Still fightin' that good fight, getting ready for a comeback...

Crazy to think that 2022 marks almost eight years I’ve been running the blog, and it’s crazy, and somewhat embarrassing, to think how little I’ve been investing here, these last few. From a time perspective, though I think about it a lot, my motivation to write, create, and develop content, has suffered greatly. My passion for shooting still exists and is a focus on my goals sheet for 2022, but I’ve found myself fishing less and less, and lacking desire to share the little content I create.

It’s funny how you can often find yourself doing things because of the people involved. That’s one of the things I love most about fishing - the people and places it brings you to. But it’s also, honestly, been one of the reasons I’ve fished less and less over the last couple seasons. Having a falling out with some of my best fishing buddies has definitely impacted my desire to fish, but also helped me rediscover some of my favorite things.

As I work to reignite my passion for creating content, I’m happy and proud to note some changes that might be seen here on the site. Coming this year you might see some portraits of my kids, product photography, a few fishing trips already on the calendar, and lots more golf related content. It’s been a blast over the last couple of years to see how much crossover already exists between golfers who fish, and fisherfolks who golf. I’d love to explore that more.

I’m challenging myself to be better this year, with the goal of rebuilding my confidence. To enjoy shooting and editing more photos, more often, writing and sharing more stories and poems, and to worry less about everything and everyone else.

Thanks for tuning in and hope you enjoy the adventure!

ChitShow Fore

Crazy to think it’s been a year since ChitShow III, and even crazier to think it’s only 11 months until ChitShow V. But I can’t tell you how much fun it’s been, to be able to relive ChitShow Fore, and all the madness that happened over three days of nonstop golf.

As my wife calls them, “my internet friends” seem to always be so much more. What started as a question to someone I noticed happen to be from Illinois as I was growing my Lamb Crafted collection, then led to being involved in a chat group that never seems to slow down, I’m constantly surprised and thrilled with the people involved. It’s truly the epitome of what most people say, you come for the Lambs goods, and stay for the people. It’s amazing how so many people can support each other in all facets of our lives, while only interacting in person, in most cases, one or a few times per year.

ChitShow Fore did not disappoint, and our crew was SET UP! Wednesday started at Prairie Landing, with a quick 18 to warm up. Getting to ride with Jonathan Pagel and Trent Donahoo was a pleasure, and a study in how much Fireball can disappear before noon. Huge shout out to Mark Cabrera for getting everyone out to White Eagle, where we were treated to a top notch track and some more amazing times. It was great to spend some real quality time with, and getting to know Grant, Jacob and Beau.

Thursday was a day set up at Nettle Creek, for 36, including a scramble in the afternoon and stroke play in the morning. I wish I had the winners of each flight noted, but big shout out to each person who took home a tool. We had a great group in the morning including Yuzo, Chance and Cole, though none of us played to our handicaps, we enjoyed each other’s company, had a few cold ones, and some of us even snuck a few naps in on the back nine!

I thought our afternoon scramble team was going to be invincible, and though we rallied late on the back nine, David, Abed, Jake and I fell a few strokes short of victory. But pretty confident we led the way in laughs laughed, putts missed and fashionable trousers. We may not have played our best golf, but with our 12some+ we got to see some amazing shots, and some thrilling putts - talking about you Rawlings!

A HUGE thank you goes out to Kyle White, Grant Ransom, Tim Eakers, Mark Cabrera, and of course Tana and Tyson Lamb for making this event another memorable event! Thanks to anyone else I might have missed who helped make this a day most of us won’t forget anytime soon.

See ya’ll at ChitShow Five!!!!

ChitShow III

When it was first explained, it was a bunch of dudes getting together to play some golf. We all liked to collect, but really it was about celebrating our appreciation for Tyson Lamb and his custom putters and accessories.

What I found it to be, was so much more. And I don’t just mean on the occasional Thursday night.

We started at White Eagle on Wednesday thanks to the Chicken Man himself, Mark Cabrera, and followed that up with 36 holes of golf at Cog Hill, featuring a round on Dubsdread, on Thursday. Highlighted by a surprise visit by Tyson and Tana Lamb themselves, the day was an absolute dream! With people coming in from all over the country, and all I’d seen in the text group that accompanied the event, I had no doubt it would live up to it’s potential.

