A Note to My 12 Year Old Son
I guess I’m not surprised at the emerging young man that you are turning out to be. And sometimes you need to be told how proud of you I really am. I know that my schedule keeps me away for longer than you would like and, in this hectic pace of travel and attending to other people and their needs, I sometimes forget about yours.
You have shown that you are thoughtful and compassionate to others and this might be the simple greatest achievement in this world where narcissism is rampant and undermines most concepts of community. You have demonstrated that you have developed a conscience and can be introspective but heed a word of advice and some practical real world experience from your father here: knowing your limits is a good thing but don’t be afraid to push the envelope.
Push yourself to see what you are capable of rather than procrastinating and putting things off. You might surprise yourself and find rewards that are profound and sublime at the same time. You have a whole world of life and experience in front of you and I have no doubt that you are going to embrace it—and you come by it honestly, your father has never been afraid to seek new experiences out. Your curiosity is similar to mine and there’s no telling where it will take you.
I’ve kept a journal of outdoor experiences and one day you might find it tucked away in the dark corner of a closet or I might give it to you when you have your first child; it is a mishmash of milestones that I was able to witness and experience with you and while your days are currently filled with education, football, girls, and video games (three out of four aren’t bad I reckon) there might be a time when you look back at the collection and remember.
There is a .410 cartridge shell from the day that you shot your first squirrel at the age of 8. A small slip of paper is in there with the date, location, and a few other notes. You were so excited that I couldn’t calm you down enough to get a shot at another but after a few futile attempts at a stalk, your curiosity was displayed when we walked back to the truck and skinned it together. It was a lesson in so much more than just walk in the woods with your father. The lessons learned that day contained the appropriate ethics of a hunter, biology (flora and fauna), physiology, philosophical discussions of sentient beings and our place in the natural world---see, way more involved than simply going on a squirrel hunt.
In our way, where we eat what we shoot, we took that squirrel home and Theresa breaded and fried it up with a biscuit for breakfast. You didn’t really care for it but you tried it and I can appreciate that. Did you know that we haven’t hunted squirrels since then? We might have to go back out and give it another go before you’re too worldly to hang with your old man.
There’s another .410 shotgun shell in there from your first dove hunt and I can remember with pride how you handled your gun as you remembered the lectures on gun safety that both of us continually and consistently gave you. I have no doubt that you will continue to handle guns with these core lessons in mind as you get older—at the very least you will be knowledgeable and safe even if you never hunt again. There’s another .20-gauge shell in there that you shot your first dove with—and I remember with pride you bolting out of the blind to go get it. I will keep that picture in my mind’s eye for my entire life. I’m not sure you ever noticed me picking these things up around you and hiding them in my vest—you were in-the-moment and feeling the thrill of combing the chase with skill and I hope that you carry that enthusiasm with you. That is a simple joy of living and the importance of living within the moment can’t be denied.
You show pride in not only doing things but doing them well and I was pleased to see that you brought home a writing project about the conservation of trout and your excitement was palpable. Your pride in knowing that this is an ethos that is held in high regard in our house indicated that maybe something we’ve done or said might have impacted you. Our words and conversations seemingly go in one ear and out the other and I’m sure your excitement was based on the fact that resources were going to be widely available to help you write this paper or that a school project may be accomplished with some ease rather than struggle but, internally I smiled, you recognized what it is important to your parents. One has to read between the lines occasionally, Son, to get at the deeper meaning. Often times, it’s not what people say but rather how they say it—or what they don’t say—that can be more informative.
These are simple things that we enjoyed outdoors but the lessons carry through to so much more in your life. Discipline, attention to detail, and the ability to focus were not your strongpoints as a kid but I see that these things are becoming sharper as you get older. Maybe, just maybe, these outdoor lessons will continue with you. You are going to experience both heartbreak and joy and everything in the middle of it and it happens with such alacrity that both could be found in the space of a single minute. You can’t be prepared for it—it’s our job as parents to give you the tools to do it and as I see you physically grow (holy cow!) I also see you growing spiritually and emotionally. It’s a beautiful process and I’m glad you’re my kid.
We’re both exceptionally proud of you, Bug.
Of course, I know that you will never take the time to read anything your old man writes or tells you so it will be years before you actually get around to wondering who your father is (or was) but I thought it important to take a minute or two and write this down. Maybe, just maybe, some of the things that Theresa and I show you will become part of you. It is natural that you are going to find your own way and I think that you are well on the way to creating your own path or journey.
But do your old man a solid would you, and make sure that you at least carry a shotgun or fly rod occasionally while you walk?
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People have quirks. And so do most fly rods. People with quirks can cast quirky rods and the amplitude of the quirkiness becomes exponential. And that’s why it took me so long to learn how to cast.
Is it the rod? or is the person who holds the rod? Things can get muddied pretty quick when you start breaking it down this far. How many fish did you miss because of your quirks? How many fish did you miss because of your rod?
Perhaps we should consider that people who Fly Fish have inherent quirks that drive them to participate in the sport initially? And what would the level of quirk be for those that have continued the habit/hobby for 20 years plus?
But somewhere along in the multitudinal craziness is the spine tingling nerviness of the crisis of the rise. It’s when the trout shows their shoulders, simply sips the surface, or rips into a surface bug with all of its sudden strength and elegant muscle. All three described manners of the rise are apparent and usually some sort of physical response happens—an increased heart beat, an awareness of the stream insect activity and the resulting focus of observation, or the simple realization that the feed has begun and a limited window of opportunity has opened for the angler. Some handle the crisis better but at the core the realization must be made that the reaction must be more mental than physical.
I’ve fished my whole life but it wasn’t until my advanced years that I really began to learn how to fish and the wonders of waving a willowy piece of elegance called a fly rod that spoke to the natural rhythm of my heart seemingly calmed some of the quirkiness that I carried around. In order to become proficient, I felt I had to catch fish—a lot of fish or the outing wasn’t successful. But the importance of quantity has moved to the side nowadays and the sliding scale of success now lies within the quality of the fish—and the manner in which it was accomplished. And, as a result, the rise has become a fascination for me. Howell Raines calls it a need to hear the “sigh of the eternal” and, while I’ve always searched these esoteric things out while in the woods and the simple movements and patterns of the natural world around us hold the key to hearing that sigh.
An angler always holds the confidence of a fish unseen but it is the rise itself that acts as confirmation –and should you be able to see the glance of the fish’s gleam, it is visceral and visible confirmation that they are feeding that the tremendous instant of expectation quivers down the rod. There are many things to consider in this moment: the directional hookset and the inherent timeliness of it. If you are to react too quick then you will simply pull the fly away, or if you are to react too late, then the moment and opportunity is wasted and the trout might perhaps reject the angler’s offer. You see, it is the moment of mental apprehension tied to the timeliness of the physical activity that weaves it all together…
And then the quirks start to manifest. But in that moment, even the quirkiest rod and even out of the ordinary angler have to come together to avoid the disaster and heartbreak of a missed hookset.
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I don’t think I’m a hermit but I’m not far from it. I’d rather find the solitude of fishing a stream or creek than put myself in the throbbing masses of a retail environment, a large scale sporting event, or sometimes even a grocery store. Irony, lies within those statements, as my work usually encompasses attendance that range in to tens of thousands.
Charming is not often used to describe me, although I can occasionally display it; perhaps it would be best to consider me anti-social although that descriptive term contains too many sociological behaviors that are worrisome to me. I think it is best to consider me as a “social exclusionary”; but I meet the most interesting people while out in the woods and those conversations are often impetus for table top conversations and dining room discussions that cover philosophy, history, and strategy.
The boy and I were fishing a small section of the North Fork of Elkhorn Creek in our native land of Kentucky the other day, and the summer pools were offering deep buckets over fist sized rocks and gravel beds and the ever changing nature of the structure that this particular creek offers. It was easy wading and I was absorbed in changing the flaws I saw in his cast and my own fishing so I didn’t see or hear the older fellow paddle up in his kayak. He came within 20 feet of us before announcing his presence and while these circumstances would normally be a cause for concern for most people to be wary of others in the woods, his grandfatherly patter soon put us to ease.
After a few minutes of easy back and forth, the fly boxes opened up and comparisons began. He was a top-water kind of fellow and I’m a bit of a subsurface streamer/hackle sort of guy so the fly comparisons were interesting and detailed; in an unexpected moment of generosity he handed my son four flies—two top water poppers of the standard style (size 12 and 14 and in black with red eyes and black legs) but the two he handed over that drew the most attention were modern renditions of an old bass pattern tradition called the “fly and rind”, essentially a deer hair fly with a plastic curly trailer. They’ve been used around these parts for at least over 50 years and I remember my grandfather using a similar rig.
The “fly and rind” is a simple buck tail hair fly that was traditionally employed with a pork chunk trailer. This particular fly was seemingly tied on a size 8 or 10 dry fly hook (1x fine wire), with a slight body of white dubbing accentuated with a palmered white hackle, and closest to the eye, was a bundle of trimmed buck tail that extended to the end of the hook. A plastic curly cue was tied in as a tail and the action it gave to the fly while in the water was simply subtle . The entire fly was white but I’ve seen them in various colors but the either the white or brown of a buck tail were the traditional methods.
The Fly and Rind is a simple hair jig that is to be fished as a crawdad emulator—throw it parallel to the bank for shallower water situations and allow it to sink to the bottom of the stream bed. A slow twitch retrieve is to be employed in which the fly is slowly bounced across the bottom with long pauses when it rests on the bottom, which is a similar behavior of a craw dad. Move it 2-4’ at a time.
It’s hard to say what might come out of those creek side conversations but they are usually worth having—and the fly is now sitting on my dining room table and, as I look at it, I’m trying to figure out how to make my own version of the venerable classic.
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In the words of Roderick Haig-Brown, “I had to learn a lot on my own which is a fascinating process but a slow one.”, but given the circumstances where opportunities intersect with drive and/or ambition, the learning curve is diminished. Fly fishing is no different, and if patience and dedication are applied, then the outcome becomes less in importance than the journey.
It’s the journey that has become enjoyable. Am I a good or expert with a fly rod? Hardly, but I have since learned enough tricks along the way to make the process enjoyable and it can be downright enlightening. Often enough, people become frustrated early and it’s the line tangles, lack of fish, or the seemingly endless manner in which to tackle the subject or sport that diminish the starter’s enjoyment. And to tackle this supposed wall, I’ve developed a manner in which I can share my love of the sport and watch a few people figure out, in the manner of a couple hours, why I continually display such ardor for the sport of fly fishing.
Just like a carpenter, there are a thousand ways to build the same end project—and one single way is not better than any of the others. It is a base premise that we often forget (or forget to relay) and that is to simply fish.
I’ve had the chance, as well as my wife, to recently spend a few minutes sharing our love for the sport while standing in the water with newcomers to the sport and a few basic tenets that have become apparent:
It’s important to share the larger picture of why Fly Fishing is fun and, if they ask, share your personal stories of success or heartbreak, or why one turned into the other. My kid laughs at me when I tell fishing or hunting stories because I like the audience and often embellish a series of dry stats with hysterical details (hysterical at least to me.)
Try to clue them in to the love of the riddle that we so often try to solve.
]]>One of the most overlooked techniques of being a successful fly angler is the ability to stalk or employ methods of stealth while fishing, especially while wading. Fish can be easily spooked by a shadow, motion (induced by casting), or sound and the ability to employ a visual and auditory slyness can often times be advantageous to the angler searching out those crafty fins whether they be in a mountain trout stream or bass in a warm water creek.
Here are some simple tips for making the most of a few hours standing in a small stream and waving a stick with the ever optimistic hope of landing a fish or two.
Sure, your hero pictures won’t look as amazing as those national geographic shots but the ability to break up your outline or reduce the amount of reflective light will give you a leg up on the guy standing in the creek next to you wearing blistering, bleached white or candy-apple-corvette red outer garments. The intent here is to blend as best you can with your natural surroundings and minimize your presence in the stream.
