Winter Trout, Not My Thing

Well I went to a few creeks in Fayette County that run into Indian Creek. I got lost, several times, had to stop and ask some random people for directions, several times. Man it was a mess, but it was a very pretty area. Stopped at one of the creeks, I didn't believe it was the right one so I left, tried to find the right one, hit some ice, and then went back to find out the right on was about 100 yards from where I was fishing. In the end I got nothing there and went over to Westmoreland County to try my luck at a wild trout creek there. I had one on, but none to hand, ended up getting water in my wader and stopped fishing early. Depending on the weather I may go out again or not, it is looking pretty harsh this next week.

Wild and Cold

Going up to a few creeks around Forbes State Forest, I believe it is Forbes State Forest, doesn't matter though. It is going to be freezing up there, I just hope the creeks don't have to much ice or anything on them. I will be taking my camera so at least I will get some pictures of the area and creek and such. Well wish me luck.

Elitists and the Uninformed

I recently posted on facebook that "finding good wild trout streams is a pain in the ass." In about 20 minutes one of my "friends" asked if I had found any and asked where they where. I also asked on a forum for a little help trying to find some good streams in the Laurel Highland area. I had someone reply that I needed to get a book and find them. I really hate people like this, both of them. I want to clarify I had indeed spent 2 hours looking and mapping out areas with wild trout, going onto the PFBC site to see what types of fish they held and what the concentration of them was. I also should say, I did have a gentleman give me more than enough information on where to get started, a lot more than I was expecting and I was very thankful. It just pisses me off when someone who knows the area because they live their and don't have to drive an hour won't even get you pointed in the right direction and tells you to go exploring. If the creeks were ten to twenty minutes away I would be all for exploring the area and finding creeks that might have wild trout that aren't named or never fished, but I don't live that close, so I cant do that. It also aggravates me when someone just asks for any info you find, do a little research, I have been doing my own, ya once I find out I will maybe help you out and get you pointed in the right direction, but no I am not going to tell you everything I found. I do understand why the man said to go exploring, he probably thinks I am just a random dude asking for info, but I already looked up everything I could and just wanted a little help from there.

I jumped around a lot there so if it got confusing here is the main idea of it, I hate people who won't help you at all because they did their exploring so you do yours, and I hate people who want to put 0 effort into finding wild trout and just want your information.


OK I vented, I am done, now to fishing. I will hopefully be going out Saturday to a couple creeks to see what they have in store for me. I would like to have a few creeks for when my buddy gets back from college to go fishing. It will be my first time fishing somewhere far away without my fishing buddy, it is going to be real weird, but I guess I will just have to get over that. Hopefully I will find a few wild trout and maybe some stray stocked fish to make my wintry months just a little nicer. First time fishing in the winter for trout to, its definitely going to be an experience  I will try to take my camera and get a few pics, probably not of fish though, don't want to get it wet.

Success in Erie

My neighbor and I went to Erie on Saturday. The creeks were brown and high due to a little rain and snow melt so we ended up fishing the mouth of trout run. Sadly I didn't use my fly rod, to many people and I didn't want to be that guy who took for ever to get a fish in. So I stuck with what I new best, my noodle rod. We arrived when the sun was just rising. I took to long and didn't get a spot right away, I need to learn how to tie my shoes on faster. After a gentleman left I took his spot and had a hit immediately on powerbait, then another, missed both of them. So I tied on a treble hook and SNAGGED him, no I am just kidding, I caught one on my first cast with the powerbait and treble hook though. I guess the single hook had a hard time finding it mouth. I ended up using a whole jar of that stuff without bringing another fish to hand. I had some on, just couldn't get them in. The bite was on and off all day though, they would hit like crazy for 30 or so minutes and then die off for an hour or so. Closer to the end of the day I was using an egg imitation and caught a small jack. Then a little while after a landed a nice one. First time in my Erie fishing history I have ever caught a limit in one day. 6 fish for my Erie career, 3 on this day. Didn't manage to bring anymore to hand, lost a few more though. We ended up with 6 fish brought to hand, 3 each and about 20 hook ups that broke us off or spit the hook. Had a great day though, weather was nice, not tooooo many people, enough were I would have rather been fishing the high creeks, but it was bearable.

I went hunting the day before and today without any luck, but I was happy with Saturday's results. I will be going hunting tomorrow again with a few friends and hopefully going up to the mountains fishing for wild trout a few times in the next two weeks. I would like to get either a wild rainbow or brown before I go back to school, but if I don't wild brook trout will be fine.

Being sick

I don't know if it is a mix of bad sleep habits, stress or my brother getting me sick, but I ended up getting sick and missing a two day trip to Erie. My neighbor called me and asked me if I wanted to go up to Erie Saturday so I figured I better start resting up and start getting to bed earlier. Well I do hope my grandpap gets a few fish up there, and hopefully I will be feeling better by Saturday to go. Kind of sucks that my 3 possible days fishing in Erie dropped down to 1, but you got to take what you are given.

I need to start writing more

I think I am just lazy, but as much as I love sitting down and writing a blog post, I hate it too. It is fun to tell your story for the millions of people on the internet to see, even though I might get about 6 or 7 to look at it consistently, but I guess I should just keep going since I like it. I do miss posts with pictures though, maybe that's why it;s harder to write. I think I need to invest in a water proof camera so I don't need to worry about breaking it.

