casting in bend

catching up on posts from travels earlier in the fall...

while visiting family in bend, oregon i felt the need for a photo walkabout and wandered to the old mill, a shopping district on the banks of the deschutes river. i stumbled upon the orvis national casting competition and spent the day photographing a sport that i didn't know existed.

i grew up fishing with my dad. i snarled lines in trees and, more often than not, tried to keep the rainbow trout we caught as pets. fond memories. fly fishing isn't foreign to me, but competition casting was a whole new world. i was surrounded by casting royalty with 13 time world champion steve rajeff, floyd dean and henry mittel. who knew?

the course is a permanent installation, the only one of its kind in north america. think frisbee-golf, but with hoops instead of baskets.

























after the scores were tallied there was a cast-off for 6th place. matt paluch hit the target in two tries and made a bet with chase jablonski. hit it in one, and he'd take a swim.

chase hit it in one try,



and matt took a swim.