Author Archives: KBarton10

Your Grizzly neck is more follicle than feathered, and it will have to last you another season

It was a Northern California ritual, get a whiff of the dairy outside Redding, then slam on the brakes for the obligatory “The Fly Shop” pilgrimage. The excuse being to replace aging tippet which quickly morphed into fondling most of the upstairs plumage.

While I was never able to exit the premises without blowing that extra hundred bucks, those expenditures have kept me from feeling any real trauma over our recent lack of genetic hackle.

With the new year and rumors of hair extensions on the wane, thoughts of chicken production and delivery keeps circling through the ranks, enough that I thought I might dig into the retail side to separate fact from the fiction, and determine what 2012 holds for the fly tier whose necks are more follicles than feathers …

… and no, you shouldn’t exhale yet, the prognosis is quite bleak.

Many catalogs and online stores have a markedly reduced presence of product, some offer hints at long delays, and orders I placed via online websites were followed up with politely worded cautions and cancellations …

Thank you for your order.  The Metz Microbarb Saddles will be out of stock for at least a year.  Please let us know if you would like to wait that long or longer.

Which for most of us is about as plain as it gets.

Both J. Stockard and the Fly Shop were kind enough to make mention of what they’re seeing from inside the vendor food chain, but many of their comments reflect uncertainty with delivery and which vendors have committed their 2012 production to the hair industry.

From J. Stockard & Co. :

Metz advised us several months ago that they will have no
rooster saddles for dealers this season. On the other hand we are getting delivery of some product from Whiting in all of their lines that we carry. Admittedly, some colors are unavailable from Whiting and their shipping is still slower than usual although it has improved slightly since the Fall.

… and from the Fly Shop a similar picture …

Other than Keough, neither Whiting or Metz has given us a definitive answer about availability.  Keough won’t have any necks or saddles until 2013, that’s assuming he doesn’t pre-sell it all to the hairs (it looks as if the fad is starting to wane).  Metz has always been hard to deal with and even if they didn’t sell their whole supply to the hairs, they probably wouldn’t be able to deliver anyway.  Whiting is the only one that has been really good to us.  While they haven’t delivered everything, we have received a steady supply of saddles, necks and 100 packs.

I would expect the shops are keeping what little supply they’re delivered for the endlessly long waiting list generated by regulars and walk-in traffic, and perhaps to make a bare wall seem less so. Us online shoppers being lumped in with the “hairs” and forced to wait a bit longer.

This premise was given more credibility when orders placed with the Fly Shop via their online store were cancelled, with the reason given as “product unavailability.”

J. Stockard doesn’t list anything larger than a 1/4 saddle and while full necks are mentioned, both come with a substantial warning of delays and outages.

Availability of this product is extremely limited. If no colors are listed below, we have none in stock. Colors will be re-listed on this page when they become available. Availability of colors listed below is not guaranteed and we cannot accept backorders for this product.

What we can conclude is that the fad seems to be on the wane, but it’s not disappearing fast enough for any return to normal deliveries for this season.

The Bad News being those threadbare necks and saddles will have to serve you another year, the good news being that hurling a few shot and something heavy enough to splash will chase most of the Metrosexuals from the sport, leaving the rest of the dry fly purists to grow a bit of hair on their chests …

… but only if they stop waxing them …

Note: I solicited a response from the Whiting Company, but they failed to respond. I find that none too surprising given that they’ve likely endured a lot of angry shopkeepers and anglers over the last twelve months, and can’t blame them for being close to the vest with commentary.

Are the past Masters of fly fishing worthy of a fly named in their honor

beyonce_fly As a means of belittling us fly fisher-types who have spent  a couple lifetimes studying flies and imitating their every move, pop-star Beyonce trumps our ”Teddy” Gordon by getting a horse fly named in her honor …

According to the Australian National Insect Collection researcher responsible for officially ‘describing’ the fly as Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae, CSIRO’s Bryan Lessard, the fly’s spectacular gold colour makes it the “all time diva of flies”.

– via PhysOrg.com

… which begs the question, do we need to preserve our living or dead angling masters by renaming the animal kingdom, and what attributes should cause us to petition the Royal & Ancient Bug Society for a name change?

