Happy Birthday Rooster

Today's adventure took place: Smedley Park

Thursday was The Rooster's birthday, so of course we went fishing for a few minutes. We made a quick run over to a small county park where the panfish are usually biting. He had one on the beach before I even got my rod rigged up, but then it was pretty slow. They just weren't biting. We saw a good looking Brown Trout cruising around, but couldn't tempt it.

We did find a spot at the end though that held this sunny and a bluegill - both over 7 inches. Not a bad take for panfish around here.

A good birthday present, except he didn't get to keep it. :)

A Perfect Day

Today's adventure took place: Lancaster County

My oldest son, "The Rooster", and I had about the perfect day for the last day in August.

After waking up at the crack of dawn, I rolled over and went back to sleep til about 8:30. Then I got up, took out Elwood (our lab), made sandwiches, grabbed the fishing gear and headed west.

We made a couple of stops at *mart's to look for fishing and camping gear (found a great deal on stuff at one the night before, so we hit a couple on the way in hopes of more bounty.) Finally we hit the back country roads and enjoyed strolling along through the corn fields and cow pastures. We talked and ate powdered donuts (it's a weakness).

After a stop at a local rod n gun shop, where we chatted with the locals and picked up fly-line for a steal, we ended up at our "destination" around lunch time.

Muddy Run Recreation Area is a camping area and lake with fishing and boating next to a power reservoir. After dunking some lures without success (too many geese and ducks around), we headed around the far end near the dam. Here we found the baitfish, and saw the bass attacking them several times. The baitfish would be jumping out of the water, followed be a wake from the chasing bass behind it - exciting and frustrating to watch! We both tossed several bait options, but could not coax the bass into chasing out lures (methinks I figured out the right lure - a spinnerbait - too late). After a few hours of optomistic effort, it was time to head back home for soccer practice.

On the way, we stop at the roadside stand of an Amish Farmer where we picked up a Cantaloupe, Watermelon, 5 tomatoes as big as my fist and a dozen ears of white corn for $6.80. All of it fresh from his fields. Truly, Natures Rewards.

The area had changed quite a bit since my last visit, but it still felt the same. We drove down some of the back roads I used to travel regularly when my wife and I lived there, and remembered certain farms and curves in the road. The Rooster was amazed at the buggies, and the girls at the farm stand were amazed at him! We took our time, talked about how much we liked the area, took in the sights, enjoyed our time outside and brought home farm fresh goodness for everyone to enjoy.

It is so hard to be around the house and spend that kind of time with your kids, so it really was, a perfect day.

Old books or nothing

Today's adventure took place: The Library and Bookstore.

As a group of nerds, library book sales are a family fieldtrip any time we hear of one. As an information junkie, I love reference books, my wife loves Stephen King books, and the kids are active readers as well, so a good time was had by all.

I did find a couple of books on fishing and the outdoors, and while they weren't new, they have so far proven to be very useful. One is a book on fly fishing with some good information about tackle, fly types, dressings and tactics, but not quite as comprehensive as I might like (again, I am an information Junkie - more on this in a future post). Another was a Bass hunters handbook, which I bought mainly to compare the tactics of today with the tactics from back in the day. The third is a look into the mind of the fisherman from an analyst's point of view. While technical at times, it is a good read.

The last book, and the treasure of the bunch (although the fly fishing book is a close second), is the everything outdoors book published by Outdoor Life sometime in the 60's. It is truly everything outdoors, from handling and cleaning of guns, to field dressing game (with pictures...eww), to tips for fishing, hiking, backpacking and camping. The section on camping is one of my favorites, as it has everything from building a fire and recipes, to tents and RV's. It is quite the retrospective, and fun to read about what was, at the time, state of the art. It is fun to see the old contraptions (for lack of a better term) that were designed for the nuclear familylifestyle that have since gone away. It makes me look at the different MP3 player accessories and specialty cooking gear of today and wonder how fondly we will look back at that stuff in 40 years......

The next day, we went to the big box bookstore to get a gift card for a birthday, and I had my own to use up, so again, family roadtrip. I was amazed at: 1) How difficult it was to find books on the outdoors. They were buried in an odd corner with sports books, heavily dominated by baseball and auto racing/collecting; 2) How few good outdoor guides there were - in both quantity and number of titles; 3) That most were geared toward the most extreme side of things or were Army field guides to survival, plants, etc.

There were more books on iPhones - quantity and number of titles - than on fishing, camping or hiking - maybe even combined. People have been living with, on and enjoying nature for hundreds of years, but there is more information available about cellphones than backpacks. Where is the accumulated knowledge? Boy Scouts? Or are the people out there keeping it to themselves? This is what I want to do with this blog - find the information on how to successfully get out and enjoy nature activities, and then share it so that the next person who wants to get out and try something new has a place to find everything they need to get out there.

Just leave the cellphone at home.

Back to Basics

Somewhere along the line in the not-to-distant past, I re-discovered (or in some cases, discovered), a love for all things outdoors.

I always loved to fish as a kid, but lost my way when I got cool........

I love the smell of autumn leaves and a drive down a country or mountain road, but lost my way when I had to clean up all those leaves........

I used to walk or ride my bike everywhere, but I lost my way when my "bike" had a motor on it.......

I used to think camping was a hotel/motel without free HBO or a microwave......

I never learned how to fly fish.......

The past few months, I have stepped back and put more time and effort into being outdoors, and more importantly, sharing that time with my family. My son has been my fishing buddy for a couple of years now, and now we are adding more and more outdoor activities to the list. The purpose of this blog is to both recount my adventures outdoors and to be a resource for others that are looking to get more outdoors. Fishing, Hiking, Camping and whatever else cross our paths (pun intended) will be covered in hopes of creating a repository of memories, inspiration, and knowledge for those who follow our path.

Please, only leave behind your comments, and your footprints.