Monthly Archives: March 2009

Fly fishing is chemical resistant, even when it may be a boon

Who you gonna call? While the rest of you debate whether it adheres to the spirit of things I’ll be quietly mixing it into my head cement.  I’m preprogrammed to break ranks with the crowd at the first opportunity, exploit fish horribly, then asks forgiveness in a cataclysm of guilt.

My theory is fly fishermen are the last rung on the outdoorsman ladder, if you’ve tried everything else and failed – ours is a sport that celebrates its lack of scent, there’s no stigma if you don’t wash your hands.

Real outdoor types pull guts out of deer, blow daylight through a duck’s arse, or add cherry-flavored salmon eggs to a hook – and resume eating their sandwich. They regard our mincing gait and “ew-ew-ew” sounds with mild scorn – and we fancy them boorish cavemen without the good sense to bring either silverware or napkins.

We’ve always recoiled in disgust at chemical use; we curl lip at a fly tinted with magic marker, get enraged at spritzing our flies with anything other than floatant, and backpedal at the sight of things that sink or scent our flies.

I don’t, as I’m a reformed killer. I lack all those social graces and spurn proper behavior; I dipped my anchovies in dish detergent when trolling for salmon, spritzed whatever was necessary to kill more than the other fellow, and was amused by Pautzke’s fingerprints on my Velveeta sandwich, then wolfed it quickly so I wouldn’t be forced to share.

When I see something that violates all them lofty principles, it’s twice as compelling.

Vision Baits has introduced a substance called “Ecto-Plasm” – a brownish gel when wiped on lures flies gives them the same eerie green gelatinous color we’ve admired in all the horror movies.

… once it is in the water it gives off a luminescent green glow that lasts up to eight hours.

I keep thinking of the Stripers we chased from the breakwaters of the Marina at night, and how nine inches of conehead equipped bucktail, would be vastly improved with a generous dollop of the above.

Saltwater flies have similar issues with visibility as brownlining, it’s a lot of water to cover – plenty of seaweed to obscure movement, and a short lived tide controlling your destiny, why wouldn’t vision enhancement be anything other than a boon?

The gel is activated by contact with water, so you’ll need to be cognizant of the dog walkers and joggers – if they’re pointing and laughing – you may want to wipe your nose.

If we’re lucky wading shoes will never be the same

d3o_gel It’s one of those advances in science you know you’ll be wearing shortly, the real question lies in what fly tackle will sport it first.

A gel that when struck turns into a solid, and while snowboarders and other extremist sports are already looking at products, will it be the next great advance in rod science?

Vibration or shock causes the gel to stiffen, so when you initiate the double haul will your seven weight increase its resistance to give you that extra 20 feet of distance?

More importantly, if you slap the butt of the rod, can you impale the SOB that waded too close, rinse the blood off – then act innocent while they search for the murder weapon?

I can see advantages to practice rods, training the wielder to use less force and more timing, and outerwear is already available for cushioning the shock of a fall, but it’d sure be nice to trickle a little into the end of a hollow rod and not have it shatter when we sat on it.

Wading shoes have always been miserable at ankle protection, especially when our feet slip underwater. I can see an immediate application for a light weight shoe with a d3o barrier surrounding the upper foot and ankle area.

Considering it’s good enough to stop bullets, shouldn’t my new $1000 fly rod have this as an insurance policy?

Technorati Tags: , ,

You can’t beat the fully enclosed propeller

It’s not just streams suffering overcrowding, lakes can host flotillas of boorish fly fishermen equipped with expensive tackle. Those of you looking for that last bolt in your offensive quiver might consider the Flat Water Dominator, shown below:

 Ram the opposition and board with impugnity

Nothing will prepare the opposition for the watery salvo across his bow, followed by a “D-cell” equipped motor capable of Ramming Speed…

A little camo would assist a stealthy approach, but harsh language and an RPG was enough for the Somali Irregular Navy, whose endorsement of the Dominator is liable to secure you all the Sage tackle you can carry.

Batteries ransomed separately.

Despite the cost of hackle, dry fly purism might be on the rise

You want light or lead meat? Illinois is about to follow Wisconsin in adoption of the Lead Sinker Act (SB1269). Having seen little mention of the proceedings in angling print, I’m wondering whether folks have read the detail.

Ingestion of lead pellets from hunting first surfaced the issue many years ago, most states have some form of restriction on their use around wetlands.

The Lead Sinker Act bans the use of lead sinkers and lead head jigs in all freshwater impoundments. It’s the definition of “jig” and “sinker” that neatly covers flies as well:

“Lead jig” means any lead weighted fishing hook that
measures less than 1.5 inches along its longest axis and that
contains one ounce of lead or less.

“Lead sinker” means any device that is designed to be
attached to fishing line for the purpose of sinking the line,
and that contains one ounce of lead or less.

