Extravagant Ones and Extravaganza Followers:
The high (actually low, no, on second thought actually high as in the next day hung over) reputation of our first group continues, as, your one and only Hostess With The Mostess, Kocktail Kathy, just came in to HQ Central saying, "I simply can't believe how much liquor and wine we have gone through already...you know me, I ALWAYS have enough but not this year!" Well, a spiritually high time is being had by our record-setting Group Aers, as reflected by last night's boat reports.
Shown above (in a second posting of this wonderful picture) is Kansas City-resident Marty "Two Hat" Siler, sporting his dual spoils of last night: (a) a white Double Up Outfitters hat for wining the Gag Gift award for his self-made contraption of plumbing equipment for his guide's boat usage [what a stitch his presentation was to the assembled group at Kesel's Fly Shop [our morning jumping off point of departure] and (b) the coveted Yellow Hat, one of two issued last evening for the largest fish (read, "trout", Pink Panther!) caught and released of the day, in both cases (for Two Hat and Rich "Pink Panther" Kotoff) 19" browns hunted, hooked and netted on the Bitterroot River--our targeted river for E 09 for now clearly obvious reasons!
Leading off the boat reports was John Rosenbaum who told tale after tale of his Father's Day adventure(s) with his two boys, Adam age 8 and Ben age 12, the highlights of which were the 4" trout landed by dad and son Adam's need to "take a pee" whereupon, when their guide guided their Blackfoot River boat to shore, Adam chose to exit left instead of right, swimming with the fishes as it were (safely, I might add!). Next was Jeanne Cahill's first-ever boat/pineapple report, noting that the highlight of her first-ever fly fishing day was lunch shared with her fiancée The Pink Panther, RCR and his son Tyler--a lunch that featured specially guide-cut pineapple that, at the end of the day, was the apple of her eye (along with PP's 19" beauty that, so pineapple blinded, she conveniently for got to tell the assembled two dozen!).
Steve Glennon, a returnee after a four year absence, then reported "golf is sure easier than fly fishing", but nonetheless telling of his US Open fishing experience with Brad "Pinko" Colton and his two beautiful daughters, Nicole and Danielle. The pair of boats fished the Blackfoot River and landed over 24 fish, with the largest being in the 16" category, and Nicole reporting that the highlight/lowlight of her day ("after laughing all day") was watching her guide attempting to dislodge a fly high above from a tree that had the audacity to stand in the way of her cast. A similar Blackfoot tale was told by "Big Ben" Lamb and "Two If By Land" Tawney, who, in veteran of veterans Ben's words had "his best day of Montana floating ever" [lofty words for one resident here and in charge of MWF's state issues] netted "between 50 and 60 fish") the largest being Big Ben's 17 incher, with sorrow expressed by both John "SOS" Reimann and Demetry "Stealth" Kondrasheff that had the misfortune all day to be the boat just upriver of the Two If By Land Hoover duo, thereby seeing a fraction of their number of fish [only 20 fish--poor, poor boys!] while also getting the shorter end of of the size-game of the stick, with SOS's 15"er leading their larder.
The Bitterroot was home to the rest of our boaters, with (a) Terry "Aloha" Wilson saying that he was glad that 4:00 in the afternoon had arrived (the time that he landed his first fish of the day--a 17" high for his boat with son-in-law Brian Russell); (b) the Ann Flynn-Ron Bjarnason telling of their first-ever fly fishing day that featured bald eagles, hunting ospreys and "an excellent 7 to 8 fish" and Ann's commenting to her guide that "tomorrow I want to row, as I am not used to being treated like a 'big fat Russian princess'--I can row, you know"; (c) the excellent fishing team of Jim Clark and Chris Rodi telling of their "total weather day" [we had it all, folks!], excellent fishing, a pair of 17" landed beauties and of seeing "only two other boats the entire days [our two!]; and (d) of now-Yellow Hat winner Marty Siler's starting out his Father's Day experience by, in true Star Wars fashion, announcing to his son at the Guide Gift Ceremonies, "Luke, I am your father" and then proceeding to lead the pack by nearly doing the grand slam (catching five different species of fish in the same day--he came up but one short) and ending up with his 19" brown trout that he proudly described as "one of the most colorfully beautiful fish that I have ever seen" and, with his Guide Gift hat winning later in the day, to be forever known as "Two Hat Marty".
From pineapples to osprey, Day One for Group a was, indeed, a special one--for many that first-ever day of fly fishing that will go into the mental hard-drive and forever remembered as "that first day"---how totally and beautifully extravagant!
Best to all from the scene of it all,
Rock Creek Ron
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