How Do You Get to Carnegie Hall?

 Practicing for camp.

At left, Jiffy blueberry buckle cake (added cup of frozen blueberries horded from this summer, fresh nutmeg, cinnamon)  whipped up for breakfast here on "forbidden food" weekend.

My wife is in Palm Springs. It's in the desert. No fish. Desert.

Not my kind of place.

That's a 6" anodized baking round.

 Comes out pretty well. Butter knife for scale.

And, blueberries. It's great bear food for camp. Makes too much for one so I might have to share if any of my Michigan native black bears show up in camp. Will however be a camping hit for whoever shows up!

Might have to feed this and some scrambled eggs to Beargirl if I take here camping.

Now ... to talk the Ritz into using their kitchen because that's the sort of "roughing it" my wife likes. No complaints from me.

I love a bar with a selection of 21-year old scotches.

I'm tuning up for season. I pulled the gear out this morning and did an inventory check for trout.

This little 1492 1/2 Medalist has been hanging around for five years, unspooled.

It's a right-hand retrieve only and is the tail-end-charlie of my 3-wt appropriate reels. Cute as a kitten, though.

Well, hello daring!

I have a 3wt 3-piece Fenwick of the new S2 glass. I got it last winter for brookie brush-busting outings and then decided to push through and complete my 12 Streams of Michigan tour. I didn't do much dedicated 3 wt work. My loss.

2018 is my year-of-brookies given that I am going on my Fox and Two-Hearted dash this year.

I have a Galvan Brookie reel that I love on my Trout Bum. That rod is however both special and graphite. It isn't a rod to take dashing down fifty feet of slope. The Fenwick is such a rod.

I'm spooling the 1492 1/2 with about 30 feet of dacron and a  little mono-core running line (maybe 60 feet, maybe 70 ) to use with a 150 grain OPST head. I'll either mount the Galvan Brookie with the 3wt Wulff TT which is wonderful stuff for accurate, delicate presentation or I'll mount this 1492 1/2 with the OPST head for less delicate and longer-reach outings.

I'll admit it: a 4 wt is overkill for most of the fish I catch. There it is.

My big brown of the year was just shy of 14". I caught a bigger brookie as the first fish of the '17 season. Neither of those fish would be unplayable in any sporting sense on this Fenwick 3wt.

Sure, I might not be able to horse a 14" brown out of cover with a glass 3 wt. Better than 50-50 I can. Even if I fail, that's a problem I'll take any day.

I use single-handed Spey techniques for most of my fishing, now. It the mechanism to use when slowing stepping through a "tree-tunnel" and you still want to reach the nice cut alongside the far bank. Adding an OPST head system for my lightweight work is just putting another tool in the tool box.

I'm a wet fly guy most of the time. If I were a dry fly guy most of the time, I'd stick with just the Triangle Taper and my hand-tied leaders.

I'm not.

I'll let you know how spring training goes with the light heads.

I have to go and test my dirty-rice made with smoked turkey sausage.  I'm training for all aspects of the season including the critical "chow time." [ UPDATE: I used a popular box mix for the dirty rice base. Huge mistake. 500 mg of sodium per cup. Tasted like a salt bowl. Low grade dog food .... with added salt. As always, shortcuts usually turn out not to be. ]

Hope your training includes a plan for "tasty."

Prost.