Author Archives: KBarton10

Massachusetts fishermen get Quantitative Easing, the rest of us don’t

fistful_cash To say I’m a little miffed us Californio’s didn’t make the test group is putting it mildly. Us west coasters still bear a chip on the shoulder as Martha’s Vineyard & “Jaws” stole our sharks, and outside of a secretary that didn’t float and her sodden senator boss, always wondered what Massachusetts had to offer that Connecticut didn’t have …

Bygones being bygones, if the federal government decides to test the value of recreational fishing to Massachusetts residents by offering random license holders a cash settlement in lieu of their fishing license, I shouldn’t complain. In short, the NOAA will pay up to $500 hard cash – if you promise not to wet a line the entire year.

… naturally I pondered that formula and realized us anglers have never seen fishing as a profit-driven tool, given how we learned it was a money-sink by the close of our first lesson …

Yet, ponder the concept … Statistically we go fishing nine times a year, and if we figure the costs for; room ($120), food ($65), gas ($120), tippet ($15), and obligatory dozen flies ($24), plus that extra ____ ($150) we bought that the wife doesn’t know about, our season is about $4500 per year.

Instead of that marriage-damaging debt-burden you get a handful of crisp new Benjamin Franklins to make a mortgage payment …

… which by my calculations is a tenfold return on your investment.

I’ll confess the topic had me wondering what my magic number would be, and in light of my jiffo-whip math above, how I might package that into a Pied-Piper pitch reminiscent of Bernie Madoff.  I could jettison the scissor business for financial counseling to bait fishermen, who we’ve always suspected of being weak-minded and therefore impressionable ..

That’s when I realized us Californian’s weren’t ask to participate because our numbers would astronomically high, and adjusted for inflation – and while our real estate might have tanked, our downfall was how our imagined collective self worth was in excess of the Federal Reserve …

An overlooked market of high net worth sports, eager to tackle both long rod and the environment?

ymca2 The Board of Directors hunkers over a table insisting someone, typically not there to defend themselves, is appointed to the Recruitment Committee chair, whose mission will be to swell an aging membership with new blood.

In uninspired fashion, that poor soul looks for a couple of kids with an attention span long enough to get really bored, so thirty-seven old guys can lecture them on the proper way to hold their wrist.

Neatly removing “fun” from the proceedings, and ensuring the time spent with youth is completely unsuccessful, given that kids hate lectures – as do those of us tasked with delivering a stilted and balky sermon to an uncaring audience …

Kids are not interested in being around their parents, most are no longer drawn to the out of doors, nor do they seek the company of adults that really could care less – but feel obligated to pass onto them something that was passed to them by even older guys.

It’s time we thought outside the box …

Instead of kids, let’s take a cue from the North Dakota tourism bureau and recruit the gay angler.

Though the plan is still in its early stages, the bureau hopes to tap into the $70 billion market generated by the gay community.

The market is so big that websites like Orbitz and Travelocity have dedicated gay travel sections, and the visitor’s bureau wants to take advantage of that huge market.

Wait, Stop! … hear me out on this one …

Firstly, with all the clothing manufacturers jettisoning olive drab, tan, and the muted tones in favor of shirts, waders, and fishing vests of Marigold, Puce, Cinnamon, and Bubblegum, we’ve got a better uniform than grubby Dakotan Oil frackers …

Our Montana guides, He-Men all, wipe big handlebar mustaches on plaid sleeves, wearing bigger cowboy hats complete with real sweat stains, and could comprise the visual equivalent of Fleet Week to our gentler brethren, and we could increase that 70 Billion with fly shop pinups, calendars, and even some sell some Sage Hoodies, so long as we cut the sleeves off and make them more of a muscle-tee look.

… think muy malo … only hunkier.

The gay community has the proper monetary demographic, is well educated, and possesses the refined sensibilities to understand the innate beauty of the bamboo rod, the well tied fly, or the rakish cut to your waders …

As Outdoorsmen they would likely be cleaner than our unkempt variant, eager to embrace environmental issues, and likely would see scattered beer cans as unsightly, not hesitating to pack them out as we would.

