The Quest

I grew up on the north eastern plains of Colorado. Not the western slope. Not Estes Park, Not Rocky Moutain National Forrest. THE EASTERN PLAINS! That means that I live in a place that is technically considered high dessert. And that meant at least for me growing up out here that my dreams of fly fishing grand rivers and catching big colorful trout on tiny hand tied dry flys would be mostly just that. DREAMS! But I manged somehow as a teen to teach myself the basics of fly fishing using an old rod and reel I found in my grandfather's garage. I would stand in the drive way in front of our house and practice roll casts, overhand casts, and would spend countless hours practicing tying 10lb mono fishing line to the end of my very worn out fly line ( I didn't have any real leader). And even though I didn't have bubbling crystal clear trout streams flowing through my back yard, I did some how manage to learn to fly fish. In high school I was able to make it up to the moutains a few times a year with friends and fish on the Blue River outside Silverthorn. Then, during my time in the service, I finally got to do some serious fly fishing in the Cascades of Central Washington and even the Black Horn River near Missoula, MT. Well now I am back in eastern Colorado, high dessert, no trout streams flowing in my backyard! So I thought.  Wray, Colorado is a tiny town that is literaly split in two by the north fork of the Republican River.  That is its name, but to actually call it a river is a huge overstatement. Its quite simply a very very small stream. At its deepest darkest pools, it may be 6 feet deep. And in the really shallow spots, it's not over 6 inches. It flows through pastures, past corn, and wheat fields east through Wray over the Colorado-Nebraska state line. From there it meets the Arickaree River which flows past the Beecher Island battleground and the south fork of the Republican river that once filled the great Bonny State reservoir. The tiny stream grows into a small river, and eventually that water dumps into the mississippi river and makes it all the way to the gulf of mexico. But here in eastern colorado its still just a stream. And all my life I never paid much attention to that stream. Until two years ago when I started hunting ducks on that stream. Now I had always seen kids fishing in the water that flows here through town. And they even caught some fish. Sunfish, bluegill, creek chubs. But two years ago somewhere around the end of December, I was standing in that stream throwing out mallard decoys, when the water to my left suddenly rippled the way only a decent sized fish has the ablility to make it do. Now I never saw that fish, but I know it was there. Sometime after that I was talking to a friend at work who swears that he used to fly fish that very section of creek for brown trout. WHAT? Brown trout? Yep he said" Wild Brown Trout". After that conversation I began hearing other stories, from good sources, of people catching wild brownies in our little stream. One very reliable story was of a man catching a 24 inch brownie on his property. But they were all just stories. I never saw a picture, or a live fish to prove anything. That was until this last year. Again while standing in the stream while placing plastic duck decoys out the water around me started moving. Only this time it wasn't some phantom fish. It was real live fish. Several of them swam out from the weedy banks and quite literally between my feet. "Look at the trout" my good friend and hunting partner Justin yelled from the high bank above me. They were there, and then they were gone. But we had seen them. Small, maybe 8 to 10 inchs in length. But they were trout. Brown trout, here in eastern Colorado. So now my quest. As part of my project this year, I have laid out a plan to pursue these little aquatic creatures. My plan is to start at the head of the stream which as chance would have it is only about 10 miles southeast of town, and to fly fish it all the way from its head waters to the state line. It's going to take me most of the year because of that whole work thing, but I plan to be done by September. I will most likely have to skip some sections of the river due to land owners not allowing any fishing on their property, but for the most part I hope to be able to cover the majority of the river (about 20 miles) between now and then. So that's that. My quest. I want to do this before the drought that has plauged our country and over irragation drains dry the small spring that forms our steam. Wish me luck. Hopefully there will be some great stories and pictures to come.

Hello, my name is John, and I'm a Duckaholic

Ok, today is January 13, 2013. My name is John Doddridge and I live in Wray, Colorado. Wray is a very very small town in Northeastern Colorado, a farm town about 10 miles from the Nebraska state line and 20 miles from the Kansas state line. I work for a grain company called CHS.  I am a father of 3. One boy and two girls ages 8, 4, and 13 months. And I am married to a wonderful woman named Jocelyn.  So why am I at the age of 31 writing a blog? I'm not sure. I grew up not far from Wray on a small farm. We raised corn, wheat, and cattle. Or I should say my father did. And growing up on a farm I learned the importance of guns and gun safety at a very early age. I have been hunting most of my life. Minus a ten year span were I lived abroad while being enlisted in the US Navy and studying culinary arts in Florida. But since my return to Colorado in 2009, I have spent a good portion of my time either hunting or fishing. And that is what my blog is going to be about. For the next year I am going to have a written account of my sporting adventures. Lets start with a little about how I do things.  I don't make a huge amount of money. We do just fine living wise but I don't have much play money for my outdoor expense account. So I have to be very Do It Yourself when it comes to my hobbies. And in many ways that has made for interesting adventures in itself. I don't have the resources to go out and just buy anything I want. So I must do my best with what I have either making or finding what I need. For instance, when it comes to hunting geese in a cornfield, I do not have a layout blind. What I do have is an old yoga mat and some burlap to lay on and cover up with. And it works. I don't have money to spend on private hunting leases or guided hunts, so I must do my best with public land and land owner permision for locations. These are just a couple examples of what I mean by being a DIY sportsman. I know that I am by far not the only one out there doing this kind of stuff. Now onto the things I like to do. First and formost I am a self proclaimed Duckaholic. My wife would call it a drastically over ridiculous obsession. But lets stick to duckaholic. I love hunting waterfowl. Ducks and geese occupy a huge part of my brain. I literally think about waterfowl hunting 90% of the year. There is other hunting as well -  Coyote, pheasant, elk, deer, wild boar -  I think about these things as well throughout the year but not as much as waterfowl. And fishing. I love to fish. I actually fish more than I hunt. But while I am fishing I am usually thinking about duck hunting. Can't help it. As of today, though, Jan 13th my hunting seasons are about to come to a close. There is only a couple weeks of duck season left and a few more weeks for geese. And so it is now fishing that I have on the brain. Well I guess that will do it for now. I am sure I will be the only person who even reads this blog. And I don't plan to write every day, but hopefully it will be a fruitful year and I will have lots of stories and experiences to write about.