After you’ve done a thing the same way for two years, look it over carefully. After five years, look at it with suspicion. After ten years, throw it away and start all over. ~ Alfred Edward Perlman, NYT, 3 July 1958
[After pecking out this monstrosity of a post and reading it again – it is about road gear for the fly fisherman. It just takes a while to get there.]
It’s mind-bogglingly easy to be become so set in our ways, even in our escapist world of fly fishing, that we miss out on a world of abundant opportunity.
Relative to fly fishing it’s happened to me at least a couple of times.
One such experience happened when living in Salt Lake City years ago – I fell in with a crowd of ‘big water’ guys.
Coincidently in those years a couple of children were added to the household. For the safety of my young children a high sided drift boat became an absolute necessity. She was bright red, named for my daughter and, given the fact she was painted outside and oiled inside (Deks Olje), she was light as a feather and a pure joy to row and fish from.
I knew the ‘big water guys’ loved the boat much more than me, and together we mostly fished the Green, South Fork of the Snake, Henry’s, Jackson Hole water and mainly the Madison and Missouri in Montana.
Fishing routinely from a big drifter allowed all sorts of creature comforts to enter the picture. A big cooler, boat boxes of flies and loads of camera and video gear were routine, and there was still room for a sunbathing female associate now and again.
During the season standard boat gear was cleaned and repacked into the boat after each trip; we could literally be on the road in under ten minutes after the call came in. Eight minutes of the ten was spent negotiating with She Who Must Be Obeyed and often getting a kid ready to tag along; two minutes or so was allotted to gathering food and beverages from the fridge.
It was nifty, but damned if it didn’t become just a bit too routine. Weakly offered in my defense – it did take a few years to become so.
It took a few years of living in Bozeman (several years later) with the attendant ‘embarrassment of riches’ of local water (and Yellowstone in the virtual backyard) to look back and genuinely realize that the ‘big water guys’ and the drifter floats had altered my skill set and perspectives of fishing radically back in the day.
There’s a huge difference between a 14 hour / roughly 20 river mile float on the Missouri from the Wolf Creek Bridge to Prewett (we had a friend with a house just north of Prewett) and spending 5 hours in the Firehole covering 200 yards and transitioning through hoppers and terrestrials to BWOs to White Miller Caddis.
Clearly both days could (and should) be great ones.
One of the things I love about drifting big water is that you’ll (likely) get lots of shots at lots of fish; miss one and there’s another coming right up. One of the things I love about wading and working a stretch meticulously is that you might spend half a day working a pod of fish with everything in the box and finally make it go. Or not. Inevitably on those wading days I see and hear more life on the river than ever imagined possible.
Each venue requires a different set of skills, gear, approach to the river and to the fish, photographic gear, fitness level and mindset. You might even argue that choice of fishing companions might vary pending the trip; most of my old ‘big water’ buds couldn’t catch a cold wade fishing the best of water.
So what in the hell does all this have to do with road gear, change and Cheetos?
Change happens.
While it took a few decades to figure it out, She Who Must Be Obeyed (and our crew) embrace change. We like fishing new water, meeting new friends, seeing how different folks living in different places get things done every day.
While it’s another story for another day, change is what has us temporarily ensconced in Austin setting up a satellite office for a Bozeman based company we own and manage. And while we both have historical roots in Texas (you can’t control where you were born) we find living here as different as night and day compared to Montana.
The business requires that I be on the road a fair amount, covering much of the country between Texas and Florida as well as the southern Rockies with some regularity. The nature of the business mandates driving for essentially all of the trips, making it easy to throw in fly fishing gear.
Or so I initially thought.
Two years ago the extent of planning for a fly fishing road trip in Montana was to grab the 4 and 6 wt. rod cases, my fly pack, the wader bag, water and a bag of
Cheetos.
My first run to Georgia and northern Florida last year posed a bit more of a planning challenge. I planned to route through Mobile and Pensacola, so the 8 weight and attendant gear / flies were needed for the salt. A contact in Augusta said to bring the 4 weight and trout flies along with full wading gear. Another said bring a full array of photo and video gear. Throw in the business gear and I almost needed a sherpa.
Long story short – I / we needed to plow through some serious options for traveling with an array of rods and necessary gear without having an overwhelming pile of stuff to wrestle with and tempt thieves.
Over the ensuing months we’ve dug through some options to simplify fly fishing travel and wonder what the hell other folks out there have found to work well for them. Your best tips and tricks will be much appreciated by all.
We’re also finishing up some interviews with manufacturers who have designed some innovative products – we’ll be posting these as they come back in and we distill them down a bit.
Not everyone has the jingle right now to pull off the Kamchatka trip. It’s a big world, and we’d venture you’ve got some water in your neighborhood or within a day or two drive that you should be fishing.
A little change in your fly fishing routine, and a willingness to travel to places you’ve not been before, can keep it fresh and make you a better fly fisher. We’ll be looking at ways to get your gear there and back in one piece over the next few weeks.
Change is good.
I put a dollar in one of those change machines. Nothing changed. ~ George Carlin
