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Tuesday: Tonio
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Thursday: Clark Reid
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Thursday, 2nd July 2009

You're always asked, if you've done a bit of guiding... for guiding stories... I've related before I don't really consider I have many... it makes me wonder when someone who has been guiding for two seasons has too many... but there are some things that really do make you chuckle.

Clients falling in and you have, sometimes, to do be really diplomatic and "supportive" about it... Of course if it's their second or third trip with you it's highly possible you'll just laugh your ass off as you would at a mate. This can have serious repercussions on your tip!

Some of my fondest memories of clients are watching the ones who managed to snag a fish over the legendary 10lb mark. AT one lodge I guided for such an event was heralded on our return to the lodge by a "fly over". Dive bombing the lodge from a great height in the helicopter only to then pull it into a steep climb taking it almost as high as it will go straight up before swinging around and making a bit more classic approach and landing on the lawn. This signalled the time for the girls in the lodge to be ready on the patio with champagne ready to celebrate the event and the celebrating would begin in earnest! Life was hard in those days....

Several factors dictated the success of this event... It was handy if you were one of the last parties back in because this meant the lodge was full of the others guests who got to come out and congratulate heartily (jealously) with the staff. Then there were the obligatory stories and displaying of photos and once things settled a bit of time to retire, for me, to the guide's quarters to the inevitable question... "Was it a real 10lber"? What a bloody cheek! Of course it was...

The reality is that with seven guides operating there competition for "fly-over's" was often at an all time high, especially with the newer guides wanting to make their presence known and it did often pee them off that some of us older ones did seem to know the locale of more 10lbers than them... this leads, inevitably, to some fish that were "not real 10lbers" being called ten pounders when they were 8 lbers... that was fine, until the competition really heated up and I swear I drank champagne with folks, guided by others, that would be scratching to reach 6 lb. It got bloody silly and a stern talk was needed to get things back in line.

It was often hard celebrating in the lodge with someone who was convinced by their guide that they had caught a "10lber" when another guest freshly arrived from another lodge, guide or the like wanted to share their snaps and show off the photos of their "8lber" and it was so obviously bigger than the "10lber" being celebrated... even more embarrassing for the guide who knew the "8lber" wasn't even six! Bullshit is alive and well in flyfishing...

So things settled down and most of those young guides now have their head pulled in, to some degree, on what is and isn't a ten pounder. But we did get some bloody good laughs at some fish... We got even bigger laughs (Silently) at clients as our skilled pilots pulled off the "flyover" and the clients almost lost their mind...

I was always comfortable with my flyovers... Mine were always over 10lbs!

Clark

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