Finally a few hours to fish in Arkansas

As most of you know, Charlcie and I have been fairly busy since the premature birth of our special little miracle twin grandsons Charlie Monroe and Tucker Cash. Since March 23, we have been spending considerable time in Little Rock to be with our son Ben and his wife Myka and to offer help and support where needed. We consider ourselves so blessed with the progress of the little guys, the dedication and love that Ben and Myka provide to their little blessings, and the fact that we are in a position to be there for/with them. In addition, caring for our home, property, and health, has pretty much filled our schedule. However, we did have two days last week that were open! Since our niece's husband Jeff had scheduled a visit a long time ago, we encourage him to come on up and I was able to fish with him a couple of days. Turns out our best option for fishing was below Bull Shoals dam and we pretty much had the place to ourselves and the generation patterns were very favorable. We had what we consider to be great conditions for the type of fishing we like to do and we had some productive fishing, fantastic fall colors along the river and up through the surrounding mountains. A couple of days like that can melt away a lot of concerns and is so refreshing and reinvigorating. Now I'm ready to go back and wrestle with my new little buddies.

Eleven Mile Canyon 2013

One of the "musts" on our trips to Colorado is to spend a day fishing the South Platte River below Eleven Mile Reservoir in Eleven Mile Canyon. Such a spectacular setting with wild trout, and every type of fishing water imaginable, including pocket water, runs, deep pools, plunge pools, riffles. We were able to get in some morning fishing, picture taking, and lunch before our outing was interrupted this year. Charlcie and I were walking to a new spot upriver taking a well-worn trail riverside and through the willow thicket. We stopped to observe a feeding trout, and as we started to move to fishing position, Charlcie stepped in a sinkhole and was injured. A visit to ER in Salida the next day confirmed a cracked second metatarsal in her left foot. Although this was bad enough, and also involved removal of a size 20 hook from her thumb, it could have been worse. A few weeks on crutches and in a cast-boot was the result, and we hope when she finally gets the boot off that the bone will have healed correctly. But no fear, we still enjoyed the rest of our trip, although some activities were pared down. We still managed a night in Lindsborg, KS on the return trip to enjoy the obligatory dinner at the Ol' Stuga.

Charlcie focused on feeding brown trout

Sight casting to a feeding brown with positive result

Charlcie and Larry

Kim and Nancy

Sam and Marsha