Some Recent Florida Hijinks

Catching up on Lost Time...

Hadn't posted in a little bit, but we've been active here in Northeast Florida. Not necessarily fishing all the time, but all in the outdoors vein.

A Walk in the Woods

Two weekends ago I spent some time walking around the Timucuan Trail in the Guana Tolomato Matanzas National Estuarine Research Reserve. That's a quite a mouthful I know, we just call it "GTM" around here.

GTM is where I'd often launch my kayak, when I did that sort of thing. That being said, I haven't in a while, but I thought I'd return to take a nice walk around some of the trails. It's a winding sandy path with a few different loops... most of it is fortunately in the shade, but there are some open marshlands as well as intercoastal coastline that it also parallels.

In all, it was quite a nice outing. One I'd like to do again in the future. I did the middle loop, but there's quite a bit more to explore to both the north and south, as well as what looked like some primitive camping opportunities.

A Little Pond Fishing...

Since last I posted, I also did a little bit of fishing... messing around in one of the local retention ponds. I used my Tenkara USA Sato along with a new floating line from Tanuki. It was really a nice casting line that I'll probably write a little more about over at Tenkara Angler. 

Anyway, this was the first outing where I REALLY started to notice that the mosquitoes were back, so that was a bit unfortunate. I guess I'm back to sun screen and bug dope before any future fishing outings...

And Some Cleaning Up...

Last weekend, Lilly & I got up early on Saturday morning do participate in the St. Johns River Cleanup. She went to get some community service credit for school and I went just to get outdoors (plus, somebody needed to take her and it wasn't going to be my wife!)

I'll give the kid credit, she did a great job metaphorically rolling up her sleeves and getting dirty. She was picking stuff up left and right, wasn't afraid to climb through the brush in pursuit of trash, and even handled the "gross" stuff well. We got four big trash bags full of trash, and also picked an old tire out of the woods.

The one thing we didn't pick was this guitar case and machete. There's a few homeless people that live in the park we were at, and we just didn't want to disturb something that was purposely left behind. Also didn't want to take what was potentially somebody's night time protection. We did tell the organizers and showed them what we found though and decided to leave it in their hands.

Outside of that, Lilly has fun observing some of the feral cats that also live in the park. It's evidently a community of about a dozen or so that are all "fixed" and that the neighbors have permission to feed... so they do. A few raccoons also assimilated themselves into the cat posse, which Lilly was very entertained by witnessing... and photographing.

Anyway, that's about it for now. That being said, I do have a few fishy things on the horizon that I'm sure I'll be mentioning in short order. So hopefully, not so quiet in the future. I'm already well ahead of last year's blogging pace, so I'm feeling good about my efforts to revive Troutrageous! so far. Guess we'll see how long it lasts...

Oh, and here's a bonus picture of a squirrel from the backyard patio. Not the best table manners on this one, huh?

Keepin' It Squatchy

Cryptozoology is Cool

My affinity for "Bigfooting" and Sasquatch is not much of a secret. I've always been fascinated by cryptids, and in this day and age finding interesting content on the topic is not particularly difficult. Sure, a ton of the "evidence" is suspect at best, but every now and then you read or see something that really resonates and just makes you, or at least me, believe...

I'm pretty psyched that the crew from Finding Bigfoot reunited to stream a new special on Discovery+. It's the first new installment in a little over two years, and I couldn't help but smile watching it last night. It was good catching up with the gang - (from left) James "Bobo" Fay, Matt Moneymaker, Cliff Barackman, and of course, Ranae Holland. 

Did they find Bigfoot in this episode? Spoiler alert... no, but that's not really the point. It was just fun to watch, at least for me.

Recently, cryptozoololgy and my fishing intersected. Unfortunately, not on a stream, but online.

Japanese Cryptids

I'm fairly certain I've documented Tsuchinoko before, a sort of snake-like, (and alcoholic) wrongdoer that is a part of Japanese folklore. I first learned about the creature at the 2012 Tenkara Summit, when visiting Japanese anglers spoke about how their fishing club (the No-Tarin Club), inspired by famed author/angler Soseki Yamamoto, seek out the legendary creature. There was also a mention of a wolf in the presentation, one I never really paid much attention to... until now.

Well, fast forward to today, and the moderator of the Japanese fishing group I'm a part of on Facebook started posting liberally about the quest for proof of the Japanese wolf, which is a legitimate historical animal, but was believed to have gone extinct in the early 1900s.

Much like the also extinct Tasmanian Tiger (or Thylacine), there are evidently frequent sightings of what people believe to be the Japanese wolf, and there's even an organization formed whose primary objective is to find a living specimen of the animal.

