Category Archives: Fly Fishing

Philoplumes and the shaft after

Lead gray skies offered little hope so I swung by the Little Stinking to see what a week’s changes had wrought. The water was clear enough to fish but still much too high to wade – many tons of gravel have changed the entire streambed and scoured every vestige of weed and bank foliage.

With the vegetation gone the creek looks like a construction site. Barring another downpour it’ll be fishable next week.

I took advantage and banged out all my lingering chores; removing lock plates swollen by the wet and removing enough metal so the bolts once again lined up with door jambs.

The water table is being replenished, which makes the entire Central Valley rise nearly four feet. Naturally you hope your slab foundation rises with it, and every year some small thing winds up needing coaxing.

philoplume With all the pressing chores finished I started working on the Caddis flies. I’d been sidetracked by an “old school” reference to Polly Rosborough – whose fur collared flies reminded me of Jack Gartside’s Sparrow nymph, which suggested Cal Bird’s woven bodies, and the drone of Clint Eastwood Spaghetti Westerns hummed in the background while I rediscovered my attraction to Philoplumes.

Philoplumes (aftershaft feathers) are the little marabou feather attached to each pheasant body feather. They’re largely overlooked but Jack Gartside made great use of them on a lot of his flies, and were popular on the Gimp Nymph back in the 80’s.

 Jack Gartside's Sparrow Nymph (minus the tail)

The Gartside Sparrow uses the philoplume as the collar at the fly’s head. It’s quite delicate but offers considerable movement, and the fly is a tremendous caddis imitation. Tied in a variety of colors, using a similar shade of pheasant body as the hackle.

The original Sparrow has a tail of grizzly marabou which I omit on all but the largest sizes.

I thought I’d finished with the stoneflies, but the “Philo-urge” had me fiddling with a combination of Cal Bird’s techniques. Cal used a copper wire tail support on his steelhead flies which also added breadth to the body for woven materials.

I grabbed a hair collar from Polly, a philoplume from Gartside, and Cal’s tail and woven body to come up with flies destined for my box; it’s “tier’s prerogative” – untested intricate flies that only the creator gets to fish.

 Should we call it a Cal Poly?

It’s not that they’ll catch more fish than anything else – they’re twice as much work as the rest of the box, so in-laws and relatives can just keep their grabby mitts off…

That was when I realized I hadn’t tied any of the patented-death stonefly nymphs that actually work. The orange and black variegated chenille monsters, complete with black rubberlegs. It’s the pattern you pass over enroute to the sexy woven body flies – thinking “if I was a fish, I’d eat those multi-colored sumbitches first.”

Huge mistake.

 The Orange and Black Death

In the fly shop they look like Bluegill flies – when wet the orange turns brown and you’ve got mottled death on your hands.

I sure hope there’s a lot of stonefly activity this Spring, I’ve got an entire box full of shapes and colors and would be sorely put out if the fish wanted to eat the itty-bitty stuff instead.

I’m sure Carp would eat them too, so I’ll find something other than a tree branch to hang these on.

How to broach the "fly fishing" subject to the significant other without undue suffering

Before sharing with your clients, make sure SWMBO has a case You too can enjoy the official vineyard of the Federation of Fly Fishermen.

Program Objectives
The purpose of the StoneFly Vineyards customer and partner loyalty program is to help our fellow members of the angling and fly fishing trade boost their businesses by increasing customer loyalty and strengthening relationships with valued partners. At StoneFly we also appreciate the opportunity to get the word out about our winery and fine wine products.

How it works:

Your spouse or gal friend finds out you can score really fine wines from Napa Valley at a 33% discount, and you’re rendered insolvent by her sudden demand for aged grape juice.

… at least that’s how it would work at my house.

My mistake was moving my lips while I read the advert, her radar is so finely attuned that before I could voice the thought – I saw the “arms folded on chest – stony stare” posture and quickly crumpled the application.

“YouAintSendingNothing2NobodyUntilYouTakeMeThereFirst.”

At least I got her interested in fly fishing …

Blessed Mother of Pasteurization don’t fail me now

It's the water, that's gotta be it With the two articles sandwiched on the news page, I can’t help but wonder was there a connection. Scientists have known about the estrogen effluent story – how the sewage treatment process fails to remove hormones from reclaimed water, and fish downstream of the outflow are mostly feminine.

Now they discovered a wider issue and a second group of chemicals that block male hormones, called “androgens.” We (and the fish) are drinking a couple of fingers of female hormones with our breakfast cereal, and a couple more fingers of something that blocks whatever male hormones remain.

Nice.

… and the article next to it was the resurgence of the gay marriage issue in the legislature. I’m staying clear of the larger issue – but you have to wonder, is water fanning the flame?

It isn’t the first study to suggest that anti-androgens might be contributing to the feminization of fish. But the new research found that there are far more of these chemicals in our lakes and streams than anyone realized. And anti-androgenic chemicals in the water might affect human health as well.

I looked up the articles cited, and really wished I hadn’t …

The most prevalent source of androgen effluent is from cattle feedlots – where cattle are zapped with anabolic steroids to grow fast “double tasty” steaks.

Studies of freshwater mussels, fathead minnows, and sticklebacks, all point to the same conclusion … chemical androgyny. A study conducted in the UK, suggests it’s happening to most wild fish stocks – and nearly all  freshwater sources have tested positive to their presence.

Conclusion: The results provide a strong argument for a multi-causal aetiology of widespread feminisation of wild fish in UK Rivers involving contributions from both steroidal estrogens and xenoestrogens and from other (as yet unknown) contaminants with anti-androgenic properties. They may add further credence to the hypothesis that endocrine disrupting effects seen in wild fish and in humans are caused by similar combinations of endocrine disrupting chemical cocktails.

From a simplistic perspective, I would assume the lower river is influenced by human sources and sewage treatment, and the upper parts of the river are rural and include the rangeland necessary to grow beef.

As I feel obligated to pass on some small trace of good news, females are larger – so female tendencies might add some bulk.

We’re not going to be calling across the creek to our buddy with, “Brown? Rainbow? what was it?” – we’ll know from the shrug it was neither a wild diploid, or a farmed triploid, so it must’ve been another “Shrugploid.”

We’ll be having asterisks aplenty in the record books soon.

Before you reach for the bottled water, consider they’re just coming to awareness on some of these chemicals and that bottle may be no protection whatsoever.

Pray that pasteurization is enough to make beer safe.

Fly fishing is chemical resistant, even when it may be a boon

Who you gonna call? While the rest of you debate whether it adheres to the spirit of things I’ll be quietly mixing it into my head cement.  I’m preprogrammed to break ranks with the crowd at the first opportunity, exploit fish horribly, then asks forgiveness in a cataclysm of guilt.

My theory is fly fishermen are the last rung on the outdoorsman ladder, if you’ve tried everything else and failed – ours is a sport that celebrates its lack of scent, there’s no stigma if you don’t wash your hands.

Real outdoor types pull guts out of deer, blow daylight through a duck’s arse, or add cherry-flavored salmon eggs to a hook – and resume eating their sandwich. They regard our mincing gait and “ew-ew-ew” sounds with mild scorn – and we fancy them boorish cavemen without the good sense to bring either silverware or napkins.

We’ve always recoiled in disgust at chemical use; we curl lip at a fly tinted with magic marker, get enraged at spritzing our flies with anything other than floatant, and backpedal at the sight of things that sink or scent our flies.

I don’t, as I’m a reformed killer. I lack all those social graces and spurn proper behavior; I dipped my anchovies in dish detergent when trolling for salmon, spritzed whatever was necessary to kill more than the other fellow, and was amused by Pautzke’s fingerprints on my Velveeta sandwich, then wolfed it quickly so I wouldn’t be forced to share.

When I see something that violates all them lofty principles, it’s twice as compelling.

