Apparently we have a pretty deep bench because we never got the nod. But we were fired up and ready to cheer the Tarheels toward a miracle victory.

We actually had some decent plays in the first half but gave up so many more BIG plays to LSU. Despite the fact our non-traveling suspended players were mostly defense, our offense was simply offensive. Poor communication, total confusion, missed snaps. The quarterback seemed like a deer caught in headlights. LSU’s #7 kept returning our kicks and running straight through us like a hot knife through butter. We went into the half with LSU at 30, Tarheels 10. It felt like the second half might get really ugly.

But our defense held things together in the 3rd quarter and kept LSU scoreless. Finally (I can’t remember when, you’d have to check Sportscenter for the details) the Carolina quarterback came to life from back in his own endzone, completing a badass pass that we ran downfield for a total 97-yards and a touchdown.

As much as I criticized Yates, the UNC quarterback, in the first half I give him full credit for leading the Heels back into this game. Like the metamorphosis of Pinocchio from a awkward wooden puppet into a real boy, Yates suddenly morphed into a real quarterback. I felt like I was watching Colt McCoy. Drilling passes into the hands of open receivers. Moving the chains. Had the tigers on their heels.

We narrowed the gap to 30-24 and had the momentum with 2+ minutes to play. Nothing disastrous or humiliating as our first-half antics, but we just couldn’t make it happen. LSU gets the ball with 1:29 on the clock.

Figuring they would run down the clock by taking a knee all the way to the buzzer, we filed out of the Georgia Dome with the masses. Bummed, but glad it wasn’t worse.

We made it about sixty feet outside the stadium when we ran into some college friends and started chatting. But we barely had time to say ‘hello’ when crowds of people starting flooding back into the stadium screaming, “We got the ball back! We got the ball back!”

Goose bumps.

We scattered to TVs just inside the Georgia Dome in disbelief, only to confirm that somehow the Heels GOT THE BALL BACK!!!!!

We all huddled in corridors to see slivers of the field and watch the Heels drill the ball relentlessly toward the endzone. It was exhilarating. We were out of our minds screaming and cheering. A few yards from the endzone and 10 seconds on the clock Yates threw it behind the receiver. AAHHHH!!!

Two seconds on the clock, Yates fires it into the hands of the receiver who was completely covered up and couldn’t hold on. Crushing. (I know, I just watched it for about the 6th time on ESPN.)

LSU Tigers win. And as one member of our group said, “Moral victories are for losers.”

That said, it was pretty damn exciting to keep them scoreless for a full half of football, seize the momentum, stage a wildly unexpected comeback, and deliver a buzzer-beater for the record books.

Great college football game. Great times with good friends. And great to be a Carolina Tarheel.

Even if I didn’t get any playing time.

Two days ago I rowed my mom and Little Chick on a 7-mile float in a heavy headwind. After being in the narrow, long Safari race boat the Clacka felt like a battleship! I couldn’t get over how wide it seemed. Rowing in the wind with very few fish wasn’t exactly the ideal way to recover post safari. I was still a little beat.

Meanwhile LG was wrapping up a 32-day stretch with some good clients. So we couldn’t seem to schedule the voiceover.

Finally we confirmed a time: 1pm yesterday at the Trout Shop. Perfect. Only problem? We couldn’t find a quiet place to record. The shop was bustling and there is a bell in the back office that goes off every time a customer comes through the front door.

Hmmm, what to do? What to do?

You got it. The quietest spot in the whole town of Craig was the Trout Shop bathroom. They were able to cut the music on the bathroom speakers so LG set me up with the fancy mic and camera equipment and I recorded the voiceover for the video in a quick fifteen minutes.

It’s a glamorous life I lead to be sure…I image James Earle Jones negotiates a better deal for his voiceover work.

But I did score a bottle of leftover Pinot Grigio that LG’s clients had left him.

We were done in plenty of time for me to meet up with my friend Brandon of PRO Outfitters – we were doing a late afternoon/evening float. We ended up getting on the water around 3pm and had a feeling things were going to light up. The wind finally calmed down, and a bit of cloud cover helped the cause.

Finally! After a long summer of high cfs and water safari delays and an extended nymphing season….dry fly action. Big time. It was the essence of the Missouri…rising fish, picky fish, small CDC dry flies that were hard to see and even harder to keep afloat, small trailer flies that were impossible to see. Long drifts (some more drag-free than others!), great takes, big eats.

After fighting 20,000 cfs these Missouri trout are strong! Even the fourteen inch football rainbows put up a dramatic fight. It was beyond fun. They were also skiddish. We saw a ton of fish eating on top but one or two casts would put them down, which added to the fun. Although we did find two or three resilient pods that allowed me to trick more than one fish.

I missed eats, I broke a few big ones off. I boated a few good ones.

It was a picture perfect evening float. I love this river.

Ah! Can you believe it is finally time??

I am signing off from the blog until the race is done and I am back in Austin convalescing with queso and red wine for breakfast in bed next Thursday. But don’t feel abandoned…there will be a whole Team Paddlefish crew of people and some fancy gadgets to keep you informed as this wild and wacky adventure unfolds. Here are some ways to follow us down the river from your computer…

While we can’t have any 2-way communication, we can have a SPOT Tracker which uploads satellite data every few minutes to detail our whereabouts. This is the Team Paddlefish SPOT Tracker page where you will be able to pinpoint our location along the race route. Obviously this will only be interesting starting Saturday morning at 9am. Until then it’s just us running errands.

After a quick ‘Digital Social Media 101’ course that I will be teaching over breakfast tacos this morning, my dad and the Professor will be armed with passwords and ready to keep yall in the know…

My dad will be doing periodic updates on the Team Paddlefish facebook page as well as the Fly Fish Chick facebook page. Not that I am a control freak or over-managing my team (ahem), but I have requested – for yall’s benefit – that he post different pictures on the two facebook pages so not to be duplicative. You don’t have to join facebook to view the updates on those pages, just click the links and see if he has any progress or pictures to report. Simple as pie.

Meanwhile the Professor will be doing posts to the blog here at FFC as well as periodic updates on The Fly Fish Chick TWITTER. Again, you don’t have to join twitter to see the updates on that link.

And finally, since we’re all river gauge junkies I thought some of you might be interested in the checking in on the CFS for various spots along the race route. If so here is the USGS table for TX. Scroll down to Guadalupe River Basin. Points of interest along the race are: San Marcos at Luling, Guadalupe at Gonzales, Guadalupe at Cuero, Guadalupe at Victoria (which as you can see is currently a high water point) Guadalupe at Tivoli upstream of Saltwater Barrier. The concern with all that high water near the coast is that we lose gradient, the water spreads out, and we lose our way as no linear paths become clear.

But we’ll deal with that in a few days.

In the meantime THANK YOU all so much for getting me to this point. I literally wouldn’t have been able to survive the past year without your enthusiasm and kind messages and unwavering friendship and constant cheerleading and boundless generosity. Truly, I feel very blessed to have shared this journey with each of you and am off to make you proud…

Cheers  & Love….catch you on the flipside. ~FFC

With high flows, very few bugs flying, and fish who simply refused to eat, Eric worked like a maniac rowing through thousands of cubic feet of raging water while digging deep into his fly boxes and getting super creative on patterns.

You may recall we fished with Eric a few weeks ago during very chilly temps over Memorial Day. Eric and his business partner Ryan own Sunrise Fly Shop in Melrose and we are huge fans of these guys and their whole operation.

This time we didn’t have the frigid weather of a few weeks ago – it was about 90-degrees and sunny – but once again we fished like lunatics all day. Eric put us on a twenty mile float and it took all three of us to force feed the fish that we did manage to catch.

Try Me

We threw just about everything at these trout. I was determined to tempt something to the surface and spent most of the day with some duo combination of big-big dries, big-medium dries, and even big-humongo dries. I was somewhat coy drifting these superbad bugs in all the hotspots, teasing the fish with a “Try Me, Try Me, Eat Me, Eat Me, Drink Me, Drink Me” attitude.

I caught one small fish.

Please Please Please

The Professor was unafraid to go low early drifting small nymphs and worms and catching a handful of nice fish in the morning. When things went deadsville, Eric dreamed up a super funky combo of dead drifting a streamer with a nymph below. The Professor pulled out three or four fish on that rig while I was battling it out, coming up dry on dries.

It was time for me to show some humility and beg the fish. Please please please will you please eat something for me, Trouts? I haven’t had this much trouble trying to convince a creature to eat since Little Chick was a newborn and wouldn’t take a bottle.

Get Down On It

Okay, fine. Since all the fish were coming in the back of the boat I conceded and signed on for the down and dirty streamer-nymph program. Immediately I had two eats on the small wet fly, but I guess I didn’t have my heart and soul totally into it because I missed both fish! Argh.

I Feel Good

As the sun was dropping a little low in sky and the takeout was growing nigh, we all noticed more bugs fluttering about. Despite the lack of success on dries all day, Eric had a hunch.

We were all hot and tired and mildly deflated. We had fished ourselves into a certifiable frenzy but Eric got down on his metaphorical knees brought on a dramatic cape routine for a grand finale to beat the band.

In one fell swoop, we ditched all nymphs and rigged up big dry flies.

Ka-poow! Huge eat on top.

Cha-ching! Another one devoured it.

Ka-boom! Nice 17-incher pounced on it.

Thanks to Eric’s relentless efforts and keen instincts, we had some seriously hot fishing during the final hour of this mega float. In the words of The Godfather of Soul, “I Feel Good.”

Many Thanks to Eric and Ryan of Sunrise Fly Shop.

Be sure to check out their recently retooled website while you enjoy some tunes from Mr. Brown…