I expected it would not take long to find myself back on Taneycomo with a fly rod in hand after fishing with my daughter and Capt. Kris Nelson of Tandem Fly Outfitters back in July. I guess I just didn’t expect to be back so soon, and under such unique circumstances…
A call from the good Captain with word of a professional video crew, my “required” presence as the Tandem Fly “Marketing Guy” to be involved, help shoot video and stills, and just generally contribute to the surrounding hubbub in some way shape or form. This “obligation”, of course, would ultimately find me grabbing a buddy and heading for the hills.
Kris’ ability to bring together a hostof friends, family, and generally excellent folk who just so happen to share a similar passion and enthusiasm for our pursuits of the finned and feathered varieties made for an enjoyable – and downright
entertaining – evening of meeting new friends. Beverages and a meal fit for a king encouraged the spinning of tall tales, and excitement in planning the morning’s fishing and filming. At some point, beds were stumbled to, the morning patiently waiting just around the corner.
A breakfast to rival the prior evening’s dinner put away in short order, we loaded up and headed down to Taneycomo. Let me pause at this point and say now, for the record, should a particular mother & daughter, or the sister/aunt, happen upon this blog, I would like to thank you now and let you know I’ll put your ability to provide a top-notch, five-star dining experience to an unruly bunch the likes of us up against any I’ve had the pleasure of enjoying.
Our morning started with my long-time 
friend, and first-time fly fisher (and he’s even a Montana native!) and I running with a friend of Kris’, John Sappington, who turned out to be a darn good guy and an equally impressive guide on the water. John exercised enough (translate “enough” as “a great deal of”) patience to find Dwayne landing not only his first rainbow on the fly rod, but many more to follow. I used our time with John to try and get some photos and footage of the other boat in action as well.
After lunch, John moved on to entertain another group of clients for the afternoon, ands we joined Kris and crew in the TFO boat to make it a grand total of 6 bodies aboard. As the horns blew and water flowed, the fishing 
picked up right along with it, the San Juan worms with Scud droppers doing their thing and luring more than a few trusting rainbows to the net. I managed several very decent fish in the 15-17″ range in a short amount of time, with hopes that some good footage would be a result. With a solid day of fishing and – dare I say – “work” under our belts, Dwayne and I left them to prepare for another day of filming while we made our run back to Kansas City just in time to use a perfect sunset as our compass.
While I am not sure much of my footage is going to be of any help, we definitely had a great time, got some good fishing in on what was really a “work” trip, and – as always – made some great new friends. Still excited to get back for some more, especially after Kris got a client to land a 23″ 4.25 lb rainbow a couple days after we left.
As I have mentioned before on this blog, don’t hesitate to give Capt. Kris a call, whether you are looking for a hardcore fishing weekend with the guys, or just a half day on the water with the family squeezed in between your Branson vacation activities. Kris can put the seasoned veteran, the novice angler or even the kiddos on nice trout, and usually a lot of them. Check out the website or Facebook as well.
