Friday Footnotes: random, rambling reflections to round out the reek…er, I mean week
Things have been a little depressing around the TVangler this week. As you saw in Matt’s last article, we’ll be losing one of our own. It’s always sad when a friend moves away. I feel like Matt and I are leaving a lot of unfished water out there. One positive is that he’s moving to Melbourne, FL, which is smack-dab in the middle of one of the world’s best areas for trophy redfish. Insane and I have already told him to clear a spot in his back yard for us to pitch a tent. We’re not letting him go without throwing some sort of party. I made the initial preparations last night. We went to see the new Star Trek movie (grea flick, by the way), and I discovered that a new cigar and wine shop had moved in just down the sidewalk. 4 Rocky Patel Vintage 1992s, 2 Arturo Fuente Hemingways, and 2 Rocky Patel Sun Grown cigars are now in my possession just waiting for the right time. Now, I believe I’m supposed to be locating a good bourbon…anyone out there have a good suggestion for a fine bourbon that I might be able to locate here in North Alabama?
Justin's nice bass.
The most depressing thing though, no offense to Matt, is that we haven’t done much fishing, and to make matters worse, friends insist on sending me photos of their big catches. Insane’s brother Justin landed the nice bass at the right just down the road from my house. It’s like he’s spitting right in my eye and then laughing about it.
Next came Matthew Crampton with his monster brown, all four pounds of it. In case you’ve forgotten, Matthew is the fellow from across the pond who helped write the book on The Angler’s Retreat, a fishing lodge on the island of South Uist off the coast of Scotland. I can only take so much of this before I go nuts. Luckily I’ve got that backpacking trip to North Georgia coming up next weekend, and I do hope to get in a little fishing before then. Matthew never fails to mention his music choices for his fishing trip. This time it was “Ryan Adams, Gillian Welch and jazz pianist friend… called Dorian Ford.” I’m a Gillian Welch fan myself, but the other two have given me some new artists to explore. We here at TVangler aren’t entirely musically-deprived. Just about the whole staff attended a concert by country legend John Anderson last Sunday night. Who can resist such greats as “Wish I Could Have Been There,” “Seminole Wind,” “Straight Tequila Night,” “Wild and Blue,” and of course “Swingin’”? And one can’t forget “Chicken Truck.” Matthew got his big fish, his largest brown ever, on South Uist with Angler’s Retreat owner Billy at the oars.
Matthew's big brown. We'll try not to hate him...
The reason we haven’t done much fishing is mostly due to rod-building and fly tying, both for the upcoming backpacking trip and for a mid-June trip to the beach for redfish and whatever else will bite. I’m also tying up some flies for a charity auction – luckily they didn’t seem to care how poor my fly tying skills happen to be. So I guess we haven’t completely neglected our favorite sport. Maybe we’ll post some photos over the weekend of the flies we’ve been working on. I tied my first bass popper from a foam sandal, and it turned out pretty nice. For the auction, I’m tying up a couple dozen of a fly called Sam’s One Bug. It was invented by a gentlemen who lived here in Huntsville, and it’s a great bluegill and bass fly. Most importantly, it’s easy to tie. Maybe someone will buy a few.
Oh, I nearly forgot. We did fish Pond X last Friday, but the water was so high we couldn’t fish where we wanted to. Our efforts were restricted to a small corner of the pond, now really a sizable lake after all the rain. I used the time to test some of my new flies, and Insane landed a bluegill or two. Jason Kelley joined us there along with a friend from Texas. The friend showed us all up by landing a 2 lb bass, but it wasn’t on a fly rod, so I’m not entirely sure we can count it 
I tried out one of the bass flies James Marsh sent me called the Swimming Frog. I was thrilled with this fly! It floats exceedingly well and dives when stripped just like the jerk baits I used to cast with conventional gear. I believe it’ll be a killer out on Lake Guntersville once the milfoil grows up close to the surface. I said, “I love the way this fly works!” to which Jason replied, “I haven’t seen it work yet,” referring to my not catching a fish. The low-down, no good, smart alec, hog-calling…
I’m skipping the naturalist tutorial for today. It’s midnight, and I’m too tired to type anything else. Take care,
Nathan
[...] also recently heard from Matthew Crampton, our friend from Scotland who just loves taunting us with photos of huge brown trout. I found sadistic pleasure in Matthew’s latest note as it turns out he had a tough trip on [...]