Wayward
fly fishing 
Wayward
fly fishing I tried normal once. I got bored. So I stopped doing it.
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Fly fishing has become much too normal. On this wayward site, you'll find exciting (and mostly true) articles, stories, book reviews, and video reviews on many aspects of fly fishing. Here I'll explode fly fishing myths (and create a few of my own). Roam around or catch up on the latest news and my current attitudes in the flog (fly blog). Welcome to the Flog . . .June 30, 2009 I've been collecting fly fisher obituaries lately. Here are a few: Bob "log walker" Walton. Bob was a great husband, a great father. He loved life and he loved fishing. He loved log walking just a little too much. Float in peace. Billy Jones He was a good husband and a great fisher. He loved to fish. In fact, that's all he did. Fish. Fish. Fish. Now he's fishing where the fish don't bit. By by, Billy. Jimmy Barton Big, was how he did everything. He sought the biggest fish, all over the world. He loved life. Too bad the shark loved life, too. Swim with the fish, Jimmy. Howy houghton Howy was a great a man and a great fisherman. He caught bigger fish than any body, and more fish. And he let you know it. He caught a 100 pound salmon this year, and I caught a small cod. He had the biggest boat, and the fastest boat. You're not going so fast now, are you Howy? June 02, 2009 I've been collecting love letters from fly fishermen and fly fisherwomen over the years (OK, not all mine). Here are some typical ones that show the depth of our romantic feelings. They also show that our priorities in life are mature and not centered around fish. Really. Dear wife, Let me count the ways I love you. I love you more than all things on earth. I love you more than a size 8 Woolly Bugger in the mouth of a 24-inch Rocky Mountain cutthroat. I love you more the my size 18 CDC PMD pattern in the mouth of a whitefish. Truly. Love, yours, forever and forever. I hope you enjoy the flowers. I found them in a Rocky Mountain stream where I landed that 24-inch cutthroat. Dear husband. Thanks for the flowers. They smell funny. My dearest wife of all times, that 26 inch steelhead I caught last week, the 8 pound bass the week before, the 60 pound salmon last year (I know, I should have invited you along, sorry), the 26 inch brook trout--are nothing compared to your sweet smile every morning in camp. Dearest husband. My first husband fished. My second husband fished. My third husband fished. My fourth husband fished. You don't fish. You like to garden. Thank you. Love you always. Dearest wife, when I lost those three steelhead last week, you were there to help me with landing lessons. When my flies fell in the water, you helped me dry my tears. When I stepped on my fly rod, you let me buy a new one, even though you sacrificed that $800 dress I promised you could buy yourself three anniversaries ago. When you caught all those fish and I caught none, you held me and made me feel like I'm not a total idiot. Love you forever. I hope you enjoy the new fly rod (and No, those aren't the flowers I gave you last week). Dearest darling, you are the damsel nymph of my life, the young emerger in the morning, the PMD spinner of my life, the caddis pupa in the evenings--and all other things great and really super. Enjoy the flowers. I'll be back in 8 hours. Dearest darling of all time and forever, If I didn't need to catch steelhead, I'd catch you. If I didn't need to wrestle with the largest bass in four counties, I'd wrestle with you. If I didn't need to snag the largest brook trout in the Colorados, I'd snag you (uhh, in the Colorados). Lots of love. (PS, I hope you enjoy the flowers with the two airplane vacation tickets to Colorado).
May 26, 2009 I mean, I saw a kid fishing using a radio-controlled boat. There are actually a number of videos of people attaching fishing line and lure to the back of a radio-controlled boat. Maybe it's been going on since hobby boats became radio controlled. Maybe the first thought a kid had after receiving such a boat at Christmas as "Hey, I bet I could stick a bass plug at the end of this and catch a fish." His next idea was probably something like, "I bet I could stick a rubber shark's head on this and scare somebody." Sort of like the tricks I played as a kid, when I thought it was beyond cool and exceedingly anti-authority to fasten playing cards to my bicycle spokes to make motorcycle noises. I can imagine an enforcement officer looking upon a radio-controlled fishing boat scratching his head, thinking, "Well, now, I suppose it's fishing, but I just don't see it in the regs." Aside from the potential legal problems, there are more important big-fish issues. I mean a five pounder could drag a boat under water, and there goes Christmas. "Bobby, where's the boat I gave you for Christmas?" "Daddy, the fish done ate it." "Huh?" I can also image myself alone on a favorite lake, in my tube, opposite the shore from where a group of kids are camping. Suddenly, I'm being buzzed by an electric boat that got a little too far from its radio signal. A fish grabs the bass popper that is being trolled behind the electric intruder. The loud annoying sound would be one thing. My clever biot and CDC pattern being dismissed for a remotely trolled bass popper is something entirely different, and entirely unacceptable. I don't think I could tolerate the kids yelling at me, either. "Hey mister, could you bring back our boat . . . err, and the fish?" In a float tube? With little flippers on my feel? I don't think so, boys. Or maybe I must don't know how to have fun. Maybe I've forgotten how to be a kid. How to take, perhaps, a cool toy and turn it into a really cool toy. How to get into trouble with authority. How to . . . naaaaaah. May 21, 2009 You can't anticipate a time like this. Or I should say, everyone at some point comes to this, as if I ought to know what ought to happen at every point in one's life, let alone one's fly-fishing life. Let me explain this bit of nonsense. I've been tying flies for almost 30 years, and now my wife tells me I need to move my tying station to a different room. After much argument (after all, moving a tying station is not unlike a brain transplant), I acquiesced and started the painful process of digging through my mountains of fly tying materials, from almost every conceivable feather to more fur than you'll find in a forest. After an entire fish-less weekend, I visited every piece of fly tying material, and re-bagged everything. The journey wasn't without many memories. I had to admit to myself, I've changed a thousand percent as a fly tyer since I started collecting and fashioning fly-tying materials. One thing became obvious right away: 99 percent of the typing material I've collected will never again see the light of a creek. No more will muskrat see water. No more, beaver, bear, vole, seal, bison, and about a dozen other furs that I could no longer even identify. I mean, the big black fuzzy mess of matted hair could be sasquatch hair, for all I knew. I've evolved (some would say, devolved) into an artificial fly tyer, with only a few exceptions. Over the years, I finally realized that Antron, for example, looks more like the natural than beaver or muskrat. My only nod to natural materials are soft hackles for tails (and the occasional wingy/leggy thorax), and CDC for wings. This doesn't make fly tying easier, mind you. I fret even more about the how the tail is tied in (canted up or straight), how the body is formed (dubbed or looped), how the rib is tied in (counter-wound or not), how the thorax is formed, how the wings are turned this way or that, how the thorax is picked out, how the proportions mimic the actual insect, and dozens of other infinitesimal tweaks that add up to a lifetime of change (if not improvement). I have also developed very little tolerance for bullshit. A piece of material has to have a reason to be on my hook, or it's not on the hook. The fish has to give a damn, or I don't give a damn. For example, the Antron needs to have just the amount of colors to be effective; I'm not one to blend four types of olive for the right shade. Light olive, dark olive--and that's it (OK, I throw a little orange in from time to time). And there is absolutely no reason to finish off a hook with head cement. I haven't done this in years. Flies don't come apart at the head. They come apart at the tail (or they get lost in tress and fish), yet no one puts cement there. Do all the fly tying improvements make the difference? Probably less than I like to think. Being more observant has probably been the number one thing that has improved the fishing. Fishing the runs and riffles more intelligently is another thing I've learned. I no longer fish the heads of riffles and runs first, for example. Added stealth, is another thing. We all hear about stealth, but for me it has been a long journey to learn patience, to learn how to work the creeks slowly, how to move quickly over unproductive water, without taking my eye off unproductive water (you never know). What the passage of time really points out is the degree to which I care less about the size and number of fish (Or maybe I'm just paying the price for not fishing enough in my lifetime). I'm more interested now in particular species or particular colors, like the change a cutthroat shows over different surfaces, or how the back of a brook trout reminds me of the Milky Way. Change is a good thing, I suppose, as long as it in small enough doses to digest.
May 07, 2009 "Young fly tier looking for the ideal fly tying woman." I'm young, energetic, and can tie a full-dressed salmon fly like nobody's business. Woman must be willing to tolerate long hours of inactivity per week while I finish this month's fly. Must be able to add tags and tips to hooks, as needed. Hook sharpening skills a plus. "Young woman looking for a man who doesn't fish." I've looked everywhere and can't find one. I need someone to mow the lawn, fix the roof, buy some groceries, rake the leaves, walk the dog, help raise a child, make some money, say hello once in a while. I'll even take a golfer because at least they don't smell like they crawled out from under a rock. "Need a woman who doesn't mind." Woman must be willing to mow the lawn, fix the roof, buy some groceries, rake the leaves, walk the dog, raise a child, make all the money, doesn't mind me not saying hello once in a while. I know there are some. Also, must be willing to carry golf clubs. Hook sharpening skills a plus. "Need woman who can clean a fish." 'Nuff said. "Need a woman who can tie a size 28 emerger." My eyes are getting a little more fatigued, and those 28's aren't getting any easier. Woman must be able to tie at a rate of 12 flies per hour. She must also be able to tolerate absences of 13 months per year. "Need a man who doesn't do the following." I need a man who doesn't fish, golf, swim, run, play basketball, soccer, baseball, and doesn't watch any of the above on TV. Still looking. "Need a woman who does the following." Fish, golf, swim, run, play basketball, soccer, baseball, and watches all of the above on TV. Still looking. "Fun, vivacious woman seeking fun-loving man, who doesn't fish." I need a man who either golfs too much, sleeps too long, eats too much, makes little money, drinks too much, or cavorts with others--but doesn't fish.
April 30, 2009 They blow up squirrels, don't they Let me make it clear at the start, I've killed fish. It's been a while, but I'm guilty. If karma is something I need to worry about it, I hate to think what animal or other lowlife I'm going to turn into in my next life. I hope it isn't a squirrel, because they blow them up in Spokane with those squirrel-killing devices call a Rodenator Pro. Even though I used to kill fish, to be fair to myself, I haven't blown up any. Others have blown up fish, but they are scum-bag fisherman who need a good spanking, or a visit by the Rodenator Pro. I go both ways with the practice of blowing up squirrels. The Pros: there Are a bunch of them, more than you can shake a stick at. And they enjoy digging holes in the ground that are unsightly. The Cons: they're so cute. I grew up with those little critters. If they were snakes, no one would give a damn. Yet snakes have a very useful purpose on this earth (and not just for killing the squirrels). If they were bats, no one would care because bats turn people into vampires. But bats also serve a very important function by eating the mosquitoes. The only function a squirrel serves is to, well, be cute, furry little critters for the kiddies to giggle at and chase. They don't do anything useful like kill bugs or other pests. And they don't make noise like their idiotic cousin the chipmunk that wakes me up in the morning. They are like bunnies, whose only fault is laying all those eggs that I have to step on once a year in the spring. (Someday, I'll find out why they do that, and then maybe I'll ask them to stop doing that.) Yet, blowing up a squirrel is serious bad karma. You could get reincarnated into a squirrel who then gets . . . well, blowed up again in a vicious cycle of Karma-madness. This is complicated stuff, and I don't expect flyfishers to fully understand all this. I do, and that's why I'm not going to blow up no squirrels, no how, no way. Good squirrels. Nice little squirrels. What can you do to save the squirrels (assuming you do want to save the squirrels)? Maybe design a few t-shirts with "Just say NO to Rodenator Pro." or "Squirrels are too cute to blow up." "Blow up terrorists, not squirrels." Or maybe create some yard signs to support your cause, like: "Rodentaror Free Zone." Or "Squirrels are for hugging, not blowing up." Or maybe just go fishing.
April 17, 2009 Internet acronyms for flyfishers Internet surfers and teenagers aren't the only people in a hurry. We flyfishers also need to speed up the communication across our fly forums, e-mail, social network sites, and when using our palm devices on the stream (it happens). So here is a list of internet acronyms to speed up (and encrypt) your communications while cruising the social networks at home or on the stream. WIW "Water In Waders." Use this when you're using your palm device in the middle of the Madison and you don't want to admit to others that you have wading issues. WBOL "Woolly Bugger On Line." Use this when you don't want to admit to others nearby that you didn't catch those 18-inch greenbacks with a size 16 Flavinia. FIE "Fly In Ear." Use this when you've been twittering too much using your cell phone while fishing a back eddy and suddenly forgot how to cast. WNBMTAFBOMOFR "Wife Nearby, Must Talk About Favorite Book Or Movie Or Favorite Recipe." Use this when at home chatting with your 1,000 fishing buddies on Facebook. LOL "Lots of Luck." Use this when while fishing in a swarm of baetis and all you have is a Woolly Bugger. BRB "Broke Rod Badly." 'Nuff said. TPDIS "Threw palm device in stream." Often used right after BRB. BD "Blackberry died." How this message was sent is not clear. TTYL "Talking to my leader." Used when you've lost a big fish on a fresh 6x leader. TTFN "Talking to fish now." Used when you've caught the biggest fish of your life, and you have no one to boast to . . . except the fish. POS "Parent over shoulder." Use this when you're trying to get your 1,000,000 Facebook friends together on a fishing trip, when you should be doing homework (or mowing the lawn, pulling weeds, cleaning the gutters, taking out the garbage, or a thousand other things to fill in the moments between fishing trips). IDK "I don't know." Use this when your light olive size 20 baetis doesn't match the thousands of light olive size 20 baetis flying all over your head. TFK "The fish knows." Use when you've presented the finest CDC fly to the pickiest fish in three states, and you suspect that the fish are smart enough to get online and warn his other fish friends. WOS "Wife over shoulder." Used when you're planning the next fishing trip with your Facebook friends, and your wife is thinking you're looking for a good deal on theatre tickets. Often followed by WNBMTAFBOMOFR. LMWAO "Laugh my wet *ss off." Use this when you've tripped in the stream for the third that afternoon, and you didn't even have a beer yet. RLH "Running like hell." Used when you've fallen in the creek, lost your gear, and a Department of Fish and Wildlife officer happens by. Or you see a cougar. Or extraterrestrials. Sasquatch. Multiple applications. LFF "Lost fingers fishing." Used by twittering noodlers in Oklahoma. BROF "Broke rod on fish." Used when your Facebook buddies are trying to prove who caught the bigger fish. FIW "Fly in waders." Use this when your steelhead fly is flying a little too low on the backcast. FIT "Fly in tree." Use this when you forget to look behind you when you setup for a cast in a new location. FIWGG "Fly in wife, Gotta go." Use this when the fishing is slow, and your wife isn't." FIF "Fly in finger." Use this when you discover that you need more instruction on your roll-casting skills. FIP Use this when you find yourself fishing in a creek that runs through a nudist camp.
March 29, 2009 In your ear with electric bass bugs Bob likes his electronics, a little too much. Whenever I see him, he has his Bluetooth wireless headset in his ear, with its little blue flashing beacon to announce to the world: Yeah, I got one of these and you don't. He shouldn't have brought it along in my boat, however. He bent over the water to release a fish, and the headset fell from his ear and into the water. The water was pretty clear, and wouldn't you know, it was still flashing it's little blue flash. Blink blink blink. Unfortunately, not only do cell-and-land-based landlubbers (let's call them cellubbers) like blue-flashing things. So did the bass who promptly swallowed it. After all, wireless ear pieces are about the size of a typical bass plug. Hell, if you put a hook on it, you'd probably be breaking a fishing regulation somewhere. I suppose, though, that if you can put rattlers in bass bugs and call that fishing, you might as well have something blinking as well. And if you gave your cell a call, you might bring in all the bass in a pond, fascinated by all the new possibilities of wireless communication beyond their own lateral lines along their sides. If only Bob were smart enough to have attached a hook and leader to it. But alas, he isn't that smart. He just looked dumbly down at the place where the flashing blue light once was. Maybe he'll twitter his adventures--the fish, that is, not the man.
March 20, 2009 I don't care how you go about it. If you're catching fish with your bare hands, you're a noodler. Now, technically noodling is a what real men do to catch catfish using their bare hands in the filthy swamps of Oklahoma and nearby states (please excuse the inaccuracies). But it seems to me that if you're catching fish with your bare hands under any circumstance, you're a-noodling (whether you're a real man or not). If you're catching salmon by picking spawned-up ones, your noodling, too. If you're like Bear Grylls (the TV survivalist) catching trout by reaching down and pressing them against an overhang in order to grab and eat them so that you and your cameramen can survive, you're noodling, too. And if you're jumping from a helicopter to land and wrestle with marlin, you're a noodler, as seen in this recent video of the famous extreme aussie catching fish from a helicopter. This reminds me of another video of a man catching sturgeon and then jumping in the water wrestling with the ancient fish before releasing it. (Sorry, I can't find the video.) At least the helicopter and sturgeon noodlers are releasing their fish, unlike the real men in Oklahoma, or Bear Grylls. What is it about catching animals with your bare hands that bring out the real man within? Is it a type of validation of the essence of our sports, which says something like: If a fish pole an extension of self, why not remove the pole and get right to the self. I don't know about you, but I'd rather keep a pole between myself and some of the larger denizens of the watery underworld. Let's call the recent airborne noodling movement as noodliopting or helinoodling or noodlehoptering. Or maybe call it just damn silly and immature. You want to impress me with real barehandedness? Go jump on a shark, helinoodler. You could call it fish harassment. Or fish embarrassment. But looking above it all, poking a Colorado trout with a piece of iron as small as a gnat can't be that good either, if you're paying attention to the karma of it all. March 10, 2009 The last day of the winter steely season. I decided to perform the ultimate test: a 4-weight in a 50 mile-an-hour gale. Just me, the wind, a steely cold anadromous river, and hammerheads the size of a Buick. This, the ideal validating moment on a steelhead water the color of cold asphalt. OK, that was a lie. What really happened was this: I stepped on my nine-weight 10 minutes before leaving the house, and my six-weight was at my brother's house. And there was my precious 4-weight all ready with the cutest little Antron and CDC emerger pattern, which was just the ticket for my Idaho cutthroat, but as worthless as old shoes for steelhead. When I got to the river, the water was up and the wind took on a fierce, Dante quality (Yes, I'm leveraging my undergraduate education). I did manage to get the tiny line out there, between hurricane-like gusts. And at one moment I could actually tell myself I was fishing. The result: I caught next to nothing. I say, Next to nothing, because I nearly fell into the freezing currents when I slipped on a dead salmon carcass. Maybe, technically speaking, if the fish and the man one could rise above it all, the fish caught me. Still, nothing says Failure more clearly than slipping on a dead fish.
