The Evil Uncle Cometh and he exists without shame

I hadn’t noticed major league baseball was such a source of domestic angst and great fishing. Pets and wives locked away in mud rooms or hiding in bedrooms while chips and dip spatter both couch and fans. Your spouse should’ve known of your predilections for the designated hitter, so we’re less sensitive to her drama, rather it’s Man’s Best Friend that keeps getting the raw deal.

It would seem less one sided if you saved your furry pal some backwash from that $12.00 watery beer or brought home the greasy wrapper with all those snouts, jowls, and gonads they ground to make that ballpark frank, instead your loyal dog gets nary a thought nor pat for his lonesome vigil guarding home and property …

Which is my karmic gain, as everytime I agree to take your canine for a frolic in lukewarm tomato effluent, I’m guaranteed fishing success, as Poseidon hisself has a soft spot for unloved canines. 

I’ve given up finding a human to fish with – and rather like this new role of peeling away all that obedience training. Nothing like allowing your sweet smelling, well behaved canine to act like a Dog – with all the crapping, scratching, shedding, and rolling in dead stuff he’s earned by birthright.

It’s akin to that “Evil Uncle” that volunteers to take your kids to Disneyland, gets them hopped up on sugar and lard, lets them roll in decayed animal flesh then dumps them on your porch while waving cheerily and making dust down your driveway.

All these selfless acts of kindness results in the fishing gods being mighty generous to my heavy tread on his creek …

IGFA_Pikeminnow

I make this another trash fish record for our pals at the IGFA. Their largest fly caught Pikeminnow is 6.5 pounds and this is likely a pound better than theirs. I’d guess somewhere in the 36-40” range and close to seven or eight pounds.

Taken on the … ahem … dry fly (kinda)(preen).

That’s a 3/0 Yellow and Olive DustBuster Bass Popper I tied up the night before. I slapped it onto a big pad of floating Green slime gave her a tug to pull it off and she never got damp …

It was ate instead.

Their aggression does not surprise me, having caught many hundreds of them with leeches and nymphs, but for them to take the surface fly, and one half the size of a fist, is pretty extraordinary.

Little Meat adds perspective

Little Meat adds a bit of perspective. Normally he inspects everything that flops fetchingly on the end of the line, but likely he was protecting the sensitive bits from Mister Aggressive, who appears large enough to think a Heeler mix a worthy snack food.

Watch as I play with his emotions

… and this is how you reward a loyal pal. Nice Doggy!

I peel the thin veneer of obedience training off your hound while endearing myself to the Gods of Fishing. The Crime Perfect.

What do you suppose they’ll think of Jungle Cock?

blue_guinea_nails On the one hand it’s a relief we’ll not see another Yank led away in manacles after overstaying his welcome by pillaging the Royal and Ancient Bird Museum, on the other hand an anorexic second story supermodel might make a hell of a splash on Interpol …

Now that drab genetic chicken hackle is so completely-yesterday, it’s nice to see that girls might rend a big handful of plumes off something that squawks – instead of looking down their nose at Mister Outdoorsy who’s been ventilating all manner of birds for a couple of centuries.

pheasant_fingers

… but it’s that meat-headed rod builder that I want to find. Some thick skulled overly sensitive craftsman who wanted a couple extra days in the woods – who paid off his debt after shellacking  his wife fingernails with the local warbler. That same unthinking fellow that has doomed our game birds and fly shops to yet another tidal wave of fashion seeking society dames …

… I’m going to find you, and this time I’m going to hurt you …

Can fly tying cleanliness lead to hoarding obsession?

Homer Price and Gigantic Twine Ball It was a two room apartment, with four occupants and at least three outdoor hobbies participating. Keeping all those vocations in their respective corners was bad enough, not counting us kids fighting for extra flat space at the kitchen table.

In one of many book sessions I discovered deer hair and how to spin it. Now, each time the back door opened there were howls of dismay as the blizzard of gaily colored trimmings blew under my bed – or into the living room.

Some well-wisher had gifted me with the skeletal frame of a fly tying material clipping-catcher, minus the all-important catch-all bag. I explained what was needed and Ma dutifully whipped out a nice mesh bag that we threaded onto the harness. I dogged it onto the shaft of my Korean knock-off Thompson Model A and domestic bliss was restored.

Her cornbread no longer featured unwanted stubble and I discovered that a material-clipping-catcher was the Greatest Invention I’d Never Bought …

… and never will again.

