Fly Fish Chick

Mack Brown played football for Vanderbilt in 1970 when I arrived on the scene in Nashville, TN – as a newborn.

Much later as a college freshman in 1989, I arrived in Chapel Hill just one year after Mack Brown took over as head coach there for the Tarheels.

In 2000, I was two years behind Mack when I followed him to Austin.

And now, in 2010, I am a mere 22-pages behind him in the June issue of Tribeza Magazine.

Mack and his wife are on the cover of Tribeza’s June Outdoor & Sports issue, while yours truly has a little blurb in the EXPOSED section.

Many thanks to my dear friend and freelance writer Sarah Wittenbraker who wrote the piece with grace and humor. Much gratitude to editor Lauren Smith Ford for taking an interest in my quest for the Texas Water Safari, I’m honored she selected me for this month’s EXPOSED article. Special nod to Dylan who just happened to be the guy at Tribeza to answer my random phone calls, was incredibly helpful, and consequently is my new on-the-ground contact best friend over there. And finally, I can’t say enough about photographer Jay B Sauceda who made the photoshoot very laidback and easy breezy.

Check out Sauceda’s very cool site with images of small town painted signs (some of which are on the TWS race route to boot!) and some delicious photos of dive bars such as Ginny’s Little Longhorn. Be still my heart…

And to bring the whole thing full circle? This photog is no stranger to the flyrod. Here’s a great shot of him in West Yellowstone last year:

Many Thanks to the entire Tribeza team for putting together a red hot issue that features people getting active and getting out in it.

And PS…Hey Mack, what’s next for us compadre? Where do we go from here?

Go Heels. Hook ‘Em Horns. Go Team Paddlefish.

I will be totally honest with you, I’m not great at mending my line. Give me an upstream mend…put a mend in it for me…get that line above your fly…don’t move the fly…too much mend…too little mend.

Argh. I have never truly mastered the finesse of the mend. Too much, too little. But somewhere along the way I learned the reach cast (I’m not too bad at it actually) so I lean on the reach cast which, in my mind, is much a sexier version of the mend.

That said, I know deep down it really is important to conquer the good old-fashioned mend, and not lean on the sweeping dramatic entrance of a reach cast. The mend is much more real life. It deals with the cards you’re dealt, the cast you’ve made. Make an adjustment, make the necessary edits. No surprise in my college creative writing classes I loathed the editing process. I like to get it on the page right the first time or simply tear it up and start over.

Not a terribly mature approach to writing, much less a sophisticated approach to fishing. Starting over? Picking up that line too much spooks  the fish, not to mention your fly spends less time on the water. So it is with humility and hopefully a tinge of maturity that I recognize the need to mend. The need to fine-tune, not start over. The need to subtly edit, to shift gears, course correct, and of course, eliminate drag.

Drag. I was definitely dragging when I trotted off to Montana this Memorial Day Weekend. I was way stressed, wound tight and floating about as well as a water logged dry fly after eight hours of being drenched through the river.

But I was fired up to fish.

Friday we met up with Eric, co-owner of Sunrise Fly Shop in Melrose and our guide for the day on the Big Hole. We’d meet Eric a few times before but it was our first chance to fish with him and I am here to tell you, we are BIG fans of Eric…BIG fans of his business partner Ryan…BIG fans of Ryan’s super charming and lovely wife Katie…and BIG fans of Sunrise Fly Shop. Run don’t walk if you’re thinking Big Hole. These guys love these rivers in Southwest Montana and they are hellbent on delivering clients an all-around topnotch fishing nirvana. They are fun, they are professional and they are plain good people.

So despite the 38 degree temps and all day rain, our enthusiasm wasn’t dampened in the slightest for the day of fishing ahead…

It was a perfect debut for my 2010 trout season. Eric was a good coach, giving me some things to tweak with my cast, and of course, working on my mend. He really focused on the mend…so I have taken the message to heart and am dedicated to improving the mend in 2010. (Although please note I am really tired and have no intention of editing this post and will most likely hit ‘publish’ without checking for typos.)

