Team Tuesday - Chris and Micah hit the backcountry

Several months in the making and in the most settled part of summer, Micah Adams of Adventure Angler TV and our own Chris Dore met up for a wilderness adventure.

“Severe weather warnings plagued our trip decisions with seemingly every region we planned to go deep in under a no-go advisory.

With plans A, B, and C thwarted by heavy rain (how many letters do we have in the alphabet?) and severe thunderstorm warnings forecast each day we packed our kit for plan D.

We ate like kings. New York cut eye fillet, bacon, sausages and eggs daily. Certainly pissing off those hard-core hikers around us on day seven of their wilderness wanders. To top it off we enjoyed some fine wine, Scotch and cracking craft beer as you must on such a trip, again, to the envy of those sharing the hut. However our warm and fuzzy glow was short lived by the end of day two as it just felt like we were inventing ways to simply not catch fish.

We didn’t want to catch them anyway. They’re slimy, wet and they smell. Plus our shoulders were sore from carrying such luxuriously laden packs that the extra effort of running after a bruising brown or rampaging rainbow just didn’t appeal to us. That’s our story anyway.

So if you don’t wish to catch fish on your next well planned backcountry trip, here’s a fast five from Chris and Micah on how to NOT catch fish:

1. Strike before he even gets his mouth around the fly.... yes, that sure works.

2. Wrapping your leader around a matagouri bush is always a goodie, then firing out your fly anyway without checking the nylon.

3. In a big pool let the fish run, confident that he’s well hooked before looking down and seeing your line wrapped 3 times around the reel.

4. “They’ll never see me in my key-lime green coloured shirt!”

5. Work him for 30 mins only to miss him when he finally eats because you’re too busy talking.

Also, when you finally land that trophy, please make sure the camera is on the correct focus mode.... yes... I’m still fielding crap on that one!”