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 …

Most would be thinking Zig Zags

The Zig Zag Man I’d  assumed “leave the dance with them as brung you” was an unspoken truism, yet it doesn’t hold for the  Madison Ave crowd who are abandoning us fishermen in favor of the prime 22-30 age group.

Despite the century old tie between beer drinking and fishing, the self-styled “King of Beers” figures youth will abandon sour energy drinks in favor of sour tapwater – a flavor common to most American beer.

…and to cement the deal they’re even offering free beer as a come hither – which may be an act of quiet desperation,  if you can’t sell it you might as well give it away.

Us recently deposed anglers apparently have moved into craft-beer, our maturity alerting them newly-refined taste buds that waving a sprig of hops and barley over laundry water doesn’t make a compelling beverage.

… doubly horrific is that Budweiser would abandon fishermen just as we were about to return to their bosom. Now that we’re aware of the ecological impacts of bottled water and how much we’ve missed the tinkle of broken glass.

To appeal to the under-30 set that has ignored the brand — but is a prime consumer group for beer — Budweiser will unleash its biggest-ever national free-sample effort in trendy bars and eateries. The campaign begins Monday, with the slogan “Grab some Buds.”

… which assumes the younger element still has enough disposable cash to do trendy, and hasn’t already been laid off.

The 9% decline in Budweiser inhalation mirrors an identical plunge in angling participation. Rather than acknowledge the Recession or rampant unemployment – Budweiser may be compounding their problem by alienating droves of their staunchest supporters, or at least those outside of NASCAR.

Little doubt the board room was giddy at the understated elegance of its latest slogan, however, chances are they overlooked that most of the blue states would reach for Zig-Zags instead of the aging and tawdry King of Beers.

Brand consultant Robert Passikoff has serious doubts about Budweiser’s effort. “They’re in trouble because they don’t know how to talk to consumers,” he says. “They no longer know how to create an emotional bond.”

It’s an emotional bond if you have to sweep up behind those Clydesdale’s surely enough, but an aging wagon with a Dalmatian isn’t going to pry the Monster energy drink out of Junior’s sweaty grip.  

“Grab some Buds” is pure lowbrow, but as the advertising types have chