Return of the Blogging Wunderkind

Welcome back to my blog dear reader.  It's been a while since I last gave you the skinny.  Let's just say that I was busy with other things but now I'm back to let you know that I can really blog it down.

Part One: Great Waters Weekend

Every year just about this time I celebrate here with a rhyme.  

Great Waters Fly Fishing Expo

It's really awesome

It doesn't play dead

It's not like a possum

It's all about fly fishing

my favorite sport

it's played on the water

not on a court

For the last three Great Waters Expos I have exhibited my fly tying skills with the Saint Paul Fly Tiers and Fishermen's Club.  It's a great group that I recently became the vice president of.

Here is the new club sticker that I designed along with a White Wulff that I tied at the expo.  

 It was so great getting to tie next to my great friend Justin Bowman.  I think we probably averaged a laugh every minute or so.  At some point Justin borrowed my whip finisher and forgot to give it back.  This will come into play later on in this post.

 And those stickers sold like hot cakes.  We must have raised thirty seven dollars for the club.

 Here's me closing the deal on my new Limit Creek Force M1 Musky Rod.  It was great to see my good buddy Nick Brevitz at the Expo too.  He's finally coming around to the fly fishing side of things.

Saturday at the Expo I spent most of the day teaching the next generation of fly tiers.  It was probably the most fun I've ever had.

The next five photos of me teaching fly tying are courtesy of Justin Carfagnini of Carf Outdoors.

The children really enjoyed learning how to tie.

 My patience was tested.  My patience passed the test.

 It puts the thread on the hook.

 I think I was teaching her how to do a half hitch here.

 Everybody had fun!

While walking around the expo this dude looked right at me and said my name, "Eddie Rivard".  I looked at him and was trying to remember who he was and what his name was.  I couldn't remember and felt like a jerk until he said, "You don't know me I'm just a guy who reads your blog".  He then asked me why I hadn't been posting as much as I used to and I gave him a list of my excuses.  It was shortly after that moment that I decided that I was going to resurrect my blog.  Not just for that dude but for all the dudes and dudettes out there that want to read a pretty good fly fishing blog that's both entertaining and informative.  People need a blog that's not only educational but also mutational.  

Sometimes when I sit down to write a blog post I just put my fingers on the keyboard and they start typing words.  It's as if the greatest writers of all time are working with me.  I'm such a clairvoyant. 

At some point after tying with Justin on Friday I realized that I never got my whip finisher back. 

I can't help think that Justin kept it on purpose just so he could use it to get me to go fishing with him on Monday.

Part Two:  Fishing on Monday

I met Justin at his place shortly before 7:30am.  Upon jumping in his truck there was two freshly tied Simi Seal Leaches sitting on the center console.  Justin contends that the Simi Seal Leech and the RS2 are the best flies ever invented.

 Those F-shaped power line things along 52 always remind me that I am heading towards having an awesome day or coming back from one.

 I picked up this fly patch thing for my hat at the Expo from my friends at O'Pros.  I was so stoked to test it out.

 Looks awesome if you ask me.

 We made it to our first spot and were getting ready to fish.  Justin started out the day with one of his Simi Seal Leeches.

 I tied on a stonefly that I had recently tied.

 Chocolate city baby.  You'd think that it must have been raining chocolate.

 I have always loved the song Chocolate Rain by my main man Tay Zonday.

I know there was fish here.

 Justin knew there was fish here.

 Where there is beaver dams there is always fish.

 These spiky things remind me of Chinese Lanterns.

 Cool plants growing on the rock.  Whenever I try to explain the joy of flyfishing to the laymen I always try to convey that it's just so much more than fishing.  It's an adventure through nature every time.

Slow Down

Breathe Deep

Take in the World

That is Under Your Feet. 

Another spiky Chinese lantern thing.

After a while I said to Justin, "There is something wrong when two guys with a combined IPI score of 197.7 aren't catching fish.".  Shortly after that we left to find a different stream.  IPI stands for Internet Popularity Index.

The new stream paid dividends quick when I caught this little Brown right away on the Slump Buster.

 Justin was feeling it too.

 He was so ready to catch a fish.

 Nice pool.

 I heard Justin yell that he had one so I sprinted over to get a photo.  Just in case it would have been the only fish he caught that day.

 Here's one source of all the muddy water.  An ice cold stream of mud dumping into the stream at about a gallon a second.  No wonder why we were having a tough time catching fish.

 We moved upstream some and Justin got this one right away.  I had a good feeling that our luck was turning.

 Text book awesome pool.  I forgot how great this place was.

 A  Brookie for you.

 A Brookie for me.  Let's eat Brookies in a big brown tree.

 Another pool of wonder.

 And another Brookie for me to plunder.

 A lot of time when I am teaching beginning photographers I tell them about "The rule of thirds".  This image is a good example of "The rule of thirds".

 Justin took some photos of me fishing.

 Often times I wonder why this blog has been so successful over the years.  It's gotta be the smile.

 A winter wonderland.

 How do you like me?

 Here is a Brook Trout.

Cool Waterfall.

 Me, Justin and the Waterfall.

 Another beautiful Brook Trout.

 I'm just getting better after being sick for three weeks and the skin under my nose hurts when I smile.  I just couldn't help but smile though.  I was so happy.

 You can see Justin fishing somewhere in this photo.

 On the walk back to the car Justin pointed out this antler on our path.  It was kind of like a fork in the road.  Whenever I think about a fork in the road I always think about that Green Day song.