Last call

Spent the afternoon on a local flow with Spanky, chasin' a few late fish in between storms. With last night's freeze, most of the locals are fishable, but tonight's rain might just put a capper on the season here in SE, whether we want it or not. The day proved to be a good end to a good season, with a dozen or so willing dance partners of the char variety to hand. As an added bonus, we also waltzed with a few coho...we snuck the jig-rod along with us and couldn't resist the temptation to get slow n dirty in some of their favorite backwaters. Spanky toted along the fly rod for the trip down, but we had vaccuumed most of the char out of the holes on the way up. Sorry, man, you will just have to be happy with your brightness in hand on the last good day.


As painful as it is to end the local year, it ain't the end of the world. We had a good thing goin' with our flows this year, and they treated us to some pretty damn good fishin'. Although hangin' up the gear for the year always sounds a melancholy note, this year we have a few road trips planned to assuage the grief.

Speakin' of road trips, the Neil Creek Beer Fountain and Rad Show is scheduled to depart in 4 days for a week-long steelhead hajj. We've been muckin' about at the bench for a week, tyin' up some dirty, dirty flies and gettin' all of the gear in order. Tomorrow is the start of the gear-selection process, and we have been leaning towards the longs sticks. We might bring a nymph or two along (for emergencies, you understand), but we're feelin' a little swingy these days and we're looking to flex the two-handed part of our brain a little more.

We just got off the blower with Zen, who rung us up from near our final destination, and he was pretty sure that stars were aligning for the next week on this particular flow. Word around the campfire is that Steelie Mike will be in the vicinity as well, so something's tellin' us that we got the timing right on this one.

4 more days will tell.