It’s the most expensive “Caddis” in the world, and fly tiers are determined to kill it dead

I was in a hurry naturally, so I grabbed a pelt off the latest shipment and sheared the beast on the spot. Plastic container brimming with fur I rushed back into the kitchen, refastened the jumper cables to the grinder and glanced skyward, hoping for another lightning bolt.

Gals have it easy. They say “ … maybe” and create life. Guys are forced to wade in dead stuff, endure hellish amperages and archaic lab apparatus, then peer hesitantly at our efforts and wish we’d stopped when it needed stitches…

That's one expensive Caddis, Pal

With 20 eager fly tiers expecting more samples of Singlebarbed’s Madness – and me thinking another six colors would be enough, 120 packs of fur is a weekend of hand labor.

I’m in between pack 86 and the finish line, and reach down into the jug to see a moth emerge from that freshly shorn pile.

Nice.

I shook some moth ice into the container, sealed it, and put it in quarantine.

Packs 1 through 86 went into the trash.

Normally I’m proof against such things, as “invasives” are just a fly shop visit away. In the old days every shop had unwanted lifeforms and us budding entomologists weren’t limited to aquatic bugs, we could rattle off genus, species, and the address of the source with a single glance …

“Big brown speckled sucker with a yen for Bucktail? Yep, that’s from Creative Sports in Walnut Creek, they call ‘em ‘Shallow Flapping Retail Duns.’ “

Moth eggs being teensy little things capable of trickling into every crack and crevasse – it’s only a matter of time before something hungry starts on the pile of undefended in the back room.

As mentioned many times, jobbers have replaced all those caches of local material, but rest assured they’re infected too – it’s part and parcel of storing so much tasty, if you stack it, They will come.

As we’re a well known hoarder, where net value is measured in pounds versus square inches, I’ve had my share of strange looks at the dinner table – especially after the fork falls nervelessly at my feet and I’m running down something slow and moth-like. It’s them or me, and no quarter is asked nor granted.

While I don’t mind so much the occasional overlooked baggie that falls under the storage area and became lunch, the idea of sending pestilence to someone else is completely horrid.

…which is why the garbage man will be puzzling over the contents of my can for some time.

The Killing Fields

Cedar chests have long been recommended for use in clothes moths control. However, claims for the repellency of cedar compounds are frequently overstated. It is true that the heartwood of red cedar (Juniperus virginiana) contains volatile oils that kill clothes moth larvae, when the oils are in high concentration. However, these oils do not repel adult stages nor do they affect other woolen pests, such as carpet beetles. Furthermore, the effectiveness of cedar declines in older chests, as the concentration of the oils dissipates due to evaporation. One study suggests that chests more than three years are practically useless for killing clothes moth larvae.

Now that I’m receiving hides in volume I recognize the only strategy possible is a defense-in-depth.

… which is located outside, so I don’t pickle myself in the process. If a neighbor wrinkles their nose and asks “what’s that smell” just tell them it’s embalming fluid, they won’t ask a follow up.

Paradichlorobenzene (Moth Ice – KB) is generally more toxic to insects than naphthalene, particularly for carpet beetles. At temperatures above about 50 degrees F it turns into a heavier-than-air gas that kills all stages of clothes moths and carpet beetles if maintained at high concentrations for 2 to 3 weeks.

A shipment (or a fly shop visit) is quickly pored over outside, then it’s placed in the chamber of death, a large cardboard box lined with mothballs. I’m never sure which is better, moth ice or the ball flavor, so after three or four days of that I’ll decant them into the middle box whose substrate is pure moth ice.

Naphthalene is most often available as ‘moth balls’ and is an effective fumigant against clothes moths. Carpet beetles, however, are much more resistant to naphthalene and often are poorly controlled. Naphthalene is a fumigant, and is effective only if high concentrations of the gas are produced.

