Work At Snake River Angler

I woke up this morning around 6:30 and I have no idea why. I guess I'm just so excited to be out here that I want to get all the time in I can (3 months just wont cut it). My mom finally got up and we both got ready to go to breakfast. But I forgot we had planned to go to breakfast and I ended up just eating a bowl of cereal. I told my mom that I was going to Snake River Angler to check in and just tell them I was in town and was ready to start working as soon as they needed me...Thinking that would have been tomorrow. Well I walked out of the apartment to a cold 35 degrees and down to the car, I put the key into the ignition and it didn't budge. The key just would not turn, I went up and told my mom and we called my dad who always knows what to do in these situations. The steering wheel was locked and so I had to toy with it a little while trying to turn the key...Finally the car started. So I backed out and headed over to Grand Teton National Park and into Moose, Wyoming where one of the Snake River Angler (SRA) shops is located. I walked into the shop and saw a friend of mine talking on the phone behind the counter. He got off the phone and we began to talk and he then asked me "So, are you here to start working or are you just stopping in?" My initial thought was jeez, he's already putting me to work? Whatever, I got nothin else to do. So I told him I was ready to work. We then spent the next few hours getting my name into all these systems and going over all of the things I would need to know about in Jackson and in the shop. I caught on pretty quick to everything he told me and I was able to sell things by my first customer...Which consisted of a little thing of chapstick and some sunscreen, a big sale in my book. It's amazing how quickly and well I learned all of the things he was telling me about fly fishing and the geography of the land, when I can barely pass science over a nine month learning period. But what was supposed to be just a quick greeting and stop by, turned into a six hour work day from 9:00 AM-3:00 PM. But tomorrow I will be working in the main shop in Jackson with the big dogs, I better step my game up if I wanna hang. Anyway, it was an awesome first day and work is sweet. I get to buy many new toys for myself with an employees discount at the shops, I'm super excited about that. I think my mom just went on a bunch of walks and workout stuff around Teton Village. And now she has volunteered for a job at a horseback riding school for the disabled. It makes me proud to be her son. After work, I went fishing behind a friends house on Fish Creek (Ironic Huh?). Where I proceeded to see no hatch (Where bugs are coming out of shells and flying around on the water and in the air) and no fish rising, and actually no fish at all. Then I saw my first Snake River Cutty, it had to have been at least 25 inches and a truly beautiful trout. I threw everything I had on me at the time, I threw dry flies, of all different colors and patterns, and then I didn't see him feeding on top so I dropped a nymph off the bottom of my dry fly. Still no luck, finally after about 20 minutes of hardcore casting at this trout, he swam up stream and I had had enough on fish creek. But fishing all over JH is tough right now with possibly the biggest runoff in history and the fish are all freaked out. It will be a very interesting season and I will have another blog tomorrow night. Stay tuned!

The Trip For The Cowboy State

My mom and I left from our home in Nashville at 8:00 AM Sunday morning for our two day trip to Jackson Hole, Wyoming. We started out with my mom driving in my 1997 Toyota Land Cruiser. We started out North on our way into Kentucky, where we found ourselves driving through endless forest, something we were very used to being from Nashville. My mom and I switched driving probably every two to three hours...Or whenever we needed to stop for gas. We drove through the boring forest of Kentucky, into the open corn and crop fields of Illinois, through the endless green fields of Missouri, into the forest and occasional fields of Iowa, and across the open plains of Nebraska. We drove through six states in our first day of driving and not one of them were pretty or really interesting to look at. We drove a consistent thirteen hours in the first day where we spent the night in a very comfy Holiday Inn Hotel. That night, my mom and I devoured a large pizza with a ton of different things on it, a salmon fillet, some corn, and a baked potato. We were starved and after a full stomach and about thirty minutes of Wedding Crashers, we were lights out and snoring. At 7:00 this morning my alarm screamed at my mom and I to wake up, but we quickly turned it off and slept for an extra seven minutes (a lot of extra sleep...). I took a shower to help wake up and my mom and I quickly headed downstairs to get her coffee and check out. We were on the road by 7:30 and I was behind the wheel. Oh, I forgot to mention that last night, I gave my mom the best massage of her life to try and bribe her in believing in making it all the way to Jackson today. Well we were on the road again switching every two or three hours like our normal routine at slug speed because the wind on these open plains was unbelievable, I have never been in anything like it. The wind tossed our car around like a rag doll and with the pedal all the way to the floor, we could barely hit 60 mph. It was some difficult driving. But finally we crossed into Wyoming. We saw our first groups of Pronghorn Antelope and endless herds of cattle. My mom and I pressed on through rain, wind, 18 wheelers, and other obstacles because we knew of the beauty that was to come. Finally, we reached the pass through the mountains going into Jackson Hole, where we were in awe of the twelve foot (at least) high snow-pack on the side of the pass; not to mention the incredible views we had coming through the mountain. Then finally, after 25 hours and 1,630 miles of driving, we reached the outskirts of Moose, Wyoming (just outside the town of JH), where we continued to go eat at one of our favorite restaurants, Nora's...My mom ordered panfried Wallie and I ordered the Trout, we both inhaled our dinners and headed to our condo in Teton Village. Believe it or not, it was about 35 degrees and spitting snow. And since our condo is on the top floor of our complex, bringing my mom's 80lb suitcase up three flights of stairs was an awesome feeling :). Now we are both so unbelievably tired from the trip out here and we are going to crash big time to get ready for tomorrow of my first day at work in Snake River Angler. Be ready for another blog of tomorrow's fun!!