Fly Dogs

By TB

We are now in Indy for the holidays with our kids and grandkids.  We needed to do a little shopping and ended up, as we often do, at FlyMasters of Indianapolis.  As we walked into the fly shop we were met by Noland and Seth…. not the two guys behind the counter, but two fly shop dogs.  It reminded us both of all the beautiful dogs we’ve encountered along our River Ramble in 2016.  We decided a blog post was in order to share some of the pictures we took of these beautiful creatures.  However, it was very difficult to pick just a few of the many we’ve encountered.  You see, these dogs are fixtures in many of the shops across the country as well as with the guides we’ve had.

As you might imagine, fly shop dogs are some of the friendliest and funniest you can find anywhere.  Just like Barb was greeted at FlyMasters, we’ve had similar greetings from North Carolina to New York… and… Pennsylvania to Oregon.  While we can’t show you all of them in this post, we wanted to share a few.  First, as you can see from the featured image for this post, Barb is sitting in FlyMasters with Noland and Seth.  We found out that FlyMasters actually has even more shop dogs at various times depending on who’s working.

The first image is Red from The Fly Fisher’s Place in Sisters, OR.  Early one morning, I left our campsite to drive into Sisters for some flies and encountered Red as I walked in the door.   I learned from Red’s owner that he was somewhat of a celebrity online.

Second, when we were in Maupin,OR, fishing the Deschutes, we popped into Deschutes Angler and found not one, not two but THREE shop dogs greeting us:  Lupin, Nelly and KD.  Barb had KD on the floor as happy as a dog can be I think.

The third image is of Desperado, or Desie, the black lab that roams the ranch at Roger and Mary Nelson’s Spring Creek Ranch near Livingston, MT.   Desie always comes to meet us at the parking area.  She usually comes down around lunchtime to just hangout but always enjoys a game of fetch.  It’s usually Barb that wears out first before Desie.

The fourth image, I took from a “Guide Talk” interview we did on the banks of Pine Creek in Slate Run, PA.   This is Brookie who hangs out with Julie Szur, guide from Slate Run Tackle Shop/Wolfe’s General Store.  Brookie hung out with us during the interview and often is at Julie’s side when she’s guiding along Pine Creek.

Finally, a picture of Solomon, who fished with us on the Henry’s Fork along with her owners Sue Doss and Dud Lutton.  We’ve been with Solomon on numerous occasions but never fishing.  He was so excited when a fish was on the line and always tried to “land” the fish before we did.  Solomon has been seen riding along in a drift boat with Dud at the oars on numerous rivers around Bozeman.

We will continue to highlight the beautiful dogs we see in shops, with our guides and along the rivers we fish in 2017 as our Ramble continues.  If you have any great pictures or stories you’d like to share, please send them to us at:  tb@riverramble.com

Ramble On

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