The Leopold’s

Trout River, Winneshiek County, IA

Wow, I waited too long to post this update to my fishing trip post.  I have been back for almost two weeks now and am still riding the high.

I think the best thing to do is summarize our adventure chronologically and share some photos with you.

We left Dubuque on a Saturday morning (just as thousands of RAGBRAI riders and support vehicles rolled into town!) and headed straight to Potosi, WI, for a quick tour of their MAGNIFICENT brew/pub/museum and to pick out some beer for the trip. Two growlers and two six-packs later we were on the road for WildCat Mountain to see if we could get a campsite in the uber-eco-friendly campground. No dice, though – the last campsite went minutes before we arrived, so we relocated to Rustic Ridge Resort (and old Methodist church camp now a secular dive).

We pitched camp and headed back to Viroqua (pronounced vur-OAK-wah, for you non-natives) to scope out the fly selection and get some stream reports from the locals. We bought some new flies, grabbed some late lunch and hit our first stream in the late afternoon – Bishop Branch just east of Viroqua on 52.

Bishop Branch
The weeds were near impassible. My own experience was pretty taxing – first I was stung by a wasp, tripped into the water (but maintained my balance and did not get wet), then I got into a pretty thick clump of stinging nettles. All this, and I still managed to grab a little 4″ fingerling. Oh, did I mention it was about 90° with a heat index nearer to 105°?

We finished up after a good 2 hours on this stream by traveling in air-conditioned bliss to scout out some other streams.

Sunday was a bit better. We got up and made coffee on the fire (yah, we were rustic like that), then we mapped out a plan to try out some of the streams to the west.

Timber Coulee, Coon Creek

Timber Coulee

What a difference a day makes. The Timber Coulee was our first stop on Sunday, and although the stream was mostly bordered by pasture, the temps were nice and cool (60-65°) and the fishing was fun. We stopped at an access point near a bridge off of Olstad road (off County P). I am not sure if it was the realization I was finally on vacation or the lack of weeds like we experienced on the Bishop, but this creek did it for me. I was having a blast locating deep pools and refreshing my casting skills from the two-year fishing hiatus. After fishing for a couple hours we grabbed brunch in Westby nearby and headed off to scope out some more streams. By the heat of mid-afternoon we were ready to scout out some alternatives to our campsite so we drove down to Sidie Hollow campgrounds and surrounding areas to view their streams and campsites. We then returned to the north to scope out some fishing at Coon Creek and other access points on the Timber Coulee. We found some excellent access points on both the Timber and the Coon near the intersection of County Highways P and G. This is where Kristof let me try out his FiveFingers shoes and where I learned I needed a pair myself.

Westward Ho

On Monday I awoke with a migraine headache and I suspect a touch of carbon monoxide poisoning from campfire smoke blowing into my tent all night. I loaded up on headache meds and dozed into mid-morning while dad and Kristof pondered the possibilities for the day’s adventures. By the time I had regained consciousness the rainy/hot weather had motivated the two of them to strike camp and make the trek to Iowa and set up camp there since the fishing was OK in Wisconsin, but we were planning on moving camp anyway to be closer to streams and none of us really wanted to set up camp on Monday in Wisconsin just to strike it and reset it in Iowa on Tuesday. Off to Iowa we went. We stopped in Viroqua for lunch and stopped at a couple historical markers outside DeSoto on Highway 82 which described elements of the Blackhawk War.

Pulpit Rock Campground

We set up our camp at a site in Decorah’s Pulpit Rock (a city-owned/maintained) park just feet from Twin Springs – a cold trout stream that runs through the park and meets the Upper Iowa river 200 yards down stream. We drove to check out the local bait shops; we stopped at Oneota Outfitters and found a small selection of flies – the store was mostly catered towards hunters and non-fly-fishermen. We then found the Chick Hatchery downtown in Decorah – they had a small (better then Oneota) selection of flies, a knowledgeable owner-operator and a decent collection of apparel. I bought my first pair of FiveFingers, dad got some flies and we headed to dinner. I hit Twin Springs that night and caught two trout about 400′ from our tent while chatting with a local 12-year-old who has a trout stream in his front yard. Rough life.

