Luck of the Kiwi?

It's not my intention that this become a blog just about my fishing experiences, but...

My parents recently (within the past year or so) had a journey to New Zealand with some friends of theirs. On returning, they brought me quite possibly the best gift that they could have brought me from New Zealand...a greenstone fish hook. I didn't realize it at the time, but there's a bit of tradition with these necklaces in that it is VERY bad form to buy one for yourself...kind of a like giving yourself a nickname! The fish hook itself represents prosperity and safe-keeping over the water. It's a bit of a fisherman's guardian angel.

Since receiving it, I feel like I've been having a bit of good luck in the trout-catching department. Yesterday's outing was definitely one to make me even more convinced.

I was done at school by 12:30pm yesterday because of the academic festival we're having instead of normal classes this week. I ate lunch, talked with Kel for a bit, and then went down to the Rio Gallinas...about 5 min. from my house. I only fished for an hour, but in that time, caught 4 trout worth mentioning...2 of which were over 16 inches each! These are some of the biggest that I've caught yet. The weather was perfect...high 70's and low humidity...sun shining...and the bugs were out, which was making the trout rise. I caught a brown trout on a store-bought stimulator caddis fly with an orange tail...he was enormous feeling on the end of my light-weight fly rod. After that I decided to try one of my home-tied caddis stimulators just to see if they'd hit it...and that's when I caught the biggest fish yet...a deep bronze-colored German brown trout. He hit the caddis upstream in a deep pocket and we fought for a good minute and a half as he tried to take the line under a clump of beaver-chewed river debris.

Good day fishing?...or luck of the Kiwi necklace? Either way, I'm happy to be fishing in New Mexico!

cheers,
jeff

"can't catch it in a camera"

Saturday had been planned (at least in part) for over 2 weeks. One of the teachers here at the college had a friend coming out to visit and a few of us had planned on taking the day to go climbing as a way to get to know the visitor a little better.

So when Kelley and I were in Santa Fe, I stopped in at REI and bought a couple more pieces of climbing gear...a daisy chain, some locking carabiners, and a new chalk bag.

As the time got closer my days in class just happened to be spent taking the kids to the Rio Gallinas again as one of the last parts of this huge unit on ecology we're doing. As they planned out their field study, I walked the river and started noticing the trout in the stream. My "other love" was now groaning once again from the river to my soul and I went and bought a fishing license this past Friday. During my fishing outing on Friday afternoon I began to think about what the climbing would be like on Saturday and as I mulled over the terrain that we would be in, I realized that the Mora river ran straight through the area...deep inside of Carson National Forest. It was set then...

...I would ride the harley with climbing and fly fishing gear riding on the passenger seat(like some turtle with an adrenaline addiction)up New Mexico Hwy 518 and have what would become a day to rival days.

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We ate breakfast at a friend's house on campus and then I took off early to scout out the fishing spots before we all went climbing. 5 minutes (by road) from our climbing spot I found a great section of the river where the pools were deep and the trout were active. I couldn't wait until after the climbing, so I put on all my gear and caught a little brown trout within the first 4 or 5 casts.

I had seen my friends pass in the car on their way to the crag, so I got back on the bike and met them at Comales Canyon in Carson National Forest. The hike in was enough to shake the cold of the morning ride and I found them setting up gear at the bottom of a rock face called the Water Wall. We climbed until about 3pm. I climbed a 5.8+ that was really fun and tried to climb a 5.9+/5.10A route. I only got 1/3 of the way up, but the first few moves were great and tired me out.

Then it was back to the river. I went further up 518 towards Taos only by a few hundred yard and found a great public camp right by the river. I put the rod together, donned my waders and vest and stepped softly down into the stream. The willows on the riverbank were enough to buffer my casting from the harsh wind that had picked up. As the sun came out, I decided to try a dry fly (I had been fishing nymphs all morning and the previous day). I put on a stimulator caddis with a bright orange tail and crept up on a deep hole with a steep rock as the outer boundary...I could feel the trout waiting.

A long cast found my caddis laying down at the full extension of the leader and tippet where it paused for a brief second before the water exploded. A beautiful brown trout had been fooled and was now on the end of my happy line. Soon in the net, I marveled at its golden color...the spots on its side beaming with color like I had never seen.

I fished the rest of that afternoon careless if I caught another after that magnificant fish. I was soon back on the motorcycle and heading home through some of God's most amazing country...the bright yellow sunshine of the turning aspens like islands amidst the deep green of the alpine spruce and fir trees.

Home came quickly and much welcomed by my tired but happy body after a day that a camera could do no justice to.

Today I am tired

Darkness to offset brilliance

Women to show us all that we are not

Winter to remind us of summer

and bad days to put into sharp relief those that are great.

"Mojo"...a better name for a bike than a child.