March 3, 2009 Dream Journal entry #14: The Clever Fish They can't fool me anymore. I've seen it all. Oh, they'll try to fool me with their latest concoction: A new feather here, a new ribbing there, the latest tail that looks like the last tail, a piece of new shiny material that looks like the same stuff my dad laughed at (well, until he disappeared one dark night behind a rock). I even figured out how to log on to computers. Don't see what the big deal is. Some bozo dropped one in the water last weekend. I got all my buddies on Facebook now, . . . well, the ones that didn't get eaten last season. I'm not even going to chase that little bug there. Stupid fly that I saw on the internet last night (you got to know your enemy). It doesn't even swim like a real bug. Now, that one over there IS a real bug. Right by that rock. Nice and juicy. Yum. Whoops. That didn't taste right. . . . February 12, 2009 Charles Darwin would have made a good flyfisher. As patient as a heron. Observant (In comparison, I'm as observant as a sack of hammers.) Really really smart (When was the last time you observed a couple of dissimilar events and produced a paradigm that millions of scientist march to?) Sported a long beard. (Note to self: grow a long beard.) All of these things are the stuff we flyfishers fancy as the stuff we're made of. (Note to self: work on basic grammar skills.) I can imagine him next to me as I discuss the nuances of the sport. Me: "It's a mayfly pattern." Him: "I've studied a billion mayflies, and it doesn't look like any of them." Me: "It's impressionistic." Him: "Meaning: It's a bad impression." Me: "Uhh . . . well?" Smart people, really really smart people, have a way of seeing around, through, under, and over all the bullshit. Next, I'd be holding a rainbow trout in my fingers, telling him it's a Redside variety from Oregon. He'd tell me that in reality it came from a trout-like fish on the top of a mountain that existed 10 million years ago when it was under the sea, when mayflies were as big as herons, and flyfishers (like myself, presumably) dragged their knuckles and fly reels on the ground. Still, scientist, I always imagine, are deep down jolly people, always fascinated by everything. Powerful listeners, most of them. Sometimes, too powerful for most people. Still, eager to drink a beer with you (though they might talk your ear off telling you of the history of beer and the evolution of domestic hops). Nevertheless, Darwin walks in my life. Welcomed. I've felt him when I was released a lovely little whitefish. A poor man's bonefish. A Galapagos guppy. A species under-appreciated except by those who choose to see underneath the obvious. Happy birthday, Charles! February 8, 2009 OK. That was silly. Actually, flyfishing is better than life. Well, better than the usual stuff we call life, which usually means things like watching television, shoveling snow, and earning enough money to carry you through to your next fishing trip. Sitting on a wet slippery log, rotating my shoulder to relax its soar rotator cuff (Yes, we're athletes, sort of), freezing because of leaking waders and zero degree socks (and that's in Celsius, which is even colder than Fahrenheit)--I had an occasion to think about where I'd rather be at that moment. Nowhere. Even the food was lousy--an energy bar to carry me from breakfast to dinner. And a lousy energy bar at that, gooey, bland peanut butter tasting, crappy energy bar. And where would I rather be? Nowhere. Even the fishing was suspect. I had my usual success. Nutin. I lost five flies, and not for trying to fish intelligently. I couldn't get the weight right, and I kept hitting bottom much too frequently. I even got one fly stuck in my finger. But not too worry. I big yank, a little blood, and I was fishing again. And where would I rather be? Nowhere. Then I began to shake because I brought the wrong clothes. I stupidly brought one layer less than I should have. The wind came up and shook my arms until I felt an ache in my back as I cast an overweight fly 80 feet when 30 would have done. My feet shook. My teeth shook. Even my brain began to shake. And where would I rather be? . . . where I instantly headed. Toward the car and certain warmth, toward the last of the morning coffee, toward some good music coming out of my scratch car speakers, and in time for my daughter's school athletic meet, where I watch her be much more successful than I've been in three years of metalheading in the Northwest. She wins her meet, I give her a hug, she asks how the fishing was, I say I didn't catch anything, she looks sad, I feel stupid for one second, then proud as 100 steelheaders with 10,000 fish in the next. Life is lived between the fish. January 15, 2009 Maybe it is some of this century's angst. Maybe it's some angst left over from the last century. Maybe you have some malaise (like a mental fungus) that's been growing in you silently, making you wonder Who you are, What you are, Where you came from, Where you are going. Maybe it's your age. Maybe you can't handle life's growing obligations. . . . Or maybe it's been a while since you've gone fishing. Not getting your fishing in creeps up on you slowly. Maybe the weather was bad for a while (a lousy excuse for a flyfisher). Maybe the weather was too good, causing a heightened level of demands on your time from your family and friends (who evidently don't understand the deep genetic demands that river currents have on flyfishers). In my case, what also didn't help were three feet of snow blocking all roads from my house to anything civilized, let alone wilderness-like. So like Huck Finn, despite the adversity, I lit out for the territory of things with fins. My success was as you would expect. Nutin. I charged out as far as ice-free roads would take me--about 10 miles. When I got to my lake, I discovered something I've never seen on this or any lake within 50 miles of my house. Ice. But a man has to fish. So I rigged up the 4-weight, which I decided was my ice line, and cast onto the ice, just to see what would happen. I half imagined a fish bumping up into the ice to chase my fly, in an attempt, like mine, to break through the season, both of us asking What the hell? At least I was getting some casting in. Now, I suppose I could have thrown a large rock onto the ice to break it up, then cast into the little pieces of water. After all, isn't this how they do it in December on the Great Lakes. (OK, they use gas-powered augers and small huts dragged onto the ice with snow mobiles, but that's not the point.) But breaking through ice, I figured, would've required a rock of such a size that I wouldn't have been able to throw it past five feet. All of us have experienced something like this. How many times have we lit out for the water, knowing that there was only brown water to cast a fly onto. I mean, we've all read about how to fish in impossibly dirty water. But does it ever work. No. And it's not that the fish aren't there. They are there. They have a much better idea of how to live in adversity than the toughest human beings since Cro-Magnon began wielding their ancient fly rods. It could be worse. I could be home watching a competitive fly fishing reality show with silly asides as one flyfishers berates the other flyfishers with quips like, "He has the brains of a woolly bugger" and, "He wouldn't know a baetis from a gnat." But we got to get out, if only to look at ice and scratch our heads. December 25, 2008 Presents are all nice and good. The caroling is all nice and good. But after all the presents are opened, after all the songs are sun, after all the wrapping paper is stuffed into the recycling bin, after all the kids become engrossed in their toys and have forgotten completely about you (who paid for it all)--it is time to do what you do best: stare out the window and ask yourself "Do you feel lucky?" Well, do you? Maybe this is THE day. The last three years were just bad luck. There has to be big fish in the that current some day, and maybe this is the day. This could be the day that fish bigger than dreams ascend the rivers. The day you justify the cost of all that nice fishing gear. Christmas. The day Christ was born. The day steelhead run. Don't be an idiot. You'll come home freezing with no fish in hand, you're kids staring at you wondering where the extra batteries are, you're wife wondering why you didn't shovel the snow before you left. Tomorrow is for steelhead. Today is for when you make your kids want to be around you.
December 12, 2008 It is hard keeping up with our friend, Science. Now we're made aware of a .2 mm insect called a fairy-fly wasp. That's Point 2 millimeter. That's like really small. That means the insect is .008 inches, which is the diameter of a 3x tippet. You'd need a size 164 hook to match this bug. Maybe smaller. Try smashing the bard on that hook. Go ahead, try.
But let's be fair. After all, those paddle legs look like CDC to me. Add a little Antron, and you might be able to hook up with a brook trout. If you think about it, something must want to eat a fly like this. All flies get eaten by something, don't they? I mean, it's not like they are at the top of their own food chain just because they consider themselves too small to get eaten. Now, it's possible to defend yourself by being too big, like an elephant. But a tiny wasp can't hide from an errant foot stomping. But you know how we flyfishers approach problems like this: we pontificate on patterns. And the smaller, the better. At least in terms of bragging rights. "Yeah, I got him on a size 320 uber mini fairy midge, female." Puhleeeeeze! December 2, 2008 T. S. Eliot wasn't a steelheader Eliot was almost right. April is the cruelest month only if you're a whacked-out fly fisher who can't stand the fact that winter steelhead will be ending way too soon. A normal person would take winter as the cruelest month, and spring as not half-bad. I kid. I know nothing about T. S. Eliot. But I do know a few things about winter steelheading. I also kid because I love approaching winter. I'd like to say that I like winter fishing because I don't like the crowds, but any steelheader worthy of his nine-weight knows that winter steelheading is sometimes more crowded than summer steelheading. In fact, a freezing sunny winter day could put dozens of people on my favorite stretches. They must all revel in the camaraderie. Or maybe the winter days at home bring families a little too close for comfort, and something must give--such as the flyfisher who must lite out for the territory of the stream. This is not always true, however, as evidenced by whole families that sometimes show up on my winter stretches. Go figure. Or maybe the alternative is too hard to bear, such as watching your leaf-filled gutter fill up with water? Such as shoveling the snow. Such as changing the oil in the lawn mower. Such as doing the dozen other things you were going to leave for winter when you had nothing better to do--and now have something better to do. Oh well. Let me save this flog posting with my rewrite of T. S. Eliot's Wasteland, from the point of view of a steelheader: April is the cruelest month, breeding
