Hello all and thanks for checking in
at the O’Grady Fly Fishing Adventures. I have spent this week trying to figure
out how I could pair the incredible National Championship game and fly fishing
into a blog but today’s trip to the water had some Karma of its own. Now, I
want to start by stating that this story may be a little hypocritical and I in
no way claim to be the etiquette police, but I think after all I have seen over
the last sixteen years on this river, I have a pretty good idea of the space
needed between anglers. Yep I know there are a few that would disagree, and I’m
sure I have pushed the envelope but this story kind of cracks me up.
The story starts last November on a
sunny, Sunday afternoon. I was working my way back to the car and I looked up
and saw one of my favorite fall runs open. As I neared it I looked up and
noticed someone power walking toward the run but was still quite a ways away. I
was only a few feet away so I stepped in and started casting. The guy huffed
and stepped into the river about fifteen feet up from me. I could hear the
angry cast and he kept eyeballing me after every fish I caught. He walked
around me and told me I was in a good spot and started casting just below me. I
caught a few more and then a blog follower came up to me and introduced
himself. We stood there for just a minute talking and the guy walked up to me
and asked, “hey boss, are you done with that spot?” I was a little
flabbergasted and just walked away. A few weeks later I had a guide trip out
and I knew it was going to be a busy day. I took my clients up to Apples and
found out that the Pueblo Renegades had an outing that day and three of their
members were already working the weir. We stepped in above them and I got my
clients going. After a short time, I noticed this guy walking toward us and I
recognized him as “the boss” guy. Once again, I was blown away when he moved
within ten feet of my client and within twenty feet of the Renegades. Danny showed
up and all we could do was laugh and shake or heads.
With the snow in this morning, I
decided it would be a good day to go fishing. On the way to the river a good
friend of mine called and asked if we could meet up. Now in order to protect
the not so innocent, I will not use
his name and for the rest of this blog I will refer to him as MF (my friend). We
got to the water at around 10:30 and I saw that the run I wanted to fish had a
couple of bait guys on one side and a fly fisher on the other. I went a couple
of runs up and began fishing. After about a half an hour I noticed that the
bait guys were leaving but I didn’t feel like it was Kosher to go fish it from
the other side directly across from the fly fisher. Soon after that, MF showed
up and I looked down and someone snuck in across from the original fly fisher.
Now it was far from the worst etiquette I had seen on the river, but I felt
annoyed because I knew that run was shot for the day. MF made a comment that we
should go down and yell at him and we laughed it off and headed up river. We
ran into Richie and Alex and Richie had just landed a beautiful seventeen
incher. Richie headed back down to hook up with Alex so me and MF jumped into
the weir. We caught a few small fish and then a nice one and I thought we had
the weir pretty well covered. I looked up and saw the guy from down river
checking out the weir we were fishing. He huffed and walked up river and after
two casts he came back down, walked out on the weir and said to MF “Hey Boss,
mind if I fish here”? Wow, I hadn’t heard that voice in a month now I was
really annoyed, he then casted right where we were fishing. Now here is where
it gets a little funny. He hooked a fish and it seemed like he was taking way
too long to fight the fish and while overplaying it, his leg slipped into the
river(he wasn’t wearing waders), and I felt myself giggling. I didn’t want to
say anything that I would regret so I said come on MF, let’s take off. As I was
crossing, I heard the guy ask MF to take his picture and I got a little louder
saying “come on MF, let’s go”. Well MF snapped the pic and then made it up the
bank and I asked him where the tough guy attitude went and why did he take that
guys pic. MF laughed and said zoom is a great thing. He went on to say that he
zoomed in on the tail of the fish where the hook was fully lodged. Was it Karma? I'm not sure but MF you are
my hero and you made my day.
As for the river conditions, we are
now solidly set into January conditions. As you all know January is not my
favorite time of the year, but this year we are seeing some pretty good window
fishing. What I mean by that is that there seems to be window of about an hour
slot in the A.M. that will fish fish well and then its slim pickens until the
last hour of the day when it picks up again. My fish today were caught in the
mouth on a size 22 New Moon. As always, Connell, Cat, Winston, MF, and The
Drift Fly Shop want to thank you for reading…..
MF fighting a fish.
Richie and Alex .
MF looks very familiar. In fact, I think he is my MF too! Great blog Boss!
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