Sound is often overlooked amongst our angling community. Reduce putting the fish down by wading carefully and thoughtfully through still water. Walk carefully without overturning stones, loud foot –splashes, or crunching gravel under foot. Remember, if you can hear your own travel, I think the fish could certainly hear it and for a greater distance than you and I would care to admit. Try to minimize announcing yourself to the underwater inhabitants. Use naturally occurring objects such as fast moving riffles or log jams to mask your travel through the water. See a pool or line worth casting to? Try a stealth approach from a different line—consider approaching from the faster water or behind a naturally fallen log as to minimize the Godzilla size foot stomps that resonate like sonar waves to everything under the water.
My wife and I have even developed hand signals and short clicks/whistles/grunts to effectively communicate while on the water. Fishing with us is like fishing in a church.
Fish of all kinds are constantly looking for predators and those predators come in many, many forms. Have you ever seen a trout or bass dart away at the passing shadow of a bird? Be aware of the sun’s position and your relationship to it and the fish you are targeting; the larger the profile you cast will directly impact the area and fish around you.
If you’re lucky enough to hook a fish (like me) or good enough (like my wife), take the time to work the fish with your leader and fly only. Keep your fly line, if possible, off the water. The line creates noise, agitation, and shadows. None of these described properties are exactly calming to a fish.
See previous post regarding unattractive qualities to fish. Presentation should be quiet and thoughtful, try to keep your fly from splashing like a brick or river stone thrown in to the water. Important note here: Don’t be a brick.
Unless, of course, you are throwing a mouse or frog pattern and employing the strategy that it should fall with a gregarious “thump” on the bank and then falls/splashes into the water. Laugh if you will, but this crafty procedure has worked for me on several occasions. Of course, the first few times it worked was simply due to a poor cast.
On more than occasion I have received the dubious and unconvinced look from my wife whose facial expression said, “Did you really mean to do that?”
Breaking up your profile is important. Always look for alternative casting angles and positions when targeting spooked fish. If there is a promising pool or feeding run, look for naturally occurring camouflage that might assist in breaking up your profile. Log jams, bushes, and bank side trees which might normally be considered a casting onus should be treated with a different perspective—use them to your advantage! Especially when wearing eye popping fashion items like mentioned in tip #1. Don’t be afraid to belly crawl if needed!
I might suggest that you simply take a few pieces of string and attach as many tree branches or clippings to your legs, torso, and hat to help break up your lines. Go overboard with this strategy and attach as many as you can so that you resemble a shrub in the stream.
And, if you do this, would you please send me a picture?
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Waders are essentially high priced buckets. It is quite amazing when an expensive piece of space age fabric, designed to keep one warm and comfortable, is instantly transformed into a simple and cheap bucket. What once was a barrier between you and cold water can quickly become a vessel that contains gallons of cold water that soaks and chills your underwear and pools in the legs. It often happens in the shock of a second, a missed step, and a sigh of cold aggravation.
Other than that, I’m often thankful for my waders as they offer me a little protection as I wander through lush and thriving forests of poison ivy, poison oak, and stinging nettles. I guess it’s a trade off.
Fishing around these parts can be frustrating, the small streams are often blown out early in the season and the springs rain can make a normally wade-able pool of water a screaming torrent that can carry fallen trees the width and breath of small Volkswagens, and assembling them in snags that can reach 40’ across and 10’ high. The positive side of this is that the structure is always changing and the fish adapt to it, so the stream that you fish last week can be completely different when you step into it 7 days later.
The water has been gin clear lately and one has to be stealthy to be successful, and the smallmouth bass have been responding to a delicate bank presentation of purple wooly buggers and dyed yellow mallard soft hackles skittered across the bottom. We tend to fish any available structure including the large and expansive root balls of the stately sycamores that dot our banks. Hybrid patterns of soft hackles (size 10-14) that mimic natural shad (with a hot spot) seem to do the best for me lately. I usually carry a couple flies that mimic the venerable crawdad but those patterns don’t often see success in our spring outings—the hottest days of summer and low pools over free stone river beds provide the best days of the crawfish patterns.
The freshwater crawdad (Order Decapoda) is a natural and plentiful source of diet for the fish in the small streams and creeks of our home state and our idyllic little streams boasts of one of the richer freshwater faunas in North America with 54 species. The one we see the most is the Cambarus Batchi – Bluegrass Crayfish. The population seems to be down this year or perhaps they’re still burrowing—we haven’t seen many in the streams/creeks so far although we have seen the remnants left behind by the ultimate flying fisherman, our gray and blue herons.
Herons, by the way, are the most patient sight fishers I’ve ever seen and ironically look like a fly fisherman in the way they stand quietly dignified in the middle of a stream or on a bank. Their natural camouflage allows them to look like ungainly sticks at a distance but the swoosh of their wings and quick diving motion will often surprise even the expectant observer.
The dogwoods have started to bring their soft focus white and pink to the world and our Kentucky redbuds are a starkly purple contrast to the woods’ numerous shades of spring greens; summer is coming, I can feel the change but the mornings and evenings are still cool enough to warrant another layer but It won’t be long before the option to wet wade is here for us but until then I will wear my buckets.
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It was hard to say when winter arrived. It kind of snuck in, inconspicuous from day to day but it settled in sometime during the fall bow hunt. Morning temps never reached their goals, the cold winds started to blow, and the trees lost their battle against the wind, and the leaves simply lost out. That was months ago and the weight of winter now feels like a burden; it has become a coat that has become too heavy to wear comfortably.
By December, the season was entrenched and the stark sycamore bones showed clearly against the monotone Kentucky skies; the boundaries of seasons were clearly defined and even the mud puddles and meadows crisped with first, a hard frost, and then, layer after layer of snow. There is something very stark about Kentucky winters, although it has never kept us out of the woods, and the wind carries a particular raw and damp coldness that makes a man burrow into the collar of his coat.
The hours of available daylight lessened and the seasonal winter trudge set in, the skies low, heavy, and a cold color of pig iron. Traffic on the nearby road seemed to even speed up, as if to outrun the season; it was a long distance line of red taillights on a road that glistened in the cold rain and reflected their hurry. If one were to squint, it would seem as if the sky was 10 feet off the ground. Neighborhood walkers became less and less and I became intensely susceptible to the images of Caribbean bone fishing that came unsolicited in the mail or on the laptop. And they were full of tanned, sun-warmed, and smiling people holding an elegant piece of aquatic silver, usually with a palm tree and white sand beach behind them. It was, as if the publishers of those images intuitively knew what would drive a normally intelligent and skeptical person who often displayed a prudent logic in their daily responsibilities, to forego their normal routine for a chance at even a day of sunny optimism.
Those daydreams are unexamined and simple images of happiness and one never truly imagines the perhaps ruinously expensive details of the journey or the effort it takes to achieve the exact location of perceived happiness as sustained by that simple image of fun, fish, and palm trees. And those unexamined details often throw the proverbial wrench into the machine, or the hink into the cast, and keep us from truly understanding the empowering process of traveling or fishing in a particular style.
If our lives are dominated by a search for happiness, then perhaps few activities reveal as much about the dynamics of this quest-including all its ardor and paradoxes—than our travels to fly fish. Fly-fishing does express, however sloppily and inarticulately, an understanding of what life might be about, and how it enhances the life outside of the constraints of work and the struggle for survival (if only of our soul) in this modern culture. It’s worth the effort and I love engaging the paradoxes and riddles involved in the process of fly fishing.
Those gloriously tropical images of Caribbean bonefish rarely present the deeper problems that require critical philosophical thinking that might go well beyond the box, so to speak. One must consider the practical constraints of the proposition; I see so many images that drive me to want to go to a physical location but rarely do we hear of why and how we should go. And because of this I feel people rarely allow themselves to truly feel the journey, nor do they employ a particular style that would allow them the joy of the journey. I travel for a living and it can often become a tedious trudge of airports, truck stops, and highway exits that look exactly like the last one. But I always feel a different joy when I’m embarking on a road trip for the sole reason of seeking happiness induced by the use of a fly rod. But those travels and road trips to fish have taught me so much more.
The reality of travel is rarely what we anticipate, and so is fly fishing but the ability to find joy is to seek out the details of what is simply different and it is that sense of divergence from the routine that new locations, new water, and expanded life experience/techniques offer that truly enhance our lives and perspective. So the argument could be made that the actualities of travel/fly fishing are often disappointing and perhaps avoided but to give in to the pessimism would be to devalue the experience.
T. and I chose to travel to a remarkably isolated place on the Yucatan Peninsula a couple of years ago and I was coming off a long run in which I had been gone from home for a couple weeks and I treated the trip as just another business affair leaving from just another airport. My stoic game face was on and the memories of the journey are similarly aloof but we never simply “travel” or “fish” do we? The details have faded over time, or at least my subconscious has weeded out the mundane: confining airline seats, rushed lunches or food that doesn’t digest well, the inexpert queue of all nations gathering at customs that usually drives me nuts.
But what I do remember is the sudden and momentous realization that I had inadvertently brought myself along on this trip. I had simply forgot to leave behind the critical thought processes and baggage of my personality (remember my pre-curmudgeon condition previously described in these essays?) and, as a sad result, had allowed myself to put constrictions on what otherwise might be an enjoyable experience. My eyes and presumptuous intellect were preventing me from appreciating not only the differences of warmth and sun from my previous location but maintaining a startling commitment to worry and anxiety regarding to details of living at home or working on the road. I was looking at the world through weary eyes and I was allowing myself to neglect the beauty that I overlooked as invisible as anything that is always around.
An unsuspecting result was that I was unduly impacting her joy by placing my skeptical vision on what was a shared experience. Traveling with a loved one, even for the trip of a lifetime (and we have shared many more of those than should be allowed), can be difficult and I seem to exacerbate the difficulties by placing my preconceived notions on the situation.
And, as it often happens and just like on the river, it takes a few hours/days for me to unwind enough to enjoy the simpler things but it had naturally happened by the time we were cruising a battered and sandy trail called a road to Punta Allen. There was a moment of clarity and stillness that made me stop the rented jeep and pull over to witness the supreme majesty of azure skies, empty beaches, and the warmth of sunshine on my face. Rather, the trip became an explosive memory of sight, sound, and smell once I was able to remove my own preconceived notions and limitations but I had to work to undo those psychological knots I had been tying. And not unlike fly fishing, one casting style does not meet all the needs of the day—you have to adjust.
It is easy to forget ourselves, or our seasons, when we contemplate pictures of far off places that are removed from our daily paths and the complicated knots that we use to tie our lives together. It’s easy to manifest our own ragged destinies if only through stubbornness and careless thoughtlessness and there are proportions of imbalance if one doesn’t take care to arrive to a new destination with an adjusted perspective.
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Sometimes it’s not about the fish at all. Most of the time it’s just having a shared memory of the day, the stream, and the camaraderie of being outside with loved ones. Thankfully, I have a fishing partner in my wife or is it my wife and then fishing partner? Regardless, she’s just as quick to suggest that we pick up our gear and go on a road trip somewhere; and it might be the journey that contains road trip playlists, the laughs, and gas station coffee that always seem to accompany my smelly old truck. Btw—she can throw down with Salt N Pepa, Kid Rock, and Lil Kim, spitting lyrics going down the road at 80 mph, with the best of them.
The luck of having of a wife who fishes is immense; gone are the snide and darkly sarcastic comments that accuse an obsessed fisherman of having extra-marital affairs, liking their fishing partner more than their matrimonial status, or the worst: being called emotionally unavailable. She’s just as invested in it as I am and her focus often exceeds my own which is simply amazing.
But there are also the benefits of simply being outside which, in my view, is something that most Americans are lacking these days. I had a chance to recently witness a group of grown adults fawn and express incredulity when they were given the opportunity to see a skunk, otters, and an eagle up close.
“Shoot,” I thought to myself, “we see those things all the time. What’s the big deal?”
It is a big deal, though, because so many people are removed from the patterns of flora and fauna while living in our fast food culture; they never slow down enough to watch how the creeks rise and fall or the seasonal coming and going of the trees and wildflowers. Too many people drive cars with tinted windows and pass on the opportunity to get to know their neighbors as they drive up into their garage-in-front house with manicured lawns (as dictated by their home owner association); they never allow for the time and/or the chance to establish any sort of personal relationships with either their environment or neighbors. All of these repercussions of isolated urban living are a damn shame.
