Monday Morning Coffee- 5/28/18

Yyyyuuuurrrrppphhhtttt!!! Yawn, stretch, scratch, repeat- let's have some coffee!

I'm drinking some rather fine coffee I get at Costco now from Mayan Organics. It's a little too strong, but it definitely jump starts the engine in the morning.

It's been so long since I posted here that I'm afraid to go look back and see how long it's been. Is Fontinalis Rising dead, or just hibernating? Time will tell. I've been trying to figure out what to do with this blog since I moved to Georgia. I don't fish as much due to my new circumstances, and FR feels inextricably tied to Michigan. With all the fishing in the nearby Smoky Mountains you'd think I'd have plenty of material, but I don't get out as much as I'd like. I'm hoping to change that.

I do have some material to share. We went on a cruise to Mexico last fall and booked a half day with a guide in Xcalak and finally caught my first bonefish. That story is written and just never published. Then Louis Cahill of Gink and Gasoline called me on a Thursday in January and asked if I could leave for the Bahamas on Saturday, so I ran off for a week of chasing bonefish there. We had terrible weather and great fishing. I caught a bone that was well over ten pounds, the fight of my life, so I'll have to share that story soon. I went on a float with Louis a few weeks ago and had a slow day until he hooked and landed a six pound brown on a streamer. (In searching links for this post I just discovered Louis wrote an account of our float here.)  And last week I got back from a few days of dry fly fishing in northern Michigan with some notorious friends as it was just getting started. It was fantasy dry fly fishing; absolutely superb. Oh, and I'm forgetting my musky trip last fall in which we each caught a musky in the first hour of fishing.

Ok, so I'm just lazy. I have written a couple posts about the Bahamas for Louis that you can read here and here, with a couple more in the works. And after I got back from the musky trip I wrote a gear review piece for MidCurrent you can read here.

Nick Johnson manning the counter at Tuckaseegee Fly Shop

I did go out on a scouting run to North Carolina yesterday. There is a whole lot of good fishing there that is only two hours from my living room, including trout, smallmouth, and musky water. We drove straight up to Sylva and stopped in at the Tuckaseegee Fly Shop. The guys there were more than helpful, sold me a few flies and sent us off to a creek nearby due to sustained high water conditions on the main river. As I write this we're experiencing rains from the first tropical system of the year. Anywho, due to my lack of familiarity with the area, I missed the access and kept driving all the way to Bryson City and stopped in at Tuckaseegee's other fly shop. The guy there was just as helpful and sent me to fish Deep Creek right up the road. We drove up there, but due to it being the holiday weekend and an access to the national park, it was a total shit show. It is said that if you just follow the trail upstream a mile or so, the fishing gets pretty good, but we couldn't even find a parking spot, so we turned around and drove back to Sylva to look for the accesses we missed on Scott Creek. We found them, but by then rain was pelting down on what was already a high and stained creek that thunders down a narrow ravine. What can I say, it was a scouting trip, and I plan to keep at it until I find some quality fishing. This is just the beginning.

So, my coffee is done. I'll leave you with a few photos from the various trips to tide you over until I get an actual post done.

Enjoy what's left of your Memorial Day weekend. Let's get after it.

Tom Hazelton with a great musky from last fall

perhaps the only shot I have that survived from Mexico

guide Ronnie Bain with my big bonefish on Andros

Louis with a great brown from a few weeks ago