… more importantly, they would add much needed intelligence quotient to our parking lot small talk, to fly shop staff, and add that smartly appointed, much needed professionalism to wader selection …

“ … excuse me, Sir, do you dress to the left, or to the right? …”

It’s said that politics makes strange bedfellows, this being an election year with the environment destined to lose to whatever creates jobs fastest, can we afford to overlook any articulate, passionate, and monied group of voters?

It’s time we overlooked our differences … Sweetpea …

For WT Bash, who was nice enough to inquire what I was spending most weekends on (besides laundry and travel)

What Color Am I?That last comment was innocent enough, but all the hellish labor, gnashing of teeth, and fits of cursing that go into a simple task like selecting final colors, are invisible to most .. as is the time spent sulking …

Dyeing is already a place most fear to tread, and the reality of choosing colors for dry flies is an agonizingly long effort.

So I’ll demonstrate my pain by asking, what color is that innocent little swatch featured above?

Dyeing materials for dry flies is not the rich and colorful business that is dyeing hackles for steelhead or big chunks of polar bear for streamers, rather colorations used for dry flies are typically pastel, a weak shade of color, not the lemon-yellow, orange-orange of your favorite breakfast cereal …

Instead you take an intentionally weak helping of color and dilute it so the colors are suitable for dry fly bodies; the pale olives, rusts, yellows, and grays, that make up your go-to colors.

“Weakening” is much worse to contemplate, given the many variables that affect bright colors, and how weak colors add more complexity given the many paths to dilution, including; additional water, pulling a material after a short immersion, or overwhelming a fixed amount of color with a large amount of materials.

… and while I continue to insist that dyeing fly tying materials is really quite easy, getting the same color a second time is &%#$@# impossible. Sure we write copious notes to record both keeper colors and clean misses, but when waxing lyrical – what exactly did you mean by “toothpaste green?”

Most colors of dye are mixtures of other colors, that when combined in a traditional bath, yield something similar to the label. A complex color like Olive, which contains yellow, green, and black, begs the question – which of the component colors dyes first?

If the black colors first, then yanking the material quickly yields a gray. If either the green (yellow+blue) dyes first – it’ll either be a dirty yellow, or a cold pale green – and if the yellow is first it’s liable to have a hint of either black or green, and will wind up a mustard.

Resolved to buy someone else’s efforts? So, have I …

What’s complicating things is I’ve had my hard water softened compliments of Culligan, and the increased salt in the water has added a new wrinkle to old calculations.

Even better is the announcement that well water is no longer fashionable in my town (read toxic) and how they’ll be pumping Sacramento River water in to mix with all the agricultural runoff. The resultant brew will have chemicals added, “to make it smell and taste better.”

Which means all my hard work will have to be redone in 2016, once construction is complete property values decline even more …

Until then, I continue to plunk perfectly good materials into an intentionally weak stew to come up with the twenty or thirty needed to make a good dry fly selection. Then I try to create them a second time the following week, after reading my careful worded notes …

This latest trial was for the Pale Morning Dun color (for the Hat Creek / Fall River drainage of California), and was a miss. The Pale Olive was the correct intensity but it needed a bit more yellow to match the version dyed last week.

Most vendor-created packaged dubbing change a couple shades with every run, they just run big batches that last a couple of seasons to make it less noticeable.

It’s easy enough to save the dull material at left, I’ll add it to a weak yellow bath for a minute or two and it’ll be nearly indistinguishable. It’s one of those hard lessons learned early, “ … that nothing can fix a dye job that’s too dark …”

Which is why after shipping out quite a few samples, I’ve gone silent over my latest brainchild.

Add in work-related travel, a winter that never came, and I’m behind on a great deal of efforts I was counting on completing during those dark, rainy, months between Christmas and Opening Day.

* The swatch above is Olive, yet the yellow component dyes first with only a hint of the black and green, yielding dirty Mustard. Care to try to get that a second time?

