For those of you unaware, Fort Collins, Colorado is a bitchin' town, and the official headquarters of Pig Farm Ink. When it came time to pick a location for our debut Get Trashed event, Fort Compton was the logical choice.
Many of us have been fishing the water of the Poudre river throughout Old Town since we were kids, and we are all aware that the river could use our help. The Poudre (through downtown Fort Collins) is an urban trout fishery, and although it is a beautiful freestone river, its close proximity to downtown means that some garbage inevitably ends up in it.
We kicked around ideas on what we could do to help clean up the river. A few of us would spend our available time collecting trash while we were out fishing, but we could never seem to put a dent in it. After an afternoon spent cleaning up, we ended up in a bar close to the river drinking chainsaws (shitty well vodka on the rocks "homey pour"). As we were talking about all the unusual trash we collected, we were approached by two hot college chicks who volunteered to help us pick up the river. We asked them if they had ever been fly fishing. They said "No". We were on to something.
Fast forward a few months and we had over 100 people signed to spend a whole day cleaning up the Poudre, fly fishing, and drinking (responsibly). Get Trashed was born! To keep it interesting, a competition was created that encouraged new angler participation and trash collection. We all met at Whiskey for "breakfast", hit the river between Prospect and Shields, and met at Illegal Pete's for the "weigh-in".
In the end, new fly fishermen/women were created, dozens of fish were caught, thousands of pounds of trash collected, and hundreds of beers consumed. It was bitchin"!
