Just thought I’d share a cool photo I snapped on my phone this evening. This dragon fly was buzzing around the yard, but sat still long enough for me to get a picture. The post processing was done in the app TiltShiftGen. Check it out.

Goat Head Gear Logo

Howdy everyone. It’s been a while since my last post. I have had my nose to the grindstone for the last 11 months as a self-employed consultant and working on a couple of other businesses to boot. The one I am most excited about called Goat Head Gear is getting closer to reality. My business partner and I have been working hard on our first product, a small shoe screw for trail running and wading, called Sole Spikes™.  You can apply the screw into the lug of any running shoe, hiking boot, or wading shoe, generally about 10 screws per shoe.  They provide AMAZING traction in winter/trail running and provide some real bite when wading, particularly with the newer rubber soled boots.  We started this process over a year ago and have been refining our design and working with engineers to get a killer product at a great price.  We are working on the first real prototype to be completed in the next 2-3 weeks.  If that is successful we will start the process of officially launching our product.  The cool news is that we are introducing our product as a project on Kickstarter.com where we will be using “crowd funding” to help pay for our initial costs.  We have some nice thank you gifts for those who are kind enough to donate.  We hope to have that live in the next couple of weeks.  Please stay tuned for updates and of course it would be great to have your support on the campaign.  Check it out today.  Enjoy!

My good friend’s production company recently produced a video for the new Toshiba product called the Libretto (links here and here).  He wanted to put some fishing photos in part of the demo so he borrowed a few from my collection.  You’ll notice from :15-:20 a photo gallery with three fishing themed images. The images are the brown trout, me standing on a log in front of the Tetons, and a group of buddies I fished with recently, I don’t know who the bikini girl is, she certainly wasn’t fishing. I guess this 5 seconds will be deducted from my overall 15 minutes of fame budget.  Hopefully that leaves me enough time to still do something awesome.  Click for the full video:

Pentax W90

The critics at Photography Blog have reviewed the recently released Pentax Optio W90.  Sounds like a good camera with some unique features, good image quality (except low light), and a decent price.  Click below for the full review.

Pentax Optio W90 Review (via Photography Blog)

Canon D-10

I have been watching these cameras since last summer and I think at this point if I was to pick up, I would get the Canon Powershot D10 which is reviewed here by tech gadget blog, Engadget. We currently have a Canon for the family camera and it does a great job and is easy to use.

Fish Pimp fly fishing products. Keep your pimp hand strong.

Last month, at the International Sportsman’s Expo in Salt Lake I met Quentin, the guy behind Fish Pimp.  He has a really nice product line including a cool line cleaning system that  hooks onto your rod, a two part powder based fly drying and floatant system, Fly Sauce, and a cool take on cork indicators.  He was kind enough to give me some free products to match any that I purchased from dealers at the show.  I bought some Fly Sauce and the medium strike indicators and he gave me the smaller indicators and dry fly spray.

On my recent trip to the Green River I was able to use the stuff for the first time.  Overall I was pleased with the products.  I have been nymphing for a long time and have tried all kinds of methods/products for strike indicators.  I tend to like the foam cork ones as they float high, are responsive, and are easy to add to or take off of your line.  The Fish Pimp indicators really fit the bill well.  Instead of a toothpick to hold them in place, they use tightly fitted lengths of tiny surgical tubing.  I found that they were effective indicators and we definitely caught our share of fish even with many subtle strikes.  The larger indicators stayed in place well and were easy to adjust up or down the leader.  I had one issue with the smaller sized indicators when I applied one to the lower end of my leader to help me fish a tiny … Continue Reading

Rugged camera review (Crunchgear)

Last week, Crunchgear posted a great review of the current rugged point-and-shoot offerings on the market today.  Looks like there are some good options out there. I currently don’t have a camera like this and use either the family point-and-shoot or my iPhone.  I am certain that it is only a matter of time before one or both them them take a swim.  Hopefully I can resolve this situation in the coming year.  In the meantime, check out the review below.  What are you using on your outdoor adventures?  Leave a comment below.

