Photo: Charlie King

When the Fly-Fishing Film Tour (F3T) rolled into Boulder last Thursday, about 40 sportsmen were preparing to head to Washington D.C. to speak with the White House, Senators, and other agency officials on the possible threats associated with creating one of the largest gold/copper mines above the most prolific salmons runs in the world. As they gathered, I was asked to head-up the show in Boulder and inform everyone of the possible significance of the year ahead.

Thanks to the fine folks from F3T, I spoke in front of a packed house of eager fish-porn enthusiasts. Most applauded the efforts, and even more had questions. “Are we going to win this?” or “People in Alaska are worried – should they be?”. While I could answer these as best as possible, my expression said, “Absolutely – we’re going to pull through this.” After all, if we lose this battle, anything is on the table.

It was a great night, but more news is coming out of D.C. today, including a new article by former Republican Representative Robin Hayes of North Carolina. He’s quoted as saying:

“We live in a time where jobs don’t exactly grow on trees, but in Alaska, it is fair to say that jobs grow on rivers.”

Please visit his article posted here, and please leave a comment with your support. This is a critical time on a critical issue. We can’t leave it alone now.

Photo: Ben Knight

I’m the guy next door with the ugly lawn. Yeah, it’s small and I should probably do something with it , but you can suck it because I know where my water comes from.

You see, in the Front Range of Colorado, we get most of our water from the western slope, where large rivers flowing from the continental divide are diverted to provide the large population of the Front Range its water. My little lawn probably doesn’t put a dent in it, but I don’t see the point to having a lush, green lawn during our driest months. My neighbors set their sprinklers out day after day wanting a nice green grass. I can understand this, but not here – and not what we are harming to gain it.

My goal is to eventually zero-scape this, which means killing off the grass that’s there and installing drought resistant vegetation with rocks and maybe a tree. I can’t avoid using a little water on it, but when August rolls around, I don’t sit a sprinkler out for hours at a time, every day. I just let it die.

The information is out there, but people in my area still don’t understand exactly where their water comes from. Why do we love Colorado? And why do we continue to destroy our resources for a little green lawn?

Let’s keep our water here:

Courtesy of Colorado Trout Unlimited

Be sure to check out savethecolorado.org and defendthecolorado.org

Photo: Kyle Perkins

In case you missed it, I wrote a small guest piece for Deneki Outdoors South Andros Lodge the other day. Head on over and check out the rest of their posts from Alaska, to BC, to Andros.

All the Important Questions

You’re a month away from your first bonefishing experience, let alone your first salt fishing trip. While you grew up on small streams in the Rockies stalking pocket water for pigs as you slowly hike through brush or snow, you know this is going to be different – but how different, exactly?

The first thing you do before a trip to South Andros and Deneki Outdoors’ Andros South Lodge is talk to people who have been to flats in search of bonefish before. Luckily, a few close friends plan yearly trips, so you’re in good hands.

Key points of advice are to practice casting longer distances (with wind if possible) and remember to strip-set instead of the usual trout-set. After a few lessons, the results are something like, “Nope, you need to double-haul that cast”, or “Nope, too many false casts.” As you can imagine, anxiety rears its ugly head.

As time passes, your anxiety about failing increases. It seems the only thing you can do right is tie up Gotcha patterns. Finding a suitable way to create the salt flat experience in a high- altitude, snowy climate just isn’t working.

So the time comes to catch the first red-eye, then another flight in the morning, and finally a short hop over to the island of South Andros. Beautiful skies, sand filled beaches, and of course Kalik await. You hang out your first night at the Slack Tide, tie a few flies, and discuss the possible destinations for the next morning.

With a loud 6 am wake-up call, you jump out of bed and feel the lump in your throat almost growing by the minute – it’s time. After a great breakfast and full spread of lunch items (in which you only make peanut butter and bacon sandwiches, of course), you set off to the launching dock. You’re met by your first guide of the day, and the announcement that you’re heading to the West Side more than excites your comrade and boat buddy for the day.

The run is about 30 minutes, and then it’s time to grab a rod and get up on the bow. You wait, nervous, as your guide slowly poles a flat. Small lessons are already being learned: pull enough line off your reel, leave enough leader, and line off the end of your rod. Don’t forget to hold that fly loosely in your left hand. It’s silent, only wind and small waves making subtle sounds.

Then, it happens – you hear, “30 feet, 11 o’clock.” Your bare feet shuffle, you cast and just about pop that fish on the head with your fly. Nothing more to say other than that fish is long gone. You knew it, knew you were going to fail.

While searching more flats, your guide is very instructional in an almost comedic way, as your fishing mate sits back and laughs quietly at your attempts – almost assuming you’re getting skunked your first day.

On the bow again, your guide spots a large school of bonefish. While you can’t see a thing, you trust his instincts and just start launching flies into the area – “50 feet, 9 o’clock!” Strip, strip, strip, “fish on!” your guide yells. First thing you do is try to trout set.  Then you reach for the reel, “No, let him run, mon.” After about 20 minutes of your heart racing, the fish making runs, and all the while your buddy in the chair laughing, you have almost got the fish to the boat. Everything has seemed minimal before this – you’ve landed your first bonefish on your first day ever saltwater fishing.

