Torrey, UT / Fly Fishing

Saturday, October 8

We were all scheduled to meet at 6.45 or 7.00 a.m. at the guys’ hotel on Saturday morning. It was COLD again that morning, so I’ll chalk this up as not my easiest morning out of bed on the trip, for sure.

The fly fishing guide, Steve, was there at the hotel with the guys and was going through the plan for the day. The location he wanted to take the group was at altitude, accessible only by a very curvy, steep road. There had been lots of snow at altitude overnight and in the past couple of days, so in the end, the mountain location got nixed; it was time for Plan B due to too much snow and a high danger factor. Plan B was to go back to the fishing stream Andy and Jeff had fished the previous day. That spot wasn’t snowy, and it didn’t require a treacherous, death-defying drive up a snowy mountain road, either.

[Good call, Steve.]

We geared up at the hotel, with me again putting on my waders and boots that didn’t quite fit. The stream was only a few miles down the road, so the group piled into two trucks and off we went. I drove Jeff, who had his camera rolling out the window behind the other truck, so he could get some footage for the shoot. (This shoot was really cool and fun from a professional – as well as adventure – standpoint!)

Once out of the trucks, the guide, Steve, started out giving Jerry some basics about fly fishing, since fly fishing was a new thing for him. I listened closely, since I was a newbie, too. Then they all walked down to the stream and climbed in. Since I wasn’t 100% waterproof, I stayed in the mucky part next to the stream, watched everything roll out and took some photos.

Here are the on-camera stars with Steve, the guide, getting their rods ready.

Here are the guys with cameraman, Jeff (in the red backpack), in the stream, too.

And here’s a shot of the whole shoot going down, with Andy in the blue in front-left, the fishers in their tan neutrals and Jeff with the red backpack on the right side of the stream.

The funniest part was actually Jeff, who almost went down in the stream a few times. Apparently the bottom of the stream was really mucky. When he tried to walk, one foot would lift but the other foot wouldn’t move from the mud, which was almost deadly for him a few times!  (Sorry to giggle, Jeff!)

After about 45-60 mins of watching the guys shoot, I was cold and a little wet. That was enough for me. I went back to the truck with Auggie to warm up and read Potter. I was getting very close to the end of Book Seven and was happy for the solitude and reading time.

Back in the truck, I made a few phone calls, wrote a few postcards and then broke open Potter Book Seven. I had barely gotten into one chapter of my book when the guys came back – no fish were biting after a couple of hours. They wanted to move to another spot on the stream.

We packed up quickly and moved the trucks. The guys got out, had some snacks and went back to the new spot in the stream. I wished them well, told them not to come back without a fish and got back to my book. Auggie took a nice, long afternoon nap.

Those guys took me seriously – they were down in that stream for hours! At one point, Jeff came back and said they still had not caught a single fish. From an NBC-segment perspective, that was a total bust. They needed to catch a fish to be able to make a segment out of it all. So they decided that Jeff and Andy would put down their cameras and put their rods into the water, too, just to see if anyone would catch a fish. Jeff headed off back to the stream.

I read on voraciously, and I finished the final Potter book with tears in my eyes. Wow. What a story. As anticipated, I was very sad to have finished Book Seven, since that really did mean there were no more to read. That’s really bad news. However, the story had come to its logical conclusion, and any next book would be like bringing “Rhoda” to the screen after so many successful years of “The Mary Tyler Moore Show” – it would only be a quarter as good and not nearly as addictive. All good things must come to an end. L 

As I finished the book, though, I looked out the window of the truck and saw a doe down in the field by the stream. (For those of you who have read the Potter series, you will understand why that doe freaked me out a bit!) Was this a sign? Was this doe sent to this spot to be a symbol of hope and good for me? I guess we’ll see …

I was done with my book now and starting to get restless after having been sitting for so long. I got out of the truck and took Auggie for a walk around the fields. He smelled the deer and took off on a little jaunt. He came back (he always comes back) and we headed back to the trucks to wait, keeping our fingers crossed that the guys had caught some fish.

Alas, it was not to be! The guys finally came back to the truck, but had not caught a single fish, even with five rods in the water. Oh my.

[Note to self – you REALLY have to like the process of casting and trying to figure out the fish, since you can spend an entire day at it (even in the cold) and not catch a single thing. Hmmmm … I’m not sure this fly-fishing business is for me … ]

Andy and Jeff were trying to figure out how to salvage the shoot, but kept coming up empty. The excitement factor of showing fly fishing in a cold stream on a cold day in Utah without an actual catch was hard to magic up. They were starting to work on their own Plan B.

The day had been long and we said good-bye to Steve, the guide, and to Jeff, who was heading back to the Salt Lake area. We had some quick dinner with Bob and Jerry, and then they, too, took off on their drive back to the Salt Lake area. Andy and I were off to Capitol Reef National Park the next day, so we were happy for warm showers and an early night of it after such a cold and early start to this fish-less day.