Annual TR

So I'm sitting on a barstool at the Altmar Hotel, taking a lunch
break after an energetic morning on the Salmon River, when I'm
approached by a tall fellow who asks, "Is your name Joe?" Uh,
yeah. "Joe Fleischman?" Again, the affirmative. As my brain is
processing how anyone in this backwater would know who I was,
daytripper and Paul G. reintroduce themselves after ?? years. Okay,
how cool is that; a couple of other ROFFians are here on this same
river, in the same town, in the same bar at the same time as me.

As for the fishing highlights, I always enjoy a few days of casting to
plentiful, big, dumb fish who can make the reel sing. We timed our
trip well; and on Saturday, there were plenty of these in the lower FFO
stretch. For whatever reason, we were able to enjoy a relatively
uncrowded hole, and I had the double pleasure of watching #1 son
leaning against that bent 9-weight frequently. He hooked plenty,
landed 5 or 6, and generally had a ball. As for me, I landed 3 of the
biggest & freshest salmon I've ever caught up there.

Sunday we opted for a change of pace and eschewed the easy prey in
favor of the more elusive steelhead. Heading to a prime steelie area,
we got an early start on a cold, rainy morning. As the sky lightened,
#1 Son hooked up to a rocket ship that blasted across, then upriver.
An explosive leap revealed the flash of a nice steelhead (BTW FUSIA).
I watch as the boy does one helluva fine job of fighting this fish, and
lands his first ever (and a damned nice) steelie. insert proud dad
stuff here

Hookups are few and far between, but eventually I get one of my own;
and the jinx is finally off of me. I'd never landed a steelie on a
fly rod in twelve years up here. The day goes on, the action is slow
here, and son is "bored". After taking a boredom break late in the
day, he picks up Craig's brand new, virgin spey rod to fool around
with just before sunset. Sonovabitch, but he hooks up on a big fish.
In the fading light, it looks like just another mid-sized salmon; but
as we get a better look, it's a big steelhead. Another nice fight,
and he finally lands a nice steelie as night falls. A terrific end to
the day.

My plans to fish Monday morning were totally blown when I broke off my
car key in the trunk lock. I am seriously ****ed. The nearest Toyota
dealer is in Watertown, 40 miles away. It's 7 a.m. on a frosty
morning in East Jesus, spotty cell service, and nothing in this town is
going to wake up before 9. Through a lucky and persistent turn of
events, I manage to extricate the broken piece of key from the lock (a
fly tying box contains lots of useful tools); and the only locksmith
within 50 miles is 4 miles away outside of town. This guy waits around
for me to find a ride, makes a new key from the two pieces, and charges
me...you're not going to believe this...four bucks. He had me by the
balls; and I was fully prepared to pay serious money; but no, four
bucks. Kinda restored my faith in humanity for a few hours.

Meeting up with ROFFians, wearing out my arm on big fish, Both son & I
catching our first steelhead (his were both bigger), and a four dollar
solution to a $200 problem. All in all, a terrific trip.

rb608 typed:
So I'm sitting on a barstool at the Altmar Hotel, taking a lunch
break after an energetic morning on the Salmon River, when I'm
approached by a tall fellow who asks, "Is your name Joe?" Uh,
yeah. "Joe Fleischman?" Again, the affirmative. As my brain is
processing how anyone in this backwater would know who I was,
daytripper and Paul G. reintroduce themselves after ?? years. Okay,
how cool is that; a couple of other ROFFians are here on this same
river, in the same town, in the same bar at the same time as me.

That *is* cool, although in all fairness, you did say you'd be in Altmar and
the bar is as likely a spot as any. . .

snip
Meeting up with ROFFians, wearing out my arm on big fish, Both son & I
catching our first steelhead (his were both bigger), and a four dollar
solution to a $200 problem. All in all, a terrific trip.

Sure. You ditch the DDFS and go off to have fun while I get to sort bugs.
;-)
--
TL,
Tim
-------------------------
http://css.sbcma.com/timj

On Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:22:34 -0400, "Tim J."
wrote:

rb608 typed:
So I'm sitting on a barstool at the Altmar Hotel, taking a lunch
break after an energetic morning on the Salmon River, when I'm
approached by a tall fellow who asks, "Is your name Joe?" Uh,
yeah. "Joe Fleischman?" Again, the affirmative. As my brain is
processing how anyone in this backwater would know who I was,
daytripper and Paul G. reintroduce themselves after ?? years. Okay,
how cool is that; a couple of other ROFFians are here on this same
river, in the same town, in the same bar at the same time as me.

That *is* cool, although in all fairness, you did say you'd be in Altmar and
the bar is as likely a spot as any. . .

