Josh Blair (FlyFishGuy)

Sometimes Dilbert hits too close to home

2008-07-11T15:00:00.001-06:00

OUCH!

CrossLoop Rocks

2008-04-16T17:45:00.002-06:00

I have been using CrossLoop for remote support. I help friends, family and co-workers with computer, software, configuration, and software development tasks. CrossLoop is a great solution for helping friends and family, especially those that aren't IT oriented. So far CrossLoop has really been a great tool, very reliable, and easy for those that aren't that technical.

I suggest that if you help others remotely or you are seeking help from others, give CrossLoop a try.

Let me know if I can help you with remote support.

Here is a link to my CrossLoop profile.

Transfer ASP.NET Membership/Role info to production server

2007-12-03T17:27:00.000-07:00

Have you ever needed to transfer ASP.NET Membership and/or Role information to a production server? I had just deployed 2 applications to a production server (including the required aspnet_* schema objects to the back end SQL Server 2005 databases). But how am I going to get into my custom-built web-based ASP.NET Membership, Role , etc. management screens? These management screens are secure and there is no user account nor is there an "administration" role available in the empty membership and role tables.

A generous guy named Sloan Holliday offered his help through microsoft.public.dotnet.framework.aspnet and provided me a T-SQL generator that generates the T-SQL code to insert your existing ASP.NET Membership and Role information into an empty database. Pretty helpful. Thanks to Sloan for making this available.

MCAD - Microsoft Certified Application Developer

2007-10-23T14:49:00.000-06:00

Good news! As of October 23, 2007 I am now a Microsoft Certified Application Developer. I took and passed the 70-320 exam through Prometric at a New Horizons testing center.

BoundField DataFormatString attribute not being applied

2007-10-04T12:56:00.000-06:00

This has bitten me more than once I'm afraid. Figured I'd post this and link to Raj Kaimal's post...

BoundField.DataFormatString Property via MSDN

When the HtmlEncode property is true, the value of the field is HTML encoded to its string representation before the formatting string is applied. For some objects, such as dates, you might want to control how the object is displayed with a formatting string. In those cases, you must set the HtmlEncode property to false.

This is new to VS.NET 2005...

Hope this post helps me remember to set the HtmlEncode attribute to false next time ;-)

Upgraded from Subversion 1.4.4 to 1.4.5

2007-09-26T18:06:00.001-06:00

Not a hitch. Amazing.

Here were my steps:

Download and extract the latest binary with bindings that matches your Apache version: (svn-win32-1.4.5.zip) for me.
Stop the Apache Windows Service.
Stop the Subversion Windows Service (svnserve).
Copy the contents of each sub folder from the extracted zip file (svn-win32-1.4.5.zip) over the location of the corresponding sub folder of your SVN installation location.
** See UPDATE below for a step I originally missed
Restart the svnserve Windows Service.
Restart the Apache Windows Service.
Test.
If you use TSVN, upgrade it too.

Viola!

**
[UPDATED: 2007-09-28]

Be sure to copy the following from your Subversion bin folder (C:\Program Files\Subversion\bin) to the Apache modules folder (C:\Program Files\Apache Software Foundation\Apache2.2\modules):

libdb44.dll
mod_dav_svn.so
mod_authz_svn.so

If you don't, and you view your respositories via a browser using Apache, you'll see the wrong version in the footer.

[SideNote]
I couldn't remember what the Apache Windows Service was named. Here is some handy command line goodness:

C:\>sc query type= service | grep -i apache
SERVICE_NAME: Apache2
DISPLAY_NAME: Apache2

Subversion Rocks!

2007-09-26T10:39:00.000-06:00

I have been using Subversion for about 4 months and it has been proven to be very useful in my daily development workflow. I can't imagine developing without source code control again. I have been using Subversion (SVN) locally in combination with TortoiseSVN (TSVN) for my development projects and recently implemented it within my employer's environment. We still have not forced the other developers to use SVN but hopefully that will come in time. My company is not in the software business, we are a manufacturing company and that is probably why there never was a SCC/SCM environment in place before. We do produce a ton of software for internal use and for use by external third parties (customers and suppliers). We have a ton of custom code, databases, scripts, etc. that should all be stored in source code repositories. Again, hopefully soon, as in ASAP.

I had only used Visual Source Safe in the past and was never a fan. I know it can get the job done but we always had performance issues when using it over the wire (VPN). I will say that SourceOffsite from SourceGear was a great solution to the network performance issue.

I have implemented SVN and TSVN on Windows XP locally and SVN in my employer's Windows environment on Windows Server 2003. I have implemented hook scripts for pre and post commit events using BATCH and Perl scripts. On a related note, I am working a quick prototype of hook scripts written in C#. I also implemented an automated backup system using some Perl scripts that I obtained from the Pragmatic Version Control using Subversion as a starting point.

I connect to my company via a VPN connection and the network performance of Subversion is awesome.

I use the CLI (command line interface: svn.exe) mostly but find that TSVN comes in handy too.

I wanted to link to a few resources that I found helpful along the way:

Of course "The Book" (Version Control with Subversion)
The Subverision Site: http://subversion.tigris.org/
Subversion Mail Lists and archives
Pragmatic Version Control using Subversion
Practical Subversion
Subversion Version Control: Using the Subversion Version Control System in Development Projects (Nagel)
I found a few blog entries by Ariejan de Vroom on topics like resolving conflicts, patches, etc. He offers a great SVN cheat sheet. Looking forward to more of his posts on SVN.
You can also ask questions on IRC at irc://irc.freenode.net/%23svn
Google Group: Subversion SVN
Article on The Code Project by Ralph Willgoss: "Setting up an ASP.NET website development environment using Visual Studio .NET, Subversion, and Windows XP"
Article on The Code Project; by Chris McGlothen: "Subversion & TortoiseSVN: Installed and started on Windows 2003 server and local machines"

Need to increase the size of a VPC VHD?

2007-04-05T10:05:00.000-06:00

I needed to increase the size of a 16 GB Virtual PC VHD last night. I wasn't sure if it was possible, but it is and it is pretty easy.

I first used the VhdResize utility from vmToolkit to expand the total size of the VHD from 16 GB to 80 GB.

Then I followed the instructions at Xtralogic to "Extending File System Partition: Using Microsoft DiskPart to extend NTFS partition".

The built in diskpart command line tool was easy to use and very effective.

Hope this helps someone else to be able to expand a VHD if necessary.

Tip: Turning off the virtual machine beep

2007-04-03T16:37:00.000-06:00

This is a sanity tip from Megan Davis of "The Soul of a Virtual Machine". You can disable the BEEP on Virtual PC VHD with her tip.

