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http://www.omniture.com --> Oregon Road Conditions & Cams Advertisement Email Story to a Friend May 12, 2006 Derby dudes With his monofilament fishing line and lure the proper distance behind his boat, Don Lange is ready to set how fast he will troll across Howard Prairie Lake. He eyes a bubble on the water's surface about six feet forward, then juggles the outboard's throttle until his speed is such that it takes five seconds to move the boat past the bubble. Satisfied with the speed, he spends the next 20 minutes staring at a rod tip that never once wiggles from a biting trout. "Bill, I can't invite a fish at all," Lange moans to his trolling partner, Bill Wolfe. "I don't think I've caught a trout on this lure in five years." But Lange keeps dragging that lure, called a "Delphilabob," across Howard Prairie because that's what he and Wolfe have done together every first Saturday in May since 1974, when Lange stopped becoming an ordinary angler and bought a derby. Lange and Wolfe are boat-mates for life in the Derby Hat Club, a collection of Northern California men who migrate to Howard Prairie twice a year and follow a series of fishing rituals they have created, perfected and honored for 42 years. The men eat, sleep, drink and fish only with each other, and only in teams. "You get in the club, pair up, and you live that way for the rest of your life," says Lange. "We're like geese." Twenty-five men in the club-- no more, no less. New members are admitted only when someone dies or skips three trips. No one's in without unanimous approval of the others. They only troll. No bait. No flashers or other fish attractors. No teetotalers. No exceptions. And they do virtually all of it while wearing black derby hats. "There's no by-laws, no written rules," says Jim Summers, a Derby Hat Club staple since the first trip in 1964. "It's all tradition." They bet the same, divvy camp chores the same, raise hell the same and in the end, will be buried the same as most of the 22 dead members on their Honor Roll — with his derby tucked into his casket and carried to his grave by his derby-clad brethren. "As you can see, we're kind of hooked on this," says Wolfe, a retired tire-shop owner and 38-year member. "The simple fact that what we have here, and what we do here, really are our rituals and that alone really makes them worth following," Wolfe says. "People like to be part of something predictable, doing something the way we've always done it." Before this day is through, however, a tradition will bend in Lange and Wolfe's boat. But even that won't interfere with their end-of-the-trip ritual — a sit-down dinner with white shirts, black ties and identical derbies. "That has a great deal of impact and meaning for us," Wolfe says. "It speaks to all the people before us. These are our traditions. "If everybody showed up with a different hat, you would have nothing," he says. "It would be chaos." This quest for angling order dates back to 1963, when a group of Clear Lake civic leaders went looking for a place to raise a bit of heck and still come home with their reputations relatively intact. There's a new reservoir in Southern Oregon, one said. It's stocked with big, fat trout and it's far enough away for anonymity. A reconnaissance team sent that fall returned with glowing reports. They laid plans for a spring outing in 1964 at the fledgling Howard Prairie Resort. And they brought along more than Old Crow whisky and fishing rods. They brought derbies. "It was to install some civility into the club," member Ronnie Bogner recalls. "It would force people to be civil one night each trip." Precious little has changed. They meet on Thursday at a Clear Lake airport hangar and caravan to Howard Prairie, stopping at the same diners and watering holes. At the same gravel pit along Dead Indian Memorial Road, the group stops to recreate a roadside ritual born on that initial trip. "One of the members in 1964 pulls out a pocket watch and puts it in the middle of the road, taking bets on how long it would last," Wolfe says. "It got run over by a log truck almost instantaneously. So they decided to pitch quarters between the yellow lines instead. It sounded safer." At camp, they lay out their spreads. Food on two picnic tables. One table is reserved for a collage of liquor bottles that dwarfs many bars. "We have people come by camp," Wolfe says, "just to take pictures of our liquor table." Friday and Saturday are devoted to trout fishing, with members trolling the brass "Delphilabobs," lures created by members Del Hinman, Phil Crump and Bob Youles. Boat captains are in charge of the bets. One hundred dollars a day to the biggest fish. Measurements are at 7 p.m. Just like always. "The only thing that changes in this club," member Doug Patterson says, "is our shorts." But Bobby Dutcher is about to short-circuit tradition. u u A 10-year club veteran, Dutcher is a 46-year-old Realtor and easily the youngest of the lot. He fishes with his dad, Ed Dutcher, who tires early this Saturday and hangs up his rod by noon. But Bobby Dutcher wants to fish a little more, so he joins Lange and Wolfe. Derbies start rolling in graves back at Clear Lake. "We're not supposed to fish in some other team's boat," Dutcher says. "It's not supposed to happen." Moments later, the unthinkable happens. Dutcher hooks a dandy and boats the 17-1/2-inch trout destined for today's $100 big-fish prize. "As soon as I saw it I thought, 'Oh, God, we're going to argue all night about this.'" u u Arguments are common in the Derby Hat Club. Fights, however, are non-existent. They needle each other over everything. Where to fish, what to drive, where to stand, what gear to use. And the derbies. Bogner catches perpetual grief for wearing a gray derby. "It's the Derby Hat Club. Not the Black Derby Hat Club," he reasons. He constantly guards it against a one-way trip to the derby pyre. "People have come up here with sequin derbies and they get thrown in the fire," Bogner says. "A lot of things have ended up thrown in the fire." They argue the loudest and longest about the use of lead-core fishing line, first introduced 10 years ago by member Roy Bruce. Sure, it's not the pure monofilament rigging used since that first trip, but the lead core allows Bruce to troll deeper and catch more fish. Summers sees it as sacrilege. "These are gentlemen's agreements," Summers says. "Roy came along and broke tradition. I'll never forgive him for that. I like him, but I won't forgive him." u u It's 7 p.m., time to pull out fish to get them measured, and no one's ready to forgive Dutcher. They stomp and stretch their inferior fish, but no one can beat Dutcher's ill-gotten trout. The campground erupts into a sea of bickering. For the moment, Dutcher replaces Bruce on the top of Summers' list of unforgivables. "The camp's in an uproar," Bruce giggles, "and it's not about lead core." Only special dispensation from Wolfe, who sports King Solomon powers as the club commander, gets Dutcher his $100. The complaining, however, quells quickly. Not even Dutcher-bashing can deter from the one tradition the Derby Hat Club will never break. The men emerge from their trailers wearing their white shirts, black ties and dusted-off derbies. They carry grilled rib-eye steaks and twice-baked potatoes into a 16-by-30-foot white tent and take their seats on picnic tables adorned in white linens. They say a prayer for the 22 club members who have died. They toast and bicker, laugh and toast. Then Carl Braito, the 88-year-old owner of the largest marina on Clear Lake, starts telling the same old stories about his old friend Beanie Ryan being a corporal for a day in the Army. "We laugh just as hard every year he tells it," Bogner says. A few off-color jokes are joined with cigars, and then the men break into intermittent song. "They've been doing the same things and singing the same songs for 42 years," Dutcher says. "But you know what? They're old songs. "Some day, the Derby Hat Club will be singing rap songs," he says. "But that's no time soon." They milk all they can from their dinner in the tent, savoring their cigars and the reminiscences of men on the Honor Roll and the rituals they all have shared. They know the derbies get shelved tomorrow, when club members reconstitute themselves as doctors, lawyers, bankers, retired construction workers and other recognizable men of Lake County, Calif. "Here, we're all on the same page maintaining our traditions," Summers says. "When we get home, we all become the people we need to be." Reach reporter Mark Freeman at 776-4470, or e-mail [email protected] . 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