Thanks to James, Kyle, Paul, Grant, Dan Maxfield (you were missed!), Tana and Tyson Lamb for making the markers, and anyone else I forgot, for making this all happen. Cog Hill, thank you for your hospitality, and to Mark for putting together our time at White Eagle and Chick-Fil-A.

It was truly awesome to meet everyone and like many of you, I’m already counting down the days til next year!

A Sit Down with Phil from Sandhill Coffee

I had the chance to visit with Phil Wingo of Sandhill Coffee a few weeks ago and shoot some photos of him turning raw beans in to the juice that gets me going every morning.  

It was great and I enjoyed getting to learn more about him and his new beans, including seeing and learning about the roasting process, in the place where he got started.  Personally, I really enjoy understanding the “how” of where the things I enjoy, come from.  Hope you do as well!

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Phil gave me a short write up of where Sandhill came from, and a bit more about his company.  

Why coffee?

Let me back track a bit, to give some insight as to what lead to this decision and how I’ve gotten to where I am today.

In early 2017, with my contract position coming to an end, I found myself panicking, trying to identify my next move.  Even as I applied and landed interviews, I found little working out. Needing to load up my fly boxes and catch up with old friends, I swung by DuPage Fly and walked out with a new job.  What’s better than getting to talk fly fishing every day?

I realized I hate grown frustrated with the job search, with multiple interviews and nothing to show for it.  All this got me thinking – I had always wanted to start my own business, but didn’t know how to make them happen.  I’d write things down, but nothing really materialized.  Now having a job to fall back on, I had the opportunity.  

Some previous ideas were, while on a big liquor kick, I dug in and did all the research to learn what it would take to start my own distillery.  Scratched that idea, way too much capital is needed upfront. Thinking of the outdoors, portable energy! Small solar panels for outdoors people to take camping with them. Smart idea but this is a one and done product, people buy this once and likely will not rebuy.

Jump to the hospital where my wife and I are welcoming our first son. As I’m making coffee runs to the café downstairs, that’s where it hits me - I need to investigate this world of coffee.  Thinking about how it fit in to my life, maybe not a daily habit, but seemed to always be present at the best times.  I started to think of fishing trips - first person awake starts the coffee. Or once we were awake enough, we stopped at the closest pace to grab coffee on the way to start our day. When I worked on a charter boat, we always started some coffee for the customers. When camping, I always brought some coffee with me. When you meet someone for work, ask if they want to grab a cup of coffee. I started seeing all the connections and realized it’s a way so many people connect. I thought this might be a good idea to go after, and starting doing the research on how to make it happen. 

Now I needed a name and a logo.  All of my hobbies are outdoors, so it seemed easy to make a connection to that. I needed something that outdoors people can relate to no matter their hobby, and a bird came to mind. Anyone can relate to a bird who enjoys being outside. However, my wife gets the credit for the crane.

With my brand I am promoting sustainability and the outdoors. Many of the outdoor brands that I have been purchasing have been doing this. Making clothes from repurposed fabrics. Making gear material from repurposed commercial products. For me, it seemed like an easy connection to make. The fun part now is putting this model into practice in this industry I’ve decided to join. I looked from start to finish, starting with the farms I purchase beans from, all the way to the end user. I looked to see what farms were doing to be sustainable. For the customer, using compostable products. My bags are compostable as well as cups to serve coffee in.

Where do I see this going? I hope to be the coffee brand you think of for your next trip outdoors. Whether its chasing fish for a weekend or backpacking a long trail, I want to be your sustainable coffee choice.

Thanks for having me on here Brad!

Sometimes It's Worth Braving the Elements

When I woke up that day, I never expected to find myself face down, belly in the snow, up to my elbow in mud and cold stream water.  But then again, I didn’t expect much of what happened in five of the wildest minutes in my fly fishing career.  

I had sent Mark a text with a screenshot of the weather - One hundred percent chance of rain starting in the morning, eighty percent chance all afternoon.  The outlook was bleak to say the least, and I wondered if it was worth ditching the family to stomp through the snow in a rainstorm.  With temps in the mid thirties, it had the makings of a terribly crappy day.  