Learning BizTalk Server 2006

2007-03-23T18:15:00.000-06:00

I am a software developer. That is what I do. That is what I know. I have been attempting to learn enterprise development on the BizTalk Server 2006 platform for ~3 months now. It is an amazing platform with many underlying technologies. I have been extremely impressed with all of the pieces that make up BizTalk and simply amazed at what all of these pieces bring to the table. That said, it hasn't been an easy journey, and I am nowhere even close to being useful as a BTS developer. I seem to get stuck on each little task that I try to accomplish. With my receding/thinning hair, there isn't much more to pull out.

Maybe this is one of the reasons why I have found this learning curve so steep. Its an article by Mark Burch on "The BizTalk development paradigm"

I have been reading the books:

BizTalk 2006 Recipes: A Problem-Solution Approach
by Mark Beckner, Ben Goeltz, Brandon Gross, and Brennan O'Reilly (Paperback - Sep 13, 2006)

Pro BizTalk 2006 (Pro)
by George Dunphy and Ahmed Metwally (Paperback - Oct 23, 2006)

Foundations of BizTalk Server 2006 (Foundations)
by Daniel Woolston (Paperback - Jan 8, 2007)

Taken the class:

Course 2933: Developing Business Process and Integration Solutions Using Microsoft BizTalk Server 2006
Five days; Instructor-Led

I've worked through the BizTalk Server 2006 Tutorials.

I'm working through the BizTalk Server Code Samples.

With all of this work, I still am struggling to get real world solutions (even prototypes) going at the moment.

That being said, I am still extremely excited to have the opportunity (and the challenge) of working on these integration projects for my company using BTS2006.

Guess we'll see where I end up.

SQL Server (TSQL) Coding Standards

2007-03-16T13:55:00.000-06:00

I was looking for some TSQL coding standards today while working on a BizTalk project and ran across a nice list of coding standards on naming conventions at SSW.

Naming Conventions

SQL Server Object Naming Conventions

SQL Server Index Naming Conventions

SQL Server Relationship Naming Conventions

SQL Server Stored Procedure Naming Conventions

SQL Server Stored Procedure Formatting Standards

.NET Object Naming Conventions

.NET Project Naming

I fish...

2006-08-30T11:41:00.000-06:00

A husband and wife go to a counselor after 15 years of marriage counselor asks them what the problem is and the wife goes into a tirade listing every problem they have ever had in the 15 years they've been married. She goes on and on and on.

Finally, the counselor gets up, walks around the desk, embraces thewife and kisses her passionately. The woman shuts up and sits quietly in a daze. The counselor turns to the husband and says, "This is what your wife needs at least three times a week. Can you do this?"

The husband thinks for a moment and replies, "Well, I can drop her off here on Mondays and Wednesdays, but on Fridays, I fish."

What's new in System.Xml 2.0? by Aaron Skonnard

2006-08-18T05:16:00.000-06:00

There is a great article on Service Station by Aaron Skonnard titled "What's new in System.Xml 2.0?". It is another well written article by Aaron with clear/simple examples. I dig his articles.

The surfing has picked up a bit

2006-08-17T11:26:00.000-06:00

Bob, Karl, Erick and I have been getting some nice rides just before and after low tide. It was flat as lake when we all first arrived. Things are looking up. WaveWatch reported 4ft swells yesterday from buoy readings and we all had great surfing. Although it has flattened out a bit for the next couple of days, it looks big for Sunday/Monday.

Fished for Stripers off the beach

2006-08-16T17:22:00.000-06:00

I tried to fish for stripers tonight just before dinner. No luck yet but a few guys were catching fish just down the beach using spinning gear with mackerel and clams as bait. The shorebreak was pretty high so I was fighting that and wasn't getting out very far. I'll try again in the rocks.

Great trip on the Bighorn

2006-07-28T17:48:00.000-06:00

Dave and I picked up Peter at DIA on Friday at about 5:30 PM and drove straight up the Bighorn about 550 miles. We crashed in a bunk cabin at Cottonwood Camp for a few hours and floated A-B (13 miles) on Saturday.

Saturday
What a great day. Dave and Peter were hot. I caught my fair share too but lost all my big fish. Not sure what the problem was but I'm going to blame it on old tippet material and not my knots. ;-)

Rick and some of his buddies showed up later on Saturday and fished at 3-mile. We actually didn't get to 3-mile until 3:00 PM and passed those guys and didn't know it was them.

There was an incident on the water that I won't go into and my TnT 6wt was toast. There were some tears.

Last Chance proved successful and made a fine way to end the day. The fishing was great and a good time was had by all.

Hot flies: Black midges, Gray Rays, Pheasant Tails, Pink Soft Hackle Sow Bugs, Two-tone San Juan Worms

Sunday
Jonesy jumped in our boat. Peter was fishing in his "banana boat". Rick, Dan, and Joe were in a rental boat. Rick could do no wrong. Everyone caught fish and had a great time. Jonesy caught some nice fish and experienced the magic of the Bighorn on his first trip. Pretty cool. Red and Black midges were really hot on Sunday. Gray Rays and Pheasant Tails and "Pinky Tuscaderos " (pink soft hackle sow bugs) also worked well.

Peter, Rick, Dan, Joe, and Jonesy headed to Cooke City to fish the Soda Butte and the Lamar.

Monday
Dave and I floated A-B alone. We had a great day and caught fish in the riffles. Shallow riffles.

Hot flies: Black midges, Gray Rays, Pheasant Tails, Pink Soft Hackle Sow Bugs

Tuesday
Dave and I floated A-3 (3 miles). We started early and had a great day and caught plenty. We fished until about 1:45 PM and loaded up the boat and gear and headed back to Colorado. The drive was smooth and uneventful fortunately.

Great day on the Blue

2006-06-25T16:26:00.000-06:00

Diamond Dave and I had a great day on the Blue. We fished at a not-so-secret spot near the Frisco/Dillon areas.

It was crowded and the weather looked iffy.

I waited for a spot and soon a guy crossed from where he was fishing and I moved in (politely). I had caught fish near by a few years earlier on Caddis imitations so I went that direction. I tied on a bead head Prince on top and a bead head Bread Crust as a dropper. Not sure why I chose these particular flies. I should have seined the river like I always do but I guess I figured it was a good bet.

I started catching fish one after the other. Almost every cast was followed by a tug and a feisty little brown. It was ridiculous. Some of the guys kept making cracks and asking what I was using. I told them the truth and even offered one guy the exact flies. He refused and I kept catching fish. It was great.

Dave made his way down to me and I asked him how he was doing. He was also successful on completely different flies for different bugs. He was using a Bionic Midge and a black Copper John. He waded across and caught fish after fish.

