Monday Morning Coffee- February 23, 2015

Hhheeerrrrppphhhhttt!! Yawn, stretch, scratch, repeat. It's Monday morning. Let's have some coffee.

The last week was pretty crazy. I'm sure everyone out there has a tale of winter woe. I'm still visiting friends in Georgia. We got an ice storm Monday night, which took out the power and made the rest of the week pretty miserable. We ended up staying in a hotel most of the week just to stay warm.

There is no denying the stark crystalline beauty of an ice storm- every bush, every blade of glass entombed in glass, every tree becomes a crystal chandelier. It is a dangerous and frigid beauty, as limbs fall and take out power lines with them. Monday night my sleep was punctuated by the crash of falling trees (we had to return home when the hotel lost power).

A glimpse of the storm

Wednesday we drove the two hours up to the Orvis Down the Hatch Fishing Festival at Highland Brewing Company in Asheville North Carolina. I got to see my good friend Erick Johnson of Scientific Anglers and talk fly lines. They have a new brook trout taper I'm interested in trying. Fellow bloggers Cameron Mortenson and Mike Sepelak were both there, and I got hang out with them too. It was a good time, though it was more of a corporate event for Orvis personnel and Orvis endorsed guides. That was fine. It was a good excuse to get out of the hotel, talk fly fishing and swill a couple of beers.

Cameron and Mike at the show

from left: SA's Erick Johnson and Cameron Mortenson

With ice in the forecast for the weekend and the power back on Thursday we made a decision to get out of Dodge. We loaded up the car and headed to Sarasota Florida.

Friday sunset

There is something very cool in the fact that you can drive your way to good weather. With enough time and gas money you can go from snow and cold to sunny, warm and palm trees. The weekend mostly involved visiting friends, biking and running, but Saturday evening we watched the sunset on the beach at Nokomis, then ate amazing seafood at some joint on a canal.

After dinner we wandered outside and sat on a canal-side bench under the street lights. Bright green water rushed past as the tide came in, while men stood on the bridge overhead, tossing lures into the darkness, retrieving them back into the pool of light. There, in that boiling green surge, large shadows rolled and swirled- snook, feeding on hapless baitfish caught in the cauldron. Repeatedly the lures sailed out, landed in the darkness and chugged back past us, and repeatedly large silver shapes, their lateral lines picked out in black, followed those lures back upstream without striking. Now and then a boil or splash announced a snook taking some confused baitfish from the surface.

Saltwater is always dramatic, exciting. It was easy, sitting there in the darkness as the snook swirled and rolled, to imagine the endless possibilities of Florida. I'm going to have to get back down there soon with my fly rods.

Well, my coffee is done and it's going to be a busy week. Let's get after it. I'll leave you with a few more Florida shots.