North Bear, Waterloo
On Tuesday we made for the North Bear creek very close to the Minnesota state line in northern Winneshiek county. The streams were cold and as we pulled into the North Bear access point off 360th street we heard a truck pulling up an access road down by the stream. The DNR had just finished stocking the stream (an unannounced stocking). I chatted with the DNR worker for a couple minutes about the fishing in the area since it was our first full day in Iowa and he gave me some ideas about where they had stocked recently and where we could find natural reproducing trout. He was very friendly and it sounded like he was used to eager fishermen hitting him up for tips. We fished the North Bear at this access point for a couple hours, then moved upstream and found an access point near a bridge on 128th street just south of the Minnesota border. This was similar to the Timber Coulee access in Wisconsin – another stream moving through open prairie, but there were good pools under some rock structure that provided some nice casting challenges and cooler water.

Dad's 10" Rainbow

After Kristof and I fished this area for a while, we drove up through Minnesota and moved on to the Waterloo Creek. We found our way to some of the northern-most access points. There was access to the stream closer to the border by a bridge, but the weeds were thick and uninviting (even though we saw trout rising near the bridge shadow). Finally we decided to tackle the stream at an access point near a farmer’s pull-off close to Blue Jay road; another pastured area, but with excellent riffles and pools with no weeds (cattle pasture was well maintained by the local livestock – who also feature prominently in several of our photographs!). Walking to some of the best pools we fished was easy. The stream was cold (60°) and clear. Dad caught the first fish photographed on our trip at this access point – a 10″ rainbow. Kristof deserves credit for being in the right place at the right time. I pulled two brookies out at a pool I started calling the “Fly Rod and Reel Pool” due to its photogenic nature. I fished this pool while I listened to bald eagles teaching their young how to fish down stream. What a treat!

After the success at the Waterloo we traveled down its length past an access dad and I had fished when we were in this area back in 2008. We found numerous additional access points and marked them in our notes for future use.

French, Little Paint
On Wednesday we headed back east to Allamakee county to find the French Creek – a relatively secluded stream north of Waukon, IA. We found access to the stream at a neat little valley (perhaps my dad’s favorite spot on the trip). It was another hot day and there were plenty of weeds stream-side, but the access paths were very well positioned and even crossed the stream once or twice providing nice wading access for in-stream casting. I ventured furthest downstream and changed my first leader on the rig I was fishing. There were some decent sized fish in this stream, but we suspect they were native to the stream and as such were quite picky about our fly selection. We unanimously agreed that French Creek was the best stream that skunked us.  Oh, and as a side story – this is the stream where Kristof found two holes in his waders – he fell over when he got stuck in the stream and filled his waders with water.

After some lunch at a great Mexican restaurant downtown, we found a passable outfitter in the Sportsmen on the north edge of town in Waukon.

The Little Paint is another stream that remains cool all summer long. Access is relatively easy as well since there is camping all along the stream from its mouth at the Big Paint up to a beautiful deep and large pool where we spent most our time. Three fly-fishermen could (and in our case did) fish this pool simultaneously. We saw the remains of a bald eagle’s breakfast lying in the shallows by the shore of the pool – 2 dozen trout carcasses picked clean as a whistle! While we fished the local reel-casters started to crowd in on us and after I caught a little brook trout we decided to move along.

Cold Water Creek, Grannis Creek
On Thursday we decided to take the advice of a local fisherman we met at our campground and head northwest to Cold Water Creek. The stream was cold and clear, easily accessible from Cold Water Creek road – even where there were weeds you could walk on pre-trodden paths made by several local fishermen. You could tell the fish were gun-shy and overly fished; if we hadn’t been there at mid-morning we would likely have gotten far better results. As it was we got several nibbles on our more successful flies (orange scuds, prince, midges).

Full-on Double Rainbow!

