Then again, it may be a world wide angling issue and like all asexual invasives, it just takes a little time to gain a foothold in more rarified venues.

Instead it may be the colonial thing, what with New Zealand entering the fray with an e-zine featuring horribly colorful and obese trout whose obscene lust for feathers will make you shield your child’s vision, lest they be tainted forever …

We missed the first issue, but it’s available online.

Flyfishers Inc. is in the stunning photography coffee table mode, where you quickly leaf through the pictures in awe, yet there’s little text to accompany the work. Each issue features a reader poll, which is a hint of interactivity, something not yet seen in the US versions.

Something to consume with your lunchtime sandwich.

… and it’s not the traditional venue, with prizes for biggest – the other categories are smallest, most unique, most, and a random prize.

… which may be for the kid with the biggest smile …

If you’re getting sick from bobbing in other’s wake, and if that tawny nubile at the end of the ski rope just flipped you off, then it’s munchy time! 

… able to submerge for thirty seconds, leap from submerged mode into midair, 50 mph on surface and 20 mph submerged – well, payback is going to be a watery bitch…

-via the Daily Mail Online

You can toy with the “fresh meat” screaming on the tow rope while the rest of the gals abandon their sodden beau and antiquated watercraft. insisting they share the really cramped two seat environment with you …

They’ll bring the beer. It’ll be cold.

‘This isn’t a submarine  -  you’re not going to visit the Titanic in it,’ Rob warns. ‘It’s more of a cross between a plane and a boat, and we’ve been improving the models constantly so they can do more and more tricks.’

Insist on the Great White paint scheme, it’s worth every penny of the $93,500.

Marker – Seabreacher, Great White shark, submersible, big boys toys, nubiles, tow rope trollops, free beer, stillwater vengeance, fly fishing humor

I liken the ezine conundrum to the current political spectrum, where Republicans and Democrats try to distance each other from the opposition, the administration, and their own party.

As each new magazine throws down their own unique brand, free of tired articles about indicator fishing, and espousing the “journey”, the “experience”, or “we’re not your Dad’s hobby” – I find the distinction losing a bit of allure.

It’s fly fishing that brought you to the dance, and I’d always assumed you should leave with those that brought you …

Numerous straw polls and statistics suggest the influx of new blood has been on a steady wane – and us current practitioners are growing older, wiser, and accumulating skills. We’re no longer the fresh faced novitiates who are struggling with wind knots and trying to makes sense of it all, and our impatience with the “same old articles” may stem from fluency with the technique – and having read six or eight already.

The existing print media takes considerable heat from nearly everyone, much of it well deserved, but I wonder whether they are the root of our  dissatisfaction, or merely we’ve changed and are impatiently waiting for the literature to catch up.

Like you I read them all, yet have trouble verbalizing what I’d like to see – what prose or topic would make one magazine head and shoulders above the others and engage me completely.

The picture-based magazines ooze stunning photography and make me yearn to take better pictures, the “Red Bull” magazines make me wish I could chug an energy drink without making faces, and the “journey” magazines get me all maudlin then jar me with an ad for the technical clothing needed to fish bacon rind.

As fishing is such an individualistic exercise, what’s lacking is liable to be quite different from one reader to the next, but I’m still not seeing what I think I’m looking for …

I may be yearning for lost youth, where the mention of puce baboon bottom would send me in a frantic search to secure some, or that new knot that would fix all my monofilament ills, or new creek packed with giant voracious fish that I’d ignored enroute to some place further.

Older and wiser I recognize that fellow in the fog and half light would be the same fellow cursing me for low holing his pool, and the photographs are appreciated but skimmed quickly. The “Red Bull” crowd gives me the impression they discard their empties on the beach – while disappearing in a cloud of sand and hamburger wrappers. They’re skimmed and put to rest as quickly. The “journey” and “feelgood” attempts all feel good, until the advertising intrudes – and part of my journey includes a “tactical” shooting head and the “experience” of paying off a high priced venue or higher priced rod.

We want to feel your experience through your unique professional approach. If you’ve got a garden variety fly fishing story – we are not interested.

I suppose that once the graphite rod crossed the thousand dollar barrier, we were forced out of our hobby to join other pastimes whose professionalism includes the tools to ply our craft, and also the uniform – the accoutrements of social station.

Like golf being synonymous with double knits and headless hats … er … visors.

I welcome each new entrant into my reading itinerary, there’s plenty of lunch hours and ample time to digest each attentively, but I’m still unsatisfied, struggling with what’s missing and it may be nothing at all.

Cigars, food, dancing, Patagonia, what’s not to like?

Upstream magazine, fly fishing e-zine, fly fishing literature, garden variety fly fishing story, social station, fly fishing

Brutus the grizzly bear enjoys his 25,000-calorie breakfast — 35 pounds of treats such as raw chickens or carrot cake — but when his human best friend, naturalist Casey Anderson, presents him with a fresh, flopping fish, Brutus is confused and uninterested.  Raised by Casey from birth, Brutus is used to having his food delivered.  Now, Casey sets off on an adventure to the Alaska wilderness to observe Brutus’ grizzly cousins salmon fishing, hoping to gain new insight into their technique and teach it to his six-foot, 800-pound, furry friend.

I want this guy’s job …

Once “Pooh Bear” and me shoulder through the remnants of the fly shop’s door jamb, I’d mention, to no one at large, “Brutus needs to learn to fish, I’ll take that Scott, two of those Sage’s, the zipper-front Simms, and a handful of those Bogdans in the display case – all on the house, right?”

… and if some fellow feeling plucky so much as trembles a lower lip, I’ll point and tell my furry pal, “Look BooBoo, it’s a talking Twinkie!” They don’t have to know that “Fleabit” only kills for red licorice – and they can find that out in syndication…

Then we get helicoptered into some serious pristine, and as I gear up – I’ll glance at the competition and tell Brutus, “clear the riffle …” The salmon and steelhead will be running – as will all the guides, nature lovers, and sleepy-eyed fellows that got there at the crack of dawn.

Any handler worth his salt recognizes there’s no need for a magnum sidearm, all that’s required to immobilize a hungry, charging bear is a theater sized Ju-Ju-Bee’s.

Tags: National Geographic channel, teach a bear to fish, salmon, grizzly bear, Bogdan, Scott, sage, simm’s, Casey Anderson

It’s primeval biology that’s your nemesis, the inner Hunter-Gatherer is limited to stalking asparagus, armed with a coupon, and under the watchful gaze of the spouse. Completely unsatisfying, nothing screams, nothing bleeds, and outside of the occasional fishing trip – your emasculation is nearly complete.

Photo Courtesy of the Eclectic Angler

But, perhaps not.

The Eclectic Angler has released his tome on handcrafting fly reels using little other than common hand tools and equipment you’ve got rusting in the garage. Even better, he’ll set you up with all the materials in kit form so you can work up the nerve to crack the book.

The Pfleuger Progress and its progeny was the height of fly fishing technology for decades, now you can craft an updated technological marvel that ensures your bragging rights for years to come.

Extension cord sold separately.

Tags: Michael L.J. Hackney, the Eclectic Angler, brass fly reel, Pfleuger Progress, roll your own, hunter-gatherer, fly fishing reel

Entitled, “Eat the Fly” it’s an ambitious undertaking that will contain the common food items and insects available to fish, offset by some of the fly patterns used to represent them.

It’s a hellish undertaking to be sure, but the rest of us have the easy part – admiring the photographs and remarking, “so that’s what a Black Nosed Dace looks like…”

He’s got species, phases, links to additional resources, flies that represent the food depicted, and where possible, seasons and emergence dates, coupled with locale information.

- Horny Headed Chub, Alex Cerveniak Photo

It’ll take some time before he’s scratched the surface – but there’s a great deal of work (and effort) already available, and he could use an assist on compiling all that information, you may want to drop him a note if you’ve got some compelling photographs of known food items.

Tags: Eatthefly.com, Alex Cerveniak, Hatch’s Blog Network, angling resource, baitfish, aquatic insects

Friend

Fly fishermen have more than our fair share of snooty types, with the balance either market hunters or fishermen. Cracking the cover on USCARPPRO suggests they have an equal leavening of elite anglers, elitism, and enough precision engineered tackle and angling minutiae to give fly fishermen a run for their money.

We devote four pages to synthetic tailing materials, and they’ve got four pages of hand cast lead weights with finishes that mimic rocks. We’ve got Bimini Twists and esoteric single purpose knots – only they’ve got twice as many, most of which we’ve never encountered.

We’ve got fly patterns in the tens of thousands, and they can match us one for one with boilies, popups, and wafters – all of which sound like Willy Wonka’s Everlasting Gob Stopper – only in Vanilla and Black Licorice.

Which gives them the edge on us as they can eat what they throw.

Best of all is the lack of outstretched arm posturing – there’s no need to exaggerate fish size, as most are unable to lift the bloated behemoth past their knees…

… and they’re smiling. Ruddy faced grins celebrate a worthy quarry, something that’s only occasionally seen in our glossies.

If you thought fly competition hooks were expensive – these fellows pay double for theirs – I couldn’t help but salivate over the shapes and reinforcement – we don’t have nearly the options we once did with X-Strong fly hooks.

I found it an enjoyable departure from our media, an interesting glimpse at a sport taken every bit as seriously as our own – with the added comfort of knowing there’s some poor angler paying more for his rods than I am.

Sure it’s bait fishing, but us fishermen do that.

While you’re there – tell Roughfisher we ain’t on speaking terms until some of that homemade sausage makes it to my side of the Rockies. Fly fishing is fine and all – but withholding eats is unconscionable.

Tags: Roughfisher.com, USCARPPRO ezine, cyprinids, boilies, popups, wafters, bimini twist, Willy Wonka, carp

It’s a daunting project that

With Amazon’s Kindle creating quite the stir over Christmas, and competitors lining up to enter similar products into the mix – it appears we’ll have the opportunity to add to our fishing library virtually.

As my vision is on the wane – I can’t admit to comfort while straining over a dimly backlit screen, but it’s likely to intrude more each decade.

There’s quite a few famous angling tomes already available, and many out of print classics that are unavailable to anyone other than collectors.

George Kelson – The Salmon Fly, how to Dress it and how to Use it (1895)

G.E.M. Skues -  The Way of the Trout with the Fly (1921) and Modern Development of the Dry Fly (1910)

Mary Orvis Marbury – Favorite Trout Flies and their Histories

George M. LaBranche – The Dry Fly and Fast Water (1914)

Frederick M. Halford – Floating Flies and How to Dress Them (1886)

There are many hundreds of titles, some you may have never heard of – and the tags under each allow you to refine your search to specific areas of the online collection. Most of the books are old enough to no longer be copyrighted, and it makes sense that Google would want to avoid all the litigation until it’s determined how the author will receive compensation.

Kelson’s book on the Salmon Fly is still considered the Bible of the married wing, eyeless hook crowd. You can download it for free in PDF form versus paying $500 for an old copy.

I’ve read many of these and am continually fascinated over the convictions of their authors. Adding a certain perspective to read, “the Salmon, being the noblest of all fishes, eat Butterflies …” – then grab a copy of a current magazine and read, “they eat leeches because …”

… and in a hundred years will some fellow be giggling over our assumptions?

Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.  – Gustav Flaubert

Anglers today shrink from the old tomes as being antiquated and out of date – and while the language may be archaic, the lessons are still current.

Download a fistful of PDF’s and fish the turn-of-the-century Catskills, or a Irish freshet for sea run trout – then tuck them away as reference materials or simply a good read.

Tags: Project Gutenberg, Google Internet Book Archive, copyright, George Kelson, G.E.M. Skues, Mary Orvis Marbury, George M. LaBranche, Frederick M. Halford, Amazon Kindle, out of print angling books

… just me and my Blue Water Barbie.

Via John Merwin and his Honest Angler blog, comes an eye opening video of a fellow catching a 100 pound blue shark on bright pink Barbie rod, complete with closed face spinning reel – and the precision drag system that makes some classic metal chunking sounds…

We’re always insisting that fly tackle offers the best “feel” of a fighting fish – but I’m not sure our rods can bend like Old Barbster.

I about died laughing, as did the assembled crew.

I’ve got one of these hanging proudly over the mantle, compliments of older brother and his misguided humor.

Now who has the last laugh?

Tags: Field & Stream, John Merwin, Barbie Rod, Blue Shark,