Bugs
Bugs. Critters. Creepy-crawlers. We tie things to look like them- call them flies, and we fish with them. But sometimes bugs catch more than trout. They catch people too. We call them stomach bugs!
This is a completely non-fly fishing review. I don’t care your party affiliation but you need to catch an episode of HBO’s the “Veep.” If you watch the show you’ll see it’s nothing to do with left or right- just good humor. Episode two the ‘Veep’, (Julia Louis-Dreyfus), catches a stomach bug that’s floating along through DC area and the Hill. That’s my my lame tie into today’s Everyday In May topic prompt. However, if you dare attempt to take my word you won’t regret it. Having been in dire need of a laugh the award moments and dry humor did manage to crack a smile.
See you on the high ground,
AirborneAngler
Today’s topic of Bugs is a modified prompt of the Everyday in May challenge. For more info click here. For all AirborneAngler Everyday in May posts click here.
Simple Green
I worked up this bass from a photo I took a few months back. With Greenery being the topic for today’s Everyday in May challenge I thought a green photo filter would suit it nicely. 
The fly used was a white bead-headed crystal bugger.
See you on the high ground,
AirborneAngler
Today’s topic of Simple Green is a modified prompt of the Everyday in May challenge. For more info click here. For all AirborneAngler Everyday in May posts click here.
More Fish
“The angler forgets most of the fish he catches, but he does not forget the streams and lakes in which they are caught.” – Charles K. Fox
Today’s topic of More Fish is a prompt of the Everyday in May challenge. For more info click here. For all AirborneAngler Everyday in May posts click here.
Deadman’s Cast with @TimFishmanEmery
Anglers attttttennnntion! Take your seats folks and welcome to another Deadman’s Cast interview. This week we are excited to have Fishing Pro Tim Emery, twitter handle @TimFishmanEmery, on the grill this week. Settle in as we fish filet Fishman into a fish taco- peeking into the ‘what if’ scenario if today he cast his last cast.
AirborneAngler (AA): Tim, welcome, thank you for agreeing to meet up with the troopers on AirborneAngler and surprise- you’re dead!
TimFishmanEmery (TE): O Shit’ that was fast! I was just staring at the water and now I am dead?
AA: Yup, happens that easy around here. So, we haven’t decided how to polish you off just yet. I want to get a feel for the kind of angler you are. But I will let you decide on the body of water you get waxed at. So, where are you on your final day on the water?
TE: I have known this for years! I am driving down a river looking for rising fish. Not sure which river, more then likely the Eagle River near Vail, CO. All of the sudden I see a rise and veer off the road. Bye, Bye!
AA: That’s a possibility. But maybe knowing how, when, and where you picked up fly fishing can help us determine your fate. Tell us all how you got into chunking mock-up variants of fish food.
TE: Vail, 1995- I met a guy who’s good friend was a fly fisherman. He was a fly fisherman. I spent the summer chasing them around. Didn’t catch my first fish until October that year. Man I thought these guys were great fisherman, turns out they didn’t really know what they were doing. I spent the next winter teaching my self how to fly fish. The next spring I met a guy who owned a fly guide service, I told him I could fish. (I was a ski teacher at the time) he figured I knew what I was talking about. Boy was he wrong, he took me to do a corporate event for training, once we were done he looked at me and said “I hired you to guide and you don’t know how to F@#king cast! I said, F@#king teach me” He did and the rest is history. 18 years later, all I want to do is fly fish anytime I can. Even when driving a car off a cliff!
AA: Sounds like you’ve already had one near death experience. But here, we won’t let any raging mad employer have the privilege. Nope this is your fault. We’re going with the veering car and rising fish. So on your decent into the drink your laser beam focus sees a rising fish go full gusto and leap from the water. What species is it specifically and why?
TE: Trout, doesn’t matter what kind. Why? Because the only other fish in the mountains are White Fish and they leave a shitty slime on you. Plus, trout love to eat flies!
AA: Still in a slow motion, almost parachute decent, do you:
a) continue drooling?
b) reach over into the passenger seat for your rod case and rig up?
c) snap out of it and start a Hail Mary or other prayer of choice?
d) ride it out and use the vehicle as a pontoon boat and fish the rest of the day down river?
TE: B and D. I can rig in 8 sec. and use the car as a boat. If there is one fish rising there must be more.
AA: I like your logic. How long do your people wait to call for and send out a search party? Who makes that phone call?
TE: My wife would make the call, she gets a call every morning and night from me, I have 2 small kids they are more important then anything to me. If I don’t call, they will be the first ones in the search party. Good to be loved!
AA: Yes, indeed. Glad to see your a family man. Well, the search party finally locates your final resting place. Your local flyshop commissions a memorial at the location. What is it of and how does the inscription read?
