Mid-Winter Nights

 

My wife's cat Cheeto advising me that he is not a dubbing donor. So I clipped a little when he was sleeping. He'll never miss it.

It is cold here. I blew snow before breakfast. Shelf ice is rampant and the Huron is leaning toward icing over.

The good part about winter is getting ready for the thaw and sharing with other trout addicts the winter evenings. Our fly tying group that usually would meet at a local tavern is now completely virtual and we have folks calling in from Florida and Oregon. Feels good to talk trout and flies.

Winter makes us all a little nuts.

The four pets hang out around the fire every night.

I've been improving my camping gear. Some of the trout tiers have a camping trip planned for March to water open all year round. We hope to get a jump on the season and crowds and do a little socially distanced camping while chasing trout.

 

At left,  Coffee Spit named for the gentleman named Coffee who  put the deal together. The spit can hold a chicken, a couple cornish game hens, 4 fillets, or a three pound English roast. 

The ingenious thing is that part of the spit is a square instead of being round and one of the "Y" posts receives the square part so meat can be rotated without the usual slipping and sliding.

Cannot wait to do a little cooking "Ogg-style" roasting meats beside a nice fire and enjoying the the ease of not grilling.

More camping gear upgrades: a new dual fuel Coleman lantern. My thirty-year-old propane lantern is just fine except for the propane consumption and the fact I always run out when I thought I had plenty of fuel.

Anyway, nice new lantern and some Coleman fuel in the garage. 

A trout-sized bougle in gunmetal. It is a 1939 reproduction and will be the last reel I buy. 

A drake designed to fit in the film. Alan over at Small Stream Reflections (link at right)  ties cleaner fellows but I think this might fool my trout. I've tied a ton of these this winter as I have again found the size 14 long-shank fly a good stand-in for almost any hatch. I'm getting better at the "buggy" part.

That is furnace hen on the hackle. Soaked in a permanent waterproofing solution, this is a solid dry fly.

A spring soft hackled fly for brook trout on the Black River. It is from my dwindling supply of purple Pearsall's but the color seems a killer for early Michigan brookies. I've had good fortune with it.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Monday night saw a dozen of these being whipped up. It is a CDC bubble caddis tied thanks to Davie McPhail's illustrative video.

I like an X-caddis but find the cdc varient caddis flies are surprisingly durable and offer a "pull and pop" effect where a hand twist can pull them under the surface only to pop back up. Drives browns absolutely crazy ... if they are looking up at caddis. 

So, here's to spring!

 Prost!