Is it weird that our house is a collection of things found outdoors? We don’t take fish home and it’s been 3-4 years that we’ve eaten a trout we caught, but we do tend to surround ourselves with items that we found in the woods. Paper wasp nests (at least two) hang inconspicuously in a dining room corner; wood-ear lichens sit on the windowsills, and an assortment of feathers (ones that aren’t used for tying) and paper-thin pieces of an American beech tree grace a side table. These items were gathered through careful observation of a hallowed space and time with a thoughtfulness that treasures memory and acknowledgement of the hills and holler we call home.
The fishing is just an enjoyable excuse to solve another of the myriad of nature’s riddles and the road trips are simply reasons to enjoy each other’s company. As I’ve learned the nuances of fly fishing (and its been a long process), other larger-than-life subtleties appear to me and I feel the inclusion into a world that I don’t feel in other spaces that are inhabited by some of my fellow humans. Sometimes, it’s not really about the fish at all.
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She doesn’t speak loudly or use an extraordinary amount of words to articulate her thoughts and her tongue can be biting at times. I’m the acerbic one though—please remember that. Her wit is both calculated and timely; her thoughts are usually steps ahead of my own—and she will continually trap me in clever word play but she brought up a much larger issue recently that I felt I had to address in a more public manner.
She fishes. And she cooks. Both are at a higher level than most and she has attained a level of expertise in both disciplines.
I fish, too. And I cook although not nearly as well.
Food and fishing are two of the most often visited topics of conversation in our house and why is it then, that it seems unmanly for a male to have discourse on recipes and flavors? Is there something unseemly about a man who has learned to feed himself?
Conversely, why is not widely accepted, at least on the east coast, to be a woman who fishes? Or hunts? My wife is as accurate with a 20 gauge over/under shotgun as she is with a 3 wt or 5 wt fly rod—and she’s not embarrassed to use either of them. Her youngest daughter is a wizard in the kitchen and not afraid to pick up a shotgun when the boys go to field, too. Another daughter in law doesn’t fish but she is quick to shoulder a shotgun during hunting season. These are not even examples of the sticky issue of female empowerment in modern times but rather they are simple facts of living in this family.
This is a polarizing and complex topic and I would not be as presumptuous to think that I offer any solutions in a simple essay but perhaps just awareness and acknowledgement of a situation will help to alleviate the stress. Do biases exist towards women who fish?
Are they continuations of pre-conceived notions of gender inequality? Or does it simply make men uncomfortable when a competent chick in waders shows up?
Theresa pointed out to me the other day that we rarely see women on the water. And she continued her point to say that she notices a difference in the way guides treat women compared to men on the few times that we have used their services. I always thought it might be due to the fact that my beady little offset eyes lend an intensely intellectual look that they admire but she smilingly discounted that theory as solely male narcissism.
The list of women who have made impact on fly fishing goes back years but we are still seemingly stuck in a self defeating spiral of exclusion. There are many names in the annals of time and history that can roll off the tongue without much thought: Carrie Stevens, Fly Rod Crosby, and April Vokey are ones that come immediately to mind and I’m sure that I’m discounting many more by not mentioning them here.
shoot, I hear her coming home now. I better go put dinner on the table.
]]>I really hate emptying the dishwasher. Especially when it comes to sorting the silverware. It’s mindless, repetitive work but in order to have an effective and well-organized kitchen (and a happier wife), the work has to be done. Conversely, I don’t mind sitting for a couple of hours and tying flies.
Some might consider the two to be similar.
The dishwasher had to be emptied, as tomorrow is my first day on a new job and my favorite 7-year-old ball cap had to be washed. And the dishwasher is the best way I have found to clean a ratty, sweat stained, sun-bleached, and river mud tinged, old ball cap. I’ve heard that you’re supposed to look nice on your first day of work—so it is being washed. I wouldn’t think of leaving it at home.
Pat Dorsey, famed Colorado river guide, accomplished author and all around genuinely nice guy, has written several books on the South Platte river system and how to replicate the entomology that he has become so familiar to over his 30 year career. They’ve been an inspiration for my fly tying education and have lent themselves to not only a spot on my workstation but on the bedside nightstand, as well. Shoot, I read them whenever the mood strikes me (which is often) and his ideas, fly recipes, and knowledge of the Colorado rivers have given me more pleasant daydreams than should be allowed.
His book, Tying & Fishing Tailwater Flies, has become a bit torn in some spots because I will bookmark, dog-ear, and constantly flip through it. The tying instructions are easy to replicate with even my ham fisted and fumbling fly tying techniques due to the easy to follow instructions and high quality photographs.
I’ve tied many a fly out of this book (Churchill’s Sparkle Wing RS2, Dorsey’s mercury flashback, Bread crust, etc.…) and to tell you the truth—they simply catch fish. There’s a range of tying skills incorporated and the diversity is astounding but he has also thought to include different philosophies of how to fish different flies;discussions on how to rig it, where to put it in the water column, etc. is certainly expansive but not so technical that a beginner wouldn’t understand.
Dorsey’s most recent work, Colorado Guide Flies, assembles several hundred patterns that were collected using his vast resources across the state and years, and offers up a singularly exhaustive collection of the favorite flies from Colorado river guides. This guy, a world renowned trout guide/author/public speaker, is able to educate while not coming off as arrogant or exclusive, rather his style and personality is inclusive as it seems that he genuinely wants to let people know what he has found that works. It’s this sense of enjoyment that is pervasive through his work and if you have ever met him, will recognize this in his personality, too.
My plan is to work through these books and tie every single fly recorded in them over the course of the next year. Shoot, better make that 5 years because I would like some time in there to fish.
In the recent past, I used his recipe for what he calls the “Top Secret Midge”, a tie that was developed in the late 1990’s that seems absolutely irresistible to fish that are keying on microscopic midge/pupae. It has a two color thread body that looks like a quill but is much more durable and by changing the color combinations, provides what might be an essentially unimaginable number of color combinations that could be tailored to almost any stream or any geographic location. These flies are meant to be tied in as the 2nd in a tandem application.
Here is his recipe:
Hook: tiemco 24-88 #18-26
Thread: olive, brown, orange Uni-thread in 8/0
Abdomen: olive, brown, orange Uni-thread in 8/0
Rib: White 6/0 Uni-thread
Wing: Glamour Madera (#2400) (I personally used a Z-lon product because that is what I had at the time)
Thorax: rust brown superfine dubbing. (but I’ve used a bunch of subdued earth tones that have all met with success)
Thank you, Pat Dorsey, for your love of fishing, your local rivers, and your friendship. But I can’t thank you enough for sharing what you know…
Sure, the fly seems small and these aging eyes have to resort to both glasses and a magnifier to get them done but it hardly seems to be as repetitious as unloading the silverware from the dishwasher. I would rather spend 4 hours tying up a bunch of these (and have handed them out to friends and family) than spend 3.5 minutes separating the silverware. I guess it is all about perspective. My old ball cap should be drying out now and presentable (enough) to take with me tomorrow. And I can guarantee that I’m going to find some water this weekend when I get home to throw one of these flies.
Our weather has changed and there is no doubt that it has. This winter, so far, is a mixture of blustering winds that are strong enough to blow the neighbor’s trash cans down the street, balmy temperatures high enough to be considered spring, and consistent and daily rains that fill basements and roadways. These rains have blown out the rivers and streams I like to fish and the above average temps have made any sort of hunting particularly difficult so I have resorted to spending a few hours at the vice. And the time has been well spent.
Fly tying is a peculiar endeavor and requires a peculiar individual who would find exacting precision to be pleasing, not unlike the pointillist artist of the late 19th century who neurotically arranged small distinct dots in patterns to trick the eye into seeing a larger image. The art of the pointillist was exacting and time consuming but if one were to compound that difficulty with the complexity of matching the local entomology of a stream or river, the difficulties compound themselves logarithmically. The fly-tier must not only observe or understand the bugs that the fish diet consist of but he/she must be able to adequately mimic the size, shape, and movement-in-water. Neurotic obsession to form and function are not required when tying flies but those qualities certainly help. Yep, I am a nerd about it but when it comes down to it, tying flies is just an exercise in mindful observation and offers medicinal meditative qualities that sooth an overactive brain.
There are a lot of fly recipes out there these days that are based on incredibly realistic reproductions of the bug in question but if it doesn’t wriggle like it should in the water and doesn’t catch fish, then what is the true worth of the fly? Will fly tying become a 3-d printed fad? I’ve always done things the traditional way (i.e. the Hard Way) and with the minimal amount of equipment as it appeals to my history loving and obstinate nature so naturally I’ve become inclined to look up the older and more traditional fly patterns. There are authors (Sylvester Nemes) who have filled pages with their research and I wouldn’t be as presumptuous to indicate that my fledgling interest would be as exhaustingly informed or interesting but I’ve found some engaging things along the way. Nor would be I as assuming to think that I could write a treatise on the development of the fly in modern times—perhaps I’ll do it when I’m older and have the time to retire to a stream side hut and can sit for hours pondering the metaphysical disposition of time, water, and fly fishing.
Literature that contained information on fly fishing appeared mid 15th century England (apology to Japanese Tenkara enthusiasts here) and continued with notable works that were written in the following generations but it was the advent of social leisure time, new textile advancements, and availability to the to the masses in the late 19th century, that our beloved sport started to really take off. The English tradition of fishing via a dry fly only was venerable but the nature of the game changed with soft hackles. After all, it is said that 90% of a trout’s diet and eating habits were sub-surface, so why not present them with a natural looking sub-surface nymph, ermerger, or dun?
My fly tying desk has recently seen an explosion of marabou feathers, larger hook sizes, and crystal flash as I spent the months of September through October of 2015 in a frenzy of dialing in small stream patterns (streamers, wooly buggers, etc..) for smallmouth bass but as I look forward to 2016 and the potential fishing trips we’re going to take, my interest has gone back to seasonal patterns for the gentlemanly trout. And so my interest in the fishing of the soft hackle has grown considerably; my desk is now a mess of obscure traditional tying ephemera that include woodcock, fine wire hooks, and tufts of natural fur dubbing.
Tying these traditional patterns has given me a lesson in deciphering a particular vernacular; the vocabulary was new to me. For instance, did you know that the body of a bird could be broken into 8 parts (Neck, Back, rump, tail, throat, breast, flank, and belly) and that bird wing could be further dissected even further into a confusing array of descriptive terms?
“The wing is a little trickier; looking at the upper side of a wing (fig 1.1) we must first separate it into two sections, the primary section and the secondary section/ Starting with the secondary section we have the lowermost row of feathers known as secondaries, above which are three more rows of feathers known as the upper coverts. The lowermost layer of which are known as upper greater coverts, followed by upper lesser and finally upper marginal coverts right at the top. The opposite side of the wing (the primary section) works in much the same manner, with the lower most feathers being known as primaries followed by the three rows of coverts, the only difference here is that due to them being located upon the primary side they are known as primary greater and primary lesser coverts. –Ben Finks
Each attribute of the wing has its own feather type specific to a pattern, and while this may seem daunting to encounter as a fly tier, I have jumped in with both feet and even though I may not replicate each pattern down to a detail, it gives me a general overview of the anatomy of a traditional soft hackle. And, because of that, I think I have become a better tier.
Neil Norman, a professor at a small liberal arts college in East Tennessee, has amassed a vast collection of information and insight gleaned from 18th century British literature and has assembled it in a regularly updated online blog (http://softhacklepatternbook.blogspot.com ). His writing carries an appreciation for the history and background of the period wet flies but his tying skills are impressive and stand to inspire me to better my own. If you have a minute, you should check the link out.
Mr. Norman’s ties are clean, spare, and elegant in their simplicity and my ham-handedness is getting better but I decided to give a traditional north country soft hackle a go. I chose the Gray Dun; the fly is designed to be fished on the swing, or given a twitch to emulate natural swimming motion. During any hatch at any given time, there is food below the surface available to trout and if any wind is present, then casualties are going to be available as well—I think these circumstances (cripples, spinners, drowned emergers) will certainly increase the chances of a successful strike for the fly angler.