No, Mister Bond, I expect you to DIE …

Fly fishing boasts as many well heeled captains of industry as Wall Street, and while we have great fun at their expense, we don’t typical reference them by name – instead we use their Indian name, “Those that can buy a fly rod AND a set of waders in the same year.”

… which is why you’ll never be counted amongst them, given how rarified that space is …

While we’re saving for some island getaway featuring umbrella drinks and fish we’ve never seen, they’re thinking of buying the entire island and anchoring it off of the Keys next month …

Project_Utopia

11 decks worth of floating island that allows you to follow the Trade Winds … anywhere …

Utopia is not an object to travel in, it is a place to be, an island established for anyone who has the vision to create such a place. Measuring 100m in length and breadth, and spanning over 11 decks with the equivalent volume of a
present-day cruise liner there is enough space to create an entire micronation.

To hell with bamboo, think like Tsunami Debris and wallow from one time zone to the next.

Your own province, kingdom, city-state, or capitol, make your own Fish & Game laws while defending your micronation from your wine steward and the coup he’s planned with your stevedores …

AK-47’s are extra.

Sure you can handle the pain, but what about the fish?

pissing The Good News is what we’re pissing into the creek isn’t killing fish outright, rather all that runoff from wastewater treatment containing our prescribed anti-anxiety, lowered cholesterol, blood- thinning stimulants, merely make them giggle watching Mom struggle with a faceful of your artificial …

In the current study, the shelter-seeking behavior of fathead minnows was monitored under laboratory conditions for 28 days using digital tracking software to diagnose abnormal behavior while they were exposed to sertraline, which is used to treat depression, panic attacks and other disorders. Sertraline concentrations and lighting conditions significantly affected the time that the minnows spent in a sheltered area.

During dark conditions, sertraline-exposed fish spent approximately 67 to 78 percent of the time that control fish spent in the shelter. During light intervals, fish exposed to sertraline spent between 18 and 42 percent less time in the shelters.

"The shelter was the only dark area during light conditions in the observation tanks; therefore, control fish apparently retreated to the shelter to reduce anxiety, whereas fish exposed to sertraline appeared to display reduced anxiety and did not exhibit this behavior," Brooks said.

– via PhysOrg.com

… which is a big relief for us anglers, given how much we care about our quarry and the fight triggered by us forcing steel through a lower jaw. They can feel good so long as they continue to struggle and peel line …

Now that science has shown that drugs act on fish similar to their effect on humans, we might as well make them eat longer and remain exposed to predation.

It used to be a can opener and tuna fish or creamed corn we chummed with – now it’ll be left over Lithium, or expired pain pills. Some enterprising fellow at TU is probably already negotiating with the DEA to flush a freighter-load of Coca powder down the Illinois River, solving the Asian Carp issue in process.

Time lapsed with conspicuous over saturation

There’s been a curious absence of fish-related anything for the last month or so. I knew that you knew, but was afraid to broach the subject in case you didn’t …

one_fish_breaks_skunk

That’s because guys that write about fishing prefer the notion they’re expert anglers, predators even … the woods and its many inhabitants tremble at our approach …

Nothing could be further from the truth. We encourage our readers to assume that anyone that writes anything knows more than most, and if their prose is stilted and poorly punctuated, they’re expert on any outdoor topic including drinking.

Our editorial license permits we neither correct your erroneous assumptions, nor mention important details like, “…being  got&%$)! skunked”, in favor of a time-lapsed blizzard of overly saturated wild flowers …

Above is the rare Tomato Poppy, the first of Spring …

It cost me two pants legs of icy water, the catastrophic failure of both legs of my hip boots, and was worth every swear word uttered, plus the follow on scratching I did to ease those welts the exposure to Metam-Sodium raised …

The Tongass – Old Growth, Salmon, and Clean Water, all the important things that exist in short supply

National forest? National rain forest is more accurate. Make that old-growth temperate rain forest, an exceptionally rich ecosystem that holds more organic matter—more biomass—per acre than any other, including tropical jungles. And that’s not counting the equally lush forests of seaweed added to Tongass shores whenever the tide goes out. Temperate rain forest flourished from Alaska to northern California and in nations from Norway to Chile. Much has fallen to the ax and saw. In the lower 48 states, 96 percent of old-growth forest of all types has been cut down. The Tongass now represents not only the greatest remaining reserve of huge trees in the U.S., but also nearly one-third of the old-growth temperate rain forest left in the world.