The weather looked ominous and all the other guys took off. They were smart. There was lightening in the distance. We kept catching fish so it was hard to make the call to leave.

Dave kept abusing the sucker fish. He called them Mother-in-Law fish. They have a face only a momma could love.

It did slow down a bit during some windy gusts. It rained a tad, but we stuck it out like dummies and caught more fish. What a day.

Woo Hoo! I passed my 70-315 exam

2006-05-04T14:59:00.000-06:00

Today I passed my 70-315 exam: Developing and Implementing Web Applications with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.

2/3 of the way to my MCAD.

(the Woo Hoo reference pertains to the song Woo Hoo from the 5.6.7.8's. It is the song used in the Vonage commercials.)

WinMerge & ASP.NET Filter for WinMerge

2006-03-15T17:00:00.000-07:00

I've been using WinMerge for a few months now and really like it. It is available on SourceForge.

The latest stable build as of this writing is WinMerge 2.4.6.

I have been using WinMerge to compare ASP.NET projects on my local workstation with my company's server located in a different state over a VPN. It performs very well considering the network topology.

It is a timesaver and I wanted to thank the folks that built it, maintain it, and support it.

I searched the NET for an ASP.NET filter for WinMerge and found one on Jon Galloway's blog: JonGalloway.ToString(). This filter got me close but I decided to approach it from the other direction by creating and exclusive filter.

Here is my filter:

============== Begin file =================

## This is a directory/file filter for WinMerge
## This filter lets through only files ASP.NET developers care about
## Based in part on a filter found on JonGalloway's blog: JonGalloway.ToString()
## http://weblogs.asp.net/jgalloway/archive/2004/10/05/237984.aspx

name: ASP.NET Devel

## This is an exclusive filter
## (it lets through only matching files)
def: exclude

## Filters for filenames begin with f:
## Filters for directories begin with d:

f: \.xml$
f: \.xlst$
f: \.dtd$
f: \.html$
f: \.htm$
f: \.css$
f: \.gif$
f: \.bmp$
f: \.jpg$
f: \.png$
f: \.js$
f: \.dll$
f: \.aspx$
f: \.asmx$
f: \.ascx$
f: \.vb$
f: \.resx$
f: \.cs$
f: \.js$
f: \.vbproj$
f: \.csproj$
f: \.sln$
f: \.webinfo$
f: \.config$

d: \\*$ ## Subdirectories

============== End file =================

One drawback with the current filter implementation in WinMerge is that an exclusive filter excludes only files and directories that match the patterns listed in the filter but it doesn't exclude a "negative pattern". It sounds like this might be addressed in the future. Here is a link to a forum posting on this filtering issue. kimmov started a thread in the developer forum regarding this issue. Despite this minor shortcoming, I think it is a great tool to have in your arsenal.

Security Training Modules: Regex, SQL Injection, etc.

2006-03-13T16:36:00.000-07:00

Keith Brown has put together some great labs available on Channel 9 that include 5-10 minute demos (videos) with lab exercises. They are short and sweet. Check them out.

Info on Regular Expressions

2006-03-13T11:24:00.000-07:00

Here is a compilation of information on tools, books, website links that explore the world of Regular Expressions

PowerGrep:

Windows grep Software to Search (and Replace) through Files and Folders on Your PC and Network; The Most Powerful GREP Tool for Windows

PowerGREP is a powerful Windows grep tool. Quickly search through large numbers of files on your PC or network, including text and binary files, compressed archives, MS Word documents, Excel spreadsheets and PDF files, etc. Find the information you want with powerful text patterns (regular expressions) specifying the form of what you want, instead of literal text. Search and replace with one or many regular expressions to comprehensively maintain web sites, source code, reports, etc. Extract statistics and knowledge from logs files and large data sets.
==============================================
Edit Pad Pro: great text editor with Regex support
==============================================
Expresso: great regex builder and learning tool
Link to original source code
==============================================
UnxUtils:
Port of the most important GNU utilities to Windows
This is where you can get EGREP

The Regulator: is an advanced Regular expressions testing tool, featuring syntax highlighting and web-service integration with Regexlib.com's database of online regular expressions.

More on Regulator at: http://regex.osherove.com/

Tutorials:
==============================================
Regular Expressions Lab on Channel 9

How To: Use Regular Expressions to Constrain Input in ASP.NET

How To: Protect From Injection Attacks in ASP.NET

Good Sites:
==============================================
Google Group: Regex

The Premier Web Site about Regular Expressions

Best book on regex, bar none is: Mastering Regular Expressions, Second Edition

By Jeffrey E. F. Friedl
Second Edition July 2002
ISBN: 0-596-00289-0
484 pages, $39.95 US, $61.95 CA, £28.50 UK (cheaper on Amazon below):

http://www.oreilly.com/catalog/regex2/
On Amazon

=========================

A Tao of Regular Expressions

Using Regular Expressions

Regular expression: From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

PCRE - Perl Compatible Regular Expressions

Perl regular expressions man(ual) page

Learning to Use Regular Expressions

Welcome to RegExLib.com, the Internet's first Regular Expression Library. Currently we have indexed 1229 expressions from 789 contributors around the world. We hope you'll find this site useful and come back whenever you're looking for an expression for a particular task, or have just figured out a new expression that does something useful.

Blogs about Regex

=========== Not REGEX specific, but very useful =======
WinMerge
WinMerge is an Open Source visual text file differencing and merging tool for Win32 platforms. It is highly useful for determining what has changed between project versions, and then merging changes between versions.
==============================================

I ran across CodeBetter.Com

2006-01-05T16:49:00.000-07:00

CodeBetter.com has some great development information for both the novice and the die-hard.

I ran across some well written articles on the ACID model and database normalization from Raymond Lewallen.

Enjoy

New article on the Blue River by Pat Dorsey

2005-12-01T15:50:00.000-07:00

Pat Dorsey has a new article in the Feb 2006 issue of Fly Fisherman Magazine. It is a great article with incredible detail. Its a keeper.

Simple regex to strip HTML tags

2005-12-01T15:44:00.000-07:00

It may not be perfect but it works for me:

string stripped = Regex.Replace(textBox1.Text,@"<(.\n)*?>",string.Empty);

Here is the original article from Roy Osherove' blog

Heading to the beach

2005-08-02T17:38:00.000-06:00

We are heading to the beach for our summer vacation. No computers, no code, no bugs. Sun, beach, lobster, relaxation, a little fly fishing for stripers, and maybe a little bit of surfing (if the waves cooperate). I am really excited to get out of town and "press the reset button". See ya in 2 weeks.

