Nest Theater Part Nine - New Audio Path Perfections 11May20

I came to Summit to fish and mess with the audio system. It was snowing in Summit after Hoosier Pass. I wasn't really satisfied with the NestT audio as last installed - I seemed to not benefit sufficiently from the Viawave super-tweeters, and the Hsu sub was hard to control. So I revised the audio paths once again; this time I am employing a separate solid state amp to drive the super-tweeters and feed line level to the subwoofer (which has its own amp). It worked and now sounds gr8! I have solid response out to about 20KHz and the sub-bass is much better controlled. In the1st graph the green sweep is the prior line without sub & super-tweeters which the red sweep is as the system is now: note both the high end and sub-bass improvements. It took some tweaking with volume levels but the new scheme is much improved. The downside is I need to adjust two volume levels when I boot it all up. The 2nd graph shows the equalized sweep which matches the house curve well now from 15Hz-20KHz. Sure I stopped at ORB for my May Summit Club allotment of Amenities - yummy.

New Blodgett Family Room Audio Source For Mom's Day 10May20

I repurposed an old Surface Pro back into our systems as an audio streamer for the Blodgett Family Room using JRiver Media Center. The whole house audio now again has a full terabyte and a half of tunes and promotional images or lyrics show on the family room TV as songs are played.

Zoom Life - NorCal Friends, Financial Mgmt, And Family Happy Hour 09May20

It's the Zoom life - ok so WebEx, Skype, and Zoom. Beyond the CoWW we have a number of calls regularly now. Maybe it aids sanity, mainly we are checking in on our peeps. Here we are catching up with our NorCal besties, checking in on our shrinking accounts, and updating with the family. I do not want a new normal - as pleased as I am to raise all these folks and my other friends, this can't be the only way we do it going forth.

Purple May Reign - An Arkansas Mayfly Story 09May20

Greg's success with the Purple Reign in Brown's Canyon early prompted me to comment that they might be taking it for the early mayflies as I believe them to be somewhat purple, especially early on in the Arkansas. "Maybe add a tail," and he did and tied some in larger sizes. He's also observed the purplish coloring I saw. I've tied some too and we now are seeing success with the newly dubbed "Purple May Reign," which is a larger, and tailed, variant of Purple Reign. Recipe: #18 2488H hook, lavender glass bead, purple thread, gunmetal blue wire overwrap, black KF flash tail, Medora thread emergent wing and peacock herl thorax. Very simple, very effective.

Above COS Hike & Deck Happy Hour 07May20-08May20

Thursday was gorgeous so Kala & I headed above the Waldo burn and above the quarry to the southern ridgeline of Blodgett Pk. The trail was sometimes great and often sketchy at near the top... steep with loose pink granite made the descent harrowing. We got to about 8400 ft (~200 below the ridge) before turning back. The route roughly follows our local unnamed stream, which is still flowing well. We finally have begun to see more spring wildflowers. Great outing with Kala in some perilous spots.

Despite the 20° drop in temps on Friday we held another felonious deck party with social distances and wine & nosh. Excellent time with Brantleys and Yohanans, except we missed Jim. I made glazed Korean meatballs, which the team seemed to like, and Kala prepared stuffed 'shrooms, dipped strawberries and chilled chili shrimp... yumm. Of course we brought out some fine wines: Edgar's '13 grenache-syrah, a Spanish '10 gran reserve rioja alvesa and a L'Venture '14 GSM. We needed and enjoyed stuff that could stand up to the spicy foods.

Grand County "Drive," Tomahawk Stop, F2F CoWW HH & My Iron Sallies 03May20-05May20

Well as a friend said, "I can't wait for when work and movies and dining out restarts so our guests will leave 'our' backcountry." I headed to Williams Fk in Grand Co but arrived to see ~24 cars in the lot - this for ~2 miles of water... I left. I headed up to Muddy Ck, also in Grand Co, and again I faced more cars than I ever have for this small stretch of tailwater. I headed to the river but did nothing and saw many folks. At least the drive back provided a keen image of the Gore Range & Green Mtn.

Given the crowds I headed back to COS the back way and stopped at lower Tomahawk where again I faced big crowds, often dominated by new fisher-persons. Wow. I fished a hour and did nothing and then left... there was little fish-sign or bug-sign anyway.

We held the weekly CoWW VHH actually F2F with a Huckleberry Sour chosen excellently by VeloFishMan Greg. No pics but we had a blast socially distanced on my deck. I did received Iron Sally materials and tied some. Gr8 pattern for the Ark and possibly downstream on the Blue. I used the Hopper Juan variant with scud back - gotta love those legs no matter what.

Ark With GL & Browns On The Blue 30Apr20-01May20

Greg and I were able to get some time on the middle Arkansas River. We started  @ Lone Pine and caught some. Flows were fine at ~250cfs but viz was bad. Fishing was slow except Gregger caught a nice one on his Iron Sally stone.

We moved up to Rincon next and caught some more. A massive caddis hatch happened as did a mayfly hatch. We worked the mayflies hardest, as did the fish it seemed. The water was clearer. I muffed the pics so just one smaller one...

We dined and then hit Salida East (Chaffe Co Line) and ran the normal play. I caught nada but GL called it the best spot of the day as he was weaponized with Purple Reign modified for the BWOs on teh Ark (they are purple) and caught plenty. I did not catch another fish,but was fishing shallow near bank, and left for Silverthorne. Thanks Greg.

On Friday I headed (too) early to Jurassic Pk section of the Blue. Flows were ~250cfs, so fine, but water is still very cold despite the warm day. Action started @ 11am and I caught some decent smallerish but colorful browns like these 16" & 17"ers and left early on a very crowded day in this remote area. I did find a dead boat though. Sheesh.