Category Archives: Opinions & Rants

A Good time to book a guide date or buy a fly rod

ClosedWith small businesses on the ropes, what makes you think your fly shop will survive?

Fly fishing is a niche business within the already shrinking group that crave the out-of-doors experience – and are willing to fish for anything.

If we use restaurants as a parallel, fast food and fast-casual chains will survive as they are fluent in the take-out business and can double-down on delivery (GrubHub and the like) to ensure revenue is coming through the doors. The fancier eateries haven’t any skills in the repackaging of their entrees, and their exquisite plating and ambience don’t play well with brown bags and Styrofoam cups. Many of the better quality niche players will vanish, as they don’t have the resources and cannot modify their business processes fast enough to survive.

Dining within the confines of their establishment is several months away. Someone will sound the “all clear” and the public will dash outside causing a few small spikes in infections – which will be nursed by the news channels to make us all run back inside, and we’ll be shut-ins for another couple of months until the next brave fellow ventures out and lives to tell the tale.

Fly shops and fly fishing guides are like those high quality niche restaurants. Most lack the mail order business large enough to keep them afloat, their guides depend on the shop’s ability to book vacationing clients to put food on their table, and with the public a no-show for the next six months, many of these small shops will not survive.

Depending on where you live you might actually have two fishing seasons per year. This is the bifurcation of the fishing year caused by the hot summer months, where the best fishing occurs in Spring and Fall – with summer reduced to a morning and evening bite with doldrums in between.

Four or five months means the Spring season will have us hip deep in face masks and irate housewives, intent on keeping us indoors. This may actually be a blessing considering anglers have issues with social distancing on the best holes already, and if we were suddenly required to maintain a proper distance, all hell would break loose …

At best that means you might be able to sneak in some fishing this Fall, so you might consider the following (if you haven’t lost your job already):

  • This year, DONT buy your tackle from Amazon, even if it is cheaper.
  • Book a guide date with your favorite destination shop, for a Fall venue
  • The profit margin on rods largely sucks, so you might want to buy a reel and line and a handful of flies too  …

A lot of us will lose our jobs and find new employment when things are more normal. Until then we’ll be more concerned with mortgage payments and food on the table versus luxury items like new tackle or a guided fishing trip, but this too will pass  …

It will be doubly important for us to support the small shops in our neighborhood, the restaurants and vendors that make our Main Street unique –and our fly shops and those quality destination shops that will be suffer so horribly without clients.

I don’t care if it’s a dollar more at my local retailer, it’s time to ensure those precious local resources don’t get lost to the few larger retailers with the resources to weather an economic downturn.

Buy local … it’s time to give Bezos the extended digit.

TOP GUN, The Best of the Best

IdontalwaysbuyOn rare occasion I actually reread my past work, and am reminded what sounded so good in concept often ends in some rant at anyone with the audacity to change fishing in the slightest.

It’s the nature of Oldness to insist the sport is perfect, and the nature of Boldness to point fingers and call us antiquated old pricks …

Neither side is in the right humor to realize both thoughts have merit, as age and youth are the “Crips” and “Bloods” of the sporting fraternity – destined to war over the choice “corners” of our beloved pastime forever.

As I always assumed infirmity and Alzheimer’s mercifully kept us old guys in the minority, making my occasional outburst on the injustice of the Thousand Dollar Fly Rod, the rise of the Metrosexual, nymph fishing versus “high-sticking”, and the dominance of the military-industrial complex of fly tying jobbers … just the blathering’s of a doddering oldster…

… but I was wrong, instead – I find myself in rarified company, Top Gun –  the Best of the Best, the Fedayeen of Angling … the four-percent of anglers who bought a fishing license in each of the last ten years.

Out of the pool of roughly 33 million people who fish each year, only four percent of the licensed anglers purchase a fishing license every year (10 out of 10 years). The largest proportion of anglers — 49 percent — purchases a license only one out of 10 years. Almost as many — 47 percent —purchase a license in more than one year but lapse in between purchases.

It seems the statistics and pollsters of Madison Avenue have been turned on their head. Southwind Associates released a report on angling and hunting, that claims half of us don’t buy a fishing license and those that do are “fair weather fishermen” buying them for a single trip, and the reason our numbers are constant from year to year is the “churn” rate, the “other half” buys them when we don’t …

Annual churn rates are lowest, about 39 percent, among the 55-64 age group and are highest, about 55 percent, among anglers 18-24 years of age.

… which gives me some nose-thumbing privileges over the bearded shock troops of Youth …

Younger anglers face a number of factors that compete for their time including family life, school, work, and other recreational pursuits. Older anglers who might have more free time as work obligations lessen can face health issues that limit their ability to fish.

While health issues might prevent us from fishing, as we sun ourselves on the park bench we’ll redouble our decibel levels claiming  everything you’ve done to the sport is morally wrong.

… while we make sport of your limp wrist and tailing loop.

Why my conservation dollar is no longer available, and why conservation must change with the rest of the industry

I have a tendency for melancholy when my beloved creek’s bones are exposed.

drycreek

Dewatering is now a yearly ritual and simply means the upper stretches of the creek won’t be worth fishing for at least another three years. While more fish will move down from the dam this Winter, it will take many more years to make them of catchable size.

What surprised me was how this year’s killing made me rethink the sport, its past emphasis on conservation and the environment, and how the tired old conservation rallying cry is no longer of any consequence to me.

Since 2008, both the US and world economy has dominated the headlines. Federal, state, and local municipalities have little money for conservation or wildlife stewardship and their focus has been avoiding fiscal insolvency. They’ve backed any project deemed “shovel ready” to stimulate jobs, keep tax revenues stable, and ensure some small fraction of us retain our homes and keep making those all important house payments.

At the same time, “fracking” has brought about a renaissance in our indigenous oil and gas industries, and the last couple of administrations have been quite happy to open new federal lands and accommodate new leases to ensure the boom absorbs as many out-of-work citizens as is possible.

State governments are concerned about solvency first, stimulating those areas hardest hit by the Recession of 2008 and falling home prices, and ensuring they make a business-friendly environment for whichever flavor of entrepreneur makes eye contact.

That means less money for all state programs, not simply our beloved parks, game, and wildlife oversight agencies.

As the days of the hundred dollar fly rod are long gone, as is the fifty dollar chicken neck, and anglers are being steered into a brand-conscious urbane fishing experience where tackle is the new professionalism, how come conservation still comes in its sorry old wrapper?

Sure, there’s a few mean old guys like myself that think fly rod technology has become Microsoft Office, a bunch of stuff added that no one asked for and so esoteric as to not even be announced on the box. But change has always been good, and if I’m to embrace this new fishing mantra, why am I still enduring the same tired “Salmonid Uber Alles” on the conservation front?

“Give us your money so we can spend it on the headwaters of some creek, shoring up its banks and ensuring the fragile little salmonid we hold above all else, is able to thrive for six months more …”

Salmonids are yesterday’s news, and creeks cannot be restored with grant funds as they’re available once and watershed restoration is a yearly cost, as the need is forever. In the face of climate change, why are we perpetuating salmonids, which are fragile like European aristocracy, inbred hemophiliacs and incestuous to the point of instability?

What conservation needs is a cockroach, something hearty with thick scales that can handle being squeezed, gut-hooked, run over, and peed on, as that’s what the new ecology warrants.

I only fish for salmonids occasionally, yet I ‘m supposed to care more for someone else’s creek than I do for mine, knowing that my money won’t sustain life, it will only postpone the inevitable.

In my state the environment is a foregone conclusion. Huge tunnels drilled through the Delta will divert all the remaining Northern water South and the real issue is whether we can pass the bond measure, not whether it’s a good idea or no. More billions for high speed rail relegates eminent domain or environmental press to the rear of the metro section as the Governor backs it, the legislature wants it, and the Resources Secretary remains silent.

“Fight the battle you can win”, and this is not about the environment as it is lowering the unemployment rate. Smiling workers growing crops, and ensures agribusiness has everything it desires to grow ever bigger and employ more. High speed rail permits those workers to live ever further from where they toil, allowing Southern California cities to sprawl unchecked, to annex large portions of Mexico or even Arizona …

Our governmental agencies are rooted in the propagation of dead fish over the living, which is why so much of their dwindling finances are spent raising so many. It knows the majority of its citizens ignore their doctor’s advice and don’t eat fish, but like all outdoorsmen, are thrilled to kill them at every opportunity.

Our angling conservation organizations serve up the same tired sales pitch that starts with an appeal to our sensibilities, how we’re duty-bound to steward the environment for our kids, yet our kids show no sign of stirring themselves from the embrace of their X-box, and both anglers and hunters dwindle further. “Conservationists” are seen in the major media venues as a radical cadre of eggheads and Vegans determined to impede the majority in their right to terraform the environment to their liking … and conservationists … conservationists are but a single threat level away from a drone strike.

As I regard all the vast expanse of sun-blasted rock that was my creek I realize my generation and those before me had our chance …

The Sixties were all about Mother Earth and Birkenstocks, whole grains, whole foods, and living in an uneasy peace with the planet. All those macrobiotic peace-loving citizens grew up and decided that while bean sprouts were cool, cheese burgers were better, and now cries for “Saving the Whale” means an exposed arse cheek and an insulin shot, as Earth shoes faded in favor of Cheetos, and Mother Earth was reduced to the Couch.

Swooping in for the kill is Madison Avenue, who picked up on the last half dozen presidential elections and elevated “what scares us” to the new Sex. Fear selling even better than a shapely ankle, and anything outside of our control like sleeping on the ground, bears, bees, or bats, should make way for gleaming hotels and more cell towers.

… after all, animals have had the run of the woods for tens of millions of years and all they do is crap in it.

In short, after many years of living that dream – of portaging out discarded leader bags and cast-off indicator foam, of spooling loose monofilament and tucking it into a vest pocket, of policing empty beer bottles and broken Styrofoam from dropped coolers, it has become time to turn this over to the next guys … to do with as they will.

As I’ve not fished for a salmonid in some time, I’ll ask of those conservation organizations what I’ve asked of my cable vendor, my Internet provider, and all other luxury items I purchase … how it’s time to tighten my belt, and “trout” is no longer enough of a message for me to continue my existing service.

As no one is interested in my stressed little brown rivulet, I’m no longer interested in footing the bill for the last two miles of some creek I’ll never fish.

… furthermore, the fact that you stabilized its banks and planted willows does not mean you can contact me next year for more money.

Global warming is likely going to treat your thin skinned, disease prone, clean-water-requiring salmonid and stress its watersheds and eradicate it from much of its historical and introduced turf. Just as its doing with all forms of amphibians. Global warming is change and while currently seen as bad, may just be the way of things when you consider the last 35 million years.

Remember it’s not the climate change that you need to fear, it’s the competing predator that climate change brings with it that will ensure no trace remains. That unloved cockroach fish that eats human waste, reproduces asexually, and doesn’t need the banks stabilized or willows planted to lower water temperatures, it only need pets and small children frolicking in the lukewarm brown water to feed …

It might be the Smallmouth Bass or the Asian Carp, but something will surely skull-fuck your fragile little salmonid and claim the prime feeding lie. If that’s not enough, then your remaining little enclaves of salmonids will be dispatched by well meaning humans, who delight in stomping life out of ecosystems as a byproduct of “stewardship” and unclean felt soles.

