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It's Still Early Days.

  Departed Long Key at 2:30 am last Tuesday morning and rolled into Winchester Virginia 17 hours later. We were on the road again at 6:45 Wednesday morning and arrived home in Lafayette, New York at 12:30 pm. The only glitch in the journey was a one hour delay in the Scranton / Wilkes Barre area for a serious traffic accident. Spent three days cutting up downed dead ash trees, getting things in order here in Lafayette, watching the USWNT beat Brazil in a "friendly" slugfest of a soccer game, feeding the trout in the pond, and buying provisions for the Lordville Estate. Packed the car yesterday, and took off this morning for Lordville. Stopped at the Troutfitter in Deposit where David replaced the backing on my reel and attached my Christmas present, (a new double taper 4 weight line) to the reel. Arrived in Lordville around 11:00 and found everything to be in good working order. Both the refrigerator and hot water tank started right up and appear to be expecting to receive so...
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My Bags Are Packed I'm Ready To Go - - - -

  Woke up this morning and checked the obituaries, didn't see my name so it appears that I've made it to 82.  Jean and I are still down here in the Florida Keys where the process of "summer proofing" our house is nearing completion. Our current plan is to head north Tuesday with arrival in Lafayette scheduled for two days later. The fishing - The high point of the winter was learning how to throw a cast net, (to catch pilchards to use for bait). Experienced cast netters throw "pancakes", I threw mostly bananas and figure eights. By the time I finally learned to get the net to open consistently the wind started blowing and hasn't stopped.  The Tarpon have started to arrive and for the last week there have been guides staked out on the most popular spots along the migration route whenever the wind drops below 20mph. There have been small craft warning for the past three days with winds blowing 20 to 30mph. The bonefish have disappeared from the flats here ...
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And Now You Know The Rest Of The Story.

  When I went down to Lordville on Wednesday, I had hoped to maybe finish up in time to get a little fishing in. I didn't. It was 4:00 when I called it quits so I decided to take my bow and sit in a place where I've often seen does and fawns come out to feed in the evening. The first doe appeared at 4:15 followed closely by her two fawns. Another doe appeared moments later. By 4:30 there were four does and three fawns in sight. Shortly thereafter, a nice eight point buck walked towards the does. He seemed to look at me several times but was clearly more interested in the array of potential mates. When he got within 25 yards of me he stopped broadside, which turned out to be the last mistake he ever made. Called Jean in the morning, (her car has the trailer hitch), and she drove down, (an hour and fifty minutes each way) so we could transport the deer back home. Finished up the butchering Saturday night in time to treat Jean to a nice prime rib dinner at Dasher's Pub down in...
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Turn Out The Lights, The Party's Over - - -

 Heading down to the Lordville Estate tomorrow morning. Will be stopping at Vicky's Unisex Hair Salon at 10:00 AM for my last hair cut there until next spring. The Troutfitter is closed and David is probably down at Hilton Head by now after spending over two-hundred straight days at the fly shop and inn. Down in Lordville, I've got work to do. It'll take me the better part of two days to finish the closedown. It's for me, a sad time, another year gone by, and at 81 you know there can't be many years left. When all the items are checked off the shutdown list, the place will be neat as a pin, the 'fridge turned off with it's door left open, stove ashes cleaned out, hot water heater shut off, the pipes drained, anti-freeze in the traps, the heat turned off, the bed stripped, and fly-tying materials moth balled, leaving the Lordville Estate nothing but a dark, cold, empty, unappealing  place. When I come down later to rake up the leaves from my neighbor's hu...
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Gonna Shut You Down.

  It's October and my plans seem to change daily. CL Repair got my tires in at one on Monday and Craig was able to do all the work on the car while I was crossing off items on my closedown list. Car was done by 3:30 and I packed it full of stuff and headed home. Not saying I'm done fishing but my next trip down may well be to shut off the water and drain the pipes. Of course if I shoot that ten pointer Thursday, all that could change. Right now dry fly fishermen have very few good options. The EB fish have been pounded and are no longer eating on the surface. The WB is a sea of mud and the release has been raised. The BR is also very muddy and I have been unable to find good consistent bug hatches there for the last month. One ray of hope is that the UEB release is being stepped down, and at lower levels may offer some good pseudo fishing. The BK and Willow remain very low, and, at least when I've stopped by, bugless. I enjoyed excellent dry fly fishing right through Octobe...
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There Are No Commercials When You Just Watch Nature.

  It may be time to go sit in a tree, but I'm still here at the Lordville Estate. Why? Several reasons. First, I made arrangements a month ago to get new rear brakes, a tire rotation, and an oil change at Craig's. CL Repair in Equinunk. Stopped by Friday so Craig could get the parts for the job and decided I needed to also get new tires. Craig said if his guy has them in stock he will have them on Monday afternoon and  he can do everything Tuesday morning. Second, it seems to take longer to do things than it use to. Planned on doing the final cleaning of the fly-tying room and bedroom today, but things just got in the way and only the fly-tying room got finished. Walked out in the yard and looked at my handy work on the two freestone peach trees and decided to finish the job on the cling. That took an hour and a half and I still need to rake up the branches when the deer finish eating what they want. If  you'd rather spend time watching analysts on TV talking about the el...
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And I Thought Smith's Colonial Motel's No Vacancy Sign Was Due to Leaf Freaks.

  Let me be clear about a few things. First of all fall fishing can be very good, if most people are hunting, watching football games or working on their honey do lists. Why? The browns are busy spawning, which takes a huge percentage of the river's fish out of the game. The hatches are mostly very small flies and don't compare with the blanket hatches of big bugs seen in the spring. You are mostly fishing for rainbows and juvenile browns. When there is an onslaught of fishermen, the fish that are rising, quickly learn to let the duns go and eat emergers in the water column. Today, the number of anglers on the EB and BK, (didn't look anywhere else), was for the second half of October, simply unbelievable. Every fishing access lot was filled with cars, there were multiple fishermen in every pool on both the EB and BK that I drove by, trailers were lined up at every takeout. Simply stated, I couldn't find a place to fish, IN THE MIDDLE OF OCTOBER! What did I do? Broke my ...
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