November 1, 2008 Our friend, Science, has just discovered the longest insect, the "Walking Stick". I don't know why I find this disturbing. I just finished tying a half dozen San Juan worms, and now I have this insect to contend with at the vice. And you know how we flyfishers are wired: we are always on a quest to discover the next cool pattern, lest someone beat us to it and give it an (R). I hate those guys. "Yeah, I put on a 6-inch Walking Stick emerger, red butt, cause you know the females are more red. The Wonder Walker (R) I call it. Wanna buy one?" I don't think I'm going to find a CDC solution for this one. Maybe I'll have to break apart some chopsticks for the legs, and some pipe cleaner wires. Some of my first flies where just a pipe cleaner wire wrapped around a hook, so maybe I'm onto something. Now, what a fish thinks of all this is another question. I suspect that any fish worth its fins will just look at such a fly and say to itself, "Hmm, that's a stick," and then go on to harass a more reasonable bug. October 18, 2008 Filthy flyfisherman: The wife responds I shouldn't have let my wife near my computer, but she demanded a response to my last blog on filthy fishing socks. So here she goes: OK, so when the husband told me he was going to blog about stinky socks, I couldn't let that pass without adding my own two cents. As any self-respecting fishing wife/girlfriend knows, men's fishing socks don't just get stinky, they get downright funky odoriffic! My husband's have even been known to grow fur. Why is this, you might ask. It's because they don't change their socks, just like they don't change their pants, shirts and sometimes even their unmentionables while on a fishing trip. And the most amazing thing is they don't even notice the stench! Sometimes after a fishing trip I have to wait weeks before I can even stand to ride in his car again. Last week the husband was gone on a 5 day trip (Hurray! We've been married long enough that I count down the days until his next trip. Besides the more he gets away to fish, the more often I can go wine tasting with the sisters). Anyway, much to my surprise on the 4th night he called to say that he had a slight problem, his fishing socks were smelly, in fact, they were too smelly to be in his tent with him and too smelly to leave in the car. Well I was so blown away that he finally noticed, that they must've been really be ripe. "Just throw them away and wear clean ones tomorrow," I said. "Throw them away?" he shouted over the phone. "I can't do that, I didn't bring any others and besides, you don't throw away perfectly good socks!" "You left for 5 days and only brought one pair of fishing socks?' I asked, incredulously. Though I don't know why I was surprised. After 18 years of marriage to the man, I'd learned to sneak into his gear an extra pair of the unmentionables, but didn't he know to wear clean socks each day? Didn't he realize where athlete's foot and other disgusting fungi came from? Who wears fishing socks for 5 days? Hadn't he heard me nagging over the years every time he put his feet back into dirty socks? Didn't he wonder when I'd shove him away and say, "Ew" your feet stink, go wash them? Ask any woman going on a camping/fishing trip how many pairs of socks she's taking and I guarantee she'll tell you at least one pair for each day she's gone and probably 2 extra for good measure, just in case. Needless to say, he wore the same dirty socks again. When he got home, I told him this time he had to wash his own socks. There was no way I was going to touch them, let alone put them in the washing machine, even with my dirty carwash towels. Well, he's been home for a week and can you guess where his fishing socks are? Still sitting in the garage, in the same double wrapped plastic bag where he put them, soaking wet, straight from the river 6 days ago. Definitely time for the garbage. --end of wife's blog. I'm so pulling the battery out of my laptop. October 01, 2008 Parents, don't let your children grow up to be fly fishers. At least teach them the fundamentals of bacteria avoidance. Yes, I caught big beautiful cutthroat in the wilds of Idaho. Some pushing 20 inches. Antron and CDC--what a combination of fly materials! And at what a price--unspeakable filth. After five days charging up and down the creeks, my one pair of fishing socks never had a chance to fully dry each night. On the third day, I noticed that they began to stiffen up. And on the fourth day, I gave them a whiff. I still have a neck strain from jerking my head away from the smell of those 4-day socks that made household ammonia smell like tulips. Naturally, being a man, I wore them for one more day. After all, I was camping and fishing, and when you're camping and fishing, your priorities don't include cleaning socks. When I got home, I handed my socks to my wife as a joke. She screamed. Bad joke. I tried to explain the priorities in fishing, but she wasn't having any part of that either. I then explained that I couldn't wash the socks because I had an obligation to donate them to science. They were so foul, I figured, that that a new species of life may have been born during my fishing trip. I also quickly calculated the monetary gain from people traveling from all parts to see the filthiest socks on earth--just like they would for the largest ball of twine, the biggest pair of shoes, the smallest person in the world, the smallest horse, or the smallest/weirdest/biggest/craziest/silliest thing in our Ripley's believe-it-or-not look at reality these days. She refused to be amused. So I told her I'd rinse them out. She suggested a more cruel fate for them, either heaving or burning. My choice. But, you know, ask any flyfisher: you just can't throw out perfectly good fishing socks. September 16, 2008 The first fog of the year is special. I wake up, and gray has fallen. Suddenly, I have images of steelhead in cold rivers, dissipated crowds (except for other fogolytes like me), crisp, cold dry weather, longer nights for longer fishing, morning camp coffee, apples on the tree ripening. Oh, and big fish. Not the giddy fish of spring. Not the soft and small fish of summer. Not the no fish of winter. Autumn fish. Fish startled by the pending winter gloom, getting big, big and bigger. Why more people don't fish at this time is beyond me. It probably has something to do with the interference of the business world and their summer vacations with family recreational needs that don't always involve fish. It's possible. Fog also warns you. There's a chance of storms, trees blocking roads on the wrong side, apples falling on your head, goblins. You never know. Fog can upset your sense of reality to the point that you look a little more carefully around river logs as you scramble over and under them. You never know. The goblin could be a bear, a moose, a sasquatch. I saw one once, in the fog, though it could have been a stump or a very tall hairy fellow flyfisher. In truth, the only thing you really have to fear is doing something stupid like starting the fog season wearing summer clothes. I'm sorry. I'm being silly. I can't help it. The first fog was this morning, and I'm beginning a week long fish trip tomorrow. We'll see what the fog scares up out of the river. August 31, 2008 This fall is going to be different. I'm going to throw my well-weighted stone nymph in the fastest deepest white water I can find. Now, I've done this throughout my life. but typically the fast, white water was usually the safe side of the really fast ugly white stuff, the sort of stuff that makes you ask, Maybe I shouldn't have thrown out my spinning reel, Wonderrod, and two ounce Daredevil. Besides, I've always been sheepish about losing my flies. And those stone fly patterns are some of my most prized ones, not because they are more lovely than my olive silk and CDC PMD patterns, but because they take so damn long to tie. I went down, deep and dirty, with my stoner patterns (odd phrase) a few weeks ago, and paid dearly for it. This next trip, though, I'm doing to get those stone patterns down to the devil, and see what I scare up. And when I catch that big fish, I am so going to blog it--assuming people are still blogging in the next century. August 24, 2008 I spoke of this before. We grow up knowing that the chances of getting hurt in the woods are small. The chances of getting eaten by a cougar are even smaller. The chances of getting bumped off a rock by a water buffalo, still smaller. The chances of getting hit by a falling satellite, minuscule. (Yet pieces of space debris kill people every year.) However (and that's a big however), the laws of probability cannot be disputed. If you multiply all these little improbabilities over a life span of fishing, insignificant events become much more significant. Just ask insurance companies. Statistics are insidious that way. The chance of you getting hurt are small each and every day, but multiplied together, this means you're going to get hurt. Suddenly that innocent slippery log you're walking over takes on new meaning. Suddenly, that cougar that never smelled you before, smells you. Suddenly, that bear looks up from its berry binge to see you presenting that delicate little ant to an eddy. Suddenly that water buffalo that exists on another continent shows up in Montana (well, maybe not). Now when your young, you don't think of these things. But when you get older, it makes you think twice about taking that wonderful rifle-side nap that I used to take as a kid. Yes, I know real men who've been in the woods a lot grow a little fearless, even at the sight of a few bears and moose. Me? I get shaker every day I'm out there. Either I'm a coward (always a possibility), or I'm all too aware of nature's inclination not to give a damn whether I live or die. In fact, I suspect nature would rather see me dead, if for no other reason than to feed all the other critters that, in the larger scheme of things, have no less right to live than I. The reason I've been thinking (OK, worrying) about all this is I've been very lucky so far. I haven't gotten hurt while flyfishing in nearly 35 years of the sport. This either means I'm due, or it means I don't take enough chances to begin with. In other words, maybe I should be putting my life at risk more often in order to advance as a flyfisher. Or not. This is all very complicated. Of this I'm certain: I don't want to get eaten by a cougar or bumped around by a water buffalo--no matter what good it might do to my character. July 15, 2008 I wasn't catching fish that day. Neither were they. I suspect, however, that they were more successful as predators that day than I. Paintballers. In my fishing woods, no less. I knew something was wrong when the birds stopped singing. Being a flyfisher, I tend to be aware of such things, especially when the fish aren't moving and I therefore have nothing better to be aware of. Plus, I'm a bit afraid of the woods to begin with. For all the nice flowers, birds, and potential meditative meanderings that are out there, they are also an equal number of bears, cougars and, suddenly, little paint balls that can poke an eye out, to say nothing of what they can do my nifty new vest. At least I saw them before they saw me. I was walking over land toward another spot river bend, when I froze. Like a scene from Lord of the Rings (or Lost or Survivor), the woods started to move in force. Being an exceptional predator, I froze and pretended to be a tree (I know, that was clever of me). This worked for a whole second as the commandos moved toward me in search, no doubt, of the opposing army. When they were about 30 feet away, they froze to. "Uhh, hi," one said. "Uhh, hi, yourself," I said. Then I offered, "You boys having fun out here?" "Fun" may not have been the right word. After all, kids playing Rambo don't like to think they are having fun, I suspected. They are having an adventure, an experience, an encounter, but not fun. The leader said, "Uh, yeah, sure." Well, I assumed he was the leader. They all looked about the same, with impressive shields of plastic, camo paint on their faces that match their clothing (at least they weren't clashing), sniper-like hats that I've seen on the History channel, and pneumatic assault riffles with cylinders of lovely colored balls. if they didn't look so silly, they'd might've looked a little Impressive, even intimidating, To be fair, I probably looked a little silly from where they were standing, what with my bright green vest, waders and fishing hat that my wife tells should only be worn near water and nowhere near the mall or any place civilized and miles from any of her friends and family. And it might be argued that we were in the woods doing the same thing. Acting as predators and, like I, dressed for the part, with equipment to match their skills. Though I suspect they've done a few more pushups than I. The other soldiers looked around the woods in a confused manner, much like I was, I suspected. Then we parted ways, back to our own games. I never heard them again. Leaving the woods, the only signs I saw was the occasional red spot on a few trees and rocks and one near a bird's nest (those guys). Maybe the spots have been there all along, or I dismissed them as flowers, fungus, or some other piece of background vegetation. I don't want to sound dismissive. After all, there are other things we have in common. We practice catch and release (well, I'm certain I do). We don't have bards on our projectiles. And the beer probably tastes the same. June 29, 2008 Maybe I'm cheap. Or lazy. But because I need only a few big and long flies for the large stonefly nymphs, smaller sculpins and other fish fry, I just can't justify buying boxes of long hooks in different sizes and shapes. I mean, I can afford it. I have a day job. But it's the principle of the thing. And I'll be damned if I'm going to buy some hook the exact shape of an invertebrate's backbone (OK, they don't have backbones). So what I like to do is take a size 2 Mustad 3906 and bend it to my shape (well, not "my" shape). The technique is fairly straightforward. Using two needle-nose pliers, grab the hook behind the bard with one pliers. Grab just above this point with the other pliers, and bend the hook point up until the gap is considerably reduced to, say, a size 6 hook. Then begin straightening the original bend of the hook until the shank straightens and begins to look . . . well, nymph like. The only trick is getting the gap nice and narrow in order to maximize the length of the hook. With a little practice, the entire bending process takes very little time. Below are three hooks: a size 2 3906 unbent hook, the same hook bent to the shape I want for a large stone fly or small sculpin shape (which now is about the equivalent of a 4x long size 6 hook), and a large Antron pheasant nymph I ended up tying. 