The future fly fisherman is not likely to be a poster child for a chilled Chardonnay, rather he’ll be chugging a tepid energy drink over something dirty and lukewarm…

… yet friendly. There’ll be no stiff necks and stiffer lips when a dead cat drifts through the riffle. It’ll be the Brotherhood of Suffering and Antibiotics, instead of ascots and clean linen.

.. and it’s about damn time.

For those conservation organizations that survive, your mission will evolve accordingly. Your issues no longer resonate with me or the environment. The headwaters of some salmon creek that hosts 30,000 fish held in higher regard than a hundred ignored creeks that once held  100,000 fish each, is “grant money” math that doesn’t add up.

When your mission statement and your desired outcome embraces more than salmon and trout, feel free to send me another request to reestablish my membership, as I can always use another swell hat.

Remember, everytime you drink POM Wonderful a Kitten dies

kitten4 I once prided myself on my understanding of Science, but this new stuff is a slow learn.

I’m tempted to look at your exam and copy your answers, as I can’t seem to grasp some of these longwinded connections …

The Greatest Estuary the world has ever known is dying, with the Delta Smelt simply a hood ornament representative of the larger ecosystem. Scientists suggest we’re pulling too much freshwater out and pumping it south, so Mssr. Resnick (owner of all the Kern River Water Bank) and his spouse (owner of POM Wonderful) call in a chit from Senator Feinstein to overturn that scientific evidence …

… then they mount a smear campaign to blame the Striped Bass as the root evil of the Delta – claiming even bass boats and small children are on their diet.

Better still, California Department of Fish & Game decides (or has it decided for them) that the bullshit press paid for by Mssr. Resnick is one of a lot of possible stressors of the aforementioned fragile drainage, and as we need to deal with ALL of those stressors equally (some being more equal than others) we should boost the bag limit on the invasive Striped Bass (itself in decline) in order to restore balance to the San Francisco Delta.

Stripers being similar to Al Qaeda operatives, faceless, non-voting, and therefore the root of all wickedness.

For February, the California Fish & Game is holding public comment on the below changes;

The basic proposed changes are as follows:

  • Raising the daily bag limit for striped bass from two to six fish.
  • Raising the possession limit for striped bass from two to 12 fish.
  • Lowering the minimum size for striped bass from 18 to 12 inches.
  • Establishing a “hot spot” for striped bass fishing at Clifton Court Forebay and specified adjacent waterways at which the daily bag limit will be 20 fish, the possession limit will be 40 fish and there will be no size limit. Anglers fishing at the hot spot would be required to fill out a report card and deposit it in an iron ranger or similar receptacle.
  • Changes to the sport fishing regulations for the Carmel, Pajaro and Salinas Rivers to allow harvest of striped bass when the fishery would otherwise be closed.

I realize that while many might shake their head at this latest outcome, this darkest of hours, it merely represents the tip of the iceberg of what’s coming.

Jobs, baby – and damn the environmental consequences. It doesn’t matter that our youth was spent placing Vibert boxes in streambed cobble, picking up litter and releasing our catch, the excesses of our middle age undid all the good we accomplished – despite cotton bell bottoms and Earth shoes.

Unfettered consumerism coupled with mortgage debt, the Great White Shark of society.

… suggesting it’s no longer appropriate for me to lug 2-stroke oil bottles and gallons of anti-freeze out of the brown water … better  I empty them into the creek to give my foe a “soldier’s death”, worthy of their tenacity and honor.

Where I was once conscious of the ecology and stepped onto the bank to make water, now I’ll simply “drop-trou“ in mid current and let fly.

The choices for us being simple. Either we aid fish evolution so it can swim up sewer pipes to inhale one or both of your ass cheeks in a single grab, or it dies a horrible death – screaming for its mommy.

Apparel promoting a lifestyle of sustainable beer drinking

The concept is sound, I donate 99% to the care and feeding of your lifestyle, you return 1% to something that allows underprivileged kids to kill even more fish…

Is that what you meant by angling charity?

My Inbox is a steady stream of anglers whose high dollar sunglasses perch fetchingly on carefully rolled curly-brim, who insists that membership in their company dictates I should be more green, more ecologically sensitive, more caring, and more demonstrative …

… with my paycheck, naturally.

In typical fashion, some well meaning Montana angler is concerned about the environment and invents strike indicators of corn yarn, which degrades nicely in water, is green as hell and absolves the brotherhood of  explaining why bobbers are necessary to catch trout given that their bright colors bob in the bankside grasses and line most of the landscape.

Knopp creates the indicators by cutting the yarn into lengths and tying a loop into the middle. Then he coats the entire product in an organic paste to help it float. The final touch is coating the loop in beeswax. He plans to package them three to a bag and sell them for $10.

That “lifestyle” tag is going to blind me to the fact that 100 yards of the corn yarn is $8, or that plastic bubble-style floats are five to the pack and a third the price of corn?

… and we daren’t mention we took bread out of the mouths of babes – corn being a foodstuff and better used as aid to some drought stricken province teetering on the brink, versus floating some fly down an expensive resort river, with that doubly expensive guide hovering over your every move.

So why is it that the “Green” idea always has to cost more at the register, can’t we feel strongly about the environment and undercut the bobbercator price versus always doubling it?

Jesus only requires 10% of your get, can Mother Nature be that much more in tune with inflation?

