Category Archives: commentary

Fly fishermen have no business arguing the merits of food

Shat from the pipe with a flatulent sound I’m going to be the unpopular voice suggesting we’re discussing symptoms rather than problems. I’ll be the idiot insisting we’re in a place we shouldn’t be, that we’re arguing elitist snobbery when all the fellow in the white lab coat wants to do is feed the world cheaply.

They’ll tell you it’s all about Frankensalmon, but it’s not.

Frankensalmon exists because we ate all the brood stock, paved over the wild fish’s spawning riffle, pulled the gravel out of the streambed to make concrete skyscrapers and to vanish Jimmy Hoffa.

Where was all that righteous indignation when you kept fish you gave the neighbor, or fed your family, or when you flushed that anti-freeze into the sewer under cover of darkness, or when you passed that old lady in the slow lane with a curse and a throaty bellow from those shiny twin exhaust pipes…

That’s when you should have thought of the purity part, the Mother Nature thing, or the Big Picture even …

But you didn’t really … you handed twenty bucks to some other guy hoping he’d conserve the fish on your behalf. You hoped that your twenty matched with a couple hundred thousand others made a difference, something larger, and well intentioned. Naturally it freed you of any obligation to conserve, and the only limit to your fervor the number of vacation days you could beg from an employer.

A couple of decades later you discovered all those twenties had really accomplished very little, as the opposition had so many more of them – and the ear of the legislature to boot.

… and it sure didn’t slow you down any. Just the mention that some of those fish were running had you out crunching gravel, hoping you’d get extra lucky, perhaps you’d even get to keep one.

And while the scientists announced there were no new fish stocks entering the supply chain, and that the world’s oceans were at their zenith of production, with less fish to fight over for the coming decades – you assumed all those warnings applied to the other guy, never you.

Australia announced it was protecting its Bluefin Tuna population from the rest of the world, because the other developed countries couldn’t agree to reduce their catch. The French confessed the existing quotas meant spit, as they were intent on killing any tuna in the Mediterranean; each was worth $40,000 – and even more next year due to their being extincted so quickly.

Ninety-eight percent of the tuna in the Mediterranean has been killed already, and with the fish increasing in value, all those boats will be chasing them North or East, to whichever part of the planet that can support more.

Perhaps you’re aware of the incessant plunder, maybe you even sent another twenty to some fellow who yells into a megaphone at the fellow shotgunning tuna. Freed of that obligation and knowing you’d done the fish a solid, you probably took the spouse out for sushi.

You and your family ate as much as you liked whenever you liked, so did your dad and his family, and while you assumed fish would never run out, it always seemed to be a bit worse than the last trip, until the degree of change was undeniable.

With the Israeli’s shooting up Palestinian fishing boats, the North Koreans impounded a Chinese fishing fleet and some South Korean fishermen, the Somali’s turn to piracy just because they couldn’t compete with those shiny trawlers that vacuumed their coastline, and China seizing Vietnamese fishermen in disputed waters, fish stocks and the old resentments are starting to warm things up a bit.

… or in case you hadn’t noticed, the population of the world continues to grow unchecked, and while we’ve enjoyed a couple hundred years of rich living, demonstrated by our expanding waistlines and type II diabetes, the underdeveloped countries will be wanting their share of Nintendo, Playboy, and salmon fillets shortly.

… and with all the debt we’ve amassed getting here, our government won’t object much. Even if we’ve finally developed the fiscal sensibilities to slowly extricate ourselves from the entire mortgage-induced fiasco, we’ll still need a decade or so of offshore largesse to make a significant dent in the principal owed.

We’d prefer a solution that doesn’t involve lowering the world’s population quickly via emptying most of the silos in South Dakota at the whim of an Alaska governor who thinks the result “winnable.” To that end a couple thousand lab coated wunderkind labor to feed the world, knowing their governments can’t or won’t cooperate, using technology that some avaricious company will try to patent, and will hopefully grow scads of nutritious protein using the RNA of kitty litter mixed with the DNA of some aquatic cockroach.

… some warm water cockroach, so the result isn’t immediately obsolesced by climate change…

 … and us fly fishermen puff up our chest and exclaim, How goddamn dare they …

On a world wide scale we’ve probably killed eighty percent of the historic salmon runs, and modified the remaining twenty percent into a mongrelized mixture of hatchery interbred with whatever we added from a bucket in 1880, plus whatever we found there all natural like …

… so we’re down to a half dozen widows and orphans and we’ve yet to show any remorse whatsoever. None of us are prepared to give up the cabin in the pines, the V-6’s or V-12’s that delivered us there, or stem the flow of ibuprofen and estrogen that weeps from our leach field and into the fishery.

… and to a man we’re hoping someone else will lower their carbon footprint so we can consume their share secretly.

It’s not about Frankenfish, it’s about feeding the entire bloody planet.

Now Trout Unlimited is going to take its miniscule little budget which was given to them to rebuild fish stocks and recover despoiled streams, and instead will spend all those dollar bills litigating the FDA into groping “Lumpy Frank’s” privates a second time – just to ensure all that fish-like equipment is still where it’s supposed to be.

… and if it’s considered to be an entirely different species it won’t matter at all. We’ll kill and eat the last of the Salmon, then see if we can entice the Lumpster to eat flies – hoping those algae pellets put a bit of life into his flaccid arse …

I’d guess that Trout Unlimited, like many well meaning conservation organizations, is tired of reclaiming creeks only to watch the press of our feet return them to semi-spoiled within the decade. The problem has and always will be people –  not salmon genes – or what a pure salmon should look like …

There’s too many of us, and the irritating thing is we’re growing unabated on both borrowed money and time.

If you’re indignant that we’d cross a Salmon with a licorice stick – yielding something as unsightly as a lumpy salmonid, wait until later when we dispose of all the non essentials like eyes, fins, and lips, and just grow a large amorphous ball of protein, which is carved each morning into irregular shaped filets to give the illusion it once lived in water.

Think how aghast we’ll be if we realized the Omega-3 “slab” on our plate was never sentient, instead making a great flatulent sound as it leaped out of the nozzle and into the brightly colored styrofoam tray below.

Rather you should practice your lust for litigation by peeling the bun back on a Fillet O’ Fish, which is another well documented mongrel, whose pedigree is almost entirely suspect.

Fish hatcheries impacted by state budget shortfalls, less fish the result

There may be less of these in our future It appears that budget shortfalls and emphasis on belt tightening may have exposed the soft white underbelly of the “put and take” fishery. With both federal and state budgets being carved of fat, and desperate to avoid too deep cuts to the remaining muscle, a combination of license hikes and the systematic redirection of conservation funds may result in a lot less fish for your local creeks.

That’s because when Science fails it often does so catastrophically. The role of a hatchery in this modern era has changed from fishery restoration to fish production, the ability to augment what Mother Nature provides with a steady stream of catchable fish at a rate greater than or equal to their being consumed.

Which was the flaw in their thinking.

Outlined in an article on the New York angling scene, with the state deficit looming at around a billion dollars, and after a license hike of 53% last year, the state hatchery system is faced with not enough money to complete their mission, despite their plight being one of the reasons for the license increase the prior year.

For the first time since 1976, no eggs were taken from the Adirondack strain of lake trout in Raquette Lake, which means there will be 115,000 fewer lake trout for stocking in 37 waterways, Kemper said. Staffing shortages and budget cutbacks have reduced the egg take for landlocked salmon at the Adirondack hatchery by 50 percent, which will mean 700,000 fewer salmon stocked to New York waters, he said.

– via the Wall Street Journal

As hunting and fishing organizations assumed the new revenue was earmarked for agencies charged with the conservation mission, imagine their surprise to find the government may have other plans …

… which will lead to more law suits and additional expenditures, while the remaining holdovers from last season are attrited slowly under the ever-increasing hail of PMD’s with a Pheasant tail dropper.

It’s been that way in California for years, and if your state hasn’t yet it surely will.

Anglers have endured any number of cost increases with only minor grumbling. With incomes stifled by a sluggish economy and with less government being a rallying cry of the next dozen elections, will we begin to see initiatives on the ballot requiring dollars raised from license increases and special stamps, be spent in a manner consistent with their purpose?

… as this new austerity trickles its way throughout Main Street and finally settles into your kid’s consciousness that he’s not going to peer at Life via the lambent glow of an X-Box, it’ll make the both of you read the fine print of the new trout stamp legislation and wonder whether the State that’s proposing to tap you for “spare change” isn’t really going to put it up their nose – versus buy a trout’s dinner like they claim.

The textured fly line Redux, we may be done donating fingers

Mastery Textured Nymph Indicator I fancy myself a textured line expert, only because I’ve whined louder and longer than anyone else…

I’ve been addicted to the sound of fingernails on shower curtain since owning my first Masterline.

I’ve lost more flesh and fingertips to the Sharkskin than I care to remember, and as I’ve learned little from that hellish torture, I spent all weekend flinging a “golf dimpled” Scientific Anglers Mastery textured line at everything that moved and most things that didn’t …

Textured fly lines have always been the bastard stepchild of fly fishing. Manufacturers seem gun-shy of the technology because each time someone has the temerity to release one it’s accused of numerous ills of which it’s blameless.

… and so few have been released over the last couple of decades that they’re always claimed to be revolutionary – despite silk and horse hair lines having an obvious woven texture for a couple hundred years, compared to the plastic polymers we’ve used for a short half-century.

The Masterline Chalkstream was the first textured line I remember; launched in the 1980’s, it was rumored to be made by the Sunset Line & Twine folks for the European market, available under the Masterline “Chalkstream” label in  the UK, and the Hal Janssen label here in the US.

The Sharkskin series offered by Scientific Anglers is of recent manufacture, and while it’s a fine casting line, earned a reputation as a surefire fingertip removal method, and unpleasant memorable to fish without finger protection. 

The Ridge line is a similar idea with a bit of a twist, only because its texture runs parallel with the line to accomplish similar function, instead of a cross-grained pattern like the other vendor’s products.

