Here Today, Gone Fishing

As far as triathlon goes, I am a pretty good fisherman. For a long time the only fish I was catching in the water came from the end of my line..as opposed to my now phenomenal tri-swimming skills (okay that's a lie). To date, I still have more fishing poles than running shoes.

Every year with a few exceptions The Colonel (aka Dad), my godfather and another buddy Gordo would link up in Montana at my folks place and we would then traverse the state on a 7-9 day fishing spree. The last time we all fished together in 2003 we hit five different rivers in five days. We catch huge trout, we kept nothing below 20 inches. They were like footballs and fought like salmon.

Sidenote: We were all on a fishing trip in Montana during September 2001. We were staying at a national guard base in Helena as The Colonel has connections and it allowed us to have a homebase while hitting multiple rivers. I was deep into a pre-contest diet for a body building show I was going to do that fall. As we were leaving, I was turning off the television and Bryant Gumbel broke into the newscast to show the second plane hitting the WTC. We all sat stunned and at moment I stopped my diet and grabbed the coffee pot and poured a long cup. My diet and attitude were ruined and at that moment my selfish physical goals for a show died. We all debated about what to do and we decided if the world was going to end then it would end with us fishing. All our lives would be different and we would at least have one more day together on the river out of contact with the world. Well the world intruded. The Colonel was reached and consulted. My brother, phoned that he was called up and starting the next day spent a year protecting a reactor in the SouthWest. I only mention this because since then when any of us get together to fish it has more meaning to it, a band of brothers thing.

This is a picture of how our week ultimately ended. The Colonel getting a somber send off as he boards a Blackhawk helicopter dispatched to lonely Billings, Montana to take him off to one of many important meetings following 9/11.

Okay, sorry for the soliloquy.

This year The Colonel is not attending and is nursing his bad hip by taking a three week assignment in Germany, then hopping around bases in the states. The godfather had reconstructive ankle surgery last Christmas and demands an easy route. I suggested going to Mexico and deep sea fishing but that's for another trip.

So godfather, Gordo, myself, along with son of godfather and another father/son team are going to Yosemite to lake and stream fish up around 10,500 feet. I found out last month that there is still two feet of snow on the ground and that it gets to below freezing at night. Below freezing? Below Freezing? I got news for you folks, my flippin' refrigerator freezer doesn't get below 60 damn degrees in the summer.

Should be a grand adventure. I hope to combine light hiking and good fishing with some altitude training by getting in some trail runs. How do you think the bears will react to seeing me run the trails in a tri-suit?

I should be able to manage posting through Tuesday and then I will probably be blacked out until Monday, July 25.