Actually, even way more likely than any ;-)

Indeed, I knew Joe would be up there, so we were keeping an eye peeled. But
it'd been a few years since my introduction to Joe Juggling Fire somewhere in
North Carolina, so I wasn't certain he was he, but a quick beer summoned the
courage to risk embarrassment and ask :-)

snip
Meeting up with ROFFians, wearing out my arm on big fish, Both son & I
catching our first steelhead (his were both bigger), and a four dollar
solution to a $200 problem. All in all, a terrific trip.

Sure. You ditch the DDFS and go off to have fun while I get to sort bugs.
;-)

He's smart. Very smart ;-)

And he travels with good company - and a fine young son with a load of
enthusiasm. It was a pleasure spending an afternoon astream and an evening of
food and drink with their group...

/daytripper (maybe Joe'll tell you about his guide vs snagger conversation ;-)

daytripper wrote:
(maybe Joe'll tell you about his guide vs snagger conversation ;-)

Okay, here's how I saw it. Despite having wonderful success at our
morning spot, we let Dave & Paul talk us into trying out the stretch
below the Trestle Pool, and we agree to meet up back at the Altmar
Hotel & head on down together. Cell service being what it is (isn't)
there, those connections went to hell; and Son and I head on over to
where we think they'll be. Parking at Trestle Pool North, we hike
through the woods the several hundred yards down to the bend. Nobody
there but a few spin fishermen at the head of the run. Son hooks &
loses a feisty coho, but that was all we'd see there; and after a
while we hike back up the shoreline to see who we see.

Not a hundred yards away were tripper & Paul casting to the far bank
along a down tree, and a fish is taking tripper downstream. Paul makes
a casual suggestion that I might be good luck in that tripper didn't
get his first hookup until I showed up, just before that notion is
quickly dispelled.

"So", I shout to Paul from the bank, "how is it up here?" A
nearby stranger answers back, "Pretty good if you're snagging."
Before I can digest the humor/seriousness/intent of that comment,
another guy up the shoreline shoots back, "You got a problem with
that?" Okay, clearly I'm not coming in at the beginning of this
scene; and all I can do is watch it play out. "I wasn't taking to
you, I was talking to him." (meaning me) "You were looking right
at me, what's your problem?" "Yeah, I got a problem. It's
illegal." I'm wading out into the river as the shouting match
continues about who was looking at who or talking to who and who was
doing what when. The downstream guy is walking up closer to the
snagger, and I'm expecting split shot at ten paces any second now.
Non-snagger gets verbal and moral support from a chorus of other
fishermen in the river, and snagger retreats into the woods. I'm
thinking, ****, all I did was ask how's the fishing; and WW3 erupts.
Thank goodness J-plugs are illegal, or it could have been bloody.

On 17 Oct 2006 13:12:45 -0700, "rb608" wrote:

daytripper wrote:
(maybe Joe'll tell you about his guide vs snagger conversation ;-)

Okay, here's how I saw it. Despite having wonderful success at our
morning spot, we let Dave & Paul talk us into trying out the stretch
below the Trestle Pool, and we agree to meet up back at the Altmar
Hotel & head on down together. Cell service being what it is (isn't)
there, those connections went to hell; and Son and I head on over to
where we think they'll be. Parking at Trestle Pool North, we hike
through the woods the several hundred yards down to the bend. Nobody
there but a few spin fishermen at the head of the run. Son hooks &
loses a feisty coho, but that was all we'd see there; and after a
while we hike back up the shoreline to see who we see.

Not a hundred yards away were tripper & Paul casting to the far bank
along a down tree, and a fish is taking tripper downstream. Paul makes
a casual suggestion that I might be good luck in that tripper didn't
get his first hookup until I showed up, just before that notion is
quickly dispelled.

"So", I shout to Paul from the bank, "how is it up here?" A
nearby stranger answers back, "Pretty good if you're snagging."
Before I can digest the humor/seriousness/intent of that comment,
another guy up the shoreline shoots back, "You got a problem with
that?" Okay, clearly I'm not coming in at the beginning of this
scene; and all I can do is watch it play out. "I wasn't taking to
you, I was talking to him." (meaning me) "You were looking right
at me, what's your problem?" "Yeah, I got a problem. It's
illegal." I'm wading out into the river as the shouting match
continues about who was looking at who or talking to who and who was
doing what when. The downstream guy is walking up closer to the
snagger, and I'm expecting split shot at ten paces any second now.
Non-snagger gets verbal and moral support from a chorus of other
fishermen in the river, and snagger retreats into the woods. I'm
thinking, ****, all I did was ask how's the fishing; and WW3 erupts.
Thank goodness J-plugs are illegal, or it could have been bloody.

I still find their denials amazing. Here they are, equipped with short, stout
spinning gear, a slinky full of shot, and a huge, nearly bare hook, carefully
maneuvering their terminal gear under the nose of a finning salmon, then
abruptly lifting the rig skyward. Not snagging? WTF else would it be called?

