The Weekend We Became Fly Tying People

Chapter 149: Groceries and Great Expectations

This was one of those “nothing is happening but everything is happening” weeks. We were in a holding pattern, counting down to a 4-day long weekend like kids before summer break, except instead of packing swimsuits I was doing advanced-level grocery math. Enough food to survive the weekend, not so much that the food turns into 'The Last of Us' in the fridge while we’re gone. 

Meanwhile, “our land” has officially graduated to “our construction site,” because it no longer resembles land. It’s now a maze of trenches, rebar cages, and things that look important enough that I nod seriously when I see them. Footings, apparently. Structural. Foundational. Very adult. There’s even a water meter now, which feels like progress, although I still don’t know where the actual water part is.

The rest of the week was a mix of small wins and mild chaos. I made Taiwanese pork chop using a crab hammer because my actual meat tenderizer is buried somewhere in storage. It worked.  I guess a hammer is a hammer...

Then came Date Night. I dug out a long-forgotten skirt from my New York era, had a brief identity crisis about whether it would still fit, and was pleasantly surprised when it zipped. Even more surprised when it felt… slightly loose? Suspicious. I also attempted DIY “Kintsugi” on my broken La Mer lid using superglue and zero skill. It looked terrible, but it worked, which is kind of the theme here.

Kintsugi apart from that I don't have no gold, silver, or platinum LOL

Superglue come to the rescue!

Dinner at Theo’s felt fancy-adjacent (office park chic), but we leaned in. There were mysterious free appetizers, excellent shrimp, a very generous steak, and by the end of it I was reconsidering my earlier “this skirt is loose” conclusion. We went back to camp full, happy, and ready for the main event: the long weekend.

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Chapter 150: Project Hail Sowbug

The long weekend kicked off with a scenic drive through the Ozarks, which is beautiful in theory and mildly stressful in practice. By the time we got to Branson, I was tired, hungry, and ready to sit down anywhere that would feed me. Enter lunch at a Bass Pro–owned restaurant that felt like dining inside a theme park, but in a good way. Jalapeño cornbread, fish and chips, chicken burger... no notes.

White River Fish House

Yum!

Then: IMAX. I had been waiting months to watch Project Hail Mary and it delivered. Huge screen, reclining seats, zero regrets. I came prepared to cry and didn’t, but in a good way.

That coke was bigger than Don Don! :-D

From there we pushed on to Mountain Home for the main reason we were here: the Sowbug Roundup. Imagine a 3-day convention, but instead of tech bros or comic books, it’s 150 people tying flies with intense focus and tiny materials and 500 people wandering, watching, having conversations. I had no idea what the etiquette was. Do you just… watch? Do you join in? Do you pretend you know what you’re doing?

Yes this is a thing! 

Turns out, you sit down and talk to people, and they show you things, and suddenly you’re having a great time watching someone with giant hands tie something the size of a small paperclip with surgical precision. We met Jerry, Mike, Barry, Bruce, Leslie, amongst many others... each with their own specialty and personality, each making flies that looked like art pieces or tiny, suspiciously realistic fish. (Injured fish, dead fish, you name it!)

Jerry from Rogers tying a British pattern called 'Tups'.

This is supposed to look like a dead fish!

And this is supposed to look like an injured fish.

lots and lots of flies with Crazy Ants!  (yes it is a legit pattern)

By day two, we had no shame. We were asking for demos, filming techniques, collecting tips, and yes... accepting free feathers like it was totally normal. We even went shopping. For fly tying materials. If you had told me a year ago I’d be excited about elk hair and wool dubbing, I would have laughed in your face.

Back at camp, we put our “skills” to the test. Our flies looked… enthusiastic compared to the professionals, but hey, they existed. Then we pivoted to something we clearly understand better: food.

It's obviously which ones were made by novices hahaha.

Yakitori night! Skewers of chicken, steak, pineapple, veggies... grilled slowly over charcoal, brushed with sauce with precision and a lot of patience (on Nelson's part). It was cold, it took forever, and it was absolutely worth it. We even attempted grilled onigiri; some survived, some didn’t, but the survivors were excellent. For people living in a van, we eat suspiciously well.

Chef at work :-)

It seriously tasted so good.

Sunday wrapped it all up with more fishing (of course), more fly tying (with significantly more swearing... elk hair is a menace), and a small but satisfying victory: a Parachute Adams that actually looked decent. Possibly even Leslie-approved.

My first Elk Hair Caddis.  I made the wing too long, but I did mistook it for a moth 2 days later and tried to kill it!

We rolled back into Blowing Springs, parked on a simple patch of grass, and called it a weekend. Tired, slightly smoky, surrounded by feathers and fishing gear, and wondering when exactly we became people who go to fly tying conferences for fun.

No clear answer. But seriously? Not mad about it.