All that 360-improvement aside, we caught fish. We had action pretty much all day on streamers, san juan worms, and dries. We even hit a pod of risers later in the afternoon and caught four nice fish on a small purple dry – we all know how much I love those purple patterns.

At one point in the day I was casting and mending away, trying to keep my fingercicles from breaking off, when out of the corner of my eye I saw a horse galloping along the bank among the trees. Except it wasn’t a horse, it was a giant St Bernard eagerly trying to connect with us. I kid you not, this dog followed us for at least six river miles, swimming back and forth across the river as we tried to avoid it.

This loving little beast kept screwing up our banks – so instead of telling me to mend, Eric was busy yelling, “Sit! Stay! Back! Bad Dog!” We could not believe it when we reached the takeout and he was still on our trail.

I was worried he was trying to let us know that someone needed rescuing. It was dangerously cold out there if you weren’t properly geared – hell it was cold in layers of gear! Then I started to worry that we were the ones that needed to be rescued and we didn’t know it yet. The St Barnard remains an odd element from the whole day.

Despite the St Barnard, we caught fish. Despite the frigid temps and the fact the river rose over 500 cfs while we were on it, we caught fish. When the Big Hole is on the rise it’s usually the kiss of death fishing-wise. But we kissed back. And caught fish.

Unfortunately, I also caught a cold. Thank heavens I have more fishing ahead this summer because after Friday on the Big Hole with our new buddy Eric, I was out of commission for the weekend.

But the trip was about more than just fishing. We connected, sometimes unexpectedly, with fun friends. While running errands in Dillon we ran into Miles Nolte and his girlfriend Tessa.

At Four Rivers Fly Shop in Twin we had fun chatting about life back home in TN with owner, Robin, and also bumped into fellow fishing blogger and author of Olive The Little Woolly Buger, Kirk Werner.

We had a very special and entertaining post-fishing meal with my dad who was out there on a separate fishing trip with my uncle and some good family friends. It was a treat to share war stories from the frigid day on the river. When my dad ordered a draft beer they brought a bottle and explained that the tap had frozen over. Pretty much sums up our day of spring fishing on the Big Hole.

Even though I was on death’s doorstep by Saturday night, I pulled it together because I couldn’t possibly miss out on dinner at Bandito’s in Virginia City. The joint was packed but we were able to nestle into our favorite spot at the bar and really enjoyed catching up with
Scott, Justin and Stacy.

Justin aided in my quest for health and fixed me a few rounds of gingerale & bitters that I sucked down eagerly – they did make me feel better! The Professor picked his favorite Carne Asada while I was delighted with the special pan-seared halibut and pitch-perfect asparagus with fingerling potatoes.

Bandito’s was my last outing in the 406. I was spiraling fast. So I spent the entire day Sunday on the couch. The Professor spent a few hours wading the Ruby while I watched endless episodes of America The Story Of Us…The Real Housewives of NYC…some saccharine chick flicks on Oxygen which made me cry…and (the highlight) Operation Petticoat. Damn that movie gets better and better every time I watch it.

Fishing, friends, family, healthy food, medecine, rest, bad tv, good tv. All the remedies of the weekend seemed to work in concert because I have returned to Austin feeling much better. Nothing like a little time in the 406 to edit, to shift gears, course correct, and of course, eliminate the drag of every day life. My load seems lighter, my attitude refreshed, and my cold is heading for the hills.

I am on the mend.

Today was our first day in Montana and we’d planned a full schedule of errands in Dillon. I was even going to hit the YMCA bright and early to knock out two hours of exercise.

But a nutty travel day landed me here in MT in the middle of the nite with no luggage, no workout clothes, and frankly feeling awfully worn down. So we opted instead for errands at a more leisurely pace.

We serviced the car, grabbed a few things at Frontier Anglers, had a delicious lunch at Sweetwater Cafe, then decided to join the crowds at the Memorial Day sale at the Patagonia Outlet.

