Maquoketa River @ Richmond Springs

5 hours and a whole bunch of fish! I miss IOWA! It was great to be back!@

5-21-06 Summer is almost thinking about being here!

Small bass still moving up close and appeared to spawning so I left them alone. The smaller pond was really great in the shallowest corner. I caught crappied and gills. Some big and a lot small. At one point every cast produced a fished. Much more fun then the swallowen Fox River where I started my day.

Good times and I can not wait to head out to IA!!!!

7'6'' 4 PC 2 WT. Forecast WBH II # 7642-061-06

Warm watering fishing is starting to heat up and the new 2 wieght really worked well. Spent Easter morning at Paul Wolfe Park in Eastern Kane County. Big bringht rubber legs brought pre spawn fish up for a thrill. I could not be happier with the way the rod cast and what a blat landing them.

Get out there!

Email: wbhrod@yahoo.com

New 7'6'' 2 PC 3 WT Forecast WBHII #7623-05106

Good Ole' Racine

Well, I got to see some spring run steelhead caught, my dog was bit while walking in the park near the processing plant with my wife, of course by a German Shepard lacking a collar and leash and I went 0 for 0 trying out sinkng line. Better days are comming. Iowa is calling.

Few places are people that gracouis, the beer that cheap and the trout so exsessable. They are my new home waters even though they rest 300 miles west of my come across the mighty Mississippi.

I have a new 7'6'' 2wt that is in spring colors and it is ready too bloom!

See you all out there soon!


Bill
wbhrod@yahoo.com

Down Time

With the strange weather and a 60 hour work week I am laying low despite the urge I have to get out and fish. So some pictures from the work shop to see where all this obsession calls home.

In order from top to bottom above:

PVC tubes with serial number and initials form each rods nick name. I can almost hear them wanting to get out.

Tip: I place with silica gel packs in the tubes to displace mostiture.

The old school fly rod tube logo. I will have a new one that I am going to have made for the rods, and want to work out their installation for the production rods. When I get there.

Extended body egg sucking leech. They came to me in a moment of thoughtlessness. I will figure out the proportion and colors soon. I like a small egg sucking leech for steelhead in Michigan.

Clementine. Our Basset Hound out hunting up hares and other dogs at a local dog park. She is athletic and very curious, for a Basset.

New option!

Please feel free to leave a comment below, it is now open to anyone, or send me an email. To talk fishing and/or I will be happy to ad you to my email list which I send when I add or edit a post.



Email: wbhrod@yahoo.com

Wahoo from the Dominican Republic 2005.

White River Trip: Step 3,Fishing

“Welcome to Arkansas!”

The trout dock employee exclaimed. That was morning of White River Trip Day Two, The Snow Day.








1. Tim fighting a White River trout.
2. Tim with a cut throat.
3. Fish due bite at 16 degrees.
4. Bull Shoals Dam
5. White River with no water being run
6. The “Razorback” Rod
7. Southern Snow Storm

Day one started out by my brother, Tim Hall and I pulling up to Mr. Bernard’s cabin at 5:00 o’clock in the morning after driving 9 hours. Map Quest got us close, I got us lost. Only to redeem myself my finding our way back to found through various unmarked dirt roads.

Patrick of, “Patrick’s on the White” was our host and greeted us that morning as we began to stir. Patrick and Brenda run the small set of cabins and are great host, here the lodging was simple but I felt accommodated and right at home. After going over a few local options and patterns we dressed for the mild temperatures and slid right out of Patrick’s back yard, great access he has there for both boating and wading. The water was down and fish where on the bite. We caught cut throat, brown and rainbow that first day. Just missed my grand slam. Some even coming on a dry fly! Number 24 gnat attractor I can up with to catch those fish that seem to be rising on nothing. 12 foot leaders and staying low really helped.

So this is when the weather report we hoped would be wrong, was not. The northern part of Arkansas that houses the White River averages 43 degrees in the winter. They have had no accumulation of snow this year, being that they are in a drought as is Illinois and Iowa. Our timing could not have been worse. That night 6 inches of snow feel. That is like ten feet to an area that has no salt or snow removal equipment. That little slice of the middle south froze shut for the rest of the weekend. We made the best of it. Barbara was nice enough to twice bring us unexpected hot meals that two growing mid west twenty something’s really appreciated. At one point Sunday the air temp before the wind chill was 16. Churches and all events that some one would drive where closed. The number of anglers dropped to less than a third. That state park was full of empty lots with reserved signs that one came to claim. We caught fish all three days and as you can see no giants where brought to hand, we heard no reports of large fish at all, the bite slowed as the weather got colder.

It was a memorable trip and it was time that I had with my brother that I will never forget. We broke in the “Razor Back” and “Tim Hall” rods, used up a bunch of flies and got to catch up our now vastly separate lives. On Monday we headed back to my home and on Tuesday we parted ways. All good things must come to end and the real world quickly takes over my thoughts again. Thank you to those that helped with this trip, The Bernard’s of Patrick’s on the White, if your are going to the Norfolk or White call them first, they are great people! All the posters that gave us fly and tippet info, MP for keeping me in the sport to begin with and my brother for putting up with my overly anal fishing habits.

And of course, thank you mom for sending your youngest out here for his graduation for college. I love you.

http://www.patricksonthewhite.com/

Email: wbhrod@yahoo.com