Author Archives: KBarton10

I’ll not be alone in the docket, kindred fly tying spirits requested

I wondered briefly whether Edwin Teller had a similar moment as they wheeled “Fat Man” and Littleboy” into the hold of the USS Indianapolis. Did he wrestle with the devastation he was about to unleash, or was he simply enamored that the theoretical had legs …

… the big, atom smashing kind.

I was standing at the sink ignoring the pool of dye on the linoleum, the steady drip of florescent chartreuse that caused the gas burner to sputter loudly … because in my trembling hands was the means to complete the extinction of fish on Planet Earth …

… if used for what it was intended, or handed over to fly fishermen.

But Edwin won’t share the docket when PETA pronounces my sentence. Some emaciated Vegans will shaking their fists at me while the tinny translator in my ear struggles to keep pace with the swearing.

I saw the tapes from Nuremburg, and the movie, none of these pet lovers will resemble Spencer Tracy …

nuremburg

I need a half dozen fly tiers that are cool under pressure, can resist unleashing complete fish death locally, and more importantly are articulate and can convey thoughts about colors, tints, textures, and overall efficacy via email.

I’ll supply the nasty, you’ll need to tie some flies with it, and convey your unbridled lust in an intelligible response (English this time), while I monitor the front page of the local paper until news of your apprehension.

Yes, it’s that good.

Drop me an email if you’re interested in putting some final gloss on a product (followed by a potentially limitless incarceration).

When a great fish hook goes bad

With all the boutique players entering into the hook market and many discounters emerging offshore, it’s possible to run afoul of a good hook that fishes poorly.

Most of us don’t consider pinching the barb much of a modification, but the design of the hook often hinges on the barb being present. Plenty of great hooks can be made less so once the barb has been flattened.

PartridgeCH1A

At left is an old Partridge CH1A with a traditional Model Perfect bend, hollow point, and small barb. Those delicate little Partridge barbs are easy to flatten but the short point coupled with the Model Perfect bend allows fish to roll right off the hook.

Model Perfect bends aid the fish in that they’re a perfect half circle – making it much easier for the fish to pivot cleanly off the hook.

Sproat and Limerick bends (as do many others) are kinked to lodge the fish in a specific spot, making it a bit less likely for the fish to slide free.

That’s only a marginal advantage as no hook offers anything close to complete protection.

There’s simply not enough straight steel in the above CHIA to offer any margin of safety, with the bend starting just behind the barb a simple headshake will cause the hook to disconnect.

It’s not a function of quality, it’s the design of the hook that doesn’t lend itself to barbless.

Mustad4450 By contrast, a Mustad 4450 with its hollow point, model perfect bend, and enormous barb is much more sinister. Flattening the barb is a little more difficult than the microbarb-style Partridge, but the extra length in the point gives greater purchase and while the Perfect bend allows the fish to pivot – enough straight steel remains in the point and barb area to prevent their sliding off so easily.

Both are excellent hooks with the barb intact, but that’s no longer true once the barb is flattened.

eachabitdifferent

Partridge CH1A at top, middle is a Partridge HL1A, bottom is the Mustad 4450, each in size eight. Each style has just a bit more straight steel than the other (as points and barbs differ in each) which assist in holding the fish in place despite the barbless configuration.

As the micro-barb and chemically sharpened needle points have replaced many of the older styles like spear and hollow point, the distance between point and bend has grown smaller. Chemicals bathe the metal and etch on all sides simultaneously – yielding a symmetrical point often called a needle point.

Mechanical sharpening isn’t nearly as efficient, but that selfsame inefficiency (especially when hand sharpened) allows us to displace metal asymmetrically yielding the spear, knife edge, and hollow points. Which can be quite pronounced as in long swoop of the hollow point on the 4450 above.

Shanks lengthen over time and points recede, offering our quarry more leverage than ever. It’s incumbent on us to use the critical eye when enamored of some new hook – as it may have unforeseen consequences when fished.

