Spring Fishing

May 28 2009

Hello All,

Memorial Day was a great holiday weekend for us. Rinda (my girlfriend) and I hit the Bighorn River here in Wyoming for some fly fishing. This is Rinda’s second year at the helm of a fly rod and reel and she has been searching for a “big” trout ever since first picking up the sport. I think all of my talk of huge fish ripping line off my reel has worn off on her. Well on Monday morning at 9:00 AM her quest was fulfilled.

With a cone-headed Muddler Minnow and a Girdlebug (my favorite fly for big Brown Trout) in tow she latched on to a “Wild Brown” trout of epic proportions on a heavily fished public river. This monster hammered, you guessed it the Girdlebug in only about 14-inches of water lying against the far bank and he took it slow. Rinda set the hook on him and all hell broke loose.

With the over-cast skies above and a drizzling rain in the air, I did not get a good look at the fish from behind the oars until he lit up and went airborne. It was then and there I was glad she rigged up with an 8 ½ pound leader. After a fifteen minute fight and plenty of barking orders from my mouth she landed the trout and what a gorgeous brown he was.

I knew we were destined for big fish as I forgot my good camera that morning and would be left to resort to my Blackberry camera phone. The photos do not do this fish justice. He is right at a little bit over six pounds and almost 24-inches long-a hook-jawed monster brown and one hell of a fight to go along with it. Rinda did a great job fighting her first “big” trout. I am very proud of her. Maybe the next one will be mine.

Just thought you might enjoy a photo. Cheers and good luck with your next outdoor endeavor.

Guy

Salt Lake Bound…

Mar 10 2009

The Eastmans’ trailer is finally loaded and the Deer Display is secured for the trip to the Salt Lake City ISE sports show. Ike and I will be leaving the home office here in Powell at 6:00 AM tomorrow morning for the short 8 hour drive to Salt Lake. There is a little snow in the forecast but it looks to be smooth sailing and pretty cold. I’ll be checking out the ever precious mule deer winter range on my way down tomorrow. I’ll have a full report for all of you region G and H hunters once I arrive in Utah. I hope you can find the time to come down to the show and hang with us for a while. I’ll be lecturing every day except Sunday. Check the ISE website for the exact times. I look forward to seeing all of you there. Safe travels and we’ll see you on the other side of the divide.

Guy

Viewer E-mail

Feb 03 2009

Hello,
I would like to start off by extending a huge thanks to the whole staff at eastmans for great mags and a great tv show. I live in montana and my family and i are always enjoying the outdoors with every chance we get. My question is about your slogan ” no fences here”. I hunt about every thing you can in montana and some in wyoming. I have noticed in the past ten or more years how much tougher it is getting to find a land owner that is willing to give up hunting access. My question is do you folks at eastman pay trespass fees or do you pay guides. Does the no fences here slogan pertain to high fence hunting? I am a middle class working joe and it is getting harder to afford the sport i love. I would consider my self a “trophy hunter” in the regard that like most hunters i would love to harvest some of the animals i see in your mags and on your show. Do you have a secret for access or are you paying for some of it?

Justus H.

Guy’s Reply:

Hello Justus,

Thank you for the e-mail and kind words. To answer your question, the “No Fences Here” slogan is in regards to no high fenced hunts. We do not hunt under any conditions that are not considered Fair Chase and ethical.

As for the public land hunts, we do on occasion hunt on private land or with outfitters, but a majority of our hunts/shows are public land DIY hunts. We calculated it the other day, and I think for the 2009 television season over 65% of the hunts on the TV schedule where public land DIY hunts. Surprisingly, most of the biggest trophies taken on the show are on the public land hunts. We film over 26 shows each year and it is next to impossible to get that many episodes without going on a few guided or private land hunts mostly due to the extraordinary amount of hoops we have to jump through to get filing permits and such from the Federal Government just to hunt/film on public land, not to mention the additional expense for these very expensive film permits (over $150 per day in most cases).

There is a ton of public land opportunity out there to take advantage of, it just requires a little bit of research and hard work to find it.

Good luck this fall and thank you for the question.

Guy

Denver ISE Show-

Jan 29 2009

Denver Post-

Jan 28 2009

While at the Denver ISE show this past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity to sit down and chat (interview) with Charlie Meyers who is an outdoor columnist for the Denver Post newspaper. Charlie is a wonderful guy with a very soft spoken demeanor and some very tough questions. The headline on the story ended up reading, “Eastman decries big-money hunts”. Charlie wanted to know my thoughts on some very controversial subjects in the hunting world, and with well over 20 years in the newspaper business, he certainly knew how to ask the hard questions. The link to the article is: http://www.denverpost.com/sports/ci_11546434 . I guess you can read if for yourself and see if I am on the mark or off base with my ideals and convictions. I once heard somewhere that, if you don’t stand for something you stand for nothing.

- Guy