Rugged Camera Roundup: The Movie

On Saturday I was playing soccer in the backyard with my son, when a chickadee came to a feeder rather close to me.  I got the idea to turn on the chickadee song from iBird to see what kind of reaction I would get.  I sat the phone on a fence post and let it play.  This curious and brave little chickadee was very neighborly and sang beautifully to my phone and at one point jumps on it, before flying off to eat again.  Perhaps not as funny or dangerous as Messin’ with Sasquatch, but still not a bad few minutes of entertainment. I hope you enjoy.

iBird Explorer Pro

I made it to the International Sportsman’s Expo in Sandy, Utah last night with my two youngest kids.  We had a pretty fun time especially thanks to a mix up at the box office where, to make things right, they let me in free (thanks again whoever you are).  If you like avoiding crowds, then I think Thursday night is the time to go.  It was very low key and we got a parking space right near the front door.

Several of the booths had some free schwag they were giving away, our haul included a spinner bait, goby plastics, hooks, several stickers, some bendy things, a rubber bracelet, and some nice mule deer antler head dresses.  Additionally I got some free stuff from Fish Pimp, because I bought a couple of their items from a fly shop that had a booth there.  It was a pretty good deal.

There were tons of junk merchants and never-ending booths from outfitters and guides trying to get you to sign up for a killer trip. I wish this blog brought in the kind of dough that would allow me to partake, but so far, I can’t even by a gumball with my click earnings.  Maybe one day in the future.  Until then I can only dream about the fun I would have on those once-in-a-lifetime trips.

The booth highlights for me were:

• No Pebble Mine/Sportsman’s Alliance for Alaska – They are a group dedicated to protecting the legendary Bristol Bay fishery from the creation of the world’s largest open pit mine.  Met a twitter buddy @kyleindenver who was manning the booth.  I wish them luck in their efforts.  If you would like to find out more check them out at:
  • http://www.sportsmansalliance4ak.org/
  • http://twitter.com/nopebblemine
• Spinner Fall/Jack Dennis – Met Dudley, a guide from Spinner Fall

… Continue Reading

NePo Suet Cakes from neposuet.com

I had a pretty good bird day yesterday.  I took a walk on my lunch hour down at the Jordan River parkway and saw a few great birds that I don’t normally see, including a couple of belted kingfishers and some ruby-crowned kinglets.  One of them lit on a branch right near where I was standing and I got to watch him flit around catching midges until some runners came by and scared him off.

Upon returning home, I found I had received my two Nepo suet cakes in the mail. I was pretty stoked to get them and give them a try.  My first impression was that these are very high quality products.  I am just estimating here, but it felt like one of these cakes weighs about the same as two suet cakes you might buy at a large retail store.  What’s more, NePo cakes are very dense and contain no filler material like the common store brands which are about 80% cracked corn.  I don’t have many birds in my area who like eating that stuff and it mostly ends up on the ground, so I was really happy have a cake that will get 100% used by the birds.  I am guessing that they will feed a lot more birds than what I was using before just due to their density.  The two cakes I requested were the Insect Blend and the Peanut Butter Blend, both of which I am certain the birds are going to devour.  You can read about the extensive process they follow to create these cakes here, but suffice it to say that … Continue Reading

Straying off topic for a moment, but I imagine there are a few people out there who might be interested in this.  I came across a new free iTunes application made by Gibson called Gibson Learn & Master Guitar Application. It is cool for those who play guitar and has some great features. My favorite is the guitar tuner that listens as you play the strings and guides you in your tuning efforts.  You can choose from many popular tunings as well.  Also there is a metronome with a  few timings for keeping rhythm.  There is a chord map that shows you most of the chords you would need to play just about any song.  There is also a conduit into Gibson’s premium lessons, which I haven’t really clicked around too much.  Some features that are missing which would be cool to have would be to add a way to strum the chord that is in the map as well as a way to play the same chord at different locations on the fretboard.  The user interface is really nice and fairly easy to pick right up and use.  All in all this is a cool app and you can’t beat the price, check it out!

Gibson Learn & Master Guitar Application