After a week it makes the top box, where it often sits for another week to see if anything emerges. The exception being hides that I’ll dye – as the exposure to scalding acid-laced water seems to kill everything just as permanent.

High temperatures can also disinfest woolen materials from insects. Temperatures of 110 degrees F to 120 degrees F are generally lethal to all insects if maintained for 30 minutes or more.

After the suspect material has passed all levels of decontamination, I’ll wash the hide or feathers in shampoo and dry for storage. Human shampoo and conditioner works on animal fur just as it does on your mane, pick something with a pleasing scent to assist in disguising rotting flesh or naptha.

I find decontaminated hides that haven’t had the Naptha residue washed off an irritant, especially to my eyes. A casual scratch or back of the hand passed over the eye area can leave a residual trail of chemical, hence the shampoo before storage.

In 1997, a plant-derived repellent, lavandin oil, received registration. It is marketed under the trade name OFF! Moth ProoferR. This is sold in a sachet form. It is designed to hang between clothes in closets or placed in storage chests.

Directions indicate use on clothes after they have been dry cleaned, so use under other conditions (such as stored wool or woven goods not easily dry cleaned) is unknown. However, lavandin oil is lethal to clothes moths. Use directions also indicate that the product should be used in a closed storage area to allow the lavandin oil to be in effective concentrations.

Long term storage I use cedar shavings (available as hampster bedding in pet stores) or I’ll line the bottom of the chest or drawer with cedar tongue and groove – available as closet liner from Lowe’s or the hardware store. Every year I’ll go through and take a sander to the wood to refresh the pleasing scent and whatever protection it provides, at the same time it forces me to inspect some of those forgotten materials – seldom used – that will host intruders without my noticing.

Moths are quite sensitive to drying agents, and many arid states like Colorado have much less of an issue. As computer electronics is always shipped with big packets of chemical desiccant, I store the extra packs that I’ll use to dry surface flies (but don’t need yet) among my tying materials.

Clothes moths are very sensitive to drying conditions as well. Optimal relative humidity (RH) is around 75 percent. In RH less than 20 percent to 30 percent clothes moths will not survive.

– via Colorado State University

Especially those areas of confined space, where the odorless desiccant can drop the relative humidity to lethal levels.

It’s bad enough that fly tying is frustrating as well as hellishly expensive, especially so if you’re losing much of your older purchases to unwelcome guests.

Defense in depth and the backbone not to rush to the table with a sack full of newly purchased which is promptly intermingled with all your pristine materials. No less precautions than our wading mantra; Clean, Fry, and Giggle.

… and there’ll be no samples this week, fellows. I was thinking of you however …

Thinking outside the Lakes, the charismatic solution to a double invasive

We're here to make things different, kinda It’s akin to Ponce De Leon traveling up the isthmus of South America and into Mexico lured by the tales of a city of gold. Surviving disease and pestilence, angry Indians and ritual sacrifice – and with the payoff in sight, he sees the dust of Sir Francis Drake making off with everything.

Much is being made of the Great Lakes being unfit for man nor beast, and with Asian Carp poised at the gates, it appears scientists are suggesting the Quagga Mussel ate everything already.

But Fahnenstiel said that if carp evade electronic barriers and reach the lake, they’ll probably find so little nourishment they’ll either go back or starve.

– via Cleveland.com

Mother Nature being the poster child for adaptive processes, the Silver Horde turning around may not be in the cards, every culvert headed east or west is an option, yet them voracious plankton eaters may surprise us and develop a taste for clams.

It won’t be the first time the Great Lakes had to be restored completely, and as little can be done about the ballast water / invasive issue, short of retrofitting everything flagged in Liberia with ballast treatment, we may want to consider taking a page from Aliens …

… nuke it from orbit, it’s the only way to be sure.

Then again, despite the renewed interest in atomic power, radioactive waste, and domestic energy independence, the fission cloud may drift towards Montana, or Canada – and the result even more fish in peril.

