Even warmer weather than that of toasty Day One greeted the WTF Ones on Day Two of their E-13 experience, and the fishing heated up as well (even Minnow Mel and his partner Tom “Fruit Cup” Riggs [see separate posting for more on that name which FC desperately wants to change—thereby making it even more indelible!] had good things to report!). Temperatures climbed into the upper 80’s resulting in rising water temperatures, accelerated bug activity and every boat getting to throw dry flies with remarkably wonderful success. Witness rookie Tarry “Pole” Winfrey who began the boat reports by proudly announcing that he hooked, fought, landed, photed and then released his very first trout on a dry fly in the “second best day of fishing of his life” (the first being Day One!).
Fishing is fishing, not catching, however and as spoken and reported by our first reportees, Chris “Bull” Barger (his guide told me this morning as they were leaving for Day Three that “that boy just want to fish for Dolly Varden!”) and his beautiful wife Mayte “Hooters” Barger. Bull reported in landing three 18 inch fish on the Blackfoot, including one of his namesake, and Hooters reported that “it was a good pork loin lunch but ‘mas fish or no more guide’”—all in jest of course followed by “Two License” Eddie Downer and his partner Brian “Nostradamus” Pretti who, in spite of my own meager showing on the upper Clark Fork yesterday, found the same to be true for them, although the afternoon lit up for them and they had the chance to get out of the boat to stalk a monster fish who proved to be wiser than the two sages and their veteran guide…oh, well, WTF!
The SS/SOS Reimann/Kondrasheff went way up the Bitterroot to Darby, however, where they landed “44 fish”—John the cpa being ever so careful on his reporting skills which are far better that his camera skills as, once again, he had his camera on video mode and did not get the benefit (or proof, btw, come to think if it) of landing his 20” rainbow, thereby putting him on the Twenty Inch Club board as he appears year after year. Also as typical, not much was either heard or seen of Demetry “The Ghost”, but the dynamic duo indeed flirted with the devil when they arrived at Hooters exactly 30 seconds before having the privilege of picking up the tap for the then-sated Ones. Congrats SOS—I expect and suspect that we will be seeing The Ghost making his annual appearance on the Board come the end of this Day Three…news at 11.
And then along came the Rosenbaum mini fleet of two boats, where Tarry “Pole” showed his pole prowess as mentioned above and the boys “Big Ben” and “Yellow Hat Adam” spent the day together to the actual delight of Brian Grand, their complementing guide, regaling the Ones, er WTF Ones, with the report of their doubling up on a Blackfoot bull and bow, the former of which was “two and a half dollar bills long” [it seems that neither guide nor clients had the measuring tapes we so kindly provided to each on Day One]. “Big Ben” (a senior in high school this coming term) reported of a “raft full of chicks” that passed them mid day and little bro Adam innocently asking Guide Brian “is it okay if I touch one of them?”, only to later explain that he, Adam, never even saw the raft of gals, but, rather, was referring to the gaggle of passing mergansers with their trailing “chicks”. WTF. Amdist all of the chaos, father John landed a 19 1/2 “ rainbow only to have no one around to take his pic with the finned finery, the rest of the gang being fully occupied and distracted in the manner just described. WTF!
Day One big stickers Jimmie “The Hawk” Hagle and “Dangerous Doug” Pacatte next reported on landing over 20 Blackfoot “grandbabies of the ones we caught yesterday” only to be superseded (finally!) by the report of “Minnow Mel” Mc Cormack and Tom “Fruit Cup” Riggs’ 25+ Blackfoot fish day with FC doing the true five trout species Grand Slam, winning FC his first Yellow Hat for his bull, brook, brown, rainbow and cutthroat captures (and releases!)—bravo, FC!!
The Shepard siblings of Eliza “The Beautiful” and Nicholas “The Tsar” also had a lively report to submit, highlighted by the former eloquently telling all of her special side casting abilities that resulted in she casting herself all the way out of the boat (but saving all gear, sunglasses and flies, sans a bit of pride however) and the latter telling of his landing “his first bull trout of the year”, a 19” specimen together with “a lot of 16”-17” other fish”. Bravo, Tsar—no revolution on that boat! The Handron father-son team of “Whitey” and “Son of Whitey” next reported on their Bitterroot day which yielded to them a better crop than their first day—a total of 15, in fact: 5 being trout and the balance, get this, being appropriately white fish. I love it when those MT names bear reality!
And then, wah wah, along came Josef “Fear the Beard” Shepard who showed all that he is to be equally feared when beardless. Shown above signing into the Twenty Inch Club, and then with FC in their Yellow Hats, Fear Me told of first smacking veteran guide Chris Stroup with his fly right out the box and then proceeding to land not only the 20” cuttbow shown above, but also the One size leading 25” bull trout that, get this, came complete with a 10” rainbow stuffed inside with only his tail sticking out. It seems that Josef had first hooked the smaller bow and, while bringing it to the boat, the larger bull chased and ingested it whole while on the retrieve and, unlike all other similar circumstances when something identical to this has happened in prior Extravaganzas, the bull refused to let go and Josef was able to land all 35” of them in a single net. For those in the concern, the first thing that guide Chris did was to extract the otherwise doomed 10” rainbow and successfully release it and then dealt with the bull with a wonderful set of ensuing photos. Congrats, Josef—this is, indeed, an Extravaganza first.
The Ones then engaged in a detailed five second discussion as to whether Josef had caught a 25” fish or 35 inches of fish, or both. In true One tradition, the group, after solemn though insanely brief deliberation, said right in stride with its new found tradition, “What the Fuck let’s count them both”…so we have and did!!
Phew, these Ones are a piece of (wonderful) work…it is hard being RCR!!
Best to all from the scene of it all,
Rock Creek Ron
---<’///><
No comments:
Post a Comment