Thank you for listening

I took a friend out for his first time on the fly. He is new in the area, and wanted a scenic drive, so we swung past Chinook Bend on the way up to the Middle Fork. The flows were at 4500 when I left at 7am and while the big gravel bar was accessible, the water was fast and dark.

Note to self; Bring a machete next time, or let someone else lead. I am pretty sure that either those were noxious weeds that we were prancing through, or perhaps I now have robotic scabies.
We dropped by Fall City to see what the water looked like. Looked much more fishable, but still dark.
There was a gentleman, who was trying to fish using a style I was unfamiliar with. Using a spincasting outfit, he would launch the paylod 30 feet straight up and about 15 feet out. Was he trying to bonk the fish on the head? Distract them while someone sneaks up from behind?

While walking back to the car he started yelling and screaming. We were out of range for a visual, but I think he caught either a neckfish or landed his tackle on top of his head.

Middle Fork Road is a really nice drive in the morning. Lots of sunlight peeking through. The road was in really bad shape in march after/during the winter/spring thaw, but had been sanded and graded very recently. Better surface to drive on than the road I live on.

We headed out to the main bend about a half mile before the bridge. I wanted my friend to have some space to show him how to cast poorly. Above the falls the flows were just under 1900. By the time I was home they were at 1600.

The river was running full and chalky and green. Fast too.
There is a pool left of the run, and there were fish jumping everywhere. I am still very new in my insect identification, but I will describe what I saw. The flies seemed to have a lighter colored wing and a copper body. I grabbed one off the surface, only to find that the case was empty and that the fly had gotten away. It was soft, not like the barrels of sand that you find with a caddis. The shucked case was orange or copper. I changed from a Parachute Adams to some gifted fly with a copper colored body with white wings. Two casts and a bump. Two more casts and a little 10″ beauty. Two more bumps, and the fish seems to back off the pool.

We talked for a bit about the hatch, me knowing little, trying to educate one who knows less. I caught another bug, hoping for a good look at what the fish were locking on to and it seemed to be a different bug, same size, same wing white/grey wings, but a straighter body, this time a grey/green body. No more bumps, blood sugar dropping, my friend needed a place with TP.

BWO? Caddis? Will there ever be a bikini hatch of 17-18 emergers or is that just for other people?

Verified. Mayfly hatch, followed by a Caddis hatch.

The below pics are from a trip to Icicle Crick. 1 8″ trout. Threw it back, gently of course. Sure did wiggle.

This is a very cool idea. Take your old, crotch numbing and “this little piggy got hypothermia” inflicting wet protecters and send them to Recycled Waders. They will take them, and for a fee, will turn them into a messenger bag, a wallet or a banana hammock bikini string brief. I wonder if they can make me panniers for my bike?

My plan involves the following:

1. Go drown some flies where Bear Creek meets the Sammamish River, also known as the Slough. I plan on catching fish, ffs. I never catch fish and I am getting over that really quick.

2. Clean my car. It is past due and I feel silly to be honest.

3. Get the last W-2 I need so I can file. Don’t give me that look. I was ready to send mine in before I remembered that I also worked there as well. Oh, snap, did I forget that one place too?

4. Post a mix.

5. Nap.

6. Make a certain phone call.

7. Get set up for a mastering session. Oh yes.

These things will be done.

-M

First off, I apologize to anybody who was under the assumption that this blog/label/podcast was punctual, or even moderately belated. I like to take my time. Its not like I have tons and tons of free time. Since its the slow season at my job (read: slow enough to look for other work) I actually have less time than before. I worked so hard over the holiday season, that from November 1st to the day before Christmas, I only had 2 days off. Except the week I had around Thanksgiving, of course, but you can’t count holidays when you are giving a war story. Actually, it was pretty rough, there were lots of 70+ hour work weeks followed by more 70+ hour weeks, with no days off in between, not to whine, but, It sounds pretty bad ass to your siblings when they whine about some union mandated bathroom break they had to miss.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have what I do when I don’t work 70+ hour weeks. Mainly, sleep-in, think about fishing, think about working on the label and think about riding my bike or going to the gym. Think about going to the gym. I am not totally lazy though. I do have a designated time for chores and cleaning. I designate time right after the Truly-Unpleasant-Potentially-Future-Mrs Anderson reminds me that I am still sitting in the same place she left me this morning. (And here I thought I was being obedient)

2 stories and a dj mix.

1. I do not have waders for fishing. Or, I do now, but I didn’t and that sucked. The Truly-Unpleasant-Potentially-Future-Mrs Anderson and her parents went in over xmas and ordered me a nice pair. Orvis pro-guide2. I actually did the ordering, and since they promised to deliver them by Xmas (GUARANTEED) I had them shipped to her parents house in Oregon, where we would be spending the holiday fly fishing with her father, who happens to be the baddest guide in southern Oregon.

