sitting on rooftop waiting...

The monsoon season is finally over.  It's been one of the record long one, lasting over a month.  Now that the rain has stopped, it's the vacation season here in Korea and the highways are backed up mad with traffic.  I didn't even attempt to go to the creek in a couple of weeks but the from past experience, I know that creeks with easier access will be filled with vacationers, trying to make the the most of the two week span.  So I sit here on the rooftop garden, waiting for fall to arrive and the vacationers to go home.  I'm ready for chilly nights and small campfires.

Officially homesick...

I miss the Midwest.  A lot. Especially the lakes and pace of it all.

Last days of December

Stop: smoking, using cold as excuse to not fish, buying fancy sketch books, making flies that look good in pictures.

 

Continue: drinking, fishing with my kids, taking new people fishing,  keep an open mind about things.

 

Start: making more camp fires, writing/ drawing more, finishing projects that I started, being honest about how much I also love lure fishing.

 

Happy New Year Friends.  I miss you.

 

 

ready

finding my spot

Our moving stuff from the US arrived about a week ago and the apartment is starting to look like a home.  Kids are happy to be sleeping in their own beds, Wife is happy to get her kitchen back in order, and I'm happy to see my fishing stuff back on the desk.  It's been steaming hot in Seoul the past few weeks, so hot that I hesitate to go out even to drink.  It's nice to sit at the room in the evenings, the London Olympics on TV and tying a few flies.

As I look at the boxes full of flies, I wonder why I spend so much time getting flies out of trees when I feel like I have a bunch of flies to last me years.  I guess flies to me are like having enough toilet paper. I wonder why I have so much of it, but then I think about that moment years ago when I ran out and that makes me feel okay to buy the super jumbo pack.  Plus with flies there is that local (Korean creature) element to it, although I've never been a hard core match the hatch kind of guy.  In any case, it's nice to be able to sit and wind some thread to a hook.

small window of opportunity

I don't know if it's just me but each season is starting to feel a little shorter.  Maybe it's simply that stage in my life, kids growing up, parents growing older ... more time needed to be a father, son, and husband.  I enjoy all of it and this is what I am made of, but I do wish I had more time to just go catch some fish.  I call myself a fly fisherman but sometimes I think the environment where I live makes me the type of fisherman I am... I am okay with that logic.  I have seen friends get the bug and fish like pros for years, then for one reason or another they turn to other things.  I remember thinking on a particular good day on the water, "this passion for fishing will never cease for me... I will just fish harder and harder each year".  It was both a declaration and a caution for myself but I know now that with the changing seasons spent on different waters, things change. 

I stood next to a river colored from the recent rains and wondered how many good days of fishing are ahead of me in 2012.  I was standing there in my new wet wading shoes and a fly rod ready to launch a bug.  There's more monsoon rain coming this week but I'm pretty sure I'll find myself standing at un fishable waters in the coming weeks.  I'll be thinking two things - I should have done something else today & there's got to be a way to catch fish in this chocolate colored waters.

I just felt like babbling today.

ㅋㅋ

I like this beverage...

I love it that America has good beer named after a famous river and has a trout on it. And it's nice and potent too. Cheers from Hong Kong.

next time we go fishing...

We should do this next time we go fishing. Damn they look like they're having a good time.

Advanced Trick Casting: The Shadow Cast

I really like these guys.

Jesus fish...

LEGO trout

I visited LEGO LAND in San Diego with the family this past week. While walking around, my son called to me "hey dad, I think there's a trout in here!". I walked over to see what it was, and indeed, it was a LEGO trout. It made me smile in two ways, one because of the fact that my son knows I like fishing and he looked that way. Second because he saw it as a trout. It was a nice day.

Coke from Mexico:

I can't remember I had this before, but when I was in Yosemite with a guide he bought me a coke bottled in Mexico made with natural cane sugar. After hours of hot sun beating on my body, it was so refreshing.

I should be there...

Kings & steelheads are in the tributary waters. Damn it, I hope I don't miss the entire party... 어쩌다 보니까, 낚시를 많이 못하는 가을이 되어 버렸네... 그립다, 고기잡는 그 느낌.

John Gierach - a thank you from Shenzhen

My work takes me to many different cities in the world, and I spend a good amount of time in China. My trips to China are usually a mix of lot of meetings, a lot of meeting people, and even a fair amount of drinking (with more people). While there are a lot of things I love about China, access to nature isn't one of them (lack of). I am usually okay with this, as metropolitan city & access to nature isn't usually a set, and sometimes I find that this even enhances my appreciation, when I'm standing in a quiet creek. My current trip to China is no different, except this is the fall season, and I can't help but think about the cool water running in the mountain creeks, the hungry trout eagerly checking out the flies floating by ... my ears hunger for the kind of sounds a fall creek makes.

Fortunately, on this trip, I brought along John Gierach's book, Fly Fishing Small Streams. I've been reading it slowly, carefully timing the chapters, so that the book will last throughout the entire trip (it's a short book). I read it in the car from one factory to another, I read it as I wait for samples, and I read it sitting in a small coffee shop, filled with too many people & too much noise. I find that it takes intense concentration to read the words and to tune out the environment around me...

Perhaps "adjust" is a better word because as I read, I use my imagination to translate the sight & sounds to something else... something a little closer to what I'm reading about in the book. I am imagining the people & traffic as the cool running current and the city block/ buildings as boulders and rocks. I still haven't determined what I will select as the trout in this stream, but even without having decided that, the picture in front of me looks a little better. I start to see how this current is flowing, the eddies, and where riffles are formed as people rush past stationary things. The city is a living thing (not only the people but the city itself) and it's wonderful to observe the change throughout the different times of the day. I hope that with training I will be able to see this anytime at call. I described all of this to my friend here, and he looked at me a long while and said - "have you been drinking during the day?". Maybe I am going out of my mind, but if I am going to go out of my mind, this might not be a bad way to go.

John Gierach was quoted in an article in MidCurrent ... “I don’t travel or fish to ‘get away', because my life at home isn’t something I need to escape from.” Right now, I need a little escape and this book is providing me that space. So, thank you Mr. John Gierach, your book is helping one stressed out designer to keep it together at this moment.

box full of crap...

Upon returning from my last trip, I was determined to clean out my fly boxes and reorganize with a clean sheet. I found myself standing next to the river with 4 fly boxes full of flies, and still paralized like a zombie, just staring into the box and thinking... shit I don't have the right fly. I took all the flies out of every box I had, put them into the fly storage boxes and now I'm trying to re assemble the fresh fly boxes. Problem is that I was really eager when I started fly tying & I tied on boxes full of flies... the really ugly kind ... that don't looklike they will catch fish. Maybe all fly fishermen go through this once in their fly tying journey...ending up with lots of flies you don't ever use. I should probably throw it all away and start fresh by tying "good" flies that I'll actually use, but the frugal side of me won't allow that. So I was wondering how you guys organize...

- what is your way to organize a fly box? size, type, ?? My aim is efficieny...
- should I keep flies in the storage boxes and assemble the 'carry box' each time I go out?
- how many boxes do you carry on a single day trip?

I am entering a new stage here with fly boxes... it may end up ultra efficient or it might end up me on the river with no fly to catch any fish. Either way, I am determined to trim down on the flies I carry. Thoughts?

at Incheon airport

On my way to Shenzhen, I saw a fishing rod near a cosmetic stand and wondered what it was. Turns out, it's a promotion game one can play to win cosmetic samples. I also passed by the wall I applied the FSAC sticker on last year and was happy to see it still there. It's nice to be reminded of the thing I love to do.

hey look, we have a open day!

Hey guys! looks like sat is gonna be a break from the rain. Do you think:

1) there are any creeks that's worth trying? 비가 오긴 왔어도, 혹시 가능한 계곡이 있을까요? 긍정적인 마인드를 최대한 발휘하고 있는 중입니다.

2) hit the bass? Low waters made bass fishing poor last time but perhaps it's better now? I'll call the bass boat guy to check. 배스나 때리던지요.

3) give up and meet somewhere and get trashed on tequila and talk about how we wished we were fishing? 술이나 때리던지요.

monsoon is here.

It's been raining straight for the past 3 days...and the rain is here to stay for another 15 days. The rivers are already blown out everywhere and it's going to be a long while until we see a trout around here.

old stuff

As I periodically clean out my fishing stuff, I run across a lot of old fishing stuff that I bought when I had just started fishing (mostly lure fishing things). I keep them around because I think that my kids might use them one day, or maybe I'll find somewhere to donate them but they mostly just hang around... I remember buying all this stuff, excited & imagining that I'll catch all this big fish. Looking at them makes me smile.