Realism all 168 frames of it, compliments of Jan Muisers

164 pictures to this point I’m always in awe over any form of craftsmanship, it doesn’t matter whether it’s Shaker furniture or a finely tooled gun butt, it’s the skill of the craftsman that allows a novice to appreciate the difference.

There are many kinds of fly tier, while most tie flies for fishing, others are enamored of the craft as well. Traditional dress Atlantic Salmon flies and realistic flies are two such disciplines – the tier has passed through the “sane” part of the craft and dabbles in details never considered by the rest of us.

How much work goes into a single fly? A really interesting post on a Finnish bulletin board allows all of us to see what goes into “realism.”

How much courage would it take to run up to the guy and say, “Dude, how much will you charge for a dozen in size 8?”

I was planning on finishing my taxes, but the "artist" got the better of me

Singlebarbed reader “San Mateo Joe” sent me some of his seed bead creations – instantly driving me into a paroxysm of creativity. The medium is fur and feathers, but we’re prey to all the foibles and idiosyncrasies that mainstream artists endure.

All it takes is some pretty color or odd shaped fiber and we’re willing to cut our ear off… both ears, if the sumbitch catches fish…

San Mateo Joe’s Seed Bead specials

SMJ’s samples were nameless, buggy, and simple, all that’s necessary for quality fish food. The above-right fly caught my eye, I immediately dubbed it the “Yellow Arsed Wombat” – not sure if Joe has a name for it or not.

Nothing beats a glimpse at another fellow’s work to get the creative juices flowing, the bloody IRS can wait.

My fly is hereby dubbed the “Angry Auditor” – unworthy of a name as it’s merely a concept, I’ll plead my case just before the “what did you make, give us the rest” speech.

I dub thee “Angry Auditor” a Cal Bird inspired damselfly

I figured a “Bird’s Nest” style damselfly was just what was needed for the lakes I fish up north – there’s plenty in the Little Stinking so it’s a double bonus, a fly that can serve as Carp food also.

All of the above flies simply string the beads on the hook shank. The tail assembly serves as a “stopper” preventing them from sliding off the rear of the hook.

Joe adds a tip that is priceless, “I like to thread the hook shank with more beads than necessary before I start tying. It’s easy to break one or more off with a pair of needle nose pliers later on if you need more room for hackle, dubbing, etc.”

It works really well, a quick press of the pliers results in your wife wondering what’s making the racket in the vacuum cleaner…

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Tracking the wily Queen of Waters – or is she merely a Pig with Fins?

Melt my reel and I'll call you Noble Nothing like a rainy weekend to catch up on all those tasks held in abeyance. The lack of fish available since the creek was blown out in early January, reminded me of my need to learn more of the lifecycle of the common carp.

It’s a big mystery, one day the creek has them available, a couple weeks later there aren’t any. I guessed food source or spawning migration, but didn’t know enough about either to be certain of the answer.

The Hideous Jabbering Head of Izaak Walton has been on sabbatical of late, so I was forced to go to his original tome.

The Carp is the Queen of Rivers: a stately, good and very subtle fish. The Carp, if he have water-room and good feed, will grow to a very great bigness and length; I have heard, to be much above a yard long.

He is a very subtle fish, and hard to be caught. If you will fish for a Carp, you must put on a very large measure of patience, especially to fish for a River-Carp.

The food angle is doubtful as I could only find them in a single pool despite searching for them over nearly eight miles of creek. The weeds remained after the fish left, so best guess is a spawning migration.

They’re eating machines,” says Win Taylor, a fisheries biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. He’s talking about the grass carp. In the summer of 2002, 21,000 of the vegetarian fish were turned loose in Lake James. By that time, hydrilla had claimed 500 acres of the lake; but since the carp’s arrival, there’s been little sign of the territorial weed. In certain circles, the grass carp’s savage eating habits have earned it the nickname “H-Bomb.

The only puzzle remaining is which direction they came from; the creek runs 40 miles north and ends at the dam face of Clear Lake, I assume they can’t get past the dam. South of me is a similar morass that may only connect to the Sacramento River in wet years.

A study in South Carolina with radio tagged fish suggests the average yearly movement of Grass Carp is around 9 miles, the maximum observed was 27 miles. The fish I caught weren’t overachievers and the statistics suggest I walk another mile and I should find them. Normally I would pack additional water and an extra sandwich, but there’s nothing like an election year to remind me statistics are often an overly optimistic guess…

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Is it "Sins of a past life" or electronic Karma?

eKARMA - powerful stuff I’m noticing a pattern here, it’s disturbing, but it cannot be ignored…

An angling blog author posts a “I’m going fishing and you’re not” post, followed by a string of posts detailing hardship, suffering, and despair, all unrelated to fishing.