After a long day, Mark and I finally connected by phone and found time to have “that” conversation.  I’m sure most fisherman have had it with a buddy, “So, it’s gonna be really shitty tomorrow, you still want to go?”.  I’ll be honest, with the long week I’d had, having a day to hang with the kiddo and Mrs. sounded downright nice.  You could hear it in our voices, neither of us sure it would be worth it, but also neither one wanting to be the one to decide to pull the plug.  “I’m game if you’re game” Mark said.  That was all I needed - “See you at 6:30 tomorrow morning.”

The drive went fast.  I hadn’t really spent much time with Mark.  We had floated in different boats on a couple of different day trips, but never really had the chance to get to know him.  It’s amazing what you can learn in three hours and it was fun to learn more about his travels through his band, River Valley Rangers.  Though he’d spent tons of time perfecting the mandolin, he hadn’t had a ton of experience in the Driftless, so I was excited to show him around.

We drove through sleet, snow, rain and even found about five minutes of clear weather, so it wasn’t a surprise when we rolled up on the first spot we had in mind and it was vacant. We gave it a quick look and decided to push forward to another spot we wanted to check out. As we rolled up, I quickly realized I’d fished here in the past, and thought it would be worth the walk down memory lane.

Rigging up the sleet began to turn to rain, and it began to come at a more consistent pace. Wadering up in the truck, I wanted to stay as dry as possible. As we walked down to bank, with streamer rigged, I figured it would be worth getting a few casts in before we began the long walk downstream to wade back up to the car. I set Mark up on one end of the pool, and I took the other. It didn’t take long, and I had a nice brown hooked up. Without my camera on me at this point, I quickly released the little guy to fight another day and went to find Mark. He was thrilled to see a hook up and noted he’d never caught a brown in the Driftless. I immediately went back to the car and grabbed the Sony and threw her in the bag. I did have hopes the weather would clear up.

As we trekked through knee deep snow, we made our way through a corn field and found some downed trees, making a great little spot for Mark to get his first Driftless brown.

It was one of those pools you can fish a few different ways. Throw upstream and let it sink and bounce it back. Toss it against the far bank and let it swing through. Sling it downstream, swing it and strip it back. Mark had options and with a perfect cast, somehow managed to combine the last two and with a perfect mend his line went tight. A perfect brown trout quickly tailwalked it’s way across the pool, and after a brief fight, Mark stripped him in to the net. Elated, Mark scooped it up and we took a few pictures to memorialize what will be the first of many Driftless trout.

Still wondering how I ended up face down in the snow and mud?

As we walked our way back to the car, I snuck my way up to the pool where i connected earlier. We hadn’t fished the entire pool, and I started at the downstream side, casting off the far bank. As I stepped forward, I first thought I had gotten hung up along some brush that had been washed down this area over the last few floods. When I felt the tug pull towards the deeper pool upstream, I got a little excited and thought I might have something bigger than this morning. As she turned downstream and made a run, I knew it was game on and I had a bit more than I thought. She moved towards the downed barbwire fence spanning the width of the creek. I knew I had a small chance of landing her if she made her way it. With 5x tippet on, I didn’t have much room for margin.

I directed her upstream and she came completely out of the water. One of the most colored up browns I’ve seen in a long time. I about lost it, entering full freak out mode. Suddenly I couldn’t reach the net attached to my bag. As I tried to move upstream, my feet got tangled in the seemingly miles of fly line that suddenly were at my feet. I screamed for Mark downstream. There was no shelf to stand on. No area upstream or down to land the fish. Netting this thing myself we seemingly going to be impossible, I thought.

