Blawgin’ & fishin’

Boy, I’ve been pretty much of a slacker of late.  Here it is the 20th of May and the last entry prior to this one was April 30th.  That may change before too long.

Anyway for those interested, Mountain Heart will be doing The Opry again this weekend.  They just found out Monday afternoon.  Friday and Saturday night.

I’ve been trout fishing.  Gene Wilson is one of the older farts I have to credit with my interest in fly fishing.  He’s been my buddy since he came to our county nearly 30 years ago, joined our Sunday School class and married a girl that grew up with me in church.

We have fished 3 times over the past 2.5 weeks.  I had to buy a new set of wading boots (after trying ot repair my older set, unsuccessfully) but it’s been fun.  We’ll probably do it again before too much longer.

Fishing for wild trout (not hatchery hatched ones) is like trout hunting.  If you’re not careful as you approach the piece of water wherein he lies, you will not see him nor catch him.  He will see your dark form on the water or your heavy-footed splashing, rippling HIS domain and he will not pay you or your fiy a visit.  I told Gene the other day that I wondered if as we gently step into a pool of water, they are filming a Bambi-like trout cartoon and you hear a deep male voice that says, “Man has entered the pool.”

Last year North Carolina was in the worst drought I can remember in my nearly 48 years.  It’s really good to see these streams we’ve been fishing for years running bank-full with clear, cool water.  That’s good trout habitat.

Oh, BTW, I’ve got the best cell phone in the world and it’s a cheap Samsung.  Here’s how I know.  I was stalking a large brown trout Monday evening, about 6:30PM and I waded out a bit too deeply into his pool.  Very slowly and deliberately.  So as not to disturb or scare him.  In my shorts and new wading boots.  With my cell phone in my pocket.

I fished the hole really good.  I moved up to a rather large rock to the left of the upper end of the deep pool, climbed ever-so-carefully up onto it and cast into a fairly strong channel and had a good trout hit my fly.  He took it and began running down the channel.  I had too much floating line out and couldn’t get it gathered in order to set the hook, so he got off.  Though dissapointed, I felt good that I presented the fly in a good enough fashion to get a rather large brown to attack and not be scared off.

Gene was catching up from pools he was fishing behind me and we talked a bit and gave reports, since we hadn’t seen each other for about 30-45 minutes.  I had caught one keeper rainbow in my first pool, turned him back and Gene had done the same with 2-3 fish.

I felt my phone vibrate and was amazed that I was getting enough signal to get a call in this deep little gorge we were fishing.  But, it kept vibrating and I WASN”T getting a call.  It had been in water for a good 3-4 minutes, as I spent my time wading in the pool.

It wouldn’t quit vibrating!  So, I took the battery out of it to stop that infernal shaking.  I had just bought a pair of new wading boots and now I may be buying a new cell phone.  Oh well.  There was still fishing to be done and we did catch a few more.

I let the phone ride on top of the dash, near the defrost vent, on the way home.  I was wet and the bit of heat felt good.

The next morning I carried my phone and battery to work with me.  I hadn’t said anything about the phone to my wifey-mae.  Afer all, she said nothing about me buying wading boots.

I looked up drying a cell phone on the internet.  The internet is good for finding stuff that you know nothing about.  I had done all the right things, even though I didn’t know.  Removing the battery is important, because batteries and water don’t mix to well.  I plugged it in, it powered up (though it had water condensation on the inside of the outer display) and I had my contacts and it seemed to be working.

The water condensation cleared up later yesterday, though it didn’t show my clock or who was calling.  I made a couple of test calls to the wife and after it worked, I told her about baptizing the cell phone in Steele Creek.  That was pretty easy.

Now, my outer display has come back and it’s taking a charge this AM.  I was really dreading trying to re-establish all those contacts from the bluegrass world in a new phone.

Now, go get you a cheap Samsung phone and taking it swimming.  Just not much.