Tags: Partridge hooks, Mustad hooks, spear point, microbarb, fly tying materials, hook geometry, chemically sharpened hooks, needle point

Beats hanging the Puce and Mauve on a male torso

Female-Casting_clothed The fly fishing brotherhood has always prided itself in dimly lit showrooms, fly-specked plate glass, and unshaven trolls rummaging through backrooms for Good Stuff …

… if the proprietor doesn’t reach under the counter or fetch the item from The Back Room, we know we’re getting the “tourist” deer hair – or the Whiting neck everybody and his Momma pawed over and rejected.

Insert real lighting so you can see the moth’s flutter, empty the sodden ashtray up by the register, and yesterday’s coffee being reheated out of indifference, and you’ll have to compete with the tonier clothing shops like Orvis.

… customers are just as bad. Unshowered, unshaven, and unashamed, tromping over stained carpet in wet wading shoes, spreading invasives in the dry fly bins – then halting in admiration of the buxom mannequin in mid cast … drawn to the reel or vest she’s modeling while contemplating any number of childish impulses.

With our average age closing on 50, and given the maturity and character we’ve accumulated over a lifetime of struggles, it’s nice to know we’ve evolved enough so that gals can admire a lavender vest on something other than a male torso, nor do they need fear someone brushing them aside to peer under the mannequins tee shirt …

Ice fishing with Friends

Then again, a couple year’s worth of trolling fly fishing blogs will rot your frontal lobe, and with 50 being the new 20 …

… you cannot be trusted.

Full Disclosure: All the upskirt completely buck nekkid photos of the mannequins are available here, you letch.

Tags: female fishing mannequins, lecherous anglers, Orvis, the Good Stuff

Matching the Hatch, the forgotten chapters

Thread them M&M's on the shank It’s a stretch to be certain, but rather than assume we’ve taken Matching the Hatch to its logical conclusion; with all the permutations and combinations of insects and imitations well documented, have we overlooked the obvious and forgotten that even the most well trodden path can meander with time?

With chemical additives and female hormones bathing each successive generation of both insects and fish, will our meticulously imitated three-tailed mayfly have four tails within the decade?

“Much of what humans consume you can detect in the water in some concentration. We’re a nation of coffee drinkers and there is a huge amount of caffeine found in waste water, for example. It’s no surprise that what we get from the pharmacy will also be contaminating the country’s waterways.”

Outside of the obvious and potentially limitless changes due to caustic and odiferous chemicals, is their tacit agreement within the angling media to ignore the enormous benefit of resident fish strung out on Starbucks or Marlboros?

… guides have exploited these sacred cows for decades, and us being starstruck and completely obedient (as we’ve driven for hours and parted with considerable coin) have knotted on any number of trout chow, mashed ciggie, foamed latte’ imitations at their behest – while swallowing some explanation on how the October Caddis really has a big sooty arse just prior to emergence.

… and if you don’t remember that lecture, it’s because most of it was in Latin.

Both the over-the-counter and generic drug selections are neatly imitated via do-it-yourself M&M’s, Just add the Viagra, Quaalude, or Progesterone label and your fly box will be bursting with quality imitations.

Even the moral issues have been put to bed by steelheader’s.  They’ve gashed themselves publicly over their continued dependence on beads versus flies – and “Melt in your Mouth, Not in Your Hand” should be child’s play by comparison.

Hemingway's Cuban

At least I’m not going to curl up in a ball all secretive-like when asked what I’m using, it’s a Hemingway’s Cuban – one helluva cased caddis imitation …

… only because the biggest Arcus Iris Salmo get all near-sighted once they grow past eight or eleven pounds, and all them rods, cones, and photoreceptors start sending misinformation that is countered by the Hemingway, E. Pluribus Unum…

Tags: Caddis, chemicals in drinking water, nicotine, female hormone, cased caddis, fly fishing humor

Only on the Internet do we find the real advertising gems

Dead guys fly fishing

Dear Sirs,

Your recent week-long West Yellowstone clinic on “Long Lost Secrets of Fly Fishing Returned From the Grave and Brought back with Us,” was ill conceived, disgusting and worthy of a refund.

