Despite the continual rain, Nate and I decided to try and flyfish for steelhead on the
Last night, we headed to the Mid-Willamette Fly Fishers group to meet some local flyfishers and learn more about west-coast fly fishing. It was an entertaining evening, mostly because of one old guy named Dick Turner, easily in his early 80s. Every time someone paused during the reading of the chapter business and announcements, Dick would pipe up with a comment, always completely unrelated to the business at hand. For example, a woman from the OR Council of the Fly Fisher Federation got up to talk about the group and her work. When she was finished, she asked if there were any questions. Dick raised his hand, and then proceeded to talk for a long while about a favorite Chinook hole that no one seems to fish any more. Another time, he told the group about a bunch of high school kids he once took out to the coast to plant trees (?). At one point, he started telling me all about the chickens he used to raise, until feed got too expensive. What a character! The folks in the group seemed to tolerate his random interjections just fine, and it’s probably a nice thing that he has an outlet for his stories. We also got some hands-on instruction about tying a few steelhead flies: The Undertaker, The Boss, and the Silver Hilton. We plan to set up our own vices and equipment soon and settle in for the long dark winter by tying some of our own.