Witness TC and the “Taunt’s you from the road” article – followed closely by a scholarly paper on fiberglass rods, and two posts on Satan’s Snow blower.

Fishless on my home water, I mention a brief trip to the American River for steelhead, and am rewarded with a two month ban on Steelhead fishing. The “snagger” reference wasn’t me, I was the fellow throwing the lit sticks of dynamite – even angered I prefer dry flies…

You’d think we would learn from past history, you don’t mention your fly is in peril without inviting all the folks reading on their lunch break.

You’re all invited, now focus and get the torrential downpour to stop.

…

That didn’t work too well, as the river gauge on the Little Stinking has just redlined…

01/22/2008  93 CFS
01/23/2008  110 CFS
01/24/2008  181 CFS
01/25/2008  5046 CFS

Now you’re being vindictive…

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You can’t have sweaty hands and you need to know which end of the airbrush to point at them

I have legendary airbrush skills On first blush I assumed it was more proof of a coming apocalypse, another dark day for anglers, as well muscled “male-like substance” took turns looking grim, stern, or virile, while adorned with technical fishing attire.

New Clothing Brand Seeks Make-up Artist for Advertising Campaign

Diem Angling, a new clothing company designing technical and fashion wear for anglers worldwide, are organising a photoshoot to take place on the Saturday 26th and Sunday 27th January 2008. The shoot is an FHM style shoot and we plan to shoot 12 models over the 2 days and we require a competant make-up artist to assist us.

I was about to take them to task as angling is less about makeup, and more “what you got spattered with.” Airbrushes are fine, but all that’s needed is a liberal dousing of Muskol, roll the result down a dirt incline, then dip them in a creek a couple times.

That’s fishing.

The “FHM” reference gave me pause, so I took the trouble to look it up. It’s no longer an item to ridicule, it’s your bloody dream job. FHM is a european men’s magazine, and the “models” described above would have to be … you guessed it … Women.

Despite legendary airbrush skills I’m unable to do much more than sulk. For those stalwarts in the UK, you lucky bastards still have a chance to get there before dawn.

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You can’t sell your house, but if you could, here’s 20 locations for a buyer’s market

The SubPrime mess affects everyone, likely he's defaulted already If retirement is less than a decade away, you may want to start mulling some options. For you, Field and Stream listed the “Top 20 Best Fishing Towns in America” – most are chosen by gamefish, but that’ll be a fair rebuttal to “Top 20 Retirement Towns Chosen By the Missus, Because Her Ma Lives There.”

Forget about selling your home now, six or seven years from now the banks will be considering lending money again, and you’ll be positioned to pounce.

California just barely squeaked in – the Little Stinking has not yet made the “must do” list for the Jet Setter crowd, so the Trout Underground is the beneficiary with Redding, CA at number 19. Having lived in Redding for five years I can agree with their assessment of the fishing, everything else was a damn lie…

The beauty of this part of the country is that you can be up in the cool mountains, or down in the warm valley within minutes. The seasons are mild, and the overall town atmosphere, while maintaining some California-tourism flair, is ultimately quite genuine.

They failed to mention that Redding is the last warm part of the Central Valley, with temperatures reaching 110 – 117 each summer. When your feet leave tracks in asphalt – it’s hot.

So’s the fishing.

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A conversation on a Bird Watcher’s forum

It was a cow once, honest I don’t make this stuff up I just giggle and pass it on. I yanked the forum dialog to quell your urge for witty rebuttal, it’s an artifact of  “antiseptic plastic packaging”, carnivores too far removed from the sledgehammer smacking the cow to appreciate that all steaks used to “Moo.”

I was doing a search on Google for jackdaws and came across a link to the fly tying/feathers section of troutcatchers.co.uk. I don’t want to post a direct link but it’s easy to find. I was shocked to find that they sell mandarin duck and jay skins, jay and jackdaw wings an many other bird and animal bits. As an occasional fly fisherman I was rather shocked to be confronted by the evidence of the carnage and trade associated with production of the flies. Although I presume it’s all ‘legal’, it’s incredibly distasteful and shocking to be brought up against it in this way.

Response:

You’re a fly fisherman and you didn’t know that the feathers in trout flies came from birds, or the fur from animals?
Mallard and Claret, Snipe and Purple, Gold-ribbed Hare’s Ear,
Teal, Blue and Silver, Pheasant Tail Nymph, Grouse and Purple, Partridge and Orange, Woodcock and Green, I think there may be a clue somewhere in the names of these well-known traditional trout flies.

