Back from a long stretch of fishing followed by a 4 day trip to Florida to do some work ( see next post )

So what is fishing overload? Well, it is 10 days of fishing in a row. I left on a friday and met up with the Carolina Fly Fishing Club for 3 days of fishing. We had a lodge, a big cabin, and 15 or so of us. it was a great time. I got in Friday afternoon and was greeted with rain for the last 1.5 hours of the drive. Got to the cabin, grabbed the last bed, said hello to the few who were there and headed off to fish Deep Creek which is in the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. I caught nothing. fishing was hard and it was a new creek to me. Water was high and very stained. Back to the cabin, a dinner of steaks and potatoes, some fly tying and some lying and it was off to bed. Fished the next morning at the delayed harvest section of the Nantahala River. water again high and stained, it was all woolly buggers all day. Caught some fish, even caught a HUGE brook trout, 4-5 lbs, looked like it swallowed a football. Back for dinner of an awesome lasagna. more tying and lying, then back to deep creek on sunday am, came up empty again, but had a few hits. Sunday night I crashed at the NOC in thier ‘basecamp’ which is really just a hostel, a room with 4-6 bunks. met some of this years thru-hikers. Monday am, i took my time getting going and did some laundry in Robbinsville then headed out to Big Snowbird. After a 15 mile drive on a dirt Forest Service road, I ended up at a small parking area where there was a big camping trailer parked, a little disappointing, but they are allowed. they were parked along the hatchery supported section of Big Snowbird creek, and it was opening week, they were making their own fish camp where they cooked what they caught and drank too much beer. While I was gathering my gear, getting ready to hike in to the wild section of the river, a guy came hiking out with fly rod tubes. He had a wealth of info to share with me and I am glad he did. I would not have known to hike that far in with out his guidance. So I started hiking in, it was only 5 miles to the camp site, but it was slightly up hill and my darn wading boots added 12 lbs to the pack! Anyway, got there, set up, and fished some. Over all I caught about 15 wild Eastern Brook Trout, nothing bigger than 7 inches, but that is what I was after. They are so beautiful, the colors so bold and bright. These little guys are the kings of their pools. They hit the fly so hard one even came completely out of the water to hit it, like a missile. While I had a blast camping and fishing I didn’t care for being totally on my own so far from anything. Doing this with a friend would be much better. ( hint hint hint, any one interested? )
I ended this portion of the trip a day early as I took many falls getting around this stream ( it is not easy to access the stream from anywhere other than trail crossings, the trail runs a few hundred yards parallel to the creek. so getting around is by wading) I woke up with a sore ankle and decided to hike out a day early because I could and didn’t want to wait a day and have it get swollen up and then I would be stuck out there.
Headed over to the NOC again and drank beer with hikers.
Thursday I met up with BIL and his friends at the Nantahala River and we had a good day fishing. They all fished dry flies, but I was skunked trying that, so I switched over to the woolly bugger. I caught a bunch of trout every day, some on nymphs, some on bugger, some on dry flies. We fished the Nanty the whole weekend and had a great time. I did have one heart breaking moment…. (cue violin music)….. I hooked up with a HUGE brown trout, 29-32 inches, just a monster, a fish of a life time. I got him on the reel and was fighting him well, giving him some line, keeping pressure on him, trying to turn him and get him out of the current, then he got right by the lip of a little plunge. I tried to keep him in the pool, but over he went, I gave him line and started running down the river ( think of the movie ‘A River Runs Thru It’ ) we repeated the same thing in this new pool and then he went over again and I took of running again. It was at this point I noticed my net was gone and this guy would def need to be netted. I saw BIL fishing about 100 yards away and started calling out to him, of course he can’t hear cause of the rushing water, so I keep fighting and keep yelling and keep running. He finally hears me and makes his way up to me. At this point I’ve been fighting this monster trout for 12 minutes or so and about 100 yards down stream. I see BIL coming up to help and another little waterfall, The trout heads for it, I take off down stream feeding him some line when I slipped!!!! he hit the lip and dove over, I fell and put out one hand to brace my fall, the other was unfortunately holding the rod and the line. he pulled on the line and it snapped!!!! OH NO! I was devastated. But didn’t break my rod or throw it, well not too hard, just cursed up a storm and scanned the pool the fish went into. he was gone. I know just another fish story, but this one is mine. it is my loss. next time I will not be holding the line in my rod hand. lesson learned.

No more babbling, here are some photos:

deep creek

deep creek, again

the lodge

brook trout from the nanty

HUGE Brook Trout

Snowbird part of the trip

the creek

my camp

3 little beauties, check out the colors and details, look at the orange fins and blue spots!

last part of the trip, on the Nanty..

this is a ‘mud puppy’ a huge salamander that was hooked on a line that some idiot had staked out and left. I pulled it in and cut him free. he was a bit over 2 feet long!

Dirty hikers on the Appalachian Trail that I shuttled to Pizza By The River near the NOC.

After a rainy weekend, the sun has come out and the temps are hovering in the upper 60’s! Oh yea!
Hit the grill last night with some teriyaki pork chops and grilled carrots and watched the sunset.
The early plants are in the garden, got the lettuce and broccoli planted. The photos below are of little lettuce plants.
Today I hit the ponds, my dads and the DR.’s, and had a good day. I did manage to catch two bass a couple of days ago in the rain and today got 3 more bass including the 1.75 lb’er below, 5 crappies and 8 sunfish including the plump one below. The sunnies and the crappies are all swollen and bright, getting read to bed down, a sure sign that spring is here and the water is warming up.
I am leaving on friday for a 12 day trout fishing trip. The first part of the trip will be near Deep Creek and is a trip put together by the Carolina Fly Fishing Club. This trip will have me fishing a few different kinds of water and even going into the Great Smokey Mountains National Park. The middle part of the trip I will be hiking 5-12 miles to a remote creek to fish for native wild brook trout. The last part of the trip will be near the Nantahala River with my BIL and his friends, it is their annual trip and I have been invited. should be a blast. I get back on Sunday the 13th then off to Florida to look over a collection of historical photographs for a client until the 17th. Whew!
I had to turn down a job today for a client that I have worked for in the past. ( I still have not sent out a promo to announce that I am here in Charlotte ) This proves the old saying that when you are slow, book a trip and the jobs will come in!

spring planting

more lettuce

bass

sunny

Fish Totals as of today

Species and totals for 2008

Brook Trout - 2
Rainbow Trout - 5
Brown Trout - 7
Largemouth Bass - 11
Sunfish - 24
Black Crappie - 7

So Rob Haggart, former photo editor at Outside Magazine and Men’s Journal, and one who has mostly ignored my work, has one of the best blogs in the photoshpere. Or is it best photo blog in the blogsphere. Either way his blog ‘A Photo Editor‘ has become a must read for just about every photographer in the world and I would bet almost every photo editor. His insight and ideas are very spot on. If you have not heard of this blog, I suggest you crawl out from under the rock and go check it out.

One of his newest ideas is a flicker slide show that will serve as a virtual promo or source book. He is putting it all together from submissions from photographers and will be doing the editing and posting it. APE is a fan, or at least a user of flicker and sees many uses for the professional photographer and editor. I’m not so sure yet. I did decide to submit two images for consideration. I did this for two reasons 1 - why not? it is free promotion if I make the cut. Given APE’s talent as a photo editor, I expect the bar to be set very high. I hope I make it. Given his level of professionalism I hope he can bring some other photo editors to check out the work.
2 - after looking over some of the profiles of the photographers who submitted, I saw a LOT of awful work. I mean really bad. and no real food photographers.

Some of the work was really just, well, not even worth commenting on. I guess that is the price you pay when doing something in this arena. One of the things I have always loved/hated about photography is the way it touched every level of everything. it is accessible to anyone with a camera. It creates an understanding of the craft but also can give false confidence to some who want to be professionals. I don’t envy APE on his upcoming task of editing the promo.

Here are the two images I submitted. Do you think I will make the cut?

Last night I ventured out to catch a band that I like, the Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, BSOJC. They played at a bar called Pucketts Farm Equipment in Charlotte. Pucketts is exactly what a dive bar should be. Not too clean, 2 pool tables, a slightly raised band area, a bar that sold beer and beer only, 2 open doors for ventilation. The decor is strictly southern and even more so Charlotte race theme. I counted at least 10 race car tires, some stacked together with a wooden top to serve as a table, there were 4-6 race car hoods mounted on the wall, 2-3 complete sides of race cars, complete with dents and tire marks! Pucketts has live music a few nights a week, it is a great place. Oh, did I mention the $2 Miller Lites?
So BSOJC plays honkey tonk music, some rocking and upbeat songs mixed with some slower ballads. good stuff. There were some sound issues last night, but nothing that couldn’t be fixed and was. The show was good, the band played tightly. The only disappointment to the night was the lack of crowd. Less than 40 people came out to support the show. If it bothered the band, they didn’t let it show and played as if there were 150 there. I guess it has to do with it being a Thursday nite and that the Sweet 16 tournament was in town.
I took some pix. surprise. I made a very rookie mistake. I switched camera bags to carry a much smaller bag and forgot to bring extra batteries. of course 4 songs into the show the battery goes dead. I took it out and warmed it up and put it back in and was able to shoot until the last song when it went dead for good. what a lucky break. Never switch bags without using a checklist. The light was decent for such a small venue.
Here are a few pix of the show.

So today I shot my first press conference in a very long time. George Clooney and Renee Zellweger were in twon to promote their new movie ‘Leatherheads’. It is a period piece about early football. Quite a bit of the movie was filmed in NC and some of it right here in Salisbury. Salisbury is an old city has done a pretty good job of protecting its historical assets.
So they show up, an hour late, of course. It was a well run affair. When the stars took off down an unexpected line of fans, they quickly took the photographers to a location where we could get some shot of them interacting with the fans. Average shots. But they were upbeat and happy. We all moved inside and they took some questions. George was actually pretty funny and poked good natured fun at the reporters who asked for parts in the next movie. Ethical lapse? Renee didn’t say much, just kinda sat their looking hot.
I was shooting for Getty Images and the pictures were online by 3pm. I saw a few uses online already. Including at least one that I’m sure is an infringement.
It felt good to be back shooting again.

pt