New Blog

My friend Amanda has started a blog, www.amandalikestofish.wordpress.com. She's fairly new to fly-fishing, but totally consumed with it (like any reasonable person). Read about her adventures--and probably a few of them will include me!

A Peek into Brown Drakes

Big Brown Bugs from Silver Creek Outfitters on Vimeo.

My buddy Jamie Briscoe, a guide at Silver Creek Outfitters, narrates this video which gives you a peek into the Brown Drake hatch on Silver Creek. As always, my favorite week of the year.

Oh my god, I'm tired.

So, I've totally neglected the blog, the plants, the laundry, the bills, and probably a lot of other stuff. It's summer, though, and that means I'm out on the water. We've had a fantastic season so far. Silver Creek has been unbelievable and I've even been impressed with the Wood. The Lower Lost should be fishable any day now. I realized the other day that I haven't fished myself since July 11, but I've been on the water every day and have enjoyed every minute of it. My schedule is a lot less chaotic after Labor Day and I'm a little sad that it's so soon, but I'm looking forward to a lot of personal fishing this fall. I hope it's not this long until I post again!

What qualifies you?

You know, it's full-on summer in Sun Valley and it's absolute craziness. I've barely had time to sleep, much less blog, but I was really horrified on the river the other day and thought I'd share.

I was guiding three people last Friday on the Big Wood. We were just out for a few hours and they had never fished before--pretty standard gig. The first place we fished was near a private bridge and a guy riding his bike stopped on the bridge to watch. I waved and he started talking to me. He then proceeded to tell me that I was fishing in the wrong spot and then that he doesn't fish the Wood until August which I thought made him especially qualified to tell me what to do--he kept insisting that we move. I brushed it off--it happens fairly regularly--these men see a woman guiding and assume she has no idea what she's doing.

I'm the one that gets paid to take people fishing.

We moved spots for the last part of the trip and got into the fish. Green drakes were coming off and we were all having a great time. A gentleman was walking along the river and came up to us. We were chit chatting about where he was from and how the fishing had been--he was just hanging out wasting some time. After 15 minutes or so he came up to the client I was standing with and told her she needed to set the hook differently, which, by the way, would ensure that she would never land another fish in her life.

These people would never say this to a man.

I'm the one who gets paid to take people fishing.

So, the moral of this story is to keep your mouth shut. I am a professional. There are professional women all around you and we're probably better than our coworkers because we have to prove ourselves daily.

Keep your mouth shut. You're welcome to take our photo because we're so awesome though--haha!

Expanding my Horizons

Summer in Sun Valley--whew!

I've barely had any sleep in the last couple of weeks and we're just getting started. I've been guiding, fishing, sewing, having parties, going to parties and fundrasiers, and I did manage to squeeze in a class on fabric dying and printing the last few nights. The dying was a little hippie-dippy for me, but I managed to redeem myself tonight by creating a block with a Mimbres fish and printing with it. It's helping get my creative juices flowing for some new projects.



On the fishing front, things are improving. Tricos have showed up on Silver Creek, though they're not in full force yet and the Wood is dropping--it should be fishable in a few days. I guided in Copper Basin on Tuesday, though, and it's still crazy high up there. All I can say is that we're going to have an amazing fall!

Brown Drakes!

I finally feel like I've recovered from Brown Drakes...it took a while. It's my favorite week of fishing of the year. This year's hatch was several weeks later than normal, but still caught us by surprise. We used a canoe every night so we went all out. In the photo below you can see our extensive antipasto selection. I kept joking about all the stuff we brought and said I was going to bring a chandelier and an umbrella to complete the picnic!



Nick and Kristina enjoying the heavy hors d'oeuvres.


The hatch in the middle of a thunderstorm. Craziness!


Kristina said she came in a girl and wanted to leave a woman. We finally stopped gossiping long enough to make that happen!


Paddy caught this bad boy during the thunderstorm. I love the colors of the fish and the awesome rainbow.


Nick and Ryan, from Salt Lake, drove up to join us one night. They're canoeing down to the take-out to avoid the coming storm, but ended up paddling through some of the craziest lightning I've ever seen as well as hail and really heavy rain. When I picked them up, they were all smiles.

It was another amazing year of drakes with awesome friends. I can't wait until next year!

Texas Style

I saw this posted several places and it was supposedly in Texas. This October could get interesting...