Extravagant Ones:
As has been oft said, "you had to be there to believe it" at last night's Day 2 Group A Boat Reports! Not only did it go on for hours, but the sheer zany madness of it all was highlighted by the fact that Steve Glennon's 19 1/2" whopper quickly went from "Big Boy" to forth/fifth apart "Little Boy" before the madness had ended! Over the last several years there have been over 60 (count 'em!) prior boat reports but few have matched the brazen rebaldness of reports from Group A's second day in the wilds of incomparable Montana.
Where does one begin, other than at the beginning: In marked contrast to Terry "Surfer Boy" Wilson's self-description of his boat having been "a statute among a flock of fishless pigeons" and John Rosenbaum proudly reporting his catching and keeping a 27" brown (stick, that is) which was outmatched by his 8 year old Adam's 6" rainbow (the latter still trying to figure out an exit strategy for peeing on/off the boat), from there things went downhill (WAY down hill, believe it or not). Consider John "SOS" Reimann and Demetry "Stealth" Kondratieff's report of rain, hail, and no propane for a hot meal on the upper reaches of the West Fork of the Bitterroot accompanying a "20+ fish day" [after landing a 19 1/2" fish "within the first five minutes"], with sister Nicole of the Glennon sister boat reporting that "she got so excited with her first fish of the day, that my pants fell down!" [see what I mean about "going downhill"?!?] Pants notwithstanding Nicole and sister Danielle then proceeded to post a "15 to 17 fish awesome day."
And then it was Brad "Pinko" Colton's turn to report that all that his boasted pink boa had served to do was (a) attract and cause him to hook "two fish on the back-cast" {as only The Pink One knows how to do]and (b) make a donation to his guide's fly tying materials, all in prelude to fishing partner Steve Glennon's landing a 19" beauty that, one day earlier, would have also landed him a Yellow Hat, but not on this [second] day! The big boat of the first day (literally and figuratively), "Big Ben" Lamb and "Two If By Land" Tawney's craft next reported of a "comparatively tough day on the Bitterroot", boating just five fish (with the largest being 18"), down substantially from their previous day's 60 fish tally (see, I told you things were heading downhill, but, hang on gang, as we are just gaining downhill momentum!), to wit:
(a) The twosome of Ann "In Like" Flynn and Ron "Yellow Hat" Bjarnason reported of a three fish total (with Ann complaining that "she had never been so cold as since when on a ski slope" and then proudly confessing to the two dozen assembled witnesses that "before today, I had never nymphed before"--as in "Hi, my name is Ann and I am a nymph[er]!"), but one of those three was a magnificent 21 1/2" Cuttbow landed by the Yellow Hatter. Ron mistakenly thought that his fine catch (and release) would win him a Yellow Hat only to find out first that he had been mistaken and then, later, that his mistake was actually the mistaken part of the equation {phew, this Blogmastering is hard work, gang!], for...
(b) THEN came along "Pineapple Jeanne" Cahill's martini-sotten solo report on the luncheon repast of her day, followed by her fiancée and fishing partner's report of the hunting, finding, hooking, and landing of a 26" Bulltrout on and from the sacred waters of the Big "A River Runs Through It" Blackfoot river (see magnificent photo above). BUT imagine proud Rich "Pink Panther" Kotoff's disappointed surprise that he was not the last report to be heard from and that his finely photographed and chronicled catch (the up-to-then second largest fish caught in Extravaganza history) was subject to being trumped not once, but twice, as ...
(c) FOR THEN crack fishing veterinary duo of Chris "BIIX" Rodi and Jim "Swordfish" Clark came to the forefront to explain their having experienced the throes of global warming during their second day of fishing, notwithstanding the day "having been colder than a witches tit in January" (their phrase, not mine--I am just a faithful reporter, you know!). It seems that the unidentified waters that they had traversed that day had seen the migration of new species of fish into the sacred waters of Montana's streams, as first displayed photographically by BIIX hooking (on my Winston BII X rod, btw) a monster from the deep, only then to see partner "Swordfish" grabbing and landing the fish by its bill (no less) "after a 50 to 60 minute fight" which was "the biggest fish of our fly fishing life", so big (it was 6' long, gang!) that it was spayed (as only a vet could/would do), filleted and displayed on their portable bbq, taking over 5 hours to cook @ 18" at a time. You can each imagine the crestfallen state of the Pink Panther at this juncture [his catch being but a fraction of the globally warmed veterinary phenomenon]...
(d) BUT THEN the ignored twosome of Marty "Two Hat" Siler and "I am your son" Luke demanded the floor and attention as it seems that where they had fished on the Blackfoot "it had been 72 degrees, sunny but windy" so much so the latter, however, that, during lunch, their guide's salad had self launched itself displaying salad dressing on the water resulting in a 27" spill that attracted a fish of equal size that, when landed, had lettuce extending over its rear fin. There being no photographic of any of this b.s., it was appropriately tagged as such, with Marty nonetheless being permitted to keeping his earlier day's Yellow Hat and scolded for telling "outrageous fish tales".
At the end of it all, for this is the end of this tale of tales, (i) the Swordfish was disqualified because it had been eaten; (ii) the salad dressing story was undressed and discarded; (iii) at the insistence of Outfitter "John The Great But Propaneless" Gould, Ron Bjarnason was awarded a Yellow Hat "for the largest true trout"; (iv) The Pink Panther was likewise doffed in Yellow for the largest fish of the day and (v) fiancée "Pineapple Jeanne" Cahill concluded it all by boasting "That was one great martini!"
As Walter Cronkite would conclude, "And that's the way it was this 22nd day of June."
RCR
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