To 'Stare'
a) To gaze fixedly; esp. with eyes wide open at fishing lures!

I've been there and done a lot of that and watched my kids doing it too! I was that enthusiastic kid that loved to fish; first with bait, then lures, then some flies, now lures again. When I got to the local hardware store's fishing racks, I stared and gazed fixedly! I scanned the lure choices, over and over again; searching for the perfect color, a new blade, a style that I may not have. Many times I settled on a proven favorite, something I may have lost; something I felt comfortable replacing with my hard earned money. Many times I left without a purchase. Spinner choices were limited back in the day, in central Wisconsin. The hungry brook trout, on the other hand, were plentiful in the Rib River.

After a few years I became accustomed to the choices available and experimented less, sticking with my proven favorites; when I lost a lure I replaced it to re-supply.

Growing up in Wisconsin, I saw Mepps French spinners in the local hardware store. I immediately grew to like fishing with spinners. They gave me a way to cover more distance, to see, smell, and hear more nature. Moving through the woods from fishing hole to fishing hole and also the white water rapids in between the holes was awesome fun.

I still fished bait because I loved to catch night-crawlers! At night after a light rain or a heavy dew we'd be out with our flashlights crawling around getting dirty, trying to be quicker then the worms and stock our wormbox. We didn't mind digging for worms but the night-crawlers were more fun!

Fishing with spinners became my summertime passion. Over time, I began to prefer spinners, over bait. I never minded getting my feet wet, and fishing streams in deep brush always provided an opportunity for a splash or two (a habit that's endured the years). Later after leaving Wisconsin, I discovered Panther Martin, then Blue Fox Vibrax and now days, Fish Creek Spinners.

Granted, I design and make Fish Creek Spinners, so what would you expect me to say!

However, my life's experience fishing with spinners has taught me a few things about them. Life has taught me a few things about my purchasing habits as well (but that's a different story!).

On the spinner fishing experience, what I have recognized is that you want 'Noise on the Line'.

More components = more noise on the line = more fish attraction

That said, here's my summarization of popular spinner component counts. I picked what I thought was the most popular model for several familiar companies (my old favorites or more familiar models in my opinion). Then, with the noise on the line argument on my mind, I counted components.

Panther Martin = 6 components; imported by Harrison Hoge from Italy

Mepps Aglia = 9 components; imported by Sheldon's, Inc. from France

Abu Reflex = 6 components; imported from Sweden by Abu Garcia

Blue Fox Vibrax = 8 components; Made in USA, Minnesota

Wordens Roostertail = 6 components; Made in USA, Washington

Fish Creek Spinners Armadillo = 14 components; Made in USA, Colorado

Fish Creek Spinners Paddlefish = 18 components; Made in USA, Colorado

The more components on an inline spinner, the more noise there will be during rotation, as the blade rotates, collides and grinds against the spinners body parts, the more the better. In the case of the Armadillo, you'll notice wear marks on the inside of the blade, where the metal discs have worn contact lines. Those wear marks don't come without vibration under the water and vibration attracts fish.

That's my story, and I'm sticking with it, because it's the truth!

Try some Fish Creek Spinners - Alternative lures that catch fish! and put some 'Noise on your Line'!

Step in and get your feet wet! Join the anglers choosing these spinners and the ever widening circle of new waters visited, cast by cast!

Being surrounded by forest and stream has a lifelong impact on a person. I grew up in northern Wisconsin in the Fifties on a farm in logging country, bordering thousands of acres of forest. Our farm was a family farm passed through generations. I still pay taxes on a piece of the dream and my sister Trish and her husband Randy are still farming to keep a few dairy cows on the place.

As the oldest of five farm kids I grew up with responsibility. Daily chores like going to get the cows, feeding cows, milking cows, and cleaning barns were compounded with seasonal chores like making crops and fixing aged machinery. Daily routines could overflow and ruin summer vacation time if you were not creative.

Forests offered countless hideouts; easy escapes from the summer sun into cool backwaters filled with frogs and turtles waiting to be caught and examined. Places teaming with interesting insects and poison plants to avoid brought adventure! Ready opportunities for us farm kids to exploit as we searched for each kernel of recreation. Any sideline to provide a break from the chore filled routine.

