Black Lake

Over 10,000 years ago large glaciers slowly dragged across the landscape leaving a twenty mile scar in the surface that is now Saint Lawrence County, New York.  This left sparkling granite bedrock exposed, showcasing deposits of rust red iron and veins of snow white quartz.  The water was once a murky tone allowing visibility to six inches at best.  This is how she obtained her name, Black Lake.

Since her and I have been friends, she has cleared dramatically due to the invasion of zebra mussels. The clearing of her waters did not make her miss her stride; she could still produce fish after fat fish. The deepest of her waters is only thirty feet allowing for expansive weed beds choking most bays by late June.  These mats, sometimes covering thirty acres at a time, provide perfect ambush spots for large pike and bass.  Spots that were made for kayak fishing, but  spots that are difficult to fish with lures made from fur and feathers for the majority of summer.

Many decades ago, my great grandparents bought a small island and quaint cabin on Black Lake.  The island is a granite glob protruding ten feet out of the water for half an acre.  The weather worn rocks are spotted with thousands of years of lichen growth interspersed with wild blueberries and waist high grasses.  There has never been any running water and the only source of power is a generator that is clogged with sticky gasoline that has been tested to temperature extremes over decades of unuse.  Any food and water you will need for your stay must be packed accordingly and ferried across the lake on ice.  There are two refrigerators in the cabin, but they store the nonperishable food from the island's other inhabitants.  The magnet on one of these refrigerators reads "This is a No Frills Kitchen."  A kitchen, or cabin for that matter, was never made that this saying was more fitting for.

I have visited with Black Lake since I was born.  At a young age I wanted to catch fish like I saw the rest of my family doing.  I would waddle down to the water's edge and fill my yellow bucket with lake water.  I would then clamber up from granite ledge to granite ledge and go fishing in that bucket. Perhaps I had seen too many monstrous fish pulled out of that lake to want to tangle with any of them or maybe I thought it would be easier to catch a fish in a smaller body of water.  I would sit there with my Snoopy Zebco waiting for my Snoopy bobber to be pulled into the eight inch depths.  It never happened in that bucket, but I am certain my first sunfish, perch, catfish, largemouth bass, crappie, smallmouth bass, and northern pike came from slightly deeper water only twenty feet from where I had once placed that bucket.  And many of those came with Snoopy's help.  Slightly older my sisters and I would have casting competitions with one rule: hooks only.  We would only make a few casts before one of us would have to reel in the perch that thought our gold Aberdeen looked like a tasty meal.  Older yet, I would occasionally experiment with lures in an attempt to make them more productive.  I put an apple slice on a hula popper (if I liked fruit, fish obviously had to as well) and made a cast I remember being tremendously long.  I made a couple turns of the reel and a hefty largemouth made a giant leap with my lure in its mouth.

It has been four years since I have seen her last and another four before that.  After graduating college I re-met with her for a brief week.  She seemed to still remember me.  She greeted me with the calls of loons and a placid surface.  She would light up the sky every night with her stunning sunsets and she still leaned in and softly sang me to sleep with her bullfrog songs.  When I last left, she was tossing three foot waves in an attempt to keep me with her.  She had not wanted me to leave so soon, and I had not wanted to leave her.  But life takes hold and moves you even farther from those you love.  You keep telling yourself to reconnect with old acquaintances, to make plans for a trip together, but it never happens.  Some memories fade but others only become more vibrant in your mind.  Soon, her and I will have that shore lunch we've been planning and she can try to convince me to never leave again.  I will be bringing some apples.

'Tis the Season for Cheap Flashabou

I was looking through Walmart's Christmas selection the other day and came across 100 strands of tinsel for 60 cents.  Most flash I have seen is $3.50 to $4.50 so that's about three dollars saved.  I grabbed two packs figuring that would definitely last me until next year.  It looks like they take a big sheet of mylar and put it through a paper shredder which gives you a few different widths of the strands.  Most of the tinsel is about 20 microns wider than regular flashabou, but I don't think most fish will mind the difference.  Maybe some of you picky trout tiers will.  If you wanted you could probably wait until December 26th and save another 20 cents per pack.

I recently came across flashabou for your hair.  First they take saddle hackle, then flashabou... soon you will see teen girls dubbing their bangs.  Maybe we should start throwing the girls decked out hair in the stream and see what we catch.

Flyyak's Got A Mascot!

