It snowed last night!

And Avi had a blast!

Hockey 11/13 - Thursday League

2 games

first game
no points
Chris was our goalie
first game ended in a fight with 3:30 left
won 6-3

second game
no points
John was our goalie
won 8-6

Hockey 11/6 - Thursday League

2 goals, 1 assist (maybe 2 assists)
played with the kids and John the goalie
played D
won 10-2
+7, no goals against

Catch Magazine

I hadn't seen this before - but a new issue of Catch Magazine (Fly Fishing photos) is online - check it out HERE!

Sunday, October 2, 2008 - Chatfield Reservior

I'd say I fished today, but that would be stretching it. Really it was more of a kayaking expedition and shoulder therapy. I brought Cabo to Chatfield Reservior and made a few laps around the usual spots - however I didn't catch anything. It was a little windy out there, and that made dragging streamers tough - the yak would get all turned around in the wind when I stopped paddling and tended to the rod. The weather was beautiful - I was in a t-shirt the whole day.

I did some paddling and my shoulder throbbed - but it was the first real workout that I have had on the shoulder since the pinched nerve. When I finally anchored up to fish, the wind completely stopped and the water was like glass (kind of eery actually). On the way in I saw Tom Shyrock and his son fishing the inlet, but not having much luck either. The water level was down slightly. The west inlet was only 8 inches deep ro so - I was lucky not to drag bottom a few times - although if I had it would have just stirred up about 4 inches of muck.

Hockey 10/30 - Thursday League

1 goal, 1 assist
played with John the goalie and the kids
played D - only 3 defensemen, so played a lot (10pm game which sucked ass)
won 8-7

Hockey 10/23 - Thursday League

2 assists
played with John the Goalie
won 8-5
down 5-2 at the beginning of the third - scored 6 unanswered as the other team tired out.

$2.79

I just paid $2.79 a gallon for gas, that is amazing. Less than $40 to fill my tank. I can't wait to fill up the 4Runner and see how much that costs - imagine a tank of gas for under $70!

Wednesday, October 22, 2008 - High Mtn Fishing

I took the day off from work to do some fishing while the bosses were in SF doing the Quarterly Business Review - my job was done, so what better time to get away from work.

I'll be honest, after hearing the wind whip up all night and that it was snowing like crazy in the high country, I wasn't interested in spending my day at a lake around 10,700'. But I went anyways. I was hoping to kayak this lake and try to get into some big Macks. I tied up some huge size 4 streamers on Tuesday night - in black, tan, white and chartuese - and was ready for some pigs.

The ride up got sketchy even before I hit South Park - it was a slick road and the temps were below freezing. This is about the coldest day we've had so far. The mountains were beautiful with a fresh coating of the white stuff. South Park wasn't as windy as normal and the sun was in and out in stretches - so it looked like a good day.

I saw this beautiful horse on the way in - he was with another pack of 3 or 4 hiding in the bushes.

 

As I increased elevation, winding through dirt roads and beaver ponds, the snow started getting deeper and the road got harder to see. When I got to the last road that headed up to the lake, I was the first set of tire tracks on it at 9:30 am - I took the road slow and at the top parking lot the snow was about 8 inches deep and there were some rather large drifts on the far sides of road where the wind slowed and the snow collected.

 

This un-named lake is a haven for bait chuckers and fish keepers - and there are many posts and pics on the internet of rednecks with stringers full of macks from this lake. I guess I shouldn't be bitter about people actually keeping fish legally, but I am bitter about all of the beer cans, egg containers, powerbait jars, cigarette butts and other garbage that seem to follow bait fishermen to far off places like this. Coincidence? I think not.

The parking lot was empty and the wind was kicking up to 40 mph, so I decided not to take out the kayak. Which sucks because I brought the sinking line and wanted to troll the big streamers along the bottom. I hiked my way about half way around the lake and nestled myself just around a small corner to avoid most of the wind. I pitched the streamers for about an hour and a half - with little luck. I did have one hit right in front of me about 8 feet out as I was about to pull the streamers our of the water. It hit late and kind of surprised me - I saw a huge flash of an under belly that was about 18 inches long (or so). That would have been a nice fish.

 

I nymphed a bit and had a few wacks as my indicator dropped below the surface briefly and when I gave it a pull there wasn't anything there. The fish actually kept attacking my balloon indicator - which was kind of funny. I switched to a big dry fly, but they weren't interested any more. The weather was hazardous to say the least - I dressed in (I'm not lying here), a turlteneck, long sleeve t-shirt, turtleneck sweatshirt, 2 hooded sweatshirts and then my thin waterproof LL Bean fishing jacket - I had a face guard and a hat on as well - with fleece pants, thin fishing pants and waders as well. I wasn't cold except my hands once in a while, and the wind in my face was annoying. I called it a day at around 2:30pm and then the sun popped out and felt nice. The wind however, never let up.