The cows knew all the secret places. Each afternoon they hid from the scorching sun and we had to find and return them before milking. They were our bovine mentors; teaching the art of camouflage, sharing the coordinent of each silent and forgotten location they chose to frequent. That was the drill. We quickly learned to linger with them in the leisure and coolness of the forest shade, looking for hazel nuts, chasing red squirrels or chipmunks, until the low afternoon sun woke the deer flies and jolted us away from this idyllic dream. Out of the woods and into open pasture looking to intersect some familiar cow path and continue the channel of milk into cheese and progress. It was only natural that I begin to fish, hunt, and trap. But those are different stories!

My father, like my Grandfather, was an Ironworker and they worked away. No buildings or cities in our rural neighborhood, we had dirt roads and trees. They worked mostly in Minnesota in the Mesabi iron ranges, putting up taconite plants, leaving my Grandmother and Mom who relied on us kids, to care for and make use of the home place. We sold milk to a local Cheese Factory. With only five cows, we were always trying to increase the livestock, at one point the barn was teaming with the annual calves and the heifers chosen for promotion into the esteemed position of Cow (Exalted Mentor of the Woodlands). Progress meant expansion in the Sixties, bulk tanks, big blue glass silos, and barn cleaners; automation. Twelve cows was the largest herd our land ever sustained and irregardless, we could not afford any of the necessary items to be serious farmers and soon began getting in trouble with the milk inspectors. The bull was the first to go, next the heifers; then slowly selling off the barren dry cows and finally getting out of dairy altogether. We began to raise beef, but that's a different Story! This idyllic chore filled dairy life lasted until age twelve. By then I knew every inch of our woods and much of the bordering wilderness.

The new found absence of dairy chores freed up much time during the summer. Because I loved the woods and it was already known that I could fell a tree (but that's a different story), it seemed natural that I was given a McCulloch Mac210 chainsaw in my twelfth year. The farm was mostly woods and had plenty of Poplar. Because of the Polish influence in the north country, we grew up calling it Pople. Pople could be cut, peeled and dried, skidded and corded for sale to a paper mill. There was one in Mosinee and another in Tomahawk. My great Uncle Almon showed me the sequences of being a logger as well as countless other useful things, but that's a different Story!

First, choose a mature tree and study the forest surrounding it. With trial and error and persistence, leasons were learned. Many times the first choice was a deception, the largest tree would be without a place to fell it. Finding a clear path where the tree could be fallen without snagging up or damaging others standing close was important, as was sequence and lay of the land. I soon learned that Pople peeled easier when not flat on the ground, if I could fell the tree across another fallen tree or fulcrum knoll, leaving distance to the forest floor, the job of peeling was made much easier. Rather then being buried in the moist forest earth, most of the trunk would end up suspended above it. This meant the bark could be more easily removed and drop to the ground, instead of being pinned in it and impossible to remove. Once a tree was chosen, evaluation was over and industry began. Clear out any surrounding brush to keep an emergency exit available, then make the first cut, the "face cut" wedge that affects its center of gravity and determines where the tree is going to fall. Finally the "back cut" that brings the tree crashing to earth along the line set by the face cut. Tool change, next walk the tree with your axe, removing limbs and scoring the bark. Tool change, then bring out the bark spud, the peeling iron, used to remove the fallen trees water laden bark especially in the early spring. The bark pops off in big discarded extremely slippery sheets. Did I mention this final springtime chore was performed on your knees, in the brush, among newly removed tree limbs and slippery discarded bark, surrounded by hungry deer flies, wood ticks and mosquitoes? Peeling pople taught me sequence and workflow at an early age, also occupational hazard and safety.

I forgot to mention that as I was parading around my new found domain (youngest Bull of the Woods) juggling sharp axes and idling chainsaws while looking for the next tree to fell, my younger brother Billy (in his ninth year) was industriously peeling fallen trees, invisible in the underbrush, trying to keep up to speed and avoid the wrath of his big brother. Well not entirely. Felling the trees was quicker then peeling them and I would usually get ahead and soon find myself peeling them too. Little brothers seem to naturally learn the advantage of working slowly!

This job quickly filled our summers with adventure. For several years, Pople was our passion. The first day its cut, peeled Pople is creamy white. Then by the next day, the tree and the inner lining of its discarded bark turns to pink and smells like ripe watermelon. Standing on a tree stump, axe in hand looking at the felled creamy lines of forest product arranged in random patterns and surrounded by earthy green underbrush, is a heady feeling of power and accomplishment for a couple of newly redeployed farm kids and it sure beat the drudge of dairy farm life e.g. cleaning barns like our neighborhood friends continued to do! No milk check allowance and no paycheck until next Fall if then, when skidding and cording was complete. Adventure, danger and excitement, and a heady sense of accomplishment would have to do!