The first month I reveled in the grief my brother caught for spreading his wire-rope splicing gear all over our bedroom. Now Ma was picking up snippets of waxed thread or rope, broken needles, and fragments of trimmed wire, while I cheerfully snipped away at Bass Awesomeness and made faces at Meathead Dumbass Older Bro while Ma lectured him sternly.

The second month I discovered that fly tying material clipping-catchers had uses far beyond simply catching all the airborne debris. They became a particle reservoir of everything I’d ever made, or ever will make …

By the third month I wondered how I’d managed to tie fly without one, and why the fly tying media never touched on the thousands of reuses all those trimmed parts represented.

Instead of opening a drawer to find Grizzly tailing material, you simply dug into the snippet bag, whose contents you’d never emptied, and was full to bursting with animal parts mixed with bits of toast, old socks, and small unidentifiable stuff …

By month four the ball of debris was so big you had to adjust it in your lap when you sat down. It was crucial to your tying as it had two or three inches of everything you owned, shaving minutes off each fly as you no longer had to guess which cardboard box contained pink and white variegated chenille, or that ancient spool of mint floss.

It was just there. Roll the ball around until you saw the tag end.

But at month five you realized it wasn’t gold so much as iron pyrite, that’s when the first moth fluttered up from the bottom of your accumulated ball of debris. You’d mistaken ash from Pop’s pipe dottle for the eggs of fly tying’s only nemesis.

Now, your ode to Homer Price was doomed.

… but not before you thought about saving your prize, whether you should endure the kiss of all those noxious chemicals, or could you endure separation anxiety and simply toss it and start anew.

This was an important moral quandary, which you would practice many times when you discovered girl friends.

Catch the falling knife, giggling all the while …

I think this qualifies as a “don’t tease me …”

I would start thinking about eBay and all those fashionistas that will unload all the feathers they purchased hoping to recoup some cash. A casual examination already has a lot of feather clumps being offered at $0.90 -$1.00 per feather, which is closing in on the zone occupied by Whiting’s  “100 Packs” – the downside being most will tie Raspberry Quill Gordons, and none of the owners will know a #14 from a Buick Skylark …

Just reminding you to have no mercy on them as deprived us of all them dry flies.

… and it won’t surprise a bit to see Whiting return to the fold with a significant price hike to welcome us long time supporters back.

The Debut of the “Do it Yourself” fish hook?

The folks at Fishingmatters Ltd, whom you may recall purchased the Partridge hook company, are concerned about the amount of time us over-consuming fly tiers spend searching for the better hook …

In the June issue of Tackle Trade World (pg10), suggest that they’re introducing the “Do It Yourself” hook, outfitted with a straight shank that allows you to bend it into the curve of your liking.

“ … research carried out by the company that shows advanced fly fishermen and pro guides are constantly searching for new hook patterns that don’t exist.”

– via Tackle Trade World, June 2012

As an “advanced fly tyer” and chronic hoarder I can attest to the time spent searching for good hooks. Most of the niche players that sponsored hook innovation like Partridge, have been plowed under by the Japanese and Korean hook companies, and esoteric models like the Flybody, Mariano Midge, Captain Hamilton, and Keith Fulsher’s Thunder Creek, all died lonesome.

Consolidation is a good thing until the pendulum swings too far and you’re left with Plain Vanilla and his kid sister …

Hooks used to have odd bends and varying length shanks, and an entire hook nomenclature was discarded to reduce the many to only best sellers. Outside of the constant influence of the salmon-steelhead crowd, and the Czech nymph phenomenon, we haven’t seen much in the way of new hooks in the last decade.

X-Stout, Offset, X-Heavy, Kirbed, Sproat, O’Shaughnessy, Limerick, X-light, 1,2,3,4,5 XL(ong), 1,2,3,4,5 XS(trong), and 1,2,3,4,5 XS(hort), haven’t been on the packaging in a mighty long time. Nor do today’s anglers understand why in this pinched-down-barb-era, how a good sproat or limerick offered something tangibly and different.

But we’ve got Black Nickel, which is a start …

We’re not the only ones preying on the defenseless, the parking lot has its share of predators too

They left a mountain bike inside Sights like the one at left are increasingly common on the wildland-urban interface.

I like to blame the vendor community (unjustly) but only because I like to think they’re at the root of the requirement that our fishing rod costs the better part of a grand, we can’t mountain bike without our bike costing double that, nor brave the white water in our kayak without our craft costing the same as a Nimitz class carrier.

It’s not at all surprising that our light-fingered brethren would learn the costs of the things we’ve left visible in the back seat as there’s a Big 5 in their neighborhood too.

With us preoccupied with fish and fast water, and potentially miles upstream, it’s not surprising our vehicles have become such easy pickings.

Avoiding unwanted attention and the shattered window that follows is an urban skill like any other. Our chariot looks every bit as appealing as the BMW next to us, and alarms and force fields no longer matter, their bleat considered “white noise” in the City. Real proof against unwelcome surprise is making someone else’s car look twice as tasty as yours ..

… it’s the classic bear joke, how you don’t need to run fast – you only need to run faster than your buddy …

The Pig:

“The Pig” is the easiest possible subterfuge, simply transfer the contents of your back seat to the front, so it looks like you’re an uncaring sloth whose table manners and palate rival that of a Yeti in full rut.

Cell phones and expensive tape decks aren’t hand-in-hand with mustard down your shirt front, and the Bad Guys know it.

Any real fisherman has to clean his back seat before “Momma” spies the debris field of illicit and forbidden snack food wrappers, none of which are permitted on his diet, nor by his physician.

The opposition can’t help but notice the rancid banana peels and sodden carpet which convey an eloquent message, “these are not the Droids you seek … move along …”

The Animal:

“The Animal” is a product of my own creative genius, I drape a jacket on the passenger seat like I’m making something sentient comfortable.

From the driver’s side it appears as some unknown creature is sleeping peacefully in the passenger’s seat. All the identifying elements like paws and fangs aren’t visible, so it might be a dog, a ferret, or something worse that’ll awaken when the window breaks to tear out your carotid artery.

The_Animal2

Sleeping, or expired from the heat of the car interior. Resulting in it convulsively crapping itself and vomiting Purina all over the inside of the car, which having baked most of the afternoon is liable to smell like death itself …

… making your car look twice as attractive as mine, which IS our intent.

“The Animal” is merely a badger fur collar removed from a woman’s coat, large enough so I can fluff it into a full three dimensions.

… and yes, that minivan was parked next to me, but he also left a mountain bike visible, way more attractive than the sleeping feral unknown in my front seat …

In celebration of the well chewed fly

I remember the four letter words I hissed when I found the saddle hackle had teeth marks on them, or the moth equivalent. Minimizing the contagion always is the priority, but rather than toss all that hard work and trimmed deer hair, I’d sealed the flies in a plastic baggy and added it to a little-used pocket in my vest.

Worst possible outcome being the moths could duke it out with Didymo and Zebra mussels while hanging in the garage … Bass poppers being at the minimum messy and time consuming to tie, and at maximum expensive as hell to replace.

The Thrill That Comes Once in a Lifetime

I found that pocket this weekend, containing both flies and left over sandwich from the weekend prior – which was added to the front pocket after we eyeballed the color of the mayonnaise (it hadn’t gone green yet).

Finding out that moth chewed bass poppers take on the mythical properties of the “the well chewed fly” , and are therefore twice as likely of catching fish and capable of fooling the most discerning palate …

Num Num

… and while aloof and hard to catch bass became child’s play, we eventually ran out …

And with a last epithet I managed to snap off the last of the mange-bugs in some fish’s jaw, only to hear an audible burp and watched as our purple and white popper floated to the surface.

While thoughts of the Lady of the Lake and Excalibur came unbidden, we still had plenty of gasoline leeches for the route back to safety and the parking area.

gasoline_leech

In any other venue they would be the source of great storytelling, much beer being drankled, outright lies and falsehoods. Instead, they are something you drove over enroute to some other place, and we thanked you for it.

Proof that for all our collective efforts we’ve advanced fly fishing not at all

I told him, “… you’re not to go into a fly shop without me holding your hand, you’re simply too vulnerable. You need absolutely everything – but you need a Sensei to prioritize purchases, so you don’t blow a couple paychecks on stuff you wad into a vest, yet lack the vest to fill …”

He nods with great sincerity, and we part company …

Later I’m the recipient of an email:

“The budget fisherman went by big 5 on the way home and saw this for 4.99 and had to buy it. You can’t go wrong with FAMOUS patterns. They did not have a holder. Would you have a fly box your willing to sell? Talked to wife and if you are still up for tomorrow I can meet you at work at 3:30 and follow you home. “

Big5_Famous2

I recognize the McGinty, the Parmachene Belle, White Miller, Black Gnat, Yellow Sally, and a host of patterns from the 1950’s, but where is there any evidence of the last seventy years of fly fishing, and why is that so?

