But scientists know very little about the algae, and they’ve grown alarmed by a mysterious change in its behavior in recent years.

So-called “nuisance blooms” of didymo, like that in the Bear River, are being reported with increasing frequency around the world. Experts don’t know why, but suspect everything from climate change to a genetic mutation in the algae itself.

What’s unfortunate is that the Bear River is a popular gold panning site, and the modern day 49er and his suction dredge doesn’t fit the “clean, dry, protect” solution popularized for fishermen.

… and with Grass Valley being a compelling gateway to the Sierra’s and the gold bearing forks of the American, it’s possible we may see a few more pollination vectors than the birds, bears, anglers, and boat owner crowd.

Those of you frequenting this nearby watershed should be on heightened alert, and anything dampened should be quarantined per standard procedure.

This isn’t a zebra or quagga mussel the size of a sand grain, this is a single celled algae that is too small to see with the naked eye. Anything damp is a potential carrier, and that includes your fly line backing, trapped water in your wading staff, and your flies.

With last week’s Lake Tahoe mix up, where a visiting boater was barred from launching his craft after he identified its use at a “high risk” lake in Arizona, who promptly drove to another ramp and gave the officers different information and launched without decontamination, suggests us wading fishermen may be the only folks taking the invasive message to heart.

A nice $5000 dollar fine doesn’t offset what our pal from Arizona may have left us, but he can tell his pals we take our water serious …

There appears to be an underlying movement (and I’m not sure when or how it started) to make fishing funky – along the lines of skateboarding or in-line skating.

Different terms are being bandied about to sum up what it is all about, but I guess the best is ‘urban fishing’. Basically it’s all about trying to get youngsters involved in the sport for a couple of hours a day, particularly on the inner-city rivers, canals and waterways.

- via Tackle Trade World

… and it makes perfect sense. All we need add to cedar dog beds and Georgia Fatwood, is Dr. Dre and Snoop Dawg dropping dope rhyme like, “I’m down like Lead Free Solder,” featuring a couple reels of Eminem getting his fillings rattled by a Blue Marlin, and then we can trot out Lefty Kreh with his belly tatt’d with “ZUG LIFE.”

The Zero Gravity could have been the “Sup, G” – and Gary Loomis could have discarded all that legal trouble by debuting the “Gee Money” line of graphite rods – then sued the pants off anyone else with a “Gee.”

… and the kids would have abandoned Playstation’s and X-Box’s enmasse.

According to my jaundiced

Figure a lifetime is about a decade or so – usually accompanied by a hammy handed pal closing a car door when you’re preoccupied extinguishing a fire or shooing flies off the cold cuts …

The both of you hear that sickening crunch at the same time, and he starts apologizing about a millisecond after. The best that can be hoped is that you’re closer to the end of the trip than the beginning, if not, you kick his ass and take his rod.

It’s the Law, in any water, blue or otherwise …

I wasn’t expecting to see much in that zone when I opened the Orvis flyer, and I was taken off guard to see their new line of Access rods for both fresh and salt – both filling the bill for a low cost serviceable weapon.

I am a sonofabitch as regards vendors, and am completely unapologetic for my opinions of their conduct. After 25 years and a half dozen fly shops, and with most of the industry cuddling up for fear of giving affront, mean guys are mighty few, making them especially valuable.

Mean has to be tempered with fair, and this is a step in the right direction. Given the economic maelstrom occurring outside the sport, and their stated desire to assist in bringing the halt, lame, and fishless into our beloved sport – you’d better have a comprehensive line of fair-priced tackle to back up that play.

I’d suggest the Access line appears especially comprehensive given the 10’ 4wt, and 10’ 5wt – which fit the tournament/Czech nymph rods that dominate Europe. The 10’ and 11’ 7wt sound like a nice answer to a two-hander – and a nice size to use for Capr and their saltwater cousins, and cater to us single hand types that are still better with five fingers than ten.

It appears the Access line will replace the aging TLS Power Matrix rods, which appear on their website at significant discount, likely in preparation for these new beasts.

I simply like the trend. Prices peeling back from the haughty nosebleed levels of 2008, and offering more than a half dozen models – created solely for the purposes of “we got those too.”

Full Disclosure: I’ve never seen, touched, or cast, anything described above, nor am I getting soft in my dotage, just saying is all.

