9-22-10

“Life Begins at 80!”

Let’s all just make a pledge right now to never, never sit home and wait for the grim reaper to collect.  Not Tom and Doug!  These guys are our models:  best fishing, duck and deer hunting buddies for their entire adult lives, these men get out and live!  Doug just celebrated his eightieth birthday, and Tom will turn eighty-one in six weeks.  Best of all, they love and live the out-of-doors, and for them and for us at RiverQuest, that means fly fishing for salmon.

With sunshine, light air, and temps in the low seventies, today was classic Michigan September weather at its best.  With Kings coming on gravel for the last two days, plenty of opportunities for fishing the runs and glides as well as the pools beckon the fly fisher.  We found some Kings which apparently had been undisturbed, because they aggressively moved to take our green caddis, pale egg flies, stones, and caddis (as well the trusty egg sucking leach).  Again today, brown trout and a skipper steelhead zipped to and fro among and behind the salmon.  For the trout fisher, these last few days, would have been glory:  trout hungry and not yet satiated with eggs eagerly taking nymphs and top water caddis and blue-winged olives.  All in all, what a great day it was, and with Tom and Doug inspiring me anew live life actively and enthusiastically, the day was a life lesson as well.

Thanks Tom and Doug!  Can’t wait to host you again tomorrow.

Captain Tom Kuieck