How much are you wearing

I don’t think I can complain about my girl’s perm’s anymore without blushing. Sure, they are 12 times what my haircut costs, but if she got one every month, it would be less than equipping her with fly gear.

Assume I want to take the plunge and equip my “better half” with quality gear, yet not go overboard should she not like the sport. The exception will be rod choice as I may be fishing it instead…

Rod: Sage 9.0′ 5wt “Z-Plane” = $590.00 Reel: Loomis Venture 5 and X-Tra spool= $150.00 Line: Scientific Anglers Mastery WF5F, WF5F/S, $59.00 ea = $118.00 Vest: Simm’s Freestone Mesh = $79.00 Waders: Simm’s Freestone Waders = $200.00 Boots: Simm’s Freestone Boot = $80.00 Accessories: 5 leaders (@3.75ea) 3 tippet (5x/6x/7x)($7.95ea), nippers and pliers (@8.00ea), flyboxes (2 @ 20.00ea), floatant and indicators (4.00ea) = $108.00 Flys: an anemic 4 doz dries (@ 1.90 ea) and 4 doz nymphs (@ 1.90 ea) = $182.00 License: $35.00 Subtotal: $1542.00 Tax: $131

Grand Total: $1674.00 (for her)

Let’s contrast that with what you’re wearing. Upgrades to the above totals as follows:

Rod: Winston WT Rod 9.0′ 6wt = +$5 Reel: Ross Evolution #2 & Xtra Spool= +$350 Vest: Simms G3= +$100 Waders: Simms Rivertek (Large) = +$80.00 Boots: Patagonia Riverwalker= +$50 Accessories: 10 extra leaders, 3 extra flyboxes (@40.00 ea) 3 extra tippet spools (last years @8.00 ea) = +$190.00 Flys: +32 dozen = +$730.00 Subtotal: +$1500 Tax: $127 Total (Extra only) = $1627,

Grand Total = 1627+1674= $3300.00 (for you)

I’m not sure what fraction of the angling public is wearing that much Bling, but I have met many anglers that are wearing a lot more. It amazes me how fast this stuff adds up.

The Politically Right Stuff

This has nothing to do about fishing, but with all the furor about astronauts and alcohol, whatever happened to the “Right Stuff?” You’ve either seen the movie or read the book – replete with hard drinking, slow talking fighter pilots nursing either a hangover or a cold one…

Gus Grissom may not have pooched it but he made them mortal, and if anyone was to strap 6,000,000 pounds of thrust to my rear end, I might need a stiff one before liftoff, maybe more.

I can hear Chuck Yeager now, “Hell, son… I used to pour a fifth of Jack Daniels into my diaper, them fellows never caught on..”

Numbers are your friend

You can all breath a big sigh of relief, we are not numbers junkies.

I was pressed into service by my girlfriend to find some odd vitamin, and wound up touring the Health section of assorted women’s magazines. They are number junkies, not us.

So I may remember how many fish I caught, they remember how much each fish cost. I see how that is possible after enduring; “13 ways for better sex, 12 things to pamper yourself, 10 new shoes you can’t live without, 23 new intimacy secrets, and 427 ways to torture your husband.”

Two can play this game. The opportunity presented itself when (#428), “That’s your third slice of pie” rang across the dinner table. Rather than act guilty, dropping the offending slice as if stung, I reached for a fourth slice with, “The daily bag limit is two, but four in possession.”

It was them numbers that threw her, she wasn’t used to having a sword at a gunfight.

Notice how their eyes glaze over when you mention, “…the 427R produces a mind blowing 550 horsepower with 535 foot pounds of torque..” – they are number driven, yet those numbers can’t be added. You have them at your mercy, backpeddaling frantically, move for the kill…

“In fact, Dear – the latest version of their Generation 5 (G5) High Modulus IM8 blanks, offers unparalled thrust-to-weight ratio, presenting #18-#2/0 flies delicately at 25ft, add 14% Boron helical filaments …. and… its 23% off on sale!”

You know how the game is played, now go get that Boat, Sailor!

Don’t use your cooking pots

I find it cheaper to buy bulk white/badger saddle and dye it into all the colors I need for trout, steelhead, and salmon flies. Commercial supermarket dyes like RIT work very well on the earth tones needed for trout, but for the vibrant colors for steelhead and salmon I prefer aniline dyes.