Capr Orvis, Access fly rod, Czech nymph, fly fishing tournament, carp, bonefish, fly fishing

The Solar-Powered Toothbrush is a multi-purpose tool allowing the ecologically concious angler to eradicate germs and plaque-causing microbes in his mouth, then aggressively scrub his wading gear and boots of all threats to the watershed.

The Soladey-J3X has a solar panel at its base that transmits electrons to the top of the toothbrush through a lead wire. The electrons react with acid in the mouth, creating a chemical reaction that breaks down plaque and kills bacteria. The toothbrush requires no toothpaste, and can operate with about the same amount of light as needed by a solar-powered calculator.

The researchers have already tested the toothbrush in cultures of bacteria that cause periodontal disease, and demonstrated that the brush causes “complete destruction of bacterial cells,” Komiyama said.

It’s the end of standing around the ice machine at the gas station, hoping your waders will freeze and thaw before the evening grab. Now you can go after the little bastards, listen to their screams of anguish –and watch them pop and sizzle.

Of course the next morning your mouth will taste like you’ve licked the inside of Goldfish bowl, but what’s a little suffering when it comes to ensuring the Pristine for future generations …

Me, I use an old head cement bottle and a dram of single-malt, making the entire experience heady and rewarding.

Test Invasive species, solar powered toothbrush, fly fishing hygiene, wading boots, waders, fly fishing humor, clean dry mantra

… mostly, a limb missing or suppurating infection is close enough.

It’s been all over the papers and is likely old news, but when you take a passel of hedge fund managers with those dainty dry fly only predilections, mix in an urban setting with white wine and a pedicure,  the results are predictable enough.

Those aren’t little chalk outlines, those are the bleached and embalmed participants.

We’ve harped on this many times, regardless of Orvis’s release of a carp podcast, sanctioning roman noses and inferior fish, if you lack the proper antibodies, you’re a goner.

- via luzinterruptus

Sure, I wish I’d been there to give them a wave off, but the combination of dry fly purism and one-upmanship would’ve had the crowd ignoring most of my lecture. I would’ve consoled myself by gathering up all those expensive rods and accoutrements – and felt pretty good about the whole experience, however.

It’ll be awhile before the shockwaves hit Wall Street, most of their DNA has been wiped clean, and notification of kin will be problematic.

Test brown water fly fishing, dry fly purism, carp, Orvis podcast, fly fishing humor, pedicure

The other day I was in one of

With my best devilish grin I exclaim, “really? Is that more or less than Foster Farms?”

I was expecting an answering chuckle, but all I got was a furrowed brow and “… will that be Mastercard or Visa?”

We had good reason for our unwavering loyalty to the local fly shop, it being a niche sport and offering a marginal income for both owner and staff. Prices were often higher than the big stores, but there was value in convenience and speed, the ability to run over at lunch to resupply our dwindling pink hackle.

Being a regular had benefits. Usually small; the ability to help yourself to coffee from the stained pot, be the first to paw through the Metz or Hoffman shipment before it went onto the shelves, or to just stand around jawboning with kindred spirits and the owner.

Shops were intensely individual in those days, the mixture of staff, expertise, and brands gave each store unique talents and inventory, but what really distinguished one from the other was their “stockroom animal” and his ability to conjure rarities on a whim.

“Animal” was the guy that could produce anything given enough time, and if you were on first-name-basis you got access to items you’d read about in books – fabled stuff that you’d never seen, always wanted to own, and carried a prison term if caught.

The fly tying section was a mirror of his personality and preferences. It contained what everyone else had, but had Grizzly necks dyed for the local specialty patterns, the occasional uncommon brand of hook because he swore by them, and rarer colors of the standard fare geared to local flies and nearby watersheds.

When the discussion turned to seal substitutes, he’d produce the real thing so you could judge yourself whether Sealex was better than Angora goat. And while visions of sugarplums increased with your proximity to rare exotics, he’d regale you with tales when substitution was unnecessary, as the real thing was cheap and commonplace.

He used his powers to assist in your quest for greed and avarice. He knew the fellow managing the plucking service at the pheasant club, where the pen raised birds had tails of brown and purple, the whole tail and not just the edges…

His minions pillaged the feathers from the gut pile at the bird refuge, yielding bronze mallard, blue winged teal, gadwall, and sprig – whose tips were intact and feathers oily, resilient and well marked.

