Fly Fishing From the Keyboard: Another Place to Be

It’s been another long day at the keyboard, and with two more deadlines tomorrow, it’s possible the Green Drakes, Stoneflies, and PEDs will have to muddle by without me yet another day.

Of course, everyone who fly fishes knows how much it hurts to write that; the idea that the bugs are hatching — and dying by the hundreds in the mouths of trout — is almost more than any arrested adolescent grownup can stand.

Still, if I work hard, streamline my day (for example, stop writing blog posts), I might make it out Thursday afternoon. Might.

Possibility isn’t just an abstract concept to any dedicated fly fisher; as a group, we can taste the fresh air, feel the water rolling past our legs, and hear the instantly identifiable “splosh” of a feeding trout long before we ever get to the river.

If you can’t, take up golf.

Miniature Fishing Report

From the Fishing and Thinking blog (that’s Minnesota, where thinking happens on a daily basis I’m told) comes this harrowing tale of a man catching carp… on a ridiculously tiny fly rod.

At the Underground, we’re not the kind of people to make jokes about people using Ten-foot fly rods to “overcompensate” for some kind of shortcoming, but face it — it’s the kind of thing that was lurking in the back of all your minds anyway.

With that in mind, fishing a tiny, tiny fly rod and even tinier reel has got to be good news for Justin, who wrote an extensive report on his blog, replete with pictures of the fly rod (both with and without fish).

From the beginning:

Today was supposed to be my flex day off, but I ended up working better than half of it. On my way home though, I figured I could justify stopping for 1.5 hours of fishing. Everyone was napping at home anyway. I’d stopped at this location a couple times recently, and I told John Montana that I’d return there with the Micro today – try to catch a carp on it…. I’ve not heard of anyone catching a carp with a Micro. In fact, I don’t know anyone else who owns one.

I think it’s safe to say hardly anyone owns one of these things, and those that do probably aren’t out chasing ten pound carp with it.

OK, so we’ve moved beyond questioning Justin’s manliness, though perhaps his sanity is coming under suspicion.

Then again, it’s fly fishing — the sport where we invest thousands to catch fish, return them, and then downplay the cost of our equipment while inflating the size of the fish.

It’s what we do.

More Fishing: Colorado This Time

This hails from Colorado, where Chris Raine (local bamboo rod builder) and his “posse” (Mike Lucia, Jack Raine, other former inmates) fished the South Platte.

Naturally, this was a “Raine” trip, where much fishing occurred — but only after everybody got fed.

Since Raine is notoriously short on caption information, perhaps a Colorado reader can fill in the blanks — is that cheese steak trailer conveniently located right near the South Platte river?

Here, Jack Raine holds a South Platte brown trout that he caught (presumably without using bits of cheese steak for bait).

The fishing pictures aren’t remarkable, but the fact that artery-clogging food might be available right on the river sparked an entrepreneurial tingling in me I haven’t experienced since that girl in college said she was turned on by successful men.

Call it The Underground Feeding Trough: a fast-moving, highly mobile, streamside “strike kitchen” selling slaw dogs, cheese steaks and burritos that will instantly void your wader warranty.

I can almost count the money already.

More on this investment-ready con idea as it occurs. See you in the emergency room kitchen, Tom Chandler.

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