So Kelley and I went to Santa Fe last Friday for an appointment with our perinatal specialist. They drew out a pedigree of our family's possible genetic conditions, talked with us about a few concerns we had, and even took us into the ultrasound room where we got yet another peak at our soon-to-be baby girl. We've picked the name "Moira Josephine Gregory"...

...after we picked it I quickly realized that I would have an excuse to call her "Mo-jo"! It seems, though, that neither of the pairs of grandparents really like that idea much...so we'll just stick with "jo" for short until her friends pick their own nicknames for her later in life! :)

We're both so excited about her arrival in December and I think that my excitement for her getting here is getting close to Kelley's excitement for getting her out of Kelley's belly!

The name "mojo" is just too good to waste though...so I've affectionately named my Harley in honor of what no one will let me name my own child! :)

On Saturday (the day after our trip to Santa Fe), I got on mojo and rode the beautiful ride to Taos, NM. It takes you up on New Mexico Hwy 518 through some of the most beautiful country I've ever seen. Desert turns to arid uplands, which become alpine forests complete with Aspen groves that are already in peak color change. Then the road descends into Taos, which is such a hip place as well.




I'm so thankful for the opportunity to be able to experience life this full.

cheers,
jeff

A day in the life...

Ok...so this is not the EXACT spot on the Gallinas River that we went, but today my first year students are completing part 3 of their training in random sampling as part of our ecology unit in IB Higher Level Biology. We took kick nets, sorting containers, a flow meter, pH meter, temperature meter, clip boards, and field guides down to a section of the river that runs right through campus.

Within 30 minutes we had collected caddis flies, mayflies, a stone fly, damsel flies, and even a planarian. The whole point was to qualitatively assess the richness, and therefore overall health, of the Gallinas River at that spot. I'm not sure whether it was our brief sampling time or not, but I expected to see more stone flies and we didn't. Stone flies are very sensitive to pollutants and are therefore generally the first order of organisms to decline in population size when a river is getting polluted. Interesting stuff...

The real point is that it is SO FLIPPIN' COOL to be able to take a 45 min. class period and get done in the field all that we were able to get done! Where else can this happen?!

until next time,
jeff

Fast Times in Montezuma

It's been almost a month since we moved to New Mexico.
In that time, I've come to appreciate drier air, bluer skies during the day, starrier skies at night, hummingbirds by the drove at our little feeder outside our front window, and a hiking trail at the back of my driveway on which a 15 minute hike leads up to a spot where I can see clear across the sundrenched plains of New Mexico.

I recently spent 3 days at Ghost Ranch on hwy 84 in northern New Mexico. We took the whole student body there for some orientation activities. How amazing it was to look up to the cliffs painted in such vibrant colors that it even makes your eyes question themselves upon looking. We swam in a deep turquoise lake, rode mountain bikes through the desert, played music at night, and my motorcycle brought me home safe to Kelley and her parents who were in town for a visit while I was gone.

So this is where my mind is upon class starting this coming Tuesday. I'm still marvelling at the beauty of this new place that Kelley and I can now call home. Soon the focus will turn to lessons, labs, extracurricular activities, marking papers, and the business that surrounds such a culturally and academically rich environment as the UWC. I can only pray that God gives me the faith to depend on Him daily for the strength that Kelley and I both need to survive out here.

cheers,
jeff

Surfing so good, a lady took her top off!

So there we were...patrick and I...in some of the best surf we've had yet in SC. The waves were long, tall, and we were catching rides right and left.

I actually finally was able to turn down the wave and ride the face...talk about hangin' loose!

Then...towards the peak of the high tide, some people from Michigan swam out into the breakers and joined us for a bit. For one of the middle-aged women, it was her first time in the ocean and you could tell. "Damn! this water is salty!", she said. "They sure knew what they were talking about!"

They got closer and closer to Patrick and I because there was a slight riptide pulling them down the beach. When they got to me, I politely told them that we had been waiting on these waves all day and that we would probably hang out there a while, if they didn't mind. "Good" one of them said, "we'd like to watch!" I told them that we sucked at surfing, and suggested that they might just enjoying us wipe out. I then (also politely) warned them that if they kept swimming between us and the shore, they'd probably get hit by the surfboards. The middle-aged woman's response was "honey, if you mean to tell me something, you might as well just come out and say it. I'm from Michigan and if you're trying to tell me to get the hell off of your wave..." "Get the hell off of my wave!" I interrupted with a big smile. She laughed hard and I caught a couple of more really good SC waves...unseasonably good in fact.

As I paddled back out into the surf...the Michiganites had drifted back into our area and this time the woman shouted "Don't you come over here surfer dude" as she proceeded to swing her recently removed bathing suit (a one-piece by the way) over her head like a lasso.

Patrick and I laughed and laughed at the slightly uncomfortable situation and kept surfing to the sounds of "ride'em cowboy" coming from the middle-aged, naked, toothless woman.

So there you have it...the boys from Columbia have gotten so good at surfing that a lady took her top off.