January the 31st and I have not fished nor hunted in many weeks now. I’ve made some 15 pounds of venison jerky and, having done so, gained back at least a few of the pounds I’ve lost this past year.
Hell, I’m so bored I may even tie up some NYMPHS!
Let’s see, Superbowl Party at Doc’s tomorrow with a wild trout stream in his backyard. Perhaps I bring my 3 weight in addition to some tasty venison treats…Go Giants!!! (I still remain firmly in denial about the 2008 football season).
As with fishing, there’s no such thing as too much whisky.
A bunch of us are gathering Saturday, January 24 to celebrate our annual “Whisky Dinner.” If you haven’t attended one of these before, it’s a blast and well-worth an evening apart from the little lady. Most of the Louts will be there. It’s a steak dinner, lots of single malt and other adult beverages, and a chance to laugh and tell a few whoppers without having to douse your cigar. Oh, and there’s another bluidy haggis.
To learn more, point your browsers to my spiffy new website, created just in time for the 2009 event: http://www.burnsnicht.com.
2008? Feh! May the New Year bring you All Things Good that may be taken without nymphing!
This year’s PA deer season was a very special one for yours truly. It began with snow covered ground, a bonus for seeing deer in the dense forest. I climbed into my stand 
long before dark to allow the woods to settle down.
Shortly after first light (~ 7 am), three deer snuck through the top of the Hemlock swamp below my stand. Quickly finding them in my binoculars, I could not make out any antlers and watched as they passed through the thick beech trees below my stand. It is always exciting to see the first deer of the season and my stand typically does not see deer that early. I thought to myself, this is going to be a special day! We had seen some real bruisers during bow and small game season and each of our 11 hunters in camp were hoping that one of these big boys would show themselves. Little did we know what the day would provide Camp Yellow Snow…
About a half hour later while looking off to my west, I caught movement out of the corner of my eye. As I slowly turned towards that movement, I saw a large buck step out of the thick beeches and right into my cleared shooting lane - a mere 35 yards away. Surprised that he had snuck up on my so quietly, I quickly got my rifle into position, took the safety off and took aim. BANG barked the big 7 mm Rem Mag and off he went. Did I make a good shot? That deer bolted at the shot and I wasn’t sure, but I knew at that range without branches in my way that my bullet should have flown true. I quickly chambered another round and swung the gun towards my running deer. Just as the scope swung to his path, I could see that I had, indeed, hit him hard. But with the thick beech trees still holding their brown leaves, I could not see him well as he piled up in the snow about 40 yards past where I had shot at him. Giving him 10 minutes to be certain, I unloaded the gun and lowered it and my backpack to the ground and climbed down from my stand, all the while shaking with excitement. In the heat of the moment, I realized that I had no idea just how big he was, I hadn’t needed to take the time to count antler points - I just knew he was the largest deer of my life to date.
Walking to where I had taken the shot I found his track.
Did I hit him? I must have, after all, he went down in the thick trees. There was no blood at that scene, so I began to track him, finding this in the snow…
That’s what I thought! A lung shot and a good one!!! Tracking in the snow was quite easy and I quickly recovered my 10 point buck - the largest taken to date in some 40 years of hunting at Camp Yellow Snow (I’ve hunted that camp for about the past 26 years). Later on that same day my buddy Dave shot another monster. This one an eight point buck. Two of our other hunters were also lucky enough to take legal bucks and all 11 of our hunters saw bucks, although many of those were too young to take given PA’s 3 points per side antler restrictions. Should be plenty of young bucks around for the future!
As November winds down, I’ve had the good fortune to dine, fish or speak with many of the Louts recently. By far the most interesting day on the water for yours truly was last week when Glenn Kamp and I met up along the Jersey beaches to fish for stripers and blues. With strong westerlies, the fish were too far offshore for our tackle but we were amazed to see a whale feeding in the shallows merely 100 yards or closer at times to the beach! I wish I had a fancy camera with me instead of my point and shoot, but here is a photo from that day.