TE: It’s already been planned! (no really) I want a big boulder in the middle of the South Platte River in Denver. I have put a lot of time in to creating an urban fishery in Denver. I spent 5 years working with Denver Trout Unlimited to create and run The South Platte Pro-Am Carp Slam! This tournament has raised over $100,000 for the river. Yes, we use Carp to bring awareness to the Trout. This was hard for Trout Unlimited to understand at first but now they are on board! By the way, have you caught Carp on the fly yet?
AA: No, I haven’t but recently the Texas Hill Country Mixed Bag tourney I’m in has me putting them in the crosshairs. Carp Slam sounds like quite an accomplishment and like you deserve a momument! That’s pretty awesome. While I can’t build you your momunment I can give you an AirborneAngler award. It reads: “Attention to orders! The department of Fly Anglers hereby hypothetically postumously awards the Airmoble Vehicular Assault award, with V device for Valor, to Tim Emery for his actions during the battle of Rising Road Trout on Eagle River. During Tim’s decent he was relentless in his actions to rig up and take the fight to the fish. Never did he surrender his reel or rod. His actions bring great credit uopn himself, the flies he flung, and the fly fishing community. Awarded the 17th Day of May 2012. Signed by my hand, AirborneAngler, Fly Angler of the Texas Hill Country.”
Tim, thanks for joining us today on Deadman’s Cast.
You can follow the Fishman before the afterlife on Facebook, Twitter at @TimFishmanEmery and/or catch his podcasts at www.FishExplorer.com. He’ll friend anyone with fish in their profle. Tim would also like to give a shout out to www.hogislandboatworks.com. He says they have a new skiff coming out that will be a great boat for sight fishing carp and other fish. Until next time- I am signing off.
See you on the high ground,
AirborneAngler
GoPro Thursday
Oh yeah ya! Exciting things are in the works at AirborneAngler HQ! New to the tool kit arsenal is a GoPro HD Hero- locked and loaded ready for cam. Plus today is thursday. So now its GoPro Thursday.
That’s right. So expect crummy videos while I try to field test this thru my next few outings. I played with it some today and I got to say, AirborneDaddy likey.
The bass above unfortunately is not a still shot from the GoPro. As Murphy’s Law of Combat Angling states in rule 12: “No fish shall be captured on film day one of camera purchase.”
And additionally, rule 42: “The batteries will always die one minute before you catch the skunk breaking fish. No more, no less- one minute.”
Write those down. That is all.
See you on the high ground,
AirborneAngler
Today’s topic of GoPro Thursday is a modified prompt of the Everyday in May challenge. For more info click here. For all AirborneAngler Everyday in May posts click here.
Leaders
For the Everyday in May blogging challenge prompt of “Leader”- I am doing a review on the leaders I use by Rio products.
I have simple criteria for my gear and what’s in my kit bag. I am an infanrtyman, not a scientist, pro angler (not yet), or vendor. I am user. So, my equipment and my things have to be grunt proof.
Grunt Proof: /grənt pro͞of/.
Adjective: Able to withstand harsh treatment in austere environments by typically intellectually inept users. Simply- lacking complexity.
Down and dirty these are simply strong leaders. Again, I are grunt. Me no scientist. So I won’t speak on the Mono and Fluorocarbon properties to rhyme and reason why they are so strong- I just know they are. I typically use a 3x or 4X as my general purpose weight on Texas Hill Country rivers. You can argue suggested leaders weights- but this works for me.
Next, let’s talk about price point. Look, I make soldier’s wages and not doctor’s, or lawyer’s salary. So, price can be a factor in this; my chosen, paycheck-eating, cash-bleeding passion. But to be honest I really don’t pay attention to the price. (Side note, RIO this does not give you full fledged liberty to jack up the MSRP. Thank you!) But, I know its reliable so wheather I’m at the big box stores or a local fly shop I look for the brand. There is no brain work invovled in the decision and I know they work and I know they are worth my nickle. So there is a brand loyalty in play.
Lastly, on the note of brand loyalty- its easy to be loyal to those loyal to you. This may have nothing to do with the quality of their product, but instead with the quality of thier character. On Twitter I saw someone ask them to mail them a sticker. Their response was “send me your address, its in the mail.” Free-stuff bells and whistles went off screaming on my radar. I have a project boat I am not at the moment working on. So I asked if they could hook a trooper up and send me one too. So they don’t lose all their hard earned profits in shipping fees and free stickers I won’t “repeat” all what they sent and say it again. Lie. But I felt appreciated as a customer and it made me apprecaite them. What do they get in return? An AirborneAngler endorsement! Yeah baby!
I’ll see you on the high ground,
AirborneAngler
Today’s topic of Leaders is a prompt of the Everyday in May challenge. For more info click here. For all AirborneAngler Everyday in May posts click here.
