It’s no big secret that shooting first thing in the morning is the key to getting those “money shots”.  The light is perfect and the water is almost guaranteed to be flat. The problem however, comes in motivating dude bros to get up that early. Everything always sounds great in theory, but as soon as that 7a.m. alarm goes off it’s a different story.  This was just the case the other morning when I tried to set up a shoot with Dieter, Clint, and Yan. Everything that could of gone wrong did. First Clint wasn’t able to get his board because it was locked in his buddy’s truck. Then Yan called and said he was stuck in early morning traffic. And as if that wasn’t enough, our chase boat driver wouldn’t even wake up. Just perfect. Such is the curse of shooting early in the morning I suppose.  

Clint and Yan both ended coming over later in the day and even though I didn’t get to shoot, watching them shred was equally entertaining. I had never seen Yan ride before and I must say I was pretty impressed. He has a sick kickflip style very similar to that of a skateboarder, as well as some lofty in and out V-Flips. Clint was equally as impressive. With a bag of switch tricks that would rival any other rider on the water (like this switch frontside flip) he was truly fun to watch. Now I have to admit, Clint is one of the few people in wakeskating that leaves me kind of “star struck”. I know how lame that sounds, but it’s the truth. I remember back in the day he was frontboarding the entire relentless rail, and shuving out of it, before most people would even dare to hit it period. Epic! I used to watch Clint ride all the time on my lake and just be mystified as he kickflipped off this huge kicker with ease.  The guy is a legend of our sport, and the fact that I got to ride with him still kind of blows my mind…..