Original poster:

go fly fishing about once every 5-10 yrs and I don’t think I’ve ever known the names of the flies but thanks for pointing them out. I think all I’m expressing is how easy it is to not think in a joined up way about how we live and what we do. Seeing pictures on that website of dead jays, jackdaw wings etc was a real wake-up call. My daughter has become a vegetarian recently. Whilst I don’t think I’m likely to do that, I’m increasingly trying to avoid battery hens, to buy meat from more humanely reared animals and so on. I also haven’t been fishing at all for several years and am most unlikely to return to it.

Good. I’ll not dissuade a fellow from his convictions, for us it’s one less car in the parking lot, and one less fellow carelessly wading through our fish.

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I had a hell of time getting hooks last year, I may have solved that problem nicely, compliments of Togen

All I need is more things to fiddle with and nothing stirring to eat my creations. They say that’s what Winter is for and it appears as if I’m going to give Old Daytripper a run for his money…

Natural Bend Togen fish hooks caught my eye recently, a Japanese hook marketed by the Togen fly shop in Canada, their appearance is akin to a Tiemco, light colored bronzing, sharp small points (chemically sharpened), well formed and graceful, and really cheap…

My shipment showed this morning – I’d ordered the “scud” style (#18528), dry fly (#26528), 1X Nymph (#18538), and Natural Bend (#16428), figuring that would give me a nice cross section of the trout styles for testing purposes.

Standard Dry Fly The “Natural Bend” is an elongated hook and #20’s are about the size of a traditional #16, I ordered #20 – #16’s to accommodate the normal sizes I use.

Really nice hooks, nicely formed eyes, and I managed to imbed a point in my finger just opening the plastic bag – so they’re plenty sharp.

Now the “Good News” – they’re $7.00 US per hundred hooks, so it may be time to think on what you’re currently using. Togen sells them in packs of 100, or packs of 1000 – you can mix and match sizes and styles to build the 1000 pack. The price drops to $6.80 US per 100 if ordered in the “mix and match” 1000 bundles.

1X Long Nymph My thoughts on the subject are well documented. 100 years ago almost every fish hook in the world came from Redditch, England. No matter what the label said, it was a Sealy, a Partridge, or an Allcock. I think the same holds true today – no matter what the label says, it’s likely a Tiemco, Gamakatsu, or an affiliated factory.

As nothing else is biting, I may have to try these in the seafood aisle of my supermarket, I think I saw a Catfish fillet that weighed enough to deform a #20 – that’s if the damn Mergansers don’t beat me to it…

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Weather and temperature conspire, but at least I remembered the rain parka

Nothing like a three day weekend to come face to face with wanderlust. One day to do something responsible, one day devoted to NFL debauchery, and the last to piss away adventuring.

That’s my new “politically correct” term for walking around with a flyrod hoping that something other than exercise is on the menu.

A break in the weather afforded me the opportunity to check on Sacramento steelhead fishing; from the bridge I’d assumed a cluster of fellows waving flyrod’s meant something with fins was on the menu, none were in evidence, it was a spey casting clinic put on by a local shop.

I was afforded the rare luxury of watching unfortunates arse deep in too-cold water flinging stuff at even colder water, now I know what I look like to the casual dog walker.

The blue sky ran for cover, taking me with it

That’s the reoccurring theme in all my fishing of late, weather and temperature conspires to keep me fishless, with only the burn in calories to show for all the legwork.

The Little Stinking always offers a good hike, in expected fashion the weather held until I was 3 miles above the vehicle, then the rain started. I hadn’t seen a fish during the entire journey and had the foresight to take the rain parka so I meandered back to the car without mishap.

That’s my Pikeminnow, dammit

I had to examine the film I shot with the same care as the “Zapruder” footage, but I had seen a fish without knowing it. The Merganser armada was fighting over one of my treasured Pikeminnow, I couldn’t hold a grudge as they burn far more calories keeping ahead of me than I do keeping up with them.

At least somebody caught something.

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If you’re looking for cheaper "Ice Dub" then you’re at the right place

Mother of Pearl Angelina I found a better retailer for the Angelina (“Ice Dub”) fibers, Joggles.com features a better color selection of the “straight cut” Angelina, and the price is a buck cheaper.

These are half ounce packages, which is equivalent to about 4 packages of Ice Dub, featured at $3.75 per half ounce. 36 colors are available as well as some quarter ounce sampler packs.

I picked up another dozen colors, mostly the “hot” steelhead variety.

I spent part of the weekend dying hare’s masks and beaver pelts to build some nymph dubbing blends, tossing a little Angelina into each blend will add some needed sparkle.

I was eyeballing the “Angelina” film as a likely Czech nymph shellback material, these are pearlescent sheets of Angelina similar to mylar with the Angelina color scheme – still scratching my chin over this one. The film is listed with the dubbing material at the above link.

Update: See the latest post on Angelina for information on the “soft crimp” flavor, this is what you’re looking for if you want the Ice Dub you’re used to buying at the fly shop.

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