Post by rbaileydav on Dec 20, 2008 1:31:54 GMT -5
As with many fishing adventures the idea for this trip came at the end of another fishing trip several months previously. I had spent several great early October days floating the Clinch River in Tennessee. The fishing had been very good on small midge dries and emergers and we had the good fortune to catch quite a few nice fish. (Thank you again Mr and Mr Easter for a great two days on the water). As the boat glided into the take out area at the end of the sday the gravel bar was crowded with boats and people. The hum and buzz of voices and activity was almost deafening after a calm peaceful day on the river. I felt like I was lost in a crowd at a football game not standing mid-thigh deep in a trout river. But as I said earlier the fishing was good so I volunteered to stay with the boat while everyone else ran the shuttle back for the trailer. I guarded the boat, as all dedicated fly fishermen must, by wading off and fishing for those last few risers…….. striking almost randomly whenever I heard a sound or saw rise rings. Fortunately for me “hook sets are free” because I sure was ripping at thin air a lot that night but I did somehow manage to catch a pair of really nice browns. The last of the evening light quickly evaporated like the warmth of the fall afternoon and faded into the darkness and chill of an autumn night. I was past the point of being able to see anything so I headed glumly back to the gravel bar and the boat only really being able to mark my way by the headlights of the truck trailering the last remaining boat besides ours. As I waded in front of the boat I glanced at the skid of light the headlights cast on the river and the virtual cloud of midges hovering above that one illuminated stretch of water. I saw several fish rise in succession and really pop the surface not sipping but really taking dries. I instinctively flipped my tiny adams parachute and red zebra midge into the seam, for the first time in over an hour I could clearly see my flies spotlighted by the unnaturally bright light of the headlights, I could also clearly see the nose and shoulders of a large brown rise from the current and slash at my dry. I set quickly, feeling the weight of a nice fish and hearing the wonderful song that only the drag of an old hardy can sing as the brown stripped line. The fish fought hard, the pull of a strong fish lost in the darkness leaving me not quite sure what I was fighting but feeling the surge and pulse of his struggles magnified through the soft tip of my bamboo rod. Yet when I got the fish in front of me and into the beams of the headlights the scene lit up like a stadium with shadows playing large in the beams of light that were dancing eerily on the current. When I finally netted the fish I heard clapping from the guys in the truck who had by then, finished loading their boat and were simply watching me land my fish as they would watch a replay at a ball game. They clapped in appreciation of either the fish or my ingenuity in using their headlights and I really didn’t know which but I flashed them a grip and grin pose of the 18 plus inch brown and released her gently back into the stream. I waved as the truck pulled out of the water and headed up the road, leaving me alone with my thoughts and the river. I would love to tell you that I was smart enough to realize that I had caught my last fish of the day and to quit my fishing on that final successful note………. But those of you that truly know me…… and for that matter any true fisherman …….will know that I just had to keep casting till darkness, bad casting and setting the hook on air one time too many left me with a birds nest of mythical “fubar” proportions and forced me to clip the tangled mess off putting a final end to my fishing day. So there I sat on the gunwale of the boat, alone with my thoughts. The stars were framing a crescent moon in classic SC palmetto flag fashion. The view was accompanied by the sound of the river rushing over the shoals a few yards away. It was a great ending to a great trip and I was truly content and happy as I thought how this gravel bar had only 30 minutes prior been a bustling hub of activity and man made light and yet here it was eerie and empty like a stadium after a big game echoing the excitement of events already lost to time. A memory that brought back in a flash a similar evening as darkness fell on the famed Texas Hole of the San Juan River in Northern New Mexico some 4 ½ years earlier. The memory as most fishing memories do made me smile deep into my soul and I vowed that someday soon, I would find my way back to the San Juan for another dose of New Mexican fishing hospitality.