While most of us might want to pass on their legend akin to the Paraleptophlebia RonJeremy, neither your fishing buddies nor science are likely to be that kind …

Reminder: You’re dead and don’t get to pick.

I would think a big “blue bottle” would be an appropriate final tribute to a Brownline master, only because both spent most of their career walking on dung, damp or dry being the only real distinction.

Author and angling great, Ernest Hemingway might get his own Mosquito, given his propensity for sucking on cigars and strong drink, and fishing whenever the aforementioned pairing intersected with branch water or an ocean.

Avarice and ambition have turned fishing’s historically colorful cast from yeasty and wild outdoorsy types – to white collar, politically correct professionals with a passion for six legged sex. Outside of a thinly read book or two, nothing from the last half century is likely to have the personality or the mass appeal for immortalization via bug avatar …

… but there’s hope for the next generation of “sports”. “Them as inherits” are less inclined to follow in our footsteps, and could shrug off a dime stint at a federal penitentiary as light enough to snort …

Only bad boys and born-again Christians being worthy of real fame, given our penchant for looting, gunfire, and confession.

Once a constant companion to the fly fisherman, now on hard times

hostess_twinky I expected most of the angling world to be in mourning, yet nary a mention of the possible demise of Wonderbread and the Twinkie, two of angling’s last remaining superfoods …

Hostess and fly fishing have an enormous amount of shared lore which has been lost on recent generations due to their insistence on healthy streamside fare.

Wonderbread started our interdependence on synthetics, being the first manmade material able to claim “lighter than air” and enjoying  a speedy adoption among the dry fly enthusiasts.

It didn’t matter that “lighter than air” only applied to swallowing the meal, once down it was as leaden as anything spawned of a test tube.

Poptarts and Twinkies ushered in the purely chemical era, where we no longer feared food stains on our vests and could wad sandwiches and delicious desert snacks into the smallest of pockets, there to lie dormant for an entire season.

Flat, round, polygonal, or simply mashed, Wonderbread retained sandwich content in a semi-sterile envelope that allowed sunlight and a sweaty angler to warm it to room temperature and beyond – allowing us extra miles afield without fear of starvation, food poisoning, or empty calories.

Twinkies were synonymous with the notion of the floating strike indicator, as its delicious buttery shell once dubbed, “the Golden Life Preserver of Snack Foodage”, by countless anglers who’ve gone in over their heads yet were yanked to the surface complements of the protective shroud that was Twinkie buoyancy …

Both Ray Bergman and noted outdoorsman and baseball legend, Ted Williams likened the Twinkie to a culinary abomination, yet characterized the desert as the “Bamboo Rod of Parking Area Fingerfoods.”

We all recognize that we’re supposed to fill our vests with healthy fare; 5 Hour Energy Shots, Koolaid, and Pop Rocks, but considering what we’ve built on its greasy foundation, won’t you consider buying a box simply for old time’s sake?

I’d hoped when I finally found the nuggets on a chicken, there would be a couple feathers no one had ever seen

It started out as simply a shoulder shrug, but on a whim I was quickly transported from avaricious angler looking to impress his fishing pals to investigative journalist, then onward to devout PETA flag waver …

It should have been a no brainer, how I was going to impress fishing pals by serving the remnants of a gigantic salmon, with the filets themselves proof of an unlikely miracle while fishing. Pounds of enormous, succulent fish flesh draped across the plate – as all listened open-mouthed to my tale of 4 pound tippet, running at full speed across a slippery Pacific Coast riffle, hours of screaming reels and hard fought yardage, followed by me emptying a .45 into my foe, as he made a last spasmodic move for an extremity.

The proof was to be the simple part. Six or seven slabs of salmon joined using meat glue, to make an aggregate fillet rivaling a world’s record (something I planned on pointing out during the obligatory cigars and brandy) …

 

Instead I find out the joke’s on us me, as the meat industry has been manufacturing the nuggets on a Chicken, rather than them existing in some hidden feathery place not yet discovered by fly tiers.

… and while most of the world is banning it from the table in horror, only in the US would our four star chef’s rise to the possibilities of Frankenfood, generously ladling glue into all manner of odd proteins, while charging us double for the privilege.