-via National Geographic

I can’t bring myself to eat farmed fish despite the knowledge that everything your kid, and his kids, turn their nose up at – will be pen raised. I take full responsibility for being of the “Them as Borrowed Money So They Could Eat Everything” generation – sandwiched squarely between the Selfless and Selfish generations before and after …

I believe that deep frying renders a flaccid filet tasty, given its saran-wrapped ass is still sore from the Big Stainless, which delivered a pressurized enema of Nyquil syrup and red dye #3 …

So I troll the fish section on the urging of my doctor and other health professionals, who have been berating all of us on the merits of regular fish ingestion, and think of those last few spots on Earth where real salmon frolic …

My state is on its last gasp as host for salmon, and what little of the Northern run that’s left will be extincted when dope is legalized and shoulders past watery tomatoes and wine grapes, to divert the last remnants of Northern California’s water to growing herb.

Group Asks Obama Administration, Congress, to Strengthen Conservation and Restoration of Salmon and Trout Watersheds in Tongass National Forest.

Some states still boast a population of healthy fish, which is why my freezer at the grocery still boasts a token fillet for me to lust after.

Most are chum or pink salmon, and source from Southern Alaska, part of the the salmon rich area known as the “Tongass 77”, seventy-seven watersheds within Southeast Alaska that combine to produce nearly 28% of that state’s Pacific Salmon harvest.

… and it’s no surprise to find nearly all of the 77 rivers are vulnerable to the same issues that extincted California’s salmon industry.

The troubling history of the Pacific Northwest and
California, where salmon and trout runs have disappeared
or face serious declines, foreshadow the types of
problems that could be repeated in Southeast Alaska
unless government agencies, lawmakers and the public
act to make fish habitat conservation and restoration top
priorities. In the Tongass, the opportunity still exists to
ensure salmon and trout, and the people who depend on
them, enjoy a healthier and more stable future than their
Pacific Northwest and California kin.

Past logging practices has already damaged many of the watersheds, such as the Fubar and the Harris, and the constant threat of an increased hydroelectric presence to make the area suitable for development is certain to claim other victims.

Trout Unlimited and local organizations are asking for you to care a bit beyond selecting your next fillet, and ensuring jobs and prosperity for the local salmon industry, rather they’re looking to you to advice Congress that the entire area, all 77 rivers, be managed for salmon versus timber and tourism.

You Can helpLittle doubt the Alaskan fish will face the same pressures of people and progress as the Northern California runs faced and lost. Coupled with our reservations to consume test-tube fish, and urged by the medical establishment to consume an ever greater share of what’s left, it’s appropriate we manage these last sources of fish with the future in mind.

Mom said they were out there …

pioneer_Women Louis L’Amour, prolific writer of cheap Westerns, described them as, “ …women to ride the ridges with – the kind of gal that walks beside her Man instead of behind him …”

This being a fly fishing blog, I don’t expect my readership knows a truly good woman nor a true Angel from Heaven was he to trip over one .. mostly because he’s preoccupied with “Miss UnderAge” in the line behind her.

On rare occasion even my caustic-prick-nature is struck speechless by the profound nature of someone else’s actions, and reserve this moment of admiration for a Mrs. Ellen VanOss …

Ellen believes she will lose her battle with cancer and asked Rongey to make the rod for her and surprised Jack with it at the end of January. It is an 8-foot-long fly fishing rod hand-crafted of split bamboo, inscribed with the Biblical reference Deuteronomy 31:6, where God guarantees he “will never leave you nor forsake you.” Ellen said she wants him to think of her every time he uses it after she’s gone.