Autumn brought skidding, cording, and logging trucks. Did I mention the angry wasps? But that's a different story!

After a long Friday workday, Marie and I decided to get away for the weekend. We hurried to pack her CRV and headed for our thirty-five acre parcel of paradise on South T Bar ranch. Three and a half hours later, we pulled into our makeshift driveway as the sun was setting behind Waugh mountain, skirting around prairie dog mounds and a fine crop of noxious but extremely healthy bull thistles in late summer bloom. I parked on a scrub oak and pinion knoll to be sure to get a panoramic view of our jack rabbit meadow first thing in the morning. We emptied the car, turned down the seats, set out the sleeping bags and snuggled into our folding camp chairs hoping to hear some coyotes before retiring.

Twilight on the ranch is beautiful. The air softens and the skyline turns into this black sculpted edge of mountain that surrounds and becomes you as the night arrives and the first of a million stars make their appearance to welcome the rising moon.

The night was cloudless and the moon was French vanilla iced cream. It cast shadows and the coyote family paid their respects; beginning their first yips right on queue, just off to the west and very close. They would hunt our creek bed tonight, our jack rabbit better be on alert! He was big and gray, a very wise and careful rabbit certain to find a hiding place, maybe deep in the Badgers old den.

We retired to the car to finish the evening, cozy in our sleeping bags and listening for the sporadic calls of the hunting coyotes. In the middle of the night we could hear them hunting the meadow and tried to get the binoculars on them but they were simply invisible running noises. Once awake we could hear large dogs barking, miles away but persistently closer.

To reach South T Bar, the dirt road had an easement through a sheep ranchers property. It was a usual occurrence for his six or seven Pyrenees dogs to escort our car (I have their tooth marks imprinted on my bumper!) from our first appearance at the base of the hill, to our exit around a final bend, before they returned honorably to their porches. The loud woof barking must be coming from some of them.

The moon was bright and we could see two large white shapes far away down valley woofing with authority as they closed in on the coyotes, on duty 24x7 to protect their flock. We were in the middle of this show down, close enough to hear the air being forced from the coyote lungs as they ran nervously around us, not wanting to give up their hunting, yet seeing, hearing, and probably smelling the white shapes approaching, ever closer.

What a moment, sitting up alive with excitement at midnight, surrounded by the noises of invisible wild things and watching breathlessly as the two courageous white knights raced to keep the forces of darkness in check.

The two Pyrenees arrived, marked our car in the moonlight, then proudly departed with tails held high to continue their vigilance into the night. Marie and I just grinned to each other and settled back into our sleeping bags, hearing the loud woofs of the Pyrenees disappear behind a ridge and then surface again farther away ever on watch.

The next morning we made coffee, reminisced the nights excitement and decided how to spend the day. What would it be? Picking rocks on the driveway or whacking the thistle crop back into submission? It would be thistles. After about an hour of search and destroy, Marie said "Look!" and I did.

The two Pyrenees were coming up the meadow straight at us. Our only experience with these dogs was the drive through their territory and it was never a friendly encounter. So there was some reason for concern. Marie said, "Are they going to be mean?" I looked at them now about 50 yards away and one of their tails was wagging. I put down my shovel and extended my hand to let him sniff it and thankfully, they were incredible friends coming back to make amends after keeping us up all night. Break out the hot dogs!

Since they had been up all night, they were tired. We set out some water and they lapped it up and both laid down by the car waiting for lunch. These two dogs were amazingly beautiful. Both collared and tagged; Winni and Bear, probably the mated parents of the Pyrenees clan. Intelligent deep dark eyes and black noses with thick white coats. From that day forward, each time we would travel to camp the property, they would make the trip to visit us. They never forgot us and neither have we forgot them. To this day, Maries retirement dream is to raise Pyrenees puppies!

Milk pails, cowdogs and dead flies

My first of many dairy jobs was carrying milk. Back then, I was the other type of 'Cowboy'!

