I was looking back on my 2014 year end summary and that was one rough year to say the least, 2015 turned out to be much better in every way. The amazing thing is that my prediction in my #1 goal of “Get Healthy” actually was pretty accurate. I expected to be over SIBO and healing my gut but didn’t expect to be feeling really good until 2016 but really I ended up feeling pretty good by mid-2015. I stopped taking anti-microbials in May and declared myself cured of SIBO in June and since then have been getting better and better each month with no relapse in almost eight months now. On top of eradicating my SIBO the last round of treatment I did got rid of my blastocystisis hominis too which was excellent news – SIBO and parasite free finally. I also got good news that I do not have the auto-immune condition that is a major cause of SIBO which is why I think I’ve avoided relapse for so long.
Category Archives: Fly Fishing
What I do when everything is flooding
The weather has gone to hell rapidly this fall and today we are on the third big storm and flood of the last few weeks, kind of crazy. Not much fishing opportunities around here at the moment so what is a fisherman to do? Well, over the last month I’ve managed to get in some great fishing off Catalina Island in SoCal and several good hunts to gather food as well as fly tying material.
Cooke Canyon Pheasant Hunting
In mid-October Chris and I went over to Cooke Canyon to go on the first bird hunting trip of the season. We had pretty much perfect conditions, sunny and calm in Ellensburg with short-sleeve weather. We started the morning doing a bit of trap shooting and I SUCKED to say the least, I think I hit 3 clays in about 30 shots, not a good percentage. Chris, on the other hand, was spot on hitting about 95% accuracy so between the two of us we stood a chance. We hit the field and did indeed find birds and get some, we ended up with five of the seven birds that day, not bad for a first trip out of the year. I vowed to hit the trap field.
Deschutes steelhead & Yakima trout
It had been a few years since I’d taken a fishing trip thanks to illness but in the spring I signed up for this trip figuring I’d be back to 100% be fall. Well, I wasn’t quite to 100% and had some doubts just weeks before the trip but decided to go for it figuring the worst that could happen is that I flared up and had to be boated back to the car early, at least there was an option for that with this trip. Jeff decided to come out to join me since we hadn’t fished together since Miami and the Keys back in February 2013.
The trip was a hosted Gink + Gasoline trip organized by Louis Cahill who I met at South Andros back in 2011, was it really that long ago? The guide service was Jeff Hickman’s Fish the Swing and they seemed ready to deal with my diet and the possibility of an early evacuation if needed. The plan was to use jet boats to head to camp up the lower Deschutes and then fish split days from a single camp instead of floating the river like we did back in 2008.
UPWC Chinook Pass Loop
After our first two successful overnight trips to Mirror Lake and Rachel Lake/Rampart Ridge we decided to take on a bigger challenge and do a 3-day trip. We opted to do the 2015 Ultrapedestrian Wilderness Challenge Chinook Pass loop – a 32 mile long loop that starts at Chinook Pass on Hwy 410, goes south on the Pacific Crest Trail, drops into Mt. Rainier National Park on the Laughingwater Creek Trail then takes the Eastside Trail north through the park back to Chinook Pass. Most people are running this in 8-12 hours but we decided to take the slow approach and do it as an ultralight backpack trip in 3 days and adding in a few extra miles in order to camp and see a few more sights.
Day 1 – Chinook Pass to Three Lakes Camp (12.77 miles)
Rachel & Rampart Lakes trip
Rachel Lake from Rampart Ridge
Second backpack trip in June done! This time we decided to do a shorter but steeper route to Rachel Lakes, Rampart Ridge and Rampart Lakes. There were some early morning thunderstorms happening up at Snoqualmie Pass yesterday so we waited until about 8:30 to leave and drove up I-90 to Exit 60 and finally up along Kachess Lake to Box Canyon Road and the trailhead. We got our packs on and headed to the trailhead.
2013 Review
Skagit Steel, Islamorada ‘Gator’ Trout, Rattlesnake Traverse, Yakima Tenkara
Its that time of year again, time to look back over the past year and see how things stacked up against the initial goals. In 2012 I did pretty well with my 2011 goals but 2013 sure had other plans for me, mostly due to an injury I sustained running early in the year and caused us to change a lot of our activities for the year.
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New Northwest Tenkara site
I realized the other day that my tenkara posts are going to soon bog down my personal blog so I decided to create a whole new site – Northwest Tenkara. The site now just contains a blog with my last few posts and a short bio, much more to come soon.
Iwana Rod Series Review
The Iwana rods from TenkaraUSA are named after the Iwana, or White Spotted Char, found in Japan. These small char are probably the perfect target for the Iwana series of tenkara rods which are made for small to medium streams with smaller average sized fish.
Iwana Rod Handles – 12′, 11′ and 9’3″ from top to bottom
TenkaraUSA sells two versions of the Iwana rod – an 11′ and 12′ model and also a conversion handle that will turn either rod into a 9’3″ rod. The rods share most of the segments and just use different handle sections and a reduced number of sections as they are made shorter. This is a nice feature, especially if you own several Iwana rods and break a section on one. I recently broke the tip on my 11′ rod and when I was heading to very small water just turned the 12′ rod into an 11′ rod and went fishing.
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Fishing in Bathtubs
OK, not really fishing in a bathtub but fishing bathtub sized pools in rivers. After taking up Tenkara this year I began searching out smaller waters and smaller sections of bigger waters looking for trout and have been pleasantly surprised by what I have found.
Today was a great example. I was on the Middle Fork and the really nice corner run I wanted to fish was just so windy that I couldn’t control my line well with the wind blowing straight upstream on me. I managed a few fish but was getting frustrated so I moved downstream to check out the next spot where a long riffle ended and dropped into a pool. What I found was that the riffle did drop well but on my side the current was pushing into the bank and got deep fast so I really needed to fish from the other side to fish it well but didn’t want to cross into someones back yard to fish. Looking at the shore from where I was in the riffle I found a spot about the size of a bathtub that had some good rocks and depth, I figured there was probably one fish there. A few casts and I had a grab but missed. Next cast another grab and I was into what turned out to be my biggest Middle Fork cutthroat of the year so far, a nice 14″ fish. I sort of figured he was king of the little pool but made a few more casts. Wham, another grab and another nice 11-12″ cutt to hand. A few more casts, wham, another fish. What the heck. By the time I was done I had landed four, lost two and missed another two in this little run.
Becoming a Tenkara Bum
Early this year I decided to buy a Tenkara rod and try this very minimal form of fly fishing. I was pretty much hooked after my first few outings, it made me feel like a kid fishing for the first time. A few months later and I haven’t even picked up a standard fly rod and somehow ended up with a small collection of tenkara rods. Find out all about the gear and flies I use at my new Northwest Tenkara page.