Makes you wonder how safe it is when the fellow cautions the reporter not to inhale.

See the Harvard School of Cooking and Chef Wylie Dufresne take your palate to new heights compliments of Meat Glue … which can be purchased from Amazon.com for $89.00 per kilo.

A drab fly among many drab flies

F-18E Bobbing away in some nameless lake last summer, I’d attributed my lack of success to a poorly designed floating midge imitation, and if I combined the air intake of an F-18E Super Hornet with a bit of deer hair, I could  produce a better imitation that could showcase the body color to best advantage.

… that idea turned into me setting the fly fishing world on fire with a new take on dry flies, which in turn spawned other great ideas that sputtered mightily, suggesting the entire branch of thought might not be as great as first assumed …

Dutifully I catalogued each of the truly-great-yet-untested ideas for later development, and refocused on the midge dilemma. Yet after some four months of fiddling I’ve dismissed most of the promising starts as they don’t translate to the small hook as well as envisioned.

… and after another weekend of eliminating even better ideas, I’m back where I started, yet undaunted and utterly convinced there’s still a better mousetrap.

This type of self inflicted pain is a result of fly fishing’s fourth dimension, the freedom and expression that comes with knowing there’s nothing special about a fly pattern. Give any fly a few local successes, and share a handful with pals and you’ve invented another Hare’s Ear, a drab fly in a box filled with similarly drab flies.

Fly fishing being typified by the phases of the angler, how skill is acquired in lockstep with other unsavory habits …

The First Dimension of fly fishing involves listening in bewilderment to the thirty-seven hundred sacred principles of fishing from your initial mentor. Of all those topics only two really take hold; water is cold and bushes eat flies, and everything else showcases your too-limp wrist.

The Second Dimension of fly fishing being the snootiness that comes with clean fingers. How you’re suddenly a scientist amid a parking lot of other scientists, none of which admit to using anything other than flies their entire lives – and half can say it in Latin.

The Third Dimension of fly fishing is the angler as gear whore. Suddenly a kerchief has to be a fly fishing kerchief, clothing labels matter, as does titanium, rare metals and a disc drag shared with the space shuttle, actually fishing being secondary to possessing stuff …

While most anglers make it through the first three dimensions easy enough, few make it to the fourth dimension …

"I’m trying to free your mind, Neo. But I can only show you the door. You’re the one that has to walk through it."

… largely because after many years of fishing, we’re all experts. Patterns are too ingrained, and we’ve enjoyed many successes attributed to flies with no thought as to whether an Adams was necessary or any gray-bodied dry fly would work.  Compounding the issue is our skill with the third dimension, oodles of flies chosen by name or reputation, whose very presence is a safety net, assuring good fortune.

Most patterns can be successfully replaced by any fly that contains similar attributes. Lots of deer hair assures high floatation regardless of other components used, as does lots of Pink, or a down-wing surface film presentation – versus upright and divided. There’s nothing about an Elk Hair Caddis that can’t be turned into hundreds of other variants save angler-superstition and its aura of past successes and reputation.

As a guide and commercial tyer, I ran into this paradox more often than most. Nothing being as confounding or as memorable as an angry angler whose fortunes and trip of a lifetime are tied to custom flies he’s ordered, yet rejecting them because I used natural black versus dyed black hair …

“ … that’s not black, that’s a really, really dark brown, and the sample I gave you had black …”

Or the angler that refuses assistance from his guide with the admission that, “I catch all of my trout on an Adams” – and should double as a fortune teller given it’s the only fly ever to grace his tippet.

Whether skunk hair is black when compared to dyed black bucktail is the angler’s perception that a fly’s greatness rests in its unique pattern, which can be larger than the sum of its attributes.

Us forth dimension types don’t see it that way, but we’re so far gone few listen to our plaintive bleating.

It’s unclear what percentage of fly fishermen tie flies, what is certain is unfamiliarity with “rolling your own” adds to pattern mystique. Likewise with age, how a fly invented a couple hundred years ago must also be a fish killing legend to have survived for so long.