I’d love to limit my studies to insect lifecycles and ignore the faded Miami Vice pastel tee shirts at $25 per, each labeled with a fetching Catch & Release logo that I’ll have to explain to my girlfriend, who’ll think me a poor risk to be her baby-daddy and dump me before I can release her…

I recognize that Sesame Street filled your heads with the expectations that you’ll get some cookie too, but it appears that boat’s sailed and isn’t likely to avoid any iceberg.

As you skipped over history and aren’t likely to recognize real fishermen when you see them, here are the necessary qualities of an angling lifestyle …

lifemag_oldfish He gets an angling lifestyle …

Big bulbous nose, skin like a potato, foghorn voice, broken knuckles, thick clothing to keep out the constant chill, and enough broken veins in the nose to suggest a bottle close to the tiller …

… that’s the “steering wheel” for you lifestyle types …

 gaddafi … as does he.

… but only because all those protestors sprinted past his “line of Death” and he was forced to flee with most of the treasury in tow.

A few goats, a small cottage, and a leaking old boat should fool both the Mossad and the CIA , until the NSA cops to his ratting out Osama and their blanket protection. All the while the Montana legislature is falling over themselves to  rezone the Bitterroot to accommodate a log palace, given that “Mr. Gad-daffy” has elected to pay in uncut diamonds.

Anyone wearing sandals, a ball cap, or pastel shorts isn’t entitled to an angling lifestyle. You’re just avoiding real work, and lack any real flair for guiding or fishing outside of attempting to separate your client’s daughter from her underwear.

Sure there’s one born every minute, but not in this industry. There are few 401K’s and fewer health plans at fly shops, guiding is a young man’s game whose allure will wear off of all but the most gifted and diligent. The rest of us are college educated and at all levels of the real workforce, not the type to be easily impressed that you were able to roll out of bed before noon.

Should you acknowledge that some of us did all this before you graced the planet may make you understand why there are so many lawyers, bankers, and public servants … and so few successful fish bums.

Now we’ll see what you’re made of Madoff

BernardMadof_AndSonsfFinish200 I’m not inclined to be gentle.

Perhaps it’s the degree of the crime that makes me so callous and unforgiving – maybe it’s simple jealousy that he was born with a silver spoon and I wasn’t, in either case I’ll not shed a single tear for another rich prick that eats rope.

In a twisted sort of way, Bernie Madoff and his crime defined us as a generation; greedy, insensitive, and with a sense of entitlement far in excess of our true value.

Friend Bernie Madoff has just started paying for his crime – now that son Mark has been found dead and swinging from the chandelier.

… guilt or innocence is largely immaterial, the fact that Poppa Madoff didn’t clear the entire matter up, kept his sons in a perpetual stew of doubt and censure, and after two years of ever present dark cloud, son Mark opted out.

Our interest in this entire sordid affair is due to Mark Madoff being the President and part-owner of the Abel Reel company.

Mine lips shall not touch the Unclean Thing

Goddamn Tobacco Habit It’s the end of week eight and the monitor no longer looks edible …

After two months of fiery temper, fits of questionable writing (which is really my norm), and short pieces that leave you scratching your head about what I really meant, I figure a confessional is in order …

(sob) (sniffle) … I ain’t had a goddamn cigar in all that time …

… which plays Billy Hell with my prose, attention span, and sense of humor.

The Telly is rife with ads featuring smiling ex-tobacco junkies living blissful lives with adoring children and a trophy wife. I gaze about me at the bags of dead animals and sinkfull of stained dye pots, and it all looks so compelling and easy …

Slap a patch on your shoulder and be restored to your old self, instantly.

They don’t mention the parts where the kids and spouse flee for their lives amid a hail of gunfire – opting for Grandma’s house until they hear the tell-tale snap of a empty cylinder, how nothing in the icebox is safe – or that you’d chip a tooth on frozen sherbet as it was the only tobacco surrogate within reach when gripped by a late night oral frenzy.

Nor do they mention the Dentist taking the blood pressure cuff off you exclaiming, “No need to fix that cavity, you’re already dead.”

As the noxious weed is many things to many people, it appears that like Poppa – it plays a key role in crystalizing thought. Part of that delicate balance of hormones and endorphins that was critical to humor, turned a droll line of prose into something more, and stimulated the brain cells to find something worth sharing from nothing.

Week eight. Somewhere about the New Year I’ll be restored to my old self.

Fly fishing and fly tying have always been costly, but can an employee discount replace a misspent youth

I’m the fellow that leaped off the couch signaling a “wave off” … frantically gesticulating while your diatribe continues unabated …

“Yea, it’s great I showed the shop some of my flies and they want me to tie for them it’s great I get a big discount on all my stuff 40% off on rods and waders and tippet and books and my wife can’t say sheeet!”

“Yea, but …”

“…and the thing that is really cool is I’m tying these twenty dozen wooly worms and they’re fast as hell and I’m making all kinds of money and it’s going to be great ‘cause the IRS don’t know sheeet!”

“Yea, BUT…”

“ …don’t harsh my buzz ‘cause I’m a machine cranking these bad boys out they wanted five dozen peacock and five dozen brown and five dozen purple and five dozen grey so I’m unleashing some serious bucks and you’re trying to rain on my parade ‘cause they didn’t ask you and you can’t tie sheeet!”

“Yea, that was just the first order Meatloaf, new talent always gets training wheel flies to draw them in, and now your new boss is contemplating which miniscule hell he’s going to unleash on your second order.

In fact, I got a dollar that says he wants #16 and #18 Henryville Specials, with the little spray of lemon wood duck between the quill wings, better yet I’ll go lobster dinner if I’m wrong.”

