Wooly Buggers

The stars finally aligned on Sunday. It’s the first day we’ve had that’s been over 60 degrees, the ice has been off the lakes for a couple weeks and the bugs have been in the air. That can only mean one thing – fly fishing time!!!!

When most people think of fly fishing, they think of doctors and lawyers from LA and Chicago flocking to Montana rivers for month long vacations of guided fishing trips. And while that may be true, there is also the redneck version that I employ. A float tube and some flipper fins on Fish Creek Dam southwest of Mandan. It’s not very exotic, but I can’t really be driving 600 miles on a whim right now to scratch an itch.

I’m still a novice at fly fishing, I can cast and put the fly where I want, but I really don’t know what fly to use and when. Laying my dry fly on top of cloudy water wasn’t the trick Sunday. Luckily there was another guy out there casting flies as well and after watching him reel in 3 nice Rainbow Trout I paddled over to find out what he was using.

“Streamers”. Yep, no idea what a streamer is. So I hid my ignorance as best as I could by throwing out some fishing terms and paddled back to my spot. Thank God for Google. Streamers are wet flies that submerge and mimic a baitfish instead of a dry fly that sits on top of the water.

So a trip to Scheels will be in order sometime this week to find some Wooly Buggers – size 10 in Black and Olive. Maybe some size 8’s or 6’s.

Ok, so back to the main purpose of the blog – Little One! A co-worker came up today and asked me if we’ve had any Braxton Hicks. Again, I had to plead ignorance. Is that a type of bacon? Maybe a 3rd baseman for the Montreal Expos in the early 80’s? Possibly a relief pitcher for the Texas Rangers I needed to pick up for my fantasy baseball team???

Nope, it’s false labor. False contractions. 8 hours of Lamaze class is a long time and maybe I didn’t pay attention through the ENTIRE class. It’s tough when Jason is bugging me through the whole class trying to make me laugh. I paid attention for the important parts though.

Now, for the million dollar question. When is the baby coming? Well, if the baby is anything like Dad it’ll procrastinate and be 3 days late. If it’s like Mom, it’s probably wondering why it hasn’t already been born and getting nervous that it needs to be somewhere. The truth is, I don’t know. Stay tuned though as the Blog will be the official news station of the birth, along with phone calls and text messages.