Category Archives: product

Would you swear at a blacklash in Space?

World's Strongest Fiber I was interested in the post about European engineers attempting to return objects from space using a “really big fishing reel” and a 30 kilometer tether. Scientists rarely have a sense of humor, so the tether only paying out 5 miles of line before getting stuck was an “inconclusive experiment.”

I call it the “90 Mile High Monstrous Backlash”, but they likely wouldn’t see the humor in that…

What was interesting is that they mentioned the “strongest fiber on Earth” was used to make a tether only 2/100’s of an inch thick. The fiber is called “Dyneema” – and I’m  wondering does it have a practical fishing application?

It appears a number of vendors make it already. “Dyneema” is a braided fishing line that may be suitable for fly line backing.

RAPTOR Line (Diameter) — Compared to — Monofilament Line

10 LB.         .003″                                                         2-4 LB.

20 LB.         .007″                                                         4-8 LB.

30 LB.         .009″                                                        6-12 LB.

50 LB.         .012″                                                     12-20 LB.

80 LB.         .025″                                                     30-50 LB.

130 LB.       .032″                                                     50-80 LB.

The above demonstrates how much thinner this round braided line is than monofilament, it may be capable of packing considerablly more yardage on a spool than Dacron. Due to the small diameter, it’ll likely slice you to ribbons if you aren’t careful, so you won’t want to grip it firmly if a large fish is in full flight.

 The Raptor line above was $6.95 per 100 yds, Berkeley makes it for $15.95 for 125 yds  – certainly bears looking into especially for smaller reels.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Restocking the fly box, I ignore good taste and play havoc with traditional patterns

I mentioned in an earlier post of finding a new material with great promise for fly tying, while fish and local water clarity are uncooperative, I’m restocking my fly box and absorbing some NFL action.

The two materials I am testing are Angelina and Crystalina fibers, both available from the garment industry as fiber, film, and cloth. Crystalina appears to be called “Ice Dubbing” – a refractive coarse material suitable for larger flies. It’s the Angelina fibers that have really caught my interest however.

Finer than Crystalina and suitable for all ranges of hook size, I am blending it with natural furs using a coffee grinder, then retying many of the patterns I use substituting the Angelina blend instead of the normal mixture.

The 49er’s lost, but I gained another dozen flies to fish

The results are stunning as even traditional patterns get a dramatic face lift. More importantly, it adds a full range of color spectrum due to the opalescent sheen.

Coffee grinder blending requires that all fur added be no more than an inch in length, any longer and the fibers will wrap around the center spindle and bind the motor, quickly burning it out.

I needed to replenish some Gold Ribbed Hare’s Ear’s and mixed a blend of Red Fox squirrel guard hairs, muskrat fur (because I had a ton of it on the skin) and 20% Angelina.

The raw Angelina is about 4-6 inches in length, so I trimmed it into the grinder along with muskrat shaven off the hide with scissors. You have to wad the material down into the blades to get it to mix well, but it only takes seconds to make a batch.

It’s personal preference, I would rather use blends of fur rather than a uniform dyed color. Bugs are an uneven coloration especially when tumbling in the water column, so I prefer having multiple colors and textures in fur for nymphs. Dry flies are not so much an issue as the fish can’t inspect much more than the portion visible to them.

80% Muskrat and 20% Angelina fiber

The opalescence of the Angelina fiber really adds quite a few colors without dominating the result. Mixing much more than 20% of the fibers will have start to overwhelm the original dressing, I was just looking to give a little sparkle and solidify my proof of concept.

I like to use a base complement of nymph colors and sizes when fishing. Black, Olive, Gray, Pheasant Brown, and something mostly peacock. Those 5 colors should seduce something in any stream, and should cover most species of freshwater fish.

I have to order additional colors to make all those blends, in the meantime I am focusing on the natural mother of pearl fiber to see how it looks when added to traditional flies.                                                      

Angelina imbued Hare’s Ear

The photo is inadequate to capture the colors, but it hints at the effect. A stellar replacement for seal fur as the sparkle of “Angie” makes seal look dull in comparison.

Us bachelors lack ironing skills, fusing the fibers with an iron is next, if soft enough it should make dramatic spinner wings. I’ll be abusing the flies to see how the material stands up to use and whether the refraction qualities grow dull with sunlight. Hungry small fish won’t be much of a test, but it’s close by.

LiveJournal Tags: , ,

I say, "Run What You Brung" and let Darwin sort them out

Wow, we need a new wardrobe Thirty three seconds of flight for $155,000 is cheap. That’s just enough flight to violate the landowner’s airspace, and not enough time to allow a Stinger to get tone lock…

That gives us fisherman 15 seconds from car door to “below the high water mark” on whichever exclusive “Donny Beaver” stream we want to fish. We’re allowing for a return trip, only zealots like Tom Chandler may contemplate a power dive into the clubhouse.

JetPack International is about to debut the latest in rocketry to us ultra-consumers, we can expect to see the traffic patterns in LA lessen considerably as all them debutantes and heiress’s spiral lazily through the clouds.