So I propose a less intrusive option, one that won’t cost the taxpayer a farthing.

We’ll simply drop the problem in BP’s lap, as they’re charged with “making this right” … Toss a couple of freebie drilling leases into the package, write off the Gulf as toast, then let them demonstrate their willingness to make amends by laying a protective blanket of crude over them mussel beds.

…open the locks wide, let the phalanxes of Carp through, then drop match.

Sure, there’ll be a couple of seasons without steelhead or salmon, but if California can do it, can we ask the Midwest for less?

Where we dabble in Dirt and Mud, and rediscover our youthful passions for same

Despite all of the maturity and sophistication of my later years I retain a child’s fascination for dirt. It exists at two levels really, the notion of washing a fishing vest or well seasoned hat being completely repugnant, and a lot of my fly tying revolves around “dirt” and its many colors.

Harken back to those heady watercolor and finger painting episodes of grade school and you’ll remember it as the puddle of all colors; a brownish tinge to whatever else you’d slapped on the paper and the budding Picasso next to you.

Faced with a plethora of hides, yarns, and synthetics, in both drab and riotous colors, the fly tying artist makes “dirt” about every third attempt. It’s a natural tendency when exploring a new medium, and often the “less is more” idiom is learned before something other than dirt colors are the end product.

“If chocolate and peanut butter taste good together, let’s add strawberry preserves and yogurt, then some sauerkraut …”

Like all crafts, clean colors lies in the edit rather than the inspiration.

The Secret Dirt Recipe, almost

You nodded vigorously when “Momma” told you to document everything, then ignored this all important chore completely. As that bulging baggy slimmed down and the bodycount of duped fish increased, you found yourself asking, “was it Orange Hare’s Ear I added, or was it Yellow?”

Above is a sample page of my color book, showing the detail needed to make an awesome color a second time, any damn fool can make a great color once …

Samples of each of the materials used are taped to the page, as well as a generous dollop of the final dubbing at top left. I’ve coded the component description in my own unique system, designed to obfuscate and confuse – while the wife may get half the pages, they won’t be worth much without an interpreter.

Snippets of the original materials are included because they won’t always be available. At some point the yarn or one of the furs will be rare or no longer made, and a small snip of the original allows you to search for a replacement with a sample in hand.

It’s a lesson every fly tier learns painfully, some not at all.

As many of the above components are dyed from the original color, the color book allows you to compare with the contents of the dye pot, so you can reproduce a needed shade without guesswork.

Mix more than four colors together in roughly equal amounts, and you’re playing with mud. But “mud” isn’t as bad as those first grade self portraits might’ve seemed …

A Claret and Olive Dirt

The proof being when you get in close. Paint molecules being so much smaller than hair follicles, color loses integrity, while fur still retains the sum of its parts.

Gold Ribbed Olive&Claret Dirt Clod

I can’t shake the feeling there’s something special about a touch of claret or burgundy in any fly. While on paper adding bits of this and that yields a muddy and largely indescribable brown, the finished Gold Ribbed Dirt Clod (Olive & Claret) shows its true self as plenty alluring.

This is one of many tidbits that Andy Puyans and some of his ilk adored. The debut of the AP nymph in Angler magazine had nearly 10 variants of the now standard AP Nymph, two of those featured claret highlights as shown above.

Better bring a Frisbee if you want to make friends

While the furor over Tiger Woods paving a half mile of a North Carolina trout stream has begun to subside, my regret is that I tipped you fellows to boutique fish first, and in typical conservation fashion you opted to think about it until the Pristine was in crisis  …

Tiger settled with the court and Trout Unlimited by halving the proposed impacts to the creek and contacting AquaDoubleHelix to create a boutique fish that wouldn’t upset the delicate balance of Nature, yet wouldn’t anger those patrons sending a steady stream of Titleists into the fast water.

