Travel Days 3-4

By day three things began to devolve into a bit of a blur. Staying out until well past midnight, coupled with fairly early get-ups, coupled with 9 hours of jet lag to adjust to, all resulted in this state of mind or lack thereof. Not much worth noting occurred on day 3. Work, dinner, soccer games, drinks. A rinse and repeat from the two days before pretty much.

Day 4 was a big day for me, the US, and for Germany. It was the final game of group play in the world cup for both teams and would determine who would get to keep playing and who would go home. Fortunately for the US, it was going to take some significantly bad things to occur to get eliminated. They could lose the game, as long as it wasn't by a lot, and still be fine.

On the downside, we had to work until 5, then nearly an hour train ride and walk back to the city center and our hotel, and the game started at 6. We got back to the hotel just in time for a quick change of clothes before kickoff. I figured we'd be ok watching the game from the hotel, because who would want to watch such a big game in their hotel bar?? Well, I should know better because I know how unadventurous most people are. Unfortunately the viewing area was packed full of people with nowhere to sit and not even anywhere to stand and watch.  There was an area in the bar set up with a TV but the space was limited and filling up. We did manage to snag a standing room only area, got a couple drinks, and watched the US get totally dominated by zee Germans, but they held on to lose only 1-0 and advance.

After the game it was time for food so we headed out. One of my favorite German customs is after big soccer matches people go out into the streets and block off intersections, while others drive around on the main streets hanging out of car windows and flying flags and honking their horns.  It's pretty funny. Here are a few images I took, but you really have to be there to fully appreciate it.

Dinner wasn't really worth noting, but we got some food then stopped at another drinking establishment for another beer then headed back to the hotel. When we got back to the bar for a nightcap we were amused for a little while by a group of 4 upper middle aged people trying to dance. The two guys were classic stiff Germans incapable of having fun. I'm sure I would have looked pretty much the same on the dance floor. Of the two women, one I would have admitted to a mental institution based solely upon her performance on the floor. The other couldn't dance but was having fun, so more power to her! I named her Elaine. Here's a crappy photo of the dimly lit bar dance floor.

Travel Day 2

Day two in the Motherland involved some work unfortunately. But after work hours there was time for good food, ok beer, good soccer and fun times. Let's start with the good food. I had the classic German dish that I mentioned in my last post. Giant hunk of pork on a plate with some weird dumpling looking thing that looked/tasted/felt like it was yesterday's pasta smashed together and formed into a ball. The giant hunk of pork was pretty good, and also pretty funny looking. Zee Germans definitely appreciate things in quantity.

In addition to food there were a couple soccer matches to watch, of course accompanied by beers. One we watched in the viewing area set up at the hotel along with some beers before heading out for food. The second game we watched in the university area of town in a large outside drinking area; the type that are scattered all over town. This second game was a little more entertaining simply due to the surroundings, unsurprisingly.

And that was pretty much the extent of day 2. Not nearly as much interesting things to report, mainly because it was filled with too much work and not enough play, so I am feeling a bit crazy.

Travel Diary Days 0-1

The flight went smoother than anticipated.  Eight and a half hours on a plane may not be quite as bad as I remember. I only managed one movie, a bunch of reading, and four plus hours of very interrupted sleep. Upon arrival to my destination, jet lag had yet to set in. I was tired but not terribly so.

A quick bite to eat at the hotel bar and a mediocre german beer and then back to the room to try and catch an hour or two of sleep before I needed to go back to the bar to watch USA v Portugal. Sleep wasn't that good but but I got a little before the game.  The game also wasn't that good. If you didn't watch it, first off, shame on you. Second off, US Defense, can you please for one world cup finally get your $#!% together? You handed Portugal a free goal in less than 10 minutes, then your offense brought you back to life and to the lead before Portugal earned their second goal. It was a fun game to watch at least. 

The next morning I managed to sleep 'till 10:00, which was good since I didn't get to bed until 2am and hadn't had any real sleep in the past 48hrs; jet lagged mostly kicked. After a quick train ride out to the conference center to do the little amount of set up work required, my cohorts and I headed back to town, dropped stuff off at the hotel then headed toward the downtowny area to see if we could find some good food and drink and a good place to watch Holland beat up on ???. 

Dinner was where we had our first truly German experience. No trip to Germany is complete until two things happen.  One, you drink out of a massive beer mug and get drunk off a single beer. Two, you get a ginormous plate of meat; just meat. So I was happy to seee one of the top options on the menu where we settled to eat. Look at the Reisenhaxe. Haxe is a dish in Germany that is always good for an amusing laugh. It basically means large hunk of meat on the bone. I knew what this was going to be so I passed on it since I wasn't quite ready to bring this trip to complete fruition just yet. We did get to see another person; a man probably 5'10", 160lbs order and consume this spectacle. It was a pork leg nearly the size of my head and I don't know how he put it all down, but zee Germans are made of something impressive I must admit.

After dinner we hit up a Soccer viewing area near our hotel that looked like a good place to watch the game. And apparently there are a lot of Croatians in the area because this was a Croatian party and I'm not all that certain we were invited. We didn't stay to the end of the game and that may have been for the best since they lost 3-1 to Mexico. I was feeling no need to go rioting through the streets so I was happy about it.

A good start to the week and more to come I'm sure.  I just hope I have enough time to write about the adventures!

Carp Update

I haven't had nearly as much time as I'd like recently on the weekends to get out on the water.  Too much soccer and other activities getting in the way of fish time. And the weather sometimes doesn't help me either.

But I did manage a couple of outings recently. I haven't had sufficient time to go exploring the Columbia river, and I feel like I require time because I really haven't found great places yet in high water. Instead I've hit up the old reliable Sauvie Island a few times to spook a bunch of carp in the murky still waters. I have had a ton of success at spooking them too.

I don't know how many fish I've spooked that were sitting down in the muddy water out of sight and within a rods length of me, but the number is high. There has been some success as well, although not as much as I would hope. The island has seemed a bit more tame that the last couple years. It used to be a place where any given day I spent out there I could plan on seeing at least a dozen or two dozen tails dancing around on the surface.  This year I've been lucky to see a few, and I have had to work a lot harder to find some fish cruising around. I don't know what's changed.

Nonetheless, it's been a fun couple of outings. I just hope there are a lot more in the near future. Of course there won't be any in the very near future due to some pending travels, but when I get back it's on. I intend to hit the BigC as hard as possible. Stay tuned for those reports!

NY Travels

Work took me to NY last week. If you remember I was in Denver last weekend, which was my stopover on the way out east. When I left Portland on Friday just over a week ago, we were coming off a week-long rainfest. Or maybe I should say a 7-month long rainfest that is called winter here. But Friday was supposed to be nice, and all through the weekend and into the week was sunshiny and warm. Just in time for me to leave town. Denver was nice until saturday afternoon. Then it was rainy, and a cold front swooped in changing rain to snow. Nonetheless I got in some fishing and had a good time despite the somewhat atypical Denver weather.

On Monday it was off to upstate New York. And what was it like when I arrived? Well, it was of course cloudy, dreary, overcast, gloomy; what other lovely adjectives could I come up with to describe it? At least this time I wasn't planning on doing too much out of doors. It was a sales related visit with a couple drives from one locale to another, not leaving me a ton of time to play. And who really cares if it's raining while you're driving? I did see a couple people standing in a river on one of my drives, and that made me feel a twinge of regret for not bringing any gear.

Then again a day later, this is what one of the rivers near where I was looked like. Not a great opportunity to catch some east coast fish. Maybe on my next visit.

Oh, and while I was away from Portland it was super sunny, nice and warm, and all around lovely. I returned on Thursday around midnight. When did the rains start back up? Saturday. At least I got to enjoy looking out the window at work on friday. Actually that's sort of a lie.  Most of Saturday was pretty nice too. But that's an inopportune fact for the theme of this post, so ignore it. Sunday was rain, rain, and more rain. With more rain in the forecast for today.

What Happened to Denver?

I weekended in Denver this last weekend before a work trip out to New York this week. And what else is there to do in Denver than fish? Well, certainly lots of stuff but fish are on my brain lately, probably because of the looming summertime that keeps faltering in Portlandia. With fish on the brain I had to think of places to go chase fish around, and those places are aplenty. 