While both lodge and private streams are Orvis endorsed, neither of your featured speakers were licensed or bonded, and neither said much or, as far as I could tell, ever fished.

As I’d brought my family I couldn’t take part in the midnight seminars, and suggest you get more experienced speakers who won’t crumple into ashes at with the first rays of dawn.

My wife is a basket-case and has foresworn all future family Togetherness outings. Your repeated demands to use my daughter as a “ritual zombie sacrifice” was tactless and without regard to her motherly instincts. I didn’t mind so much, but you should’ve offered a significant discount on lodging and the return of her iPod.

I was especially disappointed in your entomology session, where we were limited to terrestrial insects attracted by your hosts. I had assumed it would be aquatic insects we’d be studying, with in-stream lectures, not blue bottles and their role in decay …

I’d give long thought to your continued participation as the host for this series. I cannot in good conscience recommend this farce to anyone.

Tags: real angling advertising, dead guys fly fishing, secrets from beyond, Internet advertising, fly fishing,

Just little packets of dander

While last week was an orgy of drips, smears, and spills, it was only half of the overall effort. Testing dyes to produce the one and twenty minute shades gave me a pile of sodden colors, but it’s not dubbing until it’s teased, torn, and turned into filament.

Fabric Dyer's Dictionary Wet dyeing is a mixture of chance and things we can bend to our will, “dry dyeing” allows us to micro-manage color and turn lemons into lemonade.

It also allowed me to experiment with a fabric color bible, and their recipes for 900 different colors from component colors.

I picked up the Fabric Dyer’s Dictionary ($16.29) from Amazon.com, figuring fabric and its rough weave might approximate dubbing colors fairly well. This particular book isn’t as useful as I’d hoped as it’s limited to the fiber reactive liquid dyes used on vegetable fibers, like soy, hemp, jute, silk, and cotton.

Sample page and color measurement

It does list the components of each hue – which may be enough for the casual colorist to get within striking distance of the color desired, but you’ll have to develop a conversion from liquid measure to dry, or convert your powdered dye to squeeze bottles as they suggest.

As the liquid phase of the project was complete, I’d need to convert their teaspoons and tablespoons into pinches of dubbing.

Mixing dry dubbing to yield new colors

A couple of dog brushes, a gauze mask, and elbow grease is all that’s required, that and plenty of fur in as many colors as possible.

You can’t use blenders on fibers that are measured in microns, this is more of the Singlebarbed’s Whizbang Dry Fly dubbing and the average fiber is only 12 microns wide – about one-thirtieth a strand of wool fiber, it’s gossamer and sticks to everything – and will only bind into clumps with blender use.

Tearing the fibers between the grooming combs aligns them in parallel and starts the blending of color.

All fibers pulled parallel to one another

Now it’s only a matter of how complete of a color blend you want. As an impressionist I’d rather have some streaks of the components available as it allows me to fine tune the actually fly by selecting a bit more yellow or a bit less, ditto for the gray.

About four mixing passes to reach this blending

Considering that you can do the same with existing packs of fur you’ve purchased from the fly shop, dry dyeing allows you to build custom colors unique to your fishery with little mess.

The above yellow-gray blend has been through about four blending passes to achieve this level of mix. Each pass was scraped against the other repeatedly, then lifted off the bottom comb by scraping the top “with the grain” and towards you, then laid down again on the bottom comb to repeat the process.

This is about as far as I’ll take each blend. It gives about four shades of color from a single clump, depending on whether you take the fur from a yellowish area or a predominantly gray section.

final color with its components

The final blend with its component colors – the flash has lightened the original gray measurably. The color is a good muddy gray – liable to be someone’s secret color somewheres.

Considering the ultra-fine filament size necessary for a good dry fly dubbing, the rending process will have particles in orbit all around you. If you’re sitting down to a extended session wear a simple mask to avoid inhaling the bunny, beaver, or filament you’re tinkering with, it’s only prudent.

The first batch of colors

It doesn’t take much to yield a spectrum of colors suited to your watershed – and contrary to vendor offerings, you’ll have few wasted colors, and they’ll be complex blends – none of the drab monotones that dominate commercial dry fly dubbing.

I’ve concentrated the colors above in the olive and brown range, giving me 10 shades of each, plus 5 shades of gray, and a quick spectrum of warm colors suitable for most of the common California colors of mayfly and caddis.

This is just a start however, as I’m building a comprehensive selection to replace all the odd packs of vendor dubbing accumulated over a couple of decades.

Fly-Rite, Spectrum, Hareline, and all the traditional flavors just cannot compete with a naturally floating filament measured in microns. They’ll be relegated to a dimly lit drawer once I’ve matched all the remaining hues needed.

The color syllabus can only be used as a hint for the colors to clump on the combs, but as dry dyeing offers you complete control – you can add a pinch of what’s missing and match an exact color very quickly.

Something for you to tinker with while waiting for the creeks to subside.

Tags: bulk fly tying materials, dry fly dubbing, dry dyeing, fly tying blog, fly tying, fabric dyer’s dictionary, Hareline, fly-Rite, Spectrum, fly fishing, dog comb,

A special ring of Hell awaits these fellows

Ruby red, lemon yellow, orange orange It’s a fact that only chance collocates decent fishing with anything resembling cuisine.

At best there’s the local flavor of greasy spoon, a fast food franchise or two, and a local pizza parlor – at worst, there’s whatever you left in the motel refrigerator supplemented deftly by the minimart.

The evening hatch dooms us to whatever is open after 9PM, so choice isn’t always an option that first evening … all that changes the second night as celibacy becomes a viable alternate.

As us fishermen are sensitive to impoverished local economies we’ll gun it past the national chain (which closes too early anyways) and opt instead for the indigenous chow …

Common to all watersheds and exotic venues is the plasticine menu, featuring ruby red tomato slices with dew bursting from every pore, crisp green lettuce plucked by the Green Giant hisself, anatomically correct chicken pieces with hints of gold and russet in its greaseless crust, everything is plumb, buff, nutritious, and warm.

Even the liver looks good, and you know you hate that.

Then that sodden, gelatinous ocher mound is slammed between your fork and knife – and just before you insist it isn’t what you ordered, something vaguely recognizable (usually a beak or foot) bobs to the surface where it stares at you menacingly…

 

It’ll do likewise around 2AM no matter how well it’s chewed, nor will it alter shape or form during its entire journey through your gastrointestinal tract and beyond.

For the first time we get to peer behind the menu and see the sinister SOB’s and their sickening craft.

Tags: fishing cuisine, food shoot, cheese pull, greasy spoon, evening hatch, fly fishing humor, fly fishing exotic venues,

Informal research crystallizes the Invasive Species Issue

Singlebarbed reader “Ed” recently took me to task on my curmudgeonly stance to invasive species, outlining newly minted facts that was sure to change my mind, and those of my readers …

On Saturday I was visiting a girl friend and we were using her kayaks which hadn’t been paddled in awhile.  We cleaned them up, washed them out … turns out the one I was in had a bit of a leak so I went to shore to empty it …

Copperhead Invasive 

… and found it carrying a lethal copperhead. Naturally, my first thought was for the watershed so I spritzed it with 409, which blinded the SOB, made it angry as hell – and it was fanging anything that moved.

I stomped it six or seven times with rubber soles and while they flattened it some, I couldn’t get any real purchase to finish the job, so I grabbed my extra pair of felts and beat it to death …

… and they’re right, there was twice the guts, eyeballs, teeth and scales on the felt than on the rubber.