Fetches anything

Dubbed the “Fairway Trout”, it subsists on a diet of Rock Snot and dry Kibble, isn’t interested in flies whatsoever, fetches anything tossed into the water, sees breathable waders as a hydrant, and announces itself rather soulfully whenever the moon is full.

But most of the time it drapes itself over a hot rock and snores loudly, husbanding precious energy that it semi-promises to use later – were you only to scratch its ears …

It’s Version 1.0, they’ll work the bugs out …

If corporations read newspapers we might see a little synergy

Dear McDonalds Management,

fofdollI was at a loss when I found out the New Zealand Hoki had made the Endangered Species List. It’s not front page news as the name is unfamiliar to most, but you and I know it as the fourth fish  used in your popular Fillet O’ Fish sandwich.

You started with Halibut whose price thankfully prevented their extinction, but you’ve mostly eaten the other three.

On the chance you might be interested in a bit of positive press, I thought I’d bring to your attention a white meat fish that would fillet nicely, and may garner you a mention in a “green” vein, rather than the traditional, “Ronald McDonald, Corruptor of Youth, Pied Piper of Saturated Fats and Red Dye #3.”

More importantly, the Asian Carp – a.k.a Silverfin, Kentucky Tuna, etc., is available in virtually limitless numbers, reproduces unlike anything we’ve measured to date, and is available domestically. You can employ US citizens, most of which have lost jobs and homes and could use the work, plus achieve all kinds of Brownie points with the Obama administration and six or seven states – and all at the same time.

It sure does, you don't even change the slogan

That kind of positive press is bankable, and any corporation would give both McNuggets for a crack at enhancing their brand in such a positive manner.

It should be relatively easy to find a series of spices and deep fry methodology that will replicate the unnaturally firm texture of your Hoki offering. Asian Carp being a freshwater fish might be a bit softer – but nothing you couldn’t fix with a touch of Portland cement.

The marketing possibilities are endless.

If there’s any environmentalist backlash, or Greenpeace inserts a schooner between you and the Great Lakes – you may want to consider the Frankenfish – but you have to kill it two or three times before it stops moving…

A real fly fisherman will neither starch nor iron his Barbour Jacket

Starring Muy Malo and Griff The mystery solved.

Why fly fisherman have cropped up hawking everything from credit cards to Snicker bars …

We … is back in style.

Goretex and Redwings rub shoulders with plunging strapless and Italian leather, and all the gals is wishing their man wore Pendleton.

Actual outdoor usage is still tawdry and forbidden, but looking like you can chop wood, mend fence, or stand hipshot with a scowl, sets all them urban hearts aflutter …

“I’ve heard some people saying that the heritage revival is the death of luxury,” said Mr. Bastian, the fashion designer. “But guys are just shopping differently.”

Yet another thing the Brawny Man can aim for: saving the American economy.

Outdoor Cutting Edge With patriotism a cornerstone of our conservation dogma, it may be time to wrestle the Tea Party away from political hacks, and rechristen it the Bull Moose Too Party. We can backburner silly notions of religion and family values, and focus on important issues like annexing Canada (which still has good fishing), Maine, and sweeping the Senate of folks that don’t love tuna fish.

A “fashionista tax” where the user must show a valid hunting or fishing license to buy Sorel, Barbour, or Simms, or pays double –  should ensure the budget is balanced in a fortnight.

Besides, nobody likes them guys anyways …

As the clothing looks good on the young, us aging Bull Moosers will adore adding additional entitlements for Cyprinids, Salmonids, and the environs they hold dear. Gleeful, knowing that while the young are busy posing fiercely at one another, they’ll be doing so at the expense of a meager pay stub – and the shrinking 401K – we leave them.

Only real difference between us and them other political hacks, is we’ve no plans for “Johnny Nintendo” to inherit a damn thing, what remains of the Greatest Generation and the Boomers will show Junior what selfish looks like …

… right after we kick them out of the house.

