Hi All!

Well, hello everyone! My name is Perry Perkins and I had Lap RNY on May 19, 2004. I'm just past six months out and down 75lbs. I love everything about the outdoors, hunting, camping, and fishing (bait, gear and fly). I'm a writer, and have written articles for many major outdoor magazines. I'm hoping to see more folks posting here, but for now I'll just share one of my favorite stories! (Below) Blessings! -Perry 376/335/260/195 75 Pounds Gone! Perry P. Perkins Christian Novelist Just Past Oysterville: Shoalwater Book One Read chapter one - (www) perryperkinsbooks.com A BEGINNERS GUIDE TO FLY FISHING By Perry P. Perkins For those of you who have been too busy watching Judge Judy, or the latest reality show snooze-fest (Dough Boys: A month in the life of four pizza delivery persons), let me direct your attention out of your living room window where you might notice that the snows have receded, leaves are sprouting, and that most magical time of the year is rapidly approaching like a warm, fragrant breeze, that's right...trout season is almost here. Now, in all fairness, some of you may not have yet been smitten with the yearly piscatorial passion, and it's for you that I offer this primer on fly-fishing. Getting Started First of all, you'll need to decide what kind of flyfishing you want to start out with, moving water or stationary water. Why choose? Because you're not going to be able to afford all the equipment required for both. Hell, you aren't going to be able to afford all of the equipment for either one, but let's at least pretend the glass is half full, ok? Most flyfishing on stationary water (i.e.: ponds, lakes, the gulf of Mexico) is done with the assistance of a Float Tube. The float tube is a doughnut shaped device, costing more than your first car, and designed in such a way as to get the maximum level of amusement from anyone watching a fin footed fisherman waddling towards a body of water with a gaily colored inner-tube pulled up around his neither regions and a $400.00 fly rod clutched desperately in his teeth. Still, the Float Tube is the outdoor sportsman's equivalent of a Barcolounger. You can, and I'm not joking here, equip your Tube with a mini cooler, cup holder, port-a-potty (more on this later) and, should the prospect of fining your way across the lake become too daunting, a small outboard motor. Do I own any of these accessories? Well, let's move on... Whether your interest falls more in the area of ponds and puddles or creeks, cricks, streams and rivers, your first, best investment is a professional quality football helmet. Not a good fly rod? (You ask with a sweet, if short-lived, naivety, bless your heart.) No. Any Beuford can drive to the local Flies 'R' Us and pick out a graphite rod, mainly because THAT process is greatly simplified by approximately 4,000 slavering sporting goods salesmen trampling each other to death as they rush toward anyone who walks through the door. In fact, this was the season cliffhanger for Dough Boys, but the networks pulled if for being too violent for public television. (Okay, that's an obvious lie; they released it on pay-per-view instead.) No, go for the football helmet, and I'll tell you why, but first, let's take a trip to the aforementioned sports store and have a look around. (Note: you will need to stop at your bank and withdraw every penny you have in savings. If this amount is less than eleven thousand dollars, you may want to take your mortgage documents and maybe your first-born child along with you.) The Sportz Store The first thing you're going to see, as you walk though the front doors and pass beneath the shadow of a stuffed salmon approximately the size of a 1969 Ford Galaxie, is row after row of glossy full-color fishing magazines. Savage Steelheadin', Pond Paddlers Gazette, Flyz of the 'Hood, and a hundred others, offering indispensable tidbits like "Double cross pendulum casting in high winds for the amputee!" and "Crappie hotspots in Outer Mongolia!" You must buy every one of these magazines. If you are a truly dedicated fly fisherman, you must subscribe to most of them as well. The reason for this is that your spouse, while screaming at you to do something about all these DAMN MAGAZINES, will be sufficiently distracted as to allow you to sneak your newest titanium, disc brake, large arbor fly reel into the house without risking becoming this years latest statistic for spousicide. This has NOTHING to do with those of us who make our living as outdoor sports writers! (Repeat that ten times.) Flies and Such The next thing you might notice is a wall-length table covered with jillions of tiny clear-plastic drawers. In these drawers are every conceivable combination of string, thread, yarn, fur, feather, rubber, bead, and hook that has ever been imagined. Another jillion new styles will be in on Thursday. There is actually a giant super computer buried deep beneath the Nevada desert that spends day and night grinding out atypical polymorphic logarithms to design these new flies. (Hey, be happy, it could still be building bombs, right?) Such dandies as the HiViz Parachute Purple Haze, the Quigley Sparkle Stacker, the Chartreuse Elk Double-Humpy, and my personal favorite, the Pink Latex Stimulator (only available in California, must be 21 or older to buy.) Looking at this dizzying array of faux-bugs, how do you know which are right for you? Which will entice and titillate the real brooders you're after? Which of these handcrafted works of the imagination will get you the fish in truckloads? Buy six of each fly, period. Once the least trodden sales-person has helped you pick the half-a-dozen fly rods and reels that you absolutely must have to fish your local water, as well as rod-tubes, vest, waders, wading boots, wading jacket, micro-fleece wader liners, wader bag, sun-hat, backing, leader, tippets, knot tool, zingers, fly-boxes, flotant, quik-sink, barb-smasher, leader-wallet, leader-straightener, nippers, retractors, rod-leash, lanyard, net, creel, strike indicators, stream thermometer, wading staff, forceps, clamp, scalpel, pump... One last item that you don't want to leave the store without is your disposable, degradable, scent-free urination pouch with zip-close top, integrated handles, and special "hands free fisherman feature." This handy (and 100% real) device is designed to be worn beneath your waders, allowing for "maximum time on the water". My wife now refuses to touch my micro-fleece liners, and removes my waders from the trunk with a forked stick. Gearing Up Okay! You've got your umpteen bags full of gear and you're heading for the river! So what items do you absolutely NEED to have with you at all times? Well, lucky for you this is much simpler that many of the other aspects of the sport (like how exactly, one can thread a ten inch nightcrawler onto a #22 Callibaetis without losing the worm on the roll cast). To determine what, exactly, to take to the water with you, simply begin stuffing every piece of fly fishing flotsam and jetsam that you've just purchased into the 112 pockets of your new 100% cotton, water-repellent 6-oz. safari cloth, made in the USA, guide vest, ($189.95 retail) complete with a moleskin-lined pocket to prevent marring your Sportz Master III polarized sunglasses (another two hundred roscoes.) Once you have filled all of the pockets, and/or vertebrae begin audibly fusing, you can head off for the river confident in the knowledge that your one box of flies is resting safely on the kitchen table. On the Water At last you ease your way into the stream and begin you're pursuit of the elusive SALMO GAIRDNERI IRIDEUS, Salmo from the Latin meaning "Fish," and Gairdneri Irideus, meaning "That doesn't eat, ever." Regardless, you're in the water, rod in hand, ready to rumble! It is at this point that most fisherman pause to reflect and perhaps engage in some simple mathematics, i.e.: the flow-speed of the current around them, multiplied by the slime factor of the rocks beneath their feet, divided by the overall weight and solubility of the approximately 11 layers of clothing and fishing gear their wearing = how many weeks it's going to take for anyone to find their body at the bottom of the river if they lose their footing. To prevent this accidental slippage, you will need to use the "Toe Radar" method of wading. This consists of edging the toe of one foot out ahead of you as slowly as possible, making sure to never lose contact with the surface of the riverbed as you probe each dip and crevice within a three-foot diameter of your standing position. One word of warning, should an eight-pound steelhead be resting in one of these dips and you, quite by accident, should nudge it with your toe, it will explode from the surface of the water like at Titan missile and you will have a heart attack and die on the spot. Trust me. Once, however, your toe has found a flat rock that seems wide and solid enough for both feet, lunge forward as quickly as possible, pin-wheeling your arms until you achieve balance. You will now find yourself approximately six inches further that your starting position. Repeat this procedure until you reach your desired destination or a massive calf-cramp allows the current to suck you under. False Casting False Casting in a term derived from the ancient Celtic phrase meaning "To flail wildly about with a stick while trying not to hook one's nostril." Experts disagree hotly on casting methods, most will tell you to tie on a fly first, but I advise caution. A fly is a tiny, weightless object with a barbed hooked that will instantly become ensnared with any surface it comes in contact with and or bury itself painfully into the most tender areas of your anatomy as it goes whistling past you at approximately 9,000 miles per hour. If you do choose to tie on a fly, you will want to follow these steps: 1. Strip line from the reel until there are at least 42 snarled coils of line floating around your knees. 2. Quickly raise your fly rod, snapping the tip back to the two o'clock position. 3. Once all of the coils have been pulled smoothly (snicker) from the water and up through the guides (choke, cough) and the line has extended to its maximum length behind you, parallel to the ground (BWAA-HA-HAAA), gently snap you wrist forward. 4. Use your toe radar to made your way back to the bank. Then climb through the world's densest patch of blackberry brambles and poison ivy to retrieve your fly from the upper branches of the only tree within a thousand yards of your position. 5. (One hour later) Return to the river and repeat step 1. You've done it! You've joined the ranks of millions of Americans for whom fly-fishing has come to symbolize a peaceful escape from their hectic lives, and sweet communion with nature. (Not counting, of course, the sweating, itching, stumbling, swearing, bleeding, and occasional near-drowning experience.) Now, at last, let's talk about your new football helmet. This is easily the most important of the copious number of fly-fishing accoutrements that we've listed here. The secret of the helmet is to make sure that it is firmly in place when you sit down to watch the Monday night game, or your favorite bass fishing program. In the unlikely event that you should doze off in front of the television just before your spouse returns home with the family bank statement clutched in her bloodless fingers, the helmet might protect the back of your head from any sudden experimentation with baseball bats, your new Ping driver, or the family cat. Nobody said that outdoor sports are not without their risks. Now if you'll excuse me, I have to go, Dough Boys is about to start. -Perry