While the physics of texture are sound, Scientific Anglers may have opted to release this less abrasive flavor in light of some painful Sharkskin feedback. Manufacturers rarely cede ground on their brainchildren and give every conceivable rationale to the contrary, yet this newest flavor is completely delightful, easy to cast and appears to leave both fingers and fingertips intact.

Masterline boasted of “glass bubbles” imbedded in the finish that made the texture lumpy. Sharkskin claimed it was the “ridges and valleys” or a lotus based facsimile, and the Mastery textured line smoothes the harsh edges and lays claim to a model based around a golf ball’s dimples.

The forums will soon be ablaze with claims that “I seen this guy, that knows this other guy, who claims his guides was sawn clean through ..”

If you have old bamboo rods whose guides are not hard chrome, you may have reason for concern. As 99% of the rods made in the last couple of decades are ceramic strippers and hard chrome snakes, there is no known wear issues with any of the textured products. I had a stealthy set of Japanned black snake guides that a Masterline ate about 30% of over the course of two seasons, but traditional chrome is quite hard, and impervious to a flexible textured surface.

The Snakeskin ate fingers, fingertips, and anything else it touched and persisting this myth, producing much heat on the subject in the Internet forums, but Scientific Angler was very much aware of the fingers issue and recommended the use of some type of protection even at product launch.

I didn’t see the necessity to add more gear just to fish a fly line, abandoning the Sharkskin shortly after a 15 pound carp took advantage of sand sticking to the line to carve a bloody track across four of my fingers …

It appears this new textured Mastery variant learned from the Sharkskin’s excesses and sports a finish less abrasive, a bit less noisy, and provides a great replacement for all those that admired the old Masterline and its casting qualities.

Note: It still goes “wheet, wheet” when you double haul, so if you’re made of sugar and can’t handle the noise, nothing’s changed here. Sirens still echo through the brownline as do the gunshots and howl of two-stroke off road crazies,  “wheet, wheet” is relaxing by comparison.

Mastery Textured Nymph Indicator dimensions

There is little doubt we’ll hear about fancy polymers and painstaking research, be force-fed formulas with “X’s” and exponents, which allows children to shoot an entire fly line with a single false cast. But that’s the traditional hype, for those interested in how texture can improve their fishing, or is worth the $79.95 cost, the explanation of what you may experience is quite simple.

Bubbles, Ridges, Valleys, and Dimples all cause the line to come out of the guides like a fast moving powerboat running perpendicular to waves. Both boat and fly line will touch the guides only at the bulges – allowing the valley of the line to pass without incurring friction at all. Less friction means an extra five, eight, or ten feet in your cast when released.

Extra distance is always useful, especially in lake fishing when you can use it to cover additional water.

Extra distance is not a textured line’s best quality however. The real value is fishing the downstream dry fly – either seated in a boat or wading.

Most guided trips with a boat feature a guide yelling in your ear to flip slack and avoid waking the fly. The guide is leaning over your ear yelling, “ …flip, flip, flip … set the %$# hook!”

That lessened resistance to line exiting the guides means feeding line to the current requires less effort even compared to smooth line, and a tiny flip of the wrist will add three feet of slack giving your fly precious extra seconds to cover water without drag.

That is what your money bought you, and why you may prefer it to any smooth fly line.

Over the coming months we’ll continue to be inundated with all the vendor techno babble; claims of cackling fellows in stained lab coats wearing thick spectacles, who’ve spent their entire lives researching polymers that rival a woman’s skin, repel water, and cast themselves.

Occasionally some of that will be true.

Remember that exponents and polymers cannot impart the correct motion to a fly rod, only you can do that – and the results you’ll see will vary based on conditions and skill.

Specifically I purchased a Mastery Textured Nymph Tip in WF7F. It replaces my old Cortland Nymph Tip WF7F that I use in the brown water, which is a far harsher environment than a relatively clean trout creek.

The Sharkskin line had been tested under similar conditions, and I noticed a lot of color fade, likely due to unknown farm chemicals and effluent.

The texture supplied on the line is misleading. It’s small and unobtrusive almost like a matte finish, not the obvious embossing of the older Sharkskin. Only running a fingernail down the line reveals the subtle “tic-tic-tic” of the texture, and promises to be much less abrasive on the initial feel alone.

It possesses a short and very clean color demark or transition than other bi-color combinations I’ve owned. The body of the fly line appears off-white with a tinge of cold, and the two foot orange section of the nymph tip clashes cold color with a warm – making the transition stark and quite easy to watch for a subtle move.

Running line and contrasting orange

Many of the other vendors persist the traditional peach running line with the orange head, which is a bit less distinct, as both colors are warm.

I liked the new line marking system destined for the balance of the Scientific Anglers stable, a fine vertical print of line weight and taper printed on the head portion – far enough back so that if you modified the taper by trimming sections from the front, the label will still be available.

The WF front taper was both responsive and authoritative to cast on a fast action graphite rod. I spent much of the weekend flinging the long cast to see how much floating slack it would yank off the water’s surface, and how it felt to strip all that back over the same index finger.