Well then, went to Erie last Friday with my buddy Will, and let me tell you it was cold. The air was so bad it was the wind that got you. I believe it was around 25 or so degrees, but the wind chill was around 10. We arrived around 9:15 and started fishing by 9:30. We got there are just the right time because the bite started to pick up instantly. I lost 3 or 4 during the next 2 hours and my buddy managed to get 1 with a few lost. I had one fish break off and I guess he thought it would be funny to sit right in front of me, and obviously it was the first one I had on. I had to look at his dumb ass for 2 hours straight sitting there with my hook in its mouth. Well my feet started to freeze of so we headed to the car for some lunch and drove to get some gas so we had a little time to warm up. When we got back we decided we would try further up the creek. We saw 2 fish and said the hell with it and went back down to were we started. We each had a few more hook ups but none of them wanted to come in. It was almost pitch black and we decided we should probably call it a day. We ran to the nearest McDonalds and grabbed our favorite meal, the Premium Chicken Sandwich, that thing is delicious, give it a try trust me. All in all we only managed 1 fish that my buddy caught and a smolt that I caught, lucky me 2 times in a row now I've caught a smolt.

Looks like I will be going up Thursday and Friday with my grandfather, but that is weather depending, this warmer weather coming could make or break the creeks. Hopefully the weather is in favor of us and I want come back empty handed. Actually I will probably come back empty handed no matter what because I don't really think I want to spend the time cleaning fish.

1 Month

Since I posted my last, well, post? Sorry, school was getting very hard, don't know if I managed to pass all my classes yet, but I decided I should at least say something. I did go to Erie between this gap of time and managed one little fish, and by little I mine no more than 8 inches, but my friend did get his first steelhead on the fly. It was a good day, kind of like a parent watching their kid catch a fish. We have both worked very hard on fly fishing and have had a ton of laughs watching each other fail, but when you finally get to see them catch something like that it is awesome. We lost about 10 more fish, bad knots and sharp rocks, but we still had a blast. We will be going up the 21st of this month. We were supposed to be going for 3 days but it looks like that will be changing. We are also going to try and get out and do a a little wild trout fishing again, and after that hopefully another trip or two to Erie and maybe one to Ohio. Something that I really want to throw out there throw out there though is the shooting in CT.

I am sure many of you know what happened, and if you don't you must be living in a box and I have no idea how you managed to find this blog. A man named Adam Lanza killed 20 kids, and 6 adults when he shot up a school. At this moment they are unsure why he did it, they believe he might have been getting even with his mother, but they also think he might have been mentally unstable. This is a terrible tragedy that occurs more and more every year whether we like it or not. As much as I hate to say it, I do believe better control over guns would help a lot. Many of these shootings were people who lost it or had previous mental health issues. We either need to make sure that guns do not end up in the hands of people like this or make sure they have the proper treatment. Now when I say we need more control over guns I am NOT saying take all the guns away. I do believe that the background check should include past family history of mental illness and mental illness on that person. I also do not think there is any reason to have semi-automatic rifles that have 50 round clips, or really more than 10. I do understand that he did not shoot anyone with a semi-automatic rifle, but he did have one in his vehicle. For some reason, maybe the cops got there in time or maybe he just had enough, he did not get the Bushmaster he has in his car. If he had gotten hold of it I fear that the death toll would be far greater than it was. I do hope stricter laws come from this. As someone who has nothing to worry about background wise I do not believe there is a problem with this. If waiting an extra day or two to get my gun, will stop even one school shooting, I would be completely fine with that.

Now to address the people that instantly attacked the NRA for this shooting. I do hope you realize that the NRA has absolutely nothing to do with this shooting. The NRA fights for our right as Americans to have guns. They fight for our Second Amendment right for a reason. If the government was to ever get out of hand, as Americans we have the power to fight back because of it. You may say that such I thing will never happen, but I would rather have my gun in case it did. Back to the NRA, if the they budge and decide that they aren't going to fight for semi-automatic rifles anymore they backed down and made them look weaker. This is a stepping stone for anti-gun activists to fight to get ride of all guns, this is why the NRA is fighting for all guns. To blame them because they are trying to protect the rights that this nation was founded upon is ridiculous. Maybe you should place the blame on Adam Lanza, or maybe no one at all, especially since it isn't helping the families who were affected by this. Feel sympathy first and then fight for what you think is right.

And now on to something that aggravated me just as much as people bashing on the NRA was the people bashing on Mass Effect for causing this. When this originally happened they gave out the wrong name, they gave out Adam's brothers name, Ryan. People immediately went on to his facebook page and saw what he had liked and started attacking it. Mass Effect was the big one since it was a shooting game. Of course most of these people had no idea what they were talking about. Mass Effect is a game about aliens who are killing the humans, I was never a huge fan of the game so I don't know to much about it. I do know that these game is nothing like real life, the guns and creatures are all made up. In this game you are fighting to help the human race, not kill it. People just want to run and blame things when something like this happens. If you do not even know what it is you are blaming, how can you possibly blame it. Everyone on their(Mass Effect's) facebook page made themselves sound like a complete ass, and it was even worse when they found out it, oops wrong guy. Now you have tried to destroy a game that has no relationship whatsoever to the shooter. Get real, these people are blaming everything that they can just because they don't like the thought of someone actually being mentally ill and doing this, there just has to be another reason for it.

In conclusion, for god sakes take a minute to feel some sympathy towards these people before you start attacking one another. If the man was mentally ill, the game and the NRA would have nothing to do with this. If the man wasn't mentally ill, they still wouldn't have anything to do with it. As people we make choices, as much as you think are choices come from are surroundings they don't. Ever wonder how kids can be so different from their parents? Because they make a choice, whether it is right or wrong they make a choice so blaming other people for someone else's choice is just plain stupid. If you disagree on something leave a comment, I am pretty open minded and will definitely think about it and comment back. Also sorry for the rant, but it has been all over facebook and twitter since it happened and I feel like I needed to voice my opinion somewhere on the internet.