Utility for running stored procs via the command prompt

2005-07-25T21:40:00.000-06:00

I found a cool utility for running stored procs via the command prompt:

http://blog.bartholomew.id.au/index.php/2005/07/24/nsqlsp-utility-to-easily-run-stored-procedures-from-the-command-line/

There is often the need to quickly run a stored-procedure from the
command-line because you don’t have access to Enterprise Manager or Query
Analyzer (especially when working with MSDE). Sure, you could use osql.exe to
run the stored-procedure, but what if you can’t quite remember what parameters
the stored-procedure takes or can’t quite remember the name? Well this is the
hole that nsqlsp was designed to fill. It comes in particularly handy for
calling system stored procedures (such as sp_addlogin).

Thanks to William Bartholomew

Article on Cheesman Canyon by Pat Dorsey

2005-06-22T09:29:00.000-06:00

I just read a fantastic article in my September 2005 issue of FlyFisherman Magazine

Guide and fly tier Pat Dorsey shares his time-tested secrets for fishing to
the toughest trout in Colorado. This story includes a season-by-season
description of Cheesman Canyon, including hatch information, fly pattern
suggestions, and fishing strategies. Map, fly shops, and guide contact
information is also included.

It is an exerpt taken from his book which I am anxious to read:

A Fly Fisher's Guide to the South Platte River: A Comprehensive Guide to Fly-Fishing the South Platte Watershed

and it is available at the Blue Quill Angler in Evergreen, CO

Parent-Child combo boxes in C#.NET Windows Forms

2005-06-21T23:13:00.000-06:00

I was fighting with a pretty simple scenario in a C#.NET Windows Forms project today. I was having trouble getting data binding to behave the way I wanted it to. I'm sure that other people have the same requirements in some of their apps: parent and child combo boxes.

Bind controls on a form to a dataset called dsAddresses in this example. The parent and child SelectedValue are bound to CountryRegionID and StateProvinceID from this dsAddresses dataset.
Populate the parent and child combo box items with data from country/region and states/provinces datasources (DataTables in this example) respectively
When the parent combo box's selected value changes, have the items in the child combo box filtered automatically

This sounds pretty simple and like something that many of us would need to accomplish on a regular basis in both Windows Forms and ASP.NET Web Forms.
Well...I had a solution that was acceptable for the most part, but there was an few issue with the way that I implemented the solution.

Main issue: If you brought up the form and selected an address, the values in the parent and child combo boxes were bound to the correct values, but if you didn't select a country/region (which causes the SelectionChangeCommitted event to fire and this is where I called a method to filter the state/provinces manually in my previous solution) in the parent combo, the states/provinces combo would not be filtered and all states/provinces would show up.

I tried a number of workarounds and was about to scrap the entire original design of the form and start from scratch.

Brad Raulston gave me a hand and we tried a few things and then he researched it and found a blog posting by Andre King:

Parent-Child combo boxes in C#.NET Windows Forms

It detailed a scenario almost exactly like the one outlined above. I can't seem to get to the link at the moment but I was able to get the cached Google version.

Brad graciously helped me with the solution below:

Created a dataset called dsCountryState.
Merged 2 DataTables into it (because I already had them, but will refactor
to fill the dataset with both tables in one shot for efficiency later): one for
the parent Country/Region data and one for the State/Province data.

// Created a DataRelation for the parent and child DataTables like this:
DataRelation rel = new DataRelation("CountryStateRelation", dsCountryState.Tables["CountryRegion"].Columns["CountryRegionID"],
dsCountryState.Tables["StateProvince"].Columns["CountryRegionID"]);

// Accept Changes on the dsCountryState DataSet.
dsCountryState.AcceptChanges();

// parent combo bound to the
"parent_datatable.parent_column"cboCountryRegion.DataSource =
dsCountryState.Tables["CountryRegion"];
cboCountryRegion.DisplayMember = "CountryRegion.CountryRegionName";
cboCountryRegion.ValueMember = "CountryRegion.CountryRegionID";

// child combo bound to the "parent_datatable.parent_child_relation.child_column" cboStateProvince.DataSource = dsCountryState;
cboStateProvince.DisplayMember = "CountryRegion.CountryStateRelationship.StateProvinceName";
cboStateProvince.ValueMember = "CountryRegion.CountryStateRelationship.StateProvinceID";

What this accomplishes among other things is the combo boxes share
the same BindingManager which enables the required behavior. States/Provinces
are filtered automatically.

Thanks to Brad Raulston and Andre King for
the help and information. Hope this saves you some time and frustration.

History of Fly Fishing

2005-06-09T09:46:00.000-06:00

Interested in the history of Fly Fishing? I came across a great site dedicated to the history of Fly Fishing. It was put together by Andrew N. Herd. The site is available at http://www.flyfishinghistory.com/.

Here is an excerpt on the origins of fly fishing:

The first reference to fly fishing is in Ælian’s Natural History, probably
written about 200 A.D. Ælian was born in about A.D. 170 at Praeneste, where he
later held a religious post, dying in about A.D. 230. At some point he became a
pupil of Pausanias of Caesarea, who taught him rhetoric, and as a good student
Ælian also learnt excellent Attic Greek. He later studied history under the
patronage of the empress Julia Domna, and moving within her circle would have
allowed him to meet not only Galen, but Oppian.

Here is a history of hooks:

The hook had its origins in the gorge, a device used by many primitive cultures,
which is frequently found in prehistoric sites. Gorges were made from slivers of
bone, flint or turtle-shell which were attached to a line which was knotted
through a hole in the centre of the gorge. The fish swallowed the gorge end
first in a bait, and the pull of the line levered the gorge across the fish’s
throat, trapping it in place...

There is a lot more interesting information available at the site. Check it out!

GMAIL Invites

2005-06-08T23:44:00.000-06:00

Don't have a GMAIL account?

I've got 50 GMAIL invitations if anyone is interested. Just leave me a comment with your email address and I'll send you one.

The RegexLibrary Builder for .NET

2005-06-07T07:44:00.000-06:00

I just found this article on The Code Project. One
of the coolest things is that you can add, remove, and modify regexes
from a compiled assembly, so you fix or replace regexes without having
to recompile the entire project. It makes use of the CompileToAssembly
method in the System.Text.RegularExpressions namespace.

==================
Here is a link to the article by Brian Delahunty:
http://www.codeproject.com/useritems/regexlibbuilder.asp

The RegexLibrary builder allows you to:

Create CLS compliant Regular Expression Libraries - .NET assemblies
that contain only regular expressions
Add multiple regular expressions to a single assembly
Define individual names, namespaces, regex modifiers, and accessibility
levels on a per regex basis
Reload existing Regular Expression Libraries and add, remove, or modify
regular expressions contained within
Manually set the version number of the assembly to help ensure
compatibility with existing versions
Much, much, more... ;-)

Here is a link to the author's (Brian Delahunty) blog posting on the
tool: http://briandela.com/blog/archive/2005/06/03/284.aspx

Passed 70-316

2005-05-31T13:38:00.000-06:00

Today I passed my 70-316 exam: Developing and Implementing Windows-based Applications with Microsoft Visual C# .NET and Microsoft Visual Studio .NET.

I definitely studied my tail off but it paid off in the end.

I read MCAD/MCSD Self-Paced Training Kit: Developing WIndows-Based Applications with Microsoft Visual Basic .NET, and Microsoft Visual C# .NET/ Matthew A. Stoecker with Microsoft Corporation. --2nd ed.

I used the Measure Up Practice Exam.

Thank God that is over. It might be a while before I try another certification exam.

Missed the Caddis

2005-05-07T10:14:00.000-06:00

Dave and I got a pretty early start today. We stopped to get Dick's advice again and this time it didn't quit work in our favor. It wasn't anyone's fault, but more,weather screwed us. We gambled and decided to fish Brown's Canyon. It was partly cloudy and cool, then the wind whipped up, then the sun would show for a while, then cold again... Dave picked a few up on Puteraugh's foam bodied caddis, and I picked up a nice brown on a beadhead caddis pupa, but the caddis hatch really wasn't happening in Brown's Canyon.

We ended up catching more on baetis thanks caddis. Once again the Barr's Emerger was the ticket. And the funny thing was that we couldn't buy a fish on our favorite foam-winged flashback RSII today.

It got really slow in the late afternoon and we both considered, even if it wasn't verbal, that we were beating a dead horse. But the persistence payed off. We stayed later then any other fishermen and it made a decent day GREAT. Dave was the man of the hour.

Dave tied on a hi-vis parachute BWO with a Barr's Emerger trailer. We saw some regular risers in the slick water just in front of the car park (which is ridiculous because we walked miles up the canyon in our pursuit and caught the best fish right in front of the car). Anyway, Dave was max'ing out his 3 weight with long casts, putting in a small mend when necessary, and he managed to land four great fish. All but on took his Barr's Emerger. It was a hell of a site to see. He really worked it and that worked for him.

We were hungry as bear and decided to try to hit the Mr. K's or the Dinky Diner on the way home. We struck out, both were closed. We proceeded through heavy snow to Kenosha Pass where it cleared up. We stopped at one of John Woz' old hang-outs: Cactus Jacks. We scarfed some awesome burgers and headed home.

Great day, but not the Caddis Hatch we were expecting.

Headed to the Ark

2005-05-06T17:14:00.000-06:00

DiamonD and I are headed to fish the Arkansas River tomorrow. The weather looks a bit iffy but we should have a nice time anyway. The Caddis are coming off according to the reports and the Baetis should still be getting some action from those browns. I'll post a followup to this to report on our success (or failure ;-)

xp_pcre - Regular Expressions in T-SQL

2005-05-06T17:08:00.000-06:00

I just came across an article on CodeProject: xp_pcre - Regular Expressions in T-SQL By Dan Farino. It provides 6 different extended stored procedures to provide a range of regex functionality.

It uses the "Perl Compatible Regular Expressions" library which is available at http://www.pcre.org/

I haven't tried it but it really looks like a useful thing. I'll report on it soon.

Too Sexy For My Waders

2005-05-05T23:53:00.000-06:00

I created a new blog: Too Sexy For My Waders. It is going to be a team blog for my fishing buddies: John Woz and DiamondD, and myself. We are going to catalog our annual fly fishing trips and all the wacky adventures along the way. Should be a crack.

Tying for the Ark

2005-05-05T23:45:00.000-06:00

Dave an I had a tying session tonight for the Arkansas River. We tied up some foam-winged caddis, peacock caddis, and some mercury bead flashback pheasant tails. It was a good night of tying and Emma baked some Salmon. It was tasty.

Mercury Flashback Pheasant Tail Nymph
Pat Dorsey designed this variation of the already highly effective and popular pheasant tail. With its glass beadhead, it gives fish a slightly different look they go crazy for. Works great on hard-fished waters where trout have seen it all.

Puterbaugh's Black Foam Caddis
The pattern is available here

Peacock Caddis
The pattern is available here

Simple Perl and C# Regex Comparison

2005-04-25T16:37:00.000-06:00

I have been working through Regular Expressions from Friedl. I have been testing the regexes in PowerGrep, EditPad Pro, Perl, and C# in .NET. Here is a very simply comparison:

Here is the Perl script borrowed from Friedl:

print "Enter a temperature (e.g., 32F or 100C):\n";
$input = ;
chomp($input);

if ($input =~ m/^([-+]?[0-9]+(\.[0-9]*)?)([cC][fF])$/)
{
$InputNum = $1;
$type = $3;

if($type eq "C")
{
$celsius = $InputNum;
$fahrenheit = ($celsius * 9 / 5) + 32;
}
else
{
$fahrenheit = $InputNum;
$celsius = ($fahrenheit - 32) * 5 / 9;
}

printf "%.2f C is %.2f F\n", $celsius, $fahrenheit;

}
else
{
print "Expecting a number , then a \"C\" or a \"F\", so don't understand \"$input\".\n";
}

Here is a similar program written in C#:

using System;
using System.Text.RegularExpressions;
namespace Temperature1
{
///

/// Summary description for Class1.
///

class Class1
{
///

/// The main entry point for the application.
///

[STAThread]
static void Main(string[] args)
{
try
{
Console.WriteLine("Enter a temperature to convert. (Examples: 0C or 32F)");
string input = Console.ReadLine(); // read input from user
string pattern = @"^([-+]?[0-9]+(?:\.[0-9]*)?)([CF])$"; // build regex pattern
Regex r = new Regex(pattern, RegexOptions.IgnoreCase); // Compile the regular expression.
Match m = r.Match(input); // Match the regular expression pattern against a text string.
if(m.Success)
{
string type = m.Groups[2].ToString();
double celsius = 0.0D;
double fahrenheit = 0.0D;

if(type.ToUpper()=="C") // convert from celsius to fahrenheit
{
celsius = double.Parse(m.Groups[1].ToString());
fahrenheit = (celsius * 9 / 5) + 32;
}
else // convert from fahrenheit to celsius
{
fahrenheit = double.Parse(m.Groups[1].ToString());
celsius = (fahrenheit - 32) * 5 / 9;
}

// at this point we have both temperatures, so display the results
Console.WriteLine("Result: {0,2:n} C is {1,2:n} F", celsius, fahrenheit);
}
else
{
// the initial regex did not match, so issue a warning
Console.WriteLine("Expecting a number followed by 'C' or 'F' so I don't understand {0}.", input);
}
}
catch(Exception e)
{
Console.WriteLine(e);
}
}
}
}

Regex in Perl definitely seems more natural and "built in".