Miss Ellen, there ain’t a dry eye in the house …

Six hundred things edited out of Fly Fisherman because the Zip Code wasn’t exotic enough – No.335

I’ve always assumed that questions about the mechanics of dubbing stem from the preponderance of fly tiers that attempt to learn the craft from books, Youtube, or blog posts like this one.

Most of us contract the fly fishing bug from someone else, and while casting and simple tasks like knots are shared from one angler to the next, fly tying and its legacy of dead animals parts is an individual journey for most.

I feel the mechanical ritual described to apply fur to thread is made overly complex in most books, and seeing someone else do it is much more enlightening, especially if you can ask questions.

The neophyte usually peers from an audience at some dignitary tying at a club dinner, who’s so enraptured by a future step as to scrub a mass of fur across thread without really describing much other than what preparation is needed for the feather he’s mounting next.

It’s a step glossed over not so much out of meanness or ill temper, so much as the journey fly tyer assumes dubbing is a simplicity shared by all watching, which is not always true.

Like all things, there is a right way and many wrong ways to attempt the fur on thread nightmare.

  1. Dubbing isn’t applied by cutting an enormous gout of fur from the hide and dipping your fingers in pancake batter to make it stick.
  2. Dubbing isn’t scrubbing fingers together in both directions, it’s scrubbing fingers together in one direction only. Tiers scrubbing fingers in both directions are attempting to make the hole the hook made hurt less.
  3. Commercial waxed thread offers no advantage getting fur to stick to thread, that’s because the wax used by Danville and other vendors is meant to plug bobbin barrels, and is much too hard to be tacky.
  4. Dubbing isn’t applied, nor can it be tamed, by attacking the middle of the fur with freshly licked fingers dripping with training saliva. Training saliva is only available after drinking milk, the rest of us use mousse.

Most of your trouble starts with your dependence on packaged dubbing. Grabbing a bag of fur allow you to pull an ounce or two as easily as the merest hint of color. Mirroring your drive-thru habits, you insist on supersizing your helping – whose bulk will fight you at each and every subsequent step.

Seen_Through

The proper amount should be transparent to the eye, and objects can be seen through the dubbing over its entire bulk.

The second portion is understanding that dubbing cannot be wrapped around thread until it is anchored to the thread at the top, with the balance of the fur then spun around the thread as the fingers move down the fur.

top_anchored

You can’t spin a rubber band tight, or anything tight, unless one end is “immovable” first, dubbing is no different.

It’s a devilishly simple and completely deceptive task, something that even video cannot impart completely, given that sub-steps of “hint of fur” and “anchored” are unknown to the novice, making the overall process simple yet completely foreign.

We’ll call it the “stutter rise” two takes from the same fish

twoheaded_trout Occasionally it’s all a bit much, the six o’clock hour stuffed with stories of disfiguring blight unleashed by Science and avaricious Capitalism on the environment, and as you snap the Telly off in favor of the Wisdom of the InterTubes, you wonder whether selling your tackle isn’t the best way to jumpstart your comic book collection, given that fragile newsprint has more of future than fishing …

… and as you search for precious lifegiving moments of angling clarity, you mistake my wit for safe harbor, only to get both boots in your ample midsection as I lean in and whisper, “ … you’re right, we’re all doomed.”

But that’s later …

Now, it’s time to make Lemonade from all those Lemons, and if the lessons of Kesterson Refuge and all that stolen water, irrigation-induced selenium poisoning has got you concerned, fear not …

… if all the trout from this day forth are born with two heads, doesn’t that mean we’re twice as likely to get ate, they’ll eat twice as much and grow doubly big in half the time?

But when other federal scientists and some environmentalists learned of the two-headed brown trout, they raised a ruckus, which resulted in further scientific review that found the company’s research wanting.

– via the New York Times

I’m reminded of the time I spoke with that elderly couple bait fishing Rancho Seco’s former wastewater treatment area. Big signs proclaimed how Nature and Atomic Energy were like two peas in the same pod …

… and as I asked the elderly fellow would he eat his catch, he nodded sagely and said it was perfectly safe – just as a mallard swam by with a big growth on its head …