First off, apologies to my six faithful readers, who despite my absence in writing and updating this blog, keep coming back.  You must like what you see, and since you do, please know that there’s going to much, much more coming soon.  Keeping up with the pace of the world while managing a full-time guide business, being a father for two brilliant children, a husband for my wonderful wife, and now babysitter of a new puppy – well, there’s just lots of stuff to balance.  But – there’s light at the end of the tunnel.  A special thanks to Dave Carpenter, recently endorsed by Orvis in Oregon – Dave guides on the Santiam, which is literally in his backyard. He catches steelhead, trout, and salmon within sight of his kitchen and fly tying area.

What have I been up to?  Well, in a longer than I prefer winter/spring, there’s been a lot of travel.  Along the way, I picked up a nice piece of hardware from the good people at Orvis – I had to buy a new belt….

And when I returned home from a two week trip through the West, fishing MT, WY, and UT – my home water was blown due to rain and snowmelt.  What does that look like?

It looks like this.  Chocolate milk, mocha, mud – whatever you want to call  it, it ain’t clear.  But with the right fly and technique, there’s always a fish to catch.

Took the new puppy along, and she’s becoming quite the fishing dog.  Right at my feet, eating rocks, sleeping in the truck, etc.

So, as the title implies, it’s down to chasing blue lines where you can find them for some spring time fishing.  As most of the Western US has record snow packs this year, it’ll be a while.  But, I’ve heard the Kootenai fishes well at 20K, so perhaps a trip to visit Tim & Joanne at Linehan Outfitters is in order.  All the while, chasing little blue lines on the map…

Thanks for reading – there’ll be more soon.  Much more frequent than 5 months.

Derek