He was the Scrounger, aka James Garner in the Great Escape, possessed with a web of contacts and shadowy pals that fed a steady stream of hard to find, high quality, and dripping treasures into your hands.

Every shop had one, and we gladly went out of our way to high grade what each was best at – be it elk hair from Montana, Metz and Hoffman capes, or hand dyed materials whose colors you couldn’t find anywhere else. We gladly paid the price as our loyalty was repaid in kind.

It has been one of the most sacred tenets of fly fishing, unflinching support for the local shop, coupled with dropping a double sawbuck on consumables at the destination equivalent, ensuring both remained afloat.

But Animal is gone, along with the coffee pots, the custom materials, and the table where regulars held court.

In their place is the plain and vanilla. Pegboards with tidy little rows of glassine bags each emblazoned not with the shop name but the out of state jobber who sells it. The rarities left with the animal, whose position filled by a retiree or fresh faced youth that are interchangeable with neighboring shops, as they look like each other, act like each other, and offer little to distinguish one retail experience from another.

The backroom is well lit, the linoleum swept and sterile – and the treasures they once contained are long gone.

The underpinnings of the entire support-your-local-shop idea has always been based on their merit and uniqueness, the quality of their service, the hale fellow well met, and the fellow in the back room and his legendary horde.

When the Internet absolved us of sales tax, yielding an immediate 6% – 8% savings, we were in a horrible quandary and our loyalties divided. A Sage rod or Hardy reel was the same in California as it was in New York, and unlike a chicken neck you didn’t have to inspect it to select the best one. Merely pressing a cheek against the glass was enough to determine the size needed – and the search for the best price a paltry two clicks distant.

It’s time to reevaluate our loyalties and ensure our continued support is warranted. With UPS and FedEx a couple days away, is a Wapsi or Spirit River pack of tungsten beads really worth the extra expense?

I no longer think so.

I will always support the destination shops, as they provide the hard fishing intel as part of the purchase. Where are they, what should I use, when should I fish, is a component of that value-add and lost individualism. The destination shop with their proximity to fish and constrained by short seasons are largely unchanged and worthy of my diminished dollar, my shortened vacation schedule, as they continue to provide value beyond the simple sale.

The local shops are another matter. Many have slipped into that “Big Box feel” in their uniformity and inventory, and their staff are no longer memorable enough to distinguish one shop from another.

Most are too neatly coifed to make me feel at home. The surroundings sterile and businesslike belying the earthiness of the sport. No one cursing or sweating over a balky reel, and no coffee stains from the forgetful fellow that parted his hands to show how big the fish was – and forgot the mug they held.

I don’t feel I should linger, and when the coffee pot left, so did the sweaty welcoming crowd that knew me by name.

The animal could tell me things about feathers that I never suspected, stemming from a couple of decades dyeing, grooming, bending them to his will, or haggling over them. With him went the odd merchandise as well as the connection to the local materials and merchants.

Whatever the jobber sells comprises most shops entire color spectrum, and despite hot pink being the money fly for local fish, an out of state vendor dyes and stocks what’s in demand from all their distributors and doesn’t cater to local demand.

Fly selections are in similar shape. Where once they reflected a blend of local talent and offshore volume, now they’re delivered by jobbers and largely uniform. Managing local tiers is nightmarish, what with the drain on materials supplied and with delivery always in doubt. The presence of those flies assisted in differentiating the selection, customizing it to local conditions and utilizing the talents of local anglers.

Those locally tied flies were just as important as the custom materials, they drew the non-tying angler just as the fly tying materials drew me – out of my way and in proximity to the register.

The Elk Hair Caddis purchased at the Cabela’s Superstore, Orvis showroom, or my local shop are all tied by the same hands, why shouldn’t I seek the best price?

There are plenty of skilled fishermen, and even more skilled customers, making it incumbent that sales advice and council walks a razor’s edge lest it appear strident and opinionated – and risk offence. A fly shop isn’t Home Depot, where the cute orange vest and name tag makes you a plumber.

The old days and older ways weren’t better, just different. It was appropriate to insert formal business plans and professionalism, just to slow the hemorrhaging of shops started with the best of intentions, and little head for business.

