Author Archives: KBarton10

A Silk Purse from a Sow’s Ear

The Tiber River, Gladiator School Brownline Our Brownline Ambassador to the European Union recently returned from the Italian Riviera with a sure-fire marketing ploy -virtually guaranteed to get you out from under an onerous mortgage and soar once again the credit eagles.

Apparently I’ve taken the whole rough fish – brownline thing about as far as it’ll go ethically, and it’s time to cash in on the franchise opportunity.

Only saw two rivers, but both were solid, bona fide brownlines. First was the Orcia, I got a close look at one of its feeders, which emerges from the town square of Bagno Vignoni. Channels cut into the rocks take the water to some ancient baths before it dumps into the river. People have been soaking in this warm brew since Roman times. I was told that the thermal waters are rich in sodium chloride, calcium and iron carbonates, high radioactive calcium, magnesium and sodium sulfates. People pay to bathe in this stuff, but nobody I talked to would admit fishing there. Seeing as how people have no qualms about dipping their bodies into what they would never drink, I’m now thinking the Little Stinking might make for a great spa.

The Spa crowd expects fetid, astringent, and unrecognizable, it’s sensory proof that “the cleanse” will remove years of wrinkles and purge the system of carcinogens.

.. throw a handful of Carp fry to nibble on exposed toes, ladle in some caddis to tickle the unsuspecting bather, and it’s a brown cash cow.

The downside is everyone will look like Michael Jackson, but his comeback tour should spark the middle aged crowd into a paroxysm of spa treatments and recreational stem cell abuse.

Franchisee’s will receive one pound of freeze dried Rock Snot, imbued with Selenium, Mercury, Uranium, radioactive salts, Barium, Chromium, Radium, Nitrates, and Boron* – simply dissolve in a nearby creek and start counting celebrities.

MJ’s available – but now that Neverlands’ sold, you’ll probably have to comp him both treatment and guide fees.

* Don’t laugh – this is what comes out of my tap.

Why would I look to a social network whose content was created by the antisocial?

You’re an antisocial bunch – and while we may cross paths in our adventures afield, none of you have waved me over and breathlessly insisted I fish, “…right here, I just caught three big SOB’s, and help yourself to my flies, you hungry?”

With all the imponderables that is modern angling – social networking is merely apoplexy in 140 characters or less.

 Do yourself a favor and unplug

Both vendors and the angling media are flocking to these sites in droves, and the result is understandably poor. Which Grade B movie graces their TV screen and what sharp object the baby just ate – intermixed with cutesy links to off topic material and a dearth of fishing information.

Not surprising for a medium popularized by the entitled offspring of the attention deficit MTV crowd, not us aging boomers. Simply put, we don’t know what to do, other than to build a presence.

I’d think the social networking stuff would be well suited for fishermen as we excel at non-verbal communication; grunts, hand signals, pantomime, and thrown objects.

But with 98,000 known sexual predators removed from MySpace in the last month, I’m not comfortable discussing a potential trip with “BigBob,” the fellow that keeps messaging me about the Trinity River. Sure, he claims he’s got a cabin on the bank and insists May is the best time – but I’m wondering why his profile mentions a trapeze, lubricants, and the airy spaciousness of his soundproof basement.

Woot!

Which fly you’re tying is great, the river you’re fishing this weekend is better, but your mood is akin to mine … inconsequential. When fishing it’s a mixture of optimism laced with reality, and the fact that you waded through my fish to inquire has changed it to pissed.

Woot!

The real value of social networking is to serve up your eyeballs to vendors and vendor spam. That’s why both vendors and the blog crowd are headed there by the bushel. Space limitations ensure no real information is passed between author and reader, but there’s plenty of space to exploit your eyes from both host company and the ravenous offshore hordes trying to make a buck.

Considering that 95% of all email sent on the Internet is spam, social networking is the unguarded portal to millions of impressionable eyeballs, whose metric of popularity is the size of their friends list. Auto-acceptance of these unknown “friends” ensures that 75% of your messages are from LL Bean or similar spam source.

