Saturday Shoutout / Deeter on the Sport of FlyFishing, CO Snowpack, Moncada Tying Videos
This week’s Saturday Shoutout we bring you three quick fly fishing related links. The first is from Kirk Deeter at Fly Talk about how a Father and son fly fishing relationship has changed his past view that fly fishing isn’t a sport. The second is a quick report on snowpack levels for the South Platte range in CO and how unexpected lat April snowfall has the upcoming fly fishing season looking bright. The third is a link to Erik Moncada’s youtube channel, that show cases several great fly tying videos.
Read More »Adventures on Playground Earth
Kent and I are back from our BF Goodrich, Playground Earth / Owyhee River adventure. After spending the weekend in a coma, more or less, I’m rubbing the sleep from my eyes and trying to make sense of the surreal events of the last two weeks.
It seems like a year ago, we were power sliding the Ford Raptor around hairpin turns at sixty-five mph and feeling a little awkward when the director referred to us as athletes. Looking around at the room full of world class competitors and then at our beer guts, we didn’t feel like athletes but everyone (cast and crew alike) treated us with such respect and warmth that we felt like we belonged.
We made new friends, learned new skills and I got to experience the awkward feeling of being in front of the camera rather than tucked safely behind it. Our week at Miller Motor Sports was a learning experience all around but it didn’t prepare us for what was ahead.
Kent and I are used to rolling up on a river we’ve never seen and figuring out the local fish. That is, after all, what we do and over the years we’ve gotten fairly good at it but it became clear early on that this trip was going to be different. We were
Read More »April Photo Caption Contest Winner
Big thank you to everyone who participated in the April photo caption contest gear giveaway last week. Great job on giving me crap about fly fishing in my boxers. Lord knows, I deserved it, but despite me looking like a total lunatic, it was a good way to deter other anglers from fishing our water. Many of you are probably wondering how I ended up in this situation. I was trying to untangle fly line in the prop during a massive cluster truck on the river when I got pulled off a boulder I was standing on as I tried to keep the boat from drifting downstream of me. I learned that a back up gear box is worthless if you leave it in the truck at the boat ramp.
Read More »Sunday Classic / High Point
Tim looks like he has swallowed his tongue. He’s pale, eyes dilated, the corners of his mouth twitching. He’s soaked in sea water, eyes burning and red. His fingers digging into his seat bottom, he squints and stiffens like a corpse preparing for the next wave which drops the little skiff hard. It sounds like a car crash and sends another five gallons of water into our faces. Nothing, it appears will stop the next navy blue, six foot wave from hurdling over the bow. It’s a fraction of an inch from doing just that when the bow lifts. The wave seems to ride the bow up, hovering literally an eight of an inch from crashing over into the cockpit for a few seconds. And then the whole thing starts again. Norman Rolle, our guide stands stoic in the back of the boat, a buff bearing the Rio logo pulled up over his face all the way to his Smith wraparound sunglasses. His right hand is on the back of Tim’s seat, his left gently twisting the throttle of the outboard, accelerating up the waves then coasting down, steering us carefully through the cross currents and surf crashing into, and back from the wall of jagged rock that the Bahamians call High Point. High Point is one of the most inhospitable places I’ve ever seen. It juts into the Atlantic like a knife blade for a quarter mile, huge rough hewn boulders guarding it’s coast. It separates the inhabited northeast coast of South Andros Island from the wild and isolated south. It can only be passed on a fairly calm day, and today is not so calm.
Tim leans over to me and says nervously, “Jesus, this is bad”. I’m suddenly aware that I’m grinning and quite possibly looking a bit out of my mind.
Read More »Saturday Shoutout / Tim Romano’s Argentina Cast and Blast
Tim Romano is back from a cast and blast trip to Argentina and he’s showing off the photos over at Fly Talk. Tim is one of the best photographers working in fly fishing and there are some amazing images in this slide show. Sit back, relax and enjoy!
Argentina Cast and Blast
Book Review, “The View From Coal Creek” by Erin Block
I HAVE TO CONFESS I HAVE A WRITER’S CRUSH ON ERIN BLOCK.
I started following her blog, Mysteries Internal, a couple of years ago and the sound of Erin’s voice in my head became as familiar as a favorite song. When she first started posting about taking on the challenge of making her first bamboo rod, my interest was peaked.
Her writing was so vivid and honest, it took me straight back to the days I first set a plane to bamboo. The smells, sounds and feelings all came rushing back. I was sincerely jealous. I was not writing when I learned to make rods. What an opportunity, to document that process. What genius to seize that opportunity.
“The View From Cole Creek,” Erin’s new book, is the result. A day by day account of the birth of a bamboo rod maker. And born they are, not made. Having been through the process, I can attest to the authenticity of Erin’s account. It took me
Read More »G&G April Photo Caption Contest and Giveaway
G&G APRIL PHOTO CAPTION CONTEST & GEAR GIVEAWAY
Yes, that’s me fly fishing in January for musky in my boxers. I know, I’m going to catch all kinds of hell for this one, but it’s a perfect photo for a caption contest and giveaway. Let the smack down begin and submit your best caption for a chance to win the following:
Read More »Sunday’s Classic / Why I Always Carry a Backup Gear Box
Have you ever made it to the river after a two hour drive and realized when you got there, you had forgot to pack one of your crucial pieces of fishing gear? I’ll be the first to admit I’ve been that unfortunate angler plenty of times, and it can ruin a day of fishing. A few years back I was forced to spend a day on Depuy’s Creek in MT wading around in a pair of my Justin cowboy boots. It was really ironic because I spent the morning packing all the gear for my virgin fly fishing buddies, and I was the one that ended up leaving my damn wading boots on the front porch. Those Justin boots were surprisingly comfortable wading around in, but they had zero traction and I looked like a moron. I’ve never forgot my wading boots on a fishing trip since.
Read More »Saturday Shoutout / FlyFishing Oldies but Goodies
This weeks Saturday shoutout I re-shed some light on a few fly fishing articles that are oldies but goodies. All of these were good reads the first time around and they’re still worthy of our time to re-visit and read a second time because of their valuable information and entertainment.
Read More »On The Road to Hollywood
Kent Autographing the Tires Well, it may not be Hollywood exactly but it’s big news for G&G. Kent and I are living the dream! We’re excited and honored to be chosen for a segment in the film “Playground Earth,” sponsored by BFGoodrich. That’s right, we gonna be movie stars! In our own minds anyway. Here’s the scoop. BFGoodrich has flown us to Salt Lake City UT where we, along with three other teams of adventure athletes, are getting our school on at a four day professional off road driving course. Once we are are trained stunt drivers, and general menaces to public safety, we will hit the road as the first leg of an extreme relay race across the American west. The good folks at BFGoodrich are supplying us with a pimp F150 4X4 and some sweet tires and we are headed to Idaho and Oregon to fish the Owyhee river with a film crew from Camp 4. If you are not familiar with their work you need to check out the Camp 4 Vimeo page. These guys are amazing! They might even make ‘us’ look good. The Owyhee is gaining the reputation of being one of the best trophy trout rivers in the country. It’s name is being mentioned along side rivers like The White in AR. It’s apparently home to some big brown trout that are notoriously tough. Kent and I are excited to see the Owyhee and get a first hand look at some of those browns. The river gets a lot of pressure and we plan to put those Goodrich tires to the test and find some prime water that’s off the beaten path. Here’s where things get interesting. After we’ve done our best on the Owyhee, we will tear ass across a couple of states … Continue reading
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