On Monday of this week, Louts Kamp (can you tell he’s recently retired???) and Axt met me down at Sandy Hook for another attempt. This time the wind was strong out of the SW and we did not see any bait nor bass. Leaving early to get some real work done, I was surprised to hear from Glenn later that night that things picked up considerably after Rick and I left. First were the hickory shad, fun but not what you came for, and later stripers. I guess it pays to stay until dark…
Photo from in-the-field R&D preliminary studies about a request for a new fly to be based on the old Adirondackstandby - the “Humpy” fly - getting morphed with the Moosehair flies used in the arctic and scaled up for Cowden/Kamp new passion of surf fishing for whales:
I was invited and fished the North shore off Orient Point, yeaterday, Oct. 26, 2008. We first fished for Blackfish, a first for me, and we all did well. The captain did, however, have to cut off one of his two anchors after hooking the telecommunications cable off Plum Island. (The sign on the shore pointing the cable out to captains was as large as the HOLLYWOOD sign.) After that we fished in a way that was new to me and I had no choice in the matter despite the fact that I asked the captain at least 3 times. The mates set out 6 rods along one rail, loaded with unbreakable spider line, they added a a large lead wt. and trailing 3 feet behind a bucktail with a fluttering pork rind. There were 11 “fishermen” on the boat so we took turns. The captain would tell us to drop to the botton, reel up a few times and he trolled. The first pass produced 2 keeper stripers and 2 monster blues and I was thinking this was not a bad thing. That was it for the large stripers as only 2 more were caught, both shorts. Many more blues were caught and many were released to grow even larger. There was action everywhere and this is an amazing place. A long ride (2 hrs. from the GWB) and I did not see anyone fishing from the shore. The boats at the marina were all private or small boats for charter. I’ll stick to the Jersey shore for now but the trip was totally free so it was worth the time and gas money.
If anyone is going to Sandy Hook or anywhere else, give me a call. The stripers are just starting here. Glenn
I was full of excitement, anticipation, and, yes, some trepidation as I thought about Doc’s arrival a few Thursday afternoons ago, on the Salmon River. I had arrived the previous Sunday. The King Salmon had predominated the catch for the previous 5 days (not a bad thing) with a few Coho’s and steelies tossed into the mix for variety. The flow had dropped steadily from 800cfm, high but fishable, to a perfect 400. The weather had been amazing with the promise of continued more of the same, so why the trepidation? Simple- I had talked about my previous trips and had shown pictures of last year’s amazing fishing and now I had invited fellow Louts, and Doc decided to join me. I wanted him to have the trip of a lifetime without even leaving NY state. You all know the feeling of setting up a trip and praying it would live up to expectations. Well this one did as you can see from his post and the representitive photos.
We fished hard every day, drank a bit each night and ate 5 nights in a row at a great steakhouse that we could walk to. Life does not get much better than that. After catching a lot of Kings for the previous 5 days I had the freedom to move around and try different spots and tactics. That is when I found a lie under a fallen log where georgous Brown trout loved to rest and hide out. Doc and I also enjoyed amazing runs of Coho’s. These may be my favorite fish in the river; they grow large, absolutely attack the right fly, go crazy like the steelies do when hooked, and are beautiful!! Then you have the steelhead. What can I say about them that you don’t already know except that this trip proves you do not have to freeze your ass off in horrible conditions to catch these fish. My sources, those people I talk to, tell me that during the last weeks in Oct. and part of Nov. the kings are gone and leave behind a river full of browns and steelies. The upper fly zone, which Doc and I did not even explore is supposed to be great for this type of fishing and a lot of the crowds leave with the Kings. I’m going to watch the weather and try to get back up for a couple of days.
This is a trip worth looking into although I can not promise the same outstanding fishing or weather. The drink and food are easier to predict and the company will always be great. I have remarked to people who have suffered through my fish photos that if we had spent thousands of dollars in say, Alaska, and had the chance to catch 4 distinct species, of the quality and quantity we did, while enjoying glorious weather and great food we would have felt we got our money’s worth!! All within driving distance and about $50 per night per man for a decent room.
