To photo, to phone, or to fish?

One of the cooler things about fly fishing, I think, are the photographers out there who document trips and such.  In this day and age of social networking, I think everyone has their own personal "fish porn" page.  Only within the past year or so, have I been comfy with bringing my non waterproof point and shoot Canon out on the streams.  The only device I leave behind is the digital leash of a cell phone.  As much as it would be neat to upload the latest rainbow trout I've caught in Musconetcong in real time, I'd rather not.  The closest I get to the water with a phone is usually post trip where I rile up my friend's thirst with a pic of myself, streamside, with an icy cold barley pop of some sorts.

Of course, some of us "have" to bring their digital leash into the stream because there may be lil' ones involved at the homefront and God forbid the little guy takes a handlebar to his grill piece because older sister wasn't paying attention while she was pedaling along with the latest Dora the Explorer song in her head and you, my friend, weren't there on the other end when it happened to get that MMS pic from wifey of your teary eyed toddler. 

On the other hand, that cellphone of yours may provide you some luck as it did to my friend John Parise.  In the middle of fishing the Big Flatbrook near Branchville, NJ he gets an MMS pic from his buddy who had just caught a huge ass striper a few moments before.  While that exchange goes on with his right hand, the left hand is just holding the rod while the caddis pattern drifts very slowly into some very trouty water and then.............WOOOOOOSH!!!!

To get back on topic, I really like photography and it does seem to go hand in hand with fly fishing. The subject matter is quite limitless, but I really would be torn as to what I want to do when out on the stream, especially one where I've never have been, like the Loyalsock.  Do I fish it hard??  Or do it photo it hard??  I find myself doing that on a much smaller scale doing things for this blog and taking pics for my album on Facebook.  So, I have to give a lot of credit to my photographer friends who also fly fish.  My head would explode at the decision of taking stellar pics of someone landing a brute brown during a hatch or jumping right into the hatch and possibly landing a similar brute of a brown.  

As mentioned before, it's good to have a few professional photographers as friends.  They not only make you look like you know what you're doing, the also can shed "new light" on things that you'd normally blow off or not notice at all.  So, to have Tim Geist, whose work has been featured in The Drake, along on the Loyalsock trip was a complete thrill. 

I could geek out and drool over every bit of camera gear he had  (he wasn't joking when he told me he was bring 500lbs of camera gear) and get tips on shooting with my Canon 40D, which I have to mess around with more, before being comfy enough to bring it on a stream, which means I probably won't be fishing.  The choices......arrrrgh!  Tim has managed to capture the essence of Uncle Vin's cabin in such a way that I haven't seen.  I knew he would have a field day taking photo of the contents within and out of the cabin, but the things he chose are very cool. 

He has started an album about the Loyalsock on his dot.com website at T.C. Geist Photography.   Please check it out.