Oh, and now for the secret X-factor: I like putting a slight side bend into the rear quarter of the hook, for extra insurance against the fly slipping out of a trout's mouth. Who should want to bend their hooks like this? If you're a guide or a commercial tier, obviously you don't want to take the extra trouble to bend your own hooks when its much easier and cost effective to buy a few hundred hooks for your clients' and customers' needs. But for those who simply want a complete fly box for those special fly-matching emergencies, you might want to consider bending your own. I mean, why buy a hundred or so hooks when you'll likely to need only a few flies? Plus, with all the different shaped bugs and small fish out there, I'd need to buy a few dozen styles of large and long hooks to match everything big and long that I might want to tie. Why Mustad 3906 hooks? Like most other flyfishers, I grew up with these, and started using size 2 (the largest one in this style) on Steelhead flies. I just love the classic shape of the hook, and ended up using it on everything. Plus, the wire is easier to bend than thicker-wired hooks, like the nail-like 34007 (the famous Bill McMillan hook). I call my hook the Mustad 3906LX (long with x-factor). In general, the final reason is that I like to mess with stuff. I love to change everything I own. Actually, I'm not alone here. Lots of people don't feel they own something until they put their signature on it by changing it. And if the change doesn't work out, at least something is learned that was worth the effort. June 15, 2008 You know you're a fisher when you aren't fishing It used to be that when I saw a big fish in a small creek that allowed no way to land it or play it, I'd cast anyway. We're talking about a fish over, say, 18 inches. If I hooked-up, naturally the fish would jet downstream and be off in a few moments because the terrain made it impossible to follow more than ten feet. Of course, I'd feel pretty stupid losing a nice fish, a nice fly, a bunch of tippet--to say nothing about my sense of humor. Or maybe the creek had one of those mucky bottoms that I prefer not to step in. (I have a fear of muck. It pulls at my knees and ankles, and can cause me to trip in the water. Besides, I saw on a Bear Grylls wilderness survivor show last week just how dangerous muck can be. Just ask a dinosaur.) What I'm trying to say is, you can get to a point in your fishing where the best strategy is to sit down and realize you got no strategy. You can sit this one out, walk on to more strategic water, or try rethinking a few things. In this particular case, I didn't even put a fly in the water when I saw the large brown trout showing its back in weeds and muck impossible to float a line and fly. So I got on my belly and snuck up until my head parted the tall grass leaves until I was peering at the slow currents. Quite frankly, I was more concerned about getting up and close with a snake, who'd probably stare back at me with a, Who the hell are you and What the hell are you doing down here? I dragged the tip of my fly rod behind me, and pulled it forward slowly until the tip was even with my head. Then I pulled the fly out inch by inch, which, as some of you may know who get obsessed about small creek fishing, is no easy task. In a case like this, you need to have the leader rolled up on the reel and the fly hooked on the tip top. Then when in position on your belly, you gently work the fly and a foot or two tippet out with your fingers. Standard operating procedure for near-trout experiences. Then like a Ninja (though skills can be leveraged here) I very slowly worked a few feet of the rod out and began dangling the Antron and CDC fly over the water, with enough desiccant to float a battleship (wait . . . they already float). Did I mention that I had cut the hook off. Sorry. You can't play this game with a working hook, or you'll be back at the start, chasing a losing battle. Beside, if you catch a small trout this way, you'd have to back out of position and ruin all hope of interesting a large trout. When everything was in place, I let the wind grab the fly and dangle it above the suspect fish's liar, letting it dance with the wind on the water like a caddis fly. After a few moments my mysterious brown creature rose from the depths and took the fly on the surface and dove back down--except that the fly popped out, as designed. I kept doing this until the big brown stopped rising. Then I had fun with some smaller bows, who were much more willing to jump higher than the brown, even with a fly that was getting a little water-logged and slimmed. The brown didn't seem too willing to jump out of the water, but the bows, I learned seemed quite happy to jump 6 inches out of the water. One almost got the fly at 8 inches. I'm not sure it is fly fishing. In fact, without a functioning hook, I'm not sure it is fishing at all. It is more like trout Olympics. And it is more fun than a barrel of monkeys (note to self: work on more consistent metaphors). May 20, 2008 Just when you thought reality was safe from fiction, along comes another story of mine. This time, I explore everyone's fear: Things that go bump in the night during a fly fishing campout along a secluded little lake with a fishing buddy and The Others. OK, maybe that's not everyone's fear. And I apologize for the reference to "Lost", the TV show. I just threw that in to improve the Google ratings. I'll never do that again. (Britney Spears, Paris Hilton, how to get rich, how to make money, how to be sexy in a river, how to get rich fly fishing, Brad Pitt, Hanna Montana) May 15, 2008 Well, OK, I don't hate it. In fact, I'll have to admit, it is getting easier over the past few dozen years. I've finally weaned myself off of traditional materials. It used to be all about muskrat and expensive neck hackles. It all started when I discovered that moths had eaten up my $60 dollar hackles reserved for my Adams. I just couldn't buy another neck, so I began exploring other materials, and landed upon Antron-like dubbing, CDC, and desiccant floatants--like most everybody else. At about this time, I was exploring the essential aspects of a fly that I need to work into a pattern--again, like everyone else. This started when I was listening to a music artist say that what's important to him is to play only the essential notes in a song, and forget the rest. This pretty much sums up my attitude toward fly tying, and just about everything else. So now, I fret over the shape of the fly, and how well the materials move in the water. Fortunately, Antron fibers move as well in water as my old partridge hackle (though I will still use soft hackles on some flies). And I tend to fret about the color of they fly, mixing different Antron shades for the perfect olive, but I also suspect that it is far too difficult to get this right. I mean, every time I hold up a natural PMD to the sky, I'm amazed by the qualities of the color and light that I could never capture. So I also tend toward two shades, one light olive, one dark olive. I think I just contradicted myself, but that happens too. The real complexity is in the application of materials. Each year I learn new ways to apply dubbing, attach a wing, a tail. It never ends (again, like most people). Currently, I'm into canting tails upward, a trick I learned from A. K. Best. I'm also learning to tie nymph bodies using dubbing loops. Occasionally, I'll fool around with floss over orange or yellow or olive thread patterns, something I've adopted from miracle nymph patterns. Tied with copper rib, they are the coolest flies as the copper begins to green up through oxidizing. The point is, I don't hate fly tying. I'm just aware of its demands if you want to continue to grow in the sport. Having fun in this sport often requires stretching yourself, which leads to better experiences (and sometimes fish), which leads to growing you in some other way. Which often leads to the kind of great insights that get replaced by next years great insights. Then the pattern repeats. The other thing that bothers me about fly tying is the fact that no two flies are alike. It's not that I can't tie two flies consistently. The point is that my fingers are always apply new tricks, and the materials are constantly finding new ways to tie themselves, it seems at times. And I also can't tie two flies consistently to save my life. This is why I have a day job. May 10, 2008
Read my review. April 23, 2008 I love fly fishing from a kayak. I love the distance I can travel, and the fact then when all hell breaks lose from the heavens, I can get home. I've been terribly frightened in a float tube in such weather, but still love my float tube for its precise positional control. Now apparently, you can have both. Just ask John Zimmerlee and his electric kayaking creation called a Stream Dancer. For you techno-fishers out there, the Stream Dancer is, according to John, propelled by "electric motors with pulse width modulation speed controllers to vary the speed and rotation direction of the augers." I'm not sure what that means, but I like the sound of it.
What it might mean for the rest of us who must suffer with paddle and flippers is that you can get anywhere quick in this boat, up to 5 knots, according to the developer. For us landlubbers, that is like, well, a good clip in a parking garage. And once you get there, you'll be able to turn circles and go back and forth using only two foot paddle controls, for that precise control while keeping both hands on your fly rod and line. You can even stand in it (don't stand in it). And with all the storage, you can pack a lunch that would put a float tuber's energy bar to shame. Any boy does it catch fish. OK, it doesn't catch fish. Hooks with fur, feathers, and other things real and artificial catch fish. Good presentations catch fish. A high barometric pressure catches fish (or is it a low pressure?). A full moon catches fish (or is it no moon?). Patience catches fish. But when you need to get there quickly in order to practice all of the above, and maneuver like a heron once you get there, you can't beat a Stream Dancer. April 13, 2008 In the Times, while drinking my coffee (sorry, bad grammar, must work on my grammar), I came across an article about a couple bloggers dying from . . . blogging. As the story goes, they overworked themselves by the 24/7/365 act of staying current with events and the advertising dollars that chase them. I suspect that the blogging wasn't the issue, though. People have been overworking themselves into a grave ever since early man began chasing down his dinner by running through the woods for days on end, only to find nothing and come home to a lonely cave with his young naked family staring at him pitifully with a "What, no Mastodon?" How does this relate to fly fishing? One thing about fly fishing is that it is fairly difficult to blog too much and still get enough fishing in to have something to blog about. Though many are trying. Fly fishers are getting rich by fly-blogging. I, for one, am about One million dollars short of my million dollar goal to make a million dollars, though I've started puting adds on my site (tasteful relevant ones on one side of the window, and not plastered all over the place until you can't tell add copy from content). Am I getting stressed out? Not yet, though my lack of really big fish has been a concern of mine lately. But this is nothing worth blogging about. March 26, 2008 March Madness on VERSUS Country Not getting too exciting about Spring Break this year (after all, high school is a distant memory), I might look into the next interesting thing, the Big Fish March Madness tournament on VERSUS, In this case, viewers, not experts, get to logon and vote for the best of the bad fish by March 27. Then the winners are announced after that on the Versus channel. How am I planning to win? Easy, I'll enter the biggest baddest fish. For me, that's going to be a sperm whale. They got big mouths, and eat giant squids. Imagine the lure I'll need to catch one, let alone a good fly. Oh, wait, they're a mammal. Hey, wait, Mahi Mahi is on the list of species you can vote for, and they're a dolphin, which is a mammal. (Ha, I fooled you. "Dolphin," as applied to Mahi Mahi, is different than true dolphins, which Are mammals. It's confusing, sort of like calling a rainbow trout a salmon, or a Pterodactyl a bird, or a donkey a horse, or my cousin, Bib, a decent human being.) OK, then, how about that creature from the Black Lagoon. He has big fish-like scales. Oh, sorry, that's fictional, I think. How about an alligator. Now, THAT's a bad fish. Shoot, it's a lizard. Snapping turtle? Jelly fish? Hmm. This game is more difficult than I thought. Check out the action on the VERSUS site. Log in, vote away, and fish on. Somehow, I don't think viewers are going to vote for the brook trout I caught last September. It was huge because it was 8 inches long, and 4 inches longer than the little cutts it was devouring. Huge, because it was caught in a creek two feet across. Almost big enough in my mind for a Tiger Woods body pump. The point is, a "big" fish is sometimes relative. Sometimes it depends on your situation, sort of like voting for my uncle Bernard, who has a face like a fish (just don't tell him that or he'll chase you with a fence post). Anyway, I'll be tuning in to VERSUS to see what's up. After all, its still too cold to catch my own big fish. March 07, 2008 On the one hand, I don't want to be one of those flyfishers