A guide has a couple of choices when faced with the end of the season...get busy or go crazy. It's a fact of life. I've learned to temper the off season...I like a little going crazy but I know in the long run I need to stay busy. The first month off the sticks my body is tired and needs to rest. My mind and spirit need recharge too.
I used to get a job in the winter. That sucked! Seriously, I'm not a fan of punching someone elses clock. Been there, done that and in the end I always ended up being grumpy no matter how fat the check.
So what else does a fishbum do to keep afloat in the lean time? I looked around at my program and decided to own it from the ground up...
Thus the quest for Primo Tail!
I figured the best way to become a more complete guide and angler was to occupy my realm fully. Back when I was in the restaurant business I learned the value of exploding the system into all the little bolts and widgets...then understanding all of the parts and figuring out how to own as many of them as I was able to.
Why were the sandwiches at Citticaffe better than any other sandwiches in downtown St. Paul? Because Citticaffe did not take the easy way out...buy everything from a big slop dealer like Sysco...instead at Citticaffe we got up at 3am and fired up the proofers and ovens...baked our own bread...ordered whole cuts of meat from a meat dealer and sliced em up fresh everyday...same with the veggies...
It worked...and folks bought into it. I learned...and when I started making my way in the world as a fly fishing guide I took those lessons and applied them to this vocation. So what does the restaurant business have to do with fly fishing?
Well Sportsfans think of what gets tied onto the end of our tippet. The fly!
To me the fly is like a sandwich. It's a bunch of ingredients put together to form an end product. Most if not all flies in fly shops today are total slop. They are tied in sweatshops in places like Sri Lanka, Kenya and Thailand. They are tied by people who never fish. Tied with materials that come from mass produced sources. They have no soul!
Seriously...next time you go to a fly shop ask em where their flies come from;)
Musky fly fishing requires 100% soul. Sure those freaks will eat any pile of crap once in awhile! But my experience has taught me that in order to be the Top Dog you have to go above and beyond with these critters. Fully occupy the realm...
I digress I know. I do that. Bear with me.
I ask myself...how do I get the best? Answer...MY WAY!
Fly or meat...I'm the kind of guy that goes to the source. Shortcuts are for people in a hurry or those who have no other clue. I'm all about the full yard.
So Primo Tail was hatched in the quest to build the best predator fly on the planet.
The meat in our fly sandwich is bucktail. My experience with store bought bucktail? PATHETIC!
They come packaged, cleaned and dyed...labeled Prime Northern Bucktail...you know what? HOGWASH! Maybe one in twenty is anywhere NEAR Prime...most are utility grade cuts...many being doe tails or fawn tails. Pathetic. The difference between a sad little gray family cut steak all cellophane wrapped and hormone pumped sitting under some fluorescent lights at Walmart and that big, thick, aged PRIME steak on the meat tray at Morton's in Minneapolis.
Bucktails don't start off clean, dyed and packaged neatly. No they start off on a dead deer...shit, piss, blood...nasty, nasty stuff. It's death...no way around that...the smells alone are rude. But reduce, reuse, recycle...it's more than a catchy way of being hip in Musky Country...it is necessary as a way to live sustainable.
So for me I exploded my fly fishing world in off-season. I just flat out refused to knuckle down and go get a short term job waiting tables...pouring drinks...pounding nails. I need to find something to keep me busy and to provide a source of income.
Funny how the Universe places things into your sights if you ask.
Interestingly enough...just as I come off my rowing season...needing something to occupy my time and provide some scratch to keep the heat on...along comes this BIG tradition here in Wisconsin called the gun deer season! Yup something like 250,000 whitetail deer get killed every November.
You know what is attached to each one of those dead critters? Prime northern bucktail!
And I tracked down the source. A one legged man who is the modern day equivalent of a mule skinner. He has HEAPS of hides. Now every December I go to what must be like on old time buffalo camp...at least the smell of it must be like that. Piles of raw hides...10,000 or more and each hide has a tail. I get first pick! And I only pick the best of the best!
Primo Tail
No second rate stuff in Musky Country. No, 100% soul...the best musky and predator flies on the planet come from shit, piss and blood. No shortcuts. No sales jobs. Just passion, dedication and commitment.
The End is just the Beginning in Musky Country!
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