Where's CB and is he fishing?

The answer is right here and yes, of course I'm fishing.

A variety of circumstances have prevented me from my usual flurry of blog posts as of late... One of them is the new job I started last week. So far I'm very much enjoying it- I'm working from home, my new coworkers are awesome, the job is exciting and interesting, and there's a lot to learn. Since I'm working from home, those 3 hours I used to spend on my commute are no longer travel time anymore.

It was during those 3 hours of travel I wrote most of my blog posts. Sitting on the metra, typing on my laptop; that's where most of CB Fishes came from.

The story behind this brown trout?

It didn't feel like hanging around for another picture

Now, there is no transit time to my job (besides the 10 second walk up the stairs). Once I'm done with work, instead of sitting down and writing new posts I head out into the world and go fishing. Or kayaking. Or pretty much anything else besides sitting down in front of a computer and typing up a post.

I've certainly had some adventures recently- now they're getting older, sitting on the shelves of my "need to blog about this" library. Last weekend in Michigan I experienced my first canoe trip with Mark and Rob, caught some trout; then went fly fishing for the first time under the expert tutelage of Rob Vink, fly fishing master. Naturally, I came back to Illinois and purchased a fly rod/reel combo. Saturday night Claire and I went to the local pond, where I proceeded to catch 3 bluegill and a nice largemouth bass on the fly!

First cast, first flyrod, first bluegill on the fly

It's been exciting, with the fly rod in my hand I feel like a complete novice, the way I felt with a spinning rod about a year ago. To be clear, I'm still a total newbie to fishing, but at least I know how to handle a spinning rod and jig. The fly rod, well, that's another story. I can catch some fish with it, but I have a suspicion I'm doing it wrong...

Claire caught this one on a black and red chigger craw

Should I still blog about adventures that are more than a week old? I think I will. When will I be doing that? A very good question. In the meantime, I'll keep posting new pictures to Instagram and Facebook should you be so inclined to see the most recent catches even without the story behind them. I've also gotten on the Twitter bandwagon: follow @cbfishes to get a stream of mostly fishing-related posts shorter than 140 characters. And a bunch of pictures too.

One of 5 smallies I pulled out from one spot
on the Rogue River in Michigan