who has to wax on about the virtues of this and that insect. Me? I know enough about insects to get me by. I'll learn the common insects from various web sites, look at some pictures (Troutnut.com is fantastic for this), and grab some muskrat, rabbit or Antron to cook up my impression of the bug. But sitting on a rock in a suburban stream during a cold march day, I paused my boredom when a dinky baetis rose up in the way only a mayfly can--like it wasn't in an particular hurry to rise up for anything or anybody. For a short while, I thought it might be another lousy midge. But looking at its unique flight pattern, I recognized its single spiraling nature, that delicate struggle it displays as it yoyos around the cold air currents. All other insects seem to buzz around, or flit around, or flop around, or skittle around--all motions that aren't particularly interesting or suggestive. Maybe the difference is that all these insects have mouths, and thus have a need to eat and buzz around. But the mayfly has no mouth, and therefore doesn't' eat, and therefore has no particular reason to fly anywhere. Therefore, it flies aimless up and down in graceful circles, as if it were about to forget how to fly. As if they wanted to say hello to me, except for the fact that they don't have mouths. Well, I guess they need to breed, too. But I'm not a scientist, nor am I one of those flyfishers. And obviously, I suddenly have lots of time on my hands--until Spring. February 29, 2008 Tomorrow, this river closes. They all do, until late Spring. As I reel in the final cast, a single mayfly rises. Baetis. A better fisher than I would have promptly slipped on a sliver of a tippet, an appropriate fly, and may have found some success. Myself, I just enjoy the mayfly as a consolation for my lack of success this winter, and as a harbinger of Spring bugging fever. Walking back to my car, I notice the single bud on a tree. Each year I try to see if I catch a tree bud just before it buds, just before it decides to split a cell into the new year. Actually, by the time you tell yourself that a tree bud is budding, a thousand cells, hell, a million, a billion, have probably already split. I'm not sure if this particular bud is budding, or if it is, like me, near frozen. Note to self; I'm not sure why, but I should pay attention more to such things. Now, despite the temperature, the mayfly's cells are raging. The kind of nuclear fire that can push a little insect into metamorphosis during this three-month chill is enough in its import to drive oceans and worlds apart. That's right. The Big Bang, a little mayfly--it's all the same. What this says about the cold weather's effect on the cells in my brain, I'm not certain. The point is, well, I'm not sure what the point is, but I do know that budding trees and cold little insects insite me enough to look forward to warm fingers in Spring. February 06, 2008 Four hours north of me guided eagle floats are being offered. $700, and all the peanut butter and jelly sandwiches you can throw down. To see bald eagles? A half hour north of me, they are as plentiful as crows, sailing along the anadromous avenues of the Northwest. In fact, I had to look more closely to see if some of the juveniles weren't just gigantic crows that decided that rotting salmon and all those Omega-3 fatty acids were just the ticket to growing as big as a Buick. But their sound gives them away, that wailing fingernails-on-blackboard sound, like that creature from Predator. Well . . . nothing like that. But it is the kind of squeal you don't want around your head if you get too near a nest. My river this day was a thin one as steelhead rivers go, and I was in my usual zone--an existential Nothing. That's a pretentious way of saying, No Fish, No How, No Way. Damnit. Note to self: until I start catching fish, stop using big words I don't understand. The saving moment was a river beautifully thin, with weedy cobblestones a perfect softball size. Actually, they remind me more of curling rocks, to pick a more appropriate metaphor for a cold river. As I peered through the cold fog at the shore with a half dozen eagles picking at their delicious meal, I couldn't help but think more about the eagle floats up north. One thing I'll have to admit--I know little about eagles. The eagle guide up north could talk my ear off about nesting habitat and other bird matters, and I might have walked away from such a trip a wiser man. Then again, I tend to venture alone on most nature adventures, and as a result often arrive at fairly naive observations about animals. Like, Bald eagles like to eat a lot. Bald eagles are big. They are very black and very white. When they fly close overhead, I can hear the whoosh of wind under their wings. They build large nests in tall trees. And why do they have a white head? Does it blend in with the sky to better make them appear smaller? Also, they are a little frightening. And they don't frighten easily. At least not over me. I may not know a lot about them, but I've seen hundreds of them up very close and personal--and for very little gas and money. As one flew toward me, I raised my hands to see if I could steer it one way or the other. This works with some large birds. (It also works, don't ask how, with most other things, like cars, cows, and people.) But the eagle, as proud as a silver dollar, just glided over, no doubt sizing me up as unimportant--maybe saying to itself "Go ahead--old man with stick--trip on a rock, and I'll eat your eyes out." January 25, 2008 Some time ago I ran across a gear fisherman who was watching my fly casting. "Fly casting--now that's a real art," he exclaimed. I get a lot of this. I thanked him, somewhat reluctantly, not knowing what else to say. But later on I had to gather my muse and think about art. Now, anyone who casts a fly realizes that there is about as much similarity between art and fly casting as there is between opera and singing in the shower. (Ok, that was a weird analogy, but I think I made my point.) Real art is more like what Rod Crossman does. You may have seen his art illuminating numerous flyfishing and other magazines through the years. Here is one of his latest, which he was kind enough to send to me:
This particular piece is titled "Crystal Creek," and like a lot art that should do something for you, does this for me: It tells me that I need to work less and fish more often. Well, to be fair, not fish more often. But fish less and sit back more. Sit back and enjoy the moment. It also reminds me that I don't need to work as hard at my fishing to be fishing well. I just need to show up at about the hour of the evening that captured this artist's imagination, and wait for the fish to tell me when to start getting busy. Or, maybe the point of the picture is that I don't need to get busy. Or, maybe the point of art is that there are as many points to art as there are viewers, and a real artists doesn't need insists on a particular notion that must be understood. I suppose. But what the hell, I don't know much about art. I fish. So that's my theory of art. Now, thirty years ago, I would have had a lot more to say about art (and a lot of other things as well). I could have used works like "Expressionism," "Representationalism," "Functionalism," "Formalism," "Institutionalism." Don't be impressed. I just googled "theory of art," and came up with the list. My point is, that in none of these theories is there any mention of whether the art makes me want to go out and do something, or approach something that I wouldn't have otherwise done. I call this the So What theory. Or SoWhatalism. There, I invented a theory, and if it doesn't help me catch more fish, maybe it'll help me enjoy the process more. Visit Rod Crossman's site and to see what else you can learn. January 19, 2008 What do Jennifer Aniston, Angelina Jolie, Hannah Montana and flyfishing have in common? Absolutely nothing. I just mentioned them to increase the Google hits. Now, strategizing meagerly like this would make even more sense if I had some advertising on this web site. But I have a very good reason why I don't advertise: I don't know how. Note to self: Investigate ways to make millions of dollars advertising about flyfishing. But while I have your attention, let's see what connections I can draw. Two of the above women were married to a guy who starred in a famous movie about flyfishing, who incidentally likes women with A's and J's in their names (am I the only one who discovered this connection?). Another one of these women has a name that recalls a state famous for flyfishing. There. It's all about the connections. And one of these women knows someone who saw someone who read about someone who knows Kevin Bacon. Amazing. In addition, all of these celebrities are people I would like to meet while flyfishing. All would look great casting a fly rod. All would look fantastic wearing fishing waders, to say nothing about how they'd look with flippers and float tubes hugging them. And don't get me started about how'd they look sporting a designer fishing vest. Now, let me make one thing clear: I'm happily married to a woman who lets me fish all the time and doesn't even turn an eye toward me when I say I want to go fishing next weekend, the same woman who occasionally fishes with me, and catches fish. She even tied a fly once. Never mind that it looked suspiciously like an earring. it still caught a big fish. Note to self: Check all of her jewelry for other ideas I could use fishing. So, what is the point of this blog entry? I have no idea. But if I had some ads at this point, maybe I could buy a few more energy bars for my next steelhead trip. I promise something useful for my next blog: art and flyfishing. January 01, 2008 Flyfishing resolutions for the new year I've decided to change it up this year. No more mister average flyfisher for me. All new casts, all new flies, all new attitudes--that's my plan. Here are my resolutions for the new year: One: Tie smaller flies. I'm going start with size 20 baetis, followed by size 32 midges. Then I'm going to get a new eyeglass prescription, followed by a microscope (probably followed by Woolly Buggers). Two: Get better at presentation. I'm thinking of performing an interpretive dance while casting. Lord knows, nothing else has been working. Three: Stop lying to fishermen about the fishing--unless they start lying first. Four: Tie larger flies, just in case resolution one isn't working out. Maybe I'll come up with a Lefty's Deceiver for small streams, size 4/0, that's "four ought". Five: Be nicer to bait fishermen. Naaaaaa. Well, OK. Maybe a little. I once hurt a fish by being too harsh when I tried to release the hook. I also ate a fish once that I caught on a fly. There, you have it. Karma had better not be anything other than an Eastern myth, or I'm screwed. Six: Try to find activities that are more important than fishing--or save this resolution for the following year. Seven: Read old books. Like the bible. (It could help. Saint Peter was a fisher, after all). Or maybe re-read Dame Juliana Berners (again the biblical connection). Lord knows, I'm not learning any more from the plethora of magazine gibberish I read these days about the act of flyfishing. Besides, I sometimes wonder if the great Dame said it best the first time, anyway. Eight: Fish more often. "Nuff said. December 25, 2007 December is the cruelest month. Sorry again, for the Eliot stuff. I caught hundreds of salmon last weekend. Hundreds. These fish are so near to dying that they don't realize I am the Great Hunter. Someone walking tall and waving a big stick to be feared--with a license to fish. Well . . . I didn't actually catch anything, but I bumped into hundreds. You know how older people sometimes walk into things? OK, that wasn't fair. After all, I bump into things all the time. Just ask my wife: whenever I walk down the halls of a shopping mall, my feet trip all over themselves, and I nearly kill myself navigating something as simple as an escalator. I once tripped on an escalator, and it took me half hour to fall down (sorry, a Demetri Martin joke). My point is that spawned out salmon have lost most of their marbles and then go around bumping into things, including my legs while fishing. I'll be on my usual steelhead adventure and doing what I do best when I fish for steelies (that is, catch nothing, and getting colder), when a chum the size of a Buick swims between my legs. Then I look around and see thousands of dead salmon in various states of decay, and a hundred more milling about. I walk toward one and touch its back with the tip of my rod. It moseys on for about ten feet than stops. So I walk up to it and poke it again, and it moseys another ten feet. Then I step forward again and felt one of the more disgusting feelings you can have in this sport--the feeling of my felt soles digging into a dead salmon. It's all fun and games, until you step on a dead fish. December 05, 2007 December is the cruelest month. Breeding steely fish out of the dead water. Sorry. My butchering of T. S. Eliot couldn't be helped. I'm not really looking forward to next weeks start of my steelhead season. I rarely catch anything, accept a peek at the snowy mountains. This year, I think I'm going to try something different. I'm not sure what. Actually, I say this every year about this time--xomething different. Here's my new strategy . . . Strategy one: Tie simpler flies. Put lots of red on the fly, and some florescent green. And pink. Maybe a few pieces of shoe