About TVangler Welcome to our site! We're a group of outdoor enthusiasts currently residing in North Alabama in the Tennessee Valley. We write about fly fishing and just about any other type of fishing you might be interested in. We also occasionally write about photography, blogging, conservation, backpacking, hiking and whatever random stuff happens to be on our minds. Hope you enjoy!
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By Nathan Kennedy on November 18th, 2009
In A River Runs Through It (whether the movie or the novella I don’t remember – I sometimes confuse scenes from the two), Norman Maclean tells of how his father valued brevity in writing. Reading through my post about online fishing magazines, I realize this is something sorely missing from my own writing style.
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By Nathan Kennedy on October 9th, 2009
Took me awhile to get this done. We’ve had some pretty severe illness in the family which took up a good bit of my time. This trip took place Aug 21 – Sep 5.
The Great Plains
This trip marked my third road trip to the Rockies in the last four years. The otherworldly charm of the Great Plains is wearing off. At one rest area I read that it took pioneers in covered wagons a full month just to cross Nebraska. “That’s pretty rough, but at least it wasn’t South Dakota,” is all I could think. The third day on the road found me and my sore hindquarters desperate for a sight of the mountains. That first glimpse of the Big Horns is like a drink of cold spring water on a dusty late summer day. Some day I hope to take a more leisurely tour of the Rockies. When and if I do, I will plunge into those mountains and give them a good looking over. This time we just drove right on past. The first time I went to the Rockies, several of us younger folks drove 32 hours straight (with visits to a few spots along the way) before stopping to rest. At the time, when we were desperately searching for a hotel with a vacancy before we passed out completely, it felt like a really stupid idea. This time we had parents with us who struggle to do 10 hours on the road at once. The idea was to take it easy with the trip spread over four days. I have decided I like the suicidal 30 hour drive better. Just get it all over with at once if you and your group is physically capable.
 My parents and Jacqulyn at Avalanche Lake. The Alabama Bar
We stayed our first two nights in Glacier at Lake Macdonald Lodge. I liked the place. The hunting lodge atmosphere was cool and the food was great for a national park. After dinner a few of us went to the little bar for a drink. When we walked in there were only two other people present (it was near closing time). I had on my Bama ball cap. I ordered a favorite Montana beer – Moose Drool – and the bar tender, in a distinctly Southern drawl, asked where we came from. The girls said Alabama, and the guy laughed, said he was from Birmingham and pointed at the only other person in the room, a fellow sitting at the bar who looked a lot like Tom McGuane. When he told us he was from Sylacauga, AL it became pretty obvious he wasn’t Tom McGuane, but it was almost as cool that the bar was entirely populated by native Alabamians at that point.
Avalanche Lake
The next day I had a day hike planned for everyone to Avalanche Lake. We spent a long time trying to find a parking spot. I wouldn’t recommend this trail if you want anything even remotely resembling solitude. Dad and I carried our fly rods on the hike to the lake, but when we got there we found so many people milling about and throwing rocks that we just sat on a log and enjoyed the view. I took a few photos, but the light was pretty harsh.
 That's me netting a nice cutthroat. The Good Fishing
We drove across Going-to-the-Sun Road to St. Mary Campground where we would spend the next five nights. The first full day Dad, Jacqulyn and I hiked into a high alpine lake where we found absolutely stunning scenery and abundant rising cutthroats. This was really my first experience with good high mountain lake fishing, and I loved it! 10 nice cutts between 15 and 18″ came reluctantly to my hand. It was pretty easy to spot cruising fish in the crystal clear water even though the surface was choppy. The trick was finding what they wanted. I had good luck on mayfly emergers and caddis dries. Dad and Jacqulyn didn’t have as good a luck, but both of them missed some fish and Dad caught a couple. This lake is far from a secret, but I’m not going to name it anyway. If only we’d gone back there a couple days later…
Back at camp, we drove over to the KOA for showers and a meal at the Park Cafe. Try the Park Cafe if you’re in St. Mary. Good hamburgers and fantastic pies. If you’re in a big group, don’t make the mistake of asking for separate checks. One of the girls working there was pretty rude when one of our group asked if they’d mind separating them. Still, the pies and burgers are worth a bit of rudeness.
 A cutthroat trout caught in Glacier National Park.  Dad casting to cruising cutts on our lake.  I waited forever for Dad to cast for this shot, but he must have had the mother of all tangles, so I just snapped it anyway.  Another of the cutts I brought to hand. Continue reading Glacier NP Road Trip Notes
By Matt Walker on September 15th, 2009
Some weekends start with a dull groan. Some start with a bang. And some start with 500,000 lbs of liquid oxygen and hydrogen igniting in a fantastic, internal-organ-shaking, controlled explosion.
