Mountaineer Chronicles

Dew droplets on a leaf of kale Fine coating of dew on a sugar snap pea leaf Baby cucumber plants popped up over the last day or two These were the first green bean spouts to break the surface Sage has quite showy purple flowers The thyme (right) is covered with hundreds of tiny white blooms right now

Some pictures from our annual Men's Retreat which was a little over a week ago. A little fishing, a hike to the top of Seneca Rocks, and plenty of food! Ben the tough guy Me with a cheesy pose on the top of Seneca Rocks Chunky rainbow from Smoke Hole This is my fish geek picture - a male spawning striped shiner (Note color on fins) Pile of kabobs ready for the grill View from Seneca Rocks looking west.

A post was made on the wvangler.com message board that begged the question "Is catching fish the point?" and it linked a video response. It got me thinking.... Here was my response on the message board, copied to here: "If it didn't matter, we would focus as much of our time and energy in the least productive times of the year as we do in the most productive times. I'd have to say that the Elk has more people fishing during hatches that make catching fish easier. The freestone streams don't get pounded in the middle of winter when the water temps are 34F, so yeah catching fish matters. With my increasingly busy schedule and additional responsibilities, I find myself scheduling my longer fishing trips into periods when the probability of poor fishing is as low as possible. I don't take as many winter fishing trips. I don't fish as much in the heat of summer. I try to maximize my potential, and we all do something like that to an extent.

Here I am again, that right, its me, your local weather nerd. Hi. I couldn't miss the opportunity to create a post about spring on the first day of spring (that's today if you didn't know). It looks very spring-like today, bright sun, blue skies, but all that is from inside looking out. Venturing outside may give you the idea of warm day in late January, as the temps are still quite chilly. We are definitely going through a little cold snap. None of the high temps in the long term forecast break the 50 degree mark. The daily average high for March 20 in Morgantown is 53°F. The record high is 79°F and the record low is 15°F, so even though we are a little cooler than average, we are still well within the expected range of temps for this time of year (high temp today is about 41°F). I feel like some folks think that as soon as the calendar flips to March, that winter is over and it should at least be in the 60's everyday. That's fine, and I'm probably in the m

Chad and I took off this past Friday and Saturday in search of trout. Sure enough our trip started with a breakfast feast at the Casselman Inn before braving the cold. We even had to traverse a little leftover snow to get to Grantsville, MD on I-68. After our big breakfast, getting bundled up, and somehow managing to get into our waders with the extra bulk from breakfast and all the layers, we started fishing the Cassleman River delayed harvest area. For me it started off slow, but I finally found a pod of rainbows willing to take a very slowly presented wooly bugger. I ended up catching about 10 standard sized rainbows before my toes got numb, and I walked back to the car to warm up. Chad caught a few fish, but didn't luck into a pod of fish like I was able to find. First of the year - even if a little guy. We decided we would then warm up in the car and head to the Savage River trophy trout area below Savage Reservoir. The water here, like Cassleman, was low, clear, and c

Today, WVU baseball has their home opener. They moved gametime to 1:30 to try to beat the impending snowstorm. In honor of the their home opener, I thought I'd share this amazing catch. All I can say about this is "whoa!" Won't be long until I'm patrolling the outfield for my softball team. Hopefully I can make a couple catches about half as spectacular as this one.

On Saturday, I had to run some early morning errands, then had a few hours in the middle of the day and regardless of the weather, I wanted to get outside. At about 11:30 I got to my urban bow hunting location, with the intention of doing some shed hunting. I walked the property until about 1pm, but with no luck finding sheds. At that time I decided to head down to the locks to get a line wet for a little while. I had a glimmer of hope because it was cold, snowing, and windy--good walleye fishing time according to some, because walleye hate people apparently. But in reality I knew that walleye and sauger are dusk/dawn feeders and that I would just be practicing my casting. I fished for about a half hour, lost a white jig, and decided to tie on a chartreuse sassy shad style jig. The water wasn't super clear, so I thought a little brighter color may pay off. Well it did. On about my 5th cast with that new jig, I felt something heavy and set the hook. It felt pretty heav

Tomorrow is the first day of March and according to weather folklore, if it comes in like a "lamb" it will go out like a "lion" and vice versa. The forecast for tomorrow is currently: mostly cloudy with flurries and snow showers, high temperature of 36, north-northwest winds at 10mph. Nothing too crazy about that forecast. In checking out the national weather map (below), the weather is pretty quiet across the entire country as we head into March. Wonder if that means we are in for some crazy weather as March winds down? Pretty quiet weather going into March While we've seen a few glimpses that spring isn't too far away, it is certainly still winter. As I write this, I'm looking out the window as the snow falls at a pretty good rate. Today's snow probably isn't going to accumulate much because the temps are just a little too warm in town, although the mountains should get a light coating. The days are getting longer though, the avera

I feel like people either love or hate this guy. There is no middle ground for the most part. Personally, I like the guy. The only problem I have is when he shows up late and then won't leave. As long as he's punctual I have no problem. I mention him because he's doing what he does this week.

Well it's mid-January. When I leave for work in the morning, its dark. When I get home from work its dark. This is the time of year when cabin fever can set in. Big time. Here in WV, the winters certainly aren't cold enough to preclude all outdoor recreation, but the conditions certainly aren't optimal. Given my limited time to "do" outdoorsy stuff because of other commitments, limited finances, and limited vacation time, I've been opting to save a lot of my excursions for when weather conditions are more optimal. Sometimes regardless of the weather, a hike through the snow can be fun! That gives me lots of indoor time this time of year. Traditional flyfishing wisdom says I should be tying flies to stock up for the upcoming spring hatches. I do tie some of my own flies, but I'm not good enough or efficient enough to tie all of what I need. Maybe I need to just get back at the tying bench and rekindle my desire to pump out some flies. A few asso