Jam "stories"

[wgmiller]

I heard someone got a little liquored up and woke up in a stranger's van...

Fill this thread with your Jam stories. :-D

 

[salvelinusfontinalis]

I knew this one was going to come out lol. In my defense, it totally looked like my van, to bad mine was in lancaster :lol:
Guilty!

Being between Heritage Ed and Alby with a bottle of whiskey and a double ipa is dangerous!

 

[The_Sasquatch]

No real strange stories...but I will NEVER forget my first real life encounter with Gary and Jack.

 

[pcray1231]

Well, I'll kick off the full reports, I guess.

Arrived Friday night, no fishing, just setting up camp and gearing up. Met Swattie and Wissahicken (is that the right screen name?), had been meaning to fish with Swattie so we made plans for Sat. Sitting and talking by a fire, and Troutbert appears. Got to pull out the Delorme's and discuss a few streams with him, always a treat. Then a few beers at the pavilion and the official festivities were underway.

Saturday, my only fishing day. Swattie, Wissahicken, and myself hit up 2 brookie streams. Found fair to good fishing at both, and some beautiful deep woods scenery. Got Wissahicken his first wild brookie, which makes 4 jams in a row for me. He missed one on his first cast, pretty new to this game. But he got better throughout the day, caught a few, and the kicker was that when we got back to the pool where he missed it, he caught it this time and got his revenge.

After hitting the brookie streams and getting our deep woods experience for the day, we stopped by Duffy's Tavern for some wings, and then headed over to Spring. We were looking for ryguyfi, but he was not where we thought. That's ok, though, because it was loaded with PAFFer's anyway. I swear to God, there was a Sasquatch wading the stream, just standing out there in the middle, I couldn't believe it. Went down for a closer look and Sal was sneaking up on him too! Oh no, everyone will know that this is the place to find Sasquatch's now!!!

There were sulphers, there were rising trout in front of everyone, there were "wa-hoo's" and cusswords being thrown up and downstream, and some fish being landed. By the end we even had a bit of an audience of other PAFFer's.

Got back to the camps, started drinking and eating. GREAT food. GREAT music and conversation. Even won a rod and got my Irish pub songs goin a bit (thanks for that Squatch). I made it till about 3:30 before I felt my energy fading. Turned in knowing I'd have daddy duty by afternoon, though that was long enough to notice Sal was well on his way.

Good weather, good fishing, great people, good eating, good music. Deep woods fishing by day plus the evening rise on a limestoner. All in the same day. They don't get much better than that boys. I had a smile pasted on my face all day yesterday, and I don't even think a bit of a hangover was able to wipe it away this morning.

Every memorable fishing trip has a quote that gets attached. I think this one is "that's Tussey with a T".

 

[pcray1231]

pics. Gotta say #8 is one of the better brookie pictures I've taken.

http://s58.photobucket.com/albums/g259/pcray1231/2012%20PAFF%20jam/?albumview=slideshow

 

[djs12354]

Great post and pictures. I hope I can make the next jam!

 

[gulfgreyhound]

Good start to the parade of pictures. Very nice looking brookies. Nice report. GG

 

[The_Sasquatch]

Here's my report.

My weekend got a late start thanks to me having to pull the morning shift at the bank. Sal met me in the parking lot of my branch and after a brief lunch we were one our way. Arrived around 3:30pm, found our cabin and unloaded. I spotted Turkey across the way and went over to say "hello" and introduce Sal to him. Upon doing so, a man yells, "Sasquatch!? I'm Jack!" Not at all what I expected! I don't mean that physically, but let me just say, I can never read Jack's posts the same way again ;-) He's a great, funny character! Upon meeting Jack, I was almost immediately called a "f**ker" and informed that I was "voted off", only to be informed that I was being addressed by Gfen himself. Within 5 minutes of arriving, Sal and I are engulfed in hilarity with Turkey, Gfen, and Jack. Les Trout eventually worked himself in as well. Great start to the weekend!

Sal and I also headed to Spring where we hoped to meet up w/ Tim Robinsin, WGMiller and Patrick C. They had a pretty good head start on us, we took our time fishin' and walking. Next thing I know, I hear PCray yelling that he sees a bigfoot. On top of that, here comes Swattie! Swattie made the comment that Sal, him and myself all live w/in 20 minutes of each other, yet we had to drive over 2 hours to finally fish together. Ain't that how it goes!?

We moved down to some nice pools as described by Pcray, and were fishing to risers when a big ole' fella approaches Sal and says, "What's your name?" Here, it was RickinPA trying to find the owner of a license. Success...and another PAFFer added to the mix. With him was Zen Herper (sp?). A little bit later, I hear a comment yelled from the foot bridge, "Andy you aren't catching them 'cause they don't like your shirt!" There up on the bridge was Tim R, WGMiller, and PatrickC. The pod of PAFFermen was quite large at this point, and we had a grand parade hiking back out to our cars.

