After the day Craig had on 12-17-2011 in his first float down the North Fork of the White River, things were looking up for our Sunday morning float on 12-18-2011. We were up early, a little foggy from the beers the night before, but the biscuits were in the oven and the eggs were on the stove. We were packed up and waiting on breakfast and Brian Wise, who was going to join us on our float as well on Sunday.
After the success we had on Saturday, we had arranged for a shuttle from ROLF to Blair Bridge again and after a quick bite and loading up the car, we headed down to the field and dropped the boat in. Brian took the sticks first, as he wanted to see how my new boat handled….which meant that I got to fish for a bit.
Streamers were the order of the day, and I was throwing a 200grain sink tip along with an articulated Bully Streamer tied by Florida Guide, Brad Karczewski, at FlyDaddyShop.com. The first fish of the day, was coincidentally my first fish out of my new boat, and it was approaching the 20″ mark, but just not quite there once we measured it. Still a nice brown by anyone’s standards on the NFOW and it set the tone for our quick float.
We picked up the occasional fish the rest of the way throwing big flies, but no more big fish to speak of. It was a good trip though as Brian, Craig, and I shared many laughs and stories as we floated the 3 miles or so to Blair Bridge. All in all it was a great way to finish up the weekend. We shot lots of photos and Brian shot some video (you can see some footage from this weekend in his 2011 Fall Fly Fishing Video), and the new boat is everything that I had hoped it would be. Until next time.
–Matt Tucker
Great way to break in your new boat – beautiful brownie……
Yeah, it was a good weekend. A weekend that I have not seen before on the NFOW. For sure that river is not all sunshine and ribbons….but can give up some nice fish from time to time as Wise always proves.
Always good news to score out of box with a new boat. I really like your setup with the Yetti cooler loaded up front. I’m woking on a similar solution for my boat.
Looking forward to meeting all in January.
Sweet fish! Good food , good friends and a few fish to top it off…life just doesn’t get much better than that.
Really looking forward to the trip in January , excited to meet and fish with some of you guys I’ve only talked to over the interwebs. I’m all over that trip to the White in February if you don’t mind an extra guy tagging along. It falls on a weekend I don’t work and what else is a guy gonna do here in Kansas on a cold Feb day! Keep me posted…..