Vision Baits has introduced a substance called “Ecto-Plasm” – a brownish gel when wiped on lures flies gives them the same eerie green gelatinous color we’ve admired in all the horror movies.

… once it is in the water it gives off a luminescent green glow that lasts up to eight hours.

I keep thinking of the Stripers we chased from the breakwaters of the Marina at night, and how nine inches of conehead equipped bucktail, would be vastly improved with a generous dollop of the above.

Saltwater flies have similar issues with visibility as brownlining, it’s a lot of water to cover – plenty of seaweed to obscure movement, and a short lived tide controlling your destiny, why wouldn’t vision enhancement be anything other than a boon?

The gel is activated by contact with water, so you’ll need to be cognizant of the dog walkers and joggers – if they’re pointing and laughing – you may want to wipe your nose.

Despite the cost of hackle, dry fly purism might be on the rise

You want light or lead meat? Illinois is about to follow Wisconsin in adoption of the Lead Sinker Act (SB1269). Having seen little mention of the proceedings in angling print, I’m wondering whether folks have read the detail.

Ingestion of lead pellets from hunting first surfaced the issue many years ago, most states have some form of restriction on their use around wetlands.

The Lead Sinker Act bans the use of lead sinkers and lead head jigs in all freshwater impoundments. It’s the definition of “jig” and “sinker” that neatly covers flies as well:

“Lead jig” means any lead weighted fishing hook that
measures less than 1.5 inches along its longest axis and that
contains one ounce of lead or less.

“Lead sinker” means any device that is designed to be
attached to fishing line for the purpose of sinking the line,
and that contains one ounce of lead or less.

Nymphs weighted with lead wire fall into both categories. Despite that giant black stonefly being greater than 1.5″ it’s still attached for the purpose of sinking your line.

Or is it?

A sinking line is attached to your reel for the purpose of sinking anything attached. If the fly’s weighted too – is this a “Chicken and Egg” issue?

Unfortunately the legal profession is not to be trusted as they’ve bigger fish to fry, evidenced by the discussion on the copyright infringement suit of the lighted fishing rod. The vendor sued another manufacturer who dared illuminate the tip of his rod, and while all the lawyers had to weigh in on the real meaning, it’s obvious few, if any, were fishermen.

The “pole” blatantly includes anything that could be called a “pole” and is certainly different from the “rod”. Just like you saying the pole includes the reel shows off the fact that the pole includes the ENTIRE fishing pole, including reel, and handle, and any other little attachments (see light bulb).

I’m glad we got that straight, because based on the patent attorney’s claim above, fly poles are different than fly rods, and that fly must be an addition to the pole, therefore it’s purpose is to sink the rod, not the line, so they’re legal?

They might convince me to sign up for the inevitable class action suit, but I won’t be initiating it.

Now that we’re all horribly confused, it’s time to stock up on tungsten beads and solder. “Lead free” solder retails around $50 per pound, and  is available in comparable sizes; 0.015″ (around 1 AMP), 0.020″ (2 AMP) and larger.

Just a sign of the times, you can bet similar legislation is enroute to your state soon. While angling vendors have replaced split shot with tin and other compounds, both proportions and structural integrity of flies will be resistant to materials that are sized differently, not to mention the poor fly vendors that’ll have to market the antimony variant to the states with special regulations.

If you’re ordering your flies online, caveat emptor – the penalty is up to six months license suspension, and $1000 per day fine.

… and don’t get too attached to tungsten. We’ve a similar issue with ingested Tungsten, although most of the studies to date were delivered intravenously. Heavy metal is just that, they’re all bad.

Acute tungsten intoxication results in death from respiratory paralysis , preceded by nervous prostration , diarrhea, and coma. The most frequently observed sign of chronic intoxication is poor growth …

The fish get smaller, then they die. Just what we’re looking for …

Fair and Unbalanced, the ascendancy of Brownline Journalism

Most Grammatical Mistakes in a Single Sentence 40 Rivers to Freedom just announced the winners of his prestigious 2009 Fly Fishing Blog Awards – normally a source of great angst and suffering among us callow journalism types.

