Does a slammed door mean landed or released?

Natural Beaver on Sunday April 24I think it necessary to occasionally give the gals credit for putting up with us. While I’ve changed the names to protect the innocent, rest assured this conversation is merely one scene among many …

(I call it “Kiki’s Guide to landing Keeper Wimmen, Fly Fishing Edition.”)

At my domicile, each time “Herself” arrives from travel she has to tiptoe around all manner of obscene things I’ve drug in from the out-of-doors. As she reacquaints herself with her surroundings, tiptoeing over the experiments in the bath tub, rotting flesh in the fridge, unknown lint and feather dander flitting about gaily, yet it’s taken in stride knowing someday all these fly rods charged to her credit card will be a one way rocket ship to wealth and infamy, and Oprah … not necessarily in that order.

Yes, I may have to kill and eat this one …

Fade In:

Natural Beaver Wed 27th 3% solution[Pointing at the sink] “Uh, what’s this? – can I throw it away?”

[Mock Terror as he rushes to defend] “No, that’s the experiment I’m running to see how many days it takes 3% Hydrogen Peroxide to remove the natural colors of a piece of beaver. I need that for a post next week.”

 

[Pointing at the Floor] “What about that (wrinkles nose)?”

Copper and Skins [Mock Terror as he rushes to defend] “No, that’s me attempting to make copper mordant so I can use that big bag of onion skins you asked about last week, how I was going to write a post on natural dyes and the number of different colors possible from pillaged onion husks.”

[Cross Arms on Chest] “Okay, surely I can throw out the smelly thing on the plate!”

[Mock Terror as he rushes to defend] “Only if you want to go hungry, that’s your dinner, Cupcake …”

Fly tying materials that grow on trees

I thought of it as answering one of many questions I’ve always had about watersheds and how soon they recovered from obvious trauma.

Travelwriter had spied some rising fish in a stretch of the river that was normally bone dry this time of year. Adding 170% more water to the stream means the farming community can’t suck it all down, and would as soon avoid doing so given the mattress springs, dead bodies, late model stolen-everything – all of which is tumbling in the current, surely to foul pumps and pipes alike.

Huff's Corner at 40-50 feet

BEFORE

That additional volume makes banks vanish, holes get created, and sandbars move miles overnight. Understanding who survived all that carnage would fill a big hole in my understanding of floods, fish, and who wins what …

Huff's Corner post flood

AFTER

Note the shrubs, trees, and grasses are completely vanished off the right side of the creek, leaving only a single innocent looking tree that isn’t quite as innocent as it would seem … as I found out later …

The water was about 40-50 feet deep here a couple weeks ago, now it’s only a foot to 18 inches in most spots.

I went down the next evening to investigate, as I skeptical of “mystery rings” and whether anything could have survived given the above circumstances …

Pikeminnow survives Tsunami

The stretch had become repopulated with about a dozen 4-6 inch Pikeminnow. Last season, the second since water was restored, the Pikeminnow fry had grown to three inches in length. The length of these suggests they’re second year fish.

Making these survivors of two massive earth moving floods (last year was wet too) I’d guess these fish survive by staying near the bank – despite the bank being a hundred yards from its historical norm.

I managed to land three or four fish – all similarly apportioned and nary a mark for their ordeal. 

Unfortunately they’ve survived only to die due to evaporation – which will start shortly. I may bring down a bucket and relocate what I can catch –  the creek is still starved of citizens and I don’t mind getting dirty. I’ll call it “Pee You” for Pikeminnow Unlimited – as I’m the only SOB willing to stick my neck out for a cockroach …

As I was there for a scienctific purposes, I hunkered down largely oblivious to my surroundings. I’m tossing cottonseed dander imitations and small nymphs into a small, deep hole in the wide part of the bend.

After pulling three or four fish out of  it’s depths I’m satisfied they’re all Pikeminnow, so I ease down the bank into the shallows below just to see if there’s any other activity .

