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Filtering by Tag: Echo fly fishing

REALITY CHECK

Being the greenest member of this group when it comes to guiding I had a less than comfort level with the Guadalupe, professionally speaking.  With a couple trips around the corner I asked Alvin to play Client for a day and join me on the Guadalupe on his next day off.   First, this says a lot about Alvin.  He knew it was important enough to me to do and as the Boss his “open door” policy meant that on his day off (a cold and windy one at that) he would spend it with me on the water and away from home. Honesty, any of the guys would have done it.  Good dudes for sure!

A walk to the boat

So now that I’m done kissing ass I’ll say this.  I’ve got no problem rolling into a joint I know nothing about and catching fish.  Fish gotta eat, and I’m good enough to catch them, as I did last month in the “middle of nowhere” Kentucky.  This “lunch with the boss” was all about AWG clients. I’ve fished the Guad enough to know the “fishing” aspect this trip was more logistics.

With an open seat on the boat and my spot for the day being understood (just row, Winston) I invited a dude who, in my opinion, is Central Texas fly-fishing, Mr Diefische.  If you follow Diefische (I think you should) you know that last year he unlocked the Guad and will probably do so again this year.  He is a great writer, a solid fisherman and  humble, as the day we were about to have is long.  Fun dudes to have on the boat for sure!

So we pushed off around 1200 and to make a long story short, 4 hours later we had managed 1 fish.  I had 2 dudes that knew that river as well as anyone.  We fished flies we knew work and when they didn’t we changed it up to others.  We didn’t “throw the kitchen sink” at them instead we focused in finer on what we knew had worked in the past and fished a little harder.

 

Say Cheese Mr fische

I was out for other reasons than just catching fish, so for me the day was hugely successful.  Tail Waters are tricky; they seem to have an on/off switch.  This was a good reminder that when the fishing is off the fish don’t care who is in the boat.  As we said our goodbyes I remembered what my friend Jake said once “a skunk day will show you more about the character of your fishing buddies than anything else” but we didn’t get skunked so who cares what Jake and those “chi Wulff guys” think.

That dreaded ramp, "joe client" no more...crank it Alvin

A good reality check sure does sting sometimes.

Tight Lines,

AWG