The plan was to hit up some northern pike at the Arsenal Saturday morning, then go in search of some carp in the chemical-smelling Denver South Platte in the afternoon. Sunday was going to be something in and around Boulder, quite possibly my old home waters. Then I looked at the weather. Snow, and possibly quite a lot of it. Excuse me Denver, don't you know that it's May now? And not even early May. It should be 65 degrees, sunny, and just generally awesome. I should want to get out on my bike, not hunkered down in front of a heating vent.

Well, Saturday worked out all right, to start at least. We headed out to the Arsenal at O-dark hundred, paid our $3 and went to find a spot to try and toss flies into the lake over or through the cattails since there is no wading there until the end of the month. The fishing was a little slow, but only because I'm comparing to when you can wade and fish huge portions of the lake in an hour rather than fishing one little narrow section for 45 minutes straight before giving up and moving on. Either that or combat fish from the damn and I have no interest in combat fishing.

I managed to nearly catch one early, but in a spot where there was virtually no chance of bringing the fish in through 20 feet of cattails and other weeds. Why fish there? Cause it looked like a fishy spot, regardless of the impossibility of landing a fish. A little while later I did manage a fairly tiny pike to at least wipe the skunk off for the day.

And that pretty much ended the decent weather for the trip. The rains rolled in and ruined our chances for catching carp out of the South Platte, although we still tried. The next day was snowy and cold. And mother's day. Nonetheless a few hours out at the Arsenal and a few more fish occurred to finish off what could have been a bust of a fishing weekend. Instead it ended up being pretty fun since there aren't many fish more enjoyable to fish for and to catch than pike. I don't know what it is about them, but they are a blast. A mix of aggression and elusivity I suppose, along with the intrigue of newness since I have never really fished for them until recently.

 

Fishing Trips

Have you been on a fishing trip? Most of you have, but not all, plus I would like to think I have some wisdom to impart to all of you. The ideal fishing trip has a handful of ingredients. These ingredients comprise of beer and whisky first and foremost. Secondly, a good river that has some interesting aspect. This aspect can be a multi day float, huge pigs lurking in the depths, amazing scenery, or zillions of fish. It can be a lot of things as long as those things are important to you.

A third ingredient is people, and this one is probably the most important. It cannot simply be any people. A mix of abilities is important. Fishing trips just aren't the same if you don't have a couple guys who are new. These are the guys who you get to laugh at as they sit on the bank untangling their line half the day. These are also the guys who, after you've laughed at and subsequently feel bad for doing so, you can go help out. You can show them how to untangle or just clip and retie everything back on. It gets that person back in the water to catch fish and makes you feel like a better human after being a jerk earlier. And finally, these are the guys who feel real joy when catching a fish, and that real joy is contagious. You will smile bigger when these guys catch a fish than when you catch your tenth of the day.

A fourth ingredient will be a point of contention for a lot of people, but for me a trip just isn't the same without it. It is a good campfire dinner of fresh fish and potatoes cooked up just right. The fresh fish part can be difficult because at a lot of locations you can't keep or shouldn't keep fish. But there are a good handful of rivers where a few fish a year can be kept without worrying about the fishery. If you have to go in search of fish on the river, that would be a bad place to keep fish. If there are zillions of fish and not much pressure, by all means keep one to eat. Again, forego this in most instances, but if you can partake on occasion, do so without feeling bad about it. I always feel bad for people who claim to never ever keep a fish. Moderation is key to all things in life.

A fifth and by no means final ingredient is half-drunken story-telling at night, preferably around a campfire of course. Stories of people falling in the river, stories of the one that got away, stories of people knocking fish off someone else's line with a net, stories of trips of the past, and stories made out of whole cloth. It's an enjoyable and essential way to pass the evening, and if at all possible, get them on tape because they can be very funny to listen to later on.

My list is not law. It is not limiting. It is simply my playbook for fishing trips. Feel free to follow it or write your own. But be sure to take a fishing trip!

Take some time and watch a movie of a past instance of my pending fishing trip. It's Monday and no one really does any work on Mondays...