The wind shifts abruptly and I get a faceful of meat decay. It’s close and I’m thinking big animal, yet dreading turning around and finding someone’s kid wedged in the crotch of a tree, victim of some upstream flooding accident.

I’m backpedaling while attempting to hold down the evening meal – all the while scanning the riverbank, underbrush, and everything else nearby, and nothing.

rotting_turkey

I ease around the tree and find Big Bird, the wiliest of all Mother Nature’s game birds, slammed into a fork of the tree at speed, and becoming more fragrant by the moment.

Naturally a moment of introspection was needed, especially as the little Angel on my shoulder was in heated debate with the little devil on the other …

The little angel claimed, “Dude, forget the bragging points, your girl is arriving tomorrow and the use of refrigerator or any other storage on your premises is completely out of the question!”

The little Devil snorted in contempt, “Dude, call yourself a Man? Don’t think of the rotting and swollen beached seal you cut too deeply, this time you’ll be able to get the stink out of your clothes easy, by tomorrow even!”

… just the thought of the rotting seal episode was enough, even if I was doing it for Science …

Wherein we profess a weakness for four letter fly rods .. and their makers

The entire idea of a much ballyhooed “lifestyle” brand is largely lost on me, my shortcoming entirely, nothing wrong with the rest of you. Guys love wearing other people’s advertising, and I don’t – insisting that Jim Beam pay me for the privilege.

( … and due to the vast expanse of my pasty and sodden flesh, it better be at billboard rates …)

But I get the idea in theory – whose intent suggests you like something enough to buy their other products, or recommend them across the board, or that you’re branding your arse cheeks with some companies logo because you are committed to their policies and neo-industrialist war mongering products …

Or there’s the nonchalant fly fishing variant, bastardized of any real nobility by changing it into a “support my feet up, beer swilling, fishing lifestyle by dumping large coin for my washed out tee shirt that we’ve emblazoned with a cool logo.”

Naturally all this is going through my head as I’m suddenly confronted with a rod company claiming it’ll sell me the graphite rod of my dreams for $233, featuring an extra tip, a case and sock, with the additional promise of weregonnadonate20%oftheproceedstothefish …

Case, Sock, And Extra Tip

That’s rarified turf by any means, and I simply had to support them for no other reason than give Harvard Business School some heartburn …

So I ordered a 9’ #4 to replace my backup trout rod – which was starting to show the wear of real abuse, given its infancy rattling around the boat followed by rattling around the back of my truck.

The rod arrived in January and while both of us were largely idle, we managed to dance outside in between squalls and beat the lawn to smithereens. It felt responsive and supple, so we took it to the creek and tormented ourselves by roll casting over the late model Nissan’s breaking apart in the chocolate water …

Rise Instream 9ft #4

It’s a nicely apportioned rod, with a crisp action that smacks of the RPL III days of Sage. The picture above gives you a glimpse of black wraps on brown blank, and the simple block-letter label.

It has a simple “Made in China” label on the reel end, which made me pause not at all.

This is a fishing rod, not a garish streetwalker, this is that “lifestyle” tool that suggests, “if the #4 was rock solid, I bet the #7 is tasty too.”

… and it’s about time for an inexpensive rod that you’d feel brokenhearted if you sat on it sudden-like, but wouldn’t break you to replace it . It’s the rod you give your kid on his fourteenth birthday hoping he’ll take it up permanently, knowing the rod won’t be an issue until he’s expert … and then only maybe …

I equipped it with an LRH Lightweight which was a nice pairing

Sage-like action that I’d call  “crisp,” neither too slow or too fast to alter your casting stroke, and when you suddenly change direction because of a rising fish or low hanging limb, it responds quickly without feeling slow or overburdened.

With my known preferences on rod speed and recovery rates, it would be a #4.5 in your language. Enough power left in the spine to throw a #4 with authority, and it wouldn’t feel awkward with a line size heavier.

The fittings are sturdy and unremarkable, like the gleam of a new Craftsman hammer. Solid, business-like and competent.

Cork work was better than average – with few filled crevasses and no unsightly color mismatches.

Rise Instream #4 cork gripTypically a rod maker fills any gaps in a cork handle with sanded cork mixed with adhesive. Poor cork quality yields overly large areas that need to be repaired, and can result in a color mismatch, which persists as handling oils and dirt will color them slightly different due to the adhesive being present.

The largest crevasse in the handle is shown at right, about half an inch, the balance of the handle was immaculate. This is indicative of quality cork and quality control.

Rise Instream 4: Reel seat threading

If there’s any component on a fly rod worth cursing it’s the reel seat and its thread. You’re unwrapping a bad cast from the tip of the rod instead of the water, and while doing so – dragging your reel and reel seat in the sand on the bottom.

Rise Instream #4 Reel seat beautification trimNaturally we’ll find out it’s jammed once its black dark, the assembly rendered balky due to grit in the threads.

The Rise reel seat has a broad thread that made it difficult to tell whether it was sharp or dull (triangular or square thread), sure sign of some rounding. A single knurled sleeve fastens reel to reel seat – and while I’m more comfortable with the second locking sleeve, it’ll do on a light rod.

I may rethink that on the first 12 lb carp I hook – but for the moment I’m content …

The balance of the fixtures include a knurled hood imbedded under the cork to complete the remainder of the reel seat, shown above.

A Hook keeper, someone thought of me But the biggest surprise was finding that the low price included a hook keeper – which due to habit, I find to be an essential component of my scramble up banks, brazen dash through bramble thickets, and for quick and lazy disassembly of rods for that drive to the next hole.

Guides are two footed; two carbide, 7 snake, plus the tip.

Below is an example of the finish on one the largest carbide stripper. Laid on thickly as is customary, nothing out of the ordinary.

Rise Instream #4, Stripping Guide detail

Testing the four pieces of my rod shows the blank is not aligned on a single spline prior to the guides and grip being mounted. Two of four pieces  lined up, the remaining two placed the spline on the sides of the rod.

My preference is for all  component splines to line up, but as this is a hotly debated issue amongst rod makers, I’ll leave you to the opinions and mercy of your local rodmaking Sensei.

Buying a rod on another’s say so is a tremendous leap of faith, yet after four months of fiddling around trying to find something I don’t care for on the rod – the best I can do is the block lettering is unsuitable, fly fishing should have something light and airy – and in cursive …

All I’m suggesting is that the nice people at Rise have earned my admiration, mostly because I adore an action like those early Sage or Echo tapers.

… and while the rest of the crowd lusts after “hedge fund” rods from the perfumed darlings of yesteryear, I’ll stick to my Asian imports and continue to make payments on my house.

High priced painted strumpets we’ve got a plenty, and I’ll let their fanbois argue their respective merits, what’s been sorely needed is the “Craftsman” rod – a rod that costs commensurate with a hobby, a lifetime tool – one that won’t take a lifetime to pay off ..

Full Disclosure: I purchased the above Rise fly rod at full retail, which should have been $233, but I was volunteered to save New York state to the tune of eighteen dollars. It was later refunded.

Free Range Dubbing: Unless you’re looking at it in direct sunlight, you’re not seeing what I made for you

Free Range Label I figure my sudden foray into dubbing was like McDonald’s adding salads to an otherwise lard-based menu. How the lights abruptly dimmed and the sudden demand for lettuce left most of the country rediscovering Broccoli for their evening meal.

Like the gals and their hair extensions, I was unfazed that I emptied most warehouses of everything furry. I started with the wholesale furriers, worked my way through the local stuff and fur coats on eBay, and when I’d exhausted the obvious sources, I’d make the call to my contact at the SPCA to see what was chilling rapidly …

A couple of months worth of effort turned into the better part of a year’s worth of research, failed automation, test groups and test colors, research on color mixing, dyes … and worse, suddenly needing to find vast amounts of odd animals to include once refined to their final formula.

