27 February 2010
Written by
joe (
)
Published on February 27th, 2010 @ 10:58:24 am, using 933 words, 85 views
By the time I finish the season in October my boat bag and fly boxes look more like hook soup than a trout technician’s tool box. Early on in the season its easy to admire all the flies lined up perfectly ready for battle, but by September when I cut them off at the end of day I am more worried about hustling to get home and eat a meal before 9 p.m., so I throw them in whatever box that happens to be open and coil up the remaining tippet still attached so they fit in an ill closed box.
I dread seeing the car wreck of flies in March at my kitchen table that I ignored in October, but you have to start over each year organized and figure out what needs to get replenished for next season. So I grab my boat bag and go through fly stew to put it all back together.
Here are my Main Boxes and what I learned about last season-
Stonefly Box - Pretty much same old same old. We had big water last year so my big posted puffy supply is mangled and low. On a low water year I would see a bunch of sleek bullets heads missing.
Spring Box - I don’t have a single Fat Freddie left. Its a local Grandfather Guide creation and I like mine tied a very specific way, so I have to tie them myself. No shop sells them how I want them to look and float. It’s a pain for me to do the work, but its a belief bug and I have caughts thousands of trout on them when the boat ramp is filled with ass-kicked anglers scratching their heads. Thank you John Faust.
Bugger Box - This one rarely runs low. I don’t have a bunch of clients that like this game in a way that eats flies. White legged stuff, sculpins, olive of every size, and Bald Eagles dominate my box. I never have been a fan of black but I keep it stocked. The black streamers are old looking as they rarely get wet. Honestly, its how you swim it so they probably all work.
Fall May Fly - I keep every size and stage of our fall Olives loaded. Some years they are really bastards about it, but the last two I have been able to throw a bunch of high viz parachutes. Don’t know why, I usually have shooters that month so I am able to hold the boat out further and get away with an easy fly.
Hopper Box - Oh how this one changes when a new hot fly comes through. When I started it was parachute hoppers, then old tan and black chernobyl ants, then the club sandwich, then fat albert, and now Morrish hoppers. I have come full circle on what I like and my box has olot of old stuff in it. But I am a sucker for anything with pink and a low slung wing. Its still macho to throw pink hoppers, you just need to be careful in which Bitterroot Valley bar you brag about it in.
July Box - Mainly PMDs and Caddis here. I use the heck out of quigley cripples and La Fontaine’s sparkle pupas with the big hair wings. July is a consistent month and my use in the box reflects it. I always have some re-filling to do.
All six of these boxes are large lure style boxes and loaded to the gills, but I have one more box - the box of shame.
The Dreaded Nymph Box - It is approximately a fifth of the size of only one of my dry fly boxes, but its stain is permeates my whole boat bag. I wish I didn’t have to pack it all, but the reality of the fishing every day is the need for droppers. Having the right dropper off the back of the dry fly can mean everthing when you need a trout with a high sun and light hatch. Also there will be upswellings of put-a-bobber-on double nymph rig fishing when you can do the evil stuff. Like hook 40 sitting a boat ramp waiting to go fishing, like a beginner slop casting off my oar and pounding big fish all day, like double san juan worms rigs ……………………..( sorry I threw up a little in my mouth there) like double san juan worm rigs in the dirt of high water for gorging 2-footer brown trout, its not really fly fishing but its hard to walk away from an exploited feed situation. This is moped fishing - you don’t want anyone to see you doing it, but it does get you places. I don’t care how intricate a weighted rig I have tied up, I always have them cut-off or hidden before I hit a boat ramp. I may do it, but I will not testify in a court of law it occurred - I plead the Fifth. I use about 5 kinds of nymphs……………………….(sorry, I started to sicken myself again) and I buy them by the 2 dozens. If they don’t work I know some Lewis and Clark stories and bad jokes to fill the day with, because there is only so far I will dig into that rabbit hole.
After going through my inventory I find that my choices center on what I like to throw and what I want to see fish eat. That decision leaves bead head nymph eating fish out of my boat some days.
I’m okay with that.
www.classicjourneyoutfitters.com
18 February 2010
Written by
joe (
)
Published on February 18th, 2010 @ 02:42:50 pm, using 882 words, 75 views
We are about a month out of the official guide season in Missoula and its time to start getting it all in order.
I turned my wood boat over to Karl the boat builder to go through. I needed the varnish touched up and sand out some stains on the inside. He snarled a bit that I haven’t been running a boat cover. I fixed that with a new one this week Karl. But overall I think it was better than he had expected. I am not easy on boats, but I really like my wood ride so I baby it. Those poor glass boats I used to run; I have slid them over and though enough obstactles that my old Hyde drift boats smelled like burning fiberglass shops many mornings as we dry slid into some sneaky put-in. Those old glass boats I ran for years would have taken “tattered” as a complement.
I have only sunk one boat - clearly not my fault.
I had this old Hyde that had developed two trailer bunk wear spots on the chines. In late October they wore all the way through and I developed cracks that seeped water. By the end of the previous season I was bailing out a couple times a day as I was finishing the season. Not a real professional moment to pull over and stop your boat from sinking a couple times a day. Luckily October for me is all regulars and I got alot more help and laughs, than pissed off head shakes.
My end of the year solution was to buy a new boat or take on the task of re-finishing my existing ride. Having no experience at all in fiberglass, resin, or boat repairs of any kind I decided to fix the existing one. I borrowed a buddie’s shop and went to hacking away at my boat. When I flipped it over I found there was quite a bit more damage than just the chines - like a 6 foot lengthwise tear almost through the floor. The bottom of my boat was like that really trashy hot girl that you dated in college who inisted you were the first one ever - I promise.
