Some of you know that a medical recovery period can cause you to reflect on your life events. If you were disabled by an accident or medical event, long periods of inactivity bring forward memories of past family events. The good ones can bring a smile to your face, warm your heart, or make you laugh aloud. The bad ones can bring a tear to your eye and make you wish you had handled it better. If you have cherished hobbies, like fly angling, you conjure up your past adventures and wonder how future ones will be achieved. Pondering your ability to fully participate in future events usually fosters self-pity.
Continue reading “Exploring New Angling Opportunities”A Pause in the Life…
Most of us experience health events as we age that give us pause. My first such experience as an adult was my October 22, 2015 heart attack while float-tubing Dacey Reservoir on a solo trip. My most recent medical episode occurred after a Father’s Day dinner at home. I apparently experienced a thrombosis in my lower aorta, below my renal arteries but above my iliac arteries. That resulted in diminished blood flow to my legs which were already suffering from twenty years of peripheral artery disease. Surgeons performed an Axillo-Bifemoral bypass which successfully restored adequate blood flow to my legs, but the time lapse between Father’s Day and surgery was too long for my right leg and so it suffered some nerve and muscle damage.
Continue reading “A Pause in the Life…”A Boo Rod
Most every serious trout angler has heard or read about the history of bamboo fly rods. Split cane rods replaced wooden poles or bamboo poles for fishing in the early 1800s. Apparently there is some confusion about where split cane rods were invented (France, England, China, or USA), but as for America it is said that Samuel Phillipe of Easton, Pennsylvania, was the first American to experiment with making multisided rods with strips of bamboo glued together. No doubt the industrial age advanced the craft of rod making in the late 1800s.
Continue reading “A Boo Rod”An Easter Season trip to Dacey Reservoir
I recently retired from from the bank where I worked as an SEC registered municipal bond advisor. It was a great job that came along at the perfect time, and it allowed me to retire from my stressful municipal Chief Financial Officer position at age 60, about one year after I suffered a heart attack on this very reservoir (see Maiden Voyage of Water Master Grizzly Interrupted by Heart Attack). While these past five years with the bank have been enjoyable and rewarding, when I reached 65 I was psychologically prepared for full retirement (two COVID years of working from home also helped). This adventure to Dacey Reservoir was my first angling trip under full retirement status. It was a satisfying way to acknowledge never having to work for a paycheck again.
Continue reading “An Easter Season trip to Dacey Reservoir”Spring Mountains Getaway
As a way of saying “Goodbye” to our southern Nevada winter, this morning I took a leisurely drive to the less traveled portion of the Spring Mountains west of the Las Vegas Valley, a trip that also moderated my adjustment to a valley temperature of just under 80 degrees. The Spring Mountains Range is about 60 miles long, and most of it angles off in a northwest direction from Las Vegas. Its most obvious view from the city is that of the prominent red rock bluffs on the west edge of the valley. Of course I took along a fly rod and a few flies just in case I decided to fish the pond at Cold Creek (I doubt you are holding your breath on that one).
Continue reading “Spring Mountains Getaway”Cold Creek, My Old Friend
My early exploration of the Cold Creek area began when I was in college, around 1977, with my hiking buddy Kevin McGoohan. At that time there was no community development, no town of Cold Creek. It was as pristine as could be in the late 1970s. It is where I caught my first trout on a fly rod, so it has held extreme sentimental value to me these past 44 years (read my Cold Creek, Clark Co., NV post to learn more about my early exploration of Cold Creek).
Continue reading “Cold Creek, My Old Friend”Exploring Carpenter Canyon from Pahrump, NV
In the 1970s I developed an interest in U.S. Geological Survey topographic maps (i.e., topo maps). Hunting and fishing with my brother Neal often involved these topo maps. While the first satellite global positioning system (GPS) had been created by the US military, civilian use did not materialize until 1993. Civilian access to the Internet also occurred around 1993, but cell phone GPS was not available until 1999. Until civilian GPS became available, topo maps were the best way to explore the outdoors.
Continue reading “Exploring Carpenter Canyon from Pahrump, NV”Desert National Wildlife Refuge – Mormon Well Road
Most every adult in southern Nevada is knowledgeable of Lake Mead National Recreation Area, Red Rock Canyon National Conservation Area, and Mount Charleston (i.e., Spring Mountains National Recreation Area), and has likely visited at least one, and probably all of three within their lifetime. As a young adult in the 1970s and 1980s I could find solitude by hiking just a mile or two in all these national treasures, but not today. Today the Red Rock Canyon trails feel crowded no matter which trail you take, and at its southern end the mountain bike trails have all but decimated any semblance of adventure while hiking to the lesser known springs and petroglyphs of Red Rock. The youngsters of today have no knowledge of what it was like 45 years ago when the valley’s population was 300 thousand residents compared to the 2.3 million here today. Back then, if one-percent of the population visited these areas on a weekend that would be 3,000 adventurists scattered in the hills. Today that would be 23,000 people, or almost eight times as many people.
Continue reading “Desert National Wildlife Refuge – Mormon Well Road”Early Fall at Wayne Kirch WMA
It has been a long, hot summer in southern Nevada. June 9th was my last out-of-town adventure. Although not a fishing trip, it was quite memorable as my grandson’s first camping trip. It sustained me for about four months, but the cooler fall temperatures were beckoning once again. I chose to visit Wayne Kirch Wildlife Management Area for a day-trip getaway.
Continue reading “Early Fall at Wayne Kirch WMA”Multi-Generational Camping
I know several grandparents who have experienced camping with their children and grandchildren. All of them expressed the joy of passing on the liberating experience of camping to their descendants, whose opportunities for learning appreciation and reverence for nature continue to diminish over time. Getting out of our urban cities to dwell in nature for a few days seems to free our souls. We leave behind our to-do lists and the technology that drives so much or our waking hours, replacing it with the freedom to soak in a deep, satisfying peace. We are released from our daily routines, free to explore and discover without restrictive agendas governing our daily lives.
Continue reading “Multi-Generational Camping”