My recipe was as follows:
Size 14 soft hackle--gray dun
Hook: daichi size 14
Thread: 8/0 dark brown
Tail: deer hide
Body: gray dubbin (traditionally spun mole’s hair but I have no access to either a spinning device or a mole)
Thorax: woodcock wing undercovert
A couple of notes regarding this style of fly:
I have learned that you must leave an adequate amount of space between the start of the hackle and the eye. By moving the hackle an eye hook size space back from the hook, the fly can be finished neatly and not create any difficulty when on the river and trying to thread.
Also, it seems that the hackle is traditionally sparse and requires only a single wrap or a wrap-and-a half.
Peacock Hurl can be placed in front of the hackle or behind it for a bit of bugginess.
The traditional north country flies hold a particular attraction for me but I’m not sure if it is the traditional tie, method of fishing, or the historical background but as tie-flying as a whole becomes more inventive with modern techniques and materials, I’m struck by the effectiveness of something so simple from so long ago.
Who knows what the evolution of the fly and fly tier over the next 20 years might be? It wasn’t really that long ago that a fly fisherman committed to the time consuming process of braiding a silk line…
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So I sucked it up and started the long process of trying to find the right replacement. I don’t like spending money; my nature is frugal but my wife simply calls it like she sees it: cheap. There are many companies out there offering waders in a wide and diverse variet so the resulting process of narrowing it down can be cumbersome.
American Made vs Foreign manufacture? Front Zip or no? Gore-tex or some other proprietary material? Breathability tests? How many layers? Four season or three? Seam quality? Style points? Warranty policy? Gravel Guards? How trusting are the suspenders? How easy it to pee? Bushwack Durability? Any extra features? As you can see, there are a ton of factors to consider and my head started to swim with the algebraic difficulties of trying to sort it all out. And that was before I even started to look at price point. There are a vast variety of brands out there and some waders out that will set you back the cost a mortgage payment so its important to get the most bang for your buck. Let us not forget that most important function of a pair of waders should be simple: to keep you dry. All the other options should be considered luxury.
LL Bean manufactured a great pair of waders that lasted me almost three years. THREE YEARS! And that isn’t through occasional use--it was three years of beating through brush and briars in over 10 states. It was three years of being mishandled and disrespectfully thrown in the space behind the driver’s seat of my truck. And it was through a number of fishing days that a non-angler would deem obsessive. And while I’m sad to see them go as they were as much of a trusted river buddy as my wife (kidding here. Seriously, I’m kidding) it was time to let these old warriors retire to the rack.
After a fair amount of consideration and internal debate, I chose the Simms G3 guide stocking foot wader. And because I love the sentiment behind it, I chose the camo-clad WQW model that puts $50 back to the Bozeman, MT based Warriors and Quiet Waters Foundation which provides “quality restorative programs, utilizing therapeutic experiences in the serenity of Montana” to those soldiers traumatically injured in Iraq or Afghanistan. (http://warriorsandquietwaters.org)
The Simms G3 Guide WQW have a couple of bells and whistles that make things easier—tippet tender that zips in the bib, webbed daisy chains on either side of the front patch, and hand warmer pockets that are placed where one might expect them to be. All these details seem to be executed well but the real glory of these waders lie in the fit (25 sizes available as well as a custom fit should you choose to go that route.) Gone are the days of wearing a tube style wader that always felt like a bucket to me; Simms got it right on these waders as they fit like a tailored pair of pants and all the extra fabric that used to cause river drag are gone as well. This simple feature allows for an easier river crossing or less energy expended when working faster water.
Simms built these waders with three layers of gore-tex in the legs and a lighter bib that will assure a good three-season level of comfort and four when supplemented with the right base layers. Another nice thing about these, and this is an underrated quality in my opinion, is the ease in which one can relieve oneself. Let’s not be disingenuous about it—we all have to do it. The suspender straps are stretchy enough that one can easily just scrunch or pull down the bib to gain enough “clearance”. The suspender straps easily slip around the waist when converting to a warmer day.
The gravel guards are beefy, so is the wading belt, and these details stand as a true indication that Simms has put some time, thought, and energy into making a great pair of waders. It’s nice to see an American Company making a true American product and doing it well.
***I will update this review in 6 month increments and tell you how things are going. A Special shout out goes to George Anderson’s Yellowstone Angler shop for the most comprehensive wader comparison and review that I’ve read. (http://www.yellowstoneangler.com/gear-review/2013-wader-shootout-best-waders-simms-g4-simms-g3-patagonia-rio-gallegos-orvis-silver-sonic-dan-bailey-guide-ultra-redington-aquaz-cabelas-bootfoots)
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***Laurel River in North Carolina
There’s something about the water and the way it flows around your legs, or the slipperiness of the mud on the slope around it. It’s the smell of the morning mist where a river can create its own fog or the constant trickle or flow that you hear in the night but can’t see. Ponds and lakes aren’t my favorites; it takes the vitality of moving water and only a river can give me what I really want.
It can be a small channel, an undercut riverbank, or a creek fed by run-off but the river contains a grace through association and mystery. The water of a moving river, even a slow one, has a thousand color and shapes but must adhere to defined and longstanding laws of nature-- A river seems to find its own level, inherent to the natural lie of the topography that contains it, and even the smallest creek mimics the natural movements of a larger river; when observed closely one can see that a twig or leaf dropped into the current follows the same laws as the larger bodies of water. The twig will follow the faster channel or flow and, when challenged with a pebble or obstruction, will follow the eddy or swirl around --and such observations might be a benefit to the angler or perhaps a laymen philosopher. These actions of the twig and the energy of the small stream are conveyed on much larger terms when the rivers grow to size. The smaller streams and tributaries, of course, feed the energy of the larger river and event the smallest event is replicated on a larger scale—not unlike how our earliest notions obtained in childhood seem to maintain a connection to our present and future adult manifestations.
It is this unity that appears in natural patterns that entrances me and I feel better, and larger, as a person for the understanding of what might be profound truths that surpass what might be considered mundane. My place in this world seems to be confirmed by my time spent on the water; the understanding of this unity in nature is hardly recognition of something that might prove useful to the gathering of practical knowledge but it seems to confer a confirmation that my body and spirit are truly palpable and heartfelt.
I’ve always told people that I consider myself similar to a round rock in a river—one can take it out or throw it as far as your arm can throw it--and the river simply doesn’t care. It just keeps doing what it’s going to do but it is the mystery and association of the premise that life (and the river) proves to be larger and more complicated than to simply be controlled.
Many days of my youth were spent haphazardly traipsing from one knob to another, errantly avoiding school and actively seeking outdoor adventures that only a couple of kids could find—caves, snakes, swimming, etc.… We were unsupervised on these excursions and the rolling hills held mystery for me and I was a redneck Hardy boy who loved finding old barns or foundations where structures once stood, left over farm equipment, and believing the day dream that I grew up 150 years before I really did.
More often than not, I came home with scratches and sprains that couldn’t be explained to the supervising adults. I like to believe that those old forgotten memories are still somewhere inside me and they are viable still today as collected life experiences simply reduced to muscle memory and old injuries.
It was during these halcyon days of my childhood spent in Kentucky’s summer haze that I learned to shoot, how to hold a rod, and how to dodge snakes. Those creeks welcomed me like an old friend and I started to learn their nuances and secrets simply by familiarity and frequency; They could often times be fickle and turn dangerous when I wasn’t paying attention and just like those old injuries keep ghosting in my life, those lessons learned in nature are seemingly on-going. One still has to respect the natural forces around us.
My grandfather had a permanently crooked finger from a childhood copperhead snakebite so I’ve always tried to be respectful of the snake. In my current state of maturity, and I stay away from the phrase “adult” because it reeks of responsibility and overrated ideals, I’ve learned that not all snakes are in the woods; Some snakes walk on two feet and don’t live in the stacked stone fencerows. And maybe that’s why I have always found the pleasure and solitude of fishing a river or small stream to be pleasing to my soul.
Those creeks and rivers are still my friends, even when I am now traipsing around the world and searching out new waters, and rarely have I met a river that wasn’t immediately recognizable to me. Three or four hours can pass by without me even looking up when I’m standing in them and have a fly rod in hand. Time doesn’t have an accurate measure when the water is flowing around my ankle or hip and the promise of a shadow flashing across the bedrock of the river catches my eye.
I would lose myself back in those creeks and woods of my childhood just as easy as these modern times, but my wanderlust is the same--but it is the water that reminds me to be a little bit more human these days.
***William Fork in Colorado
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Sometimes my life can be funny. Sometimes my life can be tragic. My professional life often entails the absurd. Shit, sometimes my personal life reads like a Charles Bukowski novel but perhaps not as much as it used to. I can thank my wife for her calming nature and enduring patience for the positive change to my personally induced chaos and those Henry Chinaski moments have become less.
I was rough and tumble through the days of my youth, brash to the point of being acerbic. Rash and ready for something other than my small town upbringing, my life smelled like spent shotgun shells and bourbon, and probably looked like a bar fight broken nose to outsiders. The irony lies in the fact that I spent my entire formative years desperately seeking something other than those hills and hollers where I grew up—and now I know that everything I needed was right there.
I used to travel for pleasure but now my professional capacity requires that I’m on the road, and away from the domestic bliss and tranquility that our little house contains, at least 200 days a year; I’ve ridden in all manners of transportation: Tuck-Tucks, rickshaws, horseback, llamas, and on foot. I’ve been on privately chartered planes that picked me up on the east coast and delivered me to a completely different climate 3,000 miles away from my point of origination, luxury motor coaches with soft leather couches and halogen lighting, 15 person passenger vans driven by aimless, wandering, and overly-prone-to-conversation runners. French Cargo vans with bleu-collared philosophers.
“Ahhhhh, Josef, there izzz always one asshole between me and happiness.”, the French truck driver said to me one day while we were stuck in traffic. His off-the-cuff remark has stuck with me and I love telling the story with my terrible fake French accent but his timely spoken-out-loud inner monologue resonated mightily with this country boy.
My past travel experiences certainly prepared me for it; to be a good traveler one must be mentally and physically prepared for the unexpected and have the ability to roll with the changes that might befall the unsuspecting. And this skill of adapting to changing circumstances has also manifested itself in my obsession/lifestyle of fly-fishing.
Travel has been a double edged sword for me; there have been many days that I’ve been on a 24-36 hour slogs of airports, bus rides, and 3 hour commutes that were spent working the throttle as fast as I could go (sometimes not legally) to get home. But, through it all, It has afforded me the chance to fish some out of the way places and a whole new world of people and fishing techniques have opened up.
The small streams of the mountains of East Tennessee and western North Carolina contain the attraction of both the history of my bloodline and the technical aspirations and lessons of how to fish a small creek with overhanging tree limbs and small pocket water. It was in North Carolina that I first picked up a fly rod and found the immediate reward of a more thoughtful way to fish and perhaps, on a larger scale, even how to live in a better manner. That might be a grandiose statement but I think you probably get it as you are reading this on a fly rod maker’s website. Yup, you probably get it.
The storied rivers of Montana hold the hope and idea of gentlemanly fishing for me, and the proud state showed me the beauty and reward of slipping a hatch-matched dry fly into the seam can result in bringing a healthy and native brown or rainbow to hand.
The varied terrain of Colorado, Idaho, Vermont, and New Hampshire each have their own memories and lessons for me and they are ones that still hold their value as I fish my way across the states. Each state taught me the importance of understanding the diet of Trout and the varying circumstances in which they eat; the inherent entomology of the area changed with each new stream or river, and the process to better understand the biology behind the changes inspired me to learn more—and eventually, learn to tie the flies that resembled those bugs.
The Canadian provinces of British Columbia and Alberta offered me lessons in patience and fishing micro sized dry flies and steak size hoppers down one-foot wide channels of gin clear mountain run off.
A week spent fishing the salt flats of the Yucatan Peninsula taught me that I don’t know crap about the technique used for the double haul. That time spent also showed me that my eyes, so use to mountain streams, seams, and reading meandering rivers, had no idea how to see permit or bonefish 200 feet away.
This is a terrible example of how to adapt to changing circumstances as they relate to fishing because I haven’t been able to truly find a level of success that eases my frustration.
Kentucky has shown me the benefits of fishing small streams for smallmouth bass on the fly and has challenged me to dial in my fly tying and streamer technique. As a result, I think my tying has become better and more finished and, in some regard, so have I. Maybe I’m just getting older and can’t quite handle the long, drunken nights and fishing with a hangover.