Here is a link to Regex documantation on MSDN: .NET Framework Regular Expressions

More to come...

Working with Perl

2005-04-21T00:24:00.000-06:00

I just installed ActivePerl from ActiveState. The installation was painless and so far it has worked perfectly. It's not that I really wanted to learn Perl, it is just that many of the examples in "Regular Expressions, Powerful Techniques for Perl and Other Tools" by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl, from O'Reilly are demonstrated in Perl. It seems like a really concise and powerful language.

Here is my progress...not much I know. Guess this is equivalent to "Hello World" for demonstrating regular expressions in Perl.

print "Enter a temperature in Celsius:\n";
$celsius = ;
chomp($celsius);

if ($celsius =~ m/^([-+]?[0-9]+)([CF])$/) {
$fahrenheit = ($celsius * 9 / 5) + 32;
printf "%.2f C is %.2f F\n", $celsius, $fahrenheit;
}
else{
print "Expecting a number, so don't understand \"$celsius\".\n";
}

Check out SpamGourmet

2005-04-18T17:32:00.000-06:00

Eugeny Sattler informed me of a great Spam protection service. It is called www.spamgourmet.com. He did russian translation for the site www.spamgourmet.com It is a great site for spam protection, and he recommends it to everybody.

How spamgourmet works

If you give your email address to everyone, you are bound to receive spam emails, and you won't know where they came from. Wouldn't it be convenient to give a different email address to every business or web site, while getting all your email as before? Wouldn't it be easiest to assume the address will be given to spammers, and have it work as a spam blocker by shutting off automatically unless you decide otherwise?

That's exactly what spamgourmet offers!...

Arkansas River Beatis Hatch

2005-04-17T17:59:00.000-06:00

Dave and I fished the Arkansas River upriver from Buena Vista, CO. Dick from ArkAnglers sent us there. It was a gorgeous spot and a beautiful day. There was too much sun (I know, what a terrible problem to have ;-) for much surface action early in the day. The clouds moved in and I'm sure the baetis hatch started right after we had to leave, but that is how it goes.

We were catching mostly browns and a few rainbows. Early in the day we were producing on green copper johns, Barr's emergers and olive foamwinged flashback RSII's. It got pretty warm and I had a slow spell for a good hour or two. Dave kept nailing them in the last whole with a barr's emerger. He was "working it". Slow, short, steady drift with lots of success. It was really cool to watch.

Here is a current fishing report from Arkanglers

Regular Expressions

2005-04-14T00:15:00.000-06:00

I was just tasked with an interesting programming challenge this week. I used Regular expressions to solve it. I'm a total novice at using regular expressions, but I do see the value in using them for certain tasks. Wow, what a powerful technology!

I posted a question on a Google Group: Regex. I very generous and helpful developer by the name of Eugeny Sattler assisted me in solving this problem and helped me to gain a better understanding of Regular Expressions in the process.

I am evaluating a tools that take advantage of Regular Expressions. One being EditPad Pro. This is an excellent tool and I'm seriously considering purchasing this tool. I have been using EditPad Lite for a while now and really like some of it's features. The Pro version is just that much more powerful. Another tool that might be worth purchasing is RegexBuddy.

I am reading "Regular Expressions, Powerful Techniques for Perl and Other Tools" by Jeffrey E. F. Friedl, from O'Reilly. This is an excellent book. It is written in a way that really aids in the understanding of an otherwise complicated topic. I have only gotten through the first chapter so far, but I am already getting some of the basics down.

Another tool you might consider adding to your aresenal is a pre-compiled, windows-native version of GNU egrep can be found in the bundle at: http://unxutils.sourceforge.net/. Lots of goodies in there.

Great Birthday!

2005-04-09T15:13:00.000-06:00

Had a great birthday. Dave picked me up at ~5:30 AM, we drove to the Colorado near Parshall, CO, we fished for a few hours and headed back early that afternoon. Dave is a hell of a guy to get up that early. He wasn't even grumpy.

The water was up from last week and a bit off-color. I was thinking that we weren't going to do very well but Dave picked up a few early on. We seined the river and found what looked like large dark sow bugs. I didn't know that there were sow bugs on the Colorado. Let me know if you know otherwise. We also found a ton of small baetis and other stuff. We put on a Ray Charles and an olive foam wing, flashback RSII and spanked them. Together Dave and I probably landed 40 fish. Great day on the water.

That evening, I went to the Galactic concert at the Fillmore Auditorium with Caroline, Kati, and my sister Nicole. Good show but I miss what Theryl added to Galactic. Maceo Parker was the opening band.

Gorgeous day on the Colorado

Diamond Dave working the seam

Gurkha Cigar

Dave with a nice brown

Releasing it for another day

Willams Fork Confluence

2005-04-02T16:47:00.000-07:00

Had a great fishing below the Williams Fork and Colorado Confluence. Got there at 7:15 AM and was the second guy in the lot. By the time I had my waders and vest on, there about 5 more cars all jockeying for position. I ended up with a good spot and caught a fair amount of fish on a glass bead, black D-rib midge. The fish started rising so moved the D-rib to the bottom and put an emerging Black Beauty on (Black Beauty with a z-lon emerging wing case). Both flies continued to catch fish.

I Met a nice guy Paul and learned a lot from him. I was fishing below another gentleman and he was doing really well. He had the best spot and got em on emergers and dries. I couldn't reach the risers and tried a few different dry\dropper combos with no luck.

I had to leave the fish at 11:00 to meet my wifey and kiddo at Mary Jane. We took turns hanging with Maddie and had great spring skiing. Sweet day all around!

Team Building in the woods

2005-03-24T23:59:00.000-07:00

We spent a team building day in Fraser, CO. Nagesh, Sanjeez, Janel, Vera, Russ, Josh (me), Caroline, and Madeline had a nice time in the Experimental Forest.

Sanjeev, Nagesh, and Janel in the Experimental Forest near Fraser, CO.

More of the gang.

Madeline was a sport. She is always up for a free ride.

2005-03-02T06:59:00.000-07:00

Found a great article on mending by Philip Monahan while reading MidCurrent. Here is a link to the feed if you are interested.

Here is an excerpt...

"A good friend of mine, who has been a guide for many years, always draws a distinction between those clients who can cast and those who can actually fish . (He maintains that the former outnumber the latter by a wide margin.) Casting only helps you throw the line through the air. But the fish don't live in the air. They live in the water, and the water is usually moving."

