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I try to get out for a little fishing on opening day when it doesn’t mess with our anniversary which falls on April 17. Not sure why I agreed on that date but there are a lot of things I wonder about in marriage.

I learned that it’s better to NOT mention opening day of fishing season on the years our anniversary falls on a weekend.I learn, just slowly.

I was invited on a fishing trip open day, about 20 years ago. Asked Jenny if it would be alright. She even said yes, I just hadn’t learned that sometimes yes means no.

Most of you know I still haven’t been forgiven for making a stupid choice like that.

Anniversary Dinner

We have a favourite little restaurant we like to go to on special occasions. It’s just off Mountain Road, in Moncton, New Brunswick, at Killiam Drive. It’s an east Indian restaurant and the food reminds me so much of the cooking I used to get when I lived in Ontario.

This little restaurant is just a 10 minute walk from our house so it’s just enough to get our appetites active and to help digestion started on the walk home. The weather even cooperated.

Can I Get My Fishing License Too?

I am a little gun shy about talking fishing on our anniversary but I usually get my fishing license at Chubbies, which is just a 5 minute walk past the restaurant. So I asked if we could go there and get my license. I had to sign a document with my blood, stating I would not go fishing that weekend. Then Jenny even paid for my license.

So now we have been married 29 years. How time flies when you’re having fun, eh?

Off On Our Honeymoon

We had a great day for an April wedding. No rain, no snow, warm temps and even some sun when it was picture taking time.

So all the wedding stuff done, we were off to Fredericton New Brunswick for our wedding night and then off to Ontario, Niagara Falls and then to visit relatives that live in Ontario.

That year the water was so high they were talking about shutting down the highway that follows the Saint John River to Fredericton.

There were moose and deer all along that section of the highway along with police and rangers who were trying to get people to leave the moose along as they were plenty stressed already.

Well we made it through that section and I then tried to speed up to make up some time and as always when I try to speed I get stopped. This time instead of a ticket I was given a warning and he then wished us a happy safe wedding and we were on our way again, at the speed limit.

In Conlusion

Next year, 2012 is our 30th anniversary so I was thinking that maybe we could take a fishing trip somewhere nice. I haven’t got up the nerve to mention that one yet.

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It’s been many years since we’ve had a real snow filled winter here in Moncton, New Brunswick, a winter we can call actually call winter. So far there has been enough fresh snow to keep the old dirty snow covered up so it looks like a real picture postcard winter.

Picture PostCard Moncton Winter

Usually by this time of year I am wishing winter was gone but this year I don’t feel that way, well not yet anyways. Kinda reminds of when I was a kid growing up on the farm and gives me that nostalgic feeling. I never get tired of winter, just the shovelling, although I am really missing fly fishing days on the water, warm water.

I looked out the front window this morning and noticed Geoff, our neighbour, was already gone but when I went out to the street to take the picture above I noticed his car was there I just couldn’t see it from the window. All I could see from the window was a piece of his front porch, but no car.

Geoff’s car is buried behind my lilac trees.

The snow in our lilacs has piled so high it hid Geoff’s car from view. He’ll be so happy to see even more snow and I’ll be hearing his snowblower soon.

Time For Our Own Snowblower

I never really minded shovelling and could burn through it pretty fast. Today, not so much as the ole ticker doesn’t work like it used to back then and my heart doctor says no more snow shovelling if I want to see another winter.

I don’t like seeing my wife have to shovel while I stay indoors so I think it’s time for a snowblower. I am sure I can handle a little snowblower.

This is the first year that we have had to dig a trench so Honey, our pitbull, can get out to do her business in the yard.

She really doesn’t like it when she can’t see over the snow, it tends to make her bark when she can hear what’s going on but can’t see it.

She’s a rather spoiled pitbull and can’t understand why we would make her do her business in deep snow.

We have our own snowbirds living in our backyard, but I have the feeling they either headed south for warmer climates, or perhaps they are hybernating but they certainly aren’t shovelling.

I have been watching as the snow has built up on the bird house and can’t believe it could get this deep without being blown off.

I love the fact that I work from home and done have to go out into nasty weather if I choose not to. I can just sit in my office and watch the snow get deeper and deeper, dreaming of next fishing season.

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My fishing buddy Casey gave me a call yesterday to see if I was up for a day on Lake Petit again. Ha, that’s funny as I live to fish.

The last couple of times we were out on Lake Petit it was windy and the water was like chocolate milk, well yesterday wasn’t any different.

I looked out one of my office windows into my backyard and could see the tree tops swaying. It was another windy day but that wasn’t going to stop me from hitting the water.

Our first two trips out on Lake Petit we were skunked and as I was getting into Casey’s truck I laughed and said ‘Three strikes and I’m outta here.’

The waves were bigger than the first couple of times we were out so we decided we would head up Turtle Creek and see how it was in there.

It was much less windy in there but you could see the effect the wind had had on the water already. The creek, normally pretty clear water and stoney bottom was chruned up and dark but the wind was much less in there.

There was a covered bridge up the river a bit that I didn’t even know existed. It was here that Casey could see that the water was up a two feet higher than normal.

We have had a lot of rain this summer so it didn’t surprise me. Jamie and I have been out a few times to places that would normally be almost dried up at this time of year and the water is still there.

We headed up the creek and I caught the first bass, but it was too big to fit in a picture so you will just have to imagine it.

Okay it was all of 8 inches long. I laughed and asked him to go get his mother and gently dropped him back into the water.

A little further up Casey had a strike and jumped up saying it was a great hit.

Just as he said that I saw it jump and to me it looked about the same size as the one I had. I said ‘No, I don’t think so, he just thinks he is big.” and then I laughed.

