What to do, what to do

So how to plan for a month of solitude in the wilds of Montana? Sadly, I have had to do a lot of thinking about how not to be bored, as that would not be much of an adventure, would it? At home I have tons of tools, projects not to mention the boob tube, to while away the hours.  Marie is taking a slew of books, although there are probably a slew of them there waiting for her left by previous tenants who took a slew of them themselves...  Plus she will be doing a lot of cooking, so she surely won't be getting bored.

Definitely need a guitar, but not the Martin or any of my good guitars.  I already ruined one guitar around the oil' campfire, back in the days of John Denver and P, P and M.  So I ordered a baby Taylor which is smaller than a regular guitar and that's a good thing.  Do you know how much stuff you think you need for a month away from home?

Here is the baby Taylor next to a full grown Taylor.

And then it hit me.  What does everybody do in Montana.  They fish.  They fly fish!  Hell, I am not that much of a fisherguy.  Done a little Salmon fishing, some trolling for trout, but I am not very good.  I have always wanted to learn to fly fish.  My daughter Maia went on her first fly fishing adventure last May and now she is tying her own flies.  That's pretty cool.  Has to be the ultimate accomplishment to catch a beautiful trout on a fly you,tied yourself. "A river runs through it" was a pretty good movie. I am not sure this rises to the bucket list level of accomplishment, but it's at least a life skill I would like to have.  So that's it.  Fly fishing.

I tend to over research stuff.  I have been known to spend hours reading reviews and searching for the best price for something as mundane as an IPad stylus.  Do you have any idea how many YouTube videos there are on learning to fly fish? Thousands.  Millions.  And I have watched a boatload. How to cast.  What flies to use. Big streams, little streams, lakes, ocean.  The 20 knots you need to learn. And then there's the equipment.  7.5 to 9 foot poles. Line weights, floating versus sinking lines, leader sizes ( both length and weight). Hell, who measures the weight of a leader?  Then there's backing and tippets.  Well, you get the idea.

And how much of this stuff do I have to buy, just to fish for a couple of hours a day?  And then you don't even get to keep the fish!

Here's a key to life I am going to share.  As guys get old(er) they accumulate stuff (I am using the nice word here). Lots of stuff. I put the word out that I was going to learn to fly fish and I was inundated with a plethora of paraphernalia related to the noble sport.  Here's a photo of the vest, tackle and over 1000 flies I now have in my possession.

Some of the beautiful flies

Lots o' stuff

On Saturday I will go in to the local sports store to find out what I have and what I still need.  The expert in fly fishing only works on Saturday.  Not a bad job.  He is probably out fishing the rest of the week.  Many thanks to my fly fishing friends, as I am sure my list of stuff to buy went down measurably.