 

I got skunked, but I'm not upset. It was better than working and I enjoyed this new lake - next time I will get a better opportunity on a much better weather day!

Red Sox Lose!

Yeah, that's right, I'm blogging about the Red Sox losing. Why? I ain't hanging my head, I ain't ashamed of thos team, and I'm certainly not impressed by the Devil Rays. I think it is laughable. Laughable that the Sox could beat the best team in the AL, the Angels, and then fall behind a team that has the worst bullpen in the history of the psot season and then lose. But hey the Rays won the series - and the Sox are going home - but why shouldn't they? This team has so many injuries and so many holes that they shouldn't have even gotten this far in the first place. I mean, come on - no one was supposed to go to game 7 after getting killed in games 2-4. But we did, we faught down to the wire and we almost did it. This team was missing a few pieces - and Ortiz bat, a Lowell bat, Ellsbury pulling an 0-fer, a hurt Beckett, a mediocre Lester, a sucky Wakefield, (dare I say it) no Man-Ram bat behind Ortiz, and no production out of the bottom of the order - but hey, imagine getting to game 7 of the ALCS with a dump of a team we had in the last 3 weeks! Amazing. I'm happ the season is over - time to patch some holes and continue our dynasty.

The sad part is that MLB is headed into the worst rated World Series ever, and no one will watch any of the games. The Rays will get spanked in Philly when they have to bat a pitcher, and can't move guys over. They will get killed at home when Howard, Burrell, Rollins and Utley bat around inning after inning in that tiny ballpark. And the sadest thing? When Tampa Bay and Baltimore are battling it out for 4th place in the AL East in 2009 again and no one remembers who the loser of the 2008 World Series was. But hey, good luck Rays!

Pedroia - I love ya, and see you next year, you are the MVP this year and I can't wait to see them give you the trophy!!!

11/16 Hockey - Thursday League

nothing
playes with the kids and John the goalie
won 13-3, I left with 6 mins left to see the rest of the Red Sox game.

Sox down 7-0 in the 7th, come back to win 8-7. Absolutely amazing.

Then Avi was up all night every 40 minutes or so puking her guts out - 1 hour sleep and a full day of work today. Fun Fun.

Frost

Woke up this morning and the deck had a layer of sheer ice on it - poor Cabo was slipping and sliding all over it! The rain last night really wreaked havoc on the cars and surfaces that couldn't absorb it. I had to actually scarpe my windows off this morning.

Winter is on the way!

October 11, 2008 - Cheesman Canyon

I got a chance to get out and fish with Chad this weekend - hit Cheesman at 6am. It was slow going this morning because the fog was as thick as pea soup. The morning was slow fishing for me - but the late morning heated up. Caught 6 fish or so on a grey size 22 RS2. 3 of the browns were nice size - about 16 inches. It was a strange weather day today - the weather was actually better in the canyon than at home here. The wind was cold, but it did not start sprinkling in the canyon until just before I left. Rainy and crappy here in Denver though. The browns are really fiesty and active.

 

 

 

 

Hockey 10/2 - Thursday League

New season

1 goal
played D
played with the kids
played against Brian, Dean and Chris the goalie
won 11-6

Fishing in Granby

 

 

 

Stoned!

I was at the fly shop this weekend and saw some really cool stonefly patterns - of course I don't think I can tie them - hotwire, 20 inchers, turkey biots, on and on. So I've done some research on the net and come up with a couple of cool patterns. Please feel free to send me links to a few more.

Black Stonefly



Rubber Legs




Black Biot Stone



Yellow Stone



Hotwire StoneFly




FlackBack Brown Stone




Brown Tubing Rubber Legs Stone

Awesome Possum by Wapsi ROCKS!

I'm not much of a dubber, actually I own very few types of dubbing - mostly just antron and a few other various flavors that just get me by. I found a fly pattern on the internet that I really liked and couldn't tie the pattern with the antron dubbing crap I have - yes, I had the right colors, but it wasn't "stringy" enough - it needed more "guard hairs" (I found out what these were called) too make the pattern look much more buggy.

I wasn't exactly sure what to look for - I knew I needed to hit one of the fly shops in my area - and I knew that the best shop in the area was Anglers All on Santa Fe in Littleton. So Avi and I headed over on Sunday to check them out - they have some of the best selections of Awesome Possum by Wapsi dubbings and so much more.