I followed in the footsteps of centuries of other trusted farm kids the world over. Once the milk was removed from the cow it collected in buckets and pails, a steamy target for the comicazi flies known to frequent our aged dairy barn. My job was carrying it out of the barn to the milk house right after it was poured from the Surge milk machine; first to avoid the flies, and second to get it cooling in the milk house as quickly as possible. Spills were frowned upon.

Depending on the nature of each cow, a bucket of milk could be heavy and filled nearly to the top. Being a milk carrier in my earliest days, had its challenges. To avoid one arm becoming six inches longer than its partner, I usually attempted to carry two buckets at the same time, taking risks that the flies would be distracted by all the cow tails flying around, long enough for two milk buckets to fill.

The first chance for a spill was leveling the pails. If a cow was the big producer I split the milk into two pails. If not our big producing cow, I had to wait for the next cow to finish. No two cows produce equal amounts of milk, so before starting the adventure to the milk house it made sense to equalize each pails content. This technique provided better balance, but having both hands full was a cause of concern when navigating the spring loaded barnyard gate. Once safely past this obstacle, it was simply a matter of strength and balance to avoid sloshing precious milk out of the either pail in route to the milk house. Well almost simple.

The next and most likely chance for a spill came from the four-legged barnyard support staff; the barnyard cats and cowdogs that attempted to get under foot, trip the milk carrier and lap up warm spilt milk. They would huddle and scheme at the barnyard gate and then depending on species either dance and wag heavy farmdog tails against the pails, working the 'tip and slosh' angle or as cats, circle your legs with tail straight in the air mewing and stopping frequently without warning working the 'trip and fall' angle. Both angles effective and credits to their species in their own unique way, and either's success a cause for celebration for all critters not responsible for carrying milk.

Once in the milk house, milk was poured out of the buckets through a metal funnel called a strainer (removing the drowned flies) into big galvanized metal cans. A milk tank filled with iced water was the final destination for the milk cans. Milk cans could not be put in the milk tank until partially full since they would float and then tip. For this reason the tank in the milk house started out only partially filled with ice-cold water from a shallow well dug inside the milk house.

When a milk can had a pail or two of milk strained into it, the job of the milk carrier switched from balance and agility to more strenuous action. You removed the strainer, placed a lid on the can and then hefted the big unwieldy can up over the top of the milk tank into the ice cold water. If it still bobbed around, it had to be extracted. You quickly learned the affect of water suction when trying to remove 50#s of milk can from the milk tank. Milk carriers get muscles early, perhaps in preparation for future jobs as Milk Truck drivers or summer work in the Cheese Factory (but that's another story!).

A familiar phrase you've probably heard is that 'Cream rises to the Top'. Only us boyhood milk carriers can appreciate this politically incorrect follow-on 'and so do the dead flies!'

Mesmerizing Metaphor

Coming eventually.. stay Tuned!

My great uncle Almon was a giant of a man who took time to teach. Whether it was fixing the baler or peeling popple, Almon thought to bring in us kids (his nieces and nephews) to share his company and learn. One summer day, Almon and Viola pulled into the driveway, stopping the car by the milkhouse as Shadow (our Lab) and Sammy (Grandma's collie) circled their car with tails wagging. "Hey Johnny, go ask your mom if you and Billy can come fishing at the 'Spirit'! To a nine year old kid from central Wisconsin who loved the outdoors, that was quite an invitation, I didn't know what the 'Spirit' was, but I caught the fishing part! Our mom agreed and Billy and I ran to the garage and come out with grins glowing behind our fishing poles. The Spirit flowage was Almons favorite fishing grounds. He was a logger in his youth and worked the logging camps in Northern Wisconsin driving teams of horses and dreys of logs down the frozen rivers. Somewhere during his adulthood, he escaped work long enough to fish the flowage for solitude and big Northerns. He never had a boat and waded the banks, throwing monster daredevils from one of his bait casting reels and wading to reach deeper water. As kids spying in his garage, we stared in awe at the size of those daredevils, wondering what kind of fish could possibly attack such a thing.

