Category Archives: Brownlining

Can clarity exist in Brown water

I’ve always been comfortable with the Bull in the China shop approach, it’s a mixture of distaste for societal norms, tolerance for physical pain, and diminished IQ.

 and now, a word from our watershed

Ardor is useful for the young, but is often confused as evangelical when you’re older. “Religion” tends to breed cliques and the us-versus-them mentality, useful when you’re the underdog, but has little place in fly fishing.

We’ve got enough fractious behavior, backbiting, and cliques to rival any public middle school.

The recent article on “Brownlining” appearing in the Wall Street Journal, bred commentary that reminded me of the issue. While I cannot speak for all devotees, I’ll suggest this is largely perception, and will expand on the topic below.

…but I do think the author missed an opportunity to expand on the gentleman’s comment that brownlining is a “sanctioning” of nature’s destruction. At first I thought that these men were doing something novel in making the best of their environment, but then I realized, yes, they’re giving up in the fight to preserve nature spots.

Not so. Take an ardent fisherman whose got to work for a living, who – like you – has half a weekend afternoon to get in some “decompress” time, draw a circle around his house of an hour or less – and that’s what he’ll fish.

The fact that he represents a small voting minority comprised of like minded individuals means he’ll be fishing soiled water. Most of us live in urban areas whose voters deemed water quality and riparian habitat less important than green lawns and cheap rutabagas.

… which lie lonesome and congealing on children’s plates.

We’re still the only fellow keeping an eye on the drainage, the only guy packing out discarded water bottles, or alerting the authorities to the car or corpse in the streambed. We haven’t given up on the environment, we’re merely fishing the Now rather than gash our bosom over “how it ought to be.” At each opportunity we vote our belief, donate time or money to organizations that avow the same principles, but our lobby is weak, our collective voice a murmur, and our numbers diminish with every passing year.

Pristine blue water can turn into brown water by adding industry and people – and once brown, stays that way. As new watershed can’t be created and what’s left is either fenced or in slow decline, our children won’t understand this color distinction as they’ll be drinking it.

I enjoyed this article, but I think it gives the false impression that fishing in these marginal waters is relatively new. Other than the name “brown lining”, it is certainly not new.

So true. The earliest civilizations are synonymous with great waterways; the Thames, Nile, Tigris, Ganges, Yalu, Yangtze, etc., all spawned civilizations whose waterways boosted the flow of goods with other countries and municipalities. Untreated sewage and wastewater were intermingled with fishing nets and bathers, and the only new wrinkle is leisure time, a modern invention, and the concept of fishing as sport rather than subsistence.

Interesting story, but I’d still rather catch a 10-15 inch trout in clear water than a 10-15 pound bottom feeder in a toxic cesspool. Call it elitism if you like, but these guys will be happy I’m not into it.

I’m not so sure. Firstly, “toxicity” is a shifting target largely dependent on the government for “recommended daily dosages.” When we discover that  (2R)-2-[(4-Ethyl-2,3-dioxopiperazinyl)carbonylamino]-2-phenylacetic acid makes your children unable to reproduce, some fellow in Washington exclaims, “oOpsie” – and then a decade later – adds it to the long list of things to monitor in your drinking water.

… and secondly, a 10-15 pound bottom feeder has physics on his side. Whether lethargic or acrobatic it’s still twice the size of your tippet and glued to the bottom. It’s something to do while waiting for your daughter at band practice, and it’s something that keeps your reflexes sharp and your form true, so the first day of your vacation isn’t wasted as you relearn how to cast …

Clear water is toxic too – brown only gives you an extra visual cue.

…These are quite possibly the hardest fish to catch in fresh water on fly rods…they have some of the most advanced senses of smell of any animal and are easily spooked by even the most gentle casts.

Precisely what we’ve discovered, a one pound trout on a four pound tippet is a test of the trout, a fourteen pound fish on six pound tippet is a test of the angler. Isn’t that what we’re really looking for?

I bet these men would still jump at the chance to go fishing in pristine nature settings.