We then took a long drive down through all of Winneshiek and most of Fayette county to Hub City Brewing near Stanley, IA. We bought some beer and then headed up to the Grannis near 5pm. By the time we got to the stream access on Grannis Creek Road, we saw that several reel casters and even a fly fisherman or two were parked at the stream. Most were packing up and leaving and shared the information that the DNR had just stocked this stream too! From 2008 I knew that this was a great stream, but the trout can be really persnickety. The water is so clear you can see them laughing at your paltry fly. I got skunked in 2008 and again in 2010 at the Grannis. To add insult to injury, two locals overtook me on a hole I was fishing while I changed a fly. They were pretty rude about it, but to avoid confrontation I just walked farther down stream. It was another beautiful stream (perhaps my dad’s favorite spot on the trip) and the drive in and out of the stream valley was very nice. Dad caught two rainbows down at the farthest pool, even though he had to walk through poison ivy to get there.

You missed a spot, just there . . .

We headed through the Volga River State Park on our way back to the campsite and Kristof took a break to wash with poison ivy soap as the sun sank into the west. We had to get a picture of this. We returned to town for dinner and a relaxing evening at the campground.

Trout River, Waterloo (Revisited)
Friday was my best day all week for fishing – we hit two streams and four access points. The day started great with a trip just east of Decorah to Trout River. Our campsite buddy gave us a great tip on a relatively new access point by a farmer’s gate. The water was cold and clear, and pretty fast-moving. I caught a nice sized brook trout near a willow tree and after shouting for Kristof, he came and took the first picture of a fish I had caught. Dad fished a little longer, and then we traveled up to the Waterloo to hit some of the access points we had identified on Tuesday.

Kieran's second of four

Now that it was practically the weekend the fishermen were far more abundant. One spot that had been wide-open on Tuesday was packed with 4 reel casters, so we worked our way up to another access point off of bridge near Bee road. This was very similar to the kinds of access points on the North Bear and the Timber Coulee – open prairie with shaded limestone ledges teeming with great fish. We fished this spot for a while and I pulled out two brook trout. Dad caught one on the camera while I netted him. Dad also spotted a dead cow down stream. We left shortly thereafter.

Next we went farther upstream and ended up at the same access point we had visited on Tuesday. Dad caught more fish in the pool where he caught the rainbow earlier and I caught a brook and brown trout down at “Fly Rod and Reel pool.”  I was experimenting with letting the rapid current suck the line under a large boulder underwater when I caught the brown – which was a good 12″.

We fished until close to 6pm and called it a day and headed back to camp for another relaxing dinner and enjoyable time by the fire.

Bankston Creek
I think I got food poisoning or some other stomach bug the night before because I was barely able to sit upright come Saturday morning. We struck camp, packed the car and pointed our way towards Dubuque. I slept most of the way there, but woke a little when we stopped just northwest of Dubuque on a tributary of the Maquoketa river called Bankston Creek. The recent flooding had changed the course of the stream pretty substantially and dad was the only one who fished it. After about 50 minutes he returned to the car ready to go and told us he had caught 5 trout! That’s it, I had decided then and there that fly fishing didn’t need to require week-long excursions to become realistic. Even though I was too ill to fish, I was excited to learn there is such good fishing so close to my in-laws.

I have started planning my first rod-and-reel rig and am excited to hop back in the streams as soon as possible.

Thanks to Kristof for taking so many great pictures. Please visit his Flickr site and leave him a comment. Thanks to my dad for taking us on such a great adventure and for all the fun memories we created! I am looking

I leave tomorrow AM for a week’s trip to the Driftless region of southwestern Wisconsin and northeastern Iowa to do some trout fishing with my dad and brother. We are all catch-and-release fishers (well, that depends on whether or not we actually catch in the first place, of course.) If I have time I will upload some images and share some stories while we’re out on the trail.