Well sometimes the fishing gods are kind to us old fishermen, and a business colleague called a few weeks later to ask if I would mind doing a sales call for him in Albuquerque NM in early December. Obviously I said I was always willing to help a colleague in need regardless of the personal sacrifices….. while laughing inside about getting to visit my Mom who lives in Albuquerque and most importantly a chance to go fishing ………. (sorry Mom but my priorities come naturally through my gene pool). As a result, I soon found myself saying goodbye to my Mom after a wonderful couple days of catching up and heading out across the New Mexico high desert countryside. The views are so different from anything I think of when talking trout and trout fishing it always throws me for a loop. This country is so big and expansive that it almost seems to swallow a man and make him lose himself in the space and grandeur around him. This high desert country echoes old cultures and civilizations in a way I have experienced in few other places or times. It makes one feel as if you can still see the silhouettes of ancient men standing tall on the mesas and rising as if by magic from the arroyos. I feel small insignificant and so very young when soaking in each new vista, mesa and snow capped peak that shimmer like a mirage on the distant horizon. I had forgotten my ipod and the radio couldn’t pull any tunes from the abundant blue sky all around me so I was tuneless in my ears but the sites and sounds of this marvelous open high desert had my heart singing ancient melodies long ago forgotten by modern man but still buried deep in our subconscious if we stay quiet enough to let ourselves hear them. The drive passed quickly lost in thought and contemplation of the sparse beauty of the country, names like Jicarilla, Zia, Jimenez and San Ysidro flew by so fast I was amazed that I was pulling up to the Soaring Eagle Lodge. My past trips had included staying at Abe’s which I thought was a tradition until I figured out I could stay nicer and get breakfast as well for the same price … which is a winter deal that can’t be beat.
I stepped into the fly shop to check into my room, buy a license and pick a local brain or two about fly patterns and locations, but I needn’t have worried the instructions matched what I would have done without help based on my previous trip … head to the “braids” above the “kiddie hole” dead drifting small red blood worms and even smaller zebra midges. I stepped into the water about 3 pm on a Friday afternoon with only one other angler in site. Fish were rising in the “kiddie hole” with maddening regularity but wouldn’t even give me a sniff ……… I swear I used deodorant and was holding my mouth just right but they still really weren’t impressed with my impersonations of an angler ….. at all. All fly fishermen have a touch of sadomasochist in them but I didn’t have enough of a pain tolerance to spend more than about 45 minutes casting to rising fish as they totally ignored me before I felt unwelcome and wandered on up to explore the “braids”. I found great looking water and deep pocket holes buried in this maze of channels and soon enough found a fish that was at least willing to tap my midges which made feel much better…….. not as good as catching a fish would do but at least I wasn’t being totally ignored. Finally as old southern boys are want to say…… “an old blind sow eventually finds an acorn” and I found myself hooked fast to a gorgeous rubenesque rainbow of about 18 inches as she stormed up and down the small side channel where she had been pleasantly feeding until she accidently connected herself to my fly rod. The Hardy was singing her magic song and I was grinning from ear to ear as I finally received the piscatorial welcome to NM that I had so desperately been waiting on. I posed her and my beautiful new blonde Homer Jennings bamboo in the most tasteful and artistic way that I could, using a beautiful multi-colored stone and some wild flowers that happened to be in the thickets … … it was lovely … until I realized I had left my camera in my bag at the lodge……. Oh well you will just have to take my word for it that the translucent white of the rushing water and the dark of the wet stone framed by the red of the dry stone in the half shadow of fading high desert light pulled out the bluish white fading to dark blue almost purple of her back and the cream and red broad stripe swam into the perfect match for a picture perfect rainbow …….. trust me it was beautiful. By the time I had released her it was starting to get pretty seriously dark and I really had no exact details on where I was, so I began to stumble back downstream to where I assumed the “kiddie hole” and the parking lot were. I kept casting out of reflex but really couldn’t see my flies or even my strike indicator very well so I was ecstatic when I picked up my flies to cast again and felt a solid weight on the other end…… guess an old blind sow can find “two” acorns…….. as an old football coach of mine used to say “I would rather be lucky than good” … and I will take fish any way I can get them….. I am not proud. I released another nice rainbow and it was getting beyond dark as the moon was already up and light fades faster than the days heat in these winter time high desert climates so I began to move in earnest as fast as the darkness would allow back to the “kiddie hole” … … miraculously I found my way and the fish were still sipping and splashing everywhere. I could here them and see indistinct rise rings but couldn’t see well enough to fish for them… … that is until I almost reached the shoreline where I noticed that visual phenomenon of where the sky met the mesa tops reflected on the surface of the almost mirror still pool. The color of the sky held just enough light that it reflected the white of my strike indicator and I was able to keep casting as long as I kept my casts right on the reflections of where the sky met the mesa. I was congratulating myself on my ingenuity saying that I just wanted one more fish when I clearly saw a snout rise and intercept where I thought my midges should be, Feeling that delicious feel of tension and pressure as you lift the rod tip. Instantly visions of crushingly big brutes began flashing in my brain as my reward for my ingenuity and the perseverance of late night fishing …. Yet these were quickly replaced by the knowledge that the hardy wasn’t singing like the proverbial fat lady and the fish was pretty basically gliding toward me with the pressure of my 5 wt……. leaving me to land an 11 incher in just a few short seconds…… well I had said I wanted one last fish and I had one last fish so I gratefully said my thanks to the fishing gods clipped off my flies and headed to the “Sportsman Bar and Grill” for chicken fried steak and numerous cold Shiner Bocks, followed by 20 of my favorite songs on the jukebox, a good cigar, a lot of pool and even more copious amounts of ice cold Shiner Bock… hell of way to spend a day, good scenery, good fishin, good food, good tunes, good cigar ….. and lots of cold beer…… and one more day of fishing to come…….. ain’t life grand.
