Author Archives: KBarton10

In light of this startling evidence, is the machine tied fly a myth?

The Daily Flypaper blog posted a fascinating video of the 1.3 million dollar fly tying system from Intuitive Surgical…

… which is a bit misleading, it’s actually an Intuitive Surgical robot showing off what it can do. ISRG has been the darling of Wall Street for a number of years, considered best of breed for computer controlled robotic surgery.

– via The Daily Flypaper Blog

While the possibilities are endless, I wouldn’t expect the cost of routine surgeries to suddenly become cheap, perhaps scheduling them may involve menus and a drive thru, but operating amphitheaters remain in short supply. Us humans have shown remarkable resistance to technology especially if it’s holding a sharp knife – akin to the revulsion we felt in handing over our credit card information in the early days of the Internet.

1.3 million is about the same as pre- and post-Med tuition, excluding cadavers and books.

Naturally, watching the video had me wondering – as the work is intricate to be sure, but we’ve always insisted those bubble-packed flies from Japan were machine made, and if machinery intricate enough to create them is of recent invention – what made all those flies during the 50’s and 60’s?

Fly tying machine, circa 1943

Therein lies the mystery as I can find nothing other than a patent application for 1943. History buffs will recognize that it couldn’t have been used by the Japanese until 1946, but may have played an important role in reconstructing Japanese industry.

Is it possible we’ve been misled all these years?

All those big ring-eyed hooks, buttonhole twist cotton thread and a Scarlet Ibis gleaming at us from the capable hands of a human? Makes you wonder what he thought our fish were thinking.

Anyone know what these rumored machines looked like or have an account of automated post war fly machinery?

Tags: Intuitive Surgical, ISRG, fly tying machine, machine tied fly, myth, patent application, Royal Coachman, Wall Street darling, youtube

Lucy pulls the football away at that last critical moment

This was the weekend where my newly placid and emerald alma mater was to be violated cruelly by my large feet. Flows were perfect, the sun was out – and a balmy 67° predicted.

Friday night was the prenup. Rods inspected, reels freshly oiled, boots sterile from chemical bathes and three months of enforced idle, flies neatly ranked by size and color – and experimentals squirreled away in secret compartments safe from prying eyes …

Saturday morning was corporate taxes, income taxes, laundry, and groceries – aided by the whirlwind “guy clean” of bathrooms and footpaths, sinks and dishes, and I plunged into the sack knowing that on the morrow, order would be restored to the Universe once I felt the first new leak in my waders.

… and while I slumbered fitfully, the light patter of rain turned foul.

Charlie Brown version

Now I know the endless grief that was Lucy pulling the football away at the last bloody second, and how Charlie Brown suffered horribly.

I returned home a broken man.

Tags: Charlie Brown, Little Stinking, season opener, brownlining, disappointment,

New indictments edge closer to Madoff trading desk

While the blaring indictments no longer grace the newspapers, it appears another executive has been indicted in what remains of the Madoff debacle.

Our interest has always been in Mark Madoff and his ownership of the Abel Automatics Inc., the maker of Abel reels.

Investigators and the trustee winding down Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC have previously said the activity took place in the firm’s investment arm, but the charges against Bonventre directly link the investment and proprietary trading operations.

– via MSNBC.com

… the selfsame proprietary trading operation run by both Madoff sons.

Both brothers spent their careers working side by side for their father, an electronic-trading pioneer. Mark, 44 years old, and Andrew, 42, joined their father’s firm on the trading desk in the 1980s. Both rose through the ranks and by the 1990s ran Madoff’s trading desk together.

– via the Wall Street Journal

While they’ve been mauled in the court of public opinion, this appears to be the first credible link between the Ponzi scheme and the legitimate trading operation.

It’ll be months before any concrete information results. In the meantime clutch those extra spools tightly.

Tags: Bernie Madoff, Mark Madoff, Abel Automatics Inc., fly reel, indictments

It gets personal when it boils down to Salmon or Danish

It started with some small pretense of fairness, Senator Feinstein’s call for a review of the environmental opinion on the Sacramento Delta, an effort to ferret out the “flawed science” that dared put fish before the needs of farms and her pals at the Westland’s Water district.

… while most of us fishermen assumed it was merely a ruse to reverse the initial judgment and favor longtime contributor Paramount Farms, it appears Ms. Feinstein has opted to speed the process and ignore whatever the review determines, in favor of adding more water for farmers via a rider on the proposed Federal Jobs Bill.

Even some fellow members of California’s U.S. congressional delegation were annoyed with Feinstein, saying she had agreed with them to wait for a report by the National Academy of Sciences, which provides advice on scientific issues to U.S. policymakers, before drawing up any water policy changes.