I went at the boat with grinder, pick, and axe. Chopping my way to what I would eventually call the base. As it turned out later it wasn’t really a good base of any kind, I had just got bored and gave up. I didn’t know what I was doing and I was lazy about it, but I used alot of glue. My boat looked like your kid’s first paper mache project that he beamingly brags is the perfect replication of a magical dragon complete with lifelike scales and ferocious teeth. You say good job, son. When your wife asks “Who left this messy blob out on the counter” you quickly shush her and have her rephrase to “Wow, what a lovely magic dragon with ferocious teeth.” My drift boat was a magical boat blob- lets call him Puffy.
Me and Puffy made it through the first 15 days of the March Skwala season unscathed. Maybe he did have magical ferocious floating teeth after all? But on day 16 old Puffy showed his paper mache roots on the carbody bank out of Darby on the Bitterroot.
We came down the bank chucking dries to the seams and all of a sudden my cooler starts to float by my calves. I was irritated that someone had kicked out my drain plug and I was going to have to bail out. I had become good at it through the bucket practice of last October, but it still isn’t any fun. When I saw the plug was still in, I know me and old Puffy might not be making it back to the land of Honalee real soon. When I looked directly off the my left wading boot I saw my well glued floor gulping water. Apparently my fiberglass repairs were less than up to code. Puffy the magic boat blob’s scales were failing fast. After all the workmanship and pride I had poured over this boat I wasn’t going to let Puffy die this way - not with duct tape on board.
I pulled over, unloaded my clients and set them wadefishing.
I bailed the boat out and yanked it up on the bank so I could get underneath it with my coleman lunch grill.
I heated up the seam with the grill and layered in duct tape to the hot glass.
For a kid from Stevensville MT, duct tape repairs are always a viable option and this one worked.
Mushy grey melted mass held true the whole day and we coasted into the boat ramp with dry feet. You gotta love Duct tape.
I retired that boat that afternoon with a call to Hyde drift boats and put in place a sight unseen trade of my magical boat blob and purchase of a new boat. Hyde thought they beat me up on the trade pretty good, but they underestimated my workmanship. After we completed the trade and they got a good look at the boat, they took me off their pro-staff promptly.
I row wood now, but I always pack duct tape.
www.classicjourneyoutfitters.com
08 February 2010
Written by
joe (
)
Published on February 8th, 2010 @ 10:44:25 am, using 651 words, 71 views
I play guitar. Don’t ask me to sing.
I started 6 years ago after watching one of our guides put on a fireside show of singing and playing on an overnight fishing trip. I thought that was the coolest scene and wanted to learn. I have taken lessons of varying degrees and I have ended having a skill set that allows me to play along with others and not embarrass myself - fundamentally sound and light on the talent to flourish.
One of the unfortunate side effects of becoming better at guitar is the thoroughly unconnected belief that you now magically possess the talent of singing. I have disproven this thesis numerous times by trying to sing half-drunk at parties. My greatest show stopper was the party in which my stage presence near the keg stopped the consumption of beer. Do you know how bad you have to cat screech to clear a keg full of free beer surrounded by guides? Everybody lost on that deal.
So once reality set in I decided that my next move was to take voice lessons. My wife’s tearfull pleading made that decision easy. So I started 3 years ago with the simple of goal of not hurting audiences. I knew I wasn’t ever going to be able to belt it, but I wanted to have a voice that would be tolerated at low doses. So I went to work - God bless the woman that teaches me. At some point a light will come one when you can finally hear your own voice and then you know what the world hears. For me it wasn’t pretty. I almost quit music all together that day. I was unnaturally horrible and the problems that I solved with increased vocal volume turned it into a fumbling off key wail that could drive fishing guides from free beer - powerful stuff.
I am too dumb know when to give up and despite my voice teacher’s misty-eyed pleas to end the lessons, I just kept showing up Sunday afternoons and practicing with her piano. My learning curve was incrementally snail like, but I did get better and have had some breakthroughs. In the last year I have played a fair number of fireside “gigs” and while there are no standing ovations no one bails out of voice shot and one gal even said I had a “Nice Voice.” I saw my wife slip her a $20 later on that night so maybe not a genuine compliment, but she didn’t shudder when she said it.
In this whole process I have identified what keys I sing in easily, which I stick to when I am playing publically. At home is where I take difficult songs and try to push my range. Voice much like fishing in that it rewards RELAXED power. Just like you can’t force a reach cast, so it goes with hitting notes on the edge of your range. Try less and and acheive more - that’s a different and cool focus.
So one of the songs I am working is a very difficult Keith Urban song. I don’t love Keith Urban’s music, but my wife does which makes the hopeful payoff a little sweeter.
In the mornings as my kids get ready for school I play a few songs before I head into the office. I will play “Coming Around the Moutain” or “Three Blind Mice” or made up family kid songs like Mackenzie’s “Cheezy Eggs.” Instead of playing kid songs one moring I decided to take a shot at this rangy Urban song. I thought I nailed it, which even suprised me. Maybe a breakthough, and the beginning of my professional singing career?
So I threw out a “How was that one girls?”
My 4 year-old responded -
“That was Terrrrrrible, Dad.”
Who says I won’t be able to keep my daughters out of High School keggars.
www.classicjourneyoutfitters.com
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