Stretching Exercises

Last year I went over some cardio and back exercises with you. I noticed after months of cardio exercises on the elliptical and treadmill that my knees were starting to hurt. They wouldn’t hurt while I worked out, but a couple of hours later. I talked to the personal trainer at my work and she gave me some stretching exercises to do. My knees have not hurt at all since I’ve started doing these. I do them after every cardio workout at the same time I do the back exercises.

IT Band Stretch with IT Band Foam Roller

The IT doesn’t stand for Information Technology, it stands for Iliotibial, the muscle on the side of your upper leg. How you perform this exercise is to roll the foam roller along the side of your upper leg. To do this you place the roller on the floor perpendicular to how you will lay down. Lay down on your side over the roller so it is positioned just below the hip. With the help of your hands, roll on the roller from your hip down to your knee. Roll back and forth for about 10 seconds. Your top leg can be bent in front to relieve some of the pressure. Repeat on the other leg. Do this for three repetitions. This will be painful for the first few times but after awhile it won’t hurt much.

Figure 4 Glute Stretch

This is to stretch out your gluteus maximus. The exercise is performed by lying on your back with your knees bent, placing one of your ankles just above the other leg’s knee. This causes the form of an upside down figure 4. Wrap both hands around the outside leg and pull it towards your chest. You should feel your muscle stretch on the outside of your hip. Hold this position for about ten seconds. Repeat with the opposite leg. Do this for three repetitions.

Standing Quadriceps Stretch

This will obviously stretch your quadriceps (thighs and hips). It is performed by standing (you can hold onto something if necessary) and bending one leg backwards. Grab the top of the ankle or forefoot and pull toward your rear to the point of mild discomfort. Keep your hip straight and your knee in proper alignment, not off to the side. Hold for 10 seconds and repeat on the other leg. Do this for three repetitions.

Figure 4 Hamstring Stretch

Sit down on the floor with one leg stretched out straight. Place the bottom foot of the other leg against the knee of the straight leg creating a figure 4 shape. Bend your torso and reach toward the upright foot of your straight leg until you feel the stretch along the back of your thigh. Hold for 10 seconds and switch legs. Repeat three times.

The Nail Knot

The Nail knot is a useful knot for tying the backing onto the fly line.

It is tied by obtaining a small tube. One like you find on canned air works great. Place the tube alongside the end of the fly line. Place about six inches of the backing from your reel alongside these two.

Leaving about an inch still beside the tube and the end of the fly line, wrap the backing neatly and tightly around the tube and the fly line 5 to 7 times toward the reel.

Pass the backing through the tube.

While holding the wraps with one finger and thumb, pull the tube out.

 

While still holding the wraps, carefully pull the backing on each side of the knot to tighten. Let go of the loops and tighten again. After the knot is tight, pull on the fly line and backing to test the knot.

If the knot was successful go ahead and trim the ends.

You can put fly tying head cement on the knot to make it smoother so it will go through the guides more easily.

Note: you can also use a nail instead of the small tube by working the backing alongside the nail under the wraps.

Backing & the Arbor Knot

Adding backing to your reel before loading the fly line serves several purposes. The obvious reason to add backing is so that if you hook that big one you’ve been hoping to catch and it takes out a lot of line, the leader won’t break when you hit the end of the 90 feet of fly line.

Usually the backing will be 100 or 250 yards of 20 or 30 pound braided Dacron. Since the backing is wound tightly on the smaller portion of the reel the backing needs to be something that won’t retain memory. The backing will most likely stay wound on the reel for several years without ever being straightened. If you used monofilament you would find that as the line came off the reel, after being tightly wound so long, that it would come off in tight coils and most likely tangle if not careful.

You don’t want this to happen when you're fighting a fish big enough to take you into your backing. The backing also needs to not retain water, otherwise mold would grow. The backing also serves to take up space on the center portion of the reel so that the actual fly line is not coiled so tightly. The fly line being wound on the outside portion of the reel allows more line to be reeled in on each turn.

The Arbor Knot is a simple knot for attaching the backing to the reel. It is formed by bringing the backing around the the arbor, tying an overhand knot around the line leading to the arbor, then tying another overhand knot at the very end of the line.

Warm Weather in November

 Paul called and said the weather was too nice to resist riding his Harley up to the Weber River. I met him on the river after work. The water was still a little murky. I started off using some caddis nymphs fishing my way downstream. I caught a medium size white fish and hooked another brown that got off as he jumped. There were small Baetis mayflies (blue-winged olives) coming off the water so I switched to two different styles of mayfly nymphs. I headed back upstream to catch up with Paul. On the way I managed to catch a large white fish. It uncharacteristically sat still on the bank while I took the hook out of its mouth and it let me take a couple of pictures. After Paul came over and took a look at the fish I gently nudged it with my foot and it swam back into the flow of water.

I kept fishing upstream and caught a nice brown that jumped five times during the fight. It ended up being about 15 inches long. I got a throat sample of what it had been eating, small black Baetis nymphs – just like the nymph imitations I was using.