Aniline is called many things on the Internet, you can find them referenced as “coal tar” dyes, and sometimes, “acid” or “protein” dyes. They have been in use for at least 100 years, and are now regulated to ensure they are not used on food.

I was interested in what they were using to dye hair in hair parlors. We’ve all seen the kid on the block with the “Day-Glo” Mohawk, I was wondering if the dye used for people’s hair might be either cheaper, or easier to use.

Still looking for that answer, but I did stumble upon a nice dye primer site that explains all of the dyes in commercial use for fabric, and synthetic fibers. Plenty of useful links to vendors, and some nice explanations on which kind to use for synthetic fibers.

Don’t be scared of the term “acid dye” white vinegar (5% acetic acid solution) or muriatic acid (38% HydroChloric – used to balance swimming pool Ph) is commonly used as the fixative.

For the urban vigilante this can be used to silence neighbors that play the stereo too loud, just lob a pound of dye in his swimming pool. Humans are protein also (grin).

Skill is overrated

You can forget about knots, mating habits of mayfies, ignore streamflows, weather, tides, and lunar phase, as every fishing trip will meet with “should have been here last week” success.

You are superstitious as hell, but that rabbit’s foot has finally been upstaged.

Imagine kissing your wife on the cheek with the exclamation, “I’ll be home at 6:00, make sure the fry pan is ready” – and mean it. Your beautiful golden haired children gaze up at you adoringly, you tell them “Poppa will be right back with dinner.”

Skeptical? This is heady stuff, and you’re going to owe me large.

Lucky is better than skillful and the makeover starts with the hat; your choice of Regular Lucky or Legendary Lucky. You can finally ditch that greasy old shapeless ex-lucky-fishing-hat, for a “curly-brim” that oozes success.

Next comes the shirt, for the fashionista we have quantity, for the rest of us – steeped in sacred Ti extract , blessed by Hawaiian Gods, we have the really good stuff. Don’t blame me if you become a chick magnet.

Not content with merely catching every fish within reach, add a regular lucky tie and a pair of lucky stressed denim jeans, and start filling the freezer.

Wielding this much raw power is dangerous and can lead to accidental discharge, act responsibly and please change in a phone booth.

A balanced diet is a cookie in each hand

One fell swoop and the Department of Fish & Game will have to rethink both their stocked trout program and trophy fisheries management. Harvard researchers have published a study that concludes that friends of the obese will likely become obese also.

Hatchery trout have tons of friends, and if the research is correct, all we need do is make 40% of them obese – due to six degrees of separation theory, we will have made all of the planted fish fat and lazy.

Prepare thyself for angling paradise – large, slow moving trout, whose only crime was associating with other larger trout. Fly tying will enter a renaissance period, as patterns trend towards sparse and even lo-fat dressing.

It shouldn’t be long in coming, a canny angler will start making room in his flybox for the new “staples” of fly fishing; The South Beach Nymph series, Richard Simmons’s cReel-A-Meal, and the Jenny Craig line of carb-free low water dressings.

They win

We have an uneasy peace at my workplace, with “Hatfield’s” the golfing contingent, the “McCoy’s” the fishing crowd. It’s a separate yet equal environment with no “Tweeners” – guys that like both.

I expected the golfing crowd to be sympathetic, as their sport involves running around the out-of-doors flailing ineffectually at a dimpled white ball, whose flight is as perverse and uncontrollable as a trout’s idea of tasty.

Negative. You are either a Sith Lord or a Jedi Knight, never the twain shall meet.

I figured to beard the prophet, adding to the lunchroom fodder with some angling magazines thrown onto the rack at random. I had to do something as the Postman was starting to wink suggestively when he delivered them. (The phallic thing, see below.)

Now I Done it. The cry of protest was long and deafening, scorn followed in short order.

“So lemme get this straight, you drive for hours, get in the water, throw fake insects at fish with your pole, and if you’re lucky, you let them go when you’re done?”

Ayup.

“You spend thousands of dollars on gear, piss off your wife, abandon her for weekends at a time, then make excuses why you didn’t catch anything?”

Affirmative.

In rebuttal, “…but you guys do the same thing, drive for hours, spend the entire day cursing, spend thousands of dollars on gear and green fees, piss off the wife and make excuses why that updraft caught that slice and how that broken window ain’t your fault, No?”