Well, they were late. Promised by the 25 of december and arrived on the 4th of January and reshipped to Redmond yesterday, the 8th. Well, guess what I did today? Actually, don’t guess. Continue reading.

2. I do not have a working dj mixer. Or, I do now, but I didn’t and that sucked. The Djm-500, My bff Dickey and I shared for oh… 10 years (really) and took to possibly hundreds of shows, didn’t have that special sparkle in its step anymore. I am not sure what happened but I think we both have matured and have just drifted apart. That and none of the bass knobs held the last-position-turned-to. Seriously though, thats the only thing wrong with it. I have been cleaning up the studio getting ready for my upcoming studio fest (whenever that is) and have been eye-balling my turntables thinking about how many hours a week I used to spend on them. I swung through my local Guitar Center and picked up a Vestax VMC-004, for really cheap. Like, on-sale, out-of-box and no power supply.

44$ ($11 per channel?) A trip to radio shack settled me with an adapter that worked (AC-in? Wierd.) and I got to… do nothing really. Only one channel worked and the others worked in a “left channel only kinda way.) I wasn’t bummed, I kinda expected it, but it would have been nice to have the Vestax be really cheap AND work. I took it back and bought a little Numark DM-1002. Its small and crappy, but I got it yesterday, and I finally have mixer that works.

So guess what I did today?

I woke up early, drove out to my top-secret spot on the lower Snoqualmie River and went fishing in MY BRAND NEW WADERS. The water was too high for me to get down safely to my usual spot, so I hiked in a bit and checked out an area I had seen but hadn’t visited before. Noting special, but there was a nice pool. No action though. Not even a bump. I dead drifted some egg patterns, some egg sucking leeches and someting called a green skunk before switching out my sink-tip for my dry leader. There was no hatch to be seen. I looked pretty carefully and decided that maybe working an emerger patter might be the best bet, as there was no noticeable fish anywhere. Nothing. I went for a few dry’s but with no result. So, I did what anybody in my position would do.

I went hope grabbed a handful of Detroit and Detroit-inspired Techno and made a mix. Warning. I recorded it, but this was my first mix in many months, my first in my new hour, on a new mixer and it was just a random sampling tracks. I literally grabbed a handful out of the Techno section and went for it. Did I ever.

No trainwrecks, no cd players, no mp3’s. Just 2 channels and some Genmaicha tea.

 

 Gone Fishing Forever. [67:24m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Tracklisting, though it may not be perfect order.

ATLON INC – Dark was the Night – Force
Jeff Samuel – AWT ep – Spectral
Nagen & Saugen – Coughlozenge Horspiel Music
Audio 17
Tim Baker – Soul Provider
Thor Inc – Eternal Atom – Harthouse
Primevil 15
Red Planet – Star Dancer
Dual Channel
User
Samuel L Session – Shakin’ Bootsy ep
Brian Zentz – Dirt Box
Oxia – Intec 08
Dual Channel
Lance Samuel – Eukatech
Heatsync – Assembly – Orbit Records

This is the first off-topic post, and its about fish.

I’ve been bummed recently as the Sockeye run has been seemingly slim this year. You might be saying “Oh.” or something similar but since I have a creek in my yard, and there are runs of Sockeye, King, and Steelhead that literally are 30 feet from my studio window, it is on my mind a but. Cool, eh? It might be early yet, but there has only been less then 20 seen this year, compared to the 10-15 each time I looked at the peak last year. I hope that we are early in the run and I am just eager, but after I say the first ones a few weeks ago, in my heart I was thinking that “The run started, now its going to grow and grow.”

Today I went out and didn’t see any flashes of red like the Sockeye show, but I caught a flash of something. I stopped walking for a sec and realized I was looking at a monster. At least three feet, longer than my arm. I knew we have runs of King (Chinook) salmon, but was not expecting it at all. The thing was massive and really strong. The Sockeye are pretty tuckered by the time they get to my place, and we are seeing a few just barely alive floating down stream. This King was just cruising around the creek, stopping here and there. Abbers (my poodle) saw it, took a few calculations on velocity and decided to sit this one out. It got spooked by us and tore off downstream so fast it make a wake and an audible spash in a creek that was running very fast and heavy. I got crunched at work so I am waiting a bit till I can get my waders. I can’t really afford to get them, but I will try to work something out. I can’t imagine not fishing this fall and more than I can imagine standing in the river in shorts anymore.

This is the view from the studio. The bend where I saw the King is on the other side of that tree in the yard.