Also true, but nature is many hours distant and requires a weekend to be truly efficient. A two income household in a declining job market with an onerous mortgage, a 201K, and a kid needing orthodontia … Nature might have to take a backseat to food on the table.

To me the brown water is something close by that I can fish daily without endangering the family unit. No different from the practice range for golfers, who despite the decline in the economy, still have 51 weekends of desire, and a 16 weekend budget.

Beats crap out of painting the living room or remaining cloistered on the couch.

It’s certain some will prefer a secret society and claim to rival Theodore Gordon, but I want no part in it. I just want to make fish suffer.

Given the circumstances, Brown water with it’s miles of river and the solitude of Nature, with working fish and no human competition, contrasted with tales of overcrowding and traffic, rising costs and the diminishing returns of blue water, might make it the last frontier.

It doesn’t make its practitioners anything special unless the wind shifts.

I’d guess we can’t preach any longer

The cover of the Wall Street Journal has taken our dirty little secret into the hallowed halls of the mainstream.

WSJ logo

I figured to make the paper at some point, but assumed it would be some small obituary when they found me sprawled lifeless across a rusting Ford buried in the bank, fly rod clutched in cold, blue fingers.

It’s like reading wanted posters at the post office; Roughfisher, Urban Flyfisher, Trout Underground, Fat Guy Fly Fishing, and Michael Gracie all mentioned prominently with our beloved sport.

Initially I had trouble recognizing the parties mentioned as the author uses “Mister” and our given names. Brownliners prefer the familiar to address each other, with monikers akin to “Nosebleed”, “Meathead”, or “Buckwheat.”

The next step would include a major motion picture deal, but there’s not enough portly stout  sweaty and overweight leading men to cover our merry band.

A green solution to Carp infestation billed as an infrastructure project?

It's the Green Solution Commissioner Gordon had the Bat Signal to summon reinforcements, and based on a roll up of recent headlines I’m not sure some type of Brownline Reaction Force isn’t needed to assist ailing cities, states, and foreign continents.

Australia is about to be eaten from the inside by invasive carp, and there’s a steady litany of similar stories worldwide. Naturally, us fellows that trod brown water gets ignored – as each municipality hatches some potent toxin to kill the underwater cockroach, and maims half their population in the doing.

“Delta Force” would be a handsome label – but it’s taken already, and even legions of fly fishing carp aficionados wouldn’t risk angering Chuck Norris. His carefully pressed black fatigues don’t do justice to the brownish toxins we wade through, although years of watery diversions to feed the voracious lawns of Southern California have reduced our Delta to a fetid porridge.

Sigourney Weaver had a great idea with, “… nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure” – but that was said before the housing crisis, and nobody wants to depreciate precious lakefront real estate further…

Taiwan is appealing for foreign fly fishermen to assist in depopulating a couple of carp infested creeks – and begs the question, “if we lent all those F-16’s and M1A1 Abrams to the Saudi’s and Iraqi’s to lift the yoke of the despot – can we spare a couple of C-47’s to get us and our tackle to Taiwan?”

With the Army Corp of Engineer’s drawing straws to see who licks his fingers and touches the carp barrier to the Great Lakes, and plodding local agencies fist fighting over who gets the biggest bailout if they make it past, maybe it’s time to unleash a brigade of oversexed, opinionated, foul smelling fishermen on the problem.

There’s an even chance they’d make a much bigger problem, but “kill your limit and don’t limit your kill” would likely trigger a mass migration to the afflicted region and since half are out of work, perhaps a small bounty (based on raw tonnage) would keep body and soul together for a couple more mortgage payments.

Call it an “infrastructure” buildout – as that crowd could assemble a couple extra bridges from their empty beercans and discarded monofilament.

You could start with an officer cadre of Roughfisher, 40 Rivers, Fat Guy’s Fly Fishing, Michael Gracie, Fishing Jones, and John Montana of Carp on the Fly – and let them pick a brigade or two of the deadliest potbellied killers, give them fancy camo, teach them a parade formation, and you’d have the makings of the better mousetrap – assisting in restoring relations with alienated dictators, tribal leaders, and the balance of NATO.

