sell guitar, buy boat

I'm thinking of selling my electric guitar, amplifier, and pedals so that the impending boat purchase will not be entirely unsound financially speaking. I never play it any more. I've played it for maybe five hours total since I moved to Bloomington five years ago. I play my acoustic a lot, but not the electric. So I thought I'd make a video to show people how the guitar and amp sound (pretty good if you ask me, it's an Epiphone Sheraton from 1995 and a Crate Vintage Club 50 VC5310 amp, all tube, very nice). But I had such a good time making the video I'm having second thoughts about selling it.

But if someone wants to give me $1000 for everything it's a done deal.

Of course I was thinking of enlisting the Irishman's help and fabricating my own pontoon boat. That would be cheaper.

behold the boat

I will purchase this boat from North Fork in the next few days. I will put it on my credit card. Then I will fish the ever lovin' bejesus out of the White River and Sugar Creek and probably some others as well. I will take 1000 mile float trips through the NW Territories. I'll sail the Yangtze. I'll tame the Tigris. Aggravate the Amazon. Sustain the Susquehanna. Devastate the Delaware. Maul the Madison. Blow up the Buffalo. You get the idea. Want to take a float trip with me?



Behold more pictures here.

Spring Break Extravaganze 2008 Part III: wherein our hero consumes a wild pig tamale

I am a coyote in a frozen field hunting morning mice. I am a black bear carcass rotting slowly in the cold woods. I am one hundred species of salamander scampering amongst wet leaf litter. I am a war painted brook trout rising with a cocksure pop to a mayfly. I am a lazy brown trout just hooked on a midge in a writhing slimy circle of fat meat. I am a six hundred year old hemlock in the Cataloochee Valley dying. I’m a gully washer eroding the mountain side silting the river. I am the Southern Apple Latch In Mountains.












Stopped on the Delayed Harvest section of the rather high and muddy Tuckaseegee River on my way home and caught five or six stockers on Double Bunnies and big rubber leg stone flies. This is Mr. Fatty Labrador:

Spring Break Extravaganze 2008 Part II: wherein our hero catches many fat trouts

The Davidson River begins as rainfall running off parkway asphalt at 6000'. It percolates through Pisgah's Spruce-Fir forest and falls off the flanks of Cold Mountain. It runs through a fish hatchery then winds through four wild catch and release fly fishing only miles until running out flat and slow into Brevard.

The fish run large. They see a lot of fisherman so you can walk right on top of them. But they also see a lot of flies so they're rather difficult to catch. Midges are their standard fare and small, sparsely dressed is the only way to catch them most of the time (though large mayflies were hatching, blue quills?, but they weren't feeding on them at all). I didn't use anything smaller than #22. I caught most of the fish below on #26 parachute, thread body midges. I love casting tiny flies on 7x tippet to large sipping fishes. Lot like tailwater fishing.

I caught a lot of fish. Which was nice after getting skunked in the park. I caught a lot of average size, 12" rainbows and browns but also a fair number of larger, fatter brown trout. I hooked up with some very large fish, 20"+, but broke them off. I also caught the same brook trout twice. Probably an escapee from the hatchery.

Click none to enlarge.

















Stay tuned for part III wherein our hero digs ditches in Cullowhee to prepare for the arrival of the Atlantean tornadoes.

Spring Break Extravaganze 2008 Part I: wherein our hero finds himself fishless

Ahhhh, blogging from the road. My favorite kind of blogging when you get right down to it. I'm here in beautiful Brevard North Cackalack fresh off of two days on the Davidson River catching many trouts. But the trouts will have to wait. I will first regale you with tales from Cades (sic) Cove, the first of my three Spring Break Extravaganza 2008 destinations.

Cades Cove is a large, flat, mostly treeless valley in the northwest quadrant of Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Through this large, flat, mostly treeless valley runs Abrams Creek. It should also be indicated at this juncture that Cades Cove supposedly sits over predominantly limestone thus giving Abrams Creek an abnormally high alkalinity and more stable temperatures than other creeks in the southern Appalachians. This is all good for the trouts. What’s bad for the trouts is that there was a serious drought this past summer and the fish that took the hardest hit were rainbows below 2000’. Abrams Creek is mostly rainbows. And Cades Cove is below 2000’. This may be one reason I did not catch a single trout. Other reasons might be the high water and cold temperatures. And my lack of angling prowess should also be considered.

But Cades Cove is pretty. Here are some pictures. I think that's a coyote. Or maybe a fox? Red wolf? Stay tuned for the Davidson River, wherein our hero angled many fat trouts, and the impending backpacking trip through the Jocassee Gorges in search of the elusive South Cackalack steelhead wherein our hero will undoubtedly catch many fine and large fishes wrap-up from inside Sean's keg of Guinness.

Click some to enlarge.











Trout sneak peak.

the many ways in which life has screwed me over in the past five days or so

So on Tuesday I woke up feeling pretty crappy. Went to the "Health Center" on Wednesday, they counted my white blood cells (which was pretty cool), and they inferred from this that I have the flu. Fair enough. They are doctors. And lab technicians. They put me on Tamiflu, gave me some more codeine syrup (which really helps me sleep...) and sent me on my way. This was particularly bad timing because, as you all know, I had been planning a large fishing/camping/backpacking/drinking/friend seeing extravaganza to the Carolinas (aka the Cackalacks) for some time now. I was supposed to have left yesterday early in the morning. I might have been able to do that even with the flu had some punk ass bitch not broken the rear driver side window of my 1997 Honda Accord. Break the rich people's windows you mother fuckers. That'll show them and their bourgeois ways. Leave the old Hondas out of it.

So I had to get that fixed.

Then I yelled at the toilet for a while this morning. That was awesome.

But now I'm feeling better and I shall have many pictures and tales of trouts to share with you in the coming weeks.

Love,
Matthew D. Dunn, LPN.