I mashed the running line into the sand at the water’s edge and repeated the process with much longer strips, and faster speeds, and didn’t feel the tell-tale warmth of a line burn.

To wit, I don’t think this line will bite quite as badly, and it may be suitable for heavy use without the rigor of tape, bandages, or forced amputation. One weekend isn’t a surefire test by any stretch of the imagination, but I rode this beast hard and it performed admirably without injury.

I’ll continue to use this line throughout the Winter, should it prove harmless, I’ll be replacing some of my other lines as well as laying in a couple spares. I’ll post the outcome after a couple of months, so you can learn from my extended testing in the muck water.

Summary: I think Scientific Angler has struck a nice balance of texture and function with these latest offerings. If you’re a distance craving fisherman, or tired of listening to the guide claim you’ve got reflexes of stone, you may consider giving these lines more than a single glance.

At the list price of $79.95 it’s in the zone of other lines, but given the economic times we’d as soon test the line before purchase (and your shop should be quick to accommodate that request with a rod, reel, and their front lawn).

As with all technologies espousing chemical formulae, we want to see whether the technology provides you an obvious difference – or merely a shoulder shrug.

Full Disclosure: I liked this line before I ever unraveled it from the manufacturer’s box, mostly because I love textured fly lines and think them superior to ANY slick finish. My ardor may not be shared by everyone, so you need to test this line for yourself to ensure your opinion and experiences are similar – before you trust my superlatives to write your check for you.

I purchased this line from FishWest at full retail ($79.95).

My Bologna has a first name, unfortunately so does the pen-raised mongoloid I picked for my trophy

It'll be everything he's used to Tom Chandler posted a short Twitter link yesterday that’s worth the read. Eye-opening to some, but not too far a reach to  suggest that the future of fishing and hunting might be private enclosures seperated by cyclone fence so I don’t interfere with my fellow “sport” in the neighboring enclosure.

The quarry might even be pen raised and as timid as domestic pets, but those qualities won’t show in the photos of the carcass, or the magazine article to follow.

These days a child’s first exposure to fishing is some above ground pool where images of Dumbo contrast sharply with a school of panicked trout milling about while smiling old guys bait hooks for kids. It’s like a street gang, where the initiate has to kill and eat something before he’s allowed to wear the colors.

Proud papa lingers behind snapping pictures and encouraging his bewildered child as he  jerks squirming silver fish into the air where they’re thrust into a plastic bag as quickly as possible to make way for another future sportsman … and his Poppa.

Then he spends the next four years glued to Nintendo killing everything else with equal glee. When Poppa deems him old enough he’s exposed to the heat, cold, wet, chill, mosquitos, and perspiration of the out-of-doors,  just enough to remain skeptical about it all while realizing that air conditioning and a fistful of Ma’s cookies is much superior.

Then it’s Internet Porn, Music Video’s, cell phones, texting and sex-ting, iPods, iPads, Facebook,  instant oatmeal, pop tarts, and instant gratification, and like a computer processor loses any developing attention span to become interrupt driven.

He’s old enough to understand the woods is one of the few environments he doesn’t control and fishing is a lot more fun when it’s bookended by hamburgers.  The lack of cell phone coverage limits  communication with the digital real world, but this imposition he might be able to endure for an .. OMFG .. entire weekend.

… we stuffed all manner of insta-gadgets in his sweaty little palm so he wouldn’t complain on those long vacation drives. We went digital to keep him rooted to the rug and avoid those mean city streets, and now the little snot would rather tweet and Facebook someone than hold a conversation, and reluctantly parts with a damp and lackluster handshake.

Just like a dead fish.

His is the generation that inherits everything we stomped life out of , he’s got the memory of “back when me and Dad went, they wuz huge” – only they aren’t anymore and are few and far between even in the smaller flavor.

With an attention span of 94 seconds, and the reflexs of a gunfighter, why wouldn’t he want his sport to be fast and on demand?

There is little question that the freshwater fishing of the future will bear little resemblance to what it is now. Our collective terra-forming cannot be undone. Roads pierce the last remaining wild areas, guys like us driving to the last remaining reaches of the Precious, providing those important ruts that will erode with winter’s downpour, and piss mud and silt into the last remaining quality fisheries, there to mingle with our discarded water bottles and toilet paper.

Private property will be the last bastion of off limits, and it’ll be there we’ll fight the first dozen or so court cases over who owns the rights to all the genetic enhancements, and whether fish grown to eat rock snot are fish at all.

We’ll have a glut of privately grown trout reared to order and sold to members on a rent to own, or catch and kill basis. The well healed package might include a movie filmed by video cameras that line the banks, edited by lodge staff with all expletives deleted, and a slo-mo action sequence of the trophy that the future angler will personally select like a lineup at a Nevada brothel. genetically enhanced, dosed with adrenaline and released into the private pond for a lifetime of memories or bragging rights.

It’ll have a first name and have spent the bulk of its lumpy existence wallowing in Growth hormone and Tofu-Watermelon Pizza, but so long as it’s big and stupid – them modern day sports will not care.