By this time the sun had slipped behind the mountains. Paul was going to head back before it got too cold so he could enjoy the motorcycle ride home. I switched fly rods and began fishing with streamers. I had about an hour to fish before it got dark. I fished upstream starting with a green streamer, the Dungeon again. After 20 minutes I switched to a grey rabbit strip streamer. After another 20 minutes I switched to a black one. In the course of the hour I only hooked one small brown that threw the hook on its first jump.

One Brown On A Streamer

The fall is my favorite time of year for fishing. The browns get feisty right before the spawn. For this reason I decided to give streamer fishing a try last week. The Weber water level was average for this time of year. In mid October the water level dropped from about 180 cfs to about 70cfs. This drop usually happens in mid September. It seems this year things are running a little later than usual.

Within the first 20 minutes I caught one nice 16 or 17 inch brown. I was excited that this would be a good evening. After not getting another strike for 20 minutes, I switched streamers. The first one I was using was green rubber leg streamer. I switched to a yellow one, still no strikes. I kept switching streamers every half hour. I had no more strikes the rest of the evening until the last few minutes. I switched to a green Dungeon and finally hooked one. The fish started swimming upstream toward me. As I stripped the line in, it got off. Checking the hook, there was a scale on it. I must have foul-hooked a big white fish. At least that added some excitement. By this time it was 6:40 and starting to get dark. I was a long way downstream by this point and needed to hurry if I was to get back to the truck by dark.

The Beaverhead Day 3

 On day three Jon and I headed back to the stretch above High Bridge where we had fished the day before. It was cold rigging up the rods in the morning before the sun hit the river. Using a Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear and a Pheasant Tail Nymph as a dropper we tried coaxing the huge rainbows to hit. It seemed like they weren’t even there.

There were some bare gravel spots that the brown trout had prepared for spawning that we used as markers on where to fish. We couldn’t figure out why they weren’t biting like the day before. Again we caught a couple of smaller 15 to 16 inchers but none of the 19 to 20 inchers we were hoping for. At about 11:00 we decided to head to the Henneberry Walk-in Access stretch that we enjoyed so much the day before.

Crossing a short channel and heading around the bend there was a riffle that dumped into a big pool. I cast a red midge nymph into the shallow riffles and let it drift into the deeper pool. Immediately a small brown hit and I reeled him in. I thought this was pretty good for the first cast. I tried again and another brown hit.

This was an excellent start for this section of river. I fished my way upstream to where the river started to braid. At another curve in the river the water was shallow and riffled and dumped into a deep pool similar to the one I previously described.

A large brown, it had to have been over 20 inches long, jumped right at the seam of shallow and deep water. It was brightly colored with its spawning golden hue. I must have fished this hole for a half an hour trying to catch this fish. I ended up catching seven fish from this hole but none the size of the one that jumped.

I continued moving upstream to the next hole but didn’t have any strikes. By now it was getting to be about 1:15 and I needed to head back. On the way back I fished the stretch where I had the hard strike on a streamer the previous day.

Wham-O, I hooked a big one. It jumped and threw the hook. This was a good note on which to end the trip.

I caught back up with Jon and we headed back to the truck and then began the long drive home.

Day 2 of the Beaverhead - 100 Posts!

Note: I just noticed that that last post was my 100th post.  I started this blog on August 29, 2009.  This has been a great year of fishing.  I hope everyone has enjoyed these adventures with me.  Thanks everyone for your reading this blog and especially thanks for all your comments.

The second day Jon and I headed to the stretch a mile above High Bridge just below where I-15 crosses the river.  This is the stretch where I caught so many large rainbows last year.  These rainbows look like steelhead.  Jon and I tried our hardest but only caught a few 15 to 16 inchers.  There was a guide who had two female clients in his boat.  They were catching some large trout so I asked him what they were using, small hare’s ear – go figure, the most generic nymph there is.  Jon and I tried these and still, we could only coax the small ones into biting.

There was one other angler parked where we were fishing.  He was fishing with dries.  He recommended we try down by Organ Pipe.  This was a bum steer.  This water was slow, featureless and muddy. 

We next headed to Henneberry Walk-in Access.  This was a great section.  Rocky bottom, clear water and the river was braided here so there were lots of features.  It was also easy wading.  We ended up catching a lot here.  No big ones, but still a lot of fun fish.  

 When the sun went down we switched to streamers.  I had a large one hit but it didn’t get hooked.  It was still exciting to see this larger fish hit a streamer.  Jon and I fished back downstream past were the trail headed to the truck.  Then we headed back.  Placing our boots and waders back into the plastic Rubbermaid boxes we went back to Sparky’s for dinner.  The pulled pork was great and we shared a mud pie, yummy!!!. 

The Beaverhead River - Day 1

Jon and I arrived at High Bridge on the Beaverhead about 4:00, after we had checked into our hotel and talked with the guides at Frontier Anglers. Since there was still three hours of daylight to burn we headed downstream hoping to fish as far down as the castle and then turn around and fish our way back. We crossed the river in the riffles and started nymphing along the deeper, opposite bank.

