The Tar Heel Outdoorsman

The attention that I've paid to this thing has been nonexistent since May. May was when I drove out to Wyoming to work as a fishing guide at A Bar A Ranch in southern Wyoming.  May was the last time I wrote something on here, and honestly, I haven't really got a good excuse.   But it sure is damn hard to spend time typing when you could be out on the water.   ...

Things start where they often do.  The truck.   Throw the kayak in there, since the skiff's in the shop, and stick the 8 weight through the sliding back window.  Grab your flies and a water bottle.  Paddle and a life jacket too.  Good to go.

Good times on the lake and in the woods.... unfortunately no gobblers and a few stuck trucks, but a great weekend nonetheless. Through the cypress

Numb fingers, stiff joints, struggling to get that tiny tippet through the eye of the hook.   Cold fingers, cold fly line running through, past your index and middle finger. Shivering legs, the long underwear and flannel and jeans aren't enough.   Cold, rosy cheeks, the wind funneling past.   The cold seeps through.

Sometimes that's what we are asked… 

It was Thanksgiving morning, pre-sunrise, close to the Northeast Cape Fear, and my brother and I trudged through the flooded millet field, out to the duck blind. "Dang that's a full moon… don't even need a flashlight," David said. "Yeah… it's shining like a streetlight…"

It's a crisp 50 degrees, there isn't much cloud cover, and the breeze is practically nonexistent. Certainly not prime conditions, but we'll take it.  We get Skynryd's "Swamp Music" on the stereo in the truck on the way out there, out to the public flooded timber.  It's a nice easy drive, the cool pre-sunrise dawn whipping through the cab.