Strain them old eyes further with midges and tiny dries

This winter I’ll be busy restocking tiny and gossamer, as each trip has required both small and unique dry flies. With failing vision it’s not realism that’ll motivate the sizes and patterns needed, it’ll be small yet visible as the requirement.

Both trips North featured few organized hatches, and the evening grab was comprised of a smorgasbord of terrestrial and aquatic insects, some struggling in the surface film, and the rest emerging per schedule.

Ants and midges are my top priority, using Redditch Scale hooks they would be #18 or #20, as I can’t see smaller at distance (Mustad & Tiemco aren’t using the Redditch Scale, so they would be #20 and #22).

Early in the year it was a Mustard-Orange midge that was needed, and this weekend featured a newer variant in Key Lime Pie – which will play havoc with the traditional somber bug colors, but will be fun to tie – and even more fun explaining to the curious …

Mustard Orang Midge

The Mustard-Orange Midge above (Redditch #18) was consistent with the emerging midges, it accounted for all surface casualties.Tied in traditional mayfly-parachute style so it doesn’t disappear in the surface film like more traditional down-wing midge patterns. Dun gray deer hair wing, grizzly hackle and tail, and Singlebarbed’s Yellow Orange dry fly dubbing…

… I threw that in just so you’d clutch chest and exclaim, “Crap, I ain’t got none …”

Any dubbing the color of natural orange juice will work fine. Picture the above with a Key Lime body and you’d have the latest variant covered nicely.

I tied half with white wings and half with dun deer hair. The white wing shows better when contrasted against the darker water of evening, and the dun deer hair shows better contrast against light colored water backlit by the sun. Tiny flies and diminishing eyesight means any trick is fair game.

Early in the season the ants were enormous, this weekend they were just as plentiful, only small – in sizes #18 and #20. I struggle with how I’m going to make the smallish-black visible to my old eyes, but it will likely feature a mayfly upwing just so I can pick it out from among the naturals. Ants aren’t graceful in death, nor are wings precisely folded. I should be able to poke something skyward that I can see, without compromising realism.

The Blue Fuzzy Caddis

The top fish getter for Hat Creek was something I’d tied for the brown water. A simple bead headed caddis worm tied in a frosty blue/green, compliments of Berrocco’s Crystal FX yarn, in an odd color called National Velvet.

It’s a multicolor yarn, predominantly blue, that fades into a blue green, then back to light blue.

I’d read that trout lack the cones for blue, so I’d dismissed it as a trout fly, and intended to use it for Carp and Pikeminnow.

When wet the yarn color trends to blue green, which proved irresistible to wild trout.

If the ability to resolve blue is an issue, I would guess the fly was a neutral hue that retained the green elements, coupled with a light halo of transparent mylar fuzz that gives the yarn its signature look.

Berrocco National Velvet yarn That was as much science as I contemplated, as the fish were eating it fast and furiously, and Kelvin was fingering my box for spares.

Berrocco discontinued the yarn in 2007, but you can still purchase it on eBay, there’s five skeins of National Velvet available.

There’s little question this has been a strange year. Intense and prolonged rain upset everything from the tomato harvest to hatch timetables. A lot of the odd insects encountered recently may be hatching early or late compared to last year, which explains why I’ve not seen them before.

With that in mind I’ll not go overboard in stocking up, perhaps a dozen of each color tossed into a single compartment should next year be more of the same.

Whirlwind fly fishing tour of Northern California, because the TroutUnderground left the SOB undefended

Kelvin fins through forest fire smoke You’re looking down at the tailgate wondering “how’d my five weight line wind up on a System 6 reel, and why is the SOB set for left hand wind?”

That’s when the cold prickly happens. Three hundred miles away from home, 20 miles from camp, and your buddy has his waders paused at his midsection looking at you expectantly, figuring you’re going to confess to an egregious screw up …

… and he’s not far wrong.