Now loan them to whichever city or state had seen enough civilian posterior tossing bread slices into brackish water, hide the cold beer and wimmenfolk and run for cover.

It’s a “Green” solution, and while the rest of us are busy expending normal energy at work, they’d be burning “alternative energy” draped across lawn furniture stroking a couple days growth of beard and sporting yesterday’s underwear. Boost the GDP with the addition of a couple Sushi chef’s, a refrigerated truck, and we could export flash frozen fillets to whomever developed a taste for watery bovines.

No smell except for them, no toxic backlash except for them, and a pristine riparian enclave the result. Isn’t this what was meant when the President suggested we were going to have to buckle down and do our share?

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.

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 …

The Slaw Dog, an hour later and you’re hungry again

It’s plain that a food mascot is needed for any claim of blog legitimacy. Like pets it has to reflect the unique nature of the author, and the community it serves.

The Trout Underground has been serving us a steady diet of elitist Slaw Dog fare, typical Blueliner meal for one, isolationist … unwilling to share the dog or the riffle he’s occupying.

If he were to catch something, he probably would be mum on the pattern too.

Brownline chow is social, we’re unaccustomed to company and pleased to share our tucker. We don’t count slices, servings, calories, or fish – and care less which hand does the reaching. We don’t supply napkins as we make food spatter look good. We’re hearty fellows; a smile and a wave – and you’re welcome to share our fire anytime.

The Sandwich of Entomology 

Like our water, our food sticks to you – a lasting permanent memory ensuring you’re writhing in pain on the water should the hatch come early or late.

The Sandwich of Entomology; The bottom tier contains eight strips of bacon, six sausages and four burger paddies; followed by a second tier of black pudding; topped by a third tier comprised of two diced chicken breasts and six fried eggs.

If you can’t handle it, set it adrift – the fellow downstream will be pleased to finish what you started.

If we’re expecting company, we’ll select fodder that responds well to radiant heat.

 The Colonic Wheel O' Death

The Colonic Wheel O’ Death fits roughly in the large rear vest pocket; two extra large meat pizzas draped over 6 pounds of hamburger, eggs, bacon, Colby and Pepper Jack cheese.

Sure, we’re a little light on the veggies, limp lettuce is poor fuel for a day fighting icy currents and slinging bead heads, for that you need fiber.

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Big slathering mean Dogs with a weakness for Strawberry

Just abandon this in your pocket and let the sun work its magic I call it fishing but it’s mostly exercise. The misdeeds of late December have a habit of lingering until Spring, with every morsel of See’s candy, every indiscretion of fruit cake or Egg Nog – visible on my portly frame.

They’re gone, aided in part by a snarling big wet pooch that tracked my progress through the gravel, before succumbing to a Kashi Strawberry fig newton a couple miles upstream.

I’m evil incarnate as regards the family mutt, I’ve got more sunwarmed fart bars tucked away in vest pockets than Walmart has on their shelves. At precisely this very moment some farmer just launched “Killer” through the screen door – nearly overcome by colon-baked Soy goodness.

I warned him … while doling out the second one.

The Olive Clownshoe is no longer a victimless crime Three miles up and three back suggests I’m back to summer form, and for the entire journey, there was but six fish visible. The bass are nowhere to be seen, and even the small fish aren’t in their normal haunts.

I went up as far as the big pool that normally has Carp and the only thing stirring was an immense beaver that delighted in surfacing and smashing water whenever I drew a breath.

He didn’t care for the Strawberry Fig Newton, could be the trajectory was wrong … or the big hungry dog that followed was offputting.

I left the Beast upstream and started the trek out, he was engaged in extruding the beaver onto a whole wheat crust and no longer cared for my meager rations.

A phalanx of large Pikeminnow caught my eye in one of the deep stretches,  they were the only fish I’d seen all day so I stopped to admire them. These were a remnant of the “Untouchables” – cruising fish that I’d flung lots of flies at with no effect.