Dear Eager-Beaver,

The label says, “Great for every game fish”, but you’re interested in Largemouth and Smallmouth Bass, which aren’t game fish. Anything in still water is considered by the fly fishing industry to be a ‘gamey-fish’ – something you toe into the underbrush while no one is looking.

I’ll hook you up with some bass flies this evening, and a fly box, and anything else I’ve got two of …

Stop spending money.

Sensei

Economics as defined by Candy bars, not fly tackle

It doesn’t matter whether your favorite is Milky Way, Mounds, Snickers, or even the venerable Hershey with Almonds, the only thing that strikes fear into your heart is the words, “New, Larger Size!”

… or something similar …

As kids we learned that an “extra 33%, free”, meant a hike in price was imminent, sending our beloved 35 cent bar to 40 cents, or even higher.

Schools tried for years to penetrate our thick skulls with economic theory, something an Almond Joy could tearfully teach us in five minutes …

You’d think them canny marketing fellows ate candy like we did, but no…

New tippet from Scientific Anglers containing 10% more than their competitors. Featuring a host of new features, functionality, and richly engineered packaging, all in a eye watering 30 meter spool.

… because you rock moisture, Babe, and they love you for it .

Where we find more ways for you to use butt ends and random clippings

I’ve always called it by what it’s good at doing, combining all manner of leftovers into a “chaos wrap”, which tames a gaggle of unruly and dissimilar materials into something cohesive on your hook shank.

As well as melding unrelated objects it can right-size materials that are too long, and add some thread spine into those that are too fragile, as a double strand of thread can add toughness to thin or brittle stems, ensuring that damage is no longer catastrophic and feathers no longer unwind.

It’s also exactly the kind of shaggy I’m looking for when I marry shad’s brightness with trout’s buggy, as unlike the gentle presentation of trout flies, these will be slapped on the water via shooting head and all the G – forces commensurate with a swearing angler and his double haul.

Mats_In_Loop “Dubbed Loops” have shown a bit of a resurgence of late, and have always worked well converting hair and fur into hackle for big nymphs. Less well documented is their ability to mix a variety of materials into a single strand, and with a judicious stroke of scissors, can offer new opportunities for feathers that are too big for normal attachment and winding.

Above is a tuft of Red Fox Squirrel, dyed teal, and Peacock Angelina that I’ll marry as the thorax of a caddis design. I’ve cast a dubbing loop around the shank and tied it off, and inserted the three materials as a single pinch. I’ll push them collectively up the thread close to the hook shank, then spin them within the loop until the thread tightens around the butts of all three materials.

In the photo above, the material on the left side of the thread will be the portion I’ll retain and wind onto the fly. The material to the right of the thread will be trimmed close to the thread once the thread has started securing it in the loop.

trimmed_buttsResizing materials that are too long for the hook shank is done by pulling only a fraction of the material through to the left side of the loop, just enough to match the length of the legs needed for the fly, trimming the balance when semi-secured.

At right is the loop beginning to spin the materials into a “hackle”. I’ve trimmed all materials on the right side of the thread and will continue spinning the loop until the materials can no longer be pulled from the thread.

semi_tamedI’ll attempt to persuade the materials to clump on one side with finger pressure or saliva, but as the materials have been spun like a rubber band, they will resist your efforts to tame them.

Instead I’ll focus on sweeping the material back as it’s wrapped onto the fly. This will minimize the amount of trapped fibers, as well as encourage the strands to sweep over the rear of the fly.

Touching up the thorax area with a bit of Velcro will add a hint of fuzzy  free trapped materials and assist them to meld into a cohesive collar as they sweep towards the tail.

Depending on the fly being tied, the distribution of fibers can be made to make either a symmetrical or asymmetrical hackle. Placing the fibers in a clump will yield the small amount of duck under the bug as shown below. Spreading the fibers out yield a traditional style hackle.

Green Caddis Shad Experimental

The completed experimental.  The transparent vinyl is wrapped over a base of flat gold tinsel, affording the abdomen a bit of “pop” and brightness. I’ve tied additional flies in pink and red just to see how traditional Shad colors fish with this caddis-style exterior.

Green trout-like shad flies