Friday, August 31, 2007
Thursday, August 30, 2007
Things that make us go Hmmm, Installment #3
The Simms G3 is arguably the best US-made wader available today...so why do they insist upon putting that cheesy lace-hook on the gravel guard?
I have NEVER had that damn thing work properly, and all it does is catch your line at inappropriate moments. When it is done doing that, it rusts off and makes a nice little line-cutter.
Silly.
What'll they think of next?
Zippers?
I have NEVER had that damn thing work properly, and all it does is catch your line at inappropriate moments. When it is done doing that, it rusts off and makes a nice little line-cutter.
Silly.
What'll they think of next?
Zippers?
Wednesday, August 29, 2007
"Right there...No, there...nevermind..."
I had a tiny revelation a few days ago concerning my spring and summer avocation...
Guiding folks on fishing trips is a lot like fishing with your in-laws.
Lemme fill in the backstory, then I will get to the revelation moment.
I have been guiding in the spring and part-time in the summer for 5 seasons now, and in that time I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of people, fish, weather, and the human condition in general.
Every time you go to greet the day's Sports, you think "these are the ones...these folks can roll-cast 80 feet, they know how to mend, they don't look embarrassed when you tell them "less butt" or "strip faster", they know how to compensate for a hard day's work...these are the perfect clients".
Then Downtown Akron rolls off the van, with Palm Springs and a hefty Minneapolis/St Paul behind them.
"Anyone ever flyfish before?"
"Oh, Yeah, I seen it done on the tv. H'it don't look too hard"
...and the fantasy ends. Guiding is a bitch sometimes.
But at the same time it gives you great pleasure to take "pleasedtameechaImMerleandthisisDoriswebeenalloverfishin" out for a day in the Alaska Wilderness, give them a flyrod perhaps for the first time, and with a little patience, some compassion, and a whole lot of low animal cunning, show them one of the better days of fishing and recreation that they may ever see in their lives.
As luck would have it, My brother-in-law is in town this week. When my wife found out he was coming up this year, one of the first things she told me was that "he really wants to go flyfishing with you".
I like fishing with other folks, but since I started guiding, my patience for taking novices out on my time has worn a little thin...all novices except for my wife, on the off chance that she reads this, and the fact that she is already a good fisher. But I digress.
I got the chance to take them along on a trip a few days ago, with the proviso that they were to Sherpa for me, not take any of my Client's good water, and be generally obsequious.
The Sports for the day were 3 ladies in their 60's, minimal (read: none) experience flyfishing, but they "were up for an adventure"...until we got to the river, when one of them decided she didn't want to get off the plane. With a little coaxing, we got her off...which is a good thing, since there was no room on the plane for her for a return trip.
After a brief casting lesson and a gruelling 45-minute hike, we made it oh, say 280 yards upstream to a hole that, while less than ideal, was less than ankle-deep at the presentation-point. Seeing as how both Wife-sherpa and Bro-sherpa had been called into action to keep these ladies from toppling over in the raging 4" of water in one of the braids we crossed, I figured this was as good a place as any (remember the low animal cunning part?).
With much flailing n wailing, all these ladies managed to catch fish. And have an absolute blast doing it, much to my surprise, as the whole "trek" had been filled with audibly voiced self-doubt, batted in between them in a "what have we gotten ourselves into" fashion.
Truth be told, I had a pretty good time too.
And teaching my Brother-in-law how to flyfish was much less painful than I had imagined, he being the cool, coordinated, athletic-type of guy that picks up things pretty quick.
So what's the similarity vis a vis clients and in-laws?
You can't pick either, but sometimes you get unexpected surprises.
Guiding folks on fishing trips is a lot like fishing with your in-laws.
Lemme fill in the backstory, then I will get to the revelation moment.
I have been guiding in the spring and part-time in the summer for 5 seasons now, and in that time I have seen the good, the bad, and the ugly of people, fish, weather, and the human condition in general.
Every time you go to greet the day's Sports, you think "these are the ones...these folks can roll-cast 80 feet, they know how to mend, they don't look embarrassed when you tell them "less butt" or "strip faster", they know how to compensate for a hard day's work...these are the perfect clients".
Then Downtown Akron rolls off the van, with Palm Springs and a hefty Minneapolis/St Paul behind them.
"Anyone ever flyfish before?"
"Oh, Yeah, I seen it done on the tv. H'it don't look too hard"
...and the fantasy ends. Guiding is a bitch sometimes.
But at the same time it gives you great pleasure to take "pleasedtameechaImMerleandthisisDoriswebeenalloverfishin" out for a day in the Alaska Wilderness, give them a flyrod perhaps for the first time, and with a little patience, some compassion, and a whole lot of low animal cunning, show them one of the better days of fishing and recreation that they may ever see in their lives.
As luck would have it, My brother-in-law is in town this week. When my wife found out he was coming up this year, one of the first things she told me was that "he really wants to go flyfishing with you".
I like fishing with other folks, but since I started guiding, my patience for taking novices out on my time has worn a little thin...all novices except for my wife, on the off chance that she reads this, and the fact that she is already a good fisher. But I digress.