Failed automation meant having to do it all by hand in the kitchen. Meaning it’s been a lonely year – bread, water, and solitary confinement does that to a person …

All of this started off simply enough, a general indifference to the dubbing products available in today’s fly shop, most of which featured some sparkly synthetic as its only real quality. Absent from the shelves are the natural dubbings of the past; crafted to make it easy to apply on thread, or coarse so its stubbled profile resembles something comely, or all natural featuring aquatic mammals to make gossamer thin dry fly bodies.

Instead were pushed towards some glittering turd that is about as easy to dub as a Brillo pad, and sparkles like a perfumed tart.

So I brought the manicured styles back; finding in the process that few tiers are left with the skills to refine dubbing to specific tasks, fewer relay the ritual to print to teach others, and most new tiers are content with products the way they are as they’ve not been exposed to others. It’s as if the qualities of fur and the skills to turn them to our advantage are disappearing.

As mentioned in previous posts on dubbing, there are three distinct layers in a crafted dubbing, allowing you to insert distinct qualities as part of each layer’s construction. I’ve likened dubbing construction to a cigar, where the finished product contains binder, filler, and wrapper.

The Wrapper is the coarsest material, often made of animals with well marked guard hair, suitable for adding spike and shag to the finished blend.

The filler is often the coloring agent, made up of semi-coarse or semi-fine materials that comprise the bulk of the dubbing…

… and the binder is the softest component, which is often added in proportion to the filler and wrapper to hold all three layers together in a cohesive bundle.

Somewhere in all of this can be a fourth layer, not always present, that I call “special effects.” Shiny or sparkle, pearlescent or opalescent, some quality that natural materials lack which can be added to liven it with color or a metallic effect.

Free_Range_Dubbing2

The Free Range Difference

What I’ve constructed is a dubbing designed to assist both beginner and expert tiers by including specific desirable qualities that should belong in any quality nymph dubbing:

Ease of Use: The material isn’t unruly nor possessed of qualities of some Brillo-style gaudy synthetic. The soft binder layer entraps the spiky wrapper and makes dubbing the fur onto the thread easy.

Sized for 8 – 16 hooks: All the fibers present in each color have been sized to best fit your most common sizes of nymphs. That means you won’t be yanking too many overly long fibers out of your dubbing, or off the finished flies, as even the multiple guard hairs used have been chosen for length as well as coloration.

Minimal Shrinkage When Wet: The fibers of the filler layer, which comprise the largest part of the dubbing as well as most of the color, are chosen for their curl, so they will maintain their shape wet or dry, and what proportions leaves your vise will be retained when the fly is soaking wet.

Blended Color versus Monochrome: Each of the colors is the result of between 5 and 11 different materials, each with different shades and tints that add themselves to make the overall coloration. Like Mother Nature, whose insects are never a uniform color, each pinch yields a bit of unique in every fly tied.

Spectral Coloration: The special effects of each are often synthetic spectral color components, containing a range of colors that are sympathetic with the overall blend color.

Only Buggy Colors: We chose to concentrate our colors into traditional insect hues leaving the lightly used colors out of the collection. Most fly tiers have a drawer filled with colors that are rarely used, we’d prefer to focus on the “money” colors like olive and brown.

Rather than a single color of Olive, we’ll offer a half dozen olives – as they’re far more useful than coral pink or watermelon. We’ve done the same for brown and gray, and even added effects to make more than a single black.

Food-based Names: Everyone knows that colors named with food references are twice as tasty to fish. We got’em, they don’t – ’nuff said.