We were stunned to find the Trout Underground Writer’s Network took home three “Floggers.”

Trout Underground, the 800 pound gorilla of temperance and snark took a rare second fiddle to us boorish Brownliners – who took home the “There’s no real Journalism Allowed on Fly Fishing Blogs” and the Best Blog of 2009 awards.

(Tom, it takes more than a case of Scotch and the promise of Moonpies to take the overall title, the field is now crowded with talented blog authors. Think Jungle Cock, small denominations from non consecutive birds..)

I showed for the ceremony in a stunning strapless, V-cut Simm’s shorty, but Alex and the staff at Hatches Magazine suggested that formal attire wasn’t consistent with family programming.

I did have the chance to chat with the Judges, a rare opportunity to inquire of their scoring methodology. Naturally, I assumed real investigative journalism coupled with outstanding content had carried the day …

Naw, your posts aren’t funny, but the misspellings and bad punctuation are a hoot! In fact, the local English professor is writing a treatise on your apostrophe use, it’s fresh, complex, and usually wrong …

W’ell take it.

I’d like to thank Mom and Dad, and Timmy – the guy that I cut English class with in High School ..

Statistically Sage is a wart on the Shakespeare derriere

Despite the colorful nom de plume here’s what you look like; you own a Sage fly rod, you fish a Scientific Angler fly line, and you buy all your flies from Orvis.

Unfortunately for the $1000 rod crowd, the Shakespeare Ugly Stick retains the title of most purchased rod in the continental US, and is also the rod most purchased with a bundled outfit.

Southwick Associates the statistical think tank for angling and hunting released figures for last year’s responses from their AnglerSurvey.com site. Southwick is a marketing and statistical “for profit” organization that compiles market information for both hunting and fishing manufacturers – and occasionally releases free reports for our consumption.

Sage commands a tenth of the fly rod market, Scientific Anglers has nearly 25% of fly line sales, and Orvis is responsible for 10% of fly sales.

Individual reports are available for specific states, and the message is mixed – but trending downward, as are the nationwide statistics compiled by Fish and Game.

The greatest growth in licenses appears to be rural areas, with the urbane city types falling by the wayside.

For the Moldy Chum – Trout Underground Bikini War:

Your obsession with bikini based angling fantasy holds water, to wit:

Just shove them aside and claim your prize Statistics for California are unavailable, but Florida is a sunny state and a close approximation. There are 1,200,000 women in Florida between the ages of 18 and 29. Roughly 13% of the population bought licenses, of which the greatest single demographic (9%) was male retiree.

Figure 110,000 women in the proper age group are available to drape themselves in a bikini on a rock. You’ve repeatedly insisted that the “supermodel” variant is desirable; taut, lithesome, and abundant in all the appropriate areas. Assuming “Supermodel” is 10% of the available age group, there are 11000 women available to fulfill your angling fantasy.

There are 8000 lakes (greater than 10 acres) and 2300 miles of shoreline, and models have the opportunity to engage a bikini 2 out of 7 days, therefore, there’s 3143 supermodels available to lounge on rocks on a given weekend. This implies there’s a bikini clad lounging supermodel for roughly each three miles of shoreline.

Unfortunately, there’s five steroid fueled weightlifter boyfriends per mile – and those that aren’t dating senior retiree’s, will be mopping your face on granite should you unsheath your camera.

I couldn’t find statistics for lounging bikini clad supermodels that long to be courted by a sweaty fishermen old enough to be their dad, with a wet dog that insists on sitting in the front seat, whose idea of the perfect date included a chili dog with sweetened cabbage.

Any of you fellows want to put a number on that?

Stoneflies caught doing the nasty chat and you’re a freak for listening

Loosely translated it’s, “I dig the minimalist thing, and your cerci are smoking … call me for acrobatic sex.”

I’m tone deaf so I’ll opt for the TV hearing aid that’ll boost my fading senses – enabling the voyeur. If you’re headed back to the car and I’ve got my ear glued to a tree trunk and give you the wave off – you’d be wise to get take out…

I always wondered how them little buggers outwitted me despite my going to the creek every night. The ones that prefer abstinence are on the hollow hickory as lookouts.

brownline_rating

Bogart and Hagar might’ve been on to something

A 3,000,000 year old trout languishing undisturbed in a remote and semi-pristine environment?

… and while you’re thinking some alpine Montana or Alaska venue, and donning them Blueliner togs, think again.

The rare and endangered Bavispe Trout

This is Mexico’s finest, and since 2000 at least a half dozen unique trout species have been discovered and classified by biologists. A 44 page PDF on the history of trout and their dispersion throughout the Sierra Madre is available from the University of Texas, once armed with the details and common names other sites with additional details are readily found.

It’s a quick and interesting study, and the unique trait is pictured above – the red band on the lateral line of the fish is broken by black.

Like everything else, their watershed is diminishing quickly – and the more common Mexican Golden trout and imported McCloud River Rainbow trout are interbreeding with what small native stocks exist.

This ain’t Slaw Dog country, as anything dairy is liable to regurge uncontrollably, this is home to the temperature insensitive Brownline crowd, who don’t blanch when served real dog, corn tortillas, and peppers that makes your eyeballs bleed.

Is there two kinds of cheap

Defiant until SquashedLike you I received my latest fishing catalog and saw carbon rods had finally surpassed the thousand dollar price point. My thoughts on this topic are well documented,  but I couldn’t help wondering – has the price of graphite made bamboo rods a bargain?

Prices listed in the H.L. Leonard and Orvis catalogs of the 1980’s were more pronounced, a graphite rod was in the vicinity of $165, and their bamboo counterpart somewhere between $800 to $1000 each.

Today the graphite is $1000, and the handmade bamboo is somewhere between $2000 and $3000 per rod. Comparatively that’s a decline in the difference between the two of nearly 50% in 28 years.

The raw material used to make carbon fiber is called the precursor. About 90% of the carbon fibers produced are made from polyacrylonitrile. The remaining 10% are made from rayon or petroleum pitch.

During the same period bulk pricing of Polyacrylonitrile fiber has decreased from roughly $6 per pound (1984), to about $0.30 per pound (2005). Once used solely by the military, carbon fiber precursor is now part of everything from cars and cement to roof tiles and outerwear.

Tonkin cane has always been the preferred bamboo source, and while prices spiked in the late 60’s and early 70’s (because we were napalming it with great gusto), relationships in the region have since normalized. Tonkin cane was about $10.00 per bale in the middle 70’s, and today a bale, 20 culms, is nearly $400. (Cheaper if you travel to China and purchase your own.)

Figuring the balance of parts used on graphite and bamboo rods are similar; Portuguese cork, carbide guides, stainless snakes and tip, etc., we can assume the material costs of making a bamboo rod has risen considerably while carbon fiber has declined during the same period.

As carbon is tied to petroleum costs, it fluctuates with energy prices, but as carbon fiber and precursor is used by hundreds of industries and world production is in excess of 500,000 metric tonnes, mass production has lowered the cost dramatically.

So, why have graphite rods prices increased so dramatically?

I can’t answer that, and rod companies won’t.

Some  rod company executive is likely spitting venom at his screen – claiming I’m one in a long line of simplistic rubes that couldn’t possibly understand the economics of rod construction.

Largely true, but only the TARP bailout has less transparency than rod companies and their cost structures.

I think it’s time to buy Bamboo. I haven’t heard of any breakthroughs in mass production that would account for the decline in bamboo rod pricing, it’s plain that these rare craftsmen charge less per hour today than they did 28 years ago – and should rethink that.

$6500 per handcrafted and handrubbed specimen would restore parity, until then $2000 per rod is a bargain.