A facefull of clownshoe nymph I’d been throwing an Olive Clownshoe earlier hoping to get some interest out of the pool above and figured a couple casts at the squadron wouldn’t hurt much – they were patrolling a regular route, and as they went downstream out of view I snuck out on the bank and dropped a fly on an intercept.

Using a Skagit head on my little 9′ rod offers a really nice feature, you can fling a lot of line with one backcast – as it’s really just a shooting head with thin running line, not the traditional WF that requires a lot of air time to get goodly distance.

The fly was midstream swinging for my bank when the fish reappeared below, I just let the fly tumble across the bottom into their midst. The tip of the fly line headed for the bottom, I tightened the line and the lead fish broke into “escape and evade.” All six vanished in a mushroom cloud of mud, and I’m hopping from one foot to another trying not to step on the running line as it came at me off the ground.

Untouchable no longer

One victory doesn’t win wars but it’s mighty nice to get bit, especially on an untested prototype. I got a solid hookup in the upper mouth – so he figured it was food and was cleanly duped.

If I can land the other five I might come up with something else to call them, until then I’ll call myself, “lucky.”

Shirtsleeves in January doesn’t bode well for the season ahead of us, but with every other Friday off compliments of the state, I’ll hit it early and often, as should you.

It whispers to me, telling me to do bad things

I stopped fighting it long ago. You’re standing there holding your gal’s purse while she’s swearing in the changing room attempting to make the size she wore in High School make it over the convex of midlife …

Guys have it so easy, “I need a bigger pants size … must be I’m hung better.” Whatever the inner voice whispers, it’s lying to them and dissembling to us.

Good trade.

I get the same voice whispering at me when I’m fondling some gawd-awful material last worn by the Bee-Gee’s, and even then it was questionable.

Roughfisher calls it “Clownshoes” – and I do my best to defend an “artistic challenge” – figuring that was the reaction all them other fly tiers had – and how my pending discovery of an unknown fish weakness for Pink Lame’ is about to change fly fishing forever.

That same voice claims Van Gogh sold nothing early in his career ..

A break in the weather afforded an opportunity to stomp gravel, and I was quick to take advantage – in spite of a month of zero luck. By now the lower river had consumed the piles of goat guts, allowing me to use the bridge access without fainting.

I stuffed the latest 10 “Clownshoe” candidates in an upper pocket and figured I had enough time to roundtrip four miles before them big gray thunderheads drew close.

 The latest clownshoe candidates with skein of yarn in background

I had a couple new yarns from Turkey – and the little voice yammered overtime – I took one look at the rainbow color and polyamide braided mayfly nymphs leapt out of the vice. The above samples are size 14.

Polyamide (a form of nylon) has a sheen that becomes translucent in water. The double eyelash streamers had shown me just how remarkable it looks – so I figured a smaller gauge would lend itself to mayflies and damsel nymphs.

Four miles later I was still wondering – the lower river was lifeless.

The Rusty Orange clownshoe, figure it darkens and is transluscent 

The physics trials went really well, but the fish are nowhere to be found. Tied on the small scud hooks with a 2mm gunmetal bead, the fly flops over nicely and rides hook point up – a requirement for Brownline fishing.

The damp Olive Clownshoe, the material shows its opaque and transparent areas 

The translucent effect is still present, the braided area is opaque and the filaments turn ghost-like when wet. It’s a promising look that we’ll try later, when the fish have decided to eat again.

One ball of yarn and all the colors in the rainbow makes a daunting artistic challenge.

The disco yarn even looked good – but this will have to wait until the next steelhead trip – or Spring, when the good citizens of the Little Stinking abandon all semblance of refinement and eat broken glass …

 The Bee Gee's probably wore this before being stoned by the crowd

It’s another Turkish export, 65% Polyamide and 35% Mylar – and it’s bright enough to make you cringe, just what’s needed to make a big Steelhead hear the little voice that tells him, “Shazam!..”

Just be glad Ma didn’t gift you this sweater for Christmas …

I was thinking durable – how I might singe the end with a lighter just to make sure it didn’t unravel, when a big Sacramento Sucker came upstream at me with “Durable” written on his back..