The other 20% are gorgeous babes searching for me specifically. Unknown to me, I’m legend in both the Eastern Bloc and the Orient, and the young ladies on those continents insist on personalizing my Facebook/ MySpace / Twitter experience if only I’d surrender my credit card number first. You’ll endure the installation of three Trojan horses and identity rape, but a girl that loves fly fishing is worth all that, right?

Provocative

You create the content, someone else gets rich, and you get spammed by fly shops, video producers, bloggers, and Albanian peasant girls who’ve accumulated an extensive Victoria Secret collection despite the drudge of milking cows and churning butter.

It’s failure on an epic scale, and for obvious reasons; a Tweet book report on Homer’s Odyssey and a Louis L’Amour western reads the same:

He rode into town, he shot up the town, chicks dug it

… and the more traditional, “the Internet assaults us with reams of information, much of which isn’t reliable, and we’re evolving from digital overload to selective feeding.”

We adore fishing because it allows us to unplug. For the moment the piney woods lacks Internet jacks, wireless hubs, and porn. It won’t last much longer, but dammit – I like it that way.

Doubly unfortunate because my job is to bring those communication networks into the woods … I create what I do, and destroy the thing I love – all with a twist of a screwdriver.

I assume this lust for phrases is a logical derivative of the sound bite. Condense a president’s speech into a single sentence, then splatter that all over as the essence of his 90 minute oratory. Now we’ll distill the soundbite into a tweet – so any real meaning is lost.

Twitter is a great tool to send hyperlinks of decapitations to an unsuspecting buddy, he can respond in kind hoping you’re the first to throw up. It’s a great place to have your pals send you their favorite porn links so they’re not intermingled with your spouses email.

Despite these seeming “advanced” tools, they cannot convey enough information to sustain interest – what with all the other communication tools available.

Anglers are blowhards and orators whose bully pulpit includes tailgates and dusty parking lots, we require a couple pages of windy before we can really tell you how big that fish was …

Full Disclosure: The author has both a Facebook and Twitter site, created in the interest of science, and of no lasting value.

Gnarly and the Chocolate Factory

Another week of much needed downpour ended in a couple days of sunshine, just enough to drain the standing water and trigger a foot of grass growth. Torn between duty and irresponsibility, I ignored the Green Menace and went scouting for hungry and stupid fish.

Double Secret Creek absent gals and competitionI knew better than to take a fishing rod, as the standing water in the fields suggested anything  I fished would need to weigh four ounces or more to crack the surface.

I’d heard rumor of Double Secret Creek – home to sunbathing college gals and monstrous carp, and figuring it was Double Deep and Muddy would allow me to scan the place without being a “creepy old guy.” A fishing rod at the hip adds legitimacy to your presence, anyone wading through brown crap without one is just a creep.

Double Secret Creek looked inviting – a McDonald’s Chocolate shake absent the straw. It’ll take a couple of weeks before I can see coeds or bottom…

I traipsed through grass and mud for a couple miles scouting pools and evidence of other fishermen. Forked sticks are a dead giveaway, as were the half opened clam shells and empty beer cans. It’s standard compliment for Catfish, with the marks from the lawn chair silent confirmation.

The Little Stinking is about five times its normal flow so I’ll assume similar for this new water, and give it a couple weeks before returning.

I chatted with a nice old lady trailing terriers, she mentioned quicksand and salmon were present – but as her memory of the creek spanned multiple decades she wasn’t altogether sure which had been the most recent encountered.

Five times the flow and spewing mud and gravel 

The Little Stinking is sweet smelling once again, all the carcasses and chemicals having been pushed through the watershed in one toxic exorcism. Hopefully we’ve got a couple of new automobile hulks midcurrent or a sprinkling of Kenmore refrigerators to break up the flow.