Hey everyone. Help me compile a list of your favorite Eggccorns, malapropisms and mondegreens. What’s an Eggcorn, a malapropism or a mondegreen? Here’s what our ol’ pal Wikipedia says:

In linguistics, an eggcorn is an idiosyncratic substitution of a word or phrase for a word or words that sound similar or identical in the speaker’s dialect. The new phrase introduces a meaning that is different from the original, but plausible in the same context (“old-timers’ disease” for “Alzheimer’s disease“). This is as opposed to a malapropism, where the substitution creates a nonsensical phrase. Classical malapropisms generally derive their comic effect from the fault of the user, while eggcorns are errors that exhibit creativity or logic. Eggcorns often involve replacing an unfamiliar, archaic, or obscure word with a more common or modern word (“baited breath” for “bated breath“).

A malapropism (also called a Dogberryism or acyrologia) is the substitution of a word for a word with a similar sound, in which the resulting phrase makes no sense but often creates a comic effect. It is not the same as an eggcorn, which is a similar substitution in which the new phrase makes sense on some level. Occasionally a phrase, rather than a single word, replaces the original word, for example Stan Laurel said “What a terrible cat’s after me!” (i.e., catastrophe) in Any Old Port!.

A mondegreen is the mishearing or misinterpretation of a phrase, typically a standardized phrase such as a line in a poem or a lyric in a song, due to near homophony, in a way that gives it a new meaning.

So here are some of the ones I can think of off the top of my head (erroneous version listed first).

Eggcorns:

Chomping at the bit – Champing at the bit

Like a bowl in a China shop – like a bull in a China shop

for all intensive purposes – for all intents and purposes

Malapropisms:

I resemble that remark – I resent that remark

A fire distinguisher – a fire extinguisher

A pigment of my imagination – a figment of my imagination

Mondegreens:

There’s a bathroom on the right – there’s a bad moon on the rise

very close veins – varicose veins (this was a tough one – could be an eggcorn, I guess)

New Orleans? New, new? – Who are you? Who, who?

OK blogoverse, help me out – what eggcorns, malapropisms and mondegreens have you stumbled upon over your time using the English language? Add yours to the comments please.

Hi everyone,

Nothing too exciting happening as of recently. I just thought it was about time I posted another message to the ol’ blog. Perhaps one day or another I will be more consistent about adding some content here. I am sitting outside enjoying the humid and warm weather. As I type it is about 82 degrees, about 85% humidity, the evening primrose have opened and I stacked a cairn near our pond. It is overcast and quite close.

We have spend most of our long Memorial day weekend at parties of some sort or another. Yesterday was Oisin’s birthday party with family in Dubuque at the Happy Joe’s there. It was a pleasant, if hot, afternoon and a nice relaxing gathering. Oh, and Kristof gave me my birthday present; best gift ever! He gave me a kit for aging my own rye whiskey! Basically the kit comes with about 2 liters of un-aged distilled rye whiskey and a 2 liter oak barrel with a spigot and fancy display stand. Basically it’s a small-batch process whereby you pour the base whiskey in and let it age for 7-12 months.

I read some more about this process and the reason the wait period is so short is because with smaller barrels the aging process speeds up. Since this is my first whiskey aged in this barrel, the vessel will likely absorb somewhere between 10-30% of the liquid, but later batches should turn out more finished product. And the best part? I can age other beverages and the barrel will mix the flavors. Can you say Beer Project? I think you can!

Today we had three (yes 3) graduation parties to attend. I can not remember the last graduation party I attended and to have three in one year, let alone on the same day was quite taxing. The last party took us to West Branch, IA, home of Herbert Hoover for you presidential historians. It was for the two children of a friend of mine – her son graduated from college and her daughter from high school. The food was good and the company was even better. The best part of the party, though, was the band! I thought that the two men sitting on their deck when we arrived were just puttering around with stringed instruments, but in fact they were cousins of the graduates and quite talented bluegrass artists. One played mandolin and the other played banjo. Eventually a third, older person joined them on guitar and away they strummed. What a fantastic atmosphere for a party! I want a bluegrass band to follow me to social gatherings from now on. It adds such a cool feel to the party. These guys were pretty good, too; at one point I caught them singing in three-part harmony. Part of me wished I had the knowledge to play along or knew the words to sing along. It seemed like most the party-goers were oblivious to them, which was the only real down-side to this gathering.