You may want to rethink the felt – rubber thing.

… and my response was particularly evasive given the circumstances:

“Ed, just how long have you known this gal, and is she sending you a message? … Just sayin’ is all …”

Tags: invasive species, copperhead, girlfriend, Formula 409, kayak fly fishing, rubber soles, felt soled wading shoes

The End of fly fishing as the World has known it

Lands and sticks to any surface, carries seven times its weight and releases on command? Teensy little nano-soldiers that deploy needles to adhere – and they’re going to waste them on insurgents and forest fires?

It’s my goddamn tax dollars at work, so how much to add a barb?

I always knew dry fly fishermen would ruin the sport completely, not with the ascots and monocles, sipping liquor or shaded verandahs, merely their obsession with seeing the fish grab – and how much more fun that was …

Now that Nintendo and XBox will be elbowing Sage and aged bamboo out of the picture – and a visible fish can be impaled by flies regardless of depth, we’ll all decry the blood sports as “lame” and return to the sofa whence we came.

Fly tiers out of business, the sporting fraternity torn asunder, hundreds of years of tradition out the window, and who knew?

Swarm robotics, the ability to manufacture nano-insects that respond to nimble joystick-trained fingers dancing across an iPhone, and the Army will be buying millions of them.

In the long term, the U.S. Army certainly sees miniature “bug” UAVs as a big part of its battlefield operations. According to a recently released roadmap, clouds of them would be used to survey buildings and various sites before soldiers enter them.

– via Federal Computer Week

Controlled by Ipod's and nimble little fingers

– via US Army Unmanned Aircraft Systems Roadmap 2010-2035

Sure there’ll be old surplus units. We’ll be able to buy a couple of hatches worth and felt pen them to look like Pale Morning Duns … It’ll be part of a package offered at destination hotels, “two nights stay plus fishing” (on some private reserve managed by PETA) where “duffers” can remember how it used to be, while irritating children impatiently wait on Grandpa and his needs.

It’s certain that someone on the Joint Chief’s is a purist – what with trout shaped dirigibles and attack Mayflies, in light of the carnage about to ensue, I just wish he’d foreswear the joints for a couple moments of clarity …

You and I won’t have much to worry about as we’ll be incarcerated along with the rest of the “Catskill 700” … we’ll hear jackboots grinding on gravel just prior to the SEAL team emerging from our riffle – our vest painted with lasers before we’re dropped to the earth, all the while protesting innocence while some kid renders sentence:

“Yessir, he’s got a pocketful of black AR-97A’s, and a fistful of subsurface agents in his vest – looks like cheap Chinese produced knockoffs, probably carrying a biologic payload …”

“Huh?, those are Black Gnat’s, I got them a … (solar plexus blow with gun butt) … huff .. huff .. wheeze.”

Small finger skills qualifies me to assemble the SOB’s which is a plum assignment compared to the sweltering heat of the prison laundry – where all that hard work scrubbing invasives will pay off for the rest of you … for the State.

Tags: Nano robots, swarm robotics, fly fishing humor, fly tier, fly tying contraband, dry fly purist, less joint more chiefs, SEAL team, nano-insects, attack mayfly

Labels and reference color hide a rainbow of sins

dye_fiddling Call me a slow learner, but the aerial display of the fourth will have nothing on the fireworks tonight …

I Figure 26 colors run through the same sink, tracked across identical linoleum – each with a 100% chance of a gaily colored spill outlining big hammy footprints headed toward the Man Cave …

Naturally I’ll spring for roses and chocolate hoping to confuse Miss White Glove, but even with all the innocent looks and promises of romance her spider-sense is liable to tingle.