2005-02-28T18:46:00.000-07:00

Diamond Dave, Glenn, Eddy, Laney and I all hooked up in Alcova, Wyoming to fish the North Platte. Yolanda at Sloanes really set us up with a great room. It was a great trip even thought the fishing was a bit slow. The report from the Platte River Fly Shop was right on. It said "Fair - Possible to hook a few" and they weren't lying. The weather was great and the wind was pretty manageable all weekend. The flow was really low at 500 cfs and we had to row through a lot of water. Scuds and small baetis were the ticket. San Juan Worms and midges were also supposed to be good but no one but Dave caught anything on that that I remember. Great trip.

2005-02-28T18:45:00.000-07:00

Here is a 23 inch Rainbow that I was lucky enough to hook on a slow Sunday afternoon. With lots of help and support from Eddy and Laney, we netted it, photogrpahed it and safely released it to fight again.

2005-02-28T18:43:00.000-07:00

Here is a shot taken by Eddy of both of us in his boat. Got to love a Nat Sherman once in a while.

2005-02-28T18:41:00.000-07:00

Here is a healther rainbow caught on Saturday. It took a size 14 orange scud. Laney netted it for me.

2005-02-28T18:39:00.000-07:00

Here is Glenn with a good sized Sucker fish.

2005-02-28T18:35:00.000-07:00

Look at the crazy Summit Guy. As my buddy Eddy says, this picture accurately captures the true essence of Summit Guy.

2005-02-17T16:42:00.000-07:00

Found a good SQL Programming resource. I found it on Aaron Weiker's blog

He's got good public forums

2005-02-10T11:18:00.000-07:00

Found a great NASA resource where you can track satellites and space stations (if you are into that sort of thing ;-))

2005-02-10T11:07:00.000-07:00

Found a new resource from Google. --> Google Maps

http://maps.google.com/

It seems to be very intuitive and works great considering it is a new beta. Check it out.

2005-02-03T15:29:00.000-07:00

I just found the Alaska Fly Fishers (AFF) site and it has some good fly patterns and various other informamtion. Check it out.

Here are some of thier awesome pattern archives:

2005-01-31T13:16:00.000-07:00

We got some good snow this weekend and boy did we need it. These pictures were taken on Monday Jan. 31, 2005 (Althought the timestamps on the pics are off by 2 weeks...). Snow on the deck and in the valley.

2005-01-31T13:15:00.000-07:00

Snow on a tree in the front yard.

2005-01-31T12:15:00.000-07:00

Here is a shot of Maya.

2005-01-31T12:14:00.000-07:00

The dogs weren't much help this time.

2005-01-31T07:37:00.000-07:00

FlyFisherman.com has an article "Nymphing Without Indicators" by JIM MCLENNAN

Indicators may help new fly fishers catch fish but there are times when you don't want to use them....

2005-01-27T08:11:00.000-07:00

Here is a collage from New Years

2005-01-25T11:30:00.000-07:00

Great day in Eleven Mile Canyon...
Dave and I had a good time fishing in Eleven Mile Canyon. It was a gorgeous day, a bit chilly in the AM, but it warmed up considerably It was pretty crowded too.

The fish were rising to midges and baetis, so we fished small dries with emerger droppers. We caught a lot of fish. Great time.

Flies:
Griffith's gnat, size: 20-22
BWO sparkle dun, size: 22-24
Olive parachute, size: 22
Barr's emerger (flashback), size: 24
Young Special, tan, size: 24

2005-01-25T11:18:00.000-07:00

The Pressure Myth
Does a changing barometer truly affect our fishing success? Let science answer that question.

2005-01-18T21:58:00.000-07:00

Look at this. She is a happy girl!

2005-01-18T21:56:00.000-07:00

ASCII Chart and Other Resources

2004-11-11T16:58:00.000-07:00

Here is Caroline holding Madeline

2004-11-11T16:57:00.000-07:00

More pictures of Madeline

2004-11-11T16:19:00.000-07:00

Here is Madeline!

Caption this photo

2004-10-23T21:28:00.000-06:00

Advanced Nymphing Clinic with Pat Dorsey at North Fork Ranch

2004-05-01T01:01:00.000-06:00

We went over the different techniques of short line nymphing and long line nymphing. To get a drag free drift short line nymphing, try to keep no more than 4-5 inches of line on the water. If you are sight nymphing, try to watch the fish and the indicator at the same time. Look for any movement in the fish or a flash or sudden jerk to one side. If it is really clear, look for their mouth to open. Set the hook regardless of whether or not the indicator moves. Key in on the fish more than the indicator.

We used natural tan poly rope and a 5/16th inch rubber band (Panther sized orthodontics rubber bands) for a strike indicator. Two strands of rope were used and trimmed to about 2 inches long. Pat used a dowel with the rough edge of Velcro to fluff the indicator. He applied Aquel (Gink) to the Velcro and fluffed the indicator to apply the Aquel for flotation.

We used one #6 lead shot with Orvis sink putty. The Orvis sink putty is malleable even in cold temperatures.

Pat was able to watch the indicator and determine if the rig was weighted enough. The water on the top of the current is a bit faster than the water in the mid to lower part of the current. If the indicator was racing down river, he applied more weight. If you aren’t hitting moss or the bottom every 4th-5th cast, you aren’t hitting the fish.

Long Line Nymphing
Cast up river to the desired spot, then, give your line a nice roll cast to send the slack line up river. Pat did this effortlessly. Then stack line behind your indicator to provide for long drifts. Try not to over mend, but throw in aggressive mends when necessary.

2004-04-06T15:01:00.000-06:00

Great day on Gore Creek at the confluence of Gore Creek and Eagle River.

Midges and beatis imitations were the ticket.

Mercury Blood Midge #22
Mercury Midge in black #22
Yong Special in summer brown, black, and red #24
Copper John in red, green #18
Bead Head Caddis emerger in olive/green #16
Beadhead Wolly Buggers in Black and Orange

Grays Reef in Alcova, Wyoming

2003-09-28T01:12:00.000-06:00

The water was low (500 cfs), the moss was high. The fish are large and plentiful.

We had success on a three nymph rig using at least 2 pheasant tails. I was using #18 flashbacks and Dave was using small regular PTs. We also caught fish on small #22 red midges, and barr’s emergers should also work. Dave caught a large rainbow on my yellow/brown woolly bugger. We heard that olive scuds worked near the dam. Brown leech with orange bead head supposedly worked too. Tricos and BWOs were coming off in large numbers. Dave picked up a bunch of fish in the evening.

Talk to Art with the Gray Reef Outfitters:

22222 West Gray Reef Road
Alcova, Wyoming 82620
Phone: (307) 232-9128

We also spoke with a guide named Ryan who offered for us to follow him and watch how he cuts the upper eddy and fish the inside seam. Dave has his card.