So, in some fashion or by the grace of some empowering natural spirit, the act of fly fishing and it’s many swirling eddies of intricacy have diminished the self destructing young man of my youth. The simple act of thoughtful and mindful fly-fishing has had a substantial impact, the irony lies in the fact that I’ve managed to weed out the clutter of my absurd life experiences to find a simpler truth. The rougher edges of my youthful exuberance have diminished or, at least, softened with time and perhaps the rush of the rivers and creeks I’ve explored have somewhat polished my sharper edges, not unlike a river rock that has rolled around enough to round out.
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Sometimes, it’s the small things that matter. My wife keeps a cup of spoons on the kitchen counter. It sits next to the coffee pot, under the spice cabinet, and right next to a glazed pottery piece that holds all the most-utilized utensils such as spatulas, wire whisks, and tongs. The spoons don’t live in the silverware drawer like all the other mundane kitchen paraphernalia. Nope, the spoons live where we can easily reach them.
And the idea of it is simply brilliant. A working kitchen needs spoons right? They might be the most used item in our kitchen—they stir coffee, they measure a quick teaspoon for recipes, they stir simmering pots, etc… A spoon is the unsung hero of the kitchen, which is, by the way, the room in our house that sees the most use. Most serious conversations happen in the kitchen, it’s where people usually gather when family or friends come over, and it’s where we share our love of food. Food is a serious matter in our family. And so is fishing.
About two years ago, I caught the fly tying bug and my first attempts were just terrible. They produced ugly and inefficient flies that never caught anything. Fortunately, and just like my cooking, I got better at making recipes that caught fish and tasted better.
There’s a couple flies that I consider my “spoon” in my fly box; they are the ones that came together with some simple elegance, tasted pretty good to the smallmouth that I found myself targeting this past fall, and are the first thing I reach for when I hit the Kentucky streams and creeks I’ve been fishing.
The first was a simple marabou streamer tied in olive, first on a size 12 or 14 hook and I tied in a hot spot of died orange calf tail near the hook. It proved to be an enticing morsel when thrown around structure like a submerged log or rock line, or danced across a deeper bucket. Originally inspired by our very own JP Ross, from his book Adirondack Flies, Vol. 1, Hot Cone Olive Muddler Minnow, I’ve since dialed in his recipe and transformed it a bit for optimum success for my own warm water streams.
Here’s my recipe for the olive and orange streamer.
Hook: Umpqua model U301 or U302, size 8 or 10 for the larger streamers
Or a Daichi style 1710 (wet/nymph hooks) size 14 for a bit smaller, but still effective, streamer.
Body: Olive Marabou (downy parts removed or trimmed)
Head: dyed orange calf tail (MFR unknown) tied in just behind the hook and extending about 1/3 length of the streamer.
My second pattern that I was able to dial in this fall might have been my most successful smallmouth streamer and it’s what I suggest as the first fly to be tied on (when asked). It’s a streamer/soft hackle hybrid and has put the biggest fish to hand over the last couple of months.
Hook: Umpqua model U301 or U302, size 8 or 10 for the larger streamers
Body: Whiting Farms Bird Fur (dyed Heron Grey).
Head: Wapsi barred mallard flank dyed fluorescent orange)
I’ve since learned to tie in about 12-15 lead wire wraps over the thread base—this gets the streamer down quicker and coupled with the technique of stripping it in 3-6” strips , it has proven to be quite effective. Perhaps the orange mallard hackle gets their attention but the properties of the bird fur trailer are quite active, giving it the sense of a small baitfish.
As you can see I finished both a larger amount of thread wrap to form the head and coated them with a Loon Clear Coat finish which have given them some durability in the water.
The previous two flies were tied and designed to be used on a 3 weight fiberglass rod. They aren’t too heavy and could be utilized by a four or five weight rod without much complaint. I might suggest that you look into purchasing an indescribably enjoyable 3 wt glass rod from this website. The presentations can be as delicate or plodding as one wishes and the 7’ length allows me to fish under the canopy of overreaching trees and other technical difficulties. It is a simple joy to cast as it becomes a natural extension of your arm and offers the sensitivity to land a 12” smallmouth on 5x tippet.
I asked my wife about the inspiration for her cup of spoons last night and she thought it a very odd question. But then again, I'm a pretty odd guy. She had no idea where or when the idea hit her but she's been doing it a long time. Who knows where inspiration hits or why but I think that's important to act on those epiphanies. Every fly tier and fisherman relies on a few go-to patterns and every kitchen cook or chef have their tricks, too. For what it's worth, these are mine
***thank you to Dean Myers,JP Ross, and Pat Dorsey for the inspiration and conversation to make these better (and functional) flies!
My Kentucky, outside of the major urban centers, has an endearing method of communication and it’s the manner of the every-man that I have grown up with. It’s not uncommon to have discussions leaning over the bed of someone else’s truck and it’s a sure sign of comfort and confidence when a relative stranger does the “Kentucky Lean”; Our patter might be tough to understand from someone who hasn’t grown up with it, as the accent might be tough to distinguish but a shuffle of the boot, the tilt of a ball cap, or the glancing looks are not. There is a particular way of communicating around here and everyone from millionaire farmers to factory workers and everyone who should fall in the middle, use it.
But the most enduring conversation that I’ve had in my 46 years on this earth, has been within, and with, the woods of Kentucky and it has happened as naturally as the waters of the streams, creeks, and rivers flow and ebb, finding their own path across the landscape.
The sycamores and I have struck an easy friendship and the conversation has been long between us, not only on this particular hunt but I've been drawn to them since I was young. They were the first tree I learned to identify and stood as easy landmarks when learning to read the landscape due to their towering heights, winter bone coloration, and affinity for water. Birch and cedar trees seem to be friendly to me as well but the honey locust, switch grass, and briars that dot my native landscape are either indifferent to me or outright hostile. The delicate willow tree that graced my childhood creek banks is long gone and so is the chestnut, which provided both nutrition and income to the generations of past Kentuckians. In my lifetime, the hemlock might disappear and with it goes the look of some of the eastern cliff lines and ridge tops that probably looked similar to the pioneers that came through these parts over 250 years ago.
I've had good conversation with all those trees and they quietly give me comfort and a sense of reliability; they are always there and willing to show me things if I’m patient enough, or open enough, to hear what they have to say. White, red, and Black Oak trees offer their stoic voices and canopies to the conversation by their solid trunks and large branching canopies that add an anchor to the woods; their voice is quiet and unassuming for most of the year but, in the fall, when their acorns drop, their voice to the parley of the woods becomes larger as the nuts hit the floor, and they become a busy coffee shop for animals. The area below an Oak becomes lively as turkey, squirrel and deer come to partake of its bounty. The older Oaks stand tall at an easy 80’ height but can reach over 100’ over the forest floor and prefer to live in the sunnier locations; their color in the fall is subdued compared to the added flash and flame of the red maples or the golden color of the hickories.
And before you think to yourself that I might be crazy in that I think I can talk to trees, I would submit to you that it’s rather the premise that if one is able to subdue his own need to verbalize and simply sit in the woods without the construct of expectations and through the use of observation, that the land has it owns methods of communicating.
Shagbark hickories give the appearance of the old man out there as the bark curls away from the tree in foot long plates giving it the appearance of a rugged, bearded and skinny octogenarian and it also provides an edible nut that has been used by many generations of indigenous populations as a staple of their diet. The shagbark wood was found to be useful to many as the heavy and tough but flexible and shock-resistant properties lent themselves to tool handles, furniture, and flooring. Their lower branches seem to swoop as if to dust the forest floor but their upper branches tend to ascend, as if reaching for light or knowledge. On the grayest of days, their appearance is grumpy and foreboding, and they change shape in the shadows of dawn or dusk.
Paw-paws and Persimmon trees are the comedians of the Kentucky woods—the paw-paws bulbous fruit reminds me to laugh as I liken it to an engorged clown nose and the persimmon fruit is bitter which elicits an ugly and pinched face from even the deer that visit prior to when it ripens and become sweet. Early Kentuckians (and even some nowadays) used the paw-paw fruit for jams and jellies, and the inner bark was used to string fish. The Catalpa tree, with it’s long bean like fruit pods, are known to be indicators of the best fishing, as their hearty and thick walled “bean” will often attract worms. If one finds this tree near a stream or pond, it is a good idea to get a line wet.
Sweet Birch and the Sourwood are the artists of the community; the dark and smooth bark of the Birch contains a natural oil of wintergreen and their stature is often small. The purple, yellow, and red colors of the leaves of the Sourwood in fall help paint my landscape and all three colors can often appear on one tree only to change to change its mind the following year—not unlike an artist who whimsically change their pallet depending upon their mood.
Rhododendrons fill out the shaded hillsides with their low shrub-like nature and waxy and always large and green leaves. And you would probably find the walking through a patch of these tough going as they grow together in groups, intertwined and close together like a group of school children on a field trip. Indiangrass, Little blue-stem, and side-oats grama fill in the unused pastures and cleared meadows of the more rural areas, reclaiming their ground lost to a different and past generation where Kentuckians still lived and worked on a family farm. Their conversations are added chatter and those grasses can give up secrets—deer trails, rabbit holes, and raccoon tracks lend themselves to the discovery of naturally occurring social life of a meadow.
Conversations in the woods change depending on the location and the language used has different accents wherever you should be, the woods of Eastern Kentucky are much different than the woods of the central and western parts of the state—as much as they are differing from the conveyance of the Pacific Northwest, upper New England, or the long stretch of Georgia Pines. But just like the shuffling feet, indirect communication, and particular cadence or accent that I find in many Kentucky conversations, the natural world offers it own.
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I'm seemingly on the worlds longest bow hunt and I'm beginning to wonder why I do these things to my self. Self flagellation is an indescribable cold wind that blows steadily in the face ands finds a micro-hole in the back of your jacket and shoots mist to trickle down your spine, it's the cold induced stiffness and pain in an old mans knees that doesn't leave until a couple of hours in a warm truck, and it's the yearly ritual of a bow hunter.
Is this the punishment that I meter out to myself for the karmic penance of my asshole younger self? Or is it the enjoyment of many hours of singular solitude spent in the grey and bare hardwood stretches of my home state? It would be easier with a rifle but seeing how my family doesn't depend on me as the sole provider of meat on our table and my proclivity for doing things in an older and more traditional style (read: harder) I find myself on this quest. In the woods. With a bow.
The natural world has allowed me glimpses of secluded beauty such as fat red squirrels thundering through the bare branches of an overgrown fencerow hickory, chattering at their ilk as if having a very normal conversation, or an eagle gracefully gliding over and hunting the riparian zone next to the old Salt River. His eyes black and unforgiving as the 3am darkness of this rural and isolated spot, he hunts with the grace and economy of movement that the human race can only emulate. A red tailed hawk swooped in on the old-school deer tail that I hung from a tree and occasionally wiggle to entice the larger game closer and trick them that a doe in estrous is waiting in this copse of trees. I could feel the wind off his wings as he flew in near to the locust tree I had chosen as cover for my disciplining endeavor in cold boredom and that old and fat red squirrel stopped his dance when he saw the shadow, his conversation became quiet again. The hawk, at least, had been fooled long enough to take a closer look at my ruse, unlike the bucks I have been chasing.
The Salt River is just but a few steps away as is the memories of warmer summer days when we would fish it's pools for the not quite as elusive smallmouth bass. The river’s banks show the signs of raging spring runoffs from the past, and the sycamores stand in testament to the ravages of time, sentinels of the river and farmlands’ stories. This is where I have been obsessively spending my time, energy, and efforts, trying to, and as of the present date, unrewardingly futile, bag my first buck by archery.
Deer have come easier in the past but I have stubbornly refused to pick up a modern firearm during this years effort, instead I'm attempting to hunt with grace and style in the manner of those that came before me. Granted, they didn't have a fast and accurate compound bow made of high tech and modern materials, but I think we might have shared the same cold misery.
The mast crop this year in Kentucky is down and, as a result, I have chosen to hunt the edge and corner of a farmers corn field rather than a ridge top of red and white oak. My most recent spot is in a natural funnel and corridor between the white tails bedding area and food plot; The river borders one side, and old fence row of stacked stone and overgrown junk trees provides enough cover to let them move uninhibited from one area to the next. At least, they seem to be moving when I'm not around.