This trip Almon stopped in Tomahawk to buy sucker minnows and some big bobbers. Billy and I sat sweltering and squirming in the backseat with the windows down, it was late morning in August and starting to get hot. We finally reached the flowage and Almon parked the car next to a backwater separated from the biggest water by the highway but connected by culverts and an overpass farther up the road. The road bed flattened into a grass bank and Almon rigged up our gear with the big bobbers, and showed us how to bait the minnows on minnow harnesses. He got us started through the first couple bobber disappearances and excited appearances of the gnarly toothed and slippery Northerns, and then disappeared to fish his favorite spots in solitude, leaving Viola to read in the shade of the car and us kids to have the time of our lives by the side of the highway, watching big bobbers duck and run as the Northerns feasted on our sucker minnows. A few times during the course of the day, a Northern would manage to get hooked and the noisy excitement would bring Viola to her feet, her and the Northern reaching the bank at about the same time!

If the fish stopped biting or the minnows ran out, there were plenty of grasshoppers along the side of the road to keep me and Billy entertained. I'll never forget those trips to the Spirit and the man who gave so much.

The winds howling and the snow is drifting in Colorado today, so guess its time for the February BLOG fish story. It was late spring, probably the end of May and time to get away fishing. Marie and I loaded the car and headed for North Park Colorado. We were going to camp and fish the beaver ponds for brookies. We drove along the north border of Colorado next to the Wyoming line, north west of Cowdrey into the Routt National Forest.

Although the sun was shining we started to dodge melting snow drifts as we attempted to reach our favorite campsite, located along the stack of beaver ponds bordering the road. We never reached it and were forced to find another site in a stand of budding aspens, campsites deluxe leftover from fall Elk hunting camps. We quickly pitched the tent, strung up the tarps, set out the table and stove and other campsite items we always bring, gathered firewood and settled in for a what would likely be a cold night.

After a hearty camp breakfast of eggs, hashbrowns and bacon, we drove back to the middle of the ponds to test our luck. The spring runoff had the dams overflowing and they were less than stable for standing on while spin-casting. The fish were hungry and catching them on spinners was a always fun until the school got wise, then on to the next pond. During the course of the next couple hours I noticed this large hawk pass overhead a few times. It was the size of an eagle, with a large wingspan, but seemed less heavy in it's body proportions. Its body was primarily white with wing tips of brown. I didn't recognize it immediately, but when it dove to grab a trout, I knew it was an Osprey as I saw its black eye band, the eagle with sun glasses.

I watched it fly back with its fish to an old growth pine on the forest side of the ponds. A massive nest was hap hazardly assembled on the broken crown of the pine. In it was the Osprey's mate and maybe chicks. The memory of the sun, the hawk, and the fish stuck with me and I turned the geometry of it into a set of letters. An O for the sun, an L for the Osprey's wings extended in flight, and a C representing the fish grasped tightly in the hawks talons as it flew away. This OLC became Osprey Lure Company, my first spinner business.

When I first got into making spinners, I was going to hardware stores to purchase make shift components and came across the PVC tubing. I bought a few inches of several types in different colors and fashioned a couple spinners from each type of tube, cutting them into 3/4 inch lengths. One type, the braid enforced brand reminded me of fish scales. The PVC was clear with white mesh and had some weight to make a bigger spinner. I used a #4 brass french blade, centered the tube on the wire using 10MM red plastic beads on either end, and twisted on a #4 treble hook. I couldn't wait to try out. By some coincidence we drove up into Wyoming to Miracle Mile on the North Platte (6 hour drive) and set up camp.

It was a beautiful sunny summer day and the water was high. I couldn't wait, and was out on the bank on the inside of the bend below the Kortes dam in no time. The river is probably over 100 ft wide on this big 90 degree bend and moving fast. I found a stable rock and caste my new creation across the water, letting the current bring it back to my side of the river. I kept my rod tip up and could watch the spinner arch across the current with the sun reflecting off the polished brass blade and white meshed PVC. On the second caste, just as I had my retrieve under control with the spinner about ten feet into its arch, a monster trout came up to strike on the far side of the river. What a rush! The big fish controlled the situation and ran upstream effortlessly in strong current, with my spinner well hooked in its lip. I was able to keep my line taut and watched this beautiful creature eventualy tire and arch back to my side of the river where I scrambled downstream to bring it into my reach and release it. The fish was a big beautiful hook-jawed Brown trout, probably over twenty-five inches and about 3-4 lbs. I wish I had thought to grab the camera in the rush to get to the bank!

Needless to say, this experience re-opened my eyes to what can catch a fish, and I was 'hooked' for life on the passion of making alternative spinners. More stories to come, lets hear yours!

Coming soon! Special Request by WCD (alias Billy)