Friday, June 8, 2012

The Shoulders of Shame and the Grins of Victory


  Who could ever forget the iconic double fist pump and fall to the knees from Tiger Woods after he chipped in at the Masters or Husker fans will never forget Tommie Frazier’s smiling face after he broke the 7 tackles and was heading for the end zone in the National championship game. This blog is not about those glorious times. If you are old enough to remember Jose Canseco, one of the bash brothers, then you probably remember the time he was racing back to the warning track and while reaching up to catch the fly ball, he miss judged and the ball bounced off his head and up and over the fence for a home run. The first thing he did was look at his glove then the ground and back at the wall, then he dropped the shoulders of shame on us all. We have all seen it on National TV, the shoulders drop and usually coupled with a head grab and finally followed by anger as to why they screwed up.

  Luckily for flyfisherman we don’t usually have high def cameras following us around all day. When Cat and I started doing the videos we never even considered adding in any failures in fear that some of our readers would not still think of us as perfect anglers(hehe), so all you guys get to watch are all the double fist pumps and the touchdown runs. I have found that on most guide trips that clients don’t understand that not all takes will produce a landed fish. Late spring can be especially frustrating and I don’t know if it could possibly be a physical change to the fish’s mouths or the way they take thy fly because it seems to be the time of the year when we lose the most fish. May guide trips are a lot of strong takes broken lines or just fish off and clients dropping the shoulders of shame and turning around and asking me what they did wrong. Maybe this or maybe that or maybe, they are just better than us. They don’t get that big by being dumb and lazy (the fish).

  Today was especially frustrating for Cat, just before I started videoing one of the clips I saw fish run and come out of the water about 3 feet and she was able to keep control when it hit the water and fought it for another minute or so till pop, all three flies. Like me the night before, I think she hooked seven before she finally landed a fish. I can’t help but laugh when I see her Shoulder of shame accompanied by the rod wave of anger, if you know Cat, she never gets angry. My” shoulders of shame” video moment was quite calm and I think it was more because I had already landed several, and not because of my cool, calm demeanor.

  Scarlett O’Hara finished off Gone With the Wind by remarking that “tomorrow is another day”. She may not have been a flyfisherman but I think it is a great quote we can live by. Maybe not tomorrow, how about “the next cast” or “the next rock cluster”. Remember that we pay a ton of money and spend a lot of time trying to enjoy this sport so we might as well enjoy it. And by the way, Cat finished the day by landing a 21inch bow and I landed the largest fish I have ever landed on this river. I know the pics don’t do it justice but it was a full 24 inch rainbow, the battle’s was fierce but victory was ours…………..

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