rollin

White Lightning rides!

arrived in Brooklyn last night, right to the sports bar for the C's game. friendly, familiar faces awaited me there. Boone had been having reunions while we were in the South, so now it's my turn. now that i'm in the northeast, there should be a fair number of them in the days to come.

been doing some fishing lately. with a lot of driving in between. 4 hours here, 6 here, 5 here, 8 there, and a solid 12 yesterday.
here are a couple fish. one lives in fresh, one lives in the salt.
in the city for one more night then rollin north and west to the fine town of Pulaski. going to be a real good reunion up there. more to come on that.

i hope everyone's well. boston sunday, portland monday. see ya there.

i guess it was time for a new pair

th'east

after leaving austin, i found myself in a traffic jam outside of Shreveport, the first i'd seen since i drove out west, i guess. this turned out to be a pretty bad one and i found myself sitting on i-20 east for three and a half hours. i got out of my car and walked up and down the highway for a little bit, trying to assess the scene. i gathered a little information about the jam and as i walked back toward my car, several people asked me if i knew anything about what was going on. i passed on what i had learned and heard a number of mixed responses and phrases, not many of which i had heard before. one trucker, as i walked by said, "i'd be walkin' home too!" i said that i would then be walking to Maine and he laughed loudly. at a gas station in Jackson, i came back to my car after paying for the gas and a man was staring at the back of my car, presumably looking at the license plate the bumper stickers. "what d'ya think?" i asked. he chuckled and asked me what i was doing down there and then asked how any miles i had on the Subaru. when i told him, he smiled and said, "i hope my wife's gets that many!" ha.

made it to Atlanta on tuesday and made some new friends. made it to Anderson, SC on wednesday and was welcomed by the best homecooked meal i've had in a while. yesterday Boone and i drove to Cashiers, NC and we've been fishing since.

yesterday was my first day on the water in a little over a week. i was excited and confident. we stepped into the Tuck River with hopes and spirits high. water was low and Boone landed a chub within minutes after arrival. i did the same a few minutes later and we continued upstream. Boone picked up a few here and there and i was still yet to land a trout. i lost one, spooked some others as we continued upstream. we decided to change spots after a couple hours and drove upstream. Boone landed a three pound rainbow after a few minutes and we were happy. a little while later and i was frustrated. i smelled of skunk and it had been a long time since i smelled that bad of it.

i was fishing a run that i just felt there were fish in. if there wasn't a fish in this run, then i wouldn't have known where else to look. and then, finally, the indicator went down and i set the hook on a fish i instantly knew was big. big head shakes came and it went across the stream in front of me, 15 feet to the right and then 30 feet to the left. and then it was over. hook popped out. i crouched in the river, my hands scratching my head. i'm assuming some expletive(s) exited my mouth. that was the last fish i hooked that day and i got skunked. ooooh, did it hurt. it's been a while since i wanted a fish back so badly. how big was it? who knows. big. big enough to not want to lose. add that to the stench of a skunk that had been brewing since spring and there you have it.

today i did some catching. caught some trout! nice ones! so did Boone. maybe we'll catch some more tomorrow! what's next? redfish, albies, steelhead and landlockeds! see ya there!

ACL

seven of us left the ranch around 6 p.m. on wednesday, texas bound. through the great list of craig, we had secured tickets to the austin city limits music festival as well as an apartment on austin's 6th street. here. we. go.

a caravan of 4 cars, White Lightning, Southern Justice, The Little Green Shitbox and another, explicitly named vehicle, cruised south and east out of Colorado, through northeastern tip of New Mexico and into Texas. texas is big. our plan was to drive through the night, as google listed our journey around 16 hours. energy drinks and stops later, we all crashed in the parking lot of a mcdonald's somewhere in west texas. the 16 hour drive ended after 21 hours of travel, but we had made it to austin safe and sound.
zilker park, where the festival is, was a 20 minute walk from our apartment. for the next 3 days we spent midday to 10 p.m. at the park, watching music. awesome music.
here's the full lineup: http://2010.aclfestival.com/

the black keys killed:
this guy was this guy:

So long and thanks for all the fish

well. been a while since i wrote and now i am about to say goodbye to the 4UR. maybe more like a 'see you later' i guess.

the end of the season was very busy. we had a group of 14 anglers in who all fished with guides all day. great group of fellers. fishing was pretty good then. ended that group with a bang, putting about a dozen in the net for one guy in the afternoon of the last day.

then we had a wedding here. the ranch was full for the first time since labor day. and in the wedding party we found the group of anglers we'd been looking for all season. a group of 10 Cornell grads fished real hard. awesome guys, very good anglers. and the fishing was nuts. they were ecstatic just to be here and their enthusiasm was rewarded by the mighty Goose Creek with 4 days of epic fishing. my very last guided trip of the summer was the best. hit the water very early with three guys, marko, jeff and matt, before the sun had hit the water. between the three of them i netted close to 15 before 11:30. after a pow-wow, we elected to hit the big river and marko and matt and i drove fast to the Rio. in 45 minutes on the Rio, i netted 13 more. ended that with a double hookup. awesome. high fives. just awesome. i love fishing. not just the very act of it, but the idea, the concept, the thing. everything about it.

Boone and i hit the creek yesterday. in two hours we landed close to thirty. so, thanks Goose Creek, thanks Rio Grande, thanks Walton Pond, Pumphouse Pond, Walton Creek, Soda Creek Pond, thanks for all the fish. so long, and thanks for all the fish. bonus points for anyone who can identify the book/movie that that song comes from.

so what next? after thinking long and hard about it, i think, that i, jesse lance robbins, will go fishing. stay tuned for the next leg, as we Seek the Freed.