Southern Culture On The Fly Is Throwing A Tying Party

I figured putting out a new magazine was leaving a little too much free time on my hands (idle hands are the devil’s workshop and all that jazz), so to remedy the situation, we I have decided to try our hands at philanthropy. We are proud to announce our first ever SCOF event, The Tie-One-On-A-Thon, benefiting Project Healing Waters. Have you ever been hit up to pledge for a walk-a-thon? Well, we thought this was a pretty inane way to raise money for something. Walking around in a circle for hours only gets you back to where you started, but tying flies for hours on end gets you a butt load of flies…a much better trade-off in our opinion. So we are inviting some of the region’s best fly tiers down to SCOF headquarters (i.e. Steve’s art studio) on February 27th, for a good old-fashioned winter tying session. The tiers will all collect pledges based on either how many flies they tie or for how many hours they tie.  Since we are gonna have about 25-35 tiers at this thing we can’t exactly keep folks out, so instead, we are gonna charge to get in.  The price of admission will reflect the tough economic times that fly fisherman face these days and will be a small pittance in exchange for a Sunday spent checking out some of the region’s best tiers and how they do (and yes, I am hip enough to say that).We are also gonna be selling Tie-One-On-A-Thon fly collections from all the tiers after the event with 100% of the proceeds from the event going towards healing veterans with fly fishing. Curtis Wright Outfitters has already signed on as a presenting sponsor for the event, which should give a certain whiff of legitimacy to the whole affair, and we have set up an information page on our website for the event (which can be reached off our homepage). So mark your calendars for February 27, 2011 and check the website and blog for updates on details, as we will be throwing them up as we get them. Oh yeah did I mention the local beer and roasted swine on tap? I always forget to mention that. Should be a good one.

– Dave

 

Wydaho, I Love You So

This, my friends, will be the last installment of my tall tale.  When we left off our protagonists were on their way out of Utah and on the road to Jackson…Hole that is…heavy on the hole.  I hadn’t been to the Hole in a few years,  but you have to admire Jackson for its consistency.  Drunk assholes outside the Cowboy Bar, Asian tourists snapping pics in front of the antler arches, and drift boats attached to every other truck…just like I left it.  If anyone out there is a big fan of the scene over in Gatlinburg I highly recommend adding Jackson to your next western itinerary…I mean who doesn’t love getting an old-timey photo made of them and their sweetheart dressed up like a cowboy and an old west hooker…I know I do (Murphy, the picture turned out great by the way).  Once you get out-of-town a ways the real reason you go to Jackson becomes stunningly clear…the Tetons, the Snake,  and dumb ass Cutties that would eat a turd fly if was made out of foam..just to name a few.

We rolled into Jackson late and decided that sleeping in the truck in some church parking lot would make the most sense.  Let me interject here that I was not in on that decision making process as I was already asleep in the back of the truck, my vote would have been a more secular location to Hobo the night away…like maybe the parking lot of a Gentleman’s Club of ill repute…truly I’m lucky I didn’t spontaneously combust  just driving into the parking lot.  We woke up the next morning and got all the proper documentation for the boat and ourselves and headed into Grand Teton National Park to float Deadman’s to Moose on the Snake.  It is hard to say that it was bad float when you have the Teton’s in the background of every cast, but the Snake turned out be a cruel mistress that day.  We caught fish, but not at a pace that the Snake is known for.  One of my buddies, Mark Buljean out of Westbank Anglers, guided the same section that day and said it was uncharacteristically poopy…an Mark knows his poop.

We  were still searching for that day of lights out fishing we had driven all the way out west for.  We had looked in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming for the elusive bastard but kept coming up snake eyes.  So when out West if the shit hits the fan, the only place left to go is Idaho.  The South Fork to be specific, my new favorite river to be even more specific. The S. Fork not only coughed up one day of great fishing, but the river was nice enough to throw a second day of stellar fishing at us for our troubles.  Our two days on the S. Fork yielded more  fish then any of us could keep count of and enough big fish that we all left muttering, “Holy Shit”.  It was my first time there, and like all first times it left me tired, a little scared, and wanting a lot more.

Like all things that kick ass our time on the S. Fork drew to an end and we packed up our stuff and headed back east.  The ride back was miserable but uneventful.  This trip like every other road trip I’ve ever been on had moments of humor, misery, elation, and shame.  Lucky for us I was too heavily medicated most of the time to write down the shameful ones and the pictures helped me piece together the rest.  Oh yeah did I mention I stuck an open pack of lunch meat in Murphy’s car at the beginning of the week (which then sat in Kentucky closed up in a 100 degree heat for a week) and he didn’t find it until a week and a half after we got home…you could say Murphy got Roast Beefed…I might even say he got Hormeled.

– Nymph-o

Utah…I Think I Have A Little Morman In Me…And I Think I Like It

The last time I left you we were on our way out of Colorado and on our way to wild and woolly Utah.  I had lived next to Utah for a number of years, while in Colorado, but I never personally made the trek over.  My reasons at the time were numerous but they all boiled down to Utah freaked me out.  I am a man of certain proclivities that your average tabernacle attending Ute would not appreciate nor tolerate (Utah is not exactly famous for it’s high levels of tolerance). I always imagined myself in a Utah prison being forced to take on as many wives as possible.  Unfortunately this would not be  as much fun as it sounds.  Personally my one wife cuts in on my fishing time to an almost unbearable level, with 10 wives I would be lucky to get out once every decade (…plus I am way to lazy to satisfy ten women…I can barely work up enough energy to satisfy myself most days…a tear just rolled down my cheek).  I don’t want people to get the wrong idea here, I have nothing against Mormans.  They seem like a happy go lucky bunch…I was just a little terrified by the draconian nature of their law enforcement.  So with much trepidation we crossed into Utah on our way to the thriving metropolis of Dutch John.

Upon our arrival in Dutch John we arranged shuttles through the nice folks over at Trout Creek Flies and ran over to the Flaming Gorge Dam to get an evening session in on Section A of the Ripley’s Believe It Or Not Aquarium West also known as the Green River.   We threw the boat in at the dam, put on our life jackets and off we went for our first taste of Utah tailwater tomfoolery.

We started throwing hoppers right from the start and the trout thankfully started eating them from right from the start.  The Moorish Hopper out performed everything else we threw and we beat them up pretty good all the way until dark  when we took out at Little Hole. 

The word on section A is, that it is scenic and full of middle of the road fish.  I don’t know what happened because most of the fish we caught that night would take great offense to being called middle of the road.

You will notice that my lovable mug is missing in these grip and grins.  The reason for this, is that I am a moron.  I thought the fishing would remain this good the next day and I should give the fellas a good evening session and then they could split most of the rowing the next day.  I am a moron.

We awoke the next day with a plan to do Sections A and B.  The day started off fine with Ryan rowing and yours truly in the front of the boat where I belong.  I was able to bang out a couple of rainbows early.

It was just after my mid-morning trout snack that the wind picked up to more than a slight gust.  Here I would like to state, that if wind was a person I would kill it, I would then go to jail and die content that I rid the world of the insipid wind so no other fly fisherman would have to endure what we did that day.  I understand that when you fish out west wind is always a factor, but there’s a difference between wind and what we had to deal with that day.  Spray being constantly blown off the water and the boat being pushed up stream is a whole different monster and one that I personally will not put up with anymore.  Luckily for us Murphy found a pair of old blu-blockers that kept us entertained for a spell.

We spent the rest of the day catching a few fish here and there and taking in all the wind swept scenery.

We had originally planned on floating Section C the next day but, with another good blow in the forecast, we made a game time decision to pack up and bust ass to Wydaho.   We were intrigued by the possibility of spotting the common western redneck that is so close in relation to our redneck variety at home.  I have a theory that a band of southern rednecks migrated across the great plains many years ago only to settle in the Republic of Wydaho to grow numerous and flourish.  But alas, that is a story for another day…I’m Sleepy.

Till next time,

– Nymph-o

What I Did On My Summer Vacation (The First Episode)

I have to start out by apologizing for the delay on this trip report. I would say my schedule has been crazy (which it has), but the real reason for the delay has been my mortal fear of becoming a unic late in life, at the hands of wifey.  You can’t take a ten-day fishing trip and then get back and immediately expound upon the awesomeness of it without fear of major repercussions.  A sufficient waiting period must be observed,  if you are like me and take comfort in not having your testicles become the target of a berzerker like rampage at the hands of your significant other.