Beginning fly tiers frequently substitute materials as they don’t yet possess them all. Their audience of pals will quickly remind them how a Pheasant Tail can’t be called a Pheasant Tail without the pattern being intact. Later, an accomplished tier can add a pink thorax and the same group will nod sagely as it’s a “Pink Thorax’d Pheasant Tail” a separate and distinct variant that’s untested – yet due to its roots, equally as worthy.

It’s still simply a little brown fly, whose name is well known and therefore enjoys a truly unique power as a retail oriented, angler catching juggernaut.

We’ll put up this big electrified fence in the water and see if they can swim through that

We’re safe for the moment because there’s still an occasional Field & Stream mixed in with People and National Enquirer in the dental waiting area, and it’s inappropriate to hold us Sons of the Greatest Generation accountable for our Poppa’s fixation with archaic blood sports.

… then again, all that could change in the blink of an eye …

With magazines hawking exotic venues and vendors hawking esoteric fibers and elaborate clothing rituals, there’s no question with each passing decade there’ll be less and less of us casual fishermen – and more and more of the monied “Professional” angler, even if that label applies only to Saturday and Sunday.

Which suits the younger crowd and vendor community just fine. They’ve struggled mightily to redefine the sport with Big City professionals, and like ten-speeds and blue jeans, our traditions are no longer expensive enough nor are they testimony to the agonies and suffering that pro-sports requires.

With global warming and all the critters and toxins dribbling off our streets, clothing, and tires, Mother Nature has no chance alone. That fat old bitch has had her day, and Pro-Anglers© will need newer and hardier quarry to make brief moments afield worthy of gasps back at the watercooler.

Along with the antiquated Norman Rockwell notion we’ll toss the entire environmental angle as well. What few natural species remain will be gasping in some rivulet where we can toss vended ice cubes to lower the temperatures enough to sustain traditional trout, an offering that shows fealty to those “What Came Before” and absolves the angler of all environmental guilt and his responsibilities for same …

We don’t fish the Outdoors much anymore, given the “clean room” garb we’re forced to wear to leave the pavement.

… and into this niche will fall most of Academia, whose grant monies dried up within the “Great Belt Tightening” – and we’ll get a vast crop of DNA based startups promising to restore ancient extinct species back to fenced pastures and overly warm brooks …

And after the novelty of it all wears off, there’ll be the monied crowd asking Disney staff could they take one into the parking lot and shoot the sumbitch, and do they want steaks or chops, and who stuffs a T-Rex ?

… and while we pick on hunters, given their propensity to blow acres of sunshine through everything, our monied professional fisherpeople, whose yen for extreme knows no bounds … they’ll be close behind.

Now we can flood old NFL stadiums and fish for stuff with FANGS …

It’s no surprise that a decade of unemployed scientists and the sudden dearth in academic grants would get most of the Ivy League to invent an indigenous industry that could promise to employ millions of the dispossessed.

We’ll be all smiles having applied responsible science to genetics and species restoration, we’ll be sure that all Meglodons released will be Triploids …

… which won’t save many swimmers, but by the time we realize we’re sharing the planet with a couple more apex predators, it won’t matter much.

Adding extra studs to wading boots, how to tap dance your way to larger fish

wading_stud I’m giggling while Science chides me about noise pollution and fish –hoping to make me feel bad.

I suppose if I owned a boat I’d feel worse, but the article concludes that even short bursts of noise can distract fish while feeding, and they’ll make more errors in judgment and ingest things they shouldn’t …

The foraging mistakes are consistent with a shift in attention when exposed to noise, and in the natural environment these mistakes could be costly: increasing the chances of ingesting harmful items, and affecting the risk of predation if fish have to forage for longer to compensate for reduced efficiency.

I’m not so sure science was expecting to be serving information to the enemy, fellows like myself reading the conclusion and hanging on every word …

… but in elementary school we learned we could unnerve a good hitter at the plate by yelling, “hey batter-batta, SWING ..”, and anyone watching golf has to believe science, given anything louder than a duck fart sends a dimpled ball through someone’s picture window and muttered curses by even the most practiced golfer.

Can we induce a fish to eat something the wrong size, wrong species, and if so – how far away from the fishes maw do we trigger the underwater equivalent of a car alarm?