“We had a couple meetings on this, and at the last meeting she had indicated that we would base any policy decisions we make on the science,” U.S. Representative Mike Thompson told Reuters. “And this policy change certainly isn’t based on science.”

– via Reuters.com

Ms. Feinstein requires an increase of 30% over last year’s drought diminished quota – guaranteeing 40% of federal allotments (pre endangered species finding) for the thirsty breadbasket of Southern California.

The 2009 tallies show about a 50% decline from 2008, with each year’s return setting the new low for the run.

“Why are San Joaquin agricultural operators selling their water to southern California developers and then demanding more water from the Delta?”

Nationally, products exclusively grown (99% or more) in California include almonds, artichokes, dates, figs, kiwifruit, olives, persimmons, pistachios, prunes, raisins, clovers, and walnuts.

As everyone hates dates, persimmons, and prunes, and clover is largely animal feed, we’ll simply have to weigh the outcome gastronomically … with fishermen barred from voting as they won’t eat anything other than fish stix – which are entirely man made.

Salmon versus a walnut Danish or bear claw slathered in Almond slivers ?

… wait, don’t answer that.

Tags: pastry, senator Feinstein, California water wars, Sacramento delta, paramount farms, NOAA science, Mike Thompson

A nine foot AFTMA Pipe bomb

Patronizing my local fly shop has never been a issue. Guys like me always look for the rack of shopping carts when we enter – despite already owning everything.

While online shopping dominates the day to day replacements and flights of fancy, my stern rule is always drop a double sawbuck at the destination shops – the little guys – whose season lasts seven months if they’re lucky, and are a wealth of local fishing knowledge, things you forgot, and the repository of known feeding weaknesses of your quarry.

I may rethink that somewhat.

Most of us are already reluctant fliers, what with the cavity searches and grinning PSA storm troopers displaying all our underwear, illicit booze and the girlie mags we packed for the fishless hours …

… never sure whether we’ll see our rod caddy ever again.

Now we’ve taken out a ferry service, a shopping mall and most of a downtown city block just to blow up a fishing rod – it makes you wonder whether you’ll get a bill from the Gendarmes.

Saving seventy dollars in state tax seemed like a good idea when we finally dropped the cash for the high-end Sage, but now you’re three rows back in the throng of onlookers wondering whether you should claim the fragment of fore grip from the bomb squad.

Me, I’d hurry past the angry drivers in all those stalled cars, past the hundreds of mall employees bent shivering in their livery, wave good naturedly at the throng lining the rail of the good ship Commute – and the pale green spreading across ruddy cheeks as they wallow in diesel, and wait the prerequisite two weeks before angrily inquiring of the vendor what had become of my money …

“No, I never got the sumbitch … and sure I’ll take that faux leather set of dry fly drink coasters for my aggravation, that’s most sporting of you – but my address has changed, here’s the PO BOX …”

Tags: PSA storm trooper, bomb rod, girlie mags, fly fishing humor, local fly shop, online shopping

She’s back – scourged clean and emerald green

An impressionist has the attention span of a small child. The fact that I tried it their way for more than six minutes gives me the license to bend all the rules. Curved hooks and razor points, and why should Caddis be the only beneficiary?

As a purely fact finding exercise I’ve extended the Czech style to all the major food groups, using a leavening of black and copper in the colorful attractor role. The effect is quite good, as shown below.

Little Stinking goes International

I’ve got my muse back. She’s deep green and completely rebuilt from dam to sewer pipe, and her 2010 christening befits flies that have never graced anything save imagination – as there’s no sign of life in her adorable semi-cleansed bosom.

February 2010, The Homecoming

Drained dry in August 2009, reborn under the damp umbrella of four weeks of steady rain, no fish of any kind visible – and requiring us to start the horrid transition from flaccid winter form to the lean – hard – Whippet of Spring …

… miles of water and no telling what we’ll step in.

We’ve cracked out the stretchable elastic and felt pens, and dangled plenty of Czech samples in the creek, and everything Czech rides upside down. We’ll counter with our colorful stuff tied to ride proper, as it’ll have to account for the magnetic interference of submerged farm machinery.

Little Stinking Buttercup

We’ve got lemon yellow’s and orange-orange’s, all infused with massive amounts of the basic attractor blends, featuring claret and golden yellow- with black highlights and copper flash.

In short, while we don’t expect to see a fish, we’ll be the best dressed – most equipped, panting fat guy on the watershed this weekend. NFL athletes drag tires to get in shape – I’ll be dragging the entire fly tying desk hoping to lose the spare tire …

Tags: Little Stinking, brownlining, the rebirth of a stream, Czech nymphs, mayflies,

Humanity returns and with it my oft questioned funny bone

Small shards of humor are intruding into flu enforced idleness – sure signs of a return to sparkling good health.