Twice as much: Earlier in the research phase of the project I discovered the average dubbing vendor now only gives you 0.91 of a gram with 2 grams of brightly painted cardboard. I’ll give you a couple grams of goodie, and a biodegradable slip of paper instead …

Free Range Dusky Olive

What it isn’t …

It’s not going to leap onto your thread unassisted, nor will it make your fingers less tacky and curb your propensity to grab too much. It’s not some painted harlot made gaudy by too much color. Special effects are nearly invisible to the eye, representing about 2% of the fiber, and until the fur is moved into direct sunlight, only then can you see the refractive elements that make the mix glow and sparkle.

Naturally once someone says, “ … and the trout see …” Everything past that is a leap of faith. Millions of nice fellows have roused from their cups to pound  table and insist trout love something or other. This entire collection is my sermon on colors and textures, imbued with everything I hold sacred.

Until I can get some automation in place this is more a labor of love than  profit. I managed to incur some fierce loyalties to the end result from many of the folks testing, and with a new season about to debut and them tying to make up for lost time, they’re looking for me to live up to my end of the bargain.

I have 20 colors completed and am planning about 10 additional colors to fill gaps. Most of the Olives and Browns and Grays are completed already, I just need to see what I reach for that isn’t there.

Yes, we’re a bit ahead of our supply lines still, but the season starts next weekend, and I can’t have you feeling naked and resentful. I figure after a couple trips into the season I’ll know exactly what’s missing.

If you would like a sample of the dubbing, drop me a note. I’ll put something in there you’ll like and you can send me a stamped envelope to cover my expenses …

Where they sleeps at night

The National Fish Habitat Board just released a summary of the risks for watershed and habitat degradation for the entire US.

Overall, 27 percent of the miles of stream in the lower 48 states are at high or very high risk of current habitat degradation and 44 percent are at low or very low risk.  Twenty-nine percent of stream miles in the lower 48 states are at moderate risk of current habitat degradation.

fish_habitat_at_risk

It’s the usual suspects that are causal agents, most being activities of us humans, and the harsh chemicals that run off our land when it’s turned to industrial uses.

That harsh red band splitting California is where I live and fish, suggesting at least one stalwart crept to the edge of the bridge and tossed some vial into the murky brown below.

The report is very light on science and a suitable read for the average angler, if you’re interested in a map of your state and a brief mention of projects and issues, take a look at the 72 page PDF.

With cutting edge carbon technology

The process wherein you become your father is long, memorable, and completely horrifying. One day you’re dutifully changing your oil at 3000 miles, only to be reminded that no one does that anymore.

… or your painfully enduring some meeting that’s prolonged by the speaker feeling it necessary to answer his smart phone at every ring, holding the balance of the table a yawning captive.

The phone may be smart, but the SOB using it has the IQ of a cucumber.

What was once  the childish wide smile with face pressed against the fly shop glass has become the “Bah, Humbug face”  – worn only because you own everything good already, and the only thing missing is new, which may or may not be good.

Once we broke the fifty-bazillion modulus barrier, we listened patiently to the superlatives and dismissed ownership out of hand, we’d fallen for that lure back when we could achieve modulus at the mere sight of a sale, or just a fistful of red saddle hackle. Now that we’re in our dotage it isn’t cutting edge carbon technology we’re seeking, it’s just a quiet moment on the john.

And if it has a remote, heated seat, hidden bidet, has quadraphonic stereo, and has the suction power of a Death Star’s tractor beam, including all air in the bowl treated by carbon filtration, the price is goddamn academic …

After a lifetime of icy duck blinds, frozen limbs due to prolonged immersion in icy steelhead water, suffering all manners of discomfort and poor sanitation, handfuls of leaves that prove less so, I’d consider dumping six grand on a bonafide engineering marvel.

The touch screen controls may not have been such a good idea, at least not for us fisher-types.