That organization is seeking the aid of local outdoorsfolk, including anglers, to relay stories, report sightings, or provide evidence of the wolf. If only I lived in Japan, I'd be spending every weekend fly fishing and searching for Tsuchinoko and the Japanese wolf! I mean Lilly & I tried our own "Finding Bigfoot" while in central New York back in the day, but alas, we never found him.

There are just so many layers to this I find intriguing. Language barriers and joking aside, I'm finding myself looking more and more into cryptids each and every day. However I purposely stay away from the Michigan Dogman. That thing is just scary.

And yeah, I know I'm weird.

(Big)Footnote: 

If you're into Bigfoot as well, I highly recommend Cliff & Bobo's Bigfoot & Beyond podcast. The episodes aren't too long and it's really entertaining. Plus, you just learn a lot of new things about the natural world. Some day I'd like to visit Cliff's museum, the North American Bigfoot Center located in Oregon. I support it on Patreon and the perks they provide to members are amazing. 

I do plan on hitting up Expedition: Bigfoot! in North Georgia the next time I'm up there chasing trout. There have been many sightings in the area, not by me (yet), but you never know what the future holds...

Dragon Tails and Wœrms

So my attempt to rediscover fly fishing blogging started off ok...

But then last Wednesday happened, and kind of knocked me off my game. You know, January 6th... yeah, that was pretty, well, you know.

Anyway, I'm going to ease back in this week. The goal is to keep the lights on over here, whether I'm actually fishing or not.

Last weekend was chilly by Florida standards, in the 40s, so I didn't bother getting out. The bass just aren't that frisky when there's a chill in the air... and that's okay, just sort of need to know one's limits.

Enter J. Stockard...

Instead, I paged through some of the mailings I received. Most notably, the J. Stockard fly tying catalog. As when it comes to fly tying, and all of the little doodads and widgets that can go along with it, I firmly believe a print catalog is the best way to peruse the merchandise. An internet website just doesn't do the shopping experience justice in my opinion.

I don't tie particularly complex flies, but I think I might play around with two things this upcoming year. 

The first is UV resin. Back in the day I used to know the stuff as Clear Cure Goo, but I guess that brand name went under at some point. I still haven't taken the plunge, and I think I want to finally give it a try. Don't really have any patterns in mind, but seems like it'll be fun to mess with.

The second is what this catalog calls "dragon tails." My daughter calls them worms, or more appropriately "wœrms." She buys them like 5 for a dollar or something at Dollar Tree, ties them to strings and makes them move around like a puppet for Instagram movies. Shoot, I had these as a kid and I think it's something the younger teen set is doing as retro, quirky humor. There's memes and that stuff too.

Anyway...

The fly tying industry is taking those worms, adding  a 1000% markup, and selling them as tails for flies for those seeking warmwater monsters. Sounds good enough to me. Lilly doesn't know it yet, but some of her wœrms may be going missing very soon.

Looking forward to taking that first grip and grin photo with my version of a worm on a string... and a hook. Perhaps I'll even keep the googly eyes intact. Can't hurt, right?

August Update - Finally With Fishing Too!!!

I posted some of this over the weekend on Facebook. So if we're friends there, you've already seen it. I won't be offended if you leave now. That being said...

I didn't do a follow up post from our mini family getaway to north Georgia the other week. By 2020 standards, it was amazing. For the most part we just continued to social distance, simply in a new location. The biggest change, besides the potential for an evening bear visit to our trash can, was much cooler temperatures. 80s during the day, 50s at night. Glorious. As was the view off the back porch.

We weren't in a cabin, but we were definitely staying a bit off the beaten path. And by that I mean we were an hour's drive from the closest Target. (Sorry Dollar General, you're no substitution in K.C.'s eyes). I got to sneak out for two days and fly fish for rainbow trout in the mountains. Heavenly. 

While I did that, the ladies chilled at the house and avoided creepy crawlies. They were none too fond of the spiders found in the various nooks and crannies of the house. Can't say I blame them, but no spider would stop K.C. from binging Netflix: Indian Matchmaking. (BTW - is it "bingeing" or "binging," I've seen both used...)

A week or so removed from that and now safely(?) back in Florida, Lilly doesn't seem to be all that thrilled to be returning to school (albeit virtually) on Monday. It's her first week of high school as an incoming 9th grader, so she and K.C. have been spending a lot of time setting up our dining room to be her classroom/dedicated workstation. Work in progress...

