Interviewed about fly-fishing

[balzaccom]

https://soundcloud.com/flyfishing97podcast/94-paul-wagner-authorpocaster-wine-guru

 

This was fun

[John B]

Paul, you are quite the renaissance man.  

[balzaccom]

I'm not THAT old....grin

[John B]

One doesn't have to be old to be considered a renaissance man (or so I'm told).  Also, I really related to your story in the interview of how you got "hooked" on fly fishing (pun intended)--having a father that worked for the state park service.  My dad, early on in his married life had a job for a time with state of Washington fish & wildlife service (would have been about 1952-1954)--his job was to do salmon counts on the Columbia river--i.e. fishing up and down portions of the river.  He was an extremely talented fly fisherman, and taught all of us kids to fish.  Unfortunately, I quit fly fishing in my twenties as I found I didn't have the patience!  So, never went on to make it a life long passion as you have.  I did however get a passion for the great outdoors ignited by all the time our family spent camping and hiking.

[Michael aka Mac]

Wow I still remember the time I went fly fishing and caught a 160 pounder.   

I was fly fishing in upstate New York with my Great Uncle during a family reunion gathering.  He and I were on some large rocks in the middle of the river and i was pulling in the line so i could do another cast and right when I thought i had at least another 10 feet of line to reel in I jerked the rod once really hard and OMG What Luck!!! That fish hook did its job and pierced through its  target.

I quickly turned to my great uncle and called to him to get his attention    "  I just hooked  a 160 pounder"      He dropped what he was doing and ran over to me to see.. When he got to me he had a chuckle and said  " Yep Michael  you caught a 160 pounder,  now  grab my hand  and put your arm over my shoulder and lets take you to the towns  Doctor  so we can get that hook removed from your leg.

And that is my Great Fly fishing story of catching a 160 pounder in the Catskills mountains river banks.

[balzaccom]

Nice!  I once hooked myself under the chin in very windy conditions up in the Sierra at about 8,000 feet.  We were miles and miles from a doctor, but the local fire station had a medic who pulled out the hook.

[Michael aka Mac]

Damn balzaccom,  under the chin,  Ouch!!!  Real lucky it was not the neck though. 

The funny thing about my story wasn't until we got to the towns doctor... He had recently recovered from a stroke and was unable to cut the hook with the wire cutters and my uncle had to do it.  Watching my Great Uncle cutting the hook mumbling that my mother was going to kill him only made me laugh, and as i shook frm laughing it only made it harder for him to cut the hook lol.

[balzaccom]

The skin under your neck is very stretchy...took a while to get my hook out.  Happy both the emt and I had a sense of humor about it