Just as we walk in, the Professor spots our buddy Miles Nolte. For some reason we both clicked into subterfuge mode and decided to pull a little gag.

So we hid behind a clothing rack, shanghaied some passerby, and asked her to approach Miles and ask for his autograph. She was brilliant, saddling up to him, “Pardon me, are you the famous writer of The Alaska Chronicles? May I have your autograph?”

Just as Miles was about pull a sharpee from the fishing lanyard around his neck, we pounced from behind the rack and scared the hell out of him.

We had a good laugh, (okay, you got me, he didnt have a sharpee–but wad he was very gracious to the woman.) We were delighted to meet his girlfriend, and all in all it was the highlight of our errands in Dillon.

After groceries, gas and fishing licenses, we motored over to Twin Bridges to grab a few more fishy provisions at Four Rivers where ran into ANOTHER fishing-blogger-writer-friend, Kirk Werner. Kirk wrote the book Olive The Woolly Booger and was kind enough to share a copy with Little Chick a few years back. She loooves Olive the woollybugger!

I’d never met Kirk in person before but he figured out who we were and we had a good hearted catch up. To bring things full circle, tomorrow he’s fishing with our friend Joe, aka Superguide.

It’s a small world out here in big sky country.

Meet my new best friend and sidekick, Fitty.

No not that Fitty, this one:

“Fitty” is a piece of luggage loaded with books and hand weights so it weighs exactly fifty pounds. And for the next couple of weeks I am going to be hauling it back and forth around my house to train for the race.

Once we load the aluminum beast with all our gear, we estimate it will weigh at least 100 pounds. In order to prepare to portage dams and logjams – not to mention carry the canoe to the starting line – we figure we should each get use to carrying the weight of fifty pounds.

I’m gonna be cut like Fitty.

I was going to load it with weights but decided to save the extra coin and use books instead – after all, there is a book deal at the end of this odyssey so it seemed practically poetic.

So what books are in there? I handpicked a few choice titles that capture the spirit of the cause…

The Last Girls by Lee Smith (A book about a river adventure on the Mississippi that I was re-reading last year when this whole idea of racing in the Water Safari sprung to life)

Undaunted Courage by Stephen Ambrose. Think the title speaks for itself in this situation.

Borderland by Bud Shrake (I read this tale about the Texas Revolution and the settling of Austin when I moved back to Texas ten years ago…seems relevant as I embark on a Texas-size adventure right through the heart of Texas)

Perma Red by Debra Magpie Earling. Coming of age story about a girl in Montana who is an underdog and an outsider

Souls Raised From The Dead by Doris Betts, my college writing professor. She was working on this novel when I was studying with her my senior year, I’ve always felt a connection to it.

Get Fit Or Die Tryin….In Da Book Club.

This was a big weekend for Team Paddlefish. It was the Texas Water Safari Marathon (aka, “The Prelim Race”) which is a 40-mile sprint from Cuero to Victoria. We decided to take this opportunity to load up as a team the day before and drive the length of the race route, scouting portages and logging GPS coordinates. Here’s the 3-day overview…

FRIDAY

Friday was all about scouting the river for the Big Race in June and getting settled in Cuero for the next day’s prelim race. Everything was fairly straightforward along the San Marcos until we reached the Gonzales Dam. It’s a big one and we were staring in awe at the 750 yard portage required to avoid plummeting to our certain death when Tosh nudged me and pointed, “There’s your floating livestock.”

Sure enough a dead cow was floating down the river. We decided we couldn’t miss an opportunity to witness a cow come over such a large dam so we hustled down below and captured it with my shaky camerawork:

As we piled back in the car Banning noted, “So our portage plan at Gonzales ? Don’t follow the dead cow.”

Not long after the surreal cow incident we stumbled upon yet another carcass. We were nearing Cuero, the well-known headquarters for Chupacabra sightings, and sure enough we found our own chupacabra carcass in the middle of a dirt road. No lie.

