ness

It had been a long time since I had taken an extended fishing trip, and the stars lined up right at home for a four day trip over Memorial Day weekend. Inspired by troutnt69's report from a few weeks ago, I decided I'd head up to northeast Iowa and give the Driftless area another look. I'd been there one other time, but it was a whirlwind trip in the dead of summer and I didn't really get to give it a good working over. With a little help from troutnut69, I was able to narrow it down to a few streams that sounded more to my liking than what I'd fished before. The Driftless area gets its name from the absence of glacial activity, which left a hilly region with lots of spring-fed creeks in the valleys. It covers a portion of northeast Iowa, southeast Minnesota and southwest Wisconsin. The soil is rich and farming is mainly terraced corn fields and dairy cattle. In a lot of ways it's similar to the Ozarks, but there's a definite difference. The area was settled by German and Scandinavian immigrants who were mostly Lutheran and Catholic. Beautiful country churches, typically with an adjacent cemetery, are everywhere. Farming looks to have been pretty good to these people -- the farms are well kept and have a prosperous look to them. They're obviously proud of their European heritage. I left early Friday morning and rolled into Decorah, Iowa in the early afternoon. I dropped my stuff off at the motel and headed for the stream I had decided to fish first. I knew there were several miles of stream and three well-publicized accesses. The parking lot at the first access didn't look too bad (2 cars) so I figured I'd start there. It was a small stream, about like Crane Creek in size and character. Water levels were excellent due to heavy spring rains. There were fishermen's trails on either side of the stream which made navigating the brush pretty easy, but it also reminded me this place got a lot of pressure. The water was pretty clear, and the were frequent sections of good holding water to fish. I tied on a small Stimulator with a Copper John dropper and headed upstream. At the first s-bend I missed two fish in close succession, then landed a 12-inch brown. Saw a guy coming downstream, so I skipped around him and went on up. I caught another brown and a rainbow on the same setup. Missed a couple more that slashed at my dry. I ran into a couple folks on the way up sitting on the bank fishing spinning gear in the deepest pools. No worries, I just kept walking. I came across a fly fisherman parked at the edge of a pool and asked if he was heading down or up. He said up, so I told him I'd skip well above him, to which he replied he was fishing up to the next bridge -- hoping I'd give him the next 3/4-mile of stream . (I didn't.) Typical fish: The next morning I decided to hit another access farther up the same stream I'd fished day 1. The second access had a couple of campers parked there and several folks and their kids sitting on the bank. I probably could have gone past them and been fine, but I headed to the third access instead. No cars in the lot, but three pulled in before I had my stuff ready to go. I'm not quite sure what official arrangement, if any, exists with the farmers, but at most of the accesses there are stiles (ladder-like steps to help you get over the fence) and signs that say private property/public fishing. It was a zig-zaggy meadow stream that came out of a wooded valley. I couldn't get any takers, so I switched to a black bead-head wooly. Trolled and dead-drifted that through a few of the deepest bend pools and landed a couple rainbows and a brown. I also had a few more misses. Later that morning I headed over to another creek that was supposed to be pretty good. It was what they call 'meadow fishing' in the brochures. I'd call it 'pasture' fishing. I didn't see any cows, but they had clearly been there very, very recently. I headed upstream with a small Adams on 7x tippet. I stayed well back from the stream, keeping my eyes peeled for likely-looking water, fish moving and pasture patties. Not too far up, I heard an unfamiliar bird call from behind me. I turned around and it turned out to be a bald eagle. I fumbled for my phone but he took off. I didn't see a fish, and even tried to move some just to see if they were in there. Nothing. So I headed back to the car. Just as I arrived a couple guys and a kid pulled up. He asked how I'd done and I told him I hadn't seen a fish. His less-than-diplomatic reply was 'You're kidding, they just stocked this yesterday.' We chatted for a while and he gave me several suggestions for places to try. Surprisingly, when I left, they did too (even though they had 'just stocked this yesterday' ). I spent a chunk of the afternoon scouting around and looking for a particular creek I wanted to fish. Between road closings and lack of signage it wasn't going well. My car was telling me I had 20 miles worth of gas left, and my Garmin was telling me it was 17 miles to the gas station, so I bailed out. At the gas station I told a guy I was having trouble finding the creek, and he chuckled saying, 'Yeah, the signs are down'. He gave a some directions and I got there fine. Turns out I'd been past the two accesses and just didn't realize it. Fished a little, but I was pretty tired and only gave it a half-hearted effort then headed back to town. The third day I headed back to the stream I'd fished the first day. I hit the third access and there was a truck and a camper parked there. The man and woman with the camper had two huskies and a lab tied up. Nice folks. I headed upstream and got a chuckle in a couple minutes when the dogs started to howl. Clearly the folks had just walked away to fish and the dogs didn't like it. Caught a couple browns along that stretch that morning in the rain. It really started to pour, so I decided I'd do something else for a while. As I was pulling on to the main road back to town, services at the Big Canoe Lutheran Church were just letting out. Earlier in the week I had toyed with going to the service there, but didn't. I pulled in, de-wadered and headed up to the door, told some folks I had been admiring the church all weekend and asked if I could see the inside. Well, an older lady spoke up and said she'd show me around. I got introduced to everybody in there as 'John from Kansas City'. The inside was as beautiful as the outside, and the folks were all very nice. I was a little self-concious because I was wet, sweaty, stinky and had a three-day growth. Got a lot of stories about the surroundings and the history. Very cool. Big Canoe Church: Later that day I hit Heritage Farm, home of Seed Savers Exchange. SSE collects and preserves heirloom fruit and vegetable seeds, and publishes an inch-thick 'Yearbook' each year in which members list thousands of seed varieties for sale or trade. SSE also sells a small selection of the listed varieties through a catalog and website. They also maintain a seed bank, historic orchard and vineyard, and heirloom poultry and cattle. Pretty cool place. Heritage Farm: Orchard: Apples just beginning to blossom: White Park cattle: Driftless Area is about seven hours from home, but for some perspective -- the Eleven Point is about 5. So, I'm not stretching too much for a trip like that. Nice part of the country and some really good small-stream fishing.

