Joe Cummings and I have been going to Fly Fishing shows for a 5 or 6 years now. In a couple of weeks we head to Sommerset New Jersey for one of the biggest fly fishing shows in the world. If any of you are there, please come by and hang out with us at the Classic Journey booth. Sage, Simms, Winston, Lefty Krey all of the big shots are there. They have a casting pond set up and you can cast all the new rods, lines, spey rods, switch rods, all kinds of coolness and newness. We have quite a few clients from there and they usually treat us awesome, take us out to eat at some great places. It is a fun venue.http://www.flyfishingshow.com/Somerset__NJ.html
Luckily we fly to New Jersey. We used to drive to Seattle, but that show no longer exists. I miss the Seattle people but don’t miss the drive.
“Joe do you really think its safe passing semi trucks in 2 feet of snow and black ice driving 80 mph” I’d say while watching winding curves and mountain passes blur by in a sea of snow and a most certain death if we go of the road down the mountainside.
“This truck has good tires, and we have to get there early so we can speak with the Snohomish Fly Tiers” he’d reply with a sense of invincibility. I’m thinking, I hope my wife knows where my life insurance policy is, and I wonder if any of those fly tiers will read about us in the obituary.
With bad roads I’ve hit the ditch a time or two and consider my self lucky to be around after some of my misfortunes. Anyway bad roads, ice, wind, avalanches, we always seem to make it unscathed.
New Jersey is a relatively safe place for a couple of MT boys. Sometimes, we still manage to get in a little trouble. I’m a huge Green Bay Packers fan and have been my whole life. Last year I watched the Packers beat the Bears in the NFC championship game from the comfort of my New Jersey motel room. I bought a bottle of Makers Mark and a pizza. During the game I got so excited that after the game the pizza and the whiskey were both gone. I think my neighbors must have been Bears fans because I remotely remember returning and yelling some slight obscenities through the motel walls.
I didn’t feel great the next day on the flight home, but man I was excited to watch the Pack head back to the super bowl!
We meet all types of people and sometimes there are some crazy questions potential guests ask us. Its fun trying to help people plan their fly fishing vacation. Answering questions keeps you on your toes and some past experiences can create new situations.
A couple of years ago, in New Jersey, I spent 30 minutes talking to this lady about our rivers, hatches, floats, trout, and how our guided trips went. Everything seemed to be going well until Joe came back from a film presentation and sat down. The lady I was speaking to got real quiet, gave me a weird look and walked away. Minutes before she had mentioned that a bigger guide had yelled at her guide the previous year when she visited Missoula and fished the Clark Fork. I said “well that type of behavior is rare and an incident like that wouldn’t happen with A Classic Journey Outfitters.”
“Joe do you remember, last year, yelling at a guide with that lady in his boat” I asked as she was disappearing.
“I didn’t yell at her, I just asked the guide why he fished the same section everyday for 5 days in a row. We were dropping our boats in at 9-mile at the same time. Sometimes I might be intimidating and not know it” he said.
Turns out this guide was a bit flustered with Joe’s question/comment. As he hopped in his boat, shoving off the bank, he forgot his oars still lying on the gravel bar. Joe and his clients apparently laughed their asses off as they rowed by this dude as he walked back upriver to get his oars.
I think this guide was more embarrassed than anything else. He probably didn’t have a lot of nice things to say about Joe Cummings that day either. Some guides are a little more competitive than others! Needless to say, she didn’t come fishing with us.