Fall Shroomin'

Found this big ol fresh Chick of the Woods (aka sulphur shelf) mushroom while mt. biking.  The bright orange stuck out like a sore thumb in the woods.  With the recent cool temps and rainfall, this polypore must have just popped.

 

I've tried a couple different recipes, but this one definitely is my favorite to complement the lemony, chicken like taste of this mushroom.  Absolutely delicious!

Chicken of the Woods Mushroom Risotto
Serves 4
100g of Chicken of the Woods Fungus – thickly sliced
200g of risotto rice
2 cloves of garlic
2tbsp of butter
Salt and Pepper
2 pints of hot vegetable or chicken stock
1 lemon juiced
Handful of fresh thyme

1. Fry the chicken of the woods mushroom with the butter and garlic til softened
2. Add the risotto rice til coated in butter
3. Add a ladle full of stock, stir until absorbed
4. Continue to add the stock a ladle full at a time stirring well
5. Continue adding the stock in this way, until all the liquid has been absorbed and the rice is plump and tender.
6. Add the thyme , lemon juice season with salt and pepper

 

Xterra Appalachia Triathlon

I ran the Xterra Appalachia triathlon at Yellow Creek State Park for the second time in three years. The Xterra is a .5 mile swim, 15 mile mountain bike, and 4 mile trail run and is the only off-road triathlon around here. It is really well  organized by the team at American Adventure Sports and enthusiastic volunteers (including one woman who took these pictures.) I did this race two years ago and even though racing really isn't my thing (ask my wife....I'm never in a hurry), I found that having a goal like this keeps me biking and swimming throughout the summer to stay in 'relative' shape.  If I didn't have something to train for ...I would just, well ....only fish.

Pre-race.  I'm at the far right...hands on hips...serious mode.

The race started with the swim, which is my least favorite part (until you get to the run then that is my least favorite.)  No matter how much I train for swimming, you cant factor in getting punched and kicked in the pack of swimmers as you try to mow your way through a garden of lake weeds.  This year I thought I did the swim much better by staying on the outside of the pack and actually swimming a few hundred yards for a warm up before the race - two lessons I learned from two years ago.  The one thing I cant get over though is how crooked I swim without lane markers in a pool.  I completely veer to the right and probably made a .5 mile swim closer to .75 mile. I finished this leg in 23 minutes.



The mountain bike was next up and I can say I truly love to ride.  I have done this course a few times, so I remembered most of it including some previous crashes.  Two years ago, I got caught up in the race and turned a relatively small bump in a downhill into a launching pad for an endo into a jagger bush.  This year, I dialed it down some and didn't have one 'bad' wreck.  However, about mid-way through the race, we had torrential downpours, which made the single track greasy and technical, but racing in mud is fun and I finished in 1:57.





My favorite part....the mountain biking

 






















The last leg was a hilly trail run over roots, rocks, and logs.  With a bad ankle and knee I dont run anymore, so my plan was to just grit it out and plug through the 4 miles.  Good plan.  After the first hill, my legs were tighter than a snare drum and my knee felt like it was going to explode.  But I've been here before and just pushed through.  The 38 minute run was pretty slow, but I did finish that last .5 mile strong. My overall total time was 3'06 and a little slower than two years ago, but at this point, I was truly happy to finish the tough race and enjoy the fun day.




Yough Tailrace Float

Dave and I hit the Yough Saturday morning.  With the warmer temps and my schedule (aka: honeydew list #9: Nursery) we just floated the top section.  Its only maybe 1.25 miles from put-in to take-out, but we took our time and worked the many runs on the way down. 



An angler standing in the early Yough mist


It was raining early right around 9 AM and I thought the BWOs would pour off the water, but to our surprise we didn't see one little BWO.  We did see a decent amount of cahills - both yellow and orange coming off around 10-11 AM, but not one fish took that size 12/14 bug.  We even saw a couple yellow drakes that were 2XL, but the fish didn't seem to care. 



When this fog lifted, there were about 10 fisherman below the bridges!

What the trout did like though was the venerable caddis.  When the sun came out, so did the splashy tell tale rises in the runs.  This is such a more welcome site to see then when they are in impossible killer whale mode cruising and taking size 20 something micro emergers. I loathe those fish. 


We had a good 5 hours on the river and caught a good amount. I lost a 20" palomino due to dry rotted tippet that apparently had the breaking strength of a piece of hair. Sickening. There is enough other things that can go wrong when you hook a pig, but bad line shouldn't be one of them.



Typical Yough bow

When we got to our take out, there were plenty of fish still rising. This is always a problem and makes it damn hard to leave. If I had my choice, I would rather have daylight force me off the river. Leaving at mid day, I basically had to turn away and just bee line from the river and not look back. All it takes is one cast and I would have been stuck there probably til dark.




Dave working a run behind his boat

The Freedom Float - Yough River

Did a little Fourth of July float fishing with David. God bless America it was hot out there!  We put in above Ramcat around 7:30 and floated down to Ohiopyle.  Big rubber hatch on the river with the rafts and kayaks.  Unfortunately that was about the only thing that was hatching.  Not many bugs at all - just a few BWOs and caddis and that was about it.  The fishing pretty much followed the bug activity and they just wouldn't eat.  We found one small pod of fish that were rising and were able to trick one on a BWO dry, but that was it for the top water.  It may be time to focus on the upper tail race section and hit the late evenings / early mornings only for now. 