laces, and hair from my dog. Cause it really doesn't matter a whit. And in general, don't worry about the fly. instead, worry about the . . . well, I'm not sure what I should worry about, or if I should worry at all. Strategy Two: Get the fly deeper. Or maybe get it a little higher. Fish the head of the run more. Maybe the middle. Maybe the tail. Fish the seams. Maybe wade deeper. Or stay closer to shore. Not sure. Strategy Three: Read a good book on steelheading. Or maybe improve my google search skills, like "How to catch steelhead, right now." "How to catch steelhead if you're a complete idiot." "Catch steelhead if you never plan on catching steelhead, or never will." Thank God Google doesn't judge the queries. I mean, I can accept Google pointing out my spelling errors in my queries. But I'll be using another search engine if it returns something like "You get no search hits because you're an idiot." Not that I'd dispute this. I just don't want to be reminded. Strategy Four: Forget about steelhead and catch whitefish instead. They are in the same water, are kinda big, and can definitely save a steelhead-less day. Maybe catch some Dollies, too. They hang around salmon and steelhead. And you can boast about them, unlike whitefish. Strategy Five: Wear warmer clothing. I froze last year. It could help catch fish. Lord knows, I've tried everything else. Maybe get some of those hand warmers. Bring something better to eat, while I'm at it. I'm tired of energy bars. Energy bars taste like Snicker bars that have never gone on a date. Strategy Six: Watch the Ouzels. They are curious little folks, dipping ever so daintily to dry themselves off after chasing insects under the water. They also dive down to retrieve salmon eggs. I bet you didn't know that. I saw one do this repeatedly. What does this say about steelhead fishing--not a damn thing, except that when nothing else is happening, I can still find amusement. I hope this helps. Oh, and put a few back. October 26, 2007 Some things about this sport irritates me so. I tie up a hundred flies for an upcoming trip, and then the very last fly I tie is always the one I'm going to put on the tippet for the trip in. I didn't mention that my fly rod travels in my car fully loaded. And by implication, I don't always follow the rule that the ideal flyfisher waits until he is on the stream before putting on the appropriate fly for the conditions that day. Oh well . . . . So, what is it about this final fly? The first one hundred flies were fairly well tied, with lots of clever turns of thread and materials and tails cocked just so. But the final fly has those final intuitive touches, such as only a few hackle fibers, not the twelve you get from a full turn of hackle. And only three or so strands of Antron in the tail, not a dozen or so as on the other flies I tied. (And, Yes, the fish I chase can count, which explains my frequent lack of success.) Maybe the body is dubbed a little thinner or with a bit more rust in the mix, or whatever. Or maybe I dubbed it with longer strands of Antron so that, when picked out, it looks more like a caddis energer/nymph/stuck bug. Sort of like baking four apple pies for a big dinner, but baking the final one for yourself with those extra special touches that only you will appreciate: extra cinnamon, extra butter, thicker crust, chilled next to an open window and not in the fridge. That sort of thing. Does it make a difference? Hard to say. This particular fly, a sparse caddis orange/rust nymph pattern of primarily Antron and rabbit, stayed on the tippet for three days. OK, I did swap out a few experimental baetis patterns at some point, but my final fly caught fish during the entire trip, and I like to think it was because of the special final touches (probably not, but you like to think . . . ). I didn't even lose the fly. It stayed on all trip long (with the occasional baetis) inspiring me, taunting me, like a siren call, validating myself as a great flyfisher (again, probably not, but you like to think so sometimes). Such a respite from the usual scenario: a wonderfully new fly that fails miserably, but shouldn't. Sometimes, the fish are just smarter, I suspect. I don't what kind of fish you are catching, but the ones I often launch a fly toward apparently are on the internet, sending messages back and forth like IOW ("idiot on the water") and DENN ("Don't Eat Nymphs Now"). So what is it about the final fly that makes if different? Why can't I tie all my flies like the final fly? For that matter, why can't I swing a golf club like I do the final one on the driving range? Why can't I putt my golf disc on the course like I can in my back yard? Life is full of triteful mysteries like these. But that's what we live for--little mysteries the feed our little theories and fantasies. September 1, 2007 You know it's bound to happen. Let's see. How about a group of flyfishers driving trucks over the ice in Northern Canada. Hmmm. How about two teams of flyfishers left on a deserted island surviving from one challenge to another, voting the jerks off as readily as they vote off the nice people (those, in other words, who might win the popularity vote at the end). Another Hmmm. Or teams of two flyfishers racing across the planet fishing and accumulating points toward a final million dollar prize. Hmmm, hmmmm, hmmm. Or maybe just a couple of yahoo flyfishers with cams, lost in the Amazon. Naah. Actually, we have already started seeing this sort of thing--Flyfishing contests that stress human drama, attitudes, asides where we learn that the only person who is bigger than the jerk talked about, is the the jerk actually talking. When you think about it, it's the jerks that make all reality shows work. The hell with the nice guy. There's no money in them. I imagine the producer/director/camera guy (are these all the same people?) saying. So, how much do you hate him/her/the fish/your fly/his fly? Now, I exaggerate a little here. After all, we flyfishers generally speaking are a good crowd of people, with the usual exceptions. And any competition felt, is generally well accepted and good-natured, with the occasional exception. And anyone out-of-line, usually isn't around for the next trip. I guess in a sense, they get voted off. Nevertheless, if the person in front of the lens isn't cooperating (because he or she is normal) then there are always the dirty tricks the producer/director/camera man has. "Bob says you couldn't catch a fish in aquarium. He also says you couldn't catch an alligator with a chicken tied to a rope. So what do you think of that?" I think the producer's strategy is to try to bring out the jerk within. In some religions, this is called original jerkness. After all, when you think about it, we all harbor ill fillings about lots of people at one time or another. (Don't we, or is it just me?) And these producers are being paid to tap into this. And we're all too willing to oblige. That's not to say we are all bad. Actually, I suspect, most of us are quite good. We're just vulnerable. So the next time someone sticks a camera in your face and tries to ferret out a negative comment toward your fishing buddy who is throwing woolly buggers in a spring creek that is giving birth to a lovely trico hatch, just say, "Actually, I admire his imagination and perseverance. Lord knows I'm not catching anything in this hatch." And if someone's casting is hitting the water too hard, just say you admire his or hers grasshopper presentation. And if the producer/director/camera guy doesn't like that, remind them that there is also a jerk behind the lens. August 15, 2007 After an entire life of reading fortune cookies saying the same thing time after time, and after realizing after reading them that, no, I didn't get rich, I didn't experience a great change in my life, I didn't meet a famous person, I didn't meet a person who would change my life forever, I didn't overcome hardships that easily, I didn't meet a new love (and I didn't actually need one, thank you), and I'm not an especially outgoing and fun-loving person--I decided new fortune cookies were in order, namely: You are on outgoing and fun-loving person, while fishing. You are about to catch a fish bigger than your leg. The fish you catch that is bigger than your leg will eat your leg. You will encounter a mayfly hatch as big as a snow storm. You are about to meet a beautiful woman, while fishing. You are about to meet a most rugged man, while fishing. You are about to come across a large sum of money, while fishing. You will get rich while doing anything else but fish. You will be able to cast a fly across the mississippi. You will win the lottery with the numbers 23 14 7 34 21 12. Only idiots fish with flies smaller than 16. Fish with woolly buggers. You will get eaten by a big fish. You find beauty in ordinary things. Do not lose this ability. If you do, go fishing. You will win the lottery tomorrow; then you'll catch no more fish. June 29, 2007 Recently, I decided I needed to take a closer look into imitating ants. Why? I'm not sure. I've always had a few in my fly box, but I haven't fished an ant pattern in years. I read somewhere that there is 10 times the amount of protein in an ant than in a mayfly or caddis nymph. I'm not sure I believe this, however. I've also heard that ants outnumber stream insects by a factor of a million. I do believe this, so I figureed it was time to look into ants some more. I'm also not sure I believe other theories of trout and ant behavior. For example, toward the end of summer, trout get a little desperate for food. Because there are fewer and smaller mayflies around, because stoneflies are over, and for other reasons known apparently only to a fish, trout get a little more opportunistic and start considering grasshoppers and ants. It's sort of like saying that if there isn't any steak around, then the only thing left to eat is a hamburger. I think flyfishers are way too willing to apply human logic to a bug's brain. Besides, the more I turn over rocks, the more I realize that fish have plenty to eat all year long. But my point is . . . well, I'm not too sure what my point is. But what I'm wondering is, are there more ants crawling around during one time of the year than another? Now, when ants take to the wing, that's one thing. But other than this, I don't see more ants hanging or crawling around at different times of the year. But I strongly suspect that I'm simply not observant enough. Putting this issue aside for the moment, I started contriving an ant pattern. Naturally, I started worrying about the proportions of body parts. One authority said that the abdomen is 40 percent of the body length, and the head is 25 percent. So I did what any flyfisher would do, I started looking for a sample. I roamed around the backyard looking for an ant, and wouldn't you know, I couldn't find a single one. Not even around the house. Apparently, you only find ants when you don't want to see them, like in your house. So I tied an ant anyway, mainly because I was a little late getting to the stream to meet a fishing buddy. I started with black bunny fur (with Antron, because I put Antron into everything, include my pancakes), with CDC legs (because I put CDC into everything as well, accept my pancakes), and just a few strands of white CDC for visibility. An awesome looking pattern, which I invented (along with about a hundred flyfishers before me). Then on stream I started looking around for an ant to compare. Of course, after 5 hours of fishing I saw not one ant. I thought these insects were ubiquitous. Along with cockroaches, aren't they supposed to inherit the earth? Then back at work, I finally found an ant. It was crawling across my computer monitor. I said, a little too loudly, because just then my boss walked in, "So where in the hell have you been?" "Huun," said my boss. "Not you, the ant." "What?" "I'm talking to the ant." I showed him the ant I picked up. He just rolled his eyes. He learned long ago not to ask questions about the things I do. He muttered some important work-related matter that I completely ignored and walked out. When the boss left, I watched the ant navigate all over my hand. It looked just like the size 16 one I tied. The proportions looked about right. The legs extended out about a one-and-a-half times the body length, which also checked out. And the color was dead on--black. Then I just let the ant go lose in the office. Over the next few days, he'd show up periodically across my monitor or chair, as if to say "You're strange." He'd be right. I'd pick him up and observe him for a while, then let him go again, like my cat. That's what separates the ants from the rest of the insect world, they'll hang around and play. Well, to be honest, I played with a little inch worm once, but they aren't much fun. So my question remains, What's up with the ants that ain't'? Wherefore art they, when, and why? June 20, 2007 Some people you just don't want to teach how to fish. Take this biologist person I know. I made the mistake of teaching him how to fish a fly. He had been telling me stories of his snorkeling to make fish counts in local streams as part of his county biology work. He had been watching insect life, watching fish swim and hide, gathering the kind of snorkel vision any die-hard flyfisher would pay good money to acquire. This kind of knowledge you can't just pick up reading books and watching videos. Not even YouTube has this information, at least last time I looked (probably does by now). Actually, I