River Day 04/14/2014

1st catch of 2014!

Despite a little drizzly rain, we enjoyed another spring-like River Day this week (with temps right around 70). Jay, Ted, Tim and I all made it down again.  Work schedules have allowed all of us to make it for the last several weeks.

For at least the third year in a row, Jay pulled in the first catch of the year (for a Monday anyway).  We still haven't seen any helgies for bait, but he brought down some night-crawlers and snagged a sucker.  Sadly, the first catch was also the only catch of the day, but I'm sure activity will pick up over the next week or two.

We didn't make a post last week (we DID have River Day though), but I had brought down my Bocce Ball set for something different to do.  It's a bit faster paced than washer-toss and everyone seemed to enjoy it.  I had it with me again this week, and we played a few games in the rain. Those darn grapes keeping winning!

Even though the weather was mild, we kicked the fire up a bit to keep it alive during the rain.  Pallets are wonderful things.

River Day 03/31/2014

Spring is in the air (finally) at the river!  It was this week anyway.  We (Ted, Tim, Jay and I) enjoyed a mild afternoon at our usual spot; sunny skies and temps right around 60 degrees.  There was a fairly steady breeze most of the time we were there, so I wouldn't call it a warm evening, but at least we weren't bundled up like Nanook of the North for once.

Jay, Tim and I tried a little fishing (and really, how can you NOT at this time of year?) but none of us had any luck.  Still a little early for helgies.  I tried with a nightcrawler, Jay and Tim used lures.  We weren't discouraged; it just means we're getting closer to the first catch of the year!

Tim brought down another trailer load of pallets this week.  Looks like we're trying to build a condo.  Not that there's a shortage of stuff to burn this spring, but a pallet or two sure does kick the fire up to a respectable level.

No local activity at all this week, except for our regular visit from Freddy.  He was in good cheer this week, and even bought everyone a round!  We've noticed that we haven't seen Leo for a few weeks.  Not that we ever see a lot of him, but it's a little unusual not to see him at all.

Not much in the way of pics this week, just one of the best fire on the river, and another of what has now become my regular River Kit.

Mark's River Kit

Once again, a great way to start the week.

River Day 03/24/2014

Ok, so we've been a bit lax in posting anything here since the end of February, but rest assured there has been a River Day celebration nearly every Monday in March (we took one snow day).  This week all of the usuals were able to make it down: Jay, Ted, Tim and I (Mark).  Although it wasn't especially warm out (around 40, and windy) we had nothing but sunshine and clear blue skies.

Tim brought down a trailer load of pallets to add to the wood pile.  With some of those and all of the winter high water debris that Ted raked up, we had a nice fire going without having to venture out for wood.  We did have to keep an eye on the fire because of the wind (watch out for those embers!), but thankfully, nothing got (too) out of hand.

Since the weather was good we broke out the washer-toss game, where Ted and I lost two in a row to the Harper boys (I can't figure out why Jay keeps referring to them as "grapes"?). Oh well it's still early in the year.

Of course we had our weekly visit from Freddy.  He always has some good stories for us Mondays; we should probably start writing some of them down.

Tim and Jay turned over a few rocks by the edge of the water, but no helgies yet.  Maybe in the next 2-3 weeks.  The river is turning that nice green color that is typical for spring.  The race will soon be on for the first catch of the year!

Be very careful!

As usual we had a great River Day with friends.  Ready to face the week now.

River Day 02/24/2014

Only two of us made it down for the last River Day in February; Jay and I (Mark).  Hard to believe that two months out of the new year are already gone.  Also hard to believe was the fact that all of the snow from last week was gone, except for one little pile anyway.  Sure wasn't because it was just so warm!  Temps were in the upper 30's but we had a steady cold wind from off the river.  The wind was the only thing that kept Jay from trying a little fishing (he may be the only one of the Rivertarians to actually have his 2014 license).

We enjoyed a quiet, uneventful Monday afternoon (excluding a short visit from Freddy).  Home improvement (or lack thereof) seemed to be the main topic of conversation.  There's always some project that needs to be done; whether we actually get around to them or not...

We seem to be on a roll keeping up with this blog for the year; I don't think we've missed a post yet.  Another month of winter left and it'll be all about the fishing.  Looking forward to it.

River Day 02/17/2014

We might not have had a snowy Monday, but we still had lots of snow...the remnants of last weeks 12 inch plus snow storm (probably about 5 inches left on the ground).  Jay, Ted and I made it down to enjoy River Day.  The fire was a little slow to get started, but Jay brought down several pallets, and we ended up with a nice blaze.  Temps were just under 40 degrees.

I'm sure there was a lot of wood laying around for us to burn, but we never saw any of it.  So we ended up burning the pallets and some of the wood we already had stacked.

We had our weekly visit, but without any of last week's slaughter.

Lots of snowball throwing this week.  Doesn't really take much to entertain us.  All-in-all, just a nice relaxing day at the river.

World's ugliest snow...thing.

River Day 02/10/2014

Only half of the Rivertarian party was able to make it down this week - just Ted and I (Mark).  The rest of the usual group was traveling or otherwise MIA.  We had decent weather; temp was right at 30 degrees, clear skies, very little wind.  Most of the snow from the last few weeks had melted off.  The river level was about normal for this time of year, but you could see where it had been up a time or two over the last week.  There was a lot of firewood close at hand for burning, and I brought some stuff to dispose of from some old pre-fab furniture.  We discovered a VERY large chunk of wood hung up in the trees at the bottom of Duwan's lot that's going to take a lot of sawing (and a big saw).  Maybe we can get it (most of it anyway) before the river comes up again and takes it away.  I'm pretty sure none of the locals will fool with it.

(Heave-ho)

Freddy dropped by with his catch of the week.  One of them may have been a small chihuahua, but I wasn't getting close enough to find out for sure.  Didn't really smell like a dog, but...

Just can't bring myself to take a photo of that.  Freddy re-bagged them and sacrificed the remains to the river gods.  Some catfish is going to get full in a hurry.

Not much going on, and no activity anywhere except right around our fire.

Hope everyone got back safely from their travels.

River Day 02/03/2014

The river was made up of ice floes and hot cocoa this week.  Okay, maybe not entirely, but the river was muddy, and because of the rising water, ice from last week's freeze came floating by like small icebergs, with the occasional tree thrown in.  Tim took some video of a large "patch" of ice floating by that I think he's going to try to post.  Pretty awesome to watch.

Jay, Tim, Ted and I all made it down to enjoy our Monday bag-out.  It wasn't nearly as cold as last week, but wasn't too warm either - temp was in the low 30's, with overcast skies, and a good bit of fog on the mountain tops.  I was running later that everyone else, so by the time I got there, the fire was already toasty (there are some benefits to being late).

Jay brought a nice stack of pallets down to ramp up the fire a bit, and I think we burned about half of them. Needless to say, we weren't hurting for heat.  Since there wasn't much wind, staying out of the smoke wasn't too bad this go round.

You don't see much local activity this time of year, but we can always count on Freddy to stop by for a short visit.  I'm sure he enjoys the break from his battles with the area vermin.  Not sure who's winning that one.

Nice to see the daylight hours lengthening.