But at what point do I admit defeat and walk away? To accept that my skills aren't what I think they are and that my attention to tracking and deer sign aren't honed enough to bag a deer at close range? Am I deceiving myself that this isn't just an endeavor in dumb luck? Or do I continue stubbornly on, in the same manner in which I live the rest of my life?
I've had the chance for several shots but have chosen to pass for one reason or another. A doe came through at 18 yards on my second day in the stand but I decided to wait and see what else might be around. On day 4, a young crab claw spike appeared at 35 yards but I opted not to draw back. Let him grow into something.
Days 5-18 became a monotonous slog of long sits in the stand as the weather became warm and the herd turned nocturnal and back to their summer patterns. Fresh scrapes and rubs appeared almost daily and I moved my stand twice during this period to take better advantage of travel corridors and changing wind directions. If success in bow hunting is measured by deer in the freezer, then I didn’t meet the challenge but the opportunity to sit in one of God’s green acres and watch the patterns of a Kentucky meadow show themselves piece by piece was more than reward enough. The hectic days of travel, traffic, and job responsibilities were gone, replaced by the singularly soothing sound of a slow moving and meandering river, the chirp of a thousand songbirds, and the occasional visit from a family of raccoons. The disingenuous layers of modern living and the noise associated with them had been pealed back to reveal a truer and clearer world, one uncluttered with the petty personal politics and machinery of man but certainly not without its own sense of subtle chaos-albeit it on a much quieter scale.
On day 19, 2 two-year-old 6&8-point bucks came within range within ten minutes of each other. Unfortunately, due to a head cold and another multiple hour sit, I missed the opportunity to draw on the first one. He was moving quickly and wouldn't stop but I feel confident that had I not been sickly or distracted that he would have been a fair shot. The second provided me with an ethical dilemma as he stopped at 45 yards and just behind some 6' horseweeds that grow prevalently in the area. My 500-grain rig might have punched through the hollow horseweed but the thought of wounding, and not dispatching the buck quickly and responsibly, prevented me from letting the arrow fly. Damn ethics.
It's now day 21 and the high wind speed has prevented me from sitting comfortably in the old sycamore tree on which I chose to hang my stand. Instead, I'm sitting on a pickle bucket in a semi-dry creek bed that sits slightly lower than the field and it provides enough natural grasses and fencerow limbs to break up my silhouette; only my head is able to poke over the berm occasionally to look around. The light of day is falling fast and that somber and heavy lead color Kentucky sky that holds fast in our fall is getting darker; the clouds seem to be pushing the air around me down and closer to the earth and I feel the stillness of oncoming night. This might be the day where everything comes together.
Hope and obstinate perseverance are forced to mix like a bad pair of dance partners in my mind, and I, unwilling to let this test and quest go, remain cold and alone in the woods.
***written in the field
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The back of my truck is a mess. It’s always been that way except for the mucking out every two years or so. And if the measure of a man is his vehicle (I really don’t believe this premise by the way) I might be a mess, too. Actually, that is a confirmed status, let’s not be disingenuous about it.
My truck can carry, and often does, all the gear required for a couple of outdoor interests and disciplines and it wouldn’t be uncommon to find: fly rod tubes and leaky waders, a dog cage and three pairs of boots in the bed (wading, snake, and rubber), spent shotgun shells, a bird vest, deer grunt… The sad part is not that this occurs but how much space it requires as I often to have move a few things around just to get the boy or my wife in the truck with me. My wife has learned to accept my truck and its nuances just as she has learned to accept me. But let’s make it clear that she doesn’t condone the manner in which I keep it.
There are momentos in there, too. They lie within the chaos but I know them when I see them. There is a turkey feather found in a field that will make it to my tying desk eventually, there is a .410 shell in there that my boy shot his first squirrel with, there is an old drop point trout and grouse knife that my father gave me when I was about ten years old and you also might find Delorme maps for about ten different states in there. Unfortunately, they are deep in the clutter of the truck and probably closer to the stale French fry from fast food that was dropped on some road trip a couple years ago.
The years go by quickly but the evidence remains. Tackle from the past carries some sort of cosmic energy that keeps its persuasiveness even thought the material properties have begun to decline. The thought of fishing with that old fly or lure might carry more of the idealism of positive angling hope rather than the premise of actually attracting a fish in the water. It may have become brittle, dry-rotted, or simply off-color (kind of like me now that I think about it) but that old tackle seems to carry the emotional weight of fishing trips or partners of the past. And therein, lies the true kernel of hope and memory.
Theresa’s parents started her fishing career early by weekend long camping trips at a young age; her and her brother were unceremoniously loaded into the car and driven to car camp at many distant and exotic locations around Kentucky and North Carolina. Her folks weren’t too worried about things that might drive modern parents nuts who raise their kids by the dreaded “helicopter syndrome” (ticks, rocky mountain spotted fever, copperhead snakes) and while she ran amok and amidst these things, she learned the simple joy of a line in the water. Those early experiences often define who we are at a very base level and lay the groundwork for who we might become and that is why my truck clutter might be important-even though it does occasionally smell.
A few years ago we came across and old Plano tackle box from the 70’s, it was full of crappie jigs, rooster tails, and mepps style lures that were used by her parents and she could identify both her father’s and mother’s favorite; all of them had degraded over time (except for some of the natural hair mepps) but these old lures were treated like childhood treasures or new-found gold. They ride in the truck now, tucked away in a side pocket, next to an old school hunter’s alcohol stove (tin can, isopropyl alchohol, and a roll of tissue paper) and we occasionally bring them out to look at them. My son knows what they are, and even though we haven’t spoken it out loud, he recognizes the importance of keeping those things around.
There are some things in there that might not resonate with him until later:
* 1.5 pairs of gloves
* 20 + shotgun shells of various gauges (both types: spent & re-loaded)
* road side tool kit
* coil of aircraft cable for the occasional tow or securing of a treestand
* raincoats of various sizes (probably one for each of us)
* grease pencil for metal work
* secret stash of tippet/leaders/flies from past excursions
* dirty or clean socks (not sure which is which at this point)
* multiple archery releases
* chapstick/ half used water bottles/etc…
Perhaps I have just gotten older or maybe I’ve become a hoarder but I know that when traveling in my truck I can pretty much be ready for almost anything that comes down the road and that might be the truest reflection of myself as viewed through my vehicle. There has been more than one occasion that when, traveling in my wife’s rig, I thought to myself, “now, I would have that if we were driving my truck”.
Maybe that’s why my waders are leaky. Maybe that’s why I never seem to have enough shells in the dove field or have forgotten my slump-busting fly on a fishing excursion but, in the end, I love my old truck and the way that it’s kept. It’s dirty but reliable (kind of like me, too).
We fished the North Fork of Elkhorn Creek in Franklin County, Kentucky yesterday afternoon when Theresa found a few hours away the confines of the office. My blues seem to go away when traveling down a road barely big enough for the wheels of my truck; the chink of gravel caught in the tires and the crush of fallen leaves seems to give me a piece of mind that I can’t get anywhere else. Therapy is where you find, I guess, and the rolling hills and cliffs of my home woods are the best I know of. The leaves are almost off the trees now except for the few who are stubbornly holding on in a last blast of defiant color against the coming cold. The bones of winter, sycamore and birches, stand tall and starkly white against the gray afternoon skies that only portend of the cold and freezing rain that will chill the bones in a couple of weeks.
Kentucky has the fourth largest number of counties in the modern United States. They total 120 and follow Texas, Georgia, and Virginia, in that order. This is important to realize when discussing Kentucky history and the routes we took over the last 223 years. I often think of how Kentucky became (or was able to stay) the way that it is when I’m trying to find those calm, isolated spots to hunt/fish. There are so many remnants of those who passed prior to us, shadows of histories that stand next to us, regardless of our awareness, like the towering sycamores and old stone fences that dot my Kentucky landscape.
Kentucky became a state in 1792 but has a history of settlement well prior, the indigenous population (some Shawnee, Cherokee, and a little Choctaw in the western lands) used the land well before the first adventurers came through. I’ve always thought the state presented multiple chances for the outdoorsmen, but it has occurred to me that the original settlers/farmers/indians might have been the ultimate “outdoorsmen”.
The original idea of so many counties was that, in the days of poor roads and horseback travel, a resident could easily make it to the county seat in a day and return to the homestead. The result, unfortunately, is that the county governments became isolated from one another and the resulting provincialism seemed to garner nepotism and dirty politics—another Kentucky standard.
Franklin County, KY lies in the rolling hills and limestone karsts of the Bluegrass region and is home to famed bourbon distilleries, the state capitol, and miles and miles of creeks and various hardwood and coniferous timber. We fished a creek about 8 miles north of the state capitol but far enough way to not smell the stink of state politics and while the creek is a simple afterthought in our modern times, it was important to the development of our state. And if you look closely enough, you can see the clearings and wagon roads of a bygone time.
Kentucky politics have a sordid history of infighting, partisanship, and scandal which include intrigue, cold blooded murder, and nihilistic corruption which have kept roads poorly maintained (even into the era of 1930's-1950's) and a deplorable school system. It is unfortunate that my home and favorite state has done little to shake the terrible backwoods reputation that it received soon after induction as a state.
But there are isolated, rural, and stunningly beautiful places that can be reached within minutes of major metropolitan inhabitation. And that keeps me coming back. It’s comfortable to me as is the familiar cadence of Kentucky speech and conversation. Those syllables, perhaps indecipherable to an outsider, are part of my spirit and cell structure.
I've roamed the hills and hollers of this state since I was old enough to walk and have not found a place that has called to me as compellingly as my home woods--and I've traveled a fair amount.
We fished Elkhorn Creek on this day (which has a huge amount of history associated with it) amongst century old sycamores that literally towered above us, standing tall and quiet as sentinels of time, patience, and the ever changing face of our simple fishing creek.
What’s fishing to you?
I’ve had the opportunity to fish the new Beaver Meadow Glass from JP Ross in his 7’ 3 wt for over 3 months now and I can concisely and accurately describe the rod as excellent. The last two months have seen a real work out as I have fished it almost every day in the streams, creeks, and rivers of Central Kentucky for smallmouth bass. It’s been fished daily so I have a pretty good idea of what the rod can do and can’t; simply put it’s the nicest rod I have ever fished.
The mechanics of the 3 wt Beaver Meadow Glass are strong and it has provided me with hours of fun (and successful) fishing. It casts like a dream, even when loaded with a 5 weight line and still offers an outstanding level of sensitivity. The response of the rod might be considered a medium progressive and it allowed me to both fish the delicate presentations of top water flies and the quicker strip-method of soft hackle and streamers. Surprisingly the rod allowed me to tell the difference between bumping a rock, hooking a leaf, or feeling the small tug of the bass as they took the fly. The length of the rod certainly allowed me to fish more some of the more technical water of my home state—overhanging tree branches, still forest pools, and specifically targeted structure proved to be no problem as the rod quickly became an extension of the arm and aptly delivered the casts with the classic elegance that a glass rod is known for.
The rod loads the line quick and exacting presentations were quickly attained which was a huge bonus as I found myself having to stalk spooky fish in summer pool depths. Surprisingly, the 3 wt Beaver Meadow Glass handled both tackle and fish that perhaps it shouldn’t have as the rod successfully brought to hand many 9-12” small mouth that gave the rod a serious bend—but the sensitivity of the rod allowed me to land these fish on 4-5x tippet (not usual for the species).
The aesthetics of the rod contain a simple elegance as the antique white color seemed to pick up the dominant color of the area being fished. The antique white reflects and absorbs the color of the water or the trees around it which proved to be effective camouflage when on the hunt! My rod came as a complete package which gave me more time to fish rather than finish but the details of the build are simply amazing. The thread wraps are clean and have stood up to the beating I have put on it over the last couple months, JP’s choice of stripping guide size and layout supplements the natural grace of the glass action and the cork handle and reel seat are just simply elegantly crafted.
I’m hard on my gear. Probably not as bad as I was a few years ago but I look for function and style in my tackle these days. Not only is this a workhorse but it is a beautifully crafted rod that anybody would be glad to handle; and that might be the true measure of a craftsman and his work: one might be able to build a classic piece but have it perform day in and out?
