OT: Fly-Fishing and Other Outdoor Pursuits

I went fly fishing once as a kid. I liked it. I wish I could have kept doing it. It is a much more active way of fishing if you are into that sort of thing. Lots of folks just want to drink a beer…well you can’t do that when fly fishing.

I wish I could do outdoors stuff this summer, but we have been remodeling our kitchen with our own bare hands. I tore down a wall, and we are starting to replace the cabinets. We now cook in the living room.

My dad loves fly fishing but doesn’t do it much these days. I enjoy it a little and liked ’A River Runs Through It," but I never really caught the bug, if you will.

There is nothing much like being in the middle of the North Umpqua at 7am. It’s as if time slows down and your senses receive super powers. For me (not most) I do not even care if I catch something.

good times.

Not that I’ve been able to go on any good hikes this year :( But your guys’ pictures make me wanna go bad. The only really fun outside thing I’ve been able to do this summer is float the Toutle River which is a blast! Three hours of no cell phones or responsibility is great, and so is beer and my cooler radio.

I only caught a tiny little trout which I threw back. What I like about it is fooling a fish into thinking it’s about to eat some delicious food only to find a sharpened piece of barbed, surgical steel hooked into it’s delicate face by a barbaric, alien land creature who after ripping it out of the sanctity of it’s native environment, rips the hook out the wrong way and throws it back into the river it came from to wonder to itself what kind of god would allow such a horrible thing to happen.

So I can go camping.

As far as summer activities…I went on a three day white water rafting trip down the lower rogue in June.

Four days on different stretches of the John Day, a couple at East Lake in Newberry Crater and a couple at Fall River. We did some fossil hunting and hiking in between fishing stops. There’s nothing quite like standing in the middle of a pristine river, like Fall River, in the dazzling central Oregon sun, dropping your fly just where you want it, letting the current carry it just right, over the rise. At that point it doesn’t matter whether you catch a fish or not, it all about the river anyway.

Working through a book with 50 nice tours in the Alps (not all in one year) and so far had some good trips. Nothing too extreme, but not just on good roads and trails with some light climbing. Some experiences along the way so far include getting into a thunderstorm (once really, once able to reach a hut just in time), having to descend a face and into a valley I didn’t plan for and thus having to cross a steep logging site and a river in the middle of the night, filmed and photographed a chamois from up close, and last week saw a little black snake at a height of about 6000 ft which was odd. Also visited an ice cave 2 weeks ago of which there aren’t that many so that was fun.

Pics: Hiked over and all around this ridge 2 weeks ago http://i.imgur.com/UBZp3.jpg
And was on this about 8 weeks ago http://i.imgur.com/GupuS.jpg

else does their thing. Adult children are the best kind.

“any undivided attention is prayer”
This quote pretty much sums up the allure of fly fishing. A combination of complete relaxation and complete concentration refreshes me in a way that’s unmatched by anything else.