They looked at each other and agreed. “But we got Beer Girls.”

Seeing my look of confusion, “Yea, they drive around the course in a cart full of beer and stop at each group to see if they need fresh ones.”

Dejected and defeated, I left in haste. Golfers get cold beer delivered, fly fishermen get an overflowing Port-A-Potty, no toilet paper, with a door that was used to sight in a deer rifle…

They win.

The Phallic Trout

It may come as no surprise but the publishers at Intermedia Outdoors are Vegan, meatless – it’s the only explanation. Every cover features a model that feels he must pose with a yard of large trout emanating from his crotch.

We’ve silently endured “The Pose” for years; heroic figure, semi-crouched in water, large fish gripped with both hands, fullsome white-toothed smile that beckons the unwary with, “If you buy me and exhalt me above all others, this too can be you.”

If the advertising geniuses at Fly Fisherman figure the battle is won or lost in the magazine rack of the supermarket, then get some scantily clad supermodels into the mixture – that way you can compete with “NASCAR Honey” on a level playing field… and if Madison Ave must intrude, then give us some quality content to match.

I am ill prepared for the guy selling me waders to ask, “Do you dress to the left, or to the right?” Questions abound, how often must I floss to achieve the “cover” smile? – are padded shoulders on my vest considered tacky?

I can’t afford to look like a beginner by responding, “Dress, Huh? Whassat?”

In addition to salmo-endowment, models-as-anglers have no visible sweat, dirt, or any real proof that they caught the fish they are holding. These pictures are doctored, possibly even “enhanced” as did Playboy – via liberal use of an airbrush. If they clean the grime off the cap would they hesitate to stretch the fish six additional inches?

I have been lucky to catch one or two large trout – in a lifetime of angling. These covers trivialize that magic moment – no sign of sweat from chasing the beast down river, no wetness from a fall into the water at the dead run, no panting uncontrollably – as adrenaline flushes out of your system, and no exultation – knowing this is a fish of a lifetime.

Instead we get “trout porn” – featuring models antiseptically clean, flawless white smile, heroic pose.

I am resigned to a prominent bulb of masking tape on my sunglasses, small fish, sand kicked in my food at the beach, and the ridicule of the reigning angling nobility.

No, Mr Leo Hindery, owner of both Fly Fisherman and Guns & Ammo, my money shall not be added to your coffers, and if you lack sausage, buy a pizza.

And two steps back

It’s not something I can conciously control, I like the places I find trout as much as I like catching them. Towering pines, bald eagles, both the sights and sounds of the woods are part and parcel of the entire experience.

No, I am not an eco-terrorist, but as I hike back to the car I see my way to bring trash back with me, most of it is other folks’ the rest mine.

I was emptying my vest from Saturdays episode (see below) and tossed the usual suspects; snarl of monofilament, soggy ciger butts (mine), left over wrapper from sandwich, when the radio blared that some well intentioned fellow has just jettisoned a grand piano from the International Space Station.

On the “Mixed Message” scoreboard I would rate this an eight. While Woodsy Owl is admonishing us with, “Give a Hoot, don’t pollute” their sister agency is giggling over whether they can hit Bejing from here…. “I dunno Bob, I would lead it a like a sumbitch, Houston out.”

I draw the line at space junk, I’ve seen Joe Dirt and unless a martian waves at me – it’s likely something I am better off not touching.

And the Fishing God smiled

I managed to pry myself from all of the things I was supposed to do, and get a little fishing done. It was a Jiffo-Whip trip, meaning more hours were spent driving than fishing, but it was a welcome and much needed respite.

I hit Manzanita Lake in time for the Calibaetis grab, but it was not to be. Winds gusting to 25-30 mph meant the bugs stayed doggo, with only a smattering of working fish. I managed to tease one 15″ rainbow to hand with a parachute dry, fooled another of similar size with a Pheasant Tail nymph. Activity was sporadic, with no insects visible. Had about 8 grabs total, and I was late on most of them.

Overheard one fellow mention, ” 2 on a streamer, 2 on a nymph, and one on a dry.” Saw one fellow float tubing that landed about 6 fish on a nymph with floating line. Most of the comments ended with, “%$##& Wind.”

In short, no hatch, moderate sunburn, relentless driving, strong winds, and I can’t think of a better way to spend a Saturday.

Singlebarbed

Fly fishing the Unloved & Unclean