Low and chocolate, nothing stirringThe irrigation pumps are idle as fields are either fallow or have winter wheat, which is grown during the rainy season without irrigation. All the natural waterways are swollen and chocolate, and all the man made drainage is nearly empty … and chocolate.

I scouted the Lower Sacramento and it’s up nearly 35 feet from a couple weeks ago. There’s little freeboard between it and the plush accommodations lining the banks – but I’m sure a fresh deposit of silt makes for a lush green lawn when the water recedes.

I did stumble across some good fortune for Singlebarbed reader, “Dull Knife” (of rotting seal fur fame). A swollen beaver and an Orange Tabby lay in my path; the Beaver was suppurating perfection and the tabby would have made an excellent silhouette stick up – dry as a bone and frozen in anger. I contemplated mailing DK the entire ensemble but my gag reflex won the debate, I emailed the GPS coordinates instead.

It may be a hair off,  just follow your nose.

From researching yesterday’s post I can expect the bugs to be largely absent, due to the tons of gravel being deposited with the floodwaters. I’ll have to rely on sparkly-shiny minnow imitations until the waters clear and recede.

We’re slated for a week of clear weather and whichever chocolate rivulet clears first is likely to have me perched on it. The salmon reference has me piqued – I may have to keep a close watch when it begins to clear. The season is closed and it’s likely 2009 will suffer a similar closure, but first hand observation beats rumor and innuendo everytime.

If you don’t hear from me, I found the quicksand …

Jobs versus jobs may motivate more voters

Truthout While California’s salmon woes are well documented, the TruthOut blog suggests the Governor is misrepresenting the issue, suggesting an attempt to morph the issue into a “fish or jobs” conundrum.

This is not an issue of “fish versus people versus fish,” nor “fish versus jobs.” The battle to save the Delta, the largest estuary on the West Coast of the Americas, really comes down to a conflict between a future based on sustainable fishing, farming and recreation or a future based on corporate agribusiness irrigating toxic, drainage-impaired land that should never have been farmed at the expense of Delta and Sacramento Valley farms and healthy fisheries.

That music to angler’s ears of course, but since fish can’t vote its been pointless to argue the merits of a vibrant and sustainable fishery. 300 million dollars in federal relief for west coast salmon fisherman suggests it’s a “jobs versus jobs” struggle – with the only question being which to preserve, farmers or the recreational kind.

The highest amounts of sales generated by the commercial fishing industry were in California ($9.8 billion)..

The value for all the crops grown in California was $4.19 billion. Do the math, people.

Add in the $1.9 billion in tackle sales and the 23000 jobs associated with those purchases and the story starts getting lopsided.

Is the cost of destroying the thousands of jobs provided to the economy by California and Oregon fisheries, the tourist industry, and Delta and Sacramento Valley farms worth providing subsidized water to corporate agribusiness to irrigate toxic, drainage-impaired land on the west side of the San Joaquin Valley?

I’d take the time to read the piece – the only statistic it’s lacking is the number of jobs tied to keeping all those palatial lawns green with our precious water …

Organic drift – Under the protective blanket of darkness there’s plenty of activity

Placing drift netsIt doesn’t take a Ph.D to notice it’s easier to fish and wade downstream versus fighting the current or moving upstream. Despite our best efforts, fishing upstream is mostly slack management, the line’s pouring towards you at the speed of the current and you’re doing you’re best to keep some small connection with the fly.

If we struggle with two legs, wouldn’t the same be true of critters with six?

Organic drift is an entomological term describing the tendency of aquatic insects to move downstream. Despite their clinging, crawling, burrowing, behavior – once they’re exposed to the current, they’ve all the same issues we do.