A week later I get the pitiful-yet-defiant voice on the other end of the phone, “I finished that order for wooly worms.”

“Yea, and ….”

“I picked out the Sage rod I’m getting …”

“ … and …”

“ … and the prick wants me to tie 100 dozen Quill Wing Royal Coachmen in size 18 and another hunert dozen in 20.”

“ … and which Sizzler was you taking me to?”

My first order was from a family friend, fifty cents apiece for two dozen #14 Adams. I was about 15 at the time and that was all the money in the known world.

Ditto for the second, third, and fourth orders. Brindle Bugs in size 6 & 8 – only they had to look exactly like the specimen provided; thirty years mashed in a fly box, dampened and dried countless times, bleached by sunlight, then handed over with complete reverence.

Even at that tender age I knew he meant it.

It was bad enough the solution involved lining garbage cans until Poppa offered to drive me to Mecca. That was Creative Sports Enterprises, Andre Puyans, and the giant crate of fifty cent India capes, the only establishment that offered hope of finding a Rhode Island Red that had been pawed over and bleached by incandescent to mimic Rhode kill.

… and the hooks were no longer made, so the hangers-on at the cash register tried to get rid of me with the standard fare, then endured my critical regard  for the Mustad’s he offered before I lit him up, “limerick bend small barb, 2X long, bronzed, tapered and looped down eye, steelhead hook … these are model perfect bend and forged, what else you got?”

… even Puyans raised an eyebrow at my steely tone.

I pocketed eighteen whole dollars at the cost of nine. Two weeks of arduous labor to complete three dozen, and the proceeds were a princely sum … for the Sudan or Somalia.

I eked out a small subsidence wage pimping tiny dry flies to school children, until the American Casting Association needed 60 dozen tournament dry flies with trimmed hackle.

Months later, Ma was still sweeping the dander from yellow saddle hackle out of the living room … and I was approaching the dollar-an-hour barrier, which like the speed of sound was something mysterious, theoretical, and largely mythical.

Now that I was big enough to peer over the counter,  as I pawed through smuggled Chinese capes at the local shop, mentioned that I “had vice, will travel” … and the portly gentleman manning the register figured he could run me off by demanding to see my letters of marque.

Samples. Lots of them.

… and while he pawed through Caddis and mayflies in assorted shapes, sizes and colors, confessed to an immediate need for Umpqua Specials, size 8, “bring ‘em until I say stop.”

Steelhead stuff was easy money, and as the Umpqua Special was a standard pattern and didn’t require yellow saddle, I was a budding entrepreneur.

“Gray thread? Who told you to use Gray thread for the head on an Umpqua Special?”

I was caught unawares, and while the guilty party was likely Trey Combs or AJ McClane, assisted by a grainy photograph, I realized us commercial fly tiers were not chosen for our artistic tendencies nor innate sense of fashion, commercial flies were “acne” – black heads on everything.

…until he ordered Light Cahill’s, where I heard similar, “Black Thread? Who told you …”

The Devil was always detail. Never leave the establishment without a sample, failing that, never guess, never embellish, and absent a hard sample, lock in the thread color beforehand.

I was an animal.

I started the day brushing teeth and memorizing fly patterns, and while the other kids were at lunch, rifled their desk for the brass tubes from ballpoint pens, drained the ink and made barrels for tube flies. Homework assignments were works of art, their content marginal, but the margins festooned with Trichoptera, mating Odonata and dancing mayfly nymphs for the late assignments.

My pals talked carburetors and valve timings, and I responded with metatarsals and pronotum, both parties nodding sagely at the other’s comments – entirely ignorant of their meaning, but multiple syllables being smarter than singles, whatever he’d said was surely profound.

They discovered posi-traction and I learned their interior was navy blue chenille, and how vinyl fuel line in small diameters makes a great  sleeve for a salvaged ballpoint enroute to salmon greatness.

I was “Neo,” The One. The kid that answered strange phone calls from desperate anglers, from Captains of Industry, where black limo’s swooped to the curb and neatly folded brown baggies were exchanged for wads of cash, stock options, or smuggled exotics from far continents.

“Hello?”

“Can you tie a fly called a Green Highlander, and could you have three dozen 4/0’s done by Thursday?”

“Sure, you want that in traditional full dress, or low water, tube-style, hairwing, reduced, original Kelson, the Scottish or Irish variant, spey style, Dee style, on a Waddington shank, or tied on a Salmon double?”

“Shit, I don’t know, they just told me to bring those!”

“I’ll need a Dun & Bradstreet, your last two years of Income Tax returns, and the name of the river you’re going to fish – or you can smuggle an ounce of baby seal back through customs and I’ll waive the fee for the Lady Amherst and Silver Monkey hair.”

“D-d-de-Deal!”

Smuggling was part and parcel of the enterprise, as a trip to Tasmania meant you could afford the surcharge for “real” Tasmanian Devil fur, Newt eyelash, or whatever indigenous species the locals raped for their flies. Upon your return or via anonymous post you sent the plainly wrapped endangered species to a pre-arranged safe house.

Mine. Mostly.

The basement dumpster of the US Customs Office yielded a current copy of the regulations and prohibitions, and offshore vendors were thrilled to label the forbidden package, “Commercial synthetic samples, not for resale.”

Despite all those federal agencies and sniffing canines, there was only one guy at the airport that knew what sawdust in the fiber meant, only one guy that could recognize a Grey Jungle Fowl – and while the dogs pawed through the luggage from Bogota, intent on valises stuffed with white powder, Golden Bird of Paradise just looked like a drab chicken by comparison.

