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Fishing with Cataline
This fishing excursion follows in the tracks of the well-known trailbrazer and packer, known as Cataline. He was born Jean Caux, in the Catalonia region near the Spanish/French border, and blazed trails from central to northern British Columbia, Canada. The numerous gold rushes and homesteaders kept him busy supplying their camps during the 1860's, when much of the country was untouched. He was able to experience an untouched wilderness full of fish and game. This region still has some of the best rainbow trout fishing on the continent; moose, bear, caribou, mountain goats and sheep are plentiful too in this mountain region. My recent excursion followed in his footsteps from Clinton, B.C., in the south to Babine Lake in the north. He traveled on foot with a pack train of as many as 80 mules, following old Indian and wild game trails where he could, and "bushwacked" where he couldn't.
Fly fishing rods are now available in raspberry
Standing on a rock outcropping that juts into Officer's Gulch Lake, Char Bloom resembled an orchestra conductor the moment before a concert. Instead of lifting a wand, though, she waved a fly fishing rod. With an audience of women surrounding her, Bloom brought her rod back and then gracefully rocked it forward, throwing her line into the lake with just the perfect amount of arc. The fly gently landed on the tranquil lake, creating only the tiniest ripple. "Make sure the fly hits the water first and not the rest of your line," Bloom said. "Otherwise, you'll scare the fish away." Too late: The 17 female anglers watching Bloom were wearing jingling beads around their waists and they were decked out from head to toe in bright colors such as turquoise and hot pink. Their rods? Raspberry colored.
Anglers hopping on buggy bandwagon
You're not seeing things; that tall grass really is wriggling, but not to worry, for there are no supernatural forces at work. The constant movement - and the rustling noise that accompanies it - is caused by thousands of tiny grasshoppers. Central New York had a heavy hopper hatch last summer, and this year's crop appears to be just as abundant. Fishermen, especially trout anglers, should take note, for when those jumpy insects start making crash landings on local streams, hungry browns, brookies and rainbows will hear the dinner bell ringing. Normally, I don't expect to see full-grown grasshoppers in any numbers until the third or fourth week of August, but they're running ahead of schedule this year. As soon as the water in Nine Mile Creek, Chittenango Creek and other rain-swollen streams drops and clears, live hoppers or artful imitations of the real thing should prove deadly.
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