Tailing Loops: Twenty Years of Flipped Boats, Punted Fish, Misfits and Semi-luminaries

Scrolling through a folder of old film scans, commercial client outtakes, happy snaps and favorite editorial photo shoots over the last 20 years, I realized I had some pretty amusing stories and memories of these images.

I thought it would be fun to go back and ask the subjects what they remembered about the shots.   

Where are they now? What were their memories? Are they still running skiffs or rowing rivers?

The following is just that: a collection of fishing related imagery and stories that speaks to the soul of the sport, and hopefully brings a little levity to what can sometimes be an overly serious activity.

We fish because it’s fun and every now and then, it moves us.

• Interrupted by the Man. Will Rice and I fished Denver’s South Platte (the DSP) a lot in those days for tailing carp. Knowing the DNC was coming to town, a stones-throw from our prime fishing flats, I pitched my editor at Field & Stream about fishing during the big political convention. The idea was to push the authority figures on fishing public water, while being asked not to. I never told Will the plan…
• Bighorn Wedding Under The Stars. During Kat and Geoff’s wedding, which was perched on a high bank over the Bighorn River in Fort Smith, MT, most of the attendees were anglers. There was a lovely little back eddy, just below the service, and the fish were going off on BWO. While everyone seemed to enjoy a perfectly timed (shortish) service, a small contingent of us squirmed in our seats, knowing once it ended, there would be mad dash to see who got their fly rod first…
• “Stilt Houses of Texas” book project. I love taking photos of people in their happy place. After Mike and I left our first stilt house, I knew I was in for some fun. This image has to be in my top ten “portraits” ever taken. I love the symmetry, expressions and canned food and memorabilia covering the walls. Every time I look, I see something new that drags me back to the Texas coast.
• High Altitude Bridges. I must’ve made Geoff Mueller walk a creek-crossing log 100 times to get the shot, adjusting off-camera flashes to match the quickly fading light. One of my favorite high altitude creeks in Colorado’s Gore Range.
• The World Record Musky. I was staring up at this giant fish replica (they let the fish go) in Bob Mitchell’s fly shop on my friend Joe Cermele’s video shoot for Field & Stream, when I got a dumb idea. I asked our friend Robert, Bobby Nachos, if we could take one of the most impressive fish mounts I’ve ever seen out on a little walk. He agreed. After the photo shoot, we proceeded to get skunked for four days of musky fishing. Check out Robert’s fish.
• Strange Things Happen In the Desert. Joe Cermele and I were on the way back from getting blown off the water on lake Havasu bass fishing, en route to carp nirvana in Phoenix when we took a detour to Quartzite, AZ. We spent some time rummaging through the enormous flea market that the area is famous for and happened to stumble onto what was a famous bookstore called Reader’s Oasis. The store was run and owned by Paul Winer, a nudist. Cermele asked him to do the kick-off for Hookshots, and Season Six and a cult classic video were born…

Tim is a Flylab co-founder, one of the principals behind Angling Trade and the former photo editor of The Flyfish Journal. He also is a long-time contributor to Field & Stream and has been a photographer for the last two decades. His work is part of the permanent collections at Lake Forest College, Photo Americas Portland, Instituto de Artes de Medellin, Colombia and the University of Colorado, Boulder.