Nymphs weighted with lead wire fall into both categories. Despite that giant black stonefly being greater than 1.5″ it’s still attached for the purpose of sinking your line.

Or is it?

A sinking line is attached to your reel for the purpose of sinking anything attached. If the fly’s weighted too – is this a “Chicken and Egg” issue?

Unfortunately the legal profession is not to be trusted as they’ve bigger fish to fry, evidenced by the discussion on the copyright infringement suit of the lighted fishing rod. The vendor sued another manufacturer who dared illuminate the tip of his rod, and while all the lawyers had to weigh in on the real meaning, it’s obvious few, if any, were fishermen.

The “pole” blatantly includes anything that could be called a “pole” and is certainly different from the “rod”. Just like you saying the pole includes the reel shows off the fact that the pole includes the ENTIRE fishing pole, including reel, and handle, and any other little attachments (see light bulb).

I’m glad we got that straight, because based on the patent attorney’s claim above, fly poles are different than fly rods, and that fly must be an addition to the pole, therefore it’s purpose is to sink the rod, not the line, so they’re legal?

They might convince me to sign up for the inevitable class action suit, but I won’t be initiating it.

Now that we’re all horribly confused, it’s time to stock up on tungsten beads and solder. “Lead free” solder retails around $50 per pound, and  is available in comparable sizes; 0.015″ (around 1 AMP), 0.020″ (2 AMP) and larger.

Just a sign of the times, you can bet similar legislation is enroute to your state soon. While angling vendors have replaced split shot with tin and other compounds, both proportions and structural integrity of flies will be resistant to materials that are sized differently, not to mention the poor fly vendors that’ll have to market the antimony variant to the states with special regulations.

If you’re ordering your flies online, caveat emptor – the penalty is up to six months license suspension, and $1000 per day fine.

… and don’t get too attached to tungsten. We’ve a similar issue with ingested Tungsten, although most of the studies to date were delivered intravenously. Heavy metal is just that, they’re all bad.

Acute tungsten intoxication results in death from respiratory paralysis , preceded by nervous prostration , diarrhea, and coma. The most frequently observed sign of chronic intoxication is poor growth …

The fish get smaller, then they die. Just what we’re looking for …

Fair and Unbalanced, the ascendancy of Brownline Journalism

Most Grammatical Mistakes in a Single Sentence 40 Rivers to Freedom just announced the winners of his prestigious 2009 Fly Fishing Blog Awards – normally a source of great angst and suffering among us callow journalism types.

We were stunned to find the Trout Underground Writer’s Network took home three “Floggers.”

Trout Underground, the 800 pound gorilla of temperance and snark took a rare second fiddle to us boorish Brownliners – who took home the “There’s no real Journalism Allowed on Fly Fishing Blogs” and the Best Blog of 2009 awards.

(Tom, it takes more than a case of Scotch and the promise of Moonpies to take the overall title, the field is now crowded with talented blog authors. Think Jungle Cock, small denominations from non consecutive birds..)

I showed for the ceremony in a stunning strapless, V-cut Simm’s shorty, but Alex and the staff at Hatches Magazine suggested that formal attire wasn’t consistent with family programming.

I did have the chance to chat with the Judges, a rare opportunity to inquire of their scoring methodology. Naturally, I assumed real investigative journalism coupled with outstanding content had carried the day …

Naw, your posts aren’t funny, but the misspellings and bad punctuation are a hoot! In fact, the local English professor is writing a treatise on your apostrophe use, it’s fresh, complex, and usually wrong …

W’ell take it.

I’d like to thank Mom and Dad, and Timmy – the guy that I cut English class with in High School ..

Tore it from his daughter’s fingers no less

Reading between the lines suggested somebody was still paying for the crime. Singlebarbed reader RDT sent me a traditional gauntlet, a double-dawg-dare-you note describing his wrenching the yarn from an unsuspecting innocent..

I was finishing up the Golden Mutt post while staring at it and scratching my head. It’s a ribbon yarn in “clownshoe” colors, sturdy and about 1/2″ wide.

Six or seven things leapt to mind, but I had the stonefly materials at hand and whomped together something…

I'd call it a Scarab from the Mummy's Tomb

It’s one continuous strip of ribbon laid over the back and folded three times to make the wingcases – Lord knows it’s a garish looking scarab  monster, just ugly enough for a steelhead to take exception to its presence.

I’ll give it more thought, I just wanted RDT to know he was going to have to dig deeper to get me to blanch.

After 20 years of enforced servitude tying little drab things by the gross for fly shops, this is dessert. It’s in my fly box for the next outing, once the rain lets up we’ll see what carnage ensues.

The yarn is called “Incredible” from Lion Yarn Co., and both the “Autumn Leaves” and “Copper Penny” colors look enticing. Thanks much, RDT – we’ll fiddle with it and see what else we can make.