It being Winter and tired of the steady onslaught of pending litigation, decline in fisheries, and coupled with knowledge that the Golden Years appear to have been replaced by the Golden Shower, I’m looking for something light and irreverent for a change.

##### Lodge at the ### River offers a top-notch dining experience, featuring dishes such as wasabi and sesame crusted halibut filet with a ginger miso vin blanc or pepper-rubbed grilled lamb loin medallions with a fresh California bing cherry compote. It has its own private-label wines as well, grown, produced and bottled in San Luis Obispo, Calif.

Fairly staid, traditionalist approach. Ascots and Port on the verandah, liveried servants serving fish to an above average clientele who’ve been lectured all day on why they can’t keep any …

We’ve endured a couple hundred years of the above – does the downturn in the economy imply fermented soy beans are the new frugal ?

… arrested three Mexican nationals and seized more than 1,300 pounds of marijuana off a fishing vessel near the northern end of South Padre Island Sunday ..

Then again, this expedition sounds like the more active, predatory angling experience, featuring sunburns and the New Age outdoorsman. Camouflage, night vision goggles, and extreme something or other – cottonmouth most likely.

Care to guess which one has the Orvis endorsement?

… and while the cloying effects of Nyquil are still an aftertaste, did I read it correctly that the Alaskan Trout Unlimited organization is praising Target for removing farmed Salmon from the shelves and replacing it with wild Alaskan fish?

“We want to market Bristol Bay salmon so it is as well-known as Copper River salmon,” said Paula Dobbyn,” spokeswoman for TU in Alaska. “

It’s the first time I’ve seen a conservation organization insisting we kill and eat the last remaining wild Salmon run in the US. Conventional conservation practices reborn under heat lamps and all you can eat.

It begs the question, how many Harvard-educated hedge fund managers did it take to dream up this humdinger. I suppose that once we’ve eaten them all we can buy Salmon Credit swaps – redeemable at the Pebble mine office …

… and if that salmon was hatchery bred (as are 80% of the Pacific Salmon in the lower 48) will it get an asterisk on the label?

A renewable resource isn’t – until we’ve shown the proper restraint for fifty years and there’s still some left. Politicians claim it to be so, scientists pound the table as fact, industry gives us a wide toothy smile, but the only renewable resource on the planet is hunger.

Tags: Alaska TU, Target, Harvard educated, salmon credit swap, bristol bay salmon, pebble mine, Orvis

You can use the extra on your underwear

Satin Finish 2 mil elastic Singlebarbed reader “TwoRod” has pointed us all towards saving a few bucks. His comment about 1/4” clear elastic as a substitute for the commercial “Super Shrimp Foil / Scud Back” products is the best replacement I’ve seen yet.

I went to eBay to see whether it can be purchased cheaper than the retail link Tworod included – and there’s a couple of truckloads available from a vendor (eBay store link) in New York.

Six bucks for 50 yards (auction link) with a satin finish. It appears tougher and much longer lived than the commercial products I’ve tried – and may last multiple seasons. The satin finish takes permanent felt pen quite well, allowing you to fiddle with colors and patterns with minimal fuss.

100 yards is a couple of lifetimes supply

I picked up a 100 yards of the material hoping I wouldn’t have to purchase it every season like the finer tippets.

Even that may have been a little ambitious as the resulting pile is about the size of half a loaf of bread.

I’ll string a hank on a tree limb to gauge its resistance to sunlight degradation, then hope I can impart some of that zeal to some fishing buddies to relieve me of a goodly chunk.

50 yards is plenty, and if prone to significant oxidation you’ll wish you bought half that. The eBay flavor is closer to 3/8” or 1/2” in width – slice it down the middle and it’ll make two strips of the appropriate width.

Tags: Czech nymphs, Scud Back, Super Shrimp Foil, fly tying materials, fly fishing, oxidation, clear elastic strip, eBay

California’s Water Pirates

The first in a series on the Water Wars of California …

… and the rebuttal. The solution is simple, put human life above all other life…

Putting Americans at risk and increasing our dependence on foreign foods? Isn’t that the same thing if we’re forced to import fish?

One last bit of upheaval

The potential exists for one last massive upheaval to the site. Scheduled for this weekend, it’s possible we’ll be offline for the better part of a day while sites are swapped between partitions and memory is reallocated to the respective blogs.

While it’s certain you’re pining away for fly fishing irreverence – we’ll be delivering what we can as memory and Nyquil’s fading bravado allow.

As always, we’re backed by tech support’s best interpretation of tea leaves and their sterling warranty …

“Three feet out the door, or thirty feet down the driveway.”