Unfortunately we didn’t have time to call the press, we had to move on.

I can’t remember where we were on down the road, but in the continued theme of death and decay we found these skulls hanging on a barbed wire fence:

After a long day on the road, we cruised back to Cuero where the canoe hatch had turned on. Suddenly there were safari canoe on trucks at every turn, which definitely churned up the prelim race hype. After a nice texmex meal at Rosie’s, I went to my room to prepare race food for the next day and watched We Are Marshall as I drifted off to sleep. I thought it was a nice underdog story on the eve of Paddlefish’s biggest race to date.

We Are!!

Paddlefish!!

SATURDAY

We made it to the Cuero 236 bridge the next morning and the race scene was already jumping. Things went smoothly as we geared up the aluminum beast.

It was a sight to see roughly 90 boats load into the water and bob in place until start time. It was a weekend of many firsts, not the least of which was learning to navigate a mass of boats and paddles and find space from the pack. But we had a great race. Weather was hot but not miserable. Our handoffs with our team captain were smooth. I had one sinking spell midday but managed it with a little water, a bite of food, and some stretching – in place of course. There was no time for bankside breaks.

We literally had our fannies in those seats for the entire race. We didn’t leave those seats until we crossed the finish line after 6 hours and 25 minutes.

After the race we drove to Port Aransas where we cleaned up, enjoyed a gorgeous evening on the water, had some good food and even better conversation. It was fun to break down the day and get more and more fired up for the real deal in June.

But celebration was tempered because the weekend of paddling wasn’t quite done…

SUNDAY

We left Port Aransas about 6am to meet a group at the Tivoli Bridge that was going to do a 15-ish mile training run. Since we were all the way down in South Texas, we really wanted to experience the bay crossing that comprises the final stretch of the Safari route.

We started on the Guadalupe about 9 miles up from the bay. This last stretch of the Guad was cool as all get out. So different than the river I know and love way up near New Braunfels. This part was narrow and the foliage was exotic. Cactus, palms, elephant ears, colorful flowering plants. It enveloped you one last time before pushing you out into San Antonio Bay.

The bay. We had ridiculously superb weather conditions for today’s bay crossing, something I’m told we should not expect during the race in June. The bay was calm, and what little wind we had was at our back. It was a relatively smooth and brisk bay crossing, but we did have to fight the paddling tedium with our new favorite pastime…singing our guts out. John Denver, Willie Nelson, Jimmy Buffet, Janis Joplin, Johnny Cash.

Any good song ideas for us to belt out while we’re paddling?

Even though we didn’t see one of the much ballyhooed alligators, it was a trip with a number of firsts for us. We learned a ton. Pushed our bodies just a little bit farther, and got even more excited for June. And I have now officially seen the finish line with my very own eyes. THANK YOU TEAM CAPTAINS!

41 days until the Texas Water Safari…

The Wilhelm Scream is a piece of stock sound footage that has been used over and over again in countless movies since 1951 to express moments of panic and peril . It’s even been in some really big budget movies like Star Wars, Indiana Jones and Batman.

Are actors so lazy they can’t scream for themselves?

At any rate, having watched this montage of The Wilhelm Scream in various movie scenes I do recognize the high-pitched squeal of desperation. (But for the record I did not use the The Wilhelm Scream in the video of Banning and the Goose. That was 100% Banning.)

It occurs to me that The Wilhelm Scream sounds a lot like a fly fisherman breaking off a big fish. If they ever need to re-record the haunting sound of human agony and a desperate sense of immediate loss and tragedy, they should just mic a trout stream or a flats skiff.

Speaking of fishing and movies, last night we hosted the 2nd annual Austin Fly Fishing Film Tour at the Alamo Drafthosue – and had a blast. The weather was sublime so the outdoor pre-party was a bash. Always fun to see so many good friends, and meet new ones as well. We soldout three theatres, the beer was flowing, the crowd was upbeat, and the films were fishy.