Saturday night at the pavilion was everything I thought it'd be. Meeting so many people I can't even keep track, eating, drinking, and jammin' w/ Shakey. On top of it, I won a sweet little Allen 2wt in the raffle (now nicely complimented w/ an Orvis BBSI that I purchased from Sal). I lasted till about 3:30am, but just before I went to bed Albatross pulled me into a theological discussion ;-) Nothing says bedtime more that Alby wanting to discuss the mysteries of the divine at 3:30am! Perfect way to end the night, in my opinion.

Today was mostly pack-up and leave day, but not before PatrickC, Sal, WGMiller, Skybay and myself hit one more little stream in the area. I needed to break in that new 2wt, which I did nicely on two pretty brownies.

My first jam was just amazing. We really do have, all BS aside, quite an amazing group on this board.

 

[jdaddy]

Five nights n icu , four pints of blood, two flat line crashes, couple surgeries, $8500 out of pocket deductible, and a few days on a dilaudid drip.

20 or so individual texts and calls from fly fishing friends from the jam, priceless.

Gag gifts sent to catholic hospital, hilarious.

 

[lv2nymph]

I was there friday night only, I got to meet quite a few people. It was cool to put faces to the names, wish I could have met more of you. Every one I talked to was great.I'm already looking to next time to do some camping and fishing. There is so much experience at the jam it's an incredible event. Great pics and stories looking forward to seeing more.

 

[lv2nymph]

What the heck happened J?

 

[PatrickC]

Stories? Hmmmm.... Well, admittedly, I did not stay up into the wee hours of the morning (which is why many of you don't even realize I was there).

Friday night, Tim Robinson and I hit the Pine and found ourselves covered in brown Drakes. That was pretty cool. Tim caught a really nice 19" brown on a Drake. The water was absolutely covered in Drakes. Personally, I have never seen anything like it.

We got off of Pine at about 10pm. Fishing for browns in the dark was a blast. We jumped in the truck to make the 2 hour trip back to the campgrounds and....I promptly hit a deer. Don't worry...she was a stocker. Along the road we managed to miss hitting a porcupine and 2 gray fox. We got back at midnight. Tim partied with ya'll into the morning. I zonked out in my hammock immediately.

Saturday we all slept in. We hit Spring Creek late afternoon until dark. Tim nymphed and threw dries most of the time. Miller was throwing everything in his box. I threw streamers until the hatch came off and then switched to sulfur dries.

I turned fish all day on the streamers. I did throw some larger articulated streamers and turned some very large browns, but never did get a take from on of those monsters. I managed several on black buggers throughout the day and Tim nymphed-up a few as well.

Just before dark the waters came alive and they started taking our sulfurs. I caught my first PA wild brown on a dry fly. Of the zillions I've caught...they've always been on streamers. I have to say, I learned a ton about bugs this weekend. Too bad I live in OH and won't have much opportunity to continue to develop it very rapidly.

Saturday evening the chili was great. I spied over Weaver's back as he painted and made it clear to everyone...that picture will look great on my office wall. I bought some raffle tickets, BS'd for a while, and by 11:45...I was back in the hammock. I gave my tickets to Tim Robinson and said, "You know what I want if I win!" An hour or so later I was awakened by Tim telling me I had won the painting. As great as the real fish were, this was the highlight of my weekend.

Sunday a few of us hit a small creek for wild browns and brookies. The rest of the guys were not as excited about the small size of the upper creek as I was. They moved on down to fish the larger lower creek and I stayed up in the dinky upper creek. I was rewarded with several brookies and a 13" wild brown. If you'd seen how small the water was up there, you'd understand what a great brown that was. From there I made the 4 hour drive home...fighting the nods the entire way.

My apologies for not meeting all of you. I am just not a late night guy and when there is water near by....my fishing problem ALWAYS takes over. I look forward to meeting the rest of you another time.

 

[jdaddy]

lv2nymph wrote:
What the heck happened J?

minor outpatient surgery went sideways on me. resting comfortably at home today. Sounds like great fishing and, great times were had by all.

 

[tomgamber]

jdaddy wrote:
Five nights n icu , four pints of blood, two flat line crashes, couple surgeries, $8500 out of pocket deductible, and a few days on a dilaudid drip.

20 or so individual texts and calls from fly fishing friends from the jam, priceless.

Gag gifts sent to catholic hospital, hilarious.

Oh Crap...I thought this was an account of Alby's walk back to the cabin last night...


Heard the tale JD...that's just crazy! Glad you didn't let the bastard win. Rest up.

Tom

 

[PatrickC]

tomgamber wrote:
Glad you didn't let the bastard win.

Excellent Hawkeye Pierce reference!

 

[Fredrick]

jdaddy wrote:
Five nights n icu , four pints of blood, two flat line crashes, couple surgeries, $8500 out of pocket deductible, and a few days on a dilaudid drip.