I'm pretty comfortable with the way my kids are being raised -- and they've been around guns, know the danger and respect them. But I still lock them up. I'd rather not depend on things going just the way they're supposed to when there's a gun around.

In gun safe, key hidden well. Ammo in another place. I can be loaded and blasting away in less than 5 minutes.

Had a guy retire from here a few years back. Nice party and all. Wife put him to work redoing the bathroom. He finished it, said 'screw this' and came back to work

Hey, our new hitting coach, George Brett, is gonna turn this around!

Well, there was a Brittany laying right there with me. I was kinda wondering if he was the source of the tick.

Hello back, fellow Kansan. Welcome to the forum. Lots of good info here. I'm a former homebrewer myself -- pretty much limit it to cider these days though.

The other night I was in bed half asleep and felt something on my leg. I dragged my fingernail across it and it came off. I turned on the light and sure enough it was a tick. Then I fumbled the little SOB and never could find him in the carpet. Thanks for listening.

Nice!

Maters, peppers doing well after the cold and frost. Got more lettuce than I can eat right now. Lots of radishes too. Spinach has been spotty -- again. Third year on the asparagus bed and we had plenty. Strawberrys are all in pots and it should be any day for the early ones. Planted some ground cherries for the first time--anxious to see how those are. Planted lots of beans this year-- pole and bush; cylindra beets fer pickling

Yeah they goofed . I'm talking about the guy at the achool

I have no doubt that reporter heard what he reported. But I think a fundamental part of reporting is to verify information through a second source before you announce it. If the source was as credible as this guy made it sound, he should have named him or given some information as to why he was reliable, not just 'hey, take it from me, this source is reliable.' And he still should have framed it as 'unconfirmed' at a minimum, or maybe just sat on it until there was more certainty. But, the media doesn't sit on things anymore, do they? These guys should know, as a fundamental part of their jobs, that in times of crisis information can be sketchy. If you've got 10 people witnessing an event, you're gonna get multiple takes on it -- maybe even more than 10. I would bet that reporter heard from more than one person what was going on in that collapsed school. But the number he quoted was 24 and it was horribly off the mark. Any chance he heard numbers more than 24? Nope. Less than 24?? I don't think you can just pass responsibility off to the source, or expect listeners to discern the validity of what's being reported. Think of the impact that little goof had on people. There are parents, friends, relatives, teachers, whatever were told 24 third graders were dead at Plaza Towers. I have heard, many times, a network say something to the effect 'CNN is reporting...' or 'we have unconfirmed reports of...' So, yeah they do that, and it's crappy journalism.

I read this morning that the authorities made an error and double-counted on some people. They said the difficulty in communicating contributed to that. So, I'm giving a pass to 'the media' on that one. However -- the local TV reporter did say he had it from a very reliable source that there 2 dozen third graders dead at Plaza Towers. And everybody else ran with that number until somebody I heard jacked it to "20 to 30".

So how many people still don't have their flies?

