For those sad souls who can't get the angling monkey off their backs and have chosen to live well above the seasonal freezing line, winter can easily slide into a cornucopia spilling over with bountiful excuses. Much like the traveling charlatan preacher for whom the mind is willing but the flesh is weak - we want to fish, but all that whiteness, especially when it's traveling horizontally past the window, is a daunting thing.

6/14/07

There are two (silly, I admit) number goals that I set for myself each season.  I'm not a numbers guy (anyone who has spent any time at all guiding cringes at that term) but I do like having quantifiable accomplishments that I can get excited about.  I want to have a client catch a trout over thirty inches and I want to have a double that measures at least four feet combined.  Much of this is luck and if I do not reach these arbitrary benchmarks I do not lose any sleep.  But if nothing else, it gives me something extra to hoot and holler about on the river and getting demonstratively excited is one of the things that keeps me vibrant and upbeat throughout the long season.  Today both of those goals were attained in the span of an hour. 

8/12/07 

The fishing has been nothing short of spectacular lately. I dream about opening week, a season full of promise, a fresh perspective not tainted by previous weeks, previous clients, the consistent early mornings,...sockeye season. The first week is pure. The fish are active, relatively untouched, aggressive and huge. This is when we see our hogs. So far none of my guys have stuck the thirty incher. I've been waiting two seasons for it, but none yet. We usually get one or two a year, three if we're lucky but we get lots of fish between twenty five and twenty eight.  So far, I have been seeing plenty of those, but the pig remains elusive.

If I've had better domestic fishing trips, I can't remember them. Blitzing Albies, fish from the beach, pool and locol luches at the BT, fantastic food and one questionable movie night. Others have made posts on the forum, but now, you get to the REST of the story... 

 k: