Category Archives: current events

Eoin Fairgrieve and Speycast.co.uk debut

Fish and Fly is assisting the launch of www.speycast.co.uk, a web site dedicated solely to spey casting and instruction. Founder, Eoin Fairgrieve, World Team Speycasting Champion – and Loop tackle instructor, will add to the creative mix of video, online instruction, forums, and destination information – offered by the site.

Speycast logo

The site will be enhanced to include instruction in modern speycasting techniques, with articles and visual downloads by some of the world’s top casters and instructors.  The site will feature product reviews highlighting the latest speycasting tackle and clothing by leading manufacturers as well as an extensive database of speycasting instructors around the world. 

Spey casting and Czech nymphing are all the rage at the moment, with the print media unable to satiate the demand for information on either, the online migration was inevitable.

Something for you to peruse come your lunch break.

Waders, Rod, Reels, flies, check .. foundation?

Cowboy up dammit, I don't want to hear you complaining about chaffing At least they’ve published a guide for guys to get them on without tearing them, from the angler’s perspective – that’s a start.

Back in the day, when the defacto wader was Seal Dri’s, I remember my buddies coyly hiding behind the truck as they donned pantyhose. It was unsettling, but layers were the only thing that allowed you to stand in icy water more than 20 minutes; pantyhose, followed by thermals, then pants, then those thin latex waders.

I was lucky enough not to have to grapple with transgender, as my brother had equipped us with O’Neil neoprene drysuits.

I figure this is where them 5% of anglers we lost over the last decade went, not sure whether they’re smarter than us or merely made of sugar, but I could embrace “manscara”eyeliner and “mancake” foundation – if they had a DEET base, and an SPF of 15 or greater.

If it repelled mosquitos and protected me from the elements, with a fitting that attached to my float tube pump, so I could apply mass quantities to large fleshy sensitive areas, why wouldn’t we embrace the change?

It may alter the parking lot ritual a dab, but so long as we can skip deodorant, we’d be happy, right?

For them as are not from California, and are recoiling in terror, relax. All you have to do is swear before you say certain words..

“Bob, pass me the %$#@ corn starch, these %$#@@ pantyhose are chafing hell out of me.”

A Hexagenia by any other name is still low in Trans Fat

Mayfly Lasangna I think it was the Existentialist movement of the ’70’s that insisted we “think like the trout, BE the Trout.”

If you’re still struggling with the concept you may want to eat bugs, then again, there’s plenty of other philosophies that would permit you to achieve “self” by eating Ice Cream.

There’s strong evidence that early on, people in Europe and the Middle East routinely ate insects. In the Book of Leviticus, for example, the text states that most bugs are taboo. But not ALL bugs, it says. “These you may eat; the arbeh after his kind, the sal’am after his kind, the chargol after his kind, and the chagav after his kind….” Most scholars agree that these are really names for the same critter, the locust, in various developmental states.

Somehow there’s always a trendy SoCal eatery involved, as Californian’s insist on being on the cutting edge of every dubious trend possible.

“Right now, it’s the ‘in’ thing,” says Brian Vidor, proprietor of Typhoon, a trendy Pan-Asian restaurant at the Santa Monica, California, airport.

About six years ago, Vidor added stir-fried crickets and ants to his already extensive menu. The word swiftly spread, and soon the restaurateur found himself struggling to ensure that supply would meet the demand.

I’m not so sure the angling community is ready for “Singlebarbed’s Guide to Tasty Ephemera” – but what better way to break new ground than to prove Hydropsyche tastes like shoe leather, and the LaFontaine Caddis needs Garlic?

If you’re struggling with all of this, go lick your windshield.

I’m getting fitted for my white hat

We may be the good guys for once I’m not so sure we’re not the good guys.

We travel great distances, spend gobs of cash, and when we’re lucky enough to outwit a fish, we don’t belittle it, make a guppy face, or give it the finger.

We slide it into the water or the fry pan as painlessly as possible. Some regard us as eccentric, some think us cruel, but all of us can agree that despite the quarry – there’s a hint of respect in all this.

Them other folks, the non fishers they’ve got some ‘splaining to do:

I’m thinking the moral high ground is ours for a change, and uncomfortable as it feels, bask in it while you can…

They torture us, we torture them back

88% of the time you're returning home It’s both surprising and predictable, a statistical glimpse of the evolution of fishing and outdoor tradition – after a couple of decades of Ronald McDonald, over protective parents, and absent the sterile blessing of Saranwrap.

Pennsylvania Fish and Boat commission released a trout angling survey last week that has an uncommon tilt; of those surveyed only 3% confessed they fished to eat the result.

82% fished bait, 59% lures, and 40% were fly fishermen, the majority preferred bait (53%), but they also preferred to release the fish (88%) at least half the time.

That seems abnormally high – and may include small fish thrown back in favor of larger quarry, which may qualify as “half the time.”

Pennsylvania being a couple thousand miles away, California’s interpretation of this time honored practice suggests; 97% of us are neighbors of the 3% that keep fish, so we can expect freezer burned “gifts” at any moment.

That about covers the fly-by’s ..

cafire14 With 109 degree temperatures outside and the smoke reducing  visibility to about two miles, it’s a wonder that anyone has a desire to go out-of-doors.

I sure don’t, and now the Mayflies hatching in my driveway want inside to lay eggs – can’t say I blame them with everything outside all the same color.

I have always been fascinated by airtanker’s doing what they do best, and Tanker 00 used to be stationed next to me when I lived in Redding, California, some years ago. This is a USFS contractor buzzing some high rent real estate in Santa Barbara, part of a 17 photo series hosted by the Boston Globe on our California fires.

Makes for some serious wallpaper for your desktop.

Ordering a Pizza might be a better way to get fed

Fishing with a cell phoneSkipping the fishing to go straight to the catching part sounds potentially cheaper, but the virtual odds sound much too realistic to be a cost savings.

I don’t think you’ll want to leave your cell phone lying around; $10 for three casts approximates the cost of fly fishing, but the idea that your kid could pizzle away your entire paycheck, worse yet, could win two or three hundred pounds of fish should cause you to blanch.

The game — called “Ippon Zuri” (which means “pole-and-line fishing”) — was created by FIT, a Fukuoka-based system development company who teamed up with a local seafood wholesaler. Game play is simple: players use the phone keys to cast bait to promising-looking fish in the game’s virtual waters, which include sea bream, crab, and other seasonal fish. When a fish takes the bait, the player is sent to a slot machine screen where, if luck prevails and 3 numbers line up appropriately, the virtual fish is hooked and reeled in. A message is then relayed to the wholesaler, who picks up the real-world equivalent from the local seafood market and delivers it, whole and raw, to the player’s doorstep.

Hardened anglers will balk at the slot machine segment, decrying that fishing could ever compare with any game of chance. I’m not so sure that fading light and tiny naturals isn’t exactly that – chancy at best to pick the correct fly and even less of seeing it to set the hook.

They tried the live action version on those Internet deer hunting sites, I’m guessing the webcam flavor can’t be far behind.

I may have to side with the Fundamentalist’s just once

Genetically engineered piss-water I never thought about the perils of genetically manipulated beef, with my meager BBQ skills I usually eat briquette of “beef like substance”. Charcoal is a spice – get enough black on that haunch and the genetics are the least of your worries.

I’m fine with modified grains – and anything else derived from stem cell research, figuring whatever plague we unleash would be tame compared to what we’d already done to the environment, and it might even weed a few of us conspicuous capitalists off the landscape – lessening the burden somewhat.

But a fellow has to draw the line somewhere’s …

The current flap over a new sewage treatment plant for the Provo River may be our call to arms, not in the traditional sense – but if the manager has his way, they’ll be adding trout to the outflow to test water quality:

Matthews has his own idea for demonstrating the water’s high quality. He wants to build a 10-foot fish tank in the sewer plant to hold a couple of trout from one of the nearby fishing holes. The district will run treated effluent through it.

“If there’s a problem,” he said, “we’ll see it in our own plant.”

The old “canary in a coal mine” ploy – but what if a half dozen fertile fish were to escape after a couple seasons of inhaling pooty water?

It could stimulate catch and release fishing out of self defense, then again, they could be the next Invasive Species – intermingling and inter-breeding with native fish so everything tastes like warm Pampers.

Suddenly I’m waffling on the science front, brown trout are fine – but I don’t want all of them that way…

Homebuilders in Hot Water

The way it's gonna be If you’re one of the big homebuilders the ground has been coming away from underfoot for over a year –  now the courts have determined all that “ground” went into the creek, and in addition to all the homes they have and can’t sell, they’re liable for the sins committed while building all that excess inventory.

It smells kind of like … Justice …

Michigan-based Pulte Homes, Southern California-based KB Homes, Texas-based Centex Homes and Colorado-based Richmond American Homes agreed to pay a combined $4.3 million in penalties to resolve widespread Clean Water Act stormwater violations at hundreds of construction sites nationwide. The companies are also required to implement a program that should prevent an estimated 1.2 billion pounds of sediment from entering the nation’s waters each year.

In Northern California, the beneficiary will be the Garcia River, home to a modest run of both salmon and steelhead.

Pulte will spend an estimated $418,000 on the North Fork of the Garcia River, the largest sub-watershed of the river, to treat an estimated 13,475 cubic yards of stored and road-related sediment, and upgrade all permanent and seasonal roads and stream crossings within the sub-watershed. The North Fork project will decrease sediment loading and runoff and improve anadromous fish habitat.

The company will also spend an estimated $190,000 on the Blue Waterhole Creek, which is a high-priority for restoration because although it contains good natural pool structures desired by anadromous fish, it is also subject to very high water temperatures lethal to young coho salmon.

Now that we’re counting Salmon on one hand every little bit helps, whether this is the start of an endless chain of appeals, or the start of something tangible remains to be seen.

The big sweaty guy that used it last is our only hope

Needs a wading staff attachment I’m guessing this is proof positive that only the fishing part is bad for you; the financial drain, societal shunning, and the debris field of destroyed relationships aren’t cited – so only fishing causes those..

We’ve always known wading is a punishing exercise, now everyone will be stomping life out of invertebrates to “feel the burn.”

The design combines the unique benefits of exercising in water with a stylish treadmill. This results in exceptional levels of health, fitness and wellbeing.

What’s lost on the designers is the adrenalin surge of sliding towards deep water complements of worn felt or missing cleats, or the aerobic upper body workout as your grip on that tree limb falters, and Class 3 white water beckons.

That’s not “wellbeing” but any brush with Death certainly makes the living sweeter.