Well, tomorrow we have another party – AT OUR HOUSE! About 30 people are coming over for a seafood boil which happens to coincide with Oisin’s birth date.  We’ve been cleaning our house top to bottom and have been preparing some sauces and dips in advance of the big hoopla. I always feel like I’ve forgotten something on the eve of a big event, and after today’s string of events I know what it is – I am short one class-A bluegrass band!

Spring is here and we’re updating some of the plantings and other flora around our home. After a weekend (really the better part of the last month) of intense work around the yard things are finally coming together.

Some of the updates include:

1. We created a border of rabbit-proof fencing around our roses since they got off to a slow start last year from critter-nibbling. I turned the sod so that the rectangular bed is all planing-ready and we put in a good number of marigold seeds to beautify the four rose bushes.

2. My parents let us take some peonies and lily-of-the-valley from their home to add to ours. We added the lily-of-the-valley to the front planter on the northwest corner of our property. More on that flower bed later.

To find a nice sunny patch of ground for the peonies, we pulled out five dwarf Nordic Spruces from under our family-room window (behind our garage). That was tough work (getting the root balls up) but very rewarding as we never really liked those bushes and they trapped leaves all the time. The peonies continue to sprout under that window and ought to be a beautiful addition when in bloom. Perhaps Tina will let me grow my hops there next year too?!

3.  Getting back to the front of the house – the north west planter was previously over-grown with three burning bushes (that were really the size of a burning-forest) and an eager cedar bush. We pulled all those out last fall and left only the flowering crab tree in that spot. The open view is so much better! The planter also gets more daylight than it ever did before and this spring we’ve already noticed more varieties of Hostas coming up.

Last year I received some lily-of-the-valley form a co-worker and put them in the back of this planter bed. They came up and did OK, but nothing that exciting. This year we pulled about 5 times as many from my parent’s home and continued the ground cover around the edge of the planter that meets the sidewalk.

4. After pulling the bushes in the back of the house went so well I decided to re-landscape the front of our house as well. I went to five different landscaping stores on Sunday after church with some pre-planned ideas and ended up returning with some great plants. In short, I put “Little Henry” Virginia Sweetspire (also known as Spritch) bushes in the old spots where the yew bushes used to grow, I spaced some Elijah Blue Fescue behind those plants.

I also bought a 1/2 wine barrel and planted an assortment of Gladioli in that right in front of our porch. We ordered a “Bourbon” clematis to train on the support post of the porch roof too.

This fall we intend to space some tulips and daffodil bulbs along the front of this planting border too, which will add some sharp spring color to the mix.  I also have a lead on some “Cleopatra” day lilies that I intend to introduce to this area of our house as well.

5. I ordered some “Aprodite” hostas to plant under the flowering crab tree in our northwest planter bed – the big green ones with the fragrant double white blossoms in August. That left the front of that bed in need of a ground cover, so a worker at Pleasant Valley garden center pointed me towards “Japanese Spurge.” I think I have seen this stuff before, but never realized what it is – it is a rhizome growing ground cover (like lily-of-the-valley) and it also gets a sweet-smelling flower on it. I bought a flat and spread the plants around the front of the planter bed and am already enjoying the sweet smell it produces.

Well, just typing that reminded me how much work it has been, but I think the planning and work will pay off when plants start to pop and spread their blooms. Meanwhile, I have lots of dandelions to pull!

We’ve been taking some time and money and freshening up the look of some of the spaces in our home this last week-and-a-half.

We started by pulling down wallpaper everywhere we could find it. Luckily we only had to worry about the main entry hall and the .5 bath off that hallway. The wallpaper in the entryway was really thick paper that came right down, while the .5 bath had the thinner (and more stubborn) style.

Next, we bought some daring paint colors to replace these two wall coverings. In the entry hall we used a color called “Bee” and as I painted with it I decided it dries a color somewhere between “school bus” and “French’s Mustard.” If that sounds off-putting, give it a chance. It really looks very warm and inviting, particularly with the dark mahogany trim in our home.