The rocky shoreline we were walking along was still wet, indicating that the river had just recently dropped its flow rate. The guys at the shop stated that the flow rate would be just less than 250 cubic feet per second. They also mentioned that the water was stopped for a couple of hours the day before for construction on the dam. Or should I say Dam construction? This surely would put the fish down for a couple of days.

The first stretch only produced one small brown. The river looked good with clear water although there was quite a bit of plant growth and moss. Further downstream we finally came to a hole that gave us success. On the other side of the fast current along the seam I hooked a nice rainbow, then a brown. I pointed out to Jon where they were hitting and he caught some too. The flies they were hitting? Pink Ray Charles. We wanted to fish downstream two more bends in the river to get to the castle but it was already 6:00 and figured we had better start heading back so we could get to the truck before dark.

 

We stopped by Sparky’s Garage Restaurant for dinner with some sweet potato fries on our way back to the Guesthouse Inn & Suites hotel. At the hotel I quickly put on my swimming suit and hopped in the Jacuzzi. I let the jets hit my back soothing the muscles.

A Saturday Evening on the Lower Provo River

I have fished the Lower Provo River more than any other river. This is a great fly fishing river and I learned to nymph fish here. The fish in this river have their Ph.D.’s. They get fished hard and if you don’t know what you’re doing, drag-free drifts and the correct small flies, you may get skunked. There were six cars parked at the access point where I intended to fish.

This time of year the canyons are gorgeous with the changing of color on the leaves. Usually the river is low and clear. Saturday evening however, the water was somewhat high and very off color. While wading you couldn’t even see the rocks in the shallow areas. I knew the fishing would be tough under these conditions. I was using pheasant tail and caddis emerger nymphs that usually work well in the fall. After a couple of casts into a current seam, I hooked one fish that soon got off. This was encouraging; at least the fish could see the fly. I moved upstream fishing further up the same current seam. I finally hooked a brown. It didn’t jump like the ones on the Weber usually do. I played it downstream a bit into some calmer water and then landed it.

Fishing into the deeper water further out from the current seam I managed to hook a large white fish. These white fish don’t like to be still while the hook is being extracted and they love to just keep flopping while pictures are being taken. But, as soon as you put them back into the water they lay still and float belly up. This fish was no exception. It flopped around so much that scales were coming off and getting all over the place, like on the reel and the rod handle. I finally got it to stay upright in the water and it then swam off into the deeper water.

I then went upstream to the next deeper pool but had no luck, even in the most promising looking places. I crossed the river to the other side of this deep pool and fished right where the fast, shallow water poured into to deeper water. After a few minutes I hooked a strong fish which started taking out line. This fish took the line right to the bottom of the pool, got the line to foul hook on some debris and broke me off. These are the fish that leave you wondering just how big they really are.

After tying on another caddis nymph, I went back to the same spot. At the end of a drift I pulled up sharply to imitate the caddis pupa beginning its ascent to the surface. A fish hit and this time I kept it from going to the bottom of the deep pool. It ended up being a nice rainbow. This was a good finish to another gorgeous fall evening.

Bass and Blue Gill in Cincinnati

My writing has been a little sparse lately, sorry about that. I had flown to my home town, Richland Washington, to help welcome my nephew, Lance Rhoten, home from his mission to Mexico. Then I flew to Cincinnati to bless my latest grandchild, Max Hosler. Before you think I had missed fishing for a week, let me tell you about my fishing in Cincinnati.

I had gone with my daughter’s family to Nick's Grandma Mary’s house for dinner. She has a pond in her backyard and Nick happened to bring his fishing gear so I gave it a try. I managed to fish completely around the pond before the bell rang for dinner. The fishing was great. I caught four bass and a huge Blue Gill. The Blue Gill in this pond are the biggest I’ve seen anywhere. They look like the ones that are in the Cabella’s warm water tanks that you think you’d never see in real life.

Walking around the pond, frogs would jump from the shore into the water and burry themselves under the mud so they couldn’t be seen. I imagine quite a few of these frogs end up being dinner for the bass in the pond.

After dinner, as it was getting dark, I tried a few more casts and caught another bass. These bass fight hard and make the fish so fun to catch.

A Gorgeous Evening

The Weber River has still been running somewhat high and off color, around 174 cubic feet per second. The average flow rate for September is 164, but the flow rate usually drops by the end of September to be closer to October’s average of 134. I’m sure the poor clarity of the water is contributing to the poor fishing lately. Last week I used a Sex Dungeon streamer to see if this would improve my hookup rate. The Dungeon has two hooks so if the fish hits short or just at the tail of the streamer I should still be able to hook it. I didn’t have a single hit. I don’t know if the fish were just not active because of the cloudy water or if the streamer was just too big.

Yesterday I went with Paul and the fishing was just as tough. I fished an hour with nymphs and no hits. I fished a half hour with a small streamer and no hits. Then the last half hour before dark I tried nymphs again and caught a small brown and a large white fish. The weather has been fantastic lately. It was 85 degrees in Hoytsville and no wind. What a gorgeous evening to be out on the river.