It’ll be like everything else enjoyable; fast, on demand, and him and his pals can be home in time to watch the video on the lodge’s web page.

The only reason you’re shaking your head with “that’ll never happen” is because you think we can actually restore something, even though we never have – and never will.

All that finery on the banks that you’re trodding  is shrinking inexorably with each year, and what’s removed first is the unspoiled and wild portion we hold dearest.

Your kid will never know your favorite creek without the water bottles and overflowing parking lot garbage can – because the public trust … isn’t …

Twenty bucks to CalTrout doesn’t fix a damn thing, it merely slows the future for a split-second.

Instead he’ll find a manicured ersatz facsimile for pay, and assume that’s what you meant by unspoiled – and the half mile drive by golf cart to his rented waders will be the “roughing it” part of which you were always so fond.

All them animal rights groups will be bought off with, “we’ll restore this unloved little toxic backwater, plant the fish the week prior, promote the fishery as ‘you can actually eat these’ because they ain’t lived here long enough to be completely toxic and you won’t picket us … right?”

That’ll ensure we’re not tracking deadly bacterium and nasty into or out of the carp infested public areas, nor are we swearing or blocking the view of all them birdwatchers.

The beauty is how economically feasible all this can be. With farmed fish comprising 50% of all fish sold already, and the fear of releasing tampered genetics via pens lolling in existing water, much of the increased reliance on farmed fish will come from landlocked waterways – ponds, creeks, and the like.

As most will be close to large urban areas to ensure freshness and ample commercial storage, it’ll be easy to lure a monied or aggressive angler to partake. Rented waders and wading paraphernalia ensure nothing foreign is introduced and fish planted in such numbers that guarantee the angler can be charged be the hour or day and still think it special.

It’ll allow fishing our generation has never seen. Wading a saltwater pond for Bluefin Tuna, and after tiring of 60 pound fish and 30 mph, spending the balance of the day using pellet-nymphs and indicators for Ling Cod or enormous trout.

I’m not suggesting it’s esthetically pleasing to us guys, we’re responsible for crapping on more than our share of the Pristine, and like our Pop – limiting our conservation efforts to our yearly twenty bucks to a Green organization, hoping someone else does the heavy lifting and lightens our conscience. It’s a legacy we’ll leave to the interrupt-driven instant gratification offspring we’ve managed to produce.

… who’ve had their genetics tinkered with all manner of our environmental excesses – just like the fishing.

A desperate attempt to prop up a dying pastime

Hunters and Fishermen all I was surprised to learn that next month’s elections will have four states choosing to add hunting and fishing as constitutional rights; those four possibly adding to the ten that already have passed such a statute.

Apparently political correctness is very much alive and well, and the recent success of newcomers like the Tea Party has caused us few remaining outdoors types to ensure our sporting heritage isn’t compromised by some photogenic charismatic and a few choice sound bytes …

I’m thinking it may be overkill, but I’m often wrong.

I’d always assumed that once men found out that farmed Tilapia were steeped in enough hormones to change their sex, even the animal first-er’s might grip crotch and demand wild-caught everything.

Tilapia often contains an artificial male sex hormone that is absorbed by humans when eaten. Because male tilapia grow faster and are more lucrative than females, the fish are often treated with the hormone to induce a sex change.

Then again, Mom does most of the shopping …

With animal-friendly organizations litigating everything involving hunting or fishing as a wildlife control, it neatly explains why us fishermen are never called to defend native fish from invasives – or why Rotenone is the preferred fishery management tool, versus us lawn chair predators and our bottomless ice chests.

I’m not so sure we’re not in a gunfight already.

The new initiative synthesizes Friends of Animals’ tradition of opposing hunting and predator control with scientific evidence pertaining to coyote behavior and ecology, thereby fostering respect for coyotes in Pennsylvania so that these animals may live on their terms. Our campaign will promote respect for coyotes as conscious beings, and educate people about the role of coyotes in the local ecology and how communities can support alternatives to the lethal management of coyotes.

I’ve never doubted that coyotes weren’t conscious beings, they’re one of a few species that successfully negotiate the rural-urban interface, and can be found living in some our largest cities.

I just cannot understand why us hunters and fishermen, who celebrate the outdoors – who ask our respective legislatures and representatives to save a little water for wildlife, or please don’t pave the entire state – save a small corridor of greenery so them tasty quadrupeds can enjoy some small dignity … before we blow daylight where daylight shouldn’t be. Why does it always fall to us killers to propose less freeways, strip malls, and civilization?

All around us, nature is being managed to death, with malls and freeways taking its place. Animals are being driven from the land on which they were born and concentrated into smaller areas and blamed for a laundry list of ills they never created. It’s time for communities to call for ceasefires, and reverse a trend that’s bad for all of us…

Ok, here it comes – less development so the community will have precious open space where the animals can frolic – and have unprotected sex …

… Community leaders should deliberate on the facts, seek and nourish what’s best in our community, and keep recreational and controlled hunting, deer contraception and sharpshooting out of Westport.