As I directed her back upstream, she made a run for the undercut bank just below my feet. I stumbled to the bank, keeping pressure on the line, praying she was still attached. My heart was slowly sinking. I took a deep breath, told Mark to hold my rod, and I dove to the bank, reaching for the line, and a prayer. I down up to my arm and couldn’t feel anything but the bank. She was buried, or the fly was lost, to only live on in stories. I grabbed the net and pushed the line down and away and all hell broke loose. A slab of a brown erupted from the depths. I can’t tell you how she ended up in the net. I probably had my eyes closed and a goofy look on my face. In full Superman pose, I held one of the nicest trout I’ve ever caught up in the Driftless. Not the biggest, but one of the most beautiful trout I’ve ever caught. And the way it went down, I’ll hopefully never forget.

Looking back this was a trip that almost never was. I find myself often taking the easy or lazy way out. Having a beautiful baby girl and such an amazing wife, I honestly don’t want to be away from them much. It’s days like this that reconnect you with why we get out. It reminded me that going outside shouldn’t only be for sunny days. Getting to hang with Mark, finding fish, and reconnecting and recharging - all just as important as the others. Even without a fish worth the stories, this would have been a great day. The weather did clear, Mark got his first trout in the Driftless, and we found plenty of reasons to come back.

 

 

Driftless Early Season Opener 2019

As with all good stories, it started with a text string. I’ve never been on the water with Mark, but we’d always talked about it. At first I didn’t notice the other number, but soon realized he had looped in another fishy guy, Pat and we were quickly locking down details. I hadn’t wet a line with Pat either, so I was getting excited to not only be getting out again, but to be starting the year on the water with some new fishing buddies.

With the forecast expecting crazy warm temps, we were able to rope in Keith, and we had a foursome. As we finalized plans - the famed 59/90 meet up, fly patterns, and streams, family obligations popped up and Mark had to make a last second trip to MI, and wouldn’t be able to join us.

With coffees in hand we met up and started the trip towards the Driftless. The trip was a great way to get to know each other a bit better, share Driftless experiences and learn a bit more about Pat’s writing career. By day he works in creative marketing, and by night he writes for some of the industries best fly fishing magazines. Some of his recent works include the DRAKE, The FLYFISH JOURNAL, and FLY FISHERMAN. It was great to learn more about the process of submitting articles and working with the different editorial staffs. I’ve enjoyed his humor in what I had read prior and I look forward to future articles.

Between the three of us, we passed the time quickly, and before we knew it, we were making our final turns to the stream of choice. As we rolled down in to the valley, we drove a good length of the stream, finding our spot empty, and full of promise.

With the temps in the 40’s, we had high hopes for the day and honestly, for me, I just felt lucky to be out. Having Keith along and getting to spend some time with him was a great surprise, and I was hoping to get in a few good photos, and maybe hook a few fish along the way.

It didn’t take long, only four casts with a small black streamer, and I hooked a nice mid size brown, that darted out of some deep water cover, at the back end of a pool. Soon after, Pat was on the board on a nymph rig, and Keith followed up with a nice brown as well. We bounced around as the temperatures rose, leaving us peeling off layers and reaching more for our water than the normal hot coffee.

Keith provided the highlight of the day, raising and hooking a fish on a size 22 dry. Fish on dries can be rare in January, so hearing Keith found a willing eater was great to hear.

Rising temps soon had the snow melting, and water temps dropping. It wasn’t long before the consistent bite turned off, and we ran in to other anglers. Completing our stretch led us to already-fished water, by a couple of anglers and their young group of kids. It was great to see families spending time together outdoors.

By all accounts, this was a great and very successful Opener, and a hopeful start to a successful season. Hope everyone was able to get out when the weather cooperated, and those battling the cold, may you find open water and willing fish.

Somehow this got missed..... Cozad's 1 Fly 2017

Sometimes, when you overthink things, you get in your own way.

When it comes to my photos, I really do enjoy taking photos as much as I do fishing. Being able to capture that moment of shear joy when a big fish is landed, the beauty of a fall brook or brown trout dressed for the spawn, or the silent moment on the stream - it’s all just as enjoyable for me as landing a fish. So when I’ve got the chance to spend a few days with some buddies, I tend to take a lot of photos. Somehow, this was a weekend to remember, that never made through the editing room.

Here’s the Driftless One Fly that Pete Cozad puts on every year, all the way back to 2017. I wasn’t able to make it here in 2018, but looking back at these photos makes me excited at the hope of taking part again in 2019.