had a difficult time searching in YouTube for "nymph," as you might imagine. Well, OK, nymph did come up, but not the kind we're talking about here. Anyway, he decided it was time to do something rather than work while working, to think about bugs and fish instead of thinking about bugs and fish all the time with a dry suit on. One conversation led to another with his wife saying she knows someone who fly fishes, and so on. It's an old old story, told for centuries, minus the dry suit. So we fished, and very quickly he showed promise. Within a month he started tying his own flies, to "match his work," he proclaimed. Then the inconceivable happened. He caught a 20 inch cutthroat a half mile from a large shopping mall. Now, under normal circumstances, I would suspect a lie. But he's a biologists, and biologist have no need to lie. You and I might lie, but scientists are a little truer to the code. (I have no idea what that means.) Given time, these people will start catching brook trout out of your bathtub. We still go fishing together, but it gets more and more challenging. Now, I have to reach deeper and deeper into my bag of advice gleaned from books and grocery-store rags in order to impress, staving off the inevitable check on my precious sense of fishing reality-- "snorkel vision." April 1, 2007 A "fly fishing film tour"? I didn't know exactly what that meant. I mean, I see all manner of flyfishing videos on OLN and other cable stations. But what Fly Road & Reel and the Angling Exploration Group have put together is something quite a bit different, not just a film, but a state of mind. OK, "state of mind" might have been touch corny. After all, New York is supposed to be a state of mind, and I don't want to go fishing there. But this isn't a movie review. This is a blog. blogs are for hanging out and yakking and making people believe I actually know what I'm talking about. Go back to your search engine to find a real review. Nevertheless, the film tour is the next fun thing to catching big fish in bizarre locations. The experience starts where all great movies start--in the ticket-holder's line, on the rainy sidewalk as you wait for the doors to open. Accept in this case not everyone is a random stranger. These are fellow flyfishers who populate your own streams. You can tell by their hats with flyfishing themes. You recognize others from your monthly fishing club. Some are wearing their flyfishing vests. I'm not sure why some people do this. Do they wear their vest to all social events, their flies dropping from their vest's drying patches into the guacamole? Finally the doors open,and we all rush by the fresh popcorn with real butter (well, at least in this theatre). The producers, and stars, and writers, and editors line up along tables selling shirts and hats and bumper stickers--and they talk to you. That's nice. Try getting close to actors and such at a blockbuster movie, and you'll end up in jail, or at least with someone's camera lens in your ear. "Hey, Britney. I like your hair cut!" Just won't happen. Once inside the theatre, a feeling of camaraderie fills the popcorn air. Before the show starts, everyone is looking around or standing in the isles, looking for fishing friends, club members, the next door neighbor, the person who jumped into their drift like a jerk. Cards get exchanged (those networking guides just won't stop), whoooaaas get yelled, names are screamed from the balcony ("Jimmmmmyyyyyyy, dude. Next week, my boat, OK?"). You don't get this kind of electricity during your usual movie. Then one of the producers (or maybe it was one of the film's cameramen or fisherman/actor, or other fishing film figure) makes an announcement down on the stage, welcoming everyone, reminding everyone of the raffle, working the crowd. Imagine Brad Pitt addressing filmgoers during the premier of his latest blockbuster? I don't think so. Then the flicks start. Hilarious, well presented stuff. Down-home humor is sometimes exceptionally fun. I'm not sure exactly what I mean by "down home". Films done for the sheer fun of it, maybe, for less than a million dollars. Maybe less than $100,000. Hell, some of these were probably done for the price of handheld high-end video camera and plane tickets. I obviously don't have a clue about howvideos, let alone movies, are made. These video's have what high budget movies so often lack--focus on intelligent and entertaining scripting. The audience impact is obvious. I almost expected a few viewers to jump up and dance with the fish on stage a-la The Rocky Horror Picture show. Then there's the intermission. What is this--an Opera? An intermission? What are you supposed to do during an intermission? Well, I did what comes natural: stretched, pissed, bought a shirt at one of the tables the producers set up to sell movie items, even chatted with one of the fisher/actors, listened to the raffle, and watched everyone talk to each other as if I were in a live Breugel painting. All-in-all, an interesting and amusing way to see fishing. What else do I like about these flicks? No ads, not even those that sneak up on by showing a man fishing as he lifts a can of Diet Coke to his mouth, as if the Real Thing is not a fish. And no one tells you to silence your cell phone. I wasn't sure at all what to expect walking in, but walking out, I knew I would be waiting impatiently in the ticket holders line next year for the next tour. March 9, 2007 Ouzels again--this time on a hook No, I didn't accidentally snag an ouzel while steelheading. I've been reading John Schewey's latest book, Steelhead flies. Read my review. And I got to thinking about tying flies, fancy flies, fancy steelhead flies. Normally, I'm a marabou and chinelle type of steelhead fly tyer. But I thought I would kick it up a notch and learn how the big boys tie artful flies--and here's what I came up with--the Ouzel.
This fly isn't meant to look like an ouzel. Though I've seen steelhead patterns that are the size of one. Its tail reminds me of what one particular ouzel was fishing for during my last outing. It kept diving into the currents and coming up with salmon eggs. I'd never seen an ouzel do this. During this inspiration moment, I thought of a new fly. Hook: A big one Here are two views of the skirted tail. Notice how the tail circles half the diameter of the shaft, like a . . . skirt.
What makes an ouzel an ouzel, and not some other fly that looks similar? (And let's not fool ourselves: most steelhead flies are more similar than different.) First, The tail is skirted, which creates an luminous effect when drawn through the water. The tag (or butt) of flat tinsel under silk wraps with an oval rib shining through the hackle fiber tail enhances this effect. When I started skirting the tail, the fly began to take on a slight orange glow. This is a unique tying strategy of mine, which no doubt a hundred other tyers discovered before me. The skirted tail also makes the fly swim more vertically in the water column. (Ok, I made that up. I have no idea if this happens, and besides, the fly is tied symmetrically, which means that it more tumbles that swims in a nymph-like way.) Now keep in mind that this shirted tying technique is my my own design and is registered in the US patent office. You can only use this method if you pay for the license. Kidding. Second, the thick Estaz chinelle holds back the pheasant feather from completely collapsing on itself in stronger currents, and holds the hackle vertical and alive in weaker currents. Third, the peacock herl is tied in a loop. Read Shewey's book about this. No more trout scraping my herl to pieces on the first bite. Some tying notes
I thought about putting a winging material on top, but after I put on the pheasant body feather, I stopped there and decided it had the right body and hackle to sink the fly quickly and to let it swim or twist in the currents depending upon whether I wanted a dead-drift presentation or a swimming presentation. As for the jungle cock eyes--well . . . do you know how expensive those are? I was looking at a package of 12 feathers for 12 dollars in my local fly shop, and then made a snap decision about jungle cock eyes. January 29, 2007 Winter images--ouzels on a fly Who has not been amused by the lowly water ouzel, scurrying over winter rocks, occasionally causing a roaming and freezing steelheader to give pause. I've been looking at these birds (well, everybody has been looking at these birds) during many winter trips. They are a welcome respite to the action I've been having during my usual flyfishing adventure, whereby I actually catch fewer fish than zero each time out. You see, we aren't really hunters any more, because during the past 10,000 . . . . Oh, never mind. That'll have to wait for another blog when I've had more time to figure out what the hell I'm talking about. Soooooooo, my point is that I was watching this ouzel, and marveling (yes, I do marvel, when I'm not amazed, or dumbfounded) at how it dips under the water surface, chasing, I assume, bugs. After all, birds eat insects, right? And . . . bird seeds out of my back yard feeder. But this ouzel was bring up orange-colored red things--salmon eggs. I thought at first that this was just a fluke, but in the space of a minute, this ouzel snatched a half dozen salmon eggs. Initially, I thought it just got lucky, or was being opportunistic like a . . . well, like a bird, fish or any animal that doesn't chew on hay. Training my binoculars on him and studying the water, pretty soon I was seeing more and more salmon eggs floating by in fairly fast water. I've only seen salmon eggs around redds (or in bait bottles). This gave me more faith in my salmon egg patterns, not to catch ouzels, but to catch . . . well, you know. One other thing I figured out while peering at my ouzel--why they dip. We all know they love to dip up and down, which explains their moniker "The American Dipper". They are simply drying themselves off after dipping in the water chasing insects . . . and salmon eggs. I could clearly see the water being shed from their feathers while they did this. Dogs shake and ouzels dip Now, maybe this is common knowledge, but I figured it all by lonely self. Stay tuned for my next blog: Fly fishing from an outhouse, followed by What the weasel knows. January something, 2007 Again, I have absolutely nothing to write about. But this has never stopped me in the past (and for once my enemies agree with me on this point). There is too much ice on the roads to travel, and even if I could travel, I wouldn't catch anything. Actually, I could if I did what all the experts said to do during winter. Be patient. As patient as a heron. Cast that nymph along that seam 30 to 50 times--better, 500 times--because the fish isn't going to move far for anything. Well, I have a couple problems with that approach. First, I don't want to stand in ice water until my legs freeze like stalagmites (that's a weird metaphor, I know, but even my metaphors suffer in winter). Second . . . ,well, you catch nothing in winter, especially with the tiny flies that I'm told to use. Baetis, you know, and chironomids. Tying on these flies is always a challenge. I like to avoid 7x tippets like the plague. More often than not, I'm using 5x on a size 20 fly, which is sort of like putting a hammer head onto an axe handle (again, another sorry image. My poetry also suffers in the winter). Plus, third, it is hard to dress in winter. There are days when if you have to work hard to fish and it is freezing, you really don't want to sweat, because then you become uncomfortably chilled. Or it might be too warm, and now you're overdressed, and the welcomed warmth makes you sweat, and then the rivers rise too quickly, and you're screwed. And the cougars in the woods are hungry. Wheh. I've got some issues, I see. Now, occasionally I'll catch a fish, and I have to admit it is a special feeling to have pulled it off--even though dumb luck played a huge role, because, like I said above, I'm very unlikely to hang in ice water for too long. Sometimes, though, I'll get into a nice rhythm with my casting, with a small indicator, small fly, small weight, slow water, when, bam, I surprise a fish. Or a fish surprises me. Or both. Then I might stay in the water until I freeze. Usually, the fish happens when I'm casting very close in the slow water, casting like I were a metronome. Did I spell that right? I mean that think on top of the piano. One more thing, and then I'll shut up. Sometimes these winter fish fight light hell. Not sure why. Then again, I've caught 24 inch residents in spring who fought like they are half dead. I wouldn't even need to reel in line. Life is weird. Fish are more weird. So what does that make me? Less than normal, I'm afraid It's winter. I'll crawl back in my hole now. I'll have something useful to write about next time, Like:
January 1, 2007 River and Reef dot com recently reports its 600 pound shark on a fly feat. Now, this is much bigger than than anything I've caught recently. (Well, I once caught a branch that was attached to a fairly large tree, but there was no one else around to witness, so I guess this doesn't count.) The odd thing is that the man who caught the shark is a little pissed that the no record is set because the wire tippet was too long by about a foot. I understand his point. Big shark have mouths that are much deeper than the puny one foot wire leader that is allowed by the IGFA rules. Picky. The fly was a Red/White tandem streamer cast after heavy chumming. |