Everyone is ecstatic, and you have your first bonefish in your hands. The camera flashes, but one question you forgot to ask was how to handle these fine fish…

Photo: Michael Gracie

]]> http://compleatthought.com/2012/03/09/all-the-important-questions/feed/ 0 http://compleatthought.com/2012/02/15/changes/ http://compleatthought.com/2012/02/15/changes/#comments Thu, 16 Feb 2012 06:06:03 +0000 kyleindenver http://compleatthought.com/?p=1940

Yeah, it’s been a while since my last post – but for all good reasons. If you didn’t know, I became a dad for the first time on January 28th to a beautiful new daughter. While some things were expected, others were not. It seemed at first waiting was the hardest game, though it was nothing compared to the hours, or days, of my wife’s labor and birth of Hannah Layne. We all go through changes in our life, but this one came to be completely different.

Those reading this may understand words related to ‘contractions’ or ‘water breaking’, but only those mothers and fathers can relate to the experience of watching their loved one go through something so terrifying and ultimately devastating to ones’ belief in human nature. You see, I thought I was prepared, but what happened on that late January day will forever change my life as I know it. And after the anxiety passed, there was a new life that was before unreal to me. Those bumps in the belly just aren’t real until you see big eyes and hear screaming lungs.

I’ve always seen the woman I married as the strength in me. She’s tough, doesn’t put up with any shit, and usually gets what she wants. Giving birth gave me an entirely new outlook on who she is – the TOUGHEST person in the world. There aren’t words to express what she went through during those hours, but I do know that she wanted it, and in the end, appreciated every single minute. Not that I did, but I’ll never under-estimate the power of a woman again. They compare the pain to a man being kicked in the balls – but imagine that every 3 to 5 minutes for over 24 hours.

We’re now blessed with our 2-week old daughter, Hannah. With of course a biased opinion, she is the most perfect thing that I could ever imagine. I’m giddy as school girl – even gushing over new clothes and even poop. While I thought I would hold this as simply another change in my life, this is by far, the most important thing that could ever happen to me. We’ve experienced changes, but some changes will last a lifetime.

Thanks to all of you that have sent well wishes our way. From small to large, we appreciate everything. I can’t wait to get my little Hannah Layne on the river – even if she just wants to enjoy the outdoors or actually catch her first fish.

Now, back to our regularly scheduled program – but don’t think I’ll hesitate for a moment to pass along little tidbits as Hannah grows.

You may recall that last June I posted about a new Costa Del Mar advertising campaign where models of fish were created completely out of their sunglasses. These were to be donated at a later time to conservation groups. Well, notice came today that Costa donated the marlin sculpture to The Billfish Foundation and the tarpon sculpture to the International Game Fish Association (IFGA).

Here’s the official press release:

Costa Donates One-of-a-Kind Sunglass Fish Sculptures to IGFA, The Billfish Foundation

Daytona Beach, Fla. – Jan. 16, 2012 – Costa Sunglasses made a splash when it unveiled images of one-of-a-kind, hand built fish sculptures of a tarpon, blue marlin and bass built entirely out of its own sunglass parts in an advertising campaign last year. Now, two of these sculptures have found new homes with some worthy organizations.

Costa donated its tarpon fish sculpture to the International Game Fish Association (IGFA) to be put on display inside its Fishing Hall of Fame & Museum.  First opened in January 1999, the IGFA Fishing Hall of Fame & Museum attracts 75,000 guests each year who come to view one of the largest repositories of sport fishing history.  In addition to full-scale casts of world record catches in the Greats Hall, interactive fishing simulators in the Catch Gallery and hundreds of epic historical photographs, the IGFA’s headquarters is also filled with an impressive collection of permanent artwork – including the newest piece from Costa.

The blue marlin sculpture has been donated  to The Billfish Foundation (TBF), a longtime Costa partner. The organization plans to showcase the sculpture from February 16 – 20 in its booth at the 2012 Miami Boat Show.  Following the show, TBF will promote the sculpture online and at various events throughout the year before auctioning it off at their Annual Tag & Release Awards Ceremony in February 2013. All proceeds will benefit billfish conservation efforts.

A mix of lenses, hinges, frame arms, nose pads, side shields and retainer cord segments from hundreds of Costa sunglasses went into building the mounted fish sculptures. Each fish was built using the sunglass lens color and frame technology necessary to catch the particular species.

“The response to these fish sculptures has been incredible,” said Al Perkinson, vice president of marketing for Costa Sunglasses. “We wanted them to belong to organizations like IGFA and TBF that are doing great things in the name of preserving angling heritage and promoting sustainable sport fishing.”

The blue marlin model glows with dozens of Costa’s 580™ blue mirror lenses as scales and silver and black frame arms as fins. Side shields and retainer cords add realistic detail to the billfish body.

“Seeing the intricate level of detail and knowing there’s only one of Costa’s blue marlin fish sculpture in the world – it’s truly a priceless work of art,” said Ellen Peel, executive director of TBF. “It’ll be one of the main attractions in our booth at the Miami Boat Show and will help raise awareness of some of the important work we’re doing this year.”

For the tarpon sculpture, more than 150 Costa 580™ silver mirror and gray lenses were used to illustrate the scales. The fish also features frame arms to shape the fins and mouth, with a Costa ‘C’ logo accentuating its eye.

“Our museum is home to angling artifacts and art you can’t see anywhere else,” said Mike Myatt, Chief Operating Officer of IGFA. “The Costa tarpon sculpture will fit right in and serve as a great addition to our collection.”

Costa plans to produce and release new sculptures featuring additional fish species later this year.