I awoke early to a cold, cold heavily frosted morning…… gorgeous but did I mention it was cold……. 18 degrees kinda cold….. but d**n pretty. The river was warm enough in comparison that steam was rising and the sun was rinsing pastel pinks, reds and yellows through the lower sky.
I stood there letting the cold clear the Shiner Bock out of my brain and let the sun rise till the downstream valley was beginning to wake up and come alive……. Just like me ….
The best part of staying at Soaring Eagle lodge didn’t even dawn on me until I walked into the kitchen and the chef asked me how I wanted my omelet and did I want biscuits and gravy with that….. and the answer like all self respecting southern boys was……… “hell ya”….. breakfast was to die for……. Not just good but to die for….. what a way to start a day’s fishing. I was being water chauffeured today so I met my guide after breakfast and we hoped in his truck to head down to the “Texas hole” to get the day started. We rigged my Homer Jennings 5 wt with an egg and a worm pattern below a strike indicator just like delayed harvest fishing back in Georgia and the Carolinas for the deep parts of the day and for the dry parts of the day we rigged my Gary Lacey 4/5 with a midge cluster and another pattern so small I can’t rightly tell you what it was…. except invisible to me. The San Juan gets a lot of bad press about being an ugly trout river but I found that not to be the case. The following two pictures are upstream toward the “Texas Hole” and downstream as we started our day.
I was actually talking about the beauty of the scenery when the real beauty of this river was brought home as a big rainbow practically ripped my bamboo right out of my hand on a deep drift….. the hardy tuned up for a song I would get real familiar with by the end of the day …… and love as much the 30th time as I did the first. Soon enough I had the days first catch nestled into that big rubber boat net and I was snapping a quick pic. Use the paddle if you want some size markers……
That was the first of many fish but I quit taking fish pictures after the first few…… I know I just ain’t a good grip and grin fish porn guy …. …. Sorry.
We caught fish out of most every likely looking spot of water and soon even found fish feeding on top water. So out came the rod with the ridiculously small flies……. But we even managed to catch a few fish on those…… less than on the down and deep trout “crack“ but catching one big fish on small dries is worth catching ten on trout “crack” …… at least to me. But I love both…. Just one more than the other.
We fished the morning away chatting about fishing, the river, Colorado and what fishing at home was like. My guide was so good I forgot that I was fishing with a guide and thought I was back home fishing with one of my friends in their boats…… and that is high praise indeed for a fishing guide. We stopped for lunch and I of course got out and had to take more scenery shots…….. so indulge me please…….. quit that groaning….. it is better to have pictures than my long winded descriptions that you have to skim over……
Not bad scenery is it…….. I submit that if this country doesn’t grow on you then you just aren’t trying hard enough to see the beauty and majesty of these age old mesa’s. And if your imagination can’t see the silhouette of an Apache war party outlined against the sky standing atop the mesa in the picture below…… well then you just haven’t seen enough John Wayne movies and I command you to go watch “She Wore A Yellow Ribbon” ten times in succession.