Fly Line
I’m tapped out on Fly Line. That’s today’s topic for the Everyday In May challenge and I’ve come up dry. And even in spite of writer’s block, (if you can call it that in place of insufficient creative writing skill) its still been fun. So an hour past the deadline I submit to you this post. In honest effort I’ll say it’s not easy to blog 30 days straight. However it has inspired me to get out there and do more. Because if I had- surely I’d have more to say. So what are you doing to grow your voice?
See you on the high ground,
AirborneAngler
Today’s topic of Fly Line is a prompt from the Everyday in May challenge. For more info click here. For all AirborneAngler Everyday in May posts click here.
Fly Rod
Here is a remix to an old song from the John Wayne movie Rio Bravo.
My Fly Rod, Pickup, and Me
The sun is sinking in the west,
a hatch going on down the stream.
A Largemouth settles in its bed,
it’s time for an angler to dream.
Tight lines in the riffles,
that’s where I long to be.
With my three good companions,
my fly rod, pickup, and me.
Gonna hang one more leader,
on the limb of a tree.
Coming home Sweetheart-Darling,
just my fly rod, pickup, and me.
There’s a Smallie in the riffle,
outta reach of my cast you see.
Riding down to the pool now,
just my fly rod, pickup, and me.
No more fish to be netting,
no more hatches will I see.
Round the bend she’ll be waiting,
for my fly rod, pickup, and me;
For my fly rod, my pickup, and me.
See you on the high ground,
AirborneAngler
Today’s topic of Fly Rod is a prompt from the Everyday in May challenge. For more info click here. For all AirborneAngler Everyday in May posts click here.
Mother’s Day Misfire
Today’s installment of the Everyday in May challenge: Mother’s Day Misfire at Mansfield Dam.
Apologies first for this not being a touching Mother’s Day post. Did you check the name of the blog though? Mother’s day operations having been completed (like a good son) I found myself with half a day out on the water.
The night before I received the recommendation to hit Mansfield Dam at the top end of Lake Austin. For reference for those unfamiliar with Texas Hill Country lakes- we don’t have any. We take rivers, dam them on both ends and call it a lake. Lake Austin then is really just the Colorado River boxed in between two dams. (That’s dam being said 5 times so far those counting.)
What did not come with the recommendation to hit the dam was intel on the condition of the water. With recent rain all our rivers were pretty much blown out so I was looking for somewhere new. When I hit the water boy was it cold! I felt like an ice cube in my float tube. Additionally, there was a lot of weedy-algae-spounge-like under growth everywhere. When I made my first gripe report back to my “source”, he informed me he had never been there before and to nut up.
So I did. I bounced around in tube but with not much to show. With the weeds below my Flying Cat arsenal was out of the fight. A chartreuse popper had no effects but a cypret minnow finally got the skunk avoiding ping. Hey fingerling bass count but the Redear made me feel better.
With morale low I bumped down to Bull Creek at the lower end of the lake. So far the dam was a misfire, but that wasn’t the biggest one to come. Long story short I lost a decent sized bass. Still not the misfire… wait for it. I lose plenty of fish; bad hook sets, spitting the hook, I mean it happens. Never before have I lost the hook in a fight. That’s the first half of this misfire. The second half is when I saw the same bass cruise by later. How did I know it was him? Because he was holding my Flying Cat like a Joe Camel in his mouth. True story! Misfire!
The water was clear enough for me to see it plainly and painfully. Which, by the way, makes it a good hook set. There was no immediate action drill I could do to recover from this. I wanted to take a picture- but as good as the iPhone camera is (near all my blog photos are take with my iPhone), it just wouldn’t have happened. So in reflex and in vain I sight cast to him. Yeah, I think he was done for the day. And so was I. Keep marching to the sounds of the guns!
See you on the high ground,
AirborneAngler
Today’s topic of Mother’s Day Misfire is a modified prompt of the Everyday in May challenge. For more info click here. For all AirborneAngler Everyday in May posts click here.
Over Watch Lizard
Something completely different was the intended post topic for the Everyday in May challenge today. I may have missed the mark on the suggested intent- but I think I’m dead on in a literal sense. What’s more completely different than a lizard in over watch?
This little guy was observing my fly angling operations the other day on Red Bud Isle. There is a fair amount of concrete in the area near the base of the bridge with sparse random bushes and sapling trees. I don’t know what drew my attention to him other than my grunt sense of being watched. But not the spied on kind of watched. But like I have you back kind of being watched. Paratrooper over watch are the guys covering you while you move. You know- like in the movies. Well I felt he had my back and it was a good day fishing.
See you on the high ground,
AirborneAngler
Today’s topic of Over Watch Lizard is a modified prompt of the Everyday in May challenge. For more info click here. For all AirborneAngler Everyday in May posts click here.
The AirborneAngler 