here are big, and in no mood to put up with the nonsense from their under-developed brethren.

Gracie on the reel! The aforementioned Nate Taylor on the reel! Big beautiful browns, with a surprising tendency for aerial acrobatics find their way into our nets.

Even a big fat rainbow (that Gracie spotted, but I "stole") liked my bug enough to accept the invite to the net party.

Hours and some fantastic dry-dropper and nymphing later, the afternoon faded into brought slower bites and annoying wind, but that was fine as we all felt it had been a very kick-ass day and turned back toward the parking lot.

Back to the house we flew! And then Ding-Dong! Tom Teasdale, Greg Drapeau (Some Primal Dudes) at the door and ready for partying.

We all drink a beers and as soon as my I-only-brought-one-pair-so-I-had-to-wash-them-before-going-to-the-bar-because-they-stunk-from-wet-wading shorts dried, then left for manly refreshments.

The night progressed as expected, and after the crew walked home from the pub we wished Tom, Greg and the aforementioned Nick Taylor luck as they left for shenanigans unknown, and crashed our sleep-deprived asses into bed.

Sunday morning was a lazy one and we slowly gathered our gear from some South Platte carp fishing.

We arrived and found James Snyder balls deep in the river already, with nothing good to report. Fish everywhere but not eating. We decided to head to some double-super-top-secret-well-populated-suburban lake, but the story remained the same. Slow.

Aaron Seymore , visiting from out of town, did manage to hook a fatty carp, and to the sorry fishless faces of his comrades exclaimed, “That’s how we do it Michigan!”

Enough said, Aaron.

In to the car, back to the house to meet Kyle and edit images… Then to the bar.

And now, here I sit in MG’s house, stealing his CPU time spilling the beans. I will be fishing tomorrow with Kyle, but will not have access to a computer machine for another week, as I will be in the White Mountains of Arizona catching beautiful (but most likely smaller) fish.

More eye candy...

Gracie contemplating the existence of fly

An ace double-hauler (Mr. Teasdale)

This is how you hero shot, drop a fish, and recover like a pro

My own badassness, from MG's perspective

Gracie's badassness from a professional standpoint

-Alex who thinks it would be really funny to go sit on Kyle’s passed out head.

705 miles, 4 hours of fishing, 4 hooked species

With the Wrinkleneck trip looming just over the booze-laden horizon, my buddy Roger and I took a 24hr trip up to the White Mountains to do a little pre-neck recon mission. I basically knew where we were going. And I learned a valuable lesson: If you ever plan to drive to somewhere which involves navigating 30 miles of mountain fire roads at night, it would be nice to have a more than a basic idea where you have to go. At 2am we were very near the point of no return, and heading the warning of the gas gauge we decided to make camp. Carl's Jr burger wrappers, semi-used TP, and a granola bar box (the manly peanut butter kind, none of that sandal wearing hippy crap) quickly brought the Ents to their crackling knees, bringing warmth and happiness to all.

Wind is a dirty bitch, and spent the next day punching us in the testicles, and after finally getting to the lake we had driven all this way to scope out, mother nature giggled and turned the dial from ‘sub-light speed’ to ‘ludicrous speed’ and we decided that being drop-kicked to the opposite shore and having to carry our tubes back was not what a couple of sleep-deprived clowns thought of as a fun idea, we decided to GTFO and find something more promising.

Driving, turning, driving, stopping, looking, picking dust boogers (carefully on bumpy dirt roads); we pushed on. Then a sign: 10 miles to Black River east fork. Shit, why not? After receiving a tip from a nutball turkey hunter named Rom, we ended up at the west fork.

I knew that the Black River at lower altitudes is great smallmouth water, but at close to 8,600 feet, I was unsure about the population of this portion, so in my not-even-close-to infinite wisdom, I shrugged and tied on a stonefly and a hare's ear and waded in.

5 steps later I surprised a fish that made some chocolate milk and left. A sucker? Hmmm.....

(5 minutes later) Well would you look at that! I guess sometimes a guy just gets lucky. Over the next couple hours I also netted a brown, a rainbow and answered my earlier uncertainty by hooking a nice smallmouth that was apparently not impressed by my angling ability or by the size of my tippet and quickly broke off all my crap and took it with him. Well, at least now I know, and I think hooking 4 species of fish in a 100 yard stretch of river is the kick-ass.

We ran into a few other locals on way home, who seemed a little weary about our presence and didn't want to share any fishing tips. Buncha jerks.

-Alex

FGFF in the Wall Street Journal.

Brownlining got a little journalistic recognition today on the front page of the Wall Street Journal.

FGFF's own Kyle Deneen, Tom Teasdale, TU, JPL, Michael Gracie and Kieth Barton got some love in Justin Schecks article revolving around these large fish who live in that dirty, dirty water.

Here, the fish are big. The strikes are frequent. And other anglers are kept at bay by the occasional bobbing diaper.

After driving 2 hours to fish with these guys, Kyle's linguistic eloquence was reduced to "I wanted to fish for carp." Good job dude, keeping it simple. Just kidding, you know I love you Kyle. If you watch the video, you can see him in the background as he is the only person I know with orange waders.



Anyways, I think this kicks super loads of ass for Brownlining in general, and all those mentioned. Especially us, because you can't deny the kick-ass.

Very Nice!

"Panda Food" is not for pigs

I left my house at 6am to do some bullshit in Castle Rock this morning. Lucky for me Michael Gracie wanted to go carp fishing.
So as I was driving around Denver looking for the park we were going to fish, I saw some old guy in one of those stupid pill cars "Smart Car" pick his nose and eat his booger! I was thinking of rolling my window down and yelling something at him, considering he had to be at least 65, but i just kept to myself and laughed on the inside.
Ok now to the fishing. I got to the spot around 10am and Michael was right behind me. I walked over to the bridge looked over and saw only trash, no fish. We were right near down town Denver so i am thinking what the hell is Michael thinking? He was here just a week ago and told me some pretty detailed stories, so I knew there were going to be fish in here.
For about the first hour we were looking and looking and saw nothing. The one carp rolled on the surface and that was the beginning. Suddenly carp are running up river right past us. Tom and his buddy came rolling down the hill where we came down threw the brush and trash that lined the river. Almost instantly Tom hooks into a great sized carp, I go to net it and it threw the hook. Tom really knows how to fish this area, he was using an 8foot #9 and he hooked into a big river tractor. This was a beastly carp. As the fish runs he is hitting his backing, watching him pull that fish in looked like he was hooked up to a dump truck. This fish was an easy 15 lbs. The third fish tom hooks into was a nice carp about 10 to 12lbs. (See below)
I finally got a hit but had a 2 second fight if that before it threw the hook. And now Tom hooks into another big carp again 10 to 12lbs.


Tom was the only one to catch fish today, but I still had a great time. Michael got a great hook up but it was spit about 20 min. before we decided to leave. I caught the tree about 10 times, I am going to be a logger now.
So i am hearing all about how bamboo rod are the way to go, "bamboo is the best." I don't agree! If you want to fish spring creeks and catch 6-14 inch trout, then fine, fish bamboo. But I think there is a lot you can not do with bamboo. I know many people who will fish nothing but bamboo, I just cant see myself doing that. And yes I like to pull out mine every now and then, but it didn't cost me $1500. I am cheap, and broke.
I would rather catch big pigs that spool me almost every time. Lets just face it, unless you are some super guru of fly fishing Panda Food rods just aren't going to cut it.
Check out Michael's blog for details I forgot.