Category Archives: Fly Fishing

He was thinking it was Christmas until the other Crawdad bit back

I’m sure that fish was thinking, “Sweet, there’s two of them.”  – at least he was thinking that right up until I wadded the hook point through his gob..

I’m afraid he’s going to hold it against me, as he “arpy-chucked” half the meal when I grabbed him. On the one hand I could take this as the ultimate confirmation of “matching the hatch” – but it could just be a random happenstance.

Older Brother with a typical smallmouth Igneous Rock showed on the doorstep yesterday, ignoring the wind and blowing topsoil, insisting we stomp creekbed. I’d just finished another batch of LSO’s (Little Stinking Olives) and some other mid-sized nymphs and instead of all those empty compartments staring back at me, I had something visible in the flybox.

With wind-induced right angles, I would’ve been pleased with a tailing loop, it was classic “chuck and duck” weather, where the fly has about a fifty percent chance of hooking you as hitting the water.

We hiked down river to the stretch we’d sampled last week, a long slow bend that had carved the far bank, leaving an overhanging bank with enough height to break the wind slightly, although it was still difficult casting.

Hearing the crack of fly impacting fishing vest, I glanced at older brother’s hydration pack expecting to see a leak; it’s another layer of armor between sharp hook and tender flesh, a feature I hadn’t anticipated – but there’s some comfort in knowing you’ve got extra layers of protection.

A well munched crayfish, barfed up by a greedy smallmouth We started hitting Bass almost immediately, both of us are flinging LSO’s hoping we’re not the next victim, there’s a nice boil where my fly landed and I’ve got a smallmouth on – an 11″ fish that wished he was somewhere’s else.

I get him up close and reach down and he “yaks” a big reddish object out of his gob. I pull my crayfish out of his jaw and release the fish, lean down to inspect what he barfed up, and it’s what’s left of a real crayfish.

I’d love to think I’d “Cloned the Crawdad” – but it could be just an aggressive, greedy, fish with eyes as big as his stomach..

Matte finish faceted beads, so you can torment all your pals when they produce the store-bought flavor

I keep a small supply of the taper-drilled beads on hand for special circumstances, but the metal beads I use on flies are all from bead stores.

At $2.75 per 25, all I’m doing is adding another dime to a tree limb, and being a cheap SOB, that goes against the grain.

There are positives and negatives with the “bead store” product; they’re available in a bewildering assortment of shapes, colors, and metals, and they’re about 1/5 the price of your local fly shop. The downside is the holes are small, and for certain shapes of hook bend, just can’t slide over the sharp turns.

Model perfect bends are the exception, but Sproat and Limerick are chancy at best.

I just got an order of specialty beads from Beadaholique.com, with a matte finish that includes a faceted sparkle. It reduces the shine of the traditional beads and adds a sparkle that looks especially good.

I’ve often heard complaints from anglers who under bright conditions thought traditional bead head flies “too shiny” – and if you’re one of those fellows, you may want to eyeball the “matte” flavor.

 

Indoor Indirect Light

The facets give off a sparkle very much like seal fur in dubbing – a whitish wink of light that really looks attractive next to the dull matte finish. They’re available only in Gunmetal and Copper colors, 4mm size. The interior hole is 2mm, which is the minimum size you want to order (smaller holes can only fit 16-20 hooks.)

Next to the faceted beads are traditional 5mm copper beads from the same source – the holes on the 5mm look to be about 2.5-3mm, suitable for larger flies like stonefly nymphs, streamers, and the like.

For jewelry beads these are on the expensive side; the faceted bead is $3.99 per 144 beads, and the plain copper 5mm is $3.33 per 144, I’m assuming it’s the price of copper that makes these a dab more expensive than normal – usually I pay about $11.00 – $14.00 per thousand beads.

 

Outdoor Direct Light 

From the above outdoor photo you can see the additional glare off the traditional smooth bead, and how the matte finish is absent that extra gleam.

