Thirty days out plan

The thirty day prep:

By June 30:
✅Order flies
Inspect fishing gear:
 ✅  Fly lines (make sink tip)
 ✅Reels lubed, lines cleaned and wound
 ✅ Flourocarbon leader material (15-20 lb)
   Decide on how to stow flies. Thinking about slim box with hook stow
✅Inspect waders (purchase new glue thing)
✅Test boots, know how to lace and changs soles
✅Buy a cool new shirt for better pictures
Decide on new camera. ( tell the wife its for shooting kids on wakeboard).  Leaning toward Olympus 860 
✅Compulsively obsess

July 1-10
Pre stage
   Stack gear and clothes on staging table
   Make final clothes decisions
   Review toiletries and meds, refresh as needed
   ✅Buy line crockies
   ✅Test IK and pump transportation method.  Using old wheeled luggage, not bringing pump, put other gear in there to slimline carry ons.
   Order more flies (floating egg, small mouse, something strange)
    Designs for Rod caddie finished and approved, built? NOT DONE YET
Review last two years packing list
Buy something else you don't need: new reel, crocs
Compulsively obsess. (Reread journals, watch film, act insane (great at that )

July 11-19
Final Stage
Prepack, make sure everything fits
Buy license ( print and stow)
Pack ( Hondo film packing, pretend your les stroud)
Print boarding passes

July 20  board plane,


 

 

The Count Down

For generations fisherman and maybe some more enlightened hunters, have debated the count down.  Not the need for one, sheesh, every kid waiting for Christmas universally embraced the count down as a mandatory part of all anxiously anticipated events.  No, the debate is focused on how long, when is it too soon to start marking the calendar?  My vast analysis of this topic (was considering it for my PHD thesis) has lead me to two simple principles to guide the countdown to your countdown.

1.  The bigger the event, the sooner you start.  I vaguely remember a wee little Pablo once mention only 364 days till Christmas.

2.  The more psychotic and desperate the participant, the sooner the tally begins.  If you just stepped off your second most favorite river after an epic day, who cares when the next trip is.  If you've been confined in some office somewhere and you can't remember the last time cold water circled your waders, get out the calendar, you need to know how much longer you have to survive!  

So, AK 2015, the count down begins.  50 days for Hondo, cause #2 above surely applies most to him.  40 for me, Pablo and our two or four, new com padres!   So, below is the thought meant to take your mind for a brief moment today to the river of your future and dreams and give you a quick jolt of endorphins usually saved for the real moment.

I'd never caught a Dolly Varden (excepting bull trout on big creek) till AK 2008. That year I took a couple of small Varden, but it wasn't until Vinuk 2009 and again in 11 that I really grew to love these fish.  Why are they so decked out?  I'm sure there is a scientific reason probably related to spawning etc, but to me the artistry of these fish (and many others) is just a gift from God, a sign of his love and joy in his creation and I am grateful that I am one of the few people on the planet who recognize that and have been blessed to experience this untouched part of his handiwork.

Pay the Price

6:45 am MST, boop-beep. That's the sound of my phone receiving a text. It's the Gov. He's gone off the deep end. Stayed up all night watching "The Return" parts 1 and 2. Now he's messed up good. Got the AK Fever something hard. After exchanging texts for the better part of an hour, I'm messed up good. Spiraling down, headed for rock bottom, wishing I was standing on that rock bottom, feeling the cold current press against the back of my knees. Waiting for the tug. But no, not today, not for another 100 days. Technology... HA! That's the price I pay. Next time I'll not look at my phone till 9 am, maybe.