But we had a great day as always and spent some extra time stopping the boat and checking out the river lines so we can continue to learn.  David manned the oars in his boat and we definitely learn more each time we get out.  This section below was the one that really jacked me up on my first trip down.  Of course the picture doesn't really do it justice, but as you can see, there is no real clear line to get through.  And I know for a fact there is one big pointy rock that is currently tattooed on top with some white drift boat paint.



This time around, we followed a couple rafts that tucked in behind the big rock on the left in the picture below and the rapid was butter after that.  I'll remember that line for sure.  Live and learn.

Towards the end of the float I was throwing big streamers and my sinking line was lazily dragging under the boat as I took a break and sat down.  We hit a rock and I just knew what had happened....cut that $70 right in half.  Ahh, just one of those days!  But any time you can get onto the river on a Wednesday, you can't ask for much more!  Happy Fourth!

Dog Training / Bass Fishin'

I've been knee deep in getting the house ready for the twins this fall and this weekend was dedicated to installing a Pergo floor in the new guest room.  By Sunday evening I needed to wet a line in the worst way and the dog needed to get some exercise, so we took a little family trip to a local training pond.  We had the place to ourselves and did some water retrieves for Cooper to wear him out a bit in the heat.

Then on the other side of the pond, I worked some poppers for small sunfish and bass.  I never fished this pond before and I rarely even fish any little bass ponds.  But it was 10 minutes away and the Yough is 1.5 hours.  I ended up catching a bunch of little less than discriminating sunfish and bass on a little top water popper and had a hoot.  Spencer brought her chair and just hung out on the bank.  It was a good way to get my fix in before starting the work week again.

Yough River Run - Finally!

Whoooaa doggy!  Finally time to man up and run the middle Yough.  After running a few other rivers in the drift boat over the past months and having David take me down the Yough once and show me the lines, it was go time.

David manning the front of the boat

David and Joel and I put in around 7 am in Confluence near the tailraces to start our all day float.  I was about to learn more on this float than all other combined.  The Yough is damn technical and your constantly slipping around boulders and sliding through holes the size of your boat to get through the many sets of rapids.  David did a great job coaching me on the approach for each rapid and the proper lines to run. If you don't hit these lines, and you can't turn the boat on a dime, you're in for a brutal ride. Plain and simple.


While I was busy learning the river, Joel and David were sticking it to the fish.  In the morning they caught fish on nymphs.  Again it was mostly rainbows, but there always the chance at a monster brown.  Joel took care of lunch and brought this little propane camping stove to grill up some burgers and potatoes at one of the middle islands.  High class baby!

Chef Joel grilling up some burgers on an island

In the afternoon, they switched to some dry / dropper fishing.  We found a lot of risers all afternoon, but these were much tougher than the fish we worked a couple weeks ago. Typical to the Yough, these fish were cruising around like a pod of killer whales munching on really small emergers / nymphs.  All you would see is thick backs and tails and then they would rise again a foot or two somewhere up river.  This is like fishing on the Henry's Fork and can be down right addicting and maddening.  We coaxed a couple to take a dry, but we're going to have to change our game if we want to consistently catch these fish. 

David with a chunky Yough bow

After running through some of the most difficult rapids on this stretch and with about an hour to go in the float a huge thunderstorm snuck in on us over the mountains.  Realizing what inevitably was about to happen, we put the graphite lightning rods down and I paddled like crazy to get down the river.  But that storm chased us down like a trout on a midge and we ended up in the middle of torrential thunderstorm.   I'm talking the center of some of the loudest thunder booming and the most ridiculous lightning that I have ever been in.  This was not cool at all.  20 minutes later we were soaked to the bone and had about 3 inches of water in the boat.   But we managed not to get electrocuted, so I'll chalk it up as a win.

Maiden middle Yough run

It was a pretty memorable float and one I was glad to get under my belt.  Now, I just gotta remember those lines and run it another half-dozen times and I should be straight.

James River, Virginia - Buchanon to Alpine

We went down to Lynchburg, VA for Spencer's 30th birthday.  Prior to the evening surprise party, I went out with her Dad, brother and a couple guys they work with that know the James inside out.  We put in around 8:30 am at Buchanon and planned to float to Alpine.  The water had a nice color to it and was running at 1100 cfs.  Those guys fished out of canoes and used rubber lizards and top water crank baits.  Bobby and I took the drift boat and took turns on the oars and caught fish on clawdads and clouser flies. It was a really nice float through a beautiful part of the state.

Bobby manning the oars

Lunch break

There were a many class I and II rapids that were good to run in the boat.  The only real issue was that a couple of the rapids had wide rock ledges - some were 50-100 ft wide.  This made taking a line to avoid the small ledges unavoidable and some you just had to run over.  There was a good amount of water in the river, but higher flows would have allowed me to get through the rapids without hitting these ledges.  The James is known for its trophy small mouths and a citation (20" or 5 lb) fish is always a possibility.   Everyone caught smallies, but nothing of any real size today.  Though I did see two muskies on this trip that were about 3ft long. I know when I do this float again, I am going to rig up the 10 wt and target those big boys.

Ed with an average smallie.  Bass hate lizards.

 I really enjoyed getting out there on this water with my father and brother in law.  Looking forward to doing it again soon.

Pres was the only one in the ideal boat doing the ideal float