Zach Matthews
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Tom –
The D7000 doesn’t need as much protection as you might think. You essentially just want to avoid full submersion, and even that is recoverable. I have dunked a D200 with a Nikkor lens on it and both went on to long and happy careers – I am still using that lens every day.
I personally carry my gear in a water resistant backpack. It’s not too hard to sling it around and fish it out if I need to take some shots, and it gives me both more capacity for other things and a reasonable time to fish myself out and get the camera to a dry spot if I take a spill.
I am not a huge fan of camera-only sleeves. They end up just making the camera bulkier without providing a lot of additional protection, in my opinion. I’d look at the Patagonia waterproof backpack series probably.
Zach
Mike –
Great, educational post. I appreciate it. That certainly answers my questions about Gardiner and why it only has the single shop, although I think we can all agree they could spruce the place up just a tad.
Zach
Tim Angeli said: I would love to track him down and record all his stories; one of them literally ended with, “That was the first time that I shot at somebody.”
Whoa. Ian Crabtree and I met up with board members Joel Thompson and Ed Felker out there last fall, when I was on the photo spree which has been so productive lately. 😉 Ed Felker proceeded to drink beer after beer and yet absolutely pool shark everyone in the room. Skilled fella!
What I like to do out there is pitch a tent in Mammoth Hot Springs Campground for $17/night, snake showers from the Hot Springs Hotel bathhouses serving the cabins out back, then use the car to go into Gardiner once it gets full dark. Makes camping feel like you’re staying in a hotel, especially since that area is basically air conditioned at night by Mother Nature. I’ve had wolves howl me awake there, too.
Hey speaking of, does anyone know how the inner mold of these boats is assembled? Jay’s boat looks like the mold sheared along the sides. Is this a full inner insert or just basically panels that are epoxied to the walls? My suggestion was to run some extremely heavy duty epoxy around in there and then ratchet-strap the boat closed until it sets, then sand/glass the transition points where it sheared away.
Zach
Excellent discussion, guys – I appreciate it.
Mike what color and size of Clouser are you recommending? You said ‘big’ – are we talking crawdad size/color or what?
Jason I was thinking exactly that when I was reading this: I wonder how these differ from shoalies? I probably could wear the shoal bass out in my section of the Hooch, but they’re usually just incidental by-catch (and unwelcome at that) when I’m striper fishing. Every now and then an ambitious shoalie will inhale a striper fly, but they usually just short-strike the tails.
Rob, dude, that is a hell of a party float! You are going to have to post pictures of that. Is the idea to try to catch and kill as many snakeheads as possible, or are you guys starting to look on them as a sport fish? That might well be worth a post of its own since it’s a different topic…
Thanks for all the advice guys. Good to see some activity here on the board. I appreciate it.
ZachBtw I just caught that this was a 2013. Somebody bought it and let a T-rex have a dance party inside it in less than six months!
Mike –
Is Walt Wiese the younger guy who used to work in Park’s Fly Shop in Gardiner? Last time I saw him he had busted his leg up in I think a skateboarding accident.
Gardiner for me is a weird town, because it seems like it ought to have the same kinds of high end fly shops as West does (and West has four!). And yet you get there and there’s only Park’s, which is pretty much right out of 1955, or at least it has been all four times I’ve been in there.
I guess Gardiner just doesn’t get the tourist traffic that West does? I know they’re doing a lot of work on the North Entrance there so maybe it will pick up. That’s actually my favorite near-Yellowstone place to base camp. The K-Bar is good!
Zach
Brett –
Are the tigers you’re fishing for hybridized with brook trout and brown trout or are they brown trout/bull trout? I’ve heard bull trout are extremely aggressive and I think you can make tigers both ways.
Zach
Thanks guys. Cover shots eluded me for the longest time (and likely still will). While the photos are usually technically fine, there always seems to be some issue with how they lay out or what not. The truth is 90% of covers for fly fishing magazines come from the same people, with establish (and deserved) reputations. I know at least some of those folks have “pet fish” they photograph, but not all. Guys like Grossenbacher and O’Keefe really impress the hell out of me because of the diversity of their work, still hitting ‘cover quality,’ more than other who have basically figured out a workable formula, excellent though their photos may also be.
Zach
Hey John –
It largely seems to depend on whether the reel is made in the U.S. or not. Nautilus, Ross, Abel, Hatch, Galvan, Tibor and many other high-end makers all machine their reels here themselves, typically while also making other products (except, I think, in the case of Nautilus). For example Tibor makes a security camera mount when it is not machining reels, sold under the brand name of Ted Juracsik Tool & Die (or at least they did).
Meanwhile imported reels are all, obviously, subcontracted. Orvis, Sage, TFO, Lamson, and the like typically import. There’s a trend here, I think: rod companies who sell reels are usually re-badging them, although they can still be very high quality, since a CNC machine station can be manned anywhere. Hardy proved that by turning out identical or even arguably better reels when they moved manufacture to Korea a few years back. Their Korean reels remain excellent and are just about indistinguishable from their English-made models.
Zach
http://spokane.craigslist.org/boa/3942112273.html
Needs work! Awesome!
This is a hilarious story. I told Jay to contact Clackacraft about getting some work done to restore the boat. They were like, uh, we know that boat… Let’s just say there’s a reason it went to the salvage auction.
But, I have seen Jay’s abilities with his striper boat and I have faith, brother! It will make an awesome story, too.
Post pics! 😉
Zach
No crap and we’re not the only ones complaining now:
http://news.yahoo.com/atlanta-ever-seen-much-rain-163600361.html
I’m reading a book called “Twilight of the Mammoths,” on the decline of the Pleistocene megafauna, written by the guy who came up with the overkill hypothesis. It reminded me of this post, because he discusses how foxes are actually evolutionary prototypes of the larger canids like wolves and dogs. Basically wolves and dogs’ great-great-ancestors started out looking about like a fox. Ditto coyotes, which split from the wolf/dog line a few million years back (but they are still closely related enough to interbreed if forced to it).
Zach
Randy the announced price was $795 just to follow up on your question. The rod is now on the website. However, I’ve heard from friends at Scott that these may wind up being hard to come by for a while–much like a new Nikon camera, the demand is overwhelming the supply. My buddy Ian Crabtree said he was absolutely swamped (he’s the guy who fills the orders). So if you see one in your local fly shop and you’re considering getting one, you might want to hop because that fly shop is probably going to have to wait to get refreshed once the initial batch sells out. Scott is at full capacity making these right now.
Zach