That awesome eBay score where you landed a System 6 for under fifty bucks, with an oxidized Cortland SL line in light green (which matches the color of your floating #5 on the correct reel), with a leader butt resembling a buggy whip, whose nail knot just parted when you sneezed on it …

That’s what you’ll be fishing with for the next four days.

… and if you can’t make it serviceable with the contents of your truck, assisted by a generous and overflowing parking lot garbage can, you’ve been domesticated to the point where anything involving sunshine is risky.

A nine foot leader comprised of eighteen inches of butt and seven foot of tippet might raise an eyebrow in traditional circles, but not in the pre-dawn abyss that is necessity.

Lassen Park

I likened it to a black cloud trip, where everything you fear most shows itself in a long string of misfortunes.

By day two I actually preferred my new leader, and reeling left handed. Only a couple of fish had attempted to break the long reverie of finning, stripping, and casting, and seven foot of tippet allows unparalleled sinking for nymphs and leeches.

Dark colored Rainbow with cheeks ablaze in embarrasment

Swim fins require you walk backwards when making the transition from water nymph to terrestrial bi-ped. That round piece of driftwood I stepped on while backing out of the lake was an instant takedown, and trapped in fins those big feet stayed pointing North, while the rest of me landed South.

I’m laying there groaning and holding the knee that got folded under and failed to rotate with all that falling flab, recognizing that the solution set was the same as the earlier calamity of the reel …

If you can’t make it serviceable with the contents of the truck, assisted by a generous and overflowing …

As fortune would have it, side to side stabilization was affected but finning my way through the lake was pain free, permitting me to endure 14 more hours fruitless finning and much casting.

Slowly and inexorably that black cloud began to lift. It started imperceptibly with the discovery of two dozen flies bobbing in the shore grasses, still viable in their The Fly Shop container. 110 meters of fluorocarbon tippet bobbed nearby, likely both donated to Davy Jones in a fit of pique. While feeling for my unknown benefactor, I helped myself accordingly.

The final straw was the hour-long nap under the shade of the bank side bushes, completely forbidden, a hideous and shameful luxury, and I’m woken by Kelvin’s involuntary cry – who’d paddled over to see why them big feet protruding from the brush hadn’t moved in a fortnight – and something large and wild had ate his bug and delayed my rescue.

… nice to know that eventually someone would find the body.

Why 4X is your friend Why you resist the urge for 6X

It’s as brushy and formidable as the willows and pines lining the bank. A  lush green forest both above water and below.

Matching tippet to conditions yields more hooked fish, but it leads to even more heartbreak later. The scene at left demonstrates why swimming a nymph between those underwater “pines” might make 4X the better choice.

Freshly invigorated from my nap and in twenty feet of water, my innocent little bug was inhaled by something fierce and predatory.

A couple of throbs on the rod and it was dormant – intertwined with the fibrous vertical weed. The adrenalin of the initial grab quickly wears off with grim reality replacing it, yet the resolve of sticking with the heavy leader means there’s a chance…

Slim, made even slimmer if you don’t test your knots frequently.

Clearheaded and resolved to shake chance from the equation, and emboldened by the momentum swing in my direction, it had been my first thought once back on the bridge …

Yellow belly and red dots

… and I thanked my vigilance, as I wrenched up a big yellow-bellied brown with a yen for deep, no match for momentum shift, 40 winks, and fresh knots.

We revisit the Old Gal in her Dotage

Kelvin and I snuck over to my alma mater to pay the old gal a bit of respect. With the lake fishing slow, and Hat Creek only a bit further, it was a nice opportunity to stretch the legs while I revisited the creek that had aided me in learning flat water – and how easy a spring creek can humble even the best angler.

Hat Creek, and empty parking lots

Change was everywhere, starting with empty parking lots and new bathrooms, and magnified by a forest fire that had ripped through the watershed.

