This past week the Orvis Guide Rendezvous returned, once again, to Missoula, Montana. Hundreds of guides, lodge owners, and industry folks descended upon the downtown Holiday Inn, Caras Park, and the surrounding bats / eating establishments for meetings, seminars, and several well-heeled cocktail parties. The Orvis crew did a good job of putting everything together and, as always seems to happen, the real business got done over beers at night and in random parking lot meetings around Missoula.
I came into town early to participate in an Orvis roundtable regarding women in fly fishing; troubleshooting the perceived problems for women in the sport. After a couple days of interesting discussion, I was more than ready for some time on the water. Fortunately we were able to spend Thursday on the water, and I was teamed with new friend Liz and fantastic, chill guide Mitch from PRO Outfitters. (If you’re looking for a Missoula guide, would highly recommend.) A couple of nice Bitteroot cutthroat and a brown trout later, things were looking a little better.
Saturday morning I somehow got talked into participating in the Guide Olympics qualifiers. Guides can try out in qualifiers, and then the top three for each event — casting, rescue rope throwing, and timed rigging — go to the finals, held at the Down the Hatch Festival in Caras Park that afternoon. It was fantastic to see such a good turnout — 23 women gave the qualifiers a go, and competition was fierce on the men’s side of things.
Apparently I qualified for both casting and rescue rope throwing, because that afternoon I found myself sitting on the pavilion steps at Caras Park with a small group of finalists, awaiting our time to compete in front of the thousands of people gathered. I looked around at our little group of women’s finalists — Bozeman friend Reba to my right, Missouri River guide and old friend Beth and her sister Laura to my left. Montana represent!
Beth, Reba, and Maddie Brenneman, who I’d worked with on a Costa shoot last year, were the three rigging finalists and it was Reba who walked away with the fastest time and a new rod. Beth, myself, and a Missoula event volunteer were the finalists for rescue rope throwing. Earlier in the morning I’d laughed at the rope bags. Growing up, it had always something we’d had in the boat, and I’d poured over countless river rescue books at the tender age of ten, but somehow I’d never actually thrown them. With Yeti coolers lined up as targets, we had three rope bags at our feet, and the option to re-stuff as needed. The first one to get the bag into the Yeti won. Pretty simple.
Three minutes into the competition, none of us had landed the bag into the Yeti. We’d bounced off the rims, gone over and fallen short, but no go. Instead of taking the time to re-stuff the bags, I’d kicked off my sandals and stuffed them in… a theory which apparently didn’t work as I watched both the bag and my sandal go sailing into the crowd. Watch your bag ballast when you’re stuffing, kids. (PSA: no one was wounded by various flying objects.) Eventually the Missoula gal got in, and on the next throw I was in. We laughed it off and moved on to casting.
I can honestly say this was a new way of casting. Competitors had to put our heads on a rod tube balanced on the ground and spin ten times — apparently this is some variant of a childhood game, but I’d gone my entire lie avoiding it. Beth and I were both in the running (shout out to Beth for being the only woman to qualify for all three events!), joined by Texas guide Jenny Mayrell-Woodruff. After watching the men go, and all surreptitiously fall to the ground after spinning (bonus points to the guys for figuring out to just stay on their knees and cast!) I volunteered to lead the women.
Head to the rod tube, ten spins. My goal was to just stay on my feet (accomplished), and after some wild staggering, found the fly rod and got to casting to the targets — four hula-hoops set at varying distances. The first two were solid, but before casting to the third I moved my feet. Big mistake. The ground wavered underneath my feet, and it took a few casts to land the “fly” into the third hoop. The fourth was fine, but the third has cost time. After we’d all gone, Beth had the fastest time by just under two seconds, and I was second. We laughed and headed for the beer.
It’s healthy now and then to not take ourselves too seriously. Though I’m not sure if I’d recommend publicly casting while you’re about to fall down, but hey, it was pretty fun. And I took some a new reel and line to boot.
Thanks to the Orvis crew — especially Hutch, in charge of the Guide Olympics — for putting on another fun event, and for the guides and lodge teams who took the time to attend. Here’s to a killer season to come, and look forward to seeing many of you in the field and on the river.