Avi loves playing with Bridger the black lab, but he was away on vacation in BC this time - so I had to bribe her with a fruit snack to be good. She played with the foam bodies and checked out all of the fly boxes (as usual) - and she did well not to get into too much trouble (or hurt herself). I found the dubbing and in the perfect colors for the new fly. The fly is known as the Orange Caddis (a BlueAngler pattern).




I tied up a handful on Sunday night while watching football and really like how they look. I can not wait to try them this weekend. Hopefully I will get into some fish this weekend - as I have a day off and some of my buddies are able to come, I think I am going to do a full day trip up in the the Granby/Tabernash area. We should see some browns and maybe a Koke (if we hit a different area). Should be a good time.

Week 3 - Steelers lose to Philly

What a miserable game - absolutely bad. No other way to explain it - the offense just could not get any momentum and the OLine sucked. When Willie Parker can't get 2 yards a carry - that is s very bad sign.

The obvious problem with the game was teh offensive line that allowed 12 or so sacks - it was just stupid how poorly these guys played and the fact that we couldn't change the protection at halftime has me a bit concerned. Yes, I agree that many of those sacks are on Roethlisberger - due to him moving around and stepping into defenders. It makes it very very hard for an OLine to create a pocket around the QB when the QB is constantly moving.

I'm not sure what the Steelers coaches were game planning - when you have pressure like that on blitzes, just dump the ball off to the blitzing side - but Ben just couldn't do it. And they kept getting eaten up - which is dumb, because the Eagles didn't change their defense all game. That is a bad sign. A winning team knows how to shift their skills to take advantage of changes in their game plan and coverages mid game. We obviously are not that team. It seemed like Tomlin was just waiting for the Steelers to do something on Defense and win that game.

The defense played very well - holding the Eagles to 13 points and numerous turn overs and big stops. An offense has to be able to score more than 15 points every game - or else you should expect not to win.

I was not impressed with the D as much as I probably should be - Woodley played ok (although I caught him taking a play or two off on runs to the other side), Polamalu played well, Ryan Clark played well too, Timmons played well in spurts, but he kind of disappeared. The run defense was decent. But, they couldn't stop the screen plays - which is unacceptable with the LBs we have.

The offense was pitiful - Heath Miller was a bright spot I guess. Other than that they were sh!t.

I'm disgusted just remembering this game. Oh, and Philly fans are horrible - I heard crickets a few times in that stadium during the game.

Steelers beat the Clowns

Ok, I still like this team - although we weren't as impressive on Defense in Week 2 against the Browns. The Browns are better than the Texans, they have more offensive weapons and seem to play the run a little better. That said, the weather really slowed the Steelers down - wind and rain played a major role in the low scoring game.

What I was impressed with:

Hines Ward and Santonio Holmes are great receivers - and they make Ben look good.

Ben makes a lot of good decisions - but he still holds onto the ball a lot. I will never understand how he holds onto so many balls when he is getting smacked and tackled.

I still love Heath Miller.

Jeff Reed is money.

Casey Hampton looked good.

10-0 vs the Browns!

What I wasn't impressed with:

Where were the LBs today? No pressure on the QB - that is bad news.

Polamula can't jump - two balls he should have batted away after the receiver caught the ball - but instead he jumped for the ball instead of playing defense and batting it away.

Our Fullback (Carey Davis) does not impress me at all. When Krieder was here he would make 2 or 3 pancake blocks on some LB during each game - we don't have that anymore.

Where is Nate Washington? Where is Dallas Baker? Limas Sweed? We have more than 3 receivers.

Mitch Berger waits too long to punt - I'm nervous about it.

Sodded the Yard

Took Friday off and sodded the back yard in 2 days.

Friday was rainy and crappy, but I started anyways - kept the bugs down which was nice. Sod cut the whole thing and moved it to the curb/side of the house/hill where Cabo runs. John the nieghbor helped me move about 30 wheel barrels. Paul showed up at 3pm and started on the sprinklers. I spread 30 barrels full of compost - only about 1/4 the pile in the driveway. I stopped around 7pm.

Day 2 - started at 9am, the boys were waiting for me. They started moving dirt while I helped Paul finish the sprinklers. About 10:30 we started spreading the dirt to thin and level it out. At about noon we started laying the sod - Eric/Dan/Steve/Johnny/Paul and me - done around 3pm. Clean up wasn't much fun either. I have 1/3 a pallet of sod left and a huge mess in the front yard for them to throw away. Let's hope they take it on Monday when they come and pick up those bags.

Here are some pics.