When fishing: Men do that?

My friend Staci and I went fishing recently. The water was down, the air wasn't too hot and the fish were jumping! It was the third time we had attempted to fish this spot and we arrived early enough to be the first in.

We had the luxury of being able to enjoy the nature around us and try out a few different flies to see what the fish were biting. A pair of Mergansers flew overhead and then swam past us while we stood waist-deep in the current.

We would cast, change flies and then change spots on the stream. It was great. Eventually, a man parked on the edge of the road and started walking down to the stream to fish as well. I wasn't the least bit concerned because I had just had a great experience in GLS with Greg.

I stopped watching him when Staci yelled to point to the fish jumping in front of her and then we watched as her fly rod created an arc back into the water and she started fighting the fish at the other end.

I left my spot in the water and walked over to offer any help and to snap photos. While we were taking pictures and admiring her beautiful salmon, the man congratulated her and then walked right past us to fish in the spot where Staci had just been standing. I was in shock. Who does that? We didn't look like we were packing things up and we were far from our two fish per day limit.

Staci explained that it happens A LOT to her. But only when she is fishing by herself or with female friends. It never happens when she is fishing with her husband. WHAT??!!

I was shocked at the clear lack of respect and sportsmanship that this guy was demonstrating. Not since dealing with my hippies have I been so dumbfounded over people's actions.

But, we had a couple things going for us that he didn't have:
1. We were in waders and could get a lot furthur out into the water than he could.
2. We are not women who will be pushed around.

I snapped this picture, knowing that I would post it to demonstrate the rudeness, and then changed my fly to the one Staci was using and proceeded to walk back out to where she had been standing and make him move to a new location. I worked on my casting and watched as a fish jumped a few times in front of me.

We fished for another hour or so then called it a day and moved on. Staci was able to take home dinner and I chalked up a few more hours of fly fishing practice. Disrespectful fishermen or not, we had a great time fishing the hidden streams in Maine.

Healthy Coyote coming through

I still have a few trail cameras out to see what the deer are up to. I have gotten pictures of the big buck that is around and most recently, I got these pictures. Normally, I wouldn't be too freaked out but now that we have a dog, it is a little unnerving. Add that this camera is about 50 feet from our lawn and less than 100 feet from our front door... I hope that this one is just passing through. (Sidenote: I put new batteries in this camera so the date and time are wrong BUT I walked in front of it so it would take my picture and I could figure out what the actual time and date were: 7am Saturday morning.)

Where are the women?

This week, my interview with Steve at The Maine Outdoorsman went live. Steve said yesterday 200 people hit his site viewing over 500 pages. That is a lot of people reading about little ole me and hunting. Why? When I think of women who are in the general public's eye and hunt, I can think of 2 - Country singer Miranda Lambert and Sarah Palin. Why only two? Why is the female hunter such a fascinating thing? (I should probably note that I do not have cable so any and all female hunters on the hunting stations are lost to me. I'll keep it to the general public because that's what I am familiar with.) People/media were fascinated by the fact that they could get footage of Palin and her gun, shooting (and gutting) animals but I feel like the nostalgia would be lost if they had the same footage of McCain. Lambert and her hubby Blake Shelton tweet photos of their kills, and comment on what/where they are hunting. I only know this because I follow both. That's it....

Utilizing technology to make you more aware

Staci and I were roaming around the woods on a piece of property that she knew. It was snowing and we were chasing deer tracks to see if we could find some early sheds. It was a perfect day to be out in the woods and we were relaxed and not really paying attention to where we were going. We knew the border of the property and we knew that if we walked long enough we would hit roads or the bog and find our way back. We got to a point where we thought we knew where we were but we were not sure. Staci got out her compass to take a waypoint to make sure we were going in the right direction to get back to the truck. I took out my phone and turned on OnX. Within seconds we knew where we were, where the property borders were in relation to us and we could watch the dot (that represented us) on the map move as we walked out of the woods and got closer to the truck. In another adventure, my son and I headed out on a shed hunting mission. When we got into the woods, I turned on the trac...

and a strong cup of coffee

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