I got the chance to take them along on a trip a few days ago, with the proviso that they were to Sherpa for me, not take any of my Client's good water, and be generally obsequious.
The Sports for the day were 3 ladies in their 60's, minimal (read: none) experience flyfishing, but they "were up for an adventure"...until we got to the river, when one of them decided she didn't want to get off the plane. With a little coaxing, we got her off...which is a good thing, since there was no room on the plane for her for a return trip.
After a brief casting lesson and a gruelling 45-minute hike, we made it oh, say 280 yards upstream to a hole that, while less than ideal, was less than ankle-deep at the presentation-point. Seeing as how both Wife-sherpa and Bro-sherpa had been called into action to keep these ladies from toppling over in the raging 4" of water in one of the braids we crossed, I figured this was as good a place as any (remember the low animal cunning part?).
With much flailing n wailing, all these ladies managed to catch fish. And have an absolute blast doing it, much to my surprise, as the whole "trek" had been filled with audibly voiced self-doubt, batted in between them in a "what have we gotten ourselves into" fashion.
Truth be told, I had a pretty good time too.
And teaching my Brother-in-law how to flyfish was much less painful than I had imagined, he being the cool, coordinated, athletic-type of guy that picks up things pretty quick.
So what's the similarity vis a vis clients and in-laws?
You can't pick either, but sometimes you get unexpected surprises.
The Thrill of the Grill
Diggin' the new grill. Check out the pic below...Spacious, innit?
Had some minor flare-ups, some first-time nervousness...still managed to crank out about 7 lbs of Coho, cooked to perfection and covered with the Holy Sauce - 1 stick butter, 1 cup Brown Sugar - for the Distinguished Guests of Neil Creek First Annual Bi-Weekly "Tasty Things from the Sea and Meadow" Dinner.
This week's menu included:
Coho Salmon
Dungeness Crab
Coleslaw
Beer
Next on the menu (after Sept. 1): Duck, Beer.
Had some minor flare-ups, some first-time nervousness...still managed to crank out about 7 lbs of Coho, cooked to perfection and covered with the Holy Sauce - 1 stick butter, 1 cup Brown Sugar - for the Distinguished Guests of Neil Creek First Annual Bi-Weekly "Tasty Things from the Sea and Meadow" Dinner.
This week's menu included:
Coho Salmon
Dungeness Crab
Coleslaw
Beer
Next on the menu (after Sept. 1): Duck, Beer.
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Oh, Yeah...
Yesterday was my Birthday...Feel free to send gifts to 58 19' 59" N, 134 29' 49" W, but make sure they are good ones. Y'all have stiff competition, as my wife and a few friends pitched in and bought me a Full-On Bitchin' stainless steel grill with one of those massively heavy cast iron grates, whose virginity I will taking tonight with the help of a few Coho Fillets and a pound of butter.
Dispatch From Geekistan, part 2
We Have A Winner!
I'm sure that the Kamasan Hook folks, as well as their parent company Daiichi, will be thrilled to hear that we here at Neil Creek are officially naming the B983 as the Official Bitchin' Bead Hook, and will be fishing it to the exclusion of all other makes and brands.
I'm sure that the Kamasan Hook folks, as well as their parent company Daiichi, will be thrilled to hear that we here at Neil Creek are officially naming the B983 as the Official Bitchin' Bead Hook, and will be fishing it to the exclusion of all other makes and brands.
Sunday, August 26, 2007
The Numbers Game
We had the kind of weekend that most folks only see in brochures.
Here at Neil Creek we only quantify a few things in integer form, like hours left in the fishing day, beers needed to get from A to B, gallons of fuel for same...important things. Most of the time, Quantities are registered in non-specific terms, i.e. "A few"..."a Bunch"..."an Assload"...and so on.
This weekend we counted a few things to go along with the pictures below. Some numbers are approximate, because as we pointed out previously, we only count important things.
90 Miles in a Cessna 180
10 Miles of Trail
448 Piles of Bear Poo
250 Dolly Varden
8 Sockeye
10 Coho
2 Rainbows
12 Beers
2 Flies used all day
1 Fly recovered from fish that took it,
4 Days ago
19 Beads lost to fish
14 inches of hook cuts on our index finger alone
45 Miles in the Boat
41 Orcas
58 Dungeness Crab,
39 Keepers in
1 Pot
Here at Neil Creek we only quantify a few things in integer form, like hours left in the fishing day, beers needed to get from A to B, gallons of fuel for same...important things. Most of the time, Quantities are registered in non-specific terms, i.e. "A few"..."a Bunch"..."an Assload"...and so on.
This weekend we counted a few things to go along with the pictures below. Some numbers are approximate, because as we pointed out previously, we only count important things.
90 Miles in a Cessna 180
10 Miles of Trail
448 Piles of Bear Poo
250 Dolly Varden
8 Sockeye
10 Coho
2 Rainbows
12 Beers
2 Flies used all day
1 Fly recovered from fish that took it,
4 Days ago
19 Beads lost to fish
14 inches of hook cuts on our index finger alone
45 Miles in the Boat
41 Orcas
58 Dungeness Crab,
39 Keepers in
1 Pot
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