In a widely cited paper, Muller (1954) noted an apparent paradox in the downstream movements of insects, suggesting that with the large numbers drifting downstream, one would expect to see a depopulation of upstream reaches. However, this was never observed. He proposed that upstream flights of adult aquatic insects compensated for the downstream movements of the larval forms, thus resolving the apparent paradox. Waters (1972) proposed the ‘excess production hypothesis’, which
suggested that the production of insect progeny was in excess of the stream’s carrying capacity, compensating for the drift (i.e. these drifting insects are ‘extras’). The true explanation is probably a combination of both colonization hypothesis and the excess production hypothesis, and perhaps some other factors. Researchers continue to look for answers (e.g. Hershey et. al. 1993).

Mother Nature knows humans and insects are prone to fits of laziness, and she’s lent considerable help by making the egg laying phase of aquatic insects the winged form. Prevailing theory suggest that adults have a tendency to fly upstream to ensure eggs and nymphs are redistributed throughout the watershed.

CaddisTo us lay scientists it makes perfect sense, at the point the female daubs the water surface with an egg packet, the current assists the eggs to find purchase downstream of the point of impact.

Proving the theory via research has been largely unsuccessful, but there’s a lot of really useful information that could explain fishing phenomenon we’ve witnessed.

A 1964 study of the river Yarty, a chalkstream near Devon, England, suggests areas of bank and stream erosion releases more insects into the water column than solid substrate.

It was found that the more abundant species of the bottom fauna were likewise the most abundant in the drift, with the exception of some common benthic organisms which live in more sheltered niches or have a strong means of attachment.

Anglers are notoriously poor with numbers, but even we know which insects hatch day after day for the bulk of the season. While the time of emergence will change due to seasonal changes in water temperatures and available light, it’s safe to assume a prowling fish will see more of these abundant bugs than anything else.

This verifies some of our “prospecting” theories, if the Blue Wing Olive is the main course – prospecting through the doldrums with no visible fish activity might be best served with … a Blue Wing Olive imitation.

A 1986 study of the Consumnes River in California suggests long pools absorb drifting insects, and unless the pool itself is replenishing the insects, there’s more to eat at the head of a pool that at its tail.

These findings lead us to hypothesize that long pools act as barriers, not filters, to stream macro-invertebrate drift. The composition of drift leaving the pools in this experiment appeared to be controlled by the composition of the benthic habitat at the tail of the pool and not by the composition of upstream drift entering the pools.

Insect drift may also be one of the causes of the “complex” hatch, as many insects (especially midges) will drift en masse during low light or nightfall. Many reasons account for drift, but the low light surge is thought to be a response to visual predators like trout, where the low light increases the chance of survival.

We’ve seen nymphing trout during the evening hatch numerous times, and while emerging insects are present, it’s possible they’re dining on a smorgasbord rather than the hatching insects we can see.

A study in Otsego County, New York, counted drifting caddis over two evenings and found evidence that moonlight depresses the number of caddis in the water column, and of the 152 caught all were members of Caddis families that construct hard cases.

Makes an interesting twist on the theories espoused by practitioners of Czech nymphing – whose imitations are all worm-outside-the-case style.

MayflyMany of these studies show that Midges and Mayflies comprise the bulk of drifting insects, and Stoneflies and Caddis are relatively small in number. This is consistent with what we know of insect behavior, as both midges and mayflies have entire species that are free swimming.

More drifting insects are available in Spring and Summer, correlating studies suggesting increases in water temperature and volume causes a proportional spike in insect numbers.

The obvious question is, if the insects are in part tumbling about looking for the safety of reattachment – and part intentional drift (overpopulation, predation, hostile environment) – what happens when they have a chance to grab bottom again?

Drifting organisms apparently seek actively their places of protection again in the bottom substrates in response to increasing light intensity in the morning, since drift rates decrease sharply at this time (Waters 1962).

One study suggested that all three (mayflies, caddis, and stoneflies) have a tendency to remain drifting at night even with reattachment possible. The species of mayfly observed only sought attachment during daylight, and the caddis only landed on similar fauna – suggesting there’s some type of preference at work.

