Kicking off a travel month this weekend at Hell or High Water ’15, held at West Branch Angler on the Delaware River. The fly-fishing gathering, film festival and brewfest is held near Hancock, New York, and serves as an unofficial “kick off” for the local trout season. A crew from Orvis has been manning the event all weekend, running a booth, a women’s showcase, and teaching Fly Fishing 101 classes. Fun to see folks from all over the region—including the large cities—made the drive out to explore this weird thing we all know and love.
There is something incredibly awesome about helping someone through their first casts. I reminded a nervous angler yesterday we were all there at one point, and we laughed of his anxiety as he took aim at my ball cap, nestled in the grass several yards away.
It always seems to take folks a few weeks to come out of the winter funk and gather energy for the new season, and it’s fun to see friends, exchange travel plans, and hear what kept everyone occupied through the long, dark winter months. Every time I’m in a gathering of anglers out here, I’m more and more impressed by the regional differences of an already small sector of people.
Fly fishers around the globe will always have some level of like-mindedness, but the differences between my familiar Western anglers and the Northeastern crew is remarkable. There is no noise at film showings—no cheering and hooting and stomping, a severe judgement scale on nymph v. dry fly v. streamer, and several intangibles that I probably shouldn’t name here. Good and bad on both sides of the spectrum, and maybe the regionality is what keeps it interesting. At any rate, it’s an interesting study in humanity.
Getting in a bit of fishing on the Delaware today, then headed back to Vermont for a whirlwind two days before flying out to Montana for two and a half weeks of editorial, commercial and event shoots. Right now my living room is home to a conglomerate of duffels, Pelican cases, backpacks, lighting gear, props, and fishing gear. So ready to get this show on the road and get back to my mountains. Expect some fun updates in the coming few weeks!
(Neither New York or Montana – it’s the Belize River. Here’s to travel to break out of the late winter-early spring doldrums.)