When I came up with Flyyak's blog name, I had an idea to have a yak flying around somewhere.  I suppose I could have just copy and pasted a picture of  one of these:

and although Chuck Yeager would like it, that wasn't the image I was thinking of.  I was thinking of some cartoony animals flapping around in a that-could-never-happen kind of way.  Well I am a bad artist, and a worse photoshopper.  With an hour of drawings and half a day of figuring out how to use the most basic photoshop functions, I managed to come up with my flyyak.

 I don't have a name for him (or her) yet, so feel free to leave a name if you think of one... or to tell me I should have paid more attention in art class.

Progression of the October Snow

I heard the weather channel calling it "snowtober" yesterday.  I hate when portmanteaus are made out of words that don't belong together but someone smashed them into one word to sound cool.  It doesn't sound cool.  You sound like a tool.

Moving on.  We got snow.  In October.  Not really that rare for me but I didn't think it would have accumulated to more than half a foot.  I have trick or treated in snow before and have had an ice storm on October 13th before.  It's just a little too early for my liking.

I took some pictures of the progression of the storm because I was without power for twelve plus hours yesterday.  I did organize my fishing stuff, tie a few flies, dedust/cat fur my computer and threw a bunch of birds at some pigs.

Oh, I also dropped my phone in the toilet and lost the front half of my kayak rack to a  power line dangling over the road.  I think that's a goner unless I see it on my way into work tomorrow.

Notice all the tree limbs down.  The sound of limbs breaking was unreal while I was shoveling.

Rabbit on Rabbit

My first attempt at a double bunny fly. All I had was a small Bass Pro Shop catalog to look at, but I was happy with the results.  It was meaty enough I think for a toothy fish to want it.  Now to tie more in different colors.  If you'll excuse me I'm going to showerleep.

Goodbye Autumn

 I wish it was nice to see you winter.

...and it's accumulating quickly.

View from the balcony

Tak is not happy

Things To Do: Winter 2011 Edition

You're all thinking, "Wooo, a new blog post!.... wait this looks like a list of chores not a legitimate post."  Well, my loyal four followers, this one isn't just for you.

I like lists.  A lot.  Where I sit currently I can count four lists. And that is without ruffling the papers up.  I'm sure there are other forgotten and fairly unimportant lists hidden among the other papers.   All but one of those lists include food... so I guess I like food a lot too.  I wanted to put together a semi-formal list of things to do this winter when I'm not fishing.  I don't think I've ever fished from November to March so maybe that will go on the list if I'm bored enough.  I'm hoping that by placing a list on the blog where I can cross things off and maybe post about said list will provide some motivation to get the tasks marked off.

Tie some new jaw wrenching flies. Among, but not limited to, include the bunny butt slider, the sex dungeon, some sort of carp fly with some fancy barred orange legs (I'm not sure why but they look like something necessary for a carp fly).  Mostly I want to tie some meaty flies for pike and some carp flies.

Spin some deer hair.  I've been following Pat Cohen's blog for a while now and have wanted to try making some bass bugs that rival his.... OK, I'll be happy if they are a quarter of the quality as his.  I've made a couple experimental attempts with deer hair with only a little success.

Install kayak rod holders.  I recently picked up two Cabela's rod holders that should make my life on the water much easier.  They are designed for spin or bait casters which I usually have with me as well as the fly rod.  This will save me from having to shove a rod or two between my feet or behind my seat.  I've been using a still water kayak that has no fishing upgrades at all.  All I need is to borrow a power drill and a spade drill bit and that will change.

Get at least 5 substantial posts in by the end of February.  I have noticed that this blog is fish oriented.  What I mean from that is if I don't fish, I don't post.  The main point of this blog is to post about my fishing trips, but I want to expand that a little more with some pointless YouTube videos or some amateur flies I've tied.

...that list seemed longer in my head.  I will add things throughout winter and I will mark things off as I go.

If you'll excuse me, I have to go buy all the bread and milk from the grocery store for this impending nor' easter.

Things like this:

Too many false casts
...ok, it was a 350º pan.

make it hard to do things like this:

Fish on!
...ok, it was a snagged rock.

But I did so anyway and got some of these:

Stocked trout, not on the fly

Green sunfish, on the fly

One of them I didn't get:

Wheres Waldo baby musky

 And some autumn type pictures:

Mothers and their fallen

Poplar Puddle

Lonely Lambsear

Reds and Browns

Open and Closed

Oh, and happy birthday to the best guy I know!