Bet my Friday night was a bit more ‘moving’ than yours was, huh?
At 11:57:38, my family and I watched the space shuttle take off from Kennedy Space Center. We were about as close as you can get without dodging smoke clouds, debris and terrified animals – so close that, once it cleared the pad, we felt the launch as much as heard/saw it. An incredible experience I’ll always cherish, as I got to share it with my youngest two kidlets – my son yelling “YEAH! GO!GO!GO!” was the highlight for me. After the excitement wore off and I was driving home, serenaded by the sounds of EVERYONE in the van snoring, I realized the entire evening only had one small drawback for me – I knew I had to get up at 0430 the next morning. See, I finally got invited to go fishing…
As most of you know, we moved to Satellite Beach, Florida, about a month or so ago. Since that time I’ve battled mortgage agents and banking figures for the privilege of giving them money every month for the next 15-30 years, and engaged in a ferocious war against boxes stacked throughout my house. Thankfully we defeated the mediocrity and ambivalence of the banking and mortgage community (why on Earth they fight so hard to restrict my ability to give them all my money I’ll never know), and have the cardboard menace on the run now – we’ve conquered and laid claim to all lands but the garage. I plan on storming the last stronghold of the hated enemy when things cool down.
Just before we actually moved in, the master builder for the community came by to do our walk through. Bill Segall, a 58 year old guy with a mountain of experience in the construction arts, has one of those faces you know is about to break into a grin at any moment. Engaging and entertaining, with little eyes smiling out from behind small, wire rimmed glasses, I can’t think of anyone who wouldn’t instantly like him. At one point in the walk through, Bill made a comment about fish possibly lurking in the pond right behind my house (a pond I cannot get to/fish in, by the way), and we struck up a conversation about fishing.
Bill’s been freshwater fishing Florida’s canals and backwaters for decades and told me the one thing I was dying to hear; “I love going fishing but can’t seem to find anybody that wants to go with me.” I think Angie’s ‘Oh my God, here we go’ exasperation rumbled the walls.. Continue reading Matt’s First Florida Fishing Trip
By Nathan Kennedy on July 14th, 2009
and a smorgasbord of other stuff!
I taunt Insane with my first bass of the day! Yes, my friends, that is a tequila sunrise Culprit worm.
Yes, fishing in a muddy creek. That’s all the fishing I’ve gotten to do in the last couple weeks. Insane and I hit the little creek he [...]
By Nathan Kennedy on July 6th, 2009
Well, I managed to have four and a half days off work over the holiday weekend and only get in a barely noticeable amount of fishing. I suppose a little fishing is better than none, but my hunger for a big (and successful) fishing trip is gnawing at my gut. This not catching much thing is growing old.
On Thursday Insane, his brother Justin, Jason Kelley, and I went fishing for a few hours before dark on the Flint River. On my second cast I had a smallmouth nearly kill itself trying to eat my popper, and somehow I still managed to miss him. That was it for me. Not another bite from anything large enough to eat a bass popper. Insane and Justin fished a feeder stream while Jason and I fished in opposite directions on the Flint, Jason going up and me down.
 Ankle-biting slime on the Flint River. After a couple hours of fruitless casting and fighting the long strands of bright green slime-like weeds that rejoiced in wrapping around my ankles, I headed back to see how Jason was faring. I arrived to find him working a big flat pool full of rising fish, none of which he was fooling. I sat on a log and watched. We decided that a size 8 Adams would probably have done the trick, but we had only brought the typical gaudy warmwater flies. I got up with my big bass popper to give it a try. After only a handful of casts, I decided it was pointless and began practicing distance casting, succeeding only in scaring the remaining fish into the next state (it’s funny what you’ll resort to when the fish aren’t biting – don’t think Jason was amused). I simply cannot get as much distance as I’d like with a big bass popper. They just catch so much wind and seem to die mid-way through a long cast. Actually I can work out a decent bit of line and shoot some distance, but I can’t hold much line in the air. A few times I let the popper hit the water surface on a double hauled false cast, and from the sound of it, I hauled the thing straight to the river bottom. Sounded like someone dragging an anchor behind a motor boat. I finally gave up, cursed a few last times at my casting arm, vowed to practice on the lawn, and trudged back to meet Jason at the truck. Continue reading Mondays with Hawgdaddy: July 6, 2009
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Brevity
In A River Runs Through It (whether the movie or the novella I don’t remember – I sometimes confuse scenes from the two), Norman Maclean tells of how his father valued brevity in writing. Reading through my post about online fishing magazines, I realize this is something sorely missing from my own writing style.
[...]
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