Doc and I have a room reserved for next year and if you are interested call me. The Portly Angler, the largest hotel in the area, where I usually stay is purportedly sold and will likely be closing, so hotel rooms for prime time can be hard to come by. I’ll have some suggestions for you. Glenn
You don’t have to die - though your casting arm will feel like it did - to go to “Lout Heaven” on the Salmon River in Pulaski, NY. Unlike recent other Lout trips afield which have produced prodigious e-banter but nary a Trout Lout site post, allow me to provide appropriate fish-porn and commentary in hopes of promoting a second yearly Lout venture in future Octobers.
Glen Kamp had already staked out the Salmon River for five days when I arrived. The fact that the gin bottle was untouched, yet the Alleve bottle nearly empty and spools of medical tape littered the hotel room floor was the first give-away: This was gonna be fun (Editorial note: The gin, and in my case vodka, oversight was quickly remedied with nightly generous celebratory Lout cocktails before ravenous consumption of various meat products after long days on the river).
Glen has generously dubbed me ‘Steelhead King” in honor of ten steelies in one day in the Douglaston Salmon Reserve, along with another dozen or so during the rest of our five days on the no kill fly stretch of the Salmon River in Altmar. Despite five or six monster Kings (which were first-ever’s for me) I humbly report that Glen has apparently dedicated his retirement years to becoming one-with-the-salmonoids. That man can hook (and land!) salmon: Kings & Cohos alike. In between we managed to do our fair share of damage to monster browns as well. (and, ahem, one creek chub keeping the Lout tradition of honoring the bottom-feeder alive). The attached photos are just a few of the fish we brought to justice. Fair to say the average day saw us each with 25-30 hookups and maybe a dozen landed. The fall weather was truly remarkable and watching the behemoth salmon jump, smash and rise again all day was a sight and sound which will haunt my dreams (hopefully replacing the existing recurring screaming, sweating nightmare of watching DeBie deposit my new $600 rod combo overboard some years back… but I digress).
Here’s the new Lout Heaven formula: Sleep in till 830, grab breakfast, stuff pockets with apples, bananas, candy bars and the like and drive to the river. Hike in, set up, unsheathe your 7-10 wt., tie on one of those pansy mini-swivels at the end of your leader, add 47 7/8″ of 10# fluorocarbon tippet and the trout/salmon candy of your choice and start the party! (For those keeping score, flies of choice were SMALL: dark stone-fly, golden stone-fly, single salmon eggs, anything glittery and pink, beaded hair’s ears with a touch of green, and then anything small and black that was still in your box at the end of the day. Figure on losing 30 flies a day, easy. I’ll also admit to using a rather large pink-salmon-egg-sucking white leech (in honor of Joe Schmidt’s “Goat Dick” lure story) in the midst of a ferocious autumn-leaf blitz that left the water saturated with multicolored yellow/red leaves … I’ll admit to it ‘cuz you’ll see it hanging off my rod next to the photo of the monster male king which whacked the shit out of it, thereby making me look brilliant.
Deep riffs and fast water were generally the key, though slow pools and some sight fishing also prevailed at times. While Doc honed into one of six or seven favorite spots and figured out every possible sang in each, Glen “I should run for office” Kamp wandered the entire river, met and personally interviewed every angler, and fished every square inch of water … usually to return to “the glen” just before the hatchery where he personally discovered and decimated a holding pod of browns nearly every day. (Note to Brian “Float King” Cowden: The man didn’t teach English back in the day as an accident, he can TALK).
What say you Louts? Anyone up for a return next fall?
Recalling the fun Brian had here with Rich Thomas’ choice of angling equipment a few posts back, it only seemed fair to bring this story to your attention.
Man uses Barbie fishing rod to make record catch - Boston.com
Posted using ShareThis