 

Taking it a step further, if we run out of the hot fly can a tantrum at the precise moment make something less worthy, extra-tasty? It’s certain we swear often enough in critical situations, perhaps we need to do so much louder …

I suppose SIMM’s will break the thousand-dollar barrier when it adds zippers and Sensurround, and then we can race each other out of parking lot to set hook while fiddling with the volume on Walkürenritt …

You’ve overlooked the fact that you owe once again

license_checkYou get to make quite the scene forswearing candy, the remaining quart of egg nog, and the last slices of fruit cake enroute to recapturing your High School physique.

Like all religious zealots, the Monday after the last bleat of festive horn becomes so much more important, given you’ve sworn never to eat sweets again, promised most of your fishing weekends to ardent gym workouts, and are revitalized knowing neither processed white flour nor the Devil have a grip on your vitals …

I’m not going to belabor the point nor burst your sweaty bubble. Like every other attempt you’ll find out for yourself that Tofu and Seaweed tastes like gummy boat bottom, fresh fruit and veggies is a close second, and nothing you’ve found tasty or flavorful is on your permitted list, at least not without a couple hundred sit-ups.

While you’re tooling aimlessly through the city streets tempted by all the bright colors and considering breaking fast – knowing you love the paper hats, hot grease, and fries, perhaps you’d consider exercising a bit of will power and purchasing your new fishing license instead.

Yes, amid all that sugar and remorse you’ve overlooked the fact that you owe once again.

… and the completely certain thing is that if you chance even a single trip, despite being heeled with all the proper credentials for the last 35 years, a warden will show. You’ll be apprehended while protesting mightily, and after you display all those conservation memberships in your wallet and on your bumper, they’ll throw the book at you.

… a rakish cut to your waders, and who does your Botox?

Yesterday’s post suggests a combination of poor economics and seasonal excess have woken you to fly fishing’s retail malaise, where you’re prepared to let the vendors auger in under the weight of pricey zipper-front waders, multi-thousand dollar fly rods, and titanium imbued vest accessories, featuring trout shaped drink openers …

Given that bleak economic outlook, and if they’re not buying fishing tackle, where are “manly men” spending those precious dollars budgeted for recreation?

Plastic Surgery.

“Typically people think of celebrities and high profile men going under the knife,” said Stephen Baker, MD, an ASPS Member Surgeon based in Washington DC. “And while that may be true, the typical male cosmetic surgery patient that I see is an average guy who wants to look as good as he feels. Most of my patients are ‘men’s men,’ the kind of guy you might not think would have plastic surgery.”

-via American Society of Plastic Surgeons

Statistics released today suggest we’re about to jettison the whole woodsy thing in preference for looking woodsy. Actually “being outdoorsy” having all manner of discomforts including; no street lights, mosquitoes, and cold at night …

MJ_BeforeAfter

For us anglers it’s no longer appropriate to hoist the fish of a lifetime with outstretched arms. Instead, a Hero pose includes a Botox stiffened expression, ample cleavage, liposuction, and male breast reduction …

The list is comprised of the fastest-growing surgical and minimally-invasive procedures from 2009 to 2010. Criteria for inclusion: Procedure performed on at least 1,000 men in 2010. (Surgical procedures are listed in bold).

  1. Facelift – 14% Increase
  2. Ear Surgery (Otoplasty) – 11% Increase
  3. Soft Tissue Fillers – 10% Increase
  4. Botulinum Toxin Type A – 9% Increase
  5. Liposuction – 7% Increase
  6. Breast Reduction in Men – 6% Increase
  7. Eyelid Surgery – 4% Increase
  8. Dermabrasion – 4% Increase
  9. Laser Hair Removal – 4% Increase
  10. Laser Treatment of Leg Veins – 4% Increase

Once our angling media spots the trend, Fly Fisherman will regale us with an annual “Gutz & Buttz” Issue – rival to Sports Illustrated’s Swimsuit Spectacular – and we can jettison strike indicator articles in favor of Top 10 lists featuring; Best dressed, Best Unsmiling Pose, Most BreastMeat, Best Thousand Yard Stare, and Tightest Montana Guide Ass …

… which with obligatory centerfolds will sell millions of copies on both coasts (and none in the center)  … giggle …