Studies on how far insects will drift suggest that 50-60 meters per night is not uncommon. The speed and volume of water movement roughly dictates distance.

As drift levels are not uniform – and one section of creek can contain more bugs mid column than another, it’s left to us lay scientists to correlate all the information into a place to stand shivering.

I’ll take failing sunlight on an eroding bank, upstream of a pool, close to dark, on a waning moon. The rest of the creek we’ll leave to the dry fly fishermen who’re fighting over our scraps in the flat water below.

How to broach the "fly fishing" subject to the significant other without undue suffering

Before sharing with your clients, make sure SWMBO has a case You too can enjoy the official vineyard of the Federation of Fly Fishermen.

Program Objectives
The purpose of the StoneFly Vineyards customer and partner loyalty program is to help our fellow members of the angling and fly fishing trade boost their businesses by increasing customer loyalty and strengthening relationships with valued partners. At StoneFly we also appreciate the opportunity to get the word out about our winery and fine wine products.

How it works:

Your spouse or gal friend finds out you can score really fine wines from Napa Valley at a 33% discount, and you’re rendered insolvent by her sudden demand for aged grape juice.

… at least that’s how it would work at my house.

My mistake was moving my lips while I read the advert, her radar is so finely attuned that before I could voice the thought – I saw the “arms folded on chest – stony stare” posture and quickly crumpled the application.

“YouAintSendingNothing2NobodyUntilYouTakeMeThereFirst.”

At least I got her interested in fly fishing …

Blessed Mother of Pasteurization don’t fail me now

It's the water, that's gotta be it With the two articles sandwiched on the news page, I can’t help but wonder was there a connection. Scientists have known about the estrogen effluent story – how the sewage treatment process fails to remove hormones from reclaimed water, and fish downstream of the outflow are mostly feminine.

Now they discovered a wider issue and a second group of chemicals that block male hormones, called “androgens.” We (and the fish) are drinking a couple of fingers of female hormones with our breakfast cereal, and a couple more fingers of something that blocks whatever male hormones remain.

Nice.

… and the article next to it was the resurgence of the gay marriage issue in the legislature. I’m staying clear of the larger issue – but you have to wonder, is water fanning the flame?

It isn’t the first study to suggest that anti-androgens might be contributing to the feminization of fish. But the new research found that there are far more of these chemicals in our lakes and streams than anyone realized. And anti-androgenic chemicals in the water might affect human health as well.

I looked up the articles cited, and really wished I hadn’t …

The most prevalent source of androgen effluent is from cattle feedlots – where cattle are zapped with anabolic steroids to grow fast “double tasty” steaks.

Studies of freshwater mussels, fathead minnows, and sticklebacks, all point to the same conclusion … chemical androgyny. A study conducted in the UK, suggests it’s happening to most wild fish stocks – and nearly all  freshwater sources have tested positive to their presence.

Conclusion: The results provide a strong argument for a multi-causal aetiology of widespread feminisation of wild fish in UK Rivers involving contributions from both steroidal estrogens and xenoestrogens and from other (as yet unknown) contaminants with anti-androgenic properties. They may add further credence to the hypothesis that endocrine disrupting effects seen in wild fish and in humans are caused by similar combinations of endocrine disrupting chemical cocktails.

From a simplistic perspective, I would assume the lower river is influenced by human sources and sewage treatment, and the upper parts of the river are rural and include the rangeland necessary to grow beef.

As I feel obligated to pass on some small trace of good news, females are larger – so female tendencies might add some bulk.

We’re not going to be calling across the creek to our buddy with, “Brown? Rainbow? what was it?” – we’ll know from the shrug it was neither a wild diploid, or a farmed triploid, so it must’ve been another “Shrugploid.”

We’ll be having asterisks aplenty in the record books soon.

Before you reach for the bottled water, consider they’re just coming to awareness on some of these chemicals and that bottle may be no protection whatsoever.

Pray that pasteurization is enough to make beer safe.

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.