… and whoever said “Crime doesn’t Pay” wasn’t a fly tier

HandfulofSaddle Those of you old enough to remember Dan White and the Twinkie Defense are about to make bank, but only if you can hold a straight face while being pummeled by Gendarmes and hairless screaming females …

No, we’re not interested in a mundane purse snatching, we’re about to score acres of free 12 – 15 inch saddle hackles that we can turn around for obscene profits on eBay.

US citizen Edwin Rist, 22, who admitted burglary and money-laundering at a previous hearing, was described as a James Bond fantasist by his solicitor.

St Albans Crown Court heard he acted on his “obsessive interest in birds”.

The court was told that Rist suffers from Asperger’s syndrome. His prison sentence was suspended for two years.

Our museum loving “poor little rich boy” has evaded jail time despite stealing 300 pelts from a priceless collection and then parting them out to his buddies overseas (to the tune of about $30,000). It appears the jury bought the tale of misspent youth, video games, and James Bond, which along with Pop Tarts, coerced the lad into a lifetime of antisocial behavior with a hard on for Macaw …

That’s okay, for Dan White it was Twinkies and Coke that made him blow daylight through Mayor Moscone, Harvey Milk, and anyone else that got in his way.

Now that we recognize that I’m showing the symptoms of “an obsessive interest in birds” – and after a lifetime of watching Wiley Coyote fail to capture the Roadrunner, I’m liable to be set off by the sight of dyed saddles, and grab an entire fistful of hair in one big wrench …

… followed by falling prone, curling into the fetal to protect the jewels, enduring the beating while babbling about pyramids and tin foil.

Fishless fishing streak broken abruptly, as were all the Opening Days jitters

It wasn’t overflowing its banks, it was mostly transparent, it was largely wet, completely private and I managed to commit most of the Opening Day sins on my tackle to exorcise me of later demons.

While the first fishable water of the season made it feel like Opening Day, and the jitters that come with throwing your first cast in anger added to the growing body of evidence, Opening Day isn’t till next weekend, where the rest of you will feature all these same highlights hundreds of miles from your home …

I shipped water into my waist highs, right about the crotch area.

I bollixed a cast badly enough such that it combined with the feathery weed it gathered on the return, required me to cut away everything and start over …

I imbedded a fly in a soft and flaccid area of my frame – that can’t be rubbed in public.

I added color to both face and pallid forearms. Bright red.

Peeled a tick off my neck … and had to eyeball every square inch of gross fatbody for fear I was hosting creepy crawlies. I peeked between clenched fingers, recoiling at the doughy expanses of blindingly white flesh that were proof of winter’s excesses.

… and left most of a double sawbuck in bankside vegetation. Which was required of me.

I got ate which was the important thing

But I also got ate. Which breaks one of many long and dour spells, where unruly weather makes finned prey the scarcest photo on a supposed fishing blog.

Moore_Siphon

The creek still has a couple of weeks to wait. While the color is returning it’s not the placid little drainage I remember, nor can it be crossed at any point, as the bonafide white water confirms above.

I’m getting eager to walk it given that the mouth was open to the Sacramento for a full two weeks. There’s no telling what might have poked its nose into my quiet little backwater.

.. and if it doesn’t belong there I may have to start a fish rescue …

Sure I offered to help … myself

If they’d only let me know I’d have been happy to help. Now that all the rain swollen creeks around my place are starting to recede, it’s revealing all the navigationally challenged animals that climbed out of the murky Sacramento and attempted to ascend my beloved Brownline …

brownline_monster

They intercepted this rare Green Sturgeon just shy of the mouth of the Little Stinking, and when I asked could I borrow it, they got all huffy and short tempered. The idea of six foot of prehistoric prey attempting to melt aluminum being irresistible to me…

There were quite a few salmon, striped bass, and sturgeon stranded in the Yolo Bypass upstream of me, the above scene was Fish & Game attempting a rescue – given that once the water dried up, everything would perish.

Maybe next year I’ll wade down there and fling a Ghost Shrimp on a 6/0 treble, just to see what breaks first.