I hear what you're saying, but the right Scoutmaster could do better for boys with the wrong fathers. There's no right answer -- each kid and each Troop should be looked at individually. When I was a kid my Cub Scout den wasn't the greatest, and I quit after Webelos. My brother went on to Scouts and thrived. Our dad took us hunting, fishing and camping too. My two sons went through Cubs and a couple years of Scouts. The two experiences were vastly different. The Cub Scout Pack wasn't run very well and there were a lot of disorganized, complaining trouble-maker parents in our Den who wouldn't lift a finger but were full of advice on what to do. One was a drunk, one was crazy, two were serial gossips. The kids were great and had a lot of fun though. When we moved to Scouts the whole dynamic was different and much, much better. Very well-run Troop who did things by the book. Honestly, at first, I thought they were maybe a little too by-the-book, but time proved me wrong on that. There were a number of kids in our Troop who NEVER would have had the outdoor experiences without Scouts. One kid had an absentee father and would have missed out on a lot more than outdoor experiences were it not for the families in our Troop. It's not for every kid or parent. It's worth checking out, and it's worth shopping around for different groups if you have more than one to choose from.

bed time.

NPR is great. I love Car Talk and Wait, Wait. I do read news on their website occasionally, but it seems kind of hit-and-miss (focus on a few stories, pass on a lot of others) so I end up elsewhere more often than not. I listen in the car on my commute, and what I hear then is pretty lightweight from a news perspective. Some of it's just plain bad. I can't do Diane Rehm. Don't know what else there is. I don't know enough about PBS news I suppose. The show I do see is on opposite our local news, and I usually opt-out on their show in favor of more general and local news. I just won't watch Washington/political stuff anymore. Regardless -- I try to think about what's being said, listen with a healthy dose of skepticism and filter out the BS. And, if they're shouting at each other I'm outta there.

I think you've got a few good points, Al. Yeah, they're superficial and ratings driven. Trotting out a so-called expert to color a story has become SOP -- but there's little true journalistic effort. It's mostly filling time with eye candy and promising even better stuff right after the commercial. Last night I broke my rule and flipped around the cable news channels looking for information on the OKC tornado. Now, I understand that it's very fresh and things are unfolding, but what a flipping waste of time that was. And aggravating. CNN put a swimsuit model and a slicked-back grease ball in front of some fancy animation. They weren't content reporting the EF4 and 1 mile wide info that the authorities had put out -- they had to jack it up to a 5, and put it at two miles wide. No support for that, no explanation, no context. They just moved up to the next whole number. But, she was hot. I find the best news coverage in a handful of the large newspapers -- New York Times, LA Times, other big-city papers (Phillie, Boston, Miami, etc.) Sadly, I can't put the Star in that category. Network (not cable) news (web, not TV) is secondary. They'll get into some depth and usually keep it pretty 'newsy'. Our local TV stations web sites are a joke. The writing is poor, with typos and grammatical errors, and often factually incorrect. They're so cluttered up with advertisements, bikini-clad women or tantalizing Kardashian teasers that it's laughable. Our local business rag misreported our earnings release last week, calling a $5 million gain a loss. It's not the first time they goofed. I'd love to think Scott Pelly's point will gain some traction, but I doubt it will anytime soon. I think the news reporting system as it stands now isn't sustainable. There's just too much with too little quality to keep people coming back. We've seen newspapers and news magazines fail, and others go to online only. My tummy tells me that trend continues, but also that local channels and network news -- especially 24-hour cable-style -- are going to need to drastically change their model. I'd bet there are a lot less of these outlets 5 to 10 years down the road.

Outstanding job on the blog! Got my day off to a great start.I love the Driftless area.

There are good troops, and not-so-good troops. Each kid is going to have a different take-away based a lot on that, but also on how they're wired to begin with. It gets kids outside and gives them a good alternative to sports.

Like this?

After about 3-4 paragraphs it was obvious to me that article was a hatchet job. I've gotten to where I just don't read or watch the crap anymore. Biggest problem is finding stuff that isn't crap.

Mine were the yellow poppers. You know, the crappy ones.

Thanks for that info. The workmanship on those is incredible. I've always wanted to get an airbrush, but have never pulled the trigger because I don't do much stuff that would require it anymore. What type are you using?

Ahhh -- overkill is fun! Here's a couple questions right off the bat -- what are you using for filler to get the hook slot covered up so nice? I've been using model plane/car/etc. filler, but that stuff seems to dry out so fast that I don't like it too much. Balsa or styrafoam? Are you putting on a clear coat? Would love to see a video.