The long-anticipated release of the 3rd rendition of the Short Bus Diaries is finally here! The Wild Fly Productions crew has invested in a new bus, that may just be the upgrade they needed to make it back out west. The new bus takes them to the Colorado Rockies where they fish some new water, meet new friends, and host a meet-up just outside of Denver. Adam from Wild Fly Productions shares a behind-the-scenes story of finding the new bus and the latest adventure to Colorado, check it out below.
“We had been planning Short Bus Diaries Volume 3 since we got back from filming Volume 2, in Montana last summer. We already had some new ideas for the series and wanted to go to a popular DIY destination. We decided on Colorado for a few reasons, #1, it’s not that far from SLC, so the bus could make it. #2, we wanted to do a meet-up with fans, and outside of Denver was the perfect spot for the first meet-up. And #3, it’s an awesome DIY fishery with tons of rivers and lakes to explore.”
“We were gearing up to head out on this trip in May. As we are getting things prepped, I called the storage unit (where the bus is stored) and I received the worst news a bus owner can receive: the bus is dead. And I don’t mean the battery, we are talking about massive engine failure.”
“Honestly, we knew this was coming. We are just lucky it didn’t happen while filming Vol 2. We already had plans in the works to get rid of this bus after Vol 3 and get a new one for Vol 4. So, our plan was forced to happen sooner than we expected. The hunt began again for a new bus. Again, Craigslist served us well as I found the perfect bus there.”
“Less than a week later I had finally achieved my dream, I had been promoted from Short Bus Captain to Short Bus Commodore with my new fleet of 2 busses.
Due to the bus failure, we had to postpone the trip to the Summer of 2021. We spent the next few months re-designing our new-to-us bus. Wood prices were outrageous, and we were salvaging every piece of scrap wood we could out of the old bus. The new build consisted of: auxiliary battery and isolator separate from the cranking battery bank, inverter, interior lights, 2 bunk beds were built so we had 4 beds in the bus, storage racks, dinner table, fly tying desk, lower storage underneath the bus, and trailer hitch with wiring.”
We were all excited to use the new upgrades and even more excited about driving the new bus. It’s still a bus, so it’s not going to be in the newest installment of Fast and Furious. But it was much better than the old bus. This one gave us zero issues on the trip and is much faster and more comfortable than the last bus. This one is much more livable and comfortable.
About 2 weeks before our trip we were getting awful reports from CO due to high heat and low water over the entire west. Some rivers were being closed, but even if rivers weren’t closed, we were questioning the ethics of fishing the areas we were planning to with the heat and water conditions.
The only good reports we received were high country/ alpine lakes. We didn’t feel like this was worth doing a whole SBD video series on and not showcasing more of what Colorado has to offer to the DIY angler. So we postponed the trip yet again to early fall in hopes of finding cooler weather.
Special thanks to everyone who came out to the 4 Noses Brewery event we hosted. We could not believe how many folks showed up! But more about that later on in the series…Follow along with the series on our YouTube channel @WildFlyProductions. We will be posting a new video every Sunday until the new year!
Article by Adam Hudson of Blue Line Flies / Wild Fly Productions.
Be sure to check out Wild Fly Productions on YouTube here.
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