JP Ross has figured out how to make both function and style live together.
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My wife sarcastically calls me, “Mr. Chipper” which is probably more accurate than I like to admit, but I just shrug, grunt, and go on; I hope that I’m not going to end up crusty or curmudgeonly. Whoever said “why would I join a club that would have me as a member?”, called it pretty spot on. Imagine a bunch of guys that sit around on stools and grunt acknowledgement at each other? The Rod and Rifle club is pretty inclusive and membership requirements and guidelines are pretty ambiguous; the parameters for joining are the basic appreciation of the hunt with rifle and rod and the ability to have some pretty basic conversations about it. That being said, in my pre-curmudgeon condition, it consistently remains a surprise when I meet someone who I connect with who appreciates similar things.
This modern band of anglers are a peculiar bunch of characters, and the diversity of personalities is sometimes astonishing but the premise of fly fishing binds together a myriad of people and personal styles, and my travels have allowed me to meet some outstanding people. A real community exists outside the boundaries of the storefront but you’d never know it until you go stand in a field/river, travel a country road, or talk to a man on a tractor.
There’s a fellow in Montana who I’ve gotten to know. I’ve fished with him a couple of times and his laid back, articulate, and funny nature are simply a pleasure to be around. And Montana is still the only state where I had a business meeting with a rod in hand.
There’s a guy in Colorado who has 30+ years on the rivers of that state as a guide, has authored several books on strategies and flies, and is passing his passion down to his son, which is inspirational.
There’s a dude in New York State who has been making fly rods for 20 years, and he embodies everything that’s right about fly fishing and rod making. Not only is he a good guy but he works diligently to get even the smallest detail correct when building a rod that will fish like a Ferrari holds the road AND he is as proud of his part of the country as I am of my home state, which I find really appealing as you truly get to know a region when seen through the eyes of someone who loves it.
There’s a gentleman in Pennsylvania who runs a fly-tying supply and storefront for tiers on the web who consistently gives me great constructive feedback on the flies that I tie. That input makes me a better and more effective tier and fisherman because of it.
I know a guy in Calgary, Alberta, Canada that fishes as many days as he can get in a stream. All over the world.
There is a Kid in western North Carolina that has competed in the world fly fishing championships in Ireland and won at the age of 17. Hell of a fly fisher and seemingly has his priorities right! Wouldn’t it have been great to have been that focused at 17?
There’s a particular country music star that I’ve fished with and, even though he is probably a millionaire, he can’t seemingly afford t-shirts that have sleeves. He is about as down home as a biscuit and it’s great fun to watch him weave macramé with a fly rod. (disclosure: the guy really does catch fish and he’s as much as a die hard outdoorsman as I’ve come across)
There is a small fly shop/coffee stop on the banks of the Hiwassee River in southeast Tennessee that caters to the few who seek out this part of the country, and serves up fresh coffee and a biscuit, a few flies, and simple pleasant conversation Dress code is Carhartt-comfortable and there are no pretentions.
We’ve been fortunate to travel to fish all over this country and the rivers we’ve waded/drifted are too many to even list but the consistent portion of engaging in this activity (other than the fish, which hasn’t always been that consistent) is the general quality of the people we’ve met. Sure, there are miscreants everywhere, and our time abroad have allowed us to confirm this tidbit as well, but we have met some seriously solid people. And the relationships continue to endure over time!
Perhaps I will be that old fellow in the bucket hat that you see on the river all the time but never really have a conversation with. She also told me the other day, “Don’t talk shit about my casting.”, when I tried to give her some constructive criticism but I don’t think this has anything to do with me being abrasive, curmudgeonly, or offering unwanted assistance. She ended up catching the biggest fish of the day so it’s all a moot point.
There are people all over the world who engage in varying levels with this hobby/lifestyle called fly fishing. I would wager, though, that if you took a minute to get to know somebody that you might be surprised on how many things you have in common. Just be careful about approaching my wife; she can get really competitive on the water.
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There’s a moment of stillness that I try to maintain before I ever step foot into a river or creek. I hold it and try to slow down my heart enough to make sure I feel it. It is a moment of reverence and contemplation; intellectually, it is a quick span of time that I use to observe what might or might not be happening (bugs, current, etc…) but it’s actually more of a moment that I remind myself to slow down and take solace in the fact that I have a chance to block out the noise of the constructs that the modern world maintain on me.
I didn’t grow up with a fly rod in hand nor was I born to do it but the lessons of fly fishing that loom larger than life still educate me when I slow down enough to think about it. A successful cast with a fly rod takes understanding of the physics involved-loading the rod, feeling the flex, understanding the loop, awareness of the back cast, etc but once you’ve done it enough muscle memory takes over and the next phase takes precedence—where to put it? Where are the fish? What fly are you using and what’s the strategy behind it?
The act of slowing down was never my forte’. Even as a young man, I worked constantly and as hard and fast as I could go. Work harder and faster, climb as hard as my body could take it and suffer through the injuries as indifferent inconveniences rather than understand that I did it to myself. Those lessons are harder to learn when vision is clouded by brashness and youthful exuberance, but in order to succeed as a fly fisherman and become proficient at it, one has to learn to simply slow down. The cast was always rushed and, as a result, it was inefficient and inaccurate. And this also became a parable for my life—too hectic, too crazy, inefficient, and inaccurate.
The Art of the Cast is zen in nature, inherently beautiful when completed well but laughable in it’s failure. And that’s before the fly ever hits the water. There are traps that one can fall into if you simply fall in love the action of the cast; too much and the fly is never in the water enough to catch a fish (which might be argued for/against that it is the goal of the exercise called fly fishing) so the cast becomes a comedic performance in the tragic comedy of life.
Consider the Art of the Cast to reflect the learning processes of a young age, or the rites of passage that we all must attend to. But once we are older, or have gained enough life experience, we must put those experiences to use—and then the fly hits the water. How do you use it? How best to fish that nymph, streamer, or dry fly? Dead drift, twitch, or use a high stick technique? The possibilities are endless and reflect the myriad of paths or choices that we make in life.
Fly fishing is truly a series of riddles that have to be learned to be solved and it was only when I slowed down enough to pay attention that the clouds parted and the path became a little less rocky. JP once told me, and I can appreciate the sentiment, “ These are all things that can not be riddled or solved with an algorithm. They are an emotion and solution that only the angler can ponder. And often chooses not to solve, but rather just be a part of.” His motto of “simply fish” contains the same wisdom but delivered in a concise and succinct declaration, this is the embodiment of a simple truth that is often lost in the noise of modern living.
In those moments of stillness grow seeds of contemplation and the small grassy meadows of calm that are found interspersed between our highways of fast and daily living, are further enriched and, in turn, grow into fields and forests of serenity and fulfillment. But one has to slow down enough to watch for them, and know when to pull over and walk for a while.
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Louis Cahill, of Gink and Gasoline (www.ginkandgasoline.com) wrote the following:
"Honestly, if it wasn’t my job I don’t think I’d photograph my fish at all. I think I have posed for photos with fish twice in the last year and one of those times was just for my buddy who wanted to take the pictures. When I think back about great fishing trips I’ve taken, when I find myself smiling at a fond memory, it’s almost never the fish I’m thinking of. It’s the people I fish with. ... I like to think that when I’m finally too old to wade into the river, I’ll look back on my days as an angler and judge my success, not by the size of the fish I caught, but by the friends I made and the size of their hearts."
I can relate to this heartfelt statement as I see a ton of pictures of fish that I will never catch, out of exotic locations I will never be able to visit. Perhaps that is what social media excels at; the captured appreciation of a moment but L. Cahill's intention strikes true and accurate as well. Do people take an online persona so as to be determined an expert? Is it ego driven? What drives a person to self promote—does even the simple act of fishing have to become narcissistic?
A quick thunderstorm popped up the other day while I was out standing in a local stretch of water and a hasty exit from the creek was in order as it is known to rise quickly and violently, the physical evidence of previous high water was easy to see as 10’ tall snags were at every bend. As I made my way back to the truck through a maze of briars, thistles, and barbed wire fences (thrashed my waders, too) I came across an older fellow who had just started the day's fishing. Of course, a conversation was in order and we had a pleasant talk under a towering sycamore that lasted longer than the passing thunderstorm. What the hell, we were both in waders, eh?
Tips, tricks, and creek reports were shared as well as his memories of fishing the creek over the last 50 years. It was nice to meet someone completely engrossed in a shared endeavor and his tips have worked out for me but the conversation also gave me insight to what truly is a common experience amongst those who hunt/fish but it also a human experience: community and the sense of something larger than one’s self.
I rarely pull out pictures of the "big one"; instead, I would rather show a picture of the creeks/rivers I have fished. Success is not defined by the size of the fish but rather the shared experience of being able to solve the riddle. I'm perfectly content on pulling in the little ones and trying to do it on the flies I’ve tied. Of course, I will always try for the biggest and baddest but most days it's just pleasant to be out with friends/family. Those experiences, like the patches on my old waders, are familiar and friendly; they are comforting and continuing. The pictures are just memories for me and not trophies to be presented.
Thank the lord, though, that my wife has been around when I did pull in a couple of the big ones. or she would never believe me.
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A few years ago my fishing partner and I loaded up the truck with the old blue canoe and hauled ourselves 16 hours northeast of our present position in which we reside to another idyllic (ie.rural/uninhabited) spot in northern new Hampshire. We kind of seek those things out you know.
The old canoe has it own story as we bought it ten years ago and it was, back then, a project (or piece of crap as my partner will say) as it had been a rental canoe that had been ungainly dropped off the trailer resulting in insults and injuries to the old boat. I’m sure that it had given many a day where it allowed itself to be treated poorly at the drunken and inexperienced hands that guided it down the Licking River in KY. The injuries included broken gunwales and bough and the insults to the class of the 17’ wide and “built like a tank” canoe were probably too many to mention and too crass to bring up now. We bought it cheap and with a little creative use of diamond plate, it continues to serve us well. The plain and simple fact is that it’s ugly but serviceable and has kept us on the right side of the water for years. I’m talking about the boat—not my wife although she has done her fair share to keep me above the water during our relationship.
The intent was to rendezvous with some family in New England and take a few days of fishing the upper Connecticut River near the border of Canada, a not quite remote area but certainly not over populated. They call it the Northeast Kingdom and after having walked, canoed, and fished the area I can certainly see why they call it that. Over the years I have picked up a few things about fishing and if I were to collect them in one place they would appear as tattered bits of information written on napkins, maps, and errant pieces of paper—very similar and a smart indication of how my brain works.
The information acquired would need a full time person in position of responsibility to maintain the “library” of collected life and stream experience. My wife regularly begs off this responsibility but the piecemeal assembly might include a few things about streams, rivers, ponds, and potholes as they relate to fly-fishing. But the more I learn about the craft, the more I understand that I don’t really know anything. Casting is always an ongoing education of trees and hooks and lost flies but muscle memory keeps me going. Starting to tie my own flies, I quickly realized that I have a sincere lack of understanding of entomology and while I could reproduce a pale morning dun from someone else’s recipe book, I had no true understanding of what the dun was or how/where it popped up on a river and it has been a long and arduous (but fun as hell) process to educate myself on the insect world. Fly-fishing is an ever-expanding universe of information that has to be catalogued and attended to so that one can be even considered a competent fly fisherman.
I can stand and stare at the water like a true professional though and I give off the fairly bullshit air of competency when I grandly pronounce “ohhhh, they’re in there” and look good doing it. But I think the old sweat stained baseball cap, beat up fishing vest, and multitude of wrinkles around my eyes do more for my credibility than any actual ability. It would be very similar to how Gary Cooper looked in an old western. At least that's how I like to think of it but in my movie moment there are no cowboys or dashing good looks. Alas, my fishing is nothing like the movies.
My movie moment might be summed up by the scene of movie hooking up a trout on the White River of Vermont in a pool above a series of rushing water and slick river rock and promptly losing my footing. I lost my composure soon after.
Yes, I went swimming.
Full on swimming with a fish on.