I can’t wait to give these a try – as I find myself using beaded flies much more often than I used to – it’s often the easiest way to weight them and you don’t need seventeen split shot to get them to hug the bottom in fast water.

Be cautious on your first order, you may be using a hook style that prevents their use. I use mostly Togen hooks that are unforged – that allows me to grab the point area with a pair of pliers and move it the 5-6 degrees necessary for the bead to pass the sproat “kink” portion. I would not try this on traditional forged hooks (those whose wire is flattened on the hook bend) – only round wire hooks can be deformed and returned to their original shape without inducing too much weakness.

Elastomeric sounds horribly sexy, but it’s still a rubber cap

I figured he was needling me because of my boundless generosity and acute business acumen. It’s a “no brainer” really, what with the decline in the stock market and all of us looking for that second job to make ends meet, I figured to leverage our fishing expertise into big coin…

“Caribou Barbie’s” husband leveraged his into a shot at Mr. Vice President, and his fishing could be from Marine-1 from now on, why should we aspire to less?

All I had in mind was utilizing them precious dirt water skills to go into the scrap metal salvage business – and with Daytripper, the Roughfisher, and myself – that’s three states, and in the current economic climate that’s a multinational conglomerate.

I’ve got more rusting metal in my watershed than the Coral Sea, and at current prices all it takes is a little elbow grease, a couple of conservation organizations to lure into our enterprise, and we can sit back and make like Sanford and Son’s.

Instead, Daytripper sends me a napkin when I need a crane … Microtrash? The smallest refuse in my creek … is me …

How many rusting Audi's will fit in one of these

Saving the environment from the perils of a six inch length of monofilament is a worthy gesture, but in a brownline fishery it’s the scale that’s all wrong.

I need something like Noah’s Ark where I can add rusting debris in pairs; first the Audi’s, then lawnmowers, water heaters, washing machines, tractors, bridge girders, and the small stuff like Volkswagens and Subaru Foresters…

That's a nine foot rod for comparison Think bigger guys, note the small sample to assist you in scoping the effort…

It’s not collecting aluminum beer cans to assist the school band in scoring uniforms, it’s heavy industry and enough income to score us each a couple of burritos.

Remember, after the first couple of million all our sins are forgiven, we’re the lions of the new-New Deal, and the cover of Time and the stony faces of a Senate sub-committee are only a heartbeat away.

You can have one, but you must renounce your ancestral claim to lands and castle

There’s nothing like the plaintive howl of a youngest son to turn Ma into a baking dynamo, and likely she made older brother eat a bar of Ivory Snow for high-grading the baked goods.

It’s the same rush of adrenalin that allows Mom to lift a car off a child, trifling details like “he’s round as a butterball and could afford to lose 20 pounds,” is lost in the rattle of pans and flurry of baking powder.

The least I could do was take older bro fishing, now that I’d ratted him out, an opportunity to torment him further – dancing just out to fist range – chanting “Ma loves me more’n she loves you..”

Little brothers are pricks even in their dotage.

New water was in order as I was still smarting from Saturday’s outing. We moved upriver to a stretch neither of us had seen, sandwiched between two gravel quarries.

I don’t think the fish had seen a fly before and we had our hands full; smallmouth, largemouth, sunfish, hardhead, and pikeminnow assaulted us in large numbers, mostly smaller fish – and the action was brisk.

“Igneous Rock” was fishing a Manhattan Leech and I started off using a similar fly I call a Jelly Belly, it’s another glass beaded monstrosity using oily rose colored glass beads.

 

The above fish is a Sacramento Sucker in pretty stressed condition, note the copepods attached to the lower extremities. He’s wearing a Jelly Belly, making him a double sucker.

Almost identical to the Pikeminnow, Sacramento suckers are distinguished by a bit more yellow pigmentation, and the lateral line is straight; Pikeminnow have an upward slant to the lateral line at the rear of the gill plate.

 

This time of year water is both low, and extra warm – making fish vulnerable to parasites.

I swapped out the smaller fly for the Little Stinking Olive – I’d had time to produce some variants that had double the lead of the earlier flavor, and added 4 strands of soft crimp Aurora Blaze Angelina to the tail. It’s the dredging version, fast sinking and with a bit of flash to assist in deeper, darker water.

Everything ate it, including bluegill and sunfish.

Older Bro busted off his leech and I palmed a Little Stinking Olive, it was time for some horsetrading. “OK, I’ll give you one of these, but you must renounce all claim to my Lemon cake, there’ll be no ‘tithing’ – no ancestral blood right, no imminent domain issue with the goodies, deal?”

I glanced back his way and saw him with a fish on, “See, I told you!” He paused long enough to call back, “hell, this ain’t the first one, this is the fourth fish..”

It was the scene from “Dances with Wolves” – two fellows separated by an insurmountable gulf of sugary citrus infused plunder, thinking, “Good Trade.”

The price is certainly worth a second look

Those of you who’ve resisted the Spey phenomenon and are looking for that first rod or subtle nudge to tip you over the precipice, avert your eyes – quickly…

Loop of Sweden

The Loop Rod Company (of Sweden) is one of many rod companies blowing their excess inventory onto eBay, no subterfuge in all of this as they’re actively marketing rod sales via this outlet.

What drew my attention is the Loop Adventure Spey Rod, 13′ 2″, 3 piece, for an AFTMA #9 line. The price is $119, with 154 of them available.

I can’t resist a really good price – and those that are dangling on the edge – unsure of whether the style is suitable for their fishing, and don’t wish to make a multi-thousand dollar commitment – this may be a good way to get your toe in the water.

The rods are mailed directly from the Loop factory in Sweden, and the postage will run you about $30, so the total outlay will be about $150.

I’m sure there are plenty of rods better, this is an overstock of a discontinued model and the price suggests it may be worthy of a second look – something you can smuggle onto your credit card without too much guilt.

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My nomination for the Angling Hall of Fame, and he doesn’t even fish

My new hero It was one of those “Casper Milquetoast” guys, flinging me a magazine across the break room, “You fish, eat Salmon, lose weight.”

I swallowed the urge to squeeze his head until he screamed, figuring I’d get in trouble – and as he beat a pale skinned and hasty retreat, I glanced at the article in question…

It may be divine inspiration, but the deity gifting me is below ground, not above…

Even Oprah has sung the praises of this pink-orange fish on her talk show. What’s the reason for the popularity of the so-called salmon diet? Simple: it works.

Almost every couple has at least one member seeking miracle weight loss, and many consider Oprah to be as great a scientist as Sir Isaac Newton or Stephen Hawking…

Make salmon (or other fatty fish) a regular part of your meal plan. Aim to have fish about 10 times per week, whether in the form of a morning omelet, a lunchtime salad, or a dinnertime fish filet.

Consider the volume of fish necessary for 10 meals a week, and the exhausting effort you’ll have to put forth to provide a steady stream of fresh fish to the premises. Like canned vegetables, store-bought fish are minus all those important vitamins due to freezing and pasteurization …

(wink.) Which means you’ll have to go fishing to catch more. (wink.)

Hell, you might be forced to ignore the lawn, skip the visit from the in-laws, and forswear your afternoon nap.

Heavy, painful, sigh.

I’d salt the premises with unobtrusive yet strategically placed salmon-diet clippings, that way you can’t be accused of leading the mark witness.

I tried it at my house and it worked perfectly, hopefully my girlfriend gets back from fishing soon, I’m almost out of Salmon ..

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Kinda Flies, half what you started to make, half what was laying close by

Sure I went fishing, but it wasn’t for very long. My fly box is showing the ravages of a lot of fishing, after a couple extended trips, visits by kinfolk, and overly aggressive casting, it’s looking mighty grim.

Everything with weight is gone, and I’m limited to #18 wet or #18 dry, and neither is appealing.

Respectable types –  pillars of the community with jobs, wives, and responsibilities, would’ve mowed the lawn or taken out the trash – hoping to fight again another day; instead, I sat the vise within visual range of the NFL – and tied weighty monstrosities whilst watching my beloved 49’er’s get crushed again. It’s fishing with pigskin – optimism abounds until the opening kickoff, then reality asserts itself.

I’m out of black, brown, olive, and gray flies, all the medium sizes and all the fast sinking stuff; what wasn’t left on the bottom of the Upper Sacramento is dangling off a tree branch on the Little Stinking. I’ll retrieve most of them this winter – once the leaves are shed and I can see them plainly.

I tie flies like a kid that can’t stay between the lines with his crayon. I start with noble intentions, knowing the color and size needed usually suggests a pattern, but half the materials require me to get up and find them – so I’ll use whatever is scattered across the work surface from the last thing I tied.

I’d like to think it was economy of motion, but it’s mostly sloth.

I call them “Kinda” flies – it’s Kinda a Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear, only it has a cigarette butt for a tail.

It’s not “invention” that’s too strong a word to reward laziness, it’s more of a culmination of fishing experience where the right size and color proves worthy, and all the knotted legs and carapaces are for those with too much money or time.

That’s a baker’s dozen of Little Stinking Olives – the box that goes in the other pocket, safe from prying eyes and grabby mitts. That much pure Smallmouth Domination has never graced my vest, and I’m likely to get mobbed as soon as I step into the brown water.

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I’ve just enough time to squeeze in a nap before midnight

Maybe we need to rethink what's attractiveWe’re being shortchanged, California anglers pay $35 bucks a year to fish from dawn till dusk – legal hours unchanged for the last half century.

It’s for the greater good, fish need beauty sleep – and I’m all for their being rested and refreshed the following day, but if the environment changes, shouldn’t these legacy rules change in lockstep?

Science is on our side, what with the recently released study on the Tennessee River, whose findings demonstrate radical change in mayfly behavior, complements of Starbux, and the Mega-caffeine craze…

Caffeine exists in a high-enough concentration to force-feed a typical baby mayfly the equivalent of 26.6 cups of coffee a day, according to Sean Richards, associate professor of biological and environmental sciences at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga.

We never put “two and two” together, enduring all those miniscule evening hatches assuming water temperature or weather prevented the normal hatch from coming off. What’s really happening is mayflies – and by inference, caddis, and stoneflies, are partying into the wee hours of the morning and emerging in pre-dawn darkness.

I never intended my hard earned license dollars to support prepubescent youngsters pissing away their youth in a cataclysmic blur of hyper-reproduction – where the frantic paroxysm of emergence occurs after legal hours – when wardens prowl and the legal anglers are abed.

Trout populations may not be in decline, and if we’re able to fish between midnight and when the Seven-Eleven closes, 100 fish nights might be common. Even “Whirling Disease” may be a myth, fueled by a diet of caffeine laced invertebrates, trout chase as much tail as we did.

Congress is busy bailing out the unfortunates that don’t fish – so save your moral outrage for the election, where we can really apply pressure.

“If you think about Prozac, it mellows people out for the most part, and gives them a state of well-being,” he said. “If you give that to a fish, then how well are they going to be able to avoid a predator?”

On second thought, don’t write anybody – things are peachy-fine, and I’ve just got enough time to squeeze in a nap before dark.

I’ll see hear you in the fast water.

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An interesting experiment, but I doubt we could agree on anything

Is it my turn to fish yet? If you think Chandler and I are up for this, think again …

I’m sure most of you snickered when I mentioned toasting the lads at work with your prowess afield, naturally you’re waist deep in water – and their waist deep in something else – when the Boss peers over their shoulder.

All those electronic gadgets are here – just a question of who you want to delivery the photo to – and what caption will best get their goat.

Two ghillies on the River Tay are already online, posting daily updates of the water, fishing, and including a photo of every fish caught that day. Enough real-time intel to keep some hopeful fellow glued to the screen as his fishing reservation approaches.