There weren’t any pastel tee shirts or cigar boats in my future, no gold chains – and while my pals had discarded crankshafts and blowers for girls, I was battling moths.

Safely in college, yet broke due to reinvestment of all proceeds, I memorized war movies and naked celebrities. A decade of breathing Naptha and licking arsenic off your fingers meant the daylight hours were spent in class sleeping, and the evenings were tying flies for cash.

Stuff started hurting, first your backside from all those late night cram sessions involving unsteady chairs and great gouts of deer hair, whose hook points were invisible to mashing fingers until you exerted enough for a clean through-and through. The drone of the war movie in the background while you focused on upright and divided, until the soundtrack cued you that the platoon was going to get raked by gunfire, or the point man dismembered …

Ditto for celebrity skin, craning forward to ensure the post on the parachute was just tall enough, only to glance up for the obligatory disrobing scene, followed by three turns of Ginger and a whip finish.

The fly received that – Ginger got what broadcast TV allowed, then faded to commercial.

By then I was “Little Dry Fly” – a rare find for a shop, as the less talented were assigned duties and the Indian names corresponding; the “Zug Bug Guy” or “Balding Hare’s Ear.” None of us were referred to by name or with any real human courtesy – we were commercial fly tiers with clever sounding Indian names, distinguished by our always being late with the order, always short, and when un-chaperoned – always elbow deep in your Metz necks.

We were calloused, hardcore, and harder to find when the order was due …

… the only thing harder than us was getting paid, as every proprietor had visions of retiring to a fly shop and little knowledge of how to run one.

Like hired guns, we’d occasionally cross paths – often when reaching for the same tuft of marabou or grizzly neck – standing hipshot in the thread aisle talking war stories, “… he ordered 400 dozen #16’s? Dude, that’s depressing, count backwards or something so it seems like you got more done …”

Flies didn’t exist singly any longer. Your fingers had a will of their own, and only dozens counted. A bright idea for an experimental, and you’d glance down and there’d be a dozen finished.

New thread?

You blink and there's a dozen

… another dozen. New dubbing color?

and another dozen

A bronze olive accident in the dye pot and … you guessed it.

everything results in a dozen

You’re at the height of your craft, mind whirling with combinations and permutations and fingers follow without conscious thought, everything looks fishy, all of them edible, only your fly box is full.

… so is the second one you carry, and the reject box you pretend to leave out for your kin to pillage, and the steelhead box, and the coffee can next to the varnish spill.

… double for the big box you bought for dubbing, and your sock drawer.

… and all those tungsten and copper beads, lead wire and cone heads – are not so much selection as death warrant, and the inevitable header cataclysmic – akin to a Polaris class sub in full alarm dive.

If you’re lucky you’ll leave an oil slick and floating debris, so the widow can toss a wreath at the spot while inviting your pals to paw through all your accumulated Precious.

One day you look back on all that misspent youth and misplaced ardor and wonder – did you ever take possession of that discounted Sage rod, or does the sumbitch still owe you …

Test. Sage rod, commercial fly tying, dubbing, steelhead, bead head, cone head, thick head, fly tying humor, fly tying blog, fly fishing, Green Highlander, baby seal, U. S. Department of Fish and Wildlife, captains of industry

Singlebarbed says Where’s the Beef – In the absence of hard science are we being railroaded into a felt sole ban that may be a negligible factor?

Show me the fuggin BEEF I’m one of those skeptical fellows that grows more so with each article on invasive species and the proposed felt sole ban. We’ve all seen plenty of “trust me” science and the rise of the conclusive inconclusive finding, and I’m beginning to doubt that the facts support a ban.

It started innocently enough, with New Zealand Mud Snails less than 5 miles from my house, it begged additional research into which of the other odiferous brown rivulets nearby were also affected.

As you might expect, science largely sticks to the pristine, ignoring my fetid little creeks as already lost to pollution and therefore unworthy.

But the research papers led me down a deepening rabbit hole, each ending in question marks and supposition rather than hard science and facts. Blame my upbringing, as the Haight Ashbury in the 1960’s taught us to question authority, and not be led by the nose.

So I continued to dig deeper.

Research documents on the current strain of invasives; Didymo, New Zealand Mud Snails, and the Quagga and Zebra Mussels, tell a different story than our angling press. Their conclusions are rather surprising given the constant barrage of Cal Trout, Trout Unlimited, and Federation of Fly Fishermen literature – which makes felt soles the overriding scapegoat for much of our unclean behavior.

What’s not in doubt is our role in the spread of invasives like Didymo and the Mud Snail. Waders and wading gear are a known “vector” by which unwanted organisms are transported from one waterway to the next. But felt soles don’t appear to be the primary issue – and in many studies were not even mentioned.

I remember the outrage of senators forced to vote on a thousand page stimulus plan posed by the Obama administration, how there wasn’t time to read it all before the vote ensued.  It’s in my nature to ask, are we being railroaded to a similar speedy fix lacking proper scientific protocol with the proposed ban on felt soled wading shoes?

The documentation from the 2007 FFF Montana Symposium on invasive species lists fishing equipment, wading boot tops, and neoprene waders, as surfaces likely to carry the Didymo diatom, yet two years later only felt soles are facing a likely ban in 2011.

Cells are able to survive and remain viable in cool, damp, dark conditions for at least 40 days (Kilroy 2005). Fishing equipment, boot tops, neoprene waders, and felt-soles in particular, all provide a site where cells remain viable, at least during short term studies

Boot foot waders and neoprene wetsuits are outside the influence of fly fishing organizations as they’re used by many unrelated industries. Are we imposing our will on the only group that is semi-native to fly fishing, the detached boot – stocking foot wader makers?

… and does the science really conclude that’s the preferred alternative?

Why is there no push to change wading shoes uppers – rife with lace holes and layered tongues containing the same damp nooks and crannies as the felt sole?

Research suggests the upper lace area to be equally bad as the felt sole in terms of straining and capturing small organisms. A return to the welded boot foot wader would partially solve the issue, removing all laces and tongues and the damp areas surrounding them. Such a ban would be more appropriate than merely changing the sole and allowing the spread of invasives from the lace area, so why not ban both?

We’d all wear welded boot foot – cleated soles, like Dad did … a bunch of wading shoe manufacturers would go out of business, but we’d be doing our part to keep the environment sacrosanct.

… only manufacturers would never go for that, would they?

Didymo was first recorded in North America in 1894 (Cleve 1894-1896) at Vancouver Island in Canada, it’s native to Scotland and China, and didn’t get the invasive label in earnest until the New Zealand outbreak of 2004. It’s not considered an invasive to the Northwestern US, as its been here longer that some of us.

Many research papers suggest an incomplete knowledge of the Didymo diatom – why it’s initial presence is found frequently in dam tail waters, and while citing humans as a factor also raise the question about waterfowl and animal dispersal.

Many scientific journals postulate that it’s the evolution of the organism itself that has allowed its spread to warmer waters:

Why didymo all of a sudden changed into such an irritating and invasive species, no-one has yet figured out. The most prevalent speculation is we’re seeing the outcome of a biologically successful genetic mutation.

If true, then this becomes a completely different ball game – with birds, bears, and even wind able to carry a live diatom the short distance to the next creek.

The New Zealand government also supports a ban of felt soles, yet documentation from their website cites the lack of knowledge about Didymo in their 2004 research;

There appear to have been no attempts overseas to control or eliminate D. geminata, and no studies to date on how the species spreads.

As does the 2007 FFF Invasive Symposium document which cites, “ an organism for which we lack basic biological and ecological knowledge.”

Yet we’re so sure felt soles are the primary culprit we’re willing to ban them. I’ll have to ask “who’s so sure” because the scientific community hasn’t concluded anything.

The Didymo diatom is a single cell algae, small enough to be undetectable to the human eye, and easily carried on skin; a wet tee shirt, wading vest, or your flies. The New Zealand Mud Snail can be found in greater sizes, but studies of wading anglers find the most common size found clinging to waders and equipment is1mm or smaller.

Tests by the California Department of Fish and Game on wading gear found a correlation between  New Zealand Mud Snails and wading boots, but more snails were found inside the boot than lodged in felt soles. (It’s my assumption that “padded insole inserts” were the authors term for felt soles.)

The majority of NZMS recovered were associated with wading boots. NZMS were observed on the tongue area of wading boots, associated with the laces or the area of the tongue that was tucked beneath the lacing eyelets. Large numbers of small NZMS were present inside of the boots, having worked down between the boot and the neoprene bootie of the wader. If the boots contained padded insole inserts, NZMS were also found underneath the inserts, associated with sand grains. NZMS were recovered from every treated set of wading gear. Numbers of NZMS per sample ranged from 1 to 227 with a mean of 33 (Appendix 2). Over 50% of NZMS recovered were < 1 mm in size

Wading anglers are one of the problems, but research cannot yet quantify how much of the problem we are – nor whether we’re the primary “pollination vector” or merely one of many culprits.

Boaters with their bilges and live wells can transport diatoms and aquatic hitchhikers far easier than we can. Species introduced into man made impoundments and lakes spill over the dam and populate tail waters with great glee – spreading further with each winter’s runoff.

But overlooked in all of this is the role of waterfowl – which can fly great distances and can transport algae and mollusks both internally and externally.

Jstor article

Jstor article

The above JSTOR abstract suggests both mollusks and diatoms can be hosted by birds over great distances and considerable time. It also suggests that we don’t the full story on the role of waterfowl on dispersion and additional research is warranted.

The New Zealand government study concurs, suggesting that the location of its initial outbreak was most likely spread via human vector, but doesn’t rule out the threat of additional spread via birds:

It is conceivable that clumps of D(idymo).geminata could pass live through the guts of birds or animals. Atkinson (1980) experimentally fed freshwater planktonic algae to ducks and found viable cells of the diatom Asterionella formosa in two cultures. However, because of the very long times involved in long-distance bird migration, this again seems most likely as a means of local transport rather than global dispersal. Another possible mode of local transport of diatom clumps could be on feet or feathers/fur of birds and animals. See Kociolek & Spaulding (2000) for more examples

Which speaks to the root of my issue; if the scientific community doesn’t  yet know the answers why do angling organizations insist they do?

In conclusion, dispersal of D. geminata from its original geographical range into other parts of continental Europe and USA could conceivably have been assisted by avian vectors. However, this is a most improbable explanation for the sudden appearance of the species in New Zealand. The most plausible explanation is that the species has entered the region on a human vector. Birds and animals (as well as humans) could possibly be factors in any future dispersal within New Zealand.

I’m not content to follow the herd. Three years of college biology and chemistry doesn’t confer any special knowledge other than my ability to translate their vernacular. The science appears woefully incomplete  – and someone has to point out the lack of facts in this Great Crusade.

Felt holds better than rubber, sticky or otherwise – and I don’t need science to tell me my ass hurts less when extremities are outfitted with felt and studs. There’s far too much “we’re not sure” in the supporting documentation than I’m comfortable with – suggesting some retired dentist or lawyer is trying to tell me I should wear – and not science.

Read about the subject and make up your own mind.