 He's awful lucky, Osprey's don't normally get just one fistfull

Despite his appearance he was mighty lucky, Osprey don’t usually lose their grip. In his case, his weight tore the talons out taking with it a walnut sized chunk of his back. This fish is about 24″ long – he’ll live.

It’s best from a boat, but a big rock would be a close second

iMu iPoD speaker, any flat surface transformed into an ImpalaI figure stream etiquette rightfully belongs to the Country and Western crowd, only because the million lines of anguished prose generated each season could be crooned into a double-platinum album for somebody, there’s more suffering, unrequited love, and boorish behavior than romance and breakup ever had…

It’s the only subject capable of turning fly fishermen into women, whose forums and magazines are replete with sobbing tales about, “I was low holed and wasn’t even kissed”, “he pretended I wasn’t even there” or “I called him a sumbitch and he never called back.”

Brownliners don’t have this problem because we expect the worst from our fellow man;  while other anglers are still a rarity, people aren’t  and etiquette is when the interloper relieves himself downstream of us, rather than above.

We’re “angling primitives” – quick to anger and react with handguns, clubbing weapons, or simple hand to hand, we don’t moan or leave in frustration, we just calculate how many rocks it’ll take to keep the corpse on the bottom..

One of our most productive tools for minor infractions is the iMu Vibrating speaker for the iPod:

The iMu vibrating speaker will transform any flat, hard surface into a top notch audio speaker.

Any hard surface is transformed into a vibration transmission device that’ll rival the sound of a chopped and lowered 1965 Impala.

Don’t get mad, get even.

Perch yourself on a rock shelf or large boulder that extends into the water, savor the selection of the appropriate Snoop Dog MP3, and crank the bass – watch aggressively feeding trout vanish, the waterline rise two inches, and the mannerless intruder leave in a huff.

[youtube width=”400″ height=”335″]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gz3Cc7wlfkI[/youtube]

Prolonged exposure will deafen smaller fish – which isn’t as bad as would seem, when they get bigger you can wade close without scaring many.

I’ve used Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyrie’s” on my pram for some time, we call it “announcing our presence with authority…”

Dangerous When Wet, where you can witness the madness

Monday’s rain wasn’t welcome, I’d covered for the folks at work during the holidays and elected to take some time off after they returned to work with sugar-orgy hangovers.

It’s a carefully planned strategy on my part, the combination of Christmas and New Year’s means everyone over-spends, over-drank, and over-ate, and the crowd filing through the door on Monday has resolved themselves to a life of chastity.

Not the chipper and upbeat crowd I choose to associate with ..

I was hoping the weather would hold but it didn’t – so I fiddled with flies and naps, not necessarily in that order. I’d been mulling an idea for a “Skunk-tail Caddis” type fly, destroying it’s two-material elegance with something more involved.

 The furry butted something-or-other

It’s more of my “furry chenille” work – an olive case  for use on the Little Stinking, a 4mm bead to make sure it’s rolling in the gravel, with a touch of “worm” color and dubbed ringneck pheasant to offer a hint of motion near the head.

I took it out this morning, and flung it at some fish. The water was plenty cold and higher than my last adventure – I figured they’d be lethargic and reluctant to chase anything, so I just let this roll down with the current to their waiting maw.

I stuck a half dozen fish in the first half hour using a dead drift, then tried it with a retrieve which yielded nothing.

 A similar variant when wet

It’s a neat little design, and completely bulletproof. I’ve got some additional tinkering to do with colors and materials, building a variety of colors for some of the trout streams up north.

Mayflies always get top billing with patterns representing every miniscule stage in their development, it’s a nice change to fiddle with something outside the norm.

In the past I’ve just tossed the fly onto the page with little explanation, I thought some additional fly tying coverage was warranted, so I’ve created simple step-by-step tying illustrations on a companion site to assist you in reproducing the fly.

I’ll put some of the patterns mentioned here on that site in case someone actually wants to reproduce them.