20 or so individual texts and calls from fly fishing friends from the jam, priceless.

Gag gifts sent to catholic hospital, hilarious.

Glad to see your in good spirits about it wasn't the same without ya

 

[tocar]

After many years of attending the Jam, I can honestly say this year's was the driest I've ever seen (and I don't mean "lack of booze" dry ;-)).
Thursday night Matt Boyer and I fished Spring. We each caught a few.
Friday found me fishing with Matt Boyer, Tom G, and Gfen on Spring. Pretty sure we each caught a few.
Saturday evening was spent on Spring fishing with, well, darn near everybody, including Matt Boyer, Tom, Gfen, Turkey, and Jack.
Did I mention we fished the same pool each night? Almost all of us caught fish.
Almost fished with ryguyfi and groove. Almost. Next year for sure guys.
Of course the fire ring gathering each night was epic. Got to meet some new friends, caught up with old ones, and spent some time thinking about the ones that couldn't make it. Strangely enough, I too had to drive almost 2 hours to meet the members that live within 30 mins of home (Glad to have met you Swattie and Sasquatch, sorry I didn't get a chance to introduce myself to Sal, but by the time I got around to it, he was very deep in conversaion with Allby who was very deep in conversation with Elijah ;-)).

You know, sitting here in the now quiet campground, it's rather clear to me that the Jam isn't as much about the fishing as it is about meeting face to face with the personas we interact with daily. Those avatars become people. Good people. People we can now call friends.

peace-tony c.

 

[Fishidiot]

Had a blast - as usual. Good to see you guys again.
The fishing gods weren't great to me this weekend but who cares? Hit some local creeks with Goodfortune on Friday evening. Had some luck but nothing great. Nice talk by Troutbert in the evening.

Spent most of Saturday on Fishing Creek in the narrows with Afishinado and Fredrick. Spent much of the time painting - when I wet a line I couldn't buy a strike. Tom and Fred had a bit better luck - the catch of the day was a 12" wild brookie that Tom caught. There were sparse bugs but we didn't see a single rise. I headed south and had some luck in the early evening on a favorite local Class A although there was no bug activity and I didn't wait till evening to see if it would change. I did have an unusual experience I've never seen before: a nice 15" brown I hooked tail walked towards me and as I was stripping madly to take up the slack.... he literally jumped from the water and bounced right off my chest fly box! Evening events were - in short - awesome! Thanks guys for all the help and support with the raffle.

On Sunday morning I headed out early and hit Penns above Coburn: some bugs in the air but no risers; water was a decent level but still muddy. I tried black streamers and nymphing but nothing was interested. Good to see Old Lefty, although hobbled, can still cast. In the afternoon I hit Fishermen's Paradise with Fredrick but I caught the skunk there too despite crawling on the shady far side where I usually can catch fish. Not too crowded - most of the cars were hikers going up to the canyon. Stopped at the Juniata River and made a few casts on the way home.
Tired and happy.
Pics posted in the Photos forum.

(Get well soon Jdad).

 

[Swattie87]

Had a bit of a novel typed out, but lost it when I clicked on the "back button" by mistake...got lazy and didn't type it in Word first. Anyway, an abbreviated version.

Had a great time at my first Jam...best part was definitely meeting and talking fishing with so many guys who were just stream names before...pcray, Sal, Squatch, tonyc, Boyer, Delta, csoult, FI, Maurice, goofortune and I'm sure I've missed many more. Also got the chance to hang out and talk about some of my local waters with troutbert...pretty cool.

The fishing was secondary to the company, but that was pretty darn good too. Caught plenty of freestoner Browns and Brooks, and got to pick up a few Sulphur risers on Saturday evening on Spring. I don't get to do that kind of fishing very much, so I thoroughly enjoyed that.

Finally got the chance to fish with pcray...it took the Jam to finally get our schedules to sync up, but we ended up with a pretty nice day of fishing. pcray got Wiss on his first native Brookie...thanks for showing us around a few of your "grad school streams." Also took the Jam to get a bunch of us Leb/Lanc local guys in the same place at the same time...Sal/Squatch/tonyc/Boyer we'll need to work on that in the future.

It's funny how so many of the differences on the day to day forum happenings fade away when you get a bunch of us together. Thanks to all who put in the effort in organizing these things and running the site. Again, had an absolute blast.

A few of my better pics are in the photos section.

 

[DaveKile]

Thanks all I had a great time. I think David Weaver summed it up for me. I was a bit of a light weight and missed all the late night fun.

I did enjoy hanging with the crew at Spring Creek on Saturday. More like a fly fishing tailgater waiting for the evening hatch. Ryguyfi then proceed to put on a clinic for groove790 and myself upstream.

More from me on a blog post. So keep the stories and photo coming.

Thanks All!!

Dave