Yes, it was a great trip. In all we had 13 people show up (Me, Gavin, Brent, Joe, Andrew, Phil, Mike, Earl, Tom, Mark, Roy, Larry, and Scott show up at SpringRise (oh yes, and a man and his family from the small town of Deliverance that magically had truck troubles in front of the rearing ponds with a dip net in the back of their truck — remind us to tell you the story Gavin at the next tying night). There were 7 guys that met for breakfast at Denny’s (Mike, Earl, Brent, Andrew, Tom, Scott, and myself) — proving that I am not the only one that gets up at the crack of dawn when it comes to fishing.

As Gavin had said, the “feast” was the finest outdoor meal I have had EVER. Lots of food — Deer, Sloppy Joes, Chowder, Salad, Deer Sausage, Cheese, crackers, Cookies, Brownies, Beer, Wine, etc (and I am not listing it all). The conversation was great as well. Nothing like sitting around a table of food with 12 other fly fisherman for about an hour and a half drinking and eating — one is bound to learn allot (and I did). Also, I too will attest to Mike’s tool of trout torture. It was really cool. The stomach pump and the kick net were very interesting. It was a trip to see the different aquatic life in the stream and then match it with what was in a trout’s stomach (no globalls or pellets found).

The fishing was good too. I didn’t have near the kind of numbers day one can have down there (Brent had a 40 fish day), having only brought to hand about 13 or so (10 before lunch and 3 after lunch — kind of makes you wonder…..). But I think the funniest thing to happen to me while down there was either me hooking and landing a dead/decaying fish or me snapping off a decent size fish and it swimming around with my scud in its mouth and my tippet still attached to my indicator (so you could easily spot the fish swimming down stream, because the indicator was on top of the water). Gavin later hooked my indicator (not the fish), and landed the fish (of which he said was close to 20″). Several of us brought down the FRS radios, and that was a hoot. I won’t steal Mike’s thunder but he caught a fish that brought him into his backing twice on his 2wt. At one point during the fight when the fish was taking line he keyed his radio and we could here the fish taking line of his reel like a mad man. The radios were a good time — I think I will start carrying mine more often, it beats yelling across the stream. All in all, it was a long fun-filled day. We got there about 7:30am and didn’t leave till about 6pm or so (refer back to the deliverance reference). I will definitely coordinate another day like this in the future, as it was a BLAST. — Matt Tucker