When Casey brought it to the boat it was considerably bigger than I had thought. I guess I need new prescripton sunglasses.

We fished way up Turtle Creek, way further than Casey had gone before as the water was pretty high.

We pulled up beside another fisher who had just released a 19″ smallie, which lifted our hopes. He said he was fishing a plastic worm and that the fish were right on the bottom.

We saw him again later but he hadn’t caught anything else.

Shortly after that I caught another huge smallmouth bass. Well it was bigger than my first bass. I am sure it went all the way to 11 inches.

The places we fished had a gravel bottom. I think it would be a great place to catch pre-spawning bass. We will have to give that a go next year.

It was still a whole lot better than sitting in my office typing all day.

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Image by palestrina55 via Flickr

I am not sure if I would use the internet to find a date but a new fishing buddy, oh yeah.

Yesterday a new friend, Casey, who I first met online at the New Brunswick Sportfishing Association Forum took me fishing in Lake Petit.

I had lived on Lake Petit when my son was an infant but never fished there. I always took my boat about an hour to two away to fish. I find that kind of funny but at the time I didn’t realize there were fish in there.

Casey lives in Hopewell Cape about a half hour or so from where I live in here in Moncton.

I first met Casey on the Forum but after a day or two my username was changed from FlyFisherMann to J_Mann by the admin. I guess I didn’t read the rules for usernames. I lost the email telling me what the new username was so it was a while before I returned there.

I never got to know Casey but it’s a small world.

I have this blog and love to share my little fishing trips.

One day I was blogging about a little spot I took my son a few times. The bass weren’t big here but very plentiful, a great place to take kids in the summer.

Well this guy with twin daughters contacted me asking if I would mind telling him where the spot was so he could take his daughters. Well I didn’t mind, they had a great day and now I have a new fishing buddy, Jamie.

Jamie was telling be about a guy named Casey but I didn’t know enough about Casey to be sure it was the same guy, but it was. So, as I said, it’s a small world, isn’t it?

Jamie gave Casey my email address, we sent a couple of emails back and forth which ended in us going fishing in Lake Petti yesterday.

It was a perfect day for fishing too. It wasn’t cold. It wasn’t hot. It was cloudy and there was no wind going on. A perfect day or what?

Well as perfect as the conditions were I think the water may have still been a little cold as our nights seem to go down to almost zero every night this month.

We fished, talked and laughed all day. Well until about 3 anyways. That’s about the time the heavens opened up on us so we called it a day and headed back to the boat launch, a half hour away. I am so glad it wasn’t cold as the rain ran down my back and into my butt crack.

I had a great day and even though we didn’t catch anything I enjoyed my self a whole lot more than I would have doing yard work. And I made a new friend. That’s a great day in my books.

It will be cool the day that the three of us get out for a day of fishing. Three internet fishing buddies.

I moved to Moncton, New Brunswick in 1981 after been raised by various foster parents from the time I was 5 until I ran away at age 15. I knew my roots were in Moncton and that’s where I headed. Well I fell in love with New Brunswick and especially the fly fishing.

This information on Moncton is directly from Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia

Moncton is a Canadian city located in Westmorland County, New Brunswick.

The city is situated in southeastern New Brunswick, in the Petitcodiac River valley, and is about 55 km (34 mi) from the Nova Scotia border. Moncton lies at the geographic centre of the Maritime Provinces. The community has the nickname “Hub City” because of its central location and also because Moncton has historically been the railway and land transportation hub for the Maritime Provinces.

European settlement began in 1733 when Acadian farmers arrived after migrating up the Petitcodiac River from the Bay of Fundy. The region was captured by the English in 1755, and the original Acadian inhabitants were subsequently deported. The official founding of the community was in 1766, with the arrival of Pennsylvania “Deutsch” settlers sponsored by the Philadelphia Land Company. The settlement was initially agricultural but by the mid 1800s, a wooden shipbuilding industry flourished. The shipbuilding economy collapsed in the 1860s but was quickly replaced by the railway industry when, in 1871, the Intercolonial Railway of Canada chose Moncton to be their headquarters. Moncton would then remain a railroad town for well over a century.

Moncton was first incorporated in 1855 and was named after Lt. Col. Robert Monckton, the British military commander who had captured nearby Fort Beauséjour a century earlier; and who had later been given responsibility for overseeing the Acadian deportation. The collapse of the shipbuilding industry caused the town to lose its civic charter in 1862 but the community was able to survive and to reincorporate in 1875 on the strength of the developing railway industry. As a result, the city adopted the motto Resurgo.

Although Moncton was traumatized twice; by the collapse of the shipbuilding industry in the 1860s and by the closure of the CNR locomotive shops in the 1980s, the city’s economy was able to rebound strongly on both occasions. At present, the city’s economy is stable and diversified. Moncton’s economy is based on its transportation, distribution, retailing and commercial heritage, but is also supplemented by strength in the educational, health care, financial and insurance sectors. The strength of the economy has received national recognition and the local unemployment rate is consistently less than the national average.

The Moncton Census Metropolitan Area (CMA) is one of the top ten fastest growing metropolitan areas in Canada and is also the fastest growing urban region east of Toronto. The CMA includes the neighbouring city of Dieppe and the town of Riverview, as well as adjacent areas of Westmorland and Albert counties.

Moncton has a CMA population of 126,424, which makes Moncton the most populous metropolitan area in New Brunswick, and also makes it the second largest CMA in the Maritime Provinces, after Halifax, and the third largest CMA in Atlantic Canada, after Halifax and St. John’s, Newfoundland.

The municipal coat of arms illustrates Moncton’s agricultural, industrial and railway heritages, along with the Petitcodiac River’s tidal bore.