I have decided to break away from my Naked Lunch, stream of consciousness literary style and actually lend some organization to this post. So let’s start off with the drive out there.  Twenty seven hours straight in the truck,  the smells, sounds, and overall wretchedness of that truck cab will haunt me for the rest of my life.  I still have nightmares about Doritos, beef jerky, and the inevitable sphincter rot that ensued.  Seriously, if there was a way to harness the power of our collective colons on that drive, a psychological weapon, the likes of which man cannot comprehend, could be unleashed on our enemies guaranteeing total world domination.  The highlight of the drive was eating at the Bobber Cafe, a place so weird it was a must we eat there twice.

Apparently the Bobber Cafe is where middle America goes to die, because the collection of the almost dead was numerous and diverse at the Bobber.  I think a fat guy, an old person with an oxygen tank, and the circus freak bus girl (I say girl, but she was at least 97 years old) expired while we were waiting on our chicken fried steaks and choking down cigarettes in the only establishment in America that it’s still legal to smoke at the while you eat.

Pulling into the world headquarters of Hog Island Boatworks, in beautiful Steamboat Springs, CO, the fishing could finally begin.  Our timing couldn’t have been better as Hog Fest was scheduled for that very night on a private access reservoir full of rainbows that had a predilection for the foam.  

Another important lesson was learned on the reservoir that day.  Bow lines are your friends when putting a boat in…even on a lake.After getting our fill of fish, food, and drink we retired for the evening and slept off the drive (and the drink) ready to get our first western float in on the Colorado river the next day.  The Colorado is a freestone river and the flows are at the whimsy of mother nature.  Let me be the first to say that Mother Nature can be a cruel wench when it comes to the weather in the Rocky Mountains.  On the drive down to the river we got nailed by what would become the theme of the trip…stormy weather.  We drove past the put in and breathed a sigh of relief when we found good clear water for our float.  Driving up steam of our put in that relief was cast upon the rocks like a virgin being sacrificed to the Kraken, when we came upon a Campbell’s tomato soup commercial where we had expected to see the river.  Like all best laid plans we had to come up with a new one.  The very top section of the river lacked the feeder creeks that screwed us on the lower, so the decision was made to keep going up river.  Unfortunately what the upper section lacks in feeder creeks it more than makes up for with one of the most intense rubber hatches I have seen in a while.  At least a hundred boats full of screaming morons passed us on the way down.  Let me take this opportunity to say that a class three river does in no way warrant screaming your head off for 6 hours straight.  Next time you decide to take a rafting trip please use your inside voices…idiot. We caught some fish early on but the rafters put an end to that pretty quick.    So with a few nice fish under our belts we headed back to Steamboat to fish the Yampa for a little bit while we waited for the Fluff and Buff to be completed on my drift boat by my man John St. Juan over at Hog Island.  

The funny thing is that weekends in Colorado are pretty similar to weekends here in the south.  If a river has fish there are going to be a ton of people fishing it…funny how that works.  Since the Yampa runs through town the access is unlimited as well as the crowds.  Somewhat downtrodden by rafters, tubers, and the public in general we made an appeal to John at Hog Island to show us some good water where the scene was more like a trout river and less like a remake of Weekend at Bernie’s.  John came through like he always does and took us to a special place in Wyoming/Idaho/South Carolina dubbed the “Hopper Hole”.  The hopper hole lived up to its name coughing up some big rainbows that saved the day in what proved to be a great evening session after a long day of dealing with the masses.

This Is Our New Friend...Let's Call Him Uncle Stinky...Honestly I Forgot His Name...Sorry Uncle Stinky...You Rule

That is gonna have to do it for now as my customers are beginning to give me dirty looks, but next time around we’ll talk about Utah and the lively Mormon people who live there, can you say Mormon…I knew you could.

– Nymph-o

Tosh.O Life Enrichment

I know everyone is waiting for the epic B.R.M.R.M.S.S (see previous posts for acronym) trip report, but I got busy guiding seeing as our trip has now bankrupted us, according to wifey.  Trip report will be coming Monday but until then I offer you this eye crack that resulted in a great many pee-pee pants situations throughout the entirety of our trip.

– Nymph-o

On the Road to Shangri-La

As this message reaches you the boys and I are ballz deep in a 27 hour road trip.  The destinations are multiple and fleeting in nature depending on who you ask.  All I know is that when we get there I expect to be ballz deep in trout in short order.

– Nymph-o