… nope, we’re keeping hunter’s away and embracing the Wal-Mart Superstore. We’re not passing out freebie condoms, and begs the question – how many of these stalwarts would buy guns if threatened with bulldozing their home so deer would have a dab more forage space.

On a cost basis, your fly tying dubbing is a girlfriend half your age, including the divorce

My poppa was overly fond of the Hershey with Almonds, as he cared nothing for money or markets, it was the yardstick by which he measured the US economy.

…in between telling us when he was a kid, it was only a nickel.

We learned the brightly emblazoned text, “33% more, Free” meant the economy was in tailspin and the price was about to rise, and the plain wrapper sans “free food” meant the stock market was a rocket ship headed skyward … (you can find the Hershey Cost Index here)

Most of this year I’ve been working towards a suite of dubbing under the Singlebarbed logo, not so much raw commercialization as awareness that an entire generation of tiers has never seen or used custom products, relying instead on synthetics that are one dimensional, like the unsatisfying part of a Mickey Dee’s burger.

A fistful of cash

Part of all that market research included buying some from all the major vendors, deconstructing the components, admiring the gilt packaging, noting the superlatives and claims of perfection, weighing, measuring, and studying benefits and shortcomings, as well as estimating their costs.

My premonition was dubbing would be a Hershey bar, only the shop tag obscured the “30% more, free” …

When I think of the expensive items we measure as minor trappings of wealth; a choice steak, a new car, a girlfriend half our age, they’re cheap* (unless a divorce is involved) by comparison.

Dubbing isn’t rare furs and endangered animals anymore. The modern marketplace is comprised of components shat from tubes, boiled in vats, and sold by the ton. So why is a six ounce “steak” of dubbing  just over six hundred dollars, and a new car of dubbing making a dent in the national debt?

The math is simple, I took a representative sample comprised of 10 fly shops and the 10 dubbing products common to all, which yielded a product package weight of nearly 4g, comprised of packaging weighing 3g, whose contents contain 1g of fur.

Given the taxation of those states and the average price,  the fly tying community is paying on average, $3.75 per gram of dubbing.

Most of the products are entirely synthetic, some contain two ingredients – a hint of synthetic sparkle and a natural or synthetic binder layer. Figure they’re paying about $10 per pound for the base synthetic, which they may dye, then re-fluff for packaging, that $10 investment becomes $1702.00 for the respective jobber and subscribing retail shops.

Not a bad return for the jobber, the retail side only gets to double the price once.

Comparison of the same product a decade ago (for those that existed) shows a decline in content weight of 50%.

… like the candy bar of yore, “fur” has shrankeled while doubling or tripling in price.

There’s no mystery to all this. Jobbers dominate the fly tying section and distribute the packaged dubbing too. With no in-house brand for competition they can do what they will, as they’ve got a monopoly on all that pegboard and what it contains.

… I’ll add that to the “ornery” side of why we need more choices. I just wanted to make something better, and already I feel the pull of  Jihad.

It’s Mrs Frankenfish fish actually, and as we’re part of the problem, we’ll accept the consequences

fof It’s a great subject worthy of much lampooning and bitter vitriol, but us sportsmen have no say in the outcome, will endure largely in silence, and be the first to point fingers when the inevitable occurs.

Call it “Frankenfish” or whatever comes to mind, but the truth is the majority of the world’s population aren’t fishermen and gets hungry three or four times a day and that dictates our fate.

I don’t suggest that I like the outcome, I’m resigned to it.

Folks that buy palatial houses by the river think the surroundings cool, perhaps some have a lonesome and expensive boat moored at their dock, many admire (or resent) the sight of us flailing in the water – but they don’t fish, don’t share our devotion to their survival, and like the trappings of wealth as much as we do.

They vote, fish don’t – end of story.

Rather than pound chest and feel violated about the pending FDA ruling on genetically modified salmon, what grow twice as quick in half the time, recognize that this is one of only two possible outcomes in the larger freshwater/ocean sustainable fisheries issue.

There are too many people on the planet, most like fish – all of them like to eat, and as we’ve alternately slaughtered or shat on all the natural surroundings and indigenous fish, we are about to eat what we’ve sown.

Our conservation organizations are underfunded and relatively powerless. Able to avert a dam or protest releases from a big power company, get one or two small creeks declared special, and they’re done. They cannot sustain the “special,” leaving the creek and its regulations to the hordes of anglers that destroy much of the bank and grind the aquatic population into oblivion just by weight of numbers.

It’s part of our history and part inheritance. Your Dad, his Poppa, and all them hardy types coming across the prairie in Conestoga wagons were fearsome killers. Surrounded by limitless wildlife they treated it as such – and kilt, built, or diverted all that precious infrastructure to their own ends, leaving us and future generations to clean up.

We didn’t – as that’s damn hard work, rather we invented things that harvested less fish even quicker, approximating the killing spree of our ancestors. Tales of conquest and adventure made us push further into the Pristine (shrinking it with every step) to find what few stocks remained in out of the way places like Mongolia, Kamchatka or Alaska, and we blew hell outta them too.

… as that weight of numbers thing is growing.

Then we gash ourselves and moan about how our Playstation-absorbed kid, who hasn’t budged off the couch in a fortnight, is going to be deprived of his birthright.

Proof positive we have learned nothing.

Bringing the existing stocks back will take a couple hundred thousand years. It probably took a couple million to invent salmon and their watershed in the first place, figuring science can give it a good nudge, perhaps 20 or so generations from now we can have something close …

… but that implies we bulldoze all those palatial homes, ban jet skis, restore the forested acres of each headwater, and evict a large, monied, and vocal chunk of the population from their ancestral estates.

… which is never going to happen, because you want Junior’s playstation to hum contentedly, otherwise you’d have to converse with the witless SOB, or worse find him a job.

So … we’re back at option two, grow the equivalent muscle mass of the ancient runs to feed a burgeoning world population, without using any of the original acres, streams, forests, oceans, or tidewaters.

As the most efficient process is test tube, that’s where we’re headed. Stem cell research has already produced both rudimentary flesh and muscle fiber, all that remains is to juice the cell replication so it produces a ton or more flaccid and tasteless flesh per hour, per minute, or whatever scale is needed.

… so your kid can whine and turn up his nose at his birthright.

In the interim we’ll stick big needles in animal flesh and zap them with all manner of caustic stuff so you can order sushi.

Some of the result will escape, just as the genetically engineered Roundup resistant crops have done, and if we don’t screw everything forever, or release something sentient that dines on us, we’ll slowly learn from many mistakes.

Rather than steep yourself in angry apoplexy, recognize that you’ve earned this birthright, and despite all of the hideous inequities, no one is giving up their homes, shopping malls, or movie theaters, to restore fish to prior levels.

… and if that’s not enough and you insist on saving some fish, I suggest you give up the sport entirely, as that will save some few, mark you as a selfless sporting martyr, as well as make more for the rest of us.

Fixing it is out of the question, Science is going to have their way with the Old Gal, and nothing you say or do will matter.

Resigned to it all, I’ll cling to the hope that through this process we may be able to salvage one or two small bones that might make our plight a bit easier.

Perhaps the conservation groups with their miniscule budgets can commission some type of boutique fish that survives in warming-water, resistant to chemicals and dines on oil slicks and auto exhaust – but fights like a bulldog when hooked.

That may be enough to keep a small cadre of us anglers content into the next couple of centuries, so that we can exploit anything found swimming in pure ammonia when we land on Mars.

As it’s certain that even though we acknowledge the debris field we’re wandering in today, we’ve not changed our spots one iota.

Habeas Corpus may apply to our beloved Asian Carp

I see it as tantamount to complete submission, just one more highly paid fellow standing around scratching his head when the Silvery Horde pours through the locks …

The White House has tapped a former leader of the Indiana Department of Natural Resources and the Indiana Wildlife Federation as the Asian carp czar to oversee the federal response to keeping the invasive species out of the Great Lakes.

–via Sacramento Bee

The reference to the former body politic for the Greater Russian Empire, whose family was dragged into the Siberian chill and shot, along with their doctors, maids, and servants, doesn’t breed thoughts of success, and may be partly to blame.

We’ve had security czars and drug czars but their job was easier. Dealing with human foibles or cravings is a sight more predictable than slowing the spread of a remorseless silver vacuum capable of eating half its weight each day.

“When it comes to the Asian carp threat, we are not in denial. We are not in a go-slow mode. We are in a full attack, full-speed-ahead mode. We want to stop this carp from advancing.”

I suppose like his predecessors, the Asian Carp czar will mobilize the military, carefully lining up phalanxes of mechanized infantry and their supporting cast, and unleashing holy hell on the Chicago River and its tributaries, until the environmentalists complain about the swans ingesting spent .223 – and calling a halt to the hostilities.

“Certainly there are some legal questions that are in process, but there has been a history already of good cooperation among the states,” Goss said. “I believe that will be one of my strengths, talking at the level of the department of natural resources in each of the states so that we can very carefully coordinate our efforts.”

It’s certain that I’m cynical and jaded and coloring this in the least favorable light, but this issue doesn’t have the years  to construct some alternate system allowing commerce to flow from the Great Lakes downstream. Our sacrificial lamb and his meager 80 million budget are opposed by both people and fish, not merely the fish alone.

The extensive commerce and barge traffic of the region enjoys voting privileges, which can slow an aggressive solution just long enough to have the fish pour into the area with little or no opposition.

Once established and with free rein of the Great Lakes, everyone can throw up their hands and point fingers, then resume business-as-usual, free of the potential costs of portaging goods overland.

Attorneys for the defense countered that the DNA research has never been used in this manner and was unreliable. They argued that even scientists disagree about the likelihood that Asian carp are capable of sustaining a large and destructive population if allowed to enter the Great Lakes

It’s a repeat of the California Salmon debacle, where the interests of business are at loggerheads with the environment. Attorneys deny the most basic scientific tenets for fear of the financial implications to their clients, and despite plenty of consistent scientific opinion, the process drags on until ..

poof

.. too late, all gone. Now we can all go home happy.