After lunch I was treated to more fun than a man ought to be able to have while fully dressed … actually probably only when fully dressed in waders…….. I got to wade and stalk a large pod of fish steadily rising for dries. I was using a trimmed Griffith with a teeny size 24 parachute adams behind……. At least that is what he told me it was, I couldn’t see it well enough to argue even if he had said it was a “pink harlot”. Anyway it took several fly changes but we finally got it dialed in and I spent the next hour or so in that lovely trance of concentrating hard on my fishing and getting several fish as a reward for that concentration. At one point a local even came up to talk to the guide and they talked and observed as I landed fish…….. it is always fun when the guide is confident enough in himself to leave you alone and let you fish…… all in all that hour or so of stalking the risers and fishing specifically to that fish ……. And yes even catching a few of them was worth the trip and more…….
The rest of the day is a haze of fish and more fish …… big fish and even bigger fish… … I caught a lot…. Missed a lot and had a lot of fun……. By the end of the afternoon my shoulder was actually starting to get sore from the amount of casting and the pressure of holding big fish in fast current. What a way to get a work out and can you think of a better way to get sore.
The sun was starting to set before I even knew it and we were gliding in to the take out at the end of the quality water. While my guide got the boat shuttled and out of the water, the angle of the sun on the water had me trying to capture that perfect river shot again …….. and as always … I got some decent ones but not that elusive perfect river shot that sums up the whole trip in a single shot……. But still pretty good if I do say so myself……
After the ride back to the lodge I had a few minutes to kill before it was time to return to the “Sportsman Bar and Grill” for my return engagement of cigars, tunes, Shiner and pool so I wandered down to the river and found myself in the same place I had started the day but 35 degrees warmer and 30 + fish happier and thousands of memories richer…… New Mexico you lived up to your name “The Land of Enchantment”
P.S .
This trip back to the San Juan was made 4 and a half years after my first trip … which had happened because I had come to NM to see my father who was dying of cancer…….. that trip was the last time I had ever visited my father when he was alive………. Yet 4 and a half years later he was perched on my shoulder for the entire trip smiling and laughing with me just like he was riding in the boat with us……….. so here is one last Shiner as I write this……. raised to the memory of my daddy…………………………. I love you Dad.
Well sometimes the fishing gods are kind to us old fishermen, and a business colleague called a few weeks later to ask if I would mind doing a sales call for him in Albuquerque NM in early December. Obviously I said I was always willing to help a colleague in need regardless of the personal sacrifices….. while laughing inside about getting to visit my Mom who lives in Albuquerque and most importantly a chance to go fishing ………. (sorry Mom but my priorities come naturally through my gene pool). As a result, I soon found myself saying goodbye to my Mom after a wonderful couple days of catching up and heading out across the New Mexico high desert countryside. The views are so different from anything I think of when talking trout and trout fishing it always throws me for a loop. This country is so big and expansive that it almost seems to swallow a man and make him lose himself in the space and grandeur around him. This high desert country echoes old cultures and civilizations in a way I have experienced in few other places or times. It makes one feel as if you can still see the silhouettes of ancient men standing tall on the mesas and rising as if by magic from the arroyos. I feel small insignificant and so very young when soaking in each new vista, mesa and snow capped peak that shimmer like a mirage on the distant horizon. I had forgotten my ipod and the radio couldn’t pull any tunes from the abundant blue sky all around me so I was tuneless in my ears but the sites and sounds of this marvelous open high desert had my heart singing ancient melodies long ago forgotten by modern man but still buried deep in our subconscious if we stay quiet enough to let ourselves hear them. The drive passed quickly lost in thought and contemplation of the sparse beauty of the country, names like Jicarilla, Zia, Jimenez and San Ysidro flew by so fast I was amazed that I was pulling up to the Soaring Eagle Lodge. My past trips had included staying at Abe’s which I thought was a tradition until I figured out I could stay nicer and get breakfast as well for the same price … which is a winter deal that can’t be beat.