North Platte Lodge
(307) 232-9128
Nplatlodge@aol.com

There is a gas station with cabin rentals called Sloanes in Alcova that has boxed lunches and sets up shuttles. Yolanda will hook you up.

General Info:
Gray Reef to Lusby (approximately 9 miles).

Gray Reef is a tailwater section of the North Platte River drainage, located in central Wyoming, 30 minutes from Casper. The section from Gray Reef to Lusby has been a known classified Blue Ribbon fishery for several years. Flows on this section vary depending upon the season and snow pack in the mountains. Trout in this section average between 16” to 20” and can be as large as six pounds. The fishing in the river is mainly nymphing and streamers with some dry fly action. This section of the river is mainly private with limited public access and can only be fished from a boat; hence there is very little anchoring; due to the access and land ownership laws in the state of Wyoming.

We are very proud of the Wyoming Fly Casters for pursuing the spring and fall flushing flows, as well as, the one fish (one fish over 20”) regulation, which has brought trout populations from 500 fish per mile to 4,000 fish per mile in the last five years

Contacts:
North Platte Anglers
(307) 472-9190
flyfishpdk@earthlink.net
PO Box 31
Alcova, WY
82620

Platte River Fly Shop
7400 Alcova Hwy 220
Casper, Wyoming 82604
307-237-5997
platterat@aol.com
Open until 6:00 PM (25 miles outside of Alcova on the way to Casper)

The Wyoming Road Report
(307) 772-0824
http://www.wyoroad.info/highway/conditions/Dist2.html

Gray Reef Links
Report: http://www.anglerguide.com/wyoming/index.cfm?TR_ID=119
Report: http://shop.flyfishing.about.com/fishing_rep/8/1/248.htm
Water flow: http://www.usbr.gov/gp-bin/hydromet_dayplt.pl?gdwy&q_i
Water flow: http://www.usbr.gov/gp-bin/arcweb_grar.pl
Weather: http://www.crh.noaa.gov/data/forecasts/WYZ020.php?warncounty=WYC025&city=Alcova
Original Patterns: http://www.wyomingflyfishing.com/flies.html
Site: http://www.grayreefangler.com/
Site: http://www.northplatteanglers.com/
Site: http://www.wyomingflyfishing.com/
Road Conditions: http://www.wyoroad.info/highway/conditions/Dist2.html

Hot Patterns:
From Platte River Fly Shop (Stacy) on 4/14/04
Midges: black & brown #18-#20
Baetis Nymphs: PT (flashback, bead head, and plain)
Baetis Dries: Parachute Adams #18-#20
Eggs: all colors
San Juan Worms: red
Streamers: cream & black (dead drifted or thrown at rising fish)

Miscellaneous
Tippet: 3X & 4X

Maps

Taylor Reservoir and Upper Taylor River

2003-09-21T01:06:00.000-06:00

We camped and fished with Glenn, Sharon, and Dennis Sneed. It was Sharon & Glenn’s maiden voyage in Ester (their 1984 Toyota/Savannah camper). Nicole came along and had a great time.

We belly boated the reservoir on Saturday and caught a number of rainbows on difference buggers. I landed one Brown on a black bugger.

Jack started landing large Mackinaw in the inlet of the reservoir on a Grizzly and Black bugger. We all bogarted his hole and began catching many Mackinaw on different buggers. I was most successful on my yellow/brown bugger.

Saturday I was using my TNT (Thomas & Thomas) 3wt with floating line using a 3/0 and having to wait for a 10 or 15 count. Sunday I used my TNT 6wt with a sink tip.

The Mackinaw move up into the inlet in the morning and afternoon/evenings and move out to the point during the day. They are only around these areas in the fall when they go to spawn.

Mike says he usually catches big browns in the 5-6 pound range in the late fall. They weren’t moving yet…

Colorado River near Pumphouse

2003-09-14T00:50:00.000-06:00

We spoke to Kevin at Fly Fishing Outfitters and got the skinny on that water. We walked up from Pumphouse about 1-1/2 miles total up into Gore Canyon. We fished with black copperjohns, hares ears early and picked up a few browns in the runs. Then we switched to dries and caught them on a small stimulator and a “fruit fly” which had wings like a royal wulff but had a orange-ish/pink-ish body. Need to get the name of this fly and learn to tie it. It also worked on browns on the upper Taylor River above Taylor Res.

Dries were really coming off in the evening.

Dave ended up in the doghouse for this trip but it was worth it.

Cimmaron Creek near Taos

2003-08-21T01:09:00.000-06:00

We caught a few small trout on dries and beadheads. The dogs enjoyed themselves. The Cimmaron is a nice little creek.

Alaska - Ptarmigan Creek

2003-04-29T00:42:00.000-06:00

The last two days of fishing were spectacular. We all caught a ton of fish and a few that were taped at 20”. There weren’t as many reds in the water so that was cool. I still managed to land a couple of big reds on my 3-wt T-n-T. One of the reds actually bit me. He got a hold of my Gore-Tex jacket collar.

Once Matt was fishing up river from me and I hooked and landed my fish. His fish ran down river and I netted his fish with my fish still in the net. Another time, I hooked a fish and it ran down to Matt. He was trying to land my fish as his fish ran all over the place. It looked like he was dancing.

Another time, I hooked a dolly and fought it for a bit, then it through the hook which proceeded to snag a red. I had this red on for a bit until it shook the hook which proceeded to snag another red. Three fish in one cast!

Eddy hooked fish on the train trestle and ran down the embankment to land them. It was getting ridiculous how many times we hooked up. The fishing was great!

Alaska - Quartz Creek

2003-04-24T00:46:00.000-06:00

We headed to Troutfitters from the Quartz Creek campground at about 7:30 AM. We spoke with a few of the folks there and they recommended fishing Quartz Creek. We replenished the beads with some of the hot “patterns” that they recommended and headed for the creek. We geared up and started fishing. Mike got into fish immediately as did Eddy, Matt, and myself. Matt landed a gorgeous fish that was sporting it’s spawning colors. We all regrouped with bead color, weight, leader setup, etc. It was a great day. The fish were plentiful and we all enjoyed ourselves.

A few days later
We decided to fish Quartz Creek again after struggling with the Russian Rainbows and Anchor Silvers. We parked off the main highway and started to suit up when a guy drove up and warned that he just spotted a large grizzly in the vicinity. We were all on guard.

We split up into pairs and all caught some great fish. Matt nailed a couple of great fish this day. I hooked a huge dolly that must have exceeded 24”. Fought it for a few minutes, and Matt and I chased it through 4 log jams before it broke me off. It was a real thrill.