Them gals couldn’t drive anyway…

Rocket belts ala James Bond, 33 seconds of 70MPH flight, and by year’s end it will be 19 minutes, complements of the T73 – powered by your choice of eco-friendly fuels, kerosene or propane. Eco-friendly is a bit of a reach, but the legions of  Hollywood spin artists will find some way to put lipstick on that pig.

Me? I am all for it, run what you brung and let Darwin sort ’em out.

We’re re-tying everything, Angelina Fibers has our creativity working overtime

Click to enlargeWhite lab coat time, as I’m fiddling with one of those materials you stumble across whose possibilities are virtually endless.

It’s a strange synthetic filament called Angelina. It is soft enough to dub like fur, and long enough to use as fine hair, it can be ironed to make bug wings (heat fuses the filaments together) or chopped up and mixed with dubbing to add an opalescent sparkle.

It is available as a fiber from the garment industry, apparently it’s also available as a cloth and as a thread.

It’s something that you can use in everything, especially during them long winter months when experimentation coupled with football and strong coffee brings your artistic side to the forefront.

It looks exactly like hair made out of mother of pearl, yet the filament size is so fine you can dub it onto a hook like fur.  It is available in about 45 colors and 2 cuts; straight, and crimped, bondable (heat fused) and non-bondable. The crimped style is slightly heavier hair than the straight version (large nymphs, steelhead flies), straight is perfect for dubbing smaller nymphs and even dry fly bodies. Every color retains the opalescent quality in addition to the coloration.

Click to EnlargeMy camera cannot show the opal refractive qualities as it just isn’t good enough. I dubbed a #12 hook shank with Angelina fibers, white and pink, allowing you to see the fiber size. Click on both pictures to see a higher resolution image.

Angelina is sold in 1/2 oz. packages, a bundle of material 5″ long, 3.5″ wide, and almost 2″ thick. Cost ranges from $3.50 to $4.50 a package.

Most of the vendors pictures are as poor as mine, included are links to some sites that display a large range of colors.

This may be what they’re calling “Ice Dubbing” but not having seen that product I cannot say with certainty. If so, buying it in this flavor will be a lot cheaper than the little packages available at the fly shop.

Get the Angelina Straight Cut in whatever color you like best, it has the widest range of applications as it is the finest filament size. I purchased some sample packages (5 colors each) from Embellishment Village.

Maybe I was a tad hasty leaving the Cell Phone in the car

sonar Cell phones are like credit cards, loyalty lasts as long as the bonus reward, by then some canny competitor has a cheaper plan and a new gadget that goes with it.

While all eyes are on the Trout Underground to come up with next year’s “must have” angling gadget, we’re quietly going to lay some smack down, I didn’t get any free beer or sore feet, I just found the glaring weakness in your wardrobe…

Sonar for your cell phone.

SK, South Korea’s largest telecom provider began selling a waterproof transmitter when attached to a  fishing line, will send signals of fish density back to your cellular earpiece.

Now you can march confidently up to streamside, throw one cast and  begin the “Hunt for Red October”. The article fails to mention whether the device is wireless, otherwise you’ll throw one cast and spend the next two hours untangling the transmitter from the fly line, it’s certain I will..

One Hundred bucks, software to display where the fish are on the cell phone is five bucks additional. Brownliner’s are out of luck as the sonar is absorbed by sunken tires, lawnmower engines, and toilet paper, we’ll have to stick to the low tech method of throwing rocks.

del.icio.us Tags: , ,

Flavored Head Cement Joins Other Really Good Ideas ahead of their time

Great Ideas are always resisted I was embroiled in the patent research for my salty-sweet lard enhanced head cement, and stumbled across numerous fly fishing patents.

A live bait hook for dry fly anglers is the first of many really stunning ideas, but it would be wise to know which bugs had stingers before reaching for that big wasp pictured in the patent illustration.

I can only assume a fly box patent is forthcoming from the same fellow, as traditional boxes would make winged critters very smashed.

Another “must have” is the fishing blow gun, slap a Pheasant tail into the breach and blow it into the feeding lane. Every fisherman I’ve met is a blowhard gifted with extraordinary lung capacity, I can’t see why this isn’t a million seller.

The float tube urinal is way overdue, but I was hoping we would get NASA astronaut underwear, I hear they don’t chafe much. Unrelated to the urinal is the float tube propulsion system, featuring a large car battery attached to your leg. I sure hope that lanyard severs easily, otherwise you are anchored to the lake floor quite securely.

Moot testimony to angling genius – these gentlemen walked the path less traveled, and were driven from the sport by villagers with torches and pitchforks.

Technorati Tags: , ,

The War on Six Dollar Items continues: Dry Fly Desiccants

Little Spheres of Drying Power One of the rare fortunes of a computer geek is a life time supply of drying agents called “desiccants.” These packets come in nearly all of the computer shipping containers and every time I see one I toss it in my drawer.

Most are anhydrous silica gel, “gel” being a misleading term for crystal beads of varying dimensions. They are a real boon to the dry fly fisherman, as a soaked fly can be dried in seconds.

Never content to pay the retail price, I accumulate it and then pass it to fishing buddies so they have one less $6.00 purchase to make.

It’s a mystery to coworkers why I never sweat under pressure, the real reason is the 40lbs of desiccant in my bottom drawer, spend more than seven minutes in my cubicle and they’ll need to deliver liquids to you intravenously…

I never thought to see where to buy the stuff, the latest armload I brought home reminded me to check. Sorb-It is the brand most commonly encountered, I don’t recommend the bulk 50lb pail as it will give you dry mouth if you break the 100 yd perimeter. 10 gram packets (and smaller) can be purchased for about 65 cents each. That’s a remarkable savings compared to the $5.50 retail price advertised at the shops I browsed.

A simple film canister is enough to contain it, fill it half way so you can give it a vigorous shake. The powder works faster than the crystal spheres, just take a hammer to the packet to reduce them to the powder form.

Bentonite Clay is used by some vendors – often mixed with the Silica Gel spheres. I grabbed a picture of the Loon Outdoors product, it has both opaque and clear spheres – likely that is the mixture they are using. Bentonite Clay is a naturally occurring substance that is mined. Both Sorb-It and Bentonite are non-toxic and used for moisture wicking (preservation) of food and medicine.

What you may not know is that both are reusable. Desiccant dryers are sold for large users, but you can use simpler methods like microwave ovens. The material needs to attain 150 Celsius to dry completely.

…and if you get caught by the spouse drying your desiccant, remember the SingleBarbed mantra, “I saved six bucks…”

Technorati Tags: , , ,

They’ve got electronics, we’ve got electronics, they’ve got babes and beer, we’ve got Jack

Carbon Fibre Rod of the FutureA well dressed bass boat has more electronic countermeasures than a WWII destroyer, now bank anglers get some love…

While the supercharged, wake tossing, bass boats wail off into the distance (with coolers full of beer and all the hot babes) The Lawn Chair Navy can get busy catching fish with their Fish Cam.

That groan was warranted, as a Korean company has introduced underwater live action camera depicting the worm’s eye view.

At $385 you had better not snag anything, as you’re about to go swimming.

Anglers with small hand-held TVs can see fish move up to the bait — and move their line towards them.

Likely we’ll see a significant jump in fishing license sales, as all of the joystick trained wunderkinder will be flocking back to fishing by the hundreds. The question remains whether you set the hook via the VCR remote or whether you still have to grip the rod..

Now all you have to do is jar a sixpack (or hotty) loose from the bass boat with one well placed rock, and walk your bait over for salvage rights.

Technorati Tags: , , ,

Video games come of age, or is this the opportunity for a second childhood?

The good news is that I cast about as well as I write; tortured, circuitous, and unnecessarily lengthy. The bad news is I stumbled onto another time wasting pastime that had me cursing and giggling uncontrollably.

A devout follower of the Church of Monday Night Football, and this being the first services of the season, my pre-game warmup routine was interrupted by the fellows that invented the tele-prompter wizardry.

Did you know them same lads invented a fly fishing game?

Brookie

It’s not bad. Casting is nightmarish, but quickly mastered once you remember the 10Am-2PM stroke of your youth. You have an ample fly assortment, and it even keeps count of the flies snapped off due to your hammy handed  strikes.

You can zoom to the water to observe insects, and then match the hatch. Nymphs and dries are available as are weighted nymphs and splitshot attached to your leader.

The demo is a 5MB download that allows you to fish a couple of the six rivers present, it runs under Windows XP just fine, and is virus free. The demo will end after each fish caught, just fire it again to catch another fish. Perfect cubicle fodder during lunch.

Casting long distances is a bloody Herculean effort, but roll casts and mending line are available to ease the fishing somewhat. I was hard pressed to cast beyond 50 feet, but did manage a 64 foot spaghetti cast that yielded a 16″ Brookie.

Mindless fun, liable to amuse you greatly – more importantly, it gives you the line you’ve lusted after for years, “Daddy will surrender the computer after the Caddis hatch is over, now go do your homework.”

Never happen? The holidays are fast approaching and you think you’ll be able to resist the new fishing rod controller for the Wii? More likely you’ll buy it for the kids…then fight them for it.

Technorati Tags: , ,

Let’s Get Some Really Useful stuff for a Change

Fishermen and Vegas always want the odds favoring the house, I throw far too many stones to lust after a glass boat, so lets get some useful stuff this time.

Press Stun for unlimited minutes Start with the Immobilizer, a 900,000 volt stun gun ($70)masquerading as a cell phone. This will fix a variety of ills – the crazed derelict emerging from the bushes intent on interrupting your fishing, the paint-baller that fails to acknowledge your white flag, and the teen that never gets off the phone.

It may even be capable of cleaning and frying your catch, ensuring you’re always under limit.

Forget the ransom demands, you're sick remember? My favorite is the Cell Phone Voice Changer ($40) this beauty guarantees a day off of work so you can extend your weekend when the fish are willing. Twist a couple of knobs and you’ll  sound close to death, your boss may even send flowers.

Also available is a voice changer for land lines. For those that have exhausted all known illnesses via cell, this will get your building evacuated in no time. We don’t advocate this, but are smart enough not to use our office extension to originate the call.

Technorati Tags: , ,