I stepped into the fly shop to check into my room, buy a license and pick a local brain or two about fly patterns and locations, but I needn’t have worried the instructions matched what I would have done without help based on my previous trip … head to the “braids” above the “kiddie hole” dead drifting small red blood worms and even smaller zebra midges. I stepped into the water about 3 pm on a Friday afternoon with only one other angler in site. Fish were rising in the “kiddie hole” with maddening regularity but wouldn’t even give me a sniff ……… I swear I used deodorant and was holding my mouth just right but they still really weren’t impressed with my impersonations of an angler ….. at all. All fly fishermen have a touch of sadomasochist in them but I didn’t have enough of a pain tolerance to spend more than about 45 minutes casting to rising fish as they totally ignored me before I felt unwelcome and wandered on up to explore the “braids”. I found great looking water and deep pocket holes buried in this maze of channels and soon enough found a fish that was at least willing to tap my midges which made feel much better…….. not as good as catching a fish would do but at least I wasn’t being totally ignored. Finally as old southern boys are want to say…… “an old blind sow eventually finds an acorn” and I found myself hooked fast to a gorgeous rubenesque rainbow of about 18 inches as she stormed up and down the small side channel where she had been pleasantly feeding until she accidently connected herself to my fly rod. The Hardy was singing her magic song and I was grinning from ear to ear as I finally received the piscatorial welcome to NM that I had so desperately been waiting on. I posed her and my beautiful new blonde Homer Jennings bamboo in the most tasteful and artistic way that I could, using a beautiful multi-colored stone and some wild flowers that happened to be in the thickets … … it was lovely … until I realized I had left my camera in my bag at the lodge……. Oh well you will just have to take my word for it that the translucent white of the rushing water and the dark of the wet stone framed by the red of the dry stone in the half shadow of fading high desert light pulled out the bluish white fading to dark blue almost purple of her back and the cream and red broad stripe swam into the perfect match for a picture perfect rainbow …….. trust me it was beautiful. By the time I had released her it was starting to get pretty seriously dark and I really had no exact details on where I was, so I began to stumble back downstream to where I assumed the “kiddie hole” and the parking lot were. I kept casting out of reflex but really couldn’t see my flies or even my strike indicator very well so I was ecstatic when I picked up my flies to cast again and felt a solid weight on the other end…… guess an old blind sow can find “two” acorns…….. as an old football coach of mine used to say “I would rather be lucky than good” … and I will take fish any way I can get them….. I am not proud. I released another nice rainbow and it was getting beyond dark as the moon was already up and light fades faster than the days heat in these winter time high desert climates so I began to move in earnest as fast as the darkness would allow back to the “kiddie hole” … … miraculously I found my way and the fish were still sipping and splashing everywhere. I could here them and see indistinct rise rings but couldn’t see well enough to fish for them… … that is until I almost reached the shoreline where I noticed that visual phenomenon of where the sky met the mesa tops reflected on the surface of the almost mirror still pool. The color of the sky held just enough light that it reflected the white of my strike indicator and I was able to keep casting as long as I kept my casts right on the reflections of where the sky met the mesa. I was congratulating myself on my ingenuity saying that I just wanted one more fish when I clearly saw a snout rise and intercept where I thought my midges should be, Feeling that delicious feel of tension and pressure as you lift the rod tip. Instantly visions of crushingly big brutes began flashing in my brain as my reward for my ingenuity and the perseverance of late night fishing …. Yet these were quickly replaced by the knowledge that the hardy wasn’t singing like the proverbial fat lady and the fish was pretty basically gliding toward me with the pressure of my 5 wt……. leaving me to land an 11 incher in just a few short seconds…… well I had said I wanted one last fish and I had one last fish so I gratefully said my thanks to the fishing gods clipped off my flies and headed to the “Sportsman Bar and Grill” for chicken fried steak and numerous cold Shiner Bocks, followed by 20 of my favorite songs on the jukebox, a good cigar, a lot of pool and even more copious amounts of ice cold Shiner Bock… hell of way to spend a day, good scenery, good fishin, good food, good tunes, good cigar ….. and lots of cold beer…… and one more day of fishing to come…….. ain’t life grand.
I awoke early to a cold, cold heavily frosted morning…… gorgeous but did I mention it was cold……. 18 degrees kinda cold….. but d**n pretty. The river was warm enough in comparison that steam was rising and the sun was rinsing pastel pinks, reds and yellows through the lower sky.
I stood there letting the cold clear the Shiner Bock out of my brain and let the sun rise till the downstream valley was beginning to wake up and come alive……. Just like me ….
The best part of staying at Soaring Eagle lodge didn’t even dawn on me until I walked into the kitchen and the chef asked me how I wanted my omelet and did I want biscuits and gravy with that….. and the answer like all self respecting southern boys was……… “hell ya”….. breakfast was to die for……. Not just good but to die for….. what a way to start a day’s fishing. I was being water chauffeured today so I met my guide after breakfast and we hoped in his truck to head down to the “Texas hole” to get the day started. We rigged my Homer Jennings 5 wt with an egg and a worm pattern below a strike indicator just like delayed harvest fishing back in Georgia and the Carolinas for the deep parts of the day and for the dry parts of the day we rigged my Gary Lacey 4/5 with a midge cluster and another pattern so small I can’t rightly tell you what it was…. except invisible to me. The San Juan gets a lot of bad press about being an ugly trout river but I found that not to be the case. The following two pictures are upstream toward the “Texas Hole” and downstream as we started our day.