Gone were all the placards espousing wild trout and CalTrout’s involvement – replaced by run of the mill lectures from DF&G or PG&E. As CalTrout’s website lacks any mention of the creek or the wonderful project they initiated, I’m left wondering whether Hat Creek isn’t some soiled dove they’re attempting to disavow.

Streambank restoration by a consortium Bank stabilization efforts were dated 2004, and while all those wading feet had removed 100 feet of the Powerhouse stretch – dumping it into the flat water below, placards at Carbon Bridge suggested the consortium of CalTrout, Pg&E, and Fish & Game was still active.

I keep thinking of all those cleated rubber soles and how they’ll accelerate the problem, in the very places we revere most.

Carbon Bridge was as menacing as ever, but the slug of silt that played havoc with the creek many years ago was still very much evident. This former Holy Water was responsible for thrown rods, complete and total frustration, and was an inescapable draw for those that fancied a single grab from large and difficult fish.

Carbon Bridge stretch of Hat Creek

I spent summers on the far bank, mostly walking away muttering that I’d never return, but stubborn would get the best of me each evening.

Now it’s home to small fish, who were evident as they dined on the light smattering of spinners that comprised the morning grab.

We turned tail and ran.

Hat Creek Wild Trout, burned but recognizable

The entire stretch below Hat Creek Park had been burned badly and showed the effects of salvage logging.

I showed Kelvin the fish weir that marked the end of the trophy water, and even the sign had been consumed by flames.

Absent the shade of all those pines, the march back to the parking area was a blistering hellish moonscape. All the slopes leading down to the creek are matchsticks and once logged of the evergreen timber, will take many years to restore, if ever.

The oaks that give shade and cover to the creek were mostly intact, but even these weren’t spared.

It was a bit melancholy for a homecoming, but that was shortlived. Memories of all those good friends and better times were ever present, as every tree could still boast of owning a half dozen of my flies in the lower branches, there to rust with those of pals, now gone.

… and I still had a trick or two up my sleeve.

Hat Creek still has 20" fish, but you'll have to dig hard

Momentum was on my side, or perhaps it was the Ghost of What Once Was. The Old Gal is burned and wounded, perhaps a bit neglected, but there’s large fish left, as the above “hero” shot describes.

If I had squeezed in a nap they’d have been twice as big.

Lassen Brown Trout

Four days and a couple of memorable book-ends to the expedition, good company, and explains my silence of last week. I’ll have a bit more on the experimentals that slayed these dragons, but have to craft a note to friend Chandler – who’s halfway across the country while I’m pillaging his backyard …

Fly fishing was never designed to be all those things

flyfishing_motivational

We keep cropping up in the strangest places, tagged with even stranger attributes. How fly fishing can be linked with leadership is a stretch, given that we’re proponents of an antiquated sport that limits our casting distance, doesn’t sink very well, and lacks scent.

The taglines best suited for the above picture should have been …

Antisocial

The water’s icy, I can’t feel my feet so I can’t put them in my mouth.

… which is better than the fluffy vendor version, “A leader is one who knows the way, goes the way, and shows the way.”

I think you probably have six or seven better’n mine…

Fly fisherman celebrates Matrimony with Viking Funeral

Some fellows just can’t help dancing with lightning bolts. With us already on the outs with numerous humane societies the idea of incurring the wrath of Modern Bride is fearful and heady stuff …

But that’s why us fly fishermen trod the path less taken, which goes double for the crowd at myexwifesweddingdress.com who are finding novel and humorous methods to dispose of the ex-wife’s trappings of finery…

It’s Dress Use #54 – Fly Tying. How to dispose of a diaphanous veil via upright and divided – featuring Largemouth Bass as unwitting participants.

exwife

Details aren’t provided on the degree of burden, or whether large-mouth might have done the relationship in …  Those of the Brotherhood that tempt all manners of violent death or the fiery furnace of the Scorned are worthy of admiration.

All that lace suggests a Zonker to me …