We were told that my office would also be working remotely through the end of the year, so I picked up one of those headsets for conference calls. I guess so I can still be heard when I speak quietly, but really so I don't have to subject my family to constantly overhearing them anymore. And with the NFL football season here I'm going to have A LOT more of them. Can't interrupt Lilly's learning with me growling at vendors for not delivering the Patrick Mahomes jerseys on time. Priorities. 

If you didn't notice, I've also taken to wearing headbands. At first it was a joke because my friends at work were making fun of my long(er) hair, especially on the days I don't feel like combing it... which is pretty much everyday. I wore a headband on Friday to get a rise out of them on one of those aforementioned conference calls, but (like everything else in 2020) it was canceled. In addition to making my head resemble a mushroom. I think the forehead compression helps my brain retain whatever intelligence it has left after the last 8 months of the year.

Anyway, hope everyone is doing well out there, wearing masks, washing hands, and all that good stuff. If you have kids, I hope the new school year or day care situation isn't too scary for you. And if you're a teacher going into the scholastic petri dish each day - I cannot respect and thank you enough for what you're doing. I honestly can't imagine, especially (but not limited to) folks considered "high risk." ❤️

I'm confident we'll figure this thing out eventually. Positive thoughts go a long way!

Shaking off the Rust

I haven't blogged for real in a while. Not counting the Tenkara Angler infomercials posted, I think the last original entry here was in October or November or 2019. I did contribute to a crowd sourced post over at the Tenkara-Fisher blog, but that's about it. Ouch.

I've had a tough 2020 so far from a fishing front, as in the fact that I haven't done any. That's kind of strange, but it's a trend that's going (and needs) to end soon. I'll definitely get out this weekend to hit one of the retention ponds in my neighborhood... heck with the clocks "springing ahead" maybe I'll be able to do a little after work fishing soon. However, I'm really excited that I'm headed to the Philly area for a week on the 13th, where I'll have to sneak out of family obligations to visit some special regulation water and chase some trout. 

Coronavirus pandemic panic be damned, I do hope to get out and about a bit to get on some trout water this year. I even picked up a new Orvis 3-weight Superfine rod & Battenkill reel that I'm rather excited to use. No, I'm not giving up tenkara, quite the contrary, I just wanted to make my fishing a little more reel.

To date, my tentative (trout) fishing travel plans are as follows:

• March - Southeastern Pennsylvania
• April - North Georgia, may also check out the Bigfoot museum
• May - The Driftless, Wisconsin - Tenkara Campout
• July - Rocky Mountain National Park, Colorado
• August - Utah - Oni Tenkara School

Would love to try to squeeze in a few other trips here and there, but I just don't know where they might be. Maybe I'll dust off the saltwater rod and try flailing around in the local surf again. You've probably noticed, I never really took to the Jacksonville scene as it relates to my fly fishing. We'll see how that goes.

In any event, I'm going to try to post a little bit more on here as I start to re-focus on fishing. Maybe some of it will be irreverent or odd, just like the good old days of 2010 & 2011. Or not. We'll see. Either way, I'll definitely be consuming more fishing content, so if you write a fishing blog that I follow, look for me in your comments.

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P.S. For those of you that have been around for a while, Lilly turned 14 this past week. Fourteen! When I started this blog she was one. Crazy how time flies. High school next year. I don't write about her much to protect her privacy as she grows up, but she's become quite the interesting character. 

She is obsessive about creating art - be it digital, watercolors, paint pens, pencil, you name it. She loves Broadway musicals, (she does backstage tech for her school's productions), eating ice cream, and sadly, I couldn't get her to go fishing with me if I tried. She has a very unique style of drawing and maintains her "portfolio" on Instagram. She's also a good kid who does well academically in school and simply cares, be it for others that need help, causes, you name it. She has a huge heart. I hope she keeps that quality as she gets older, the world certainly needs more of it.

Spring Break 2019!

The blog's been a little quiet this month because the family was on Spring Break for a week, about a week or so ago. The Florida branch of the "Griswolds" family tree packed up and headed west for Wally World... almost literally... and fortunately, it wasn't closed this time.

In reality, K.C., Lilly, & I flew to Southern California for a week. We started in Los Angeles and visited the Getty Museum, braved traffic down to San Diego for a few days where we ocean kayaked and checked out sea lions in La Jolla before visiting the Zoo and getting fish tacos in the city proper. After that we hiked it back up to Anaheim for two days of Disneyland and a day of California Adventure. It was one of those trips that was highly scheduled, thus exhausting, but a crazy amount of fun.

Here's a fairly massive photo dump of some of the highlights... I won't mind if you don't get all the way through...