It’s also a double edged sword, if someone says “you should of been here last week” – you can look it up and call them a liar on the spot.

Jock Monteith’s blog, Speycasting is a great way to drive interest, and migratory fish being as fickle as they are – a sudden flurry of catching would likely enhance bookings. I can’t see it as anything less than a boon to both guide and client.

Then again, driving your cubicle mates batty over that really enormous brown would be worthwhile also – they don’t have to know it was the lad next to you that caught it, and you offered a sawbuck to hold it …

Collaboration is always a touchy business and the idea of the Trout Underground and Singlebarbed alternately fishing and hunched over a laptop is unsettling.

Why? Trout fishermen lie about the size of their fish, where brownliners only lie to law enforcement…

“Nice fish Tom, he’d go, what – nearly 11 inches?”

“No, don’t use metrics, on my fish use superlatives. A ‘Penultimate specimen’ sounds bigger, see – trout aren’t slimy, they glisten, the sky isn’t blue, it’s azure – imbue the reader with the entire experience!”

“Oh, OK – how do you spell penultimate?

” s-e-v-e-n-t-e-e-n   i-n-c-h-e-s, the ‘s’ is capitalized…

Funny how Ma’s pie never seems to make the hour journey

I suffered through one more outing suckling off the plasticine teat before adding lemon juice to the bag, just enough tart to take your mind off the rest of the taste – it’s cold, tastes like Pepsi Light, which I never could stand, but I’ll live.

You get a couple “old guys” in the crap water and elementary school reasserts itself; an artificial spry that lasts until the other fellow ain’t looking.

Saturday was solo and Sunday the Peanut Gallery showed – Singlebarbed reader, Igneous Rock – aka “older bro” – decided he needed to get bit, bad enough to flee the City.

It’s good to know that even in our dotage the testosterone playground  is still alive and well. Forty years ago it was who could run fastest, hit the ball furthest, and drink most-est. Now, with the weight of years, it’s who’s suffering more:

“That’s nothing, they want to replace both hips, I passed a kidney stone the size of a softball, and the doctor can’t explain why I’m still breathing.”

“Dude, Lameness. I’ve been diagnosed with three kinds of inoperable cancer, which are contentedly eating each other, they want to amputate both legs, and my doc says, ‘what circulation, I can’t detect a heartbeat.’ “

“What do you got, Blue Shield?”

“Nope, I got your Momma, right here …”

A couple of old degenerates, content to molest small fish and pound chest in the doing. Me, I fiddled with the endless cornucopia of odd variations created over the last couple of weeks, and color – lots of it.

I can’t say that the reception was much, but the tie-dye crowd would have appreciated the up-tempo changes.

Tweety-Bird is the hot pink, gold, salmon variant. Parrot is the multi-hued purple flavor. Bass ate both – but not the way they flock to the Little Stinking Olive.

I did get the physics right, as all the hookups are in the top of the mouth. The filamentous algae will cling to the hook bend on a traditional fly, and can increase it’s size by 4-5 inches. I was wondering whether this was part of the reason Carp flee in panic when my flies get within visible range.

Parrot Flavor, Bass like Purple Just methodically ticking through food groups, physics, and the engagement process, at some point I’ll discover what ails me.

In the meantime I’ll host the Big City Swells, carrying their luggage, kowtowing constantly, without hope that some of Ma’s baked goods will survive the trip.

Funny how they’re always misplaced. I do the “good son” bit, sending Almonds, Walnuts, and all manner of raw materials, yet each shipment is hijacked minus an apology.

Hey Meathead, remember when you took that long pull off my water bag, and you mentioned it tasted funny? The other end of the siphon was in the pooty water – and when you recover, you be sure to send me a card.

 

Shameless enlarged picture for Ma, of her baked goods hijacking oldest son – so’s she’ll bake even more goodies. As much avarice and profit motivated advertising as we’re able to stomach on Singlebarbed.