When we were deciding on a color for the .5 bath at the paint store we were thumbing through shades of ever popular sage green when Oisin handed us a swatch from a different part of the store called “Recycled glass.” It’s sort of a mint-green that looks almost translucent the way a bin full of shards of clear coke bottles might look. With the dark brown trim, it makes me think of mint-chocolate-chip ice cream.

Similarly, while we were making updates to the .5 bath we decided to remove the old medicine cabinet and replace it with a new light fixture and mirror. The results are in – the bathroom feels half again bigger than it used to, and the new light fixture and mirror up the class of the room 10 fold.

Finally, we’ve decided to make some changes to our dining room. Some day we want to remove the carpeting in this room, but not yet. Instead, we swapped out the old polished brass chandelier (circa 1975) with a new fixture that has Tiffany style stained-glass shades and oil-polished metal finish. We bought a new curtain rod for the windows and we’re also using the “Bee” colored paint in this room.

But wait! We’re not just changing the wall color in the dining room – we’re going to paint gloss over the base coat in wide vertical stripes to create a faux damask effect. We’ll see how that turns out. Pictures will be up soon, check back often! Pictures are now up on our flickr site and in our gallery. Enjoy!

We just got home from  a “Spring into Health” dinner at our church which featured a catered dinner, wandering minstrels and a talent program at the end of dinner in the church sanctuary. Normally I wouldn’t bother to write anything about such a dinner, however Oisin performed two piano pieces at this year’s annual event. He featured in the middle of the program and did a great job. Several people congratulated him on his performance and were surprised to learn he hasn’t been playing a year yet. Brother Brom fell asleep after the third or fourth act and sweated profusely on my leg. Sigh. Perhaps there’s a bit somewhere which utilizes copious perspiration, we’ll have to work something up for next year. . .

Since I am home ill today I thought I should do one productive thing to count my day as constructive. And by constructive, I suppose I mean “make me feel less like a bag of useless flesh and bones.”

Some have noticed that our photo gallery here on the blog is slightly less impressive than it once was, lacking the oodles of personal pictures it once contained. There is no glitch or error, we simply recoded many of our Flickr photos to “friends and family view only” for general privacy.

Feel free to create your own Flickr basic account and request our friendship (it’s free!) and then you will be able to see all your old favorites once again, like this one here:

My wife did well this year for Christmas. She surprised me with a gift that was pretty unexpected – a book filled with photographs of libraries all over the world.

The book is simply titled Libraries by Candida Höfer, and has been on my wish list for some time.  I don’t recall where I first heard of this book – perhaps on NPR – but I have kept an eye out for it for the better part of the year.

In its design the book is surprisingly minimalistic – most pages feature on image on one leaf with the opposing leaf left blank. The captions for the images are quite simple too; they feature the name of the library pictured in the language of origin, the number of the photograph from the shoot collection, and the year the photograph was captured.

Perhaps one of the first reasons I was intrigued by this book was because I had read or heard that one of my favorite authors had written its forward (Umberto Eco). The forward is great, but not enough of a push to make me run out to buy the book.

The individual images are the selling point. Each color photo features a view of a specific library that first gives you a sense of the architecture and space of the library. The quality of the paper is obvious as your turn the pages – thick glossy leaves turn over easily and reveal the next photograph. The details of the photographs shed light on the temper or mood of the various spaces.

The photos are not necessarily staged or overly processed. The feeling represented is that you are the first person to walk into the building and you have the space all to yourself. It’s an almost euphoric sensation for a bibliophile. The other wonder of this book is the variety of libraries featured; from modern collections, public, private, governmental – each space receives similar treatment with Ms. Höfer’s lens.

The cost and heft of the book will prevent many from indulging in this tome of biblioporn, the book weighs in at almost 5lbs! However, this book will turn heads and spark conversations. My wife tells me that the staff at the local bookstore where she ordered it expressed their disappointment at learning the book was shipped sealed in plastic as they have been hoping to touch a copy for some time.

Book snobbery, here we come!

We wish you a safe and happy Thanksgiving!

Ods and Gadz wish you a Happy Thanksgiving, too!

The Leopolds