It’s why I save all those extra Fly Shop ziploc bags, the lecture on “How much fly tying stuff do you need” carries less penalty than the “you dribbled Olive crap all over the living room” variant. By witching hour, all two and a half pounds of dry fly dubbing, plus those sixteen animal hides will be packaged neatly, allowing me to look appropriately shamefaced while she administers the former – rather than the latter, while I distract her with dinner and a glass of fine red.

I was working colors mostly, a new set of dyes and a new vendor always requires an exhaustive trial to see how labels and reference colors stack up to the end result.

I use the “21” method for evaluating new dyes, as the range of payload color can be fairly drastic even among the lightest tints. Take two identical hanks of material, soak one in the bath for one minute – soak the other in the bath for twenty minutes, dry and compare.

Twenty-One Method of Dye evaluation

The upper row shows four colors dipped for just 60 seconds, the bottom row shows the same dye bath after 20 minutes. The rightmost “Maize Yellow” produced a Golden Amber with an extended dip – yet the label reference showed the light maize variant. The leftmost color was “Safari Gray” – a color similar to Khaki, but the extended dip became nearly brown.

The rust brown and dark olive (two middle colors) were labeled as the bottom row, both dark colors – and quite vibrant in intensity. The one minute colors yielded a sage green and a creamy orange – with the cream-orange a huge bonus as it’s used extensively in most of the watersheds I fish regular.

This is why it’s so important to test dyes before using them on precious materials, sometimes the reference color is one minute – other times it’s gained only after the long steep. Knowing which yields what minimizes mistakes and the unforeseen colors.

More colors

Here’s another four dyes with similar issues. The leftmost medium gray and rightmost khaki are only true to the label color after a one minute dip – after that they darken incredibly fast. The center two, medium olive and brick red match the label only after a twenty minute soak. The one minute olive is also a huge color, it’s the Pale Morning Dun pale olive – something I thought I’d have to craft, versus just dipping it in a jug of nymph dip for a minute.

Each of the dyes shown was measured identically, one tablespoon of dye and three tablespoons of fixative, each used identical amounts of water.

Each dye is capable of three distinctive colors, the 1, 20, and 11 minute shade.

A canny fellow looks at the colors available and the 1, 11, and 20 minute results and can exclude certain colors from purchase. Most browns have only minor adjustments in red or black pigment, having it steep longer will match a russet or dark brown which you won’t have to buy.

The above picture is 13 dyes yielding 25 colors – not to mention the most absolute black and bright red I’ve ever seen.

Get Out of Jail Free Card

The Before As no points are scored for being banned from the kitchen, it’s important that the how to make a complete mess is tempered with how to extricate yourself from a screaming and angry woman.

It’s like watching all those crime shows and getting pointers on how to hide the body.

At left is the corpse after three days of desiccation. “Her” corn grabbers being the blunt instrument we need to cleanse – as well as the assortment of  ugly gray, red, and yellow driblets that line the strainer area. Each capable of bringing the Wrath of The Gods onto your narrow shoulders.

Soft Scrub, Get Outta Jail At right is the Righter of Kitchen Wrongs, cleanses fingerprints, restores the Pristine to the porcelain, and is capable of making you innocent of all imagined crimes.

… and don’t nod your head like you knew it already, this is the Goods, Babe.

Lay a generous dollop onto the porcelain and cover the afflicted area completely, give it 10 minutes to work magic, then rinse.

… and don’t buy the lemon as it coagulates in the jug rendering the contents useless. Unless you like driving to the store – blowing through all them red lights.

Along with pink fingers, the immaculate sink is the only means of extending your dyeing career, providing enough cover to enjoy a second or third session …

The immaculate porcelain

The pot scrape remains but all coloring agents are scoured from the surface. The shine has been restored as has the ability to see one’s reflection.

This corpse is buried deep.

Note the replaced strainer from my earliest attempts. All chrome with no tell tale rubber gasket to stain. It’s the perfect crime.

Tags: dyeing fly tying materials, dye reference colors, chrome strainer, dye stains, soft scrub, 21 method