Considering that many of my locals waters contain invasives – and worse; Goat guts and dead cats – it’s no surprise that I am cautious and adopted the welded boot foot-cleated rubber soled wader. I won’t find out what I’m dragging with me for many years as the Pristine gets first crack at all the biologists. Rubber soles and welded foot ensure I don’t spread anything other than cigar butts for the moment.

No rocks and soft gravel bottoms allow me to stay dry in slippery rubber cleats. I have separate waders for trout fishing that are never used in local waters – they’re old and neoprene, but never will the apples and oranges intermix.

I have no plans to abandon felt if the ban is successful and the science is still conjecture. We once buffed the cleats off jungle boots and equipped them with indoor-outdoor carpet – and can do so again. A couple pairs of cleated boots to cover my local waters, and a couple more rug equipped for trout expeditions should cover me nicely..

… and I’ll scrub snot off out of them in between.

(The California Department of Fish and Game article should be read specifically as it also addresses the effects of cleaning products on both waders and wading boots and whether the materials were damaged by the cleaning protocol.)

Tags: New Zealand Mud Snail, Diatom, Didymo, waterfowl, JSTOR, California Department of Fish and Game, Federation of Fly Fishermen, Cal Trout, Trout Unlimited, pollination vector, felt soled wading shoes, jungle boots, Neoprene waders, Obama, Stimulus Plan, Quagga, Zebra mussel

It’s the Ocean what done it, and perhaps it’s time we paved that too

Ascent of Something, Kinda

I was gazing fondly at the salmon report for 2009, wherein the Pacific Fisheries Management Council claims, “… the ocean’s are what done it!” There’s a passing reference to the continued decline of freshwater assets throughout California, and how the entire salmon run has the biodiversity of Velveeta cheese – wild fish essentially extinct and what we’re mourning is the inbred product of four hatcheries.

That’s a heady accomplishment, extincting the entire run of one of the largest freshwater river complexes in the world – within a couple of lifetimes.

Naturally the scientists were as surprised as we were, they’d misplaced a decimal point in the mathematical model they were using to predict returnees, which has since been fixed, so we’re all good again.

Alaska is going to harvest more than last year as their mathematicians have sharper pencils than their California counterparts. It begs the question, if the “scientists” most often used by the government are math professors, versus biologists, are we using video games to manage migratory fisheries?

Most of the games I’ve played eventually froze up – and after the reboot you’d lost the last three weeks of play. I guess that’s what happened with our fish, only we lost the last 100,000 years of natural selection.

Despite all the concerned anglers and organizations that represent them, we’re losing almost every battle and the war as well. Fencing off the creek is a short term fix, when the states need the water they’ll annex it, so that’s no solution. Buy the headwaters of whatever you want, imminent domain will leave you the ranch, but your water rights will revert to the state as soon as they’re needed.

Do we take the $40 we’d spend on our CalTrout membership and buy some fish instead? Taking the bag containing the fry of our choosing under the cover of night, and plant the little SOB’s ourselves?

Any mainstream advocacy group would be appalled at the thought, Fish and Game would string you up by your thumbs, and Trout Unlimited would disavow all knowledge.

Fundamentalism is all the rage of late, and despite eight years of “Gee Dubyah” explaining why we should fear it, perhaps its time to be the “little agile fellow” that survives on a crust of bread and a cup of water, thwarting spy satellites, cellular surveillance, and drone aircraft to plant another couple hundred feeder goldfish in some toxic and lonesome trickle.

We’ll suffer any indignity in order to kill a fish, but we’re content to leave the fight to others to restore some.

License money siphoned off the conservation agencies to copper a  burgeoning state deficit, small organizations making smaller progress – undone by hordes of fishermen on hajj to the newly pristine – grinding invertebrates underfoot in their rush to catch the few remaining big wild fish.

It’s one hell of a pickle we’re in – and while there’s no end to the fingerpointing as to who done it, the question that remains unanswered is, “what’s the endgame?”

Is leaving something behind enough, or is leaving what was there more desirable?

Future generations aren’t likely to consider us more than narrow-visioned butchers – more intent on leaving our mark on the sport than leaving any survivors.  The sport and its icons could be just another unkempt footnote in a book whose subject is long forgotten – along with the quaint pastime it gentrifies.

We know where the problem is – even if the forces arrayed against us point elsewhere, and is the forty dollars sent to some well meaning entity enough to assuage our personal guilt, or is an unpopular and protracted insurgency our only salvation?

Largemouth Bass are $2 each for the 2-4″ size, and my $40 donation is 20 fish delivered to a watershed that could sorely use assistance.

My confidence in all the staid conservation methodology is eroding. There’s plenty of well intentioned fellows arguing for the cause in every governmental venue, but the effect appears marginal – we lack the votes to carry the issue past a hearing.

I’m less excited about attempting to reclaim a wilderness experience, than properly managing taint – the eventual fate of our epic watersheds.

My fetid little creek is forty miles of perfect spawning gravel, all of which is the exact size required by steelhead and salmon, yet they’re denied access due to the priorities of waxy and pallid tomatoes. As each of these tributaries were turned into overly warm, toxic rivulets – we lost the native strain and its contribution to the larger yearly run.

We gleefully took 40,000 fish from the millions – because they were as plentiful as Buffalo, and celery wasn’t – and as agrarian interests marched up the valley; impounding, altering, channeling and blocking, we lost another 40000 fish with each stream so corrupted.

Now we’re left with four sterile concrete raceways from which we extrude the last vestiges of what was once a staggering flow of Salmon.

Goddamn ocean. Poppa always taught me to never turn my back on it and I’m beginning to understand why.