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Outdoors

The cabin life

May 27, 2015
Coldwater, Family, Fishing, Fly Fishing, Freshwater, Outdoors
5 Comments

Made the annual northeastern migration over Memorial Day weekend to my parent’s place in the North Georgia mountains.  The weather couldn’t have been better as every day brought blue skies and mild temps.  It was even a chilly 47 degrees upon waking up Friday morning.  The fishing was pretty darn good, most fish fell for stonefly imitations, but a few came on streamers and dries.  Day 1 yielded the best results with the action tapering off throughout the weekend- no doubt the fish were getting tired of seeing the same thing by day 3.  For the second year in a row I caught the biggest brown trout that I’ve ever caught and it could actually be the same fish that I caught last year – click the link, you be the judge.  Besides the brown, there are some real monsters in that little creek, I moved a few fish on streamers that would give that brown a run for the money.  I just wish I could have gotten them to eat just to see if my 7wt would have held up.  These trips are a lot of fun and I wish I could get that way more often.  Big thanks to my parents for having me over for a few days.  What they have there is really special and I know a lot of hard work gets put into it.  I truly appreciate every opportunity I’m given to enjoy it.

Day 1

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The big brown

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Day 2

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Day 3

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Bringing Back the Brooks

May 12, 2015
Coldwater, Conservation, Freshwater, Multimedia, Outdoors, Video
1 Comment

Some really awesome video from Freshwaters Illustrated about our beloved Southern Appalachian brook trout.  They’ve got some other neat films on their Vimeo page as well.  The hellbender one has some really cool underwater footage of the animal.

I had the privilege to come across one while wading a stream a few years back – they are very cool, blend in really well with their environment – most folks have no idea two foot long salamanders exist in North Georgia, but they do!

Sicily Island Hills

April 8, 2015
Exploring, Hiking, Outdoors, Scouting
5 Comments

While driving home from Monroe I decided to take a short side trip over to the Sicily Island Hills to check out a really unique part of Louisiana – it’s the type of place that makes a Geography major giddy.  The Sicily Island Hills are in the northeastern part of Catahoula Parish, they lie in the Ouachita River Alluvial Plain.  They are a series of chalk hills that are an erosional remnant of Catahoula sandstone, lying east of the Ouachita River.  With elevations rising to 245 ft, these are the only hills you will find west of the Mississippi River and east of the Ouachita.  In that sense they are unique, quite the geographic outlier.  With their uniqueness comes unique flora as well, this is one of the few places I’ve seen wild flowering dogwood in Louisiana.  It was cool to finally get a chance to check the area out for myself.  Accessing the WMA from Hwy 8, a short ride on a gravel rode had me at a trailhead for the Rock Falls Nature Trail and I was up for a short hike.

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Rock Falls itself is not super impressive, until you realize you are looking at a waterfall in Louisiana, with actual boulders/rocks in the creekbed, which is something we don’t see very often down here.  So relatively speaking, it may be impressive to some.  I enjoyed my short side trip to the Sicily Island Hills, next time I’ll explore the northern access off of Hwy 915.  There are more falls on that end, an even longer hiking trail (~7 miles) and I’m sure I could find a few fish in the creek.