I had a short and sweet conversation with one such nitwit, who spent over two
hours very slowly working his way closer and closer to me until he finally was
positioned on the bank directly in front of me, not 40 feet from me, to work
the little piece of water to which I was casting. I told him it was a big
damned river, and it was bad enough he was an effing snagger but he sure as
hell wasn't going to do it right in front of me, so go find some other place
to be. With a thoroughly unconvincing "I wasn't snagging" muttered protest he
skulked back up stream.

Snaggers and the less than unenlightened drift boat pilots aside, while the
chuck-and-duck routine doesn't score high on my sensibility index, it sure is
fun to fair hook a good steelhead and hold on for the ride. The last time I
had fished in the presence of steelies was back in the early 70's when I lived
on the Hoods Canal. This brief trip refreshed my memories of how much fun
those steelhead runs were.

Here's Paul's shot of the dazzlingly bright hen I landed Saturday. He needs to
work on his framing, but otherwise it's a pretty good shot. Even on a GLX
10'/9w, this fish dragged me down a good hundred yards of boisterous freestone
river before a friendly guide netted it on his third try.

http://home.comcast.net/~day_trippr/...teelie_hen.jpg

Paul caught one that was half a foot longer (but not as pretty ;-)

/daytripper (back to work....)

daytripper wrote:

http://home.comcast.net/~day_trippr/...teelie_hen.jpg

Pretty fish, if you like that kind of thing.....

"JR" wrote in message ...
daytripper wrote:

http://home.comcast.net/~day_trippr/...teelie_hen.jpg

Pretty fish, if you like that kind of thing.....



Damn nice hat, too. You don't usually see a fishing hat that looks as good
as that one.

--riverman
(hat challenged)

daytripper wrote:
(maybe Joe'll tell you about his guide vs snagger conversation ;-)

I'll leave the "Cosmopolitan" story to you. :-)

Joe F.

On 18 Oct 2006 08:40:11 -0700, "rb608" wrote:

daytripper wrote:
(maybe Joe'll tell you about his guide vs snagger conversation ;-)

I'll leave the "Cosmopolitan" story to you. :-)

Joe F.

Ahahahahaha! Well, I only know the front end of it - and I suppose it's one of
those "you had to be there" little stories, but....

So we're sitting at the bar in the Altmar Hotel (which is not a hotel, fwiw)
and a few seats away is the prototypical Buffy - the spitting image of Ali
MacGraw in "Love Story", with the perfect hair-do, fresh manicure, and
sporting the classic sweater look, right there in the midst of a bunch of
thoroughly unrefined appearing fishermen, in about as rude looking a bar
you'll find away from Skid Row (and with a particularly grim beer list, btw).

When she finally gains the attention of the swarthy female behind the bar,
Buffy says "I'll have a Cosmopolitan".

Conversations in the immediate vicinity came to an abrupt halt, and as I
waited for all hell to break loose, the barkeep lets out a snort, turns to
Buffy, and retorts "Not here you won't".

I forgot what she ended up drinking - Joe might remember, I think it was some
kind of flavored vodka with something, all I remember was it sounded
nauseating.

/daytripper (yeah, you had to be there ;-)

On Wed, 18 Oct 2006 12:42:05 -0400, daytripper
wrote:

On 18 Oct 2006 08:40:11 -0700, "rb608" wrote:

daytripper wrote:
(maybe Joe'll tell you about his guide vs snagger conversation ;-)

I'll leave the "Cosmopolitan" story to you. :-)

Joe F.

Ahahahahaha! Well, I only know the front end of it - and I suppose it's one of
those "you had to be there" little stories, but....

So we're sitting at the bar in the Altmar Hotel (which is not a hotel, fwiw)
and a few seats away is the prototypical Buffy - the spitting image of Ali
MacGraw in "Love Story", with the perfect hair-do, fresh manicure, and
sporting the classic sweater look, right there in the midst of a bunch of
thoroughly unrefined appearing fishermen, in about as rude looking a bar
you'll find away from Skid Row (and with a particularly grim beer list, btw).

Just Bud in the can or on tap, and either way, only cowboy cold?

When she finally gains the attention of the swarthy female behind the bar,
Buffy says "I'll have a Cosmopolitan".

Conversations in the immediate vicinity came to an abrupt halt, and as I
waited for all hell to break loose, the barkeep lets out a snort, turns to
Buffy, and retorts "Not here you won't".

She shoulda ordered a pousse cafe...or a Martini...

I forgot what she ended up drinking - Joe might remember, I think it was some
kind of flavored vodka with something, all I remember was it sounded
nauseating.

"Flavored vodka?" Ain't that "gin?"

/daytripper (yeah, you had to be there ;-)

I wish I had been...if she really looked like Ali McGraw in "Love
Story," I'd have gone and gotten her some Ocean Spray myownself...

TC,
R