The Post Which Has Nothing To Do With Patriotism

Hey, readers! I’m in Denver tonight, hanging out at Kathryn’s place and watching the ARG/MEX rerun on Univision. No, I don’t understand Spanish sports play by play. Yes, I know who wins. And yes, I would nuke Argentina if I was the president. Then again, I’d also criminalize reality TV shows if I was the president, but I digress.

The highlights of my weekend so far:

• Catching a fish on a fly that I tied myself on Colorado’s White River. The lucky fish was a 13 inch whitefish who was totally suckered by a beadhead. The squirrelly little bastard was a joy to reel in until I realized it was a whitefish (a salmonoid relative of the trout, but not a trout).
• Catching a fish on a dry fly for the first time. Fly fishermen live for this, since you get to see the fish actually take the fly – with wet flies, your hook submerges somewhere underwater and you wait for a strike. Plus, fish feed off the surface (and therefore take dry flies) less frequently than they do underwater, so the opportunities are fewer as well. The squirrelly bastard was also a joy to reel in until I realized it was a whitefish.
• Catching the third squirrelly bastard of the day, until I realized it was a whitefish plus the fact that I almost killed it. It took me way too long to get the hook out – in fact, I never did and wound up clipping the line with the hook still inside the fish – and in the meantime the fish went into fishy cardiac arrest or some shit. I had to submerge it with its head upstream, gently moving it back and forth, and for at least three minutes it simply went belly up as soon as I let go, and frankly, even the Buddhist in me started wondering if performing fishy CPR was really worth my time. Finally – finally – the squirrelly little bastard could stay upright and in one place on its own, and eventually swam off. For those keeping track at home, this means I caught no trout on the White River, but three whitefish. For those anglers in the audience who maintain whitefish don’t feed off the surface and therefore don’t take dry flies, well, you’re totally full of shit.
• While Willie and I fished the Yampa in downtown Steamboat, we traded places next to a riffle and in the process exchanged rods by handing them over my head. I lost track of my line and it floated downstream behind us, completely unmanaged and unintentionally. As I turned to bring it back forward, it stuck and felt like it was snagged on something – and that something was a seven inch brown trout’s mouth. Crazy. Probably surprised us more than it surprised the fish.
• Willie caught a beautiful 17 inch cutthroat trout in his Super Secret Honey Hole on the Yampa. I’ll disclose the Super Secret Honey Hole’s location at about the same time I convert to Mormonism.
• Later that day, Willie brought in a nice brown and another cutthroat, and when I joined him at this new spot I brought in absolutely nothing but tangled leader. On one occasion, as Willie helped untangle my line, he too caught a fish by mistake. Sorry ‘bout that profanity, Willie, but I was frustrated by then.
• That evening, on a stretch of beautiful water, Willie caught a brookie trout – meaning he was a rainbow away from a Grand Slam (when you catch all four kinds of trout in a given time period – in this case, one effing day). As I untied my zillionth tangle of the day, Willie had a bite on his final cast. It was only another brown, and thus he missed the Grand Slam. Unfortunate, but precisely the kind of thing that keeps us coming back.
• I was back in the 7200 for Sunday, intending to get some work done. Didn’t happen. Talking to my boss this morning, she said, “I’m not a big fan of you sitting around here when you have better things to do. Get out of here. See you Wednesday.” Sweeeet.
• As a result, I drove to Denver without telling Kathryn that I’d be arriving early, and totally surprised her when she came walking back from the bank.

Alrighty. Tomorrow is going to be a hoot - we're watching the Germany/Italy game at my new favorite Denver bar (the British Bulldog) and then going to the Colorado Rapids game. I return to the 7200 sometime Wednesday morning.