Picture a man with water in his waders going down a class II rapid trying to establish footing while keeping an arm and rod out of the water. Picture the beautiful scenery of Montana in the movie A River Runs Through It and the heroic scene where he rides the river for an inexplicable amount of time and distance. That was not I. Fill in the reality of a giraffe trying to walk for the first time: awkward, ungainly, and simply not elegant.
I ended up losing the fish and walking the mile back to the cabin wet, cold, and sheepishly wondering if anyone had been watching from the bank.
We fished for a days and fed ourselves from the singular but well stocked gas station and had the occasion to catch a couple. One was a native wild brown at the bottom of a steep ravine and a pocket of water and this fish remains still today of one that I’m proudest of. Size didn’t matter that day but the manner in which it came did. I felt some instinctual pull toward that spot and demonstrated at least enough of the minimum technical skill to land that fish.
The gas station gave us enough larder that supported our camp (beer, hot dogs, etc.…) but as the days of holiday waned and I had to be back to the rigors of my existence (and the responsibilities that pay for my ability to fly fish so often) I was getting hungry enough to consider eating one of the trout we worship, chase, and respect.
My fishing partner and I were fishing a part as we usually do—I remember that she was fishing a nice and deep pool next to a train trestle, when I decided to go up the river. There were a few people milling about the river that day and a few of them were fishermen. Keep in mind that this is northern New Hampshire and the ratio of fishermen to river was low. It’s a pretty rural place.
I must have walked about half a mile up the creek and found no-one on a calf deep stretch of river that had a nice river rock base and deep channels undercutting trees and fast moving water along the bank. Looking into my box I decided on an old tried and true new England fly (the Gray Ghost) which I had picked up from a fellow that ran a garage outside of his house somewhere in the north woods. The garage was filled with expertly tied flies at a pleasing price and moose sheds. We bought a few flies that day and the gray ghost was one of them. We should have picked up a moose shed, too just because you never know when you might need a quality shed.
The Gray Ghost was successful that day as I fished a 1’ wide pool behind a river channel that ran about a foot or two deep and was right next to the bank. The rod twitched as I drifted that wet fly down the stream bank and that beautiful rainbow was holding in a small pool behind a rock. He was just waiting for his dinner to float through. There was that telltale bump that every fisherman waits for and the hopeful set seemed to work—fish on! A furious ten-minute battle ensued as the fish ran time after time and the longer it took me to land it, the further my desperation and intent to bring this fish to net grew.
Success was finally realized—it wasn’t the fish that got away that day and I quietly worked my way down the river to meet my partner as the evening was drawing to a close. The train trestle proved sturdy enough for the weight of accomplishment that I carried and approached her from the height that allowed my observation. I’m sure she could have seen the aura and glow of her hunter/gatherer husband from a hundred yards away. But she didn’t let on.
“Oh, there you are”, she said quietly as not to disrupt her casting motion or interrupt her attention to the task at hand.
She Cast again. .
“Hey”, I said bursting with pride and success. I kept my eyes low and on the pool she was casting at and my voice deceptively calm.
“Any luck?” she asked?
Cast.
She’s not a woman of many words, Wait. I take that back as she has plenty of words when the time suits her.
“Oh, I had a bite or two”, I mumbled. Inside I was screaming, “Just wait until you see what I have in the pack!”
“I’m getting hungry” she replied quietly. Cast.
“Let me throw another couple”, she said. Cast.
So I sat and waited by the truck with the old blue canoe and let her finish out that hole. Later that night we ate that fish fried in cornbread and if memory serves me well, the fish wouldn’t even fit in the 18” cast iron frying pan that was part of our camping kitchen. I’ve told that story dozens of time over the last few years ago with pride at my displayed skill and intuition. The fish tasted great and we had a beautiful evening drinking bourbon and a “free” dinner (licenses, tackle, travel expenses not included in this estimation of “free”). And as it usually turns out, she had caught a couple lunkers in that clear Connecticut River pool and didn’t even mention it until later in the bourbon.
About a year ago, as I was telling the story again to a very appreciative and rapt audience she quietly put an aside to the conversation, “You know, Joseph, that frying pan is really only about 14” and the fish didn’t even fit inside of it.”
So, just like the story of that old blue canoe, those ragged and torn notes, and my fly-fishing career, I was handed the even and obvious truth quietly and without rancor in a simple statement. It’s a lot like fly-fishing if you pay attention.
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I fish with the same group of guys every year, but I am always will to bring new people, serious anglers, into our group for a day or a couple of days. I fish two methods now, High Stick and Spey, which I just started about 6 years ago. I am not as proficient as I would like with my two handed spey rod, but really enjoy the style of fishing and the action that it provides. When new anglers join my group, I teach the High Stick Method and we use very little weight. It is my belief that the only weight you need is to get the fly into the strike zone, no more nor less, and that weight is going to change based on where you are fishing and the level of the water.
Let's talk about the Salmon River for a bit. The river is 13 miles long from the Upper Fly Zone to the Mouth. There are so many areas to fish and many public access sites. Do not be afraid to park your car and walk. Due to the heavy foot traffic there is an extensive trail system on both sides, north and south, of the river. The first two and a half miles of the river is owned and operated by the Barkley Family. It is known as the Douglaston Salmon Run (DSR). This is private land and there is a fee to park and fish this land. Currently the fee for 2009 is $30 per angler per day. There are many discussions on many fishing websites or forums regarding this area for fishing and the politics that surround it; I will not get into that, all I will say is that I have fished that area for many years and there are many different types of water to fish. You can find these types of water throughout the Salmon River. The Salmon River begins public access from the Black Hole all the way upstream to the Upper Fly Zone. Below is a series of maps of the Salmon River.
The Salmon River is a hydro-dam controlled river. The level of the river is dependent on the amount of gates open, or even the partial number of gates open. The simple rule thumb is every 335cfs is half a gate. There is a website that will allow you to know exactly what the planned water release schedule is, to help you plan your trip: http://www.h2oline.com/365123.asp. However, there are two smaller creeks, Trout Brook and Orwell Creek, which can add to the flow of the water downstream. There is a stream gauge located in Pineville, that will show you what the river level is, and that gauge is downstream of Orwell Creek, so that will allow you to see the added water flow of at least one of the smaller streams that lead into the Salmon River. The website for that gauge is: http://waterdata.usgs.gov/nwis/uv?04250200.
The equipment for the Salmon River, for fly fishing, should be an 8wt. to 10wt. rod with the correct reel to match and I use the correctly sized weight forward floating line. If you are new to fishing the Salmon River, I would suggest a large arbor reel with a very good drag system. I suggest that that the majority of the money that you spend in the set up should be in the reel. As far as leader and tippet material, I will explain that in detail a little later, in another article.
Anglers who fish the Salmon River will have a chance to target four distinct species of fish during the fall and early winter. They are the Chinook (King) Salmon, the Coho Salmon, Steelhead and Brown Trout. To be truthful there are two species of steelhead, the Washington and the Skamania. So really you can target five species of fish. Some lucky anglers can have the day of their life when they get the Salmon River Grand Slam, which consists of a King, Coho, Steelhead and Brown. To date, I have never had the slam! I have always been snubbed by Mr. Steel. In my opinion the two best fish on the river to fight are the Steelhead and the Coho. The Coho is like fighting a freight train with ballistic runs upstream and downstream. Fighting steelhead is second to none. They will often make non-stop runs downstream and you will be treated to some of the greatest acrobatic maneuvers by any fish.
I am often asked: "If you had to choose only two flies to fish the Salmon River with, what would they be?" My answer is simple: The Salmon River Flea and the Freak-a-zoid. The Flea is the easiest fly to tie and using it to dead-drift everything will hit it. In my group of anglers it is our go to fly. When nothing else is producing, you put the flea on. The Freak-a-zoid is a fly that is tied in Alaska for Silvers, which is a kin to the Coho. I changed the color scheme to the most productive known colors on the Salmon River. This fly has become a deadly fly for Coho. If we see Coho in the river swimming by, a few of us will put the Freak on and before too long we start fighting Coho. We have seen Coho attack this fly the moment it hits the water.
I am in the middle of tying flies right now for my trip to the Salmon River, and I have gone through a step by step process for both of these flies for you.
The Salmon River Flea is an egg pattern, but not tied on an egg hook. It is supposed to represent a fertilized Salmon Egg.
The Salmon River Flea is tied on a size 6 or size 8 wet nymph hook.
I use 6/0 Fire Orange thread.
I then tie in a one and a half inch piece of Poly Yarn in White.
At the back of the bend I tie in a two inch piece of Fire Orange Medium Chenille.
I then bring my thread all the way forward to the eye of the hook, locking in the poly yarn along the hook shank. I trim the front edge of the poly yarn so that it is just over the eye of the hook.
Tightly wrap the Fire Orange Chenille, along the hook shank, to the eye, but do not crowd it. Then using the thread give the flea a nice "thread head" and the whip-finish and seal with cement.
The Freak-a-zoid is a Wooly Bugger using: Fire Orange thread, Fire Orange Medium Chenille for the body, Salmon Egg Orange Marabou for the tail, and Chartreuse Saddle Hackle for the wings.
It is tied on a size 6 3x long hook. Start off your thread as you would any other fly.
Tie in a generous amount of marabou for a long and fluffy tail. I personally like about a two inch tail.
Tie in a piece of the saddle hackle. I tie in the butt section, so that the hackle tapers from back to front.
Next, tie in your chenille.
Bring your thread to the front of the hook and then wrap the chenille along the hook shank, close to the eye.
Palmer the saddle hackle along the shank of the hook to the eye and tie it off, trimming any excess hackle.
Once again, I create a nice "thread head" and then whip finish and seal with cement.
In my next article, I will discuss the High Stick, Chuck and Duck, Dead Drift method and the common set up for it. I look forward to your feedback on this article and please post any comment or questions that you may have regarding Salmon fishing. If you would like to join us for a day on the river, we will be up in Pulaski from October 4th through the 9th, get in touch with me and we will make arrangements to hook up.
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The coast is not very rocky, much less than in western and northern Britanny : here we have many beaches, estuaries and mudflats.
These are interesting places to fish for mullet, particularly fresh water / salt water mixing zones.
In French atlantic waters, it is possible to encounter five different mullet species :
1. The thick-lipped grey mullet (Chelon labrosus) ; max length 65 cm.
2. The thin-lipped grey mullet (Liza ramada) ; max length 70 cm, which dates back some rivers over large distances, such as the Loire.
3. The flathead grey mullet (Mugil cephalus) ; max length 100 cm.
4. The golden mullet (Liza aurata) ; max length 55 cm.
5. The leaping mullet (Liza Saliens) ; max length 40 cm.
It is mainly the first two species the fly fisherman can catch. The flathead mullet, which can reach impressive sizes, is unfortunately more rare and less coastal.
Mullets are present at the coast from April to November. With the approach of the spawning period, which happens in winter, mullets gather in shoals to leave lagoons, estuaries or bays, and to reach the sea.
These fish have a special diet : scraping the surface of soft bottoms with their lower jaw, they collect mud or sand containing planktonic algae, small crustaceans (amphipods, copepods) and decaying organic matter of which they feed. They are sometimes seen eating seaweed, and largest mullets may be carnivorous and hunt little fish.
Obviously, it is not easy to fly fish a mainly planktivorous fish, especially as mullet mouth is very sensitive and quickly detects any abnormality in what they swallow.
Fishing for mullet is a fine fishing and needs small flies : nymphs imitating micro-crustaceans, green flies more or less floating (imitating weeds) and other flies, such as "all-marabou nymphs" for instance.
If fishing with nymphs can be very efficient in deep water and strong current, for my part, I prefer fishing in calmer areas and shallow water, just for the pleasure of sight fishing.
Although mullets are powerful fighters (they are our "bone-fish from Brittany"), fishermen do not seek for them, just because they are not good to eat, as is often the case in France... That's good for them and good for fishermen who do not only seek to fill their freezers.
Last week, I enjoyed this happy fishing in the quiet of autumn, along the banks of a small estuary.
Fishing when tide is coming in, invading this small river, some green flies moving just below the surface have been effective. They allowed me to catch four mullets (about 18 inches long), and I could have taken more if I had not spent half my time watching curlews, red shanks, sandpipers and other beautiful shorebirds