The road trips have ended with a nice stop in California last week.  It’s now time to get the fly boxes ready for the upcoming Spring swing into skwalas starting in March.  I have a few holes to fill in my fly inventory, but I am pretty much ready to rock and roll the 2018 fly fishing season.  Snowpack is excellent, so fishing forecasts are quite optimistic right now.

While I was in California I was able to catch up with my old college room mate Josh Wallwork.  He was our quarterback at University Wyoming and led the country in total offense and yards thrown his senior year. I hadn’t seen Josh in over two decades and it was funny that we could both vividly recall all the adventures on and off the field that young men on football scholarships try out along the competitive road.  Josh was a tough player and a big performer in crunch time.  He has taken that same will to succeed and carved out a nice spot in business for his family in Northern California. I used to give him grief about being a California kid and I still do.

We both had the pleasure of playing for legendary coach Joe Tiller.  We laughed about how all the lessons Coach Tiller taught us still echo in our own adult lives. The competitive athlete part of my life is long gone. It is now shared with my children on their own journey in sport.  When you are fighting with other full ride athletes for playing time and then focussing your training and skill into campaigns against other teams on magical college football afternoons you have a shared razors edge experience with the men that stood in cleats with you. Those bonds and grand lessons stick. Josh bought me drinks and dinner.  I laughed because we couldn’t have afforded that when we were at University Wyoming as broke college kids. Time goes so fast.

As far as the trade show goes it was pretty standard issue.  I met a whole bunch of great people and I hope some decide to share Montana with us on their fly fishing vacation.

Their was one exception that I hadn’t run into before.

A seemingly quite angry fellow who looked to me had been over served at the beer concession stand staggered up to my booth on Sunday afternoon.

Stagger chugging a beer – “Hey, Hey, Hey, Hey.  You from Montana right?”

Me – “Yes, sir.  We have a fly fishing Lodge in Missoula Montana. We fish the Bitterr…”

Stagger cutting me off – “I don’t much care which rivers you fish.  I want to talk to you about those damn licenses.”

Me – “Do you mean the MT fishing licenses for non-residents.”

Stagger – “Yep, I don’t look like a resident do I?”

Me – “No exactly sir, well maybe from Darby if you are.”

Stagger – “Is that supposed to be a joke?”

Me – “Yes.  Have you ever been to Darby Montana?”

Trade shows are pure hard core selling to blind leads.  When you are on a run with qualified people coming to your booth your energy to recite an animated sales pitch and answer questions is buoyed by the chance of a possible booking.  You have to know that most won’t come to fruition because that is the nature of the numbers game, but hope keeps you focussed. When you are inundated with people coming to your booth that have no intention of booking a trip you need interesting conversations to maintain a positive attitude.  When those conversations digress into something that is mainly a time suck it can wear you down.  If I have nothing else going on, then I like to jump down the strange human rabbit holes that show. It gives me blog material and some war stories to share at the exhibitor after show cocktail hour.

Stagger – “No, and I don’t plan too because of your overpriced fishing licenses.  Can you believe they charge $25 for a two day license.  I mean, really, I could by a 12 pack for that and just sit on the bank.”

Me – “Yes, you could. But you would need a license to fish.”

Stagger – “Well maybe not.  That is why I’m talking to you.”

Me – “I thought it was for my jokes. Are you sure you aren’t from Darby?”

Stagger – “Yes, I already told you that.  I’ll ask the questions.”

Me – “Fire Away. I am a wealth of information at your disposal.”

Stagger was getting a little dry mouth from his bad back medicine vaping that apparently had started in the parking lot, so he paused to chug the remaining three quarters of his beer before providing me with an insightful question about the odds of getting caught fishing without a license in Montana.

I responded with a detailed answer outlining the drone armies that game wardens have begun to fill the skies with in pursuit of illegal anglers. I illuminated Stagger further that their responses have become swift and vicious in enforcing Montana’s fishing license requirements. Mainly night raids actually.  Apparently that struck a paranoid chord with Stagger.  He responded by sneaking another vape under the collar of his coat.  He stared at his empty beer, then took an uncomfortably long pause before he looked me directly in eye.

Stagger – “Well my beer is empty and you suck at selling fishing trips. I’m outtta here.”

Me – “Thank you.”

Stagger – “For what?”

Me – “You got my blog done for the week.”

The season is coming.  I will be throwing dries in about a week.  I am thinking I won’t be seeing Stagger on the water this year. Who knows though?  If I do catch him I am firing up my drone and doing some dive bombs at the Darby boat ramp.