I was actually talking about the beauty of the scenery when the real beauty of this river was brought home as a big rainbow practically ripped my bamboo right out of my hand on a deep drift….. the hardy tuned up for a song I would get real familiar with by the end of the day …… and love as much the 30th time as I did the first. Soon enough I had the days first catch nestled into that big rubber boat net and I was snapping a quick pic. Use the paddle if you want some size markers……
That was the first of many fish but I quit taking fish pictures after the first few…… I know I just ain’t a good grip and grin fish porn guy …. …. Sorry.
We caught fish out of most every likely looking spot of water and soon even found fish feeding on top water. So out came the rod with the ridiculously small flies……. But we even managed to catch a few fish on those…… less than on the down and deep trout “crack“ but catching one big fish on small dries is worth catching ten on trout “crack” …… at least to me. But I love both…. Just one more than the other.
We fished the morning away chatting about fishing, the river, Colorado and what fishing at home was like. My guide was so good I forgot that I was fishing with a guide and thought I was back home fishing with one of my friends in their boats…… and that is high praise indeed for a fishing guide. We stopped for lunch and I of course got out and had to take more scenery shots…….. so indulge me please…….. quit that groaning….. it is better to have pictures than my long winded descriptions that you have to skim over……
Not bad scenery is it…….. I submit that if this country doesn’t grow on you then you just aren’t trying hard enough to see the beauty and majesty of these age old mesa’s. And if your imagination can’t see the silhouette of an Apache war party outlined against the sky standing atop the mesa in the picture below…… well then you just haven’t seen enough John Wayne movies and I command you to go watch “She Wore A Yellow Ribbon” ten times in succession.
After lunch I was treated to more fun than a man ought to be able to have while fully dressed … actually probably only when fully dressed in waders…….. I got to wade and stalk a large pod of fish steadily rising for dries. I was using a trimmed Griffith with a teeny size 24 parachute adams behind……. At least that is what he told me it was, I couldn’t see it well enough to argue even if he had said it was a “pink harlot”. Anyway it took several fly changes but we finally got it dialed in and I spent the next hour or so in that lovely trance of concentrating hard on my fishing and getting several fish as a reward for that concentration. At one point a local even came up to talk to the guide and they talked and observed as I landed fish…….. it is always fun when the guide is confident enough in himself to leave you alone and let you fish…… all in all that hour or so of stalking the risers and fishing specifically to that fish ……. And yes even catching a few of them was worth the trip and more…….
The rest of the day is a haze of fish and more fish …… big fish and even bigger fish… … I caught a lot…. Missed a lot and had a lot of fun……. By the end of the afternoon my shoulder was actually starting to get sore from the amount of casting and the pressure of holding big fish in fast current. What a way to get a work out and can you think of a better way to get sore.
The sun was starting to set before I even knew it and we were gliding in to the take out at the end of the quality water. While my guide got the boat shuttled and out of the water, the angle of the sun on the water had me trying to capture that perfect river shot again …….. and as always … I got some decent ones but not that elusive perfect river shot that sums up the whole trip in a single shot……. But still pretty good if I do say so myself……
After the ride back to the lodge I had a few minutes to kill before it was time to return to the “Sportsman Bar and Grill” for my return engagement of cigars, tunes, Shiner and pool so I wandered down to the river and found myself in the same place I had started the day but 35 degrees warmer and 30 + fish happier and thousands of memories richer…… New Mexico you lived up to your name “The Land of Enchantment”
P.S .
This trip back to the San Juan was made 4 and a half years after my first trip … which had happened because I had come to NM to see my father who was dying of cancer…….. that trip was the last time I had ever visited my father when he was alive………. Yet 4 and a half years later he was perched on my shoulder for the entire trip smiling and laughing with me just like he was riding in the boat with us……….. so here is one last Shiner as I write this……. raised to the memory of my daddy…………………………. I love you Dad.