But professionalism didn’t need to eliminate customer value, or chill what used to be our only outlet for “girl” shopping; where we poked, prodded and flexed, daydreaming that we possessed the disposable cash to own one.

Tighten the operations, introduce the concept of business plan and mission, use the broadening base of the Internet to expand sales beyond the township, and insert a capable manager, rather than a hopeful and underfunded owner.

The coffee pot and table consumed aisle space but translated into long term loyalties and longer term dollars. It gave the shop a welcoming and palpable presence – something that assisted us in husbanding our precious funds and ignoring the brusque big box experience and their savings, from our longer term allegiance and support for the little guy.

Instead we have successful yet chill commerce, a polite greeting when we enter, and a farewell when we exit, and damn little betwixt the two.

… and while I’m happy to refresh my tippet each season, picking up some thread or minor item needed, it’s the Internet that receives the bulk of my purchases, reward for those nimble enough to exploit technology.

Certainly, it’s impersonal, but the UPS driver always greets me by name.

Test – the big box small fly shop, Internet, Elk hair caddis, Wapsi, Spirit River, J Fair, fly tying materials, fly tying animal, Cabela’s, Orvis, Sage, Hardy reel

The only way I can figure it is

… and the mean old penny-pinching codger poring over the fly tying materials alternately swearing and grasping his chest like it’s the end of his world.

Last year we broke the thousand dollar rod barrier, and debuted a $12,000 titanium fly reel, so why is it that fly tying materials grow smaller with each passing season?

Fish hooks went from 100 packs to 50 packs and the price remained about six bucks, begging the question why didn’t they remain 100 packs and the price rise to $12?

The boxes were sized the same, ditto for the labels, so why couldn’t they just double the price and tell us to endure?

Guys like the Roughfisher could snort a 24 pack of Tungsten beads, chase it with his room temperature ghetto malt and have no ill effects. Twenty four beads is a warm up, it’s a snack – it’s not a “supply” or even a goodly amount.

With Whiting necks and saddles approaching the ninety dollar mark, fly tiers are used to the same price increases as the rod and reel crowd. We’re not going to unlimber a hog leg and start popping caps at the fellow behind the register – we’re aware of the steady drain to our pocketbook, as is the rest of the retail crowd, but outside of hygiene, we’re gifted with similar social skills and patience.

Material packaging is beginning to border on the unrealistic.

… contains approximately 1/2 gram per pack.

I need teal flank and find 12 feathers in the delicate glassine envelope. Three of them were damaged by gassing the plumage per USDA specs, the fellow dyeing them didn’t bother to pre-soak so the remaining feathers have brittle tips from a too-hot dye bath … I mash one getting them out of the baggie and find eight feathers of which three have the markings necessary.

What am I supposed to tie with that? My vacation is a week long and I get three of the “hot” flies to last me?

… 12 feathers per package

If I need more I incur the wrath of the fellow at the register. I plunk down the entire store selection – perhaps ten packs of teal, and he’s looking truculent because the Boss is going to make him restock.

Mostly because he’s only got ten fingers and these are twelve packs.

There was no sudden outburst of gunfire when fluorocarbon tippet rang the register at $15 per spool, about three times what the prior tippet du jour cost – and fly tiers being fishermen as well as craftsmen, bore the burden in silence or didn’t buy it at all.

With all these price-records shattered, why don’t you give us a quarter ounce of the feather, priced however much you want, so we don’t have to come back tomorrow for the rest of your inventory?

Even the beginning fly tier needs plenty of materials to learn routine procedures. With all the mishaps and rejects, his fur and hide cuts should be at least 16 square inches, feathers need to be at least a quarter ounce, and if he’s shell shocked by 50 or 100 packs, we’ve done him a favor by weeding him early.

Test – fly tiers, fly tying blog, fly tying humor, fluorocarbon, tungsten beads, Hardy titanium reel, Whiting necks, bulk fly tying materials

Two weeks without wheels and I was desperate enough to risk the mile and a half to the body shop to claim my chariot. Nearly expiring in the process, another 24 hours alternating shots of Nyquil and orange juice emboldened me to attempt the local watershed, knowing it was still recovering from last year’s dewatering, and probably felt as healthy as I did.

The healing properties of brown water are well documented, whatever remained of the cold bug gobbled up by legions of voracious Ecoli, and like Popeye making me stronger with continued exposure …

… and invulnerable should I slip and take a header.

Given the continued high water the last thing expected was to see the bones of the Old Girl exposed.

The flow is only a third of the old normal, which is consistent with the acres of green tomatoes still in the field. The draw on the creek has extended into August as the harvest has been delayed by the wet weather of Spring.

There’s ample fry evident in the “frog water” – mostly Pikeminnow, but I did find largemouth spawn in the deeper water, and fingerlings up to 3” in size.

Most of my beloved creek was ankle deep however.

At least one pair of beaver survived the Purge, moot evidence of why their reintroduction into the UK is a hotly debated topic. Terraforming being part of their nature, and while both fish and fishermen are appreciative of new cover, the land owner is often less so.

I rested on the bank watched for signs of fish life, but all the commotion was the result of fingerlings growing fat on tiny Trico spinners.

At the Siphon Pool, I managed to wake something of the brood stock, lean and sinewy – a Fedayeen who’d survived on a handful of dried dates all winter to plant a Stinger in the path of a Soviet Hind, or so he thought. A holdover from past seasons that had escaped suffocation, the both of us surprised and winded by the violence of the ensuing tussle.

Perhaps through the miracle of a rare shot, you can glimpse them as I do, noble in their own right, burnished by early morning light and worth every droplet of sweat necessary.

Puts a lightness in a Man’s step, sorely needed when faced with the slow regeneration of a dead creek, and a couple miles of burning streambed cobble between him and his beloved Nyquil tit.

Test: Sacramento Pikeminnow, fly fishing for coarse fish, brownlining, Nyquil, largemouth bass, august cold

Paris Hilton has anglers

… and I like to go fishing and I like to go look at frogs. I’m really random like that.

- via HollywoodNews.com

Leave it to a socialite and outsider to boil the essence of the outdoor experience down into human terms, and with  understated elegance.

It’s plain angling writers have been on an unproductive tangent describing the heroics and hardship of accumulating angling wisdom, and eloquence was lost in the fog of war …

… we like frogs too, and random, but only when it pertains to our showing for work.

When queried of her upcoming reality show with Lindsay Lohan; where Paris and Lindsay portray fly fishing guides in Yellowstone, Montana, there was no comment.

Pre-production is rumored to have started with working title, “A River of Champagne Runs Through It” – but we’ve been unable to confirm or deny any detail.

Paris Hilton, fishing, I’m random like that, fly fishing guides, Yellowstone, fly fishing humor, complete fabrication

The real truth has been revealed that anything in red is twice as seductive as other colors, and while fly fishing’s founding fathers insisted it was blood, they were really playing fast and loose with a fish’s emotions.

Simply wearing the color red or being bordered by the rosy hue makes a man more attractive and sexually desirable to women, according to a series of studies by researchers at the University of Rochester and other institutions. And women are unaware of this arousing effect.

Naturally the American Museum of Fly Fishing blames all them Victorian eurotrash for another in a long string of sports scandals, all the while convinced Theodore Gordon was both chaste and pure of heart. Anyone actually reading Gordo’s book on dry flies knows he was a cocksman, as every third etching has some fulsome yet anonymous babe draped on the bank.

For the collector it means any fly fishing book authored in the last century is liable to be fuel for a puritanical purge that should drive their value into orbit.

Along with this learned association between red and status, the authors point to the biological roots of human behavior. In non-human primates, like mandrills and gelada baboons, red is an indicator of male dominance and is expressed most intensely in alpha males. Females of these species mate more often with alpha males, who in turn provide protection and resources.

“When women see red it triggers something deep and probably biologically engrained,” explains Elliot. “We say in our culture that men act like animals in the sexual realm. It looks like women may be acting like animals as well in the same sort of way.”

- via Science Daily

… and it’s obvious there’s a few loose ends, as most women seeing red are possessed by something deep and primitive, but it’s usually thrown crockery and a couple of snapped fly rods that results.

The volume of fly fishing magazines whose cover is adorned by stern looking Marlboro-men wearing red shirts and dirty ball caps? About 87%, which translates into nearly 46% of the sales destined for beauty parlors and woman that aren’t angry yet …

females attracted to red, the lady in red, fly fishing, attractor flies, Theodore Gordon, cocksman, fly fishing humor, the color of blood