072913

It was nice to sleep in today, plus I got my hands on some Vitamin A...30 days supply with ample refill opportunities. Lived the life of a shop rat for awhile today which is always nice when I haven't done it for awhile. It's a fun life to live to be able to BS about fishing, weather patterns, and answer questions relating to the minuscule variations between pheasant tail patterns. I am officially old enough to where I cant see much of a fly smaller than a size 16 and I'm starting to believe that anything smaller than an 18 is too small for any fish that I am trying to catch to be able to see.

A couple of things I noticed in the shop today include the fact that wading staffs really are for old guys (I need one), Patagonia clothing is really well made, Howler Brothers should sell better than it does, the H2 rods from Orvis are truly remarkable fly rods made in the USA, the new Scott Radian is a very, very sick rod as well, people must use Fly Agra in illicit ways as there is no way we can sell 3 or 4 dozen bottles a week just for fly fishing, and finally...I noticed that my employees are pretty good people to work with.

Had a run in with the legendary Greg Falls in the shop today as well. Not a "run-in" but more like he was in the shop and we were BSing it up about life, fishing, and dudes. I first met Greg when he was working at Craig Madsen's shop in Wolf Creek probably 15-16 years ago. He had black hair and I had some hair. I fished the MO a lot back then and always stopped there on my way up to buy some of the sacred goodness of specialty midges and PT variations. The disco PT was my fly of choice back then. Greg introduced me to night fishing at the dam which I in turn introduced a few others too with the caveat being that if Greg Falls was ever there when they showed up, they were to not mention my name. Turns out one of the dudes did and ended up hiring Greg for many years for MO trips. Greg is a fishy dude and probably spends a little more time thinking about sow bugs than he should, but I'd fish with him anytime.

Fly fishing is weird like that, little things or moments stick with one forever and the emotions of that moment seem even more real later than they did then. Trivial moments like smoking a cig with Greg on a bench outside the shop as Neal Streaks drives aways with boat in tow seem over 15 years ago grabs me just as much today as it did back then. Everything and everyone changes, but the reality of a moment always remains true.