Given a decade of use, it works out to the price of my license

Dude, Sorry According to my jaundiced perspective, three hundred and fifty bucks is a fair price for a fly rod expected to last me a lifetime.

Figure a lifetime is about a decade or so – usually accompanied by a hammy handed pal closing a car door when you’re preoccupied extinguishing a fire or shooing flies off the cold cuts …

The both of you hear that sickening crunch at the same time, and he starts apologizing about a millisecond after. The best that can be hoped is that you’re closer to the end of the trip than the beginning, if not, you kick his ass and take his rod.

It’s the Law, in any water, blue or otherwise …

I wasn’t expecting to see much in that zone when I opened the Orvis flyer, and I was taken off guard to see their new line of Access rods for both fresh and salt – both filling the bill for a low cost serviceable weapon.

I am a sonofabitch as regards vendors, and am completely unapologetic for my opinions of their conduct. After 25 years and a half dozen fly shops, and with most of the industry cuddling up for fear of giving affront, mean guys are mighty few, making them especially valuable.

Mean has to be tempered with fair, and this is a step in the right direction. Given the economic maelstrom occurring outside the sport, and their stated desire to assist in bringing the halt, lame, and fishless into our beloved sport – you’d better have a comprehensive line of fair-priced tackle to back up that play.

I’d suggest the Access line appears especially comprehensive given the 10’ 4wt, and 10’ 5wt – which fit the tournament/Czech nymph rods that dominate Europe. The 10’ and 11’ 7wt sound like a nice answer to a two-hander – and a nice size to use for Capr and their saltwater cousins, and cater to us single hand types that are still better with five fingers than ten.

It appears the Access line will replace the aging TLS Power Matrix rods, which appear on their website at significant discount, likely in preparation for these new beasts.

I simply like the trend. Prices peeling back from the haughty nosebleed levels of 2008, and offering more than a half dozen models – created solely for the purposes of “we got those too.”

Full Disclosure: I’ve never seen, touched, or cast, anything described above, nor am I getting soft in my dotage, just saying is all.

Capr Orvis, Access fly rod, Czech nymph, fly fishing tournament, carp, bonefish, fly fishing

33% more Golden Pheasant, Free

contains six feathers The only way I can figure it is there must be two demographics for fly fishermen;  the starry eyed fellow that approaches the counter with an eight hundred dollar rod and asks, “what else do I need?”

… and the mean old penny-pinching codger poring over the fly tying materials alternately swearing and grasping his chest like it’s the end of his world.

Last year we broke the thousand dollar rod barrier, and debuted a $12,000 titanium fly reel, so why is it that fly tying materials grow smaller with each passing season?

Fish hooks went from 100 packs to 50 packs and the price remained about six bucks, begging the question why didn’t they remain 100 packs and the price rise to $12?

The boxes were sized the same, ditto for the labels, so why couldn’t they just double the price and tell us to endure?

Guys like the Roughfisher could snort a 24 pack of Tungsten beads, chase it with his room temperature ghetto malt and have no ill effects. Twenty four beads is a warm up, it’s a snack – it’s not a “supply” or even a goodly amount.

With Whiting necks and saddles approaching the ninety dollar mark, fly tiers are used to the same price increases as the rod and reel crowd. We’re not going to unlimber a hog leg and start popping caps at the fellow behind the register – we’re aware of the steady drain to our pocketbook, as is the rest of the retail crowd, but outside of hygiene, we’re gifted with similar social skills and patience.

Material packaging is beginning to border on the unrealistic.

… contains approximately 1/2 gram per pack.

I need teal flank and find 12 feathers in the delicate glassine envelope. Three of them were damaged by gassing the plumage per USDA specs, the fellow dyeing them didn’t bother to pre-soak so the remaining feathers have brittle tips from a too-hot dye bath … I mash one getting them out of the baggie and find eight feathers of which three have the markings necessary.

What am I supposed to tie with that? My vacation is a week long and I get three of the “hot” flies to last me?

… 12 feathers per package

If I need more I incur the wrath of the fellow at the register. I plunk down the entire store selection – perhaps ten packs of teal, and he’s looking truculent because the Boss is going to make him restock.

Mostly because he’s only got ten fingers and these are twelve packs.

There was no sudden outburst of gunfire when fluorocarbon tippet rang the register at $15 per spool, about three times what the prior tippet du jour cost – and fly tiers being fishermen as well as craftsmen, bore the burden in silence or didn’t buy it at all.

With all these price-records shattered, why don’t you give us a quarter ounce of the feather, priced however much you want, so we don’t have to come back tomorrow for the rest of your inventory?

Even the beginning fly tier needs plenty of materials to learn routine procedures. With all the mishaps and rejects, his fur and hide cuts should be at least 16 square inches, feathers need to be at least a quarter ounce, and if he’s shell shocked by 50 or 100 packs, we’ve done him a favor by weeding him early.

Test – fly tiers, fly tying blog, fly tying humor, fluorocarbon, tungsten beads, Hardy titanium reel, Whiting necks, bulk fly tying materials