There were ten films which took us to the Snake River, salmon fishing in Alaska, trout in Patagonia, saltwater species in Ascension Bay, steelhead fishing in BC, steelhead fishing in Ohio, redfish in South Carolina, permit in Australia, Montana carp, and various species in the Everglades including reds, tarpon, snook and a pretty funny scene with a rather zippy alligator.

On the topic of alligators and the Everglades, apparently the original Wilhelm Scream was recorded for the 1951 movie Distant Drums with Gary Cooper. It came from a scene where some soldiers were wading through a swamp in the Everglades when an alligator attacks one soldier and pulls him underwater to his death.

Thankfully none of the Drake films dealt with anything nearly so heavy. The most disturbing scene was two young, 20-something guides drinking and jumping down a flight of stairs for no apparent reason other than sheer boredom and they couldn’t find anything else to do while they waited for their next fishing trip to start.

And there were a few shots of guys losing fish that were heartbreaking (and familiar) and probably qualified for a Wilhelm Scream sound effect – except the authentic, guttural groans and spewing of expletives were much entertaining. But maybe there’s a new term here, “Man you totally Wilhelmed that one!”

Now there were some actual Wilhelm Screams happening in another theatre at the Alamo last night. Apparently we weren’t the only game in town screening a sequel.

Last night Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr were in town for the world premiere of Ironman2…at the Alamo Drafthouse in Austin Texas. And according to this interview with Jon Favreau he incorporated the cult classic Wilhelm Scream back into his latest movie.

It was pretty funny having the fishing and the Ironman crowds co-mingling in the halls of the Alamo and then together at the after parties at The Highball where Jon Favreau got on stage and DJ’d for a couple of hours. It was a lovely image really, the fishheads and the ironmen dancing side by side celebrating our respective film shows.

Still, it’s pretty odd that these introductions were happening simultaneously in two adjacent theatres:

Fly Fish Chick Introduces FFFT 2010 in Austin from fly fish chick on Vimeo.

and…then there were these guys next door:

Jon Favreau and Robert Downey Jr. at the Alamo Drafthouse from DG on Vimeo.

Many thanks to Tosh Brown, Rick Wittenbraker and Banning Collins for doing all the heavy lifting in making the 2010 ATX FFFT happen. Big thanks to our sponsors and all those who donated door prizes. Thanks to our volunteers and BIG THANKS to everyone who came out to see the show. A special wink to Little Chick who was a trooper helping us stuff the gift bags and who was very aggressive selling Team Paddlefish schwag.

Cheers to everyone involved and already excited about next year’s film tour!

Banning and I paddled 40 miles on the San Marcos today, so it’s hard to think all the way back to this morning when we were in the City Park parking lot gearing up and being harassed by a goose who was essentially trying to canoe-jack us. Banning got sick of it and decided to stand his ground versus the goose. You can judge for yourself how well that went down…

After a great day on the water in the Bahamas my dad and I were loitering around the dock waiting for my mom and Little Chick to retrieve us. Okay, truth be told he was dealing with all the gear, I was loitering. And I found this sun-bleached little crab claw…

The Austin Fly Fishing Film Tour is just around the corner and while ticket sales have been on fuego since Day One, there are still tickets for sale online. Please make note that we are trying to raise money for charity so there isn’t a slush fund to hire fancy schmancy seat fillers to sit in empty places in the theater. If there is a spot available on the day of the show, you can only imagine who I might pull off the streets to plant his kaboos right next to you for two hours of flyfishing films.

Leslie’s freckly behind?

The Lizardman’s scales?

Needless to say it is in your best interest to help us to sell these tickets and fill these seats so tell a friend, grab a date, peer over your cubicle wall and buddy up to an otherwise distant co-worker. What about that neighbor who has casually mentioned an interest in fishing? What about your father-in-law with whom you struggle to find common activities?

Bottom line? I’m not afraid to cross the line and plant any shocking bottom next to yours so this is your chance to recruit people to a fun party. I mean film show. I mean party.

Spread the word and get your crowd to buy their tickets online now.