Bobbers and Poles

You have no idea what I have to deal with every year in MT. I take this trip with friends and family annually, and in 6 years it has grown from 2 people to as many as 16. The typical attendees vary in skill from avid and experienced fly anglers to the "never-tried-it", drink more than we fish type, and it's really a bi-modal distribution of those two extremes. You wouldn't be surprised to hear what I have to put up with. Below is a representative sampling.


"Hey Tim, what kind of lure should I use?"

"Could you grab my pole from the car?"

"My reel doesn't seem right."
"Yeah, you put it on backwards."

"The fish are biting here, why don't you try this spot."(me)
 (20min later)
"The fish seem to have followed you down there. Wanna switch again?" (them)

"There's something wrong with this pole, it can't seem to cast any farther than 15 feet."

"What are you doing up there on the bank?"
"I got my leader all tangled up. You want to help?"

"Crap, I missed the boat ramp."
"That's ok, just hit the next one."
"Crap, I missed that one too!"

"I'm not catching anything and I've been casting in this great looking pool for an hour!"
"Do you still have your flies?"
"Hold on....   Oh, no I don't.  I must have lost them when I hooked the river-bottom on my second cast"

"How much weight should I have on here?"
"How much do you have on?"
"Two."
"What size?"
"Two split shots."
"What size of split shot?"
"Split shot."

"How long should my leader be?"
"Usually around nine feet. How long is it?"
"Looks like it's down to about three feet."
"How did you even thread that through the fly? Nevermind; you probably want to add a bunch of tippet."
"How do I do that?"

"Do you have any beer in your boat?"

"Fish on!"
"That's a nice fish. Get him over hear and I'll net him."
"Looks like a rainbow, right?"
"Yeah, sure."
(net the fish)
"Oh, it's a whitefish. You owe the pot $10! Sucker."

"Man, I've hooked at least 10 fish here and lost every single one of them!"
"Did you check your hooks?"
"Check my hooks? Why?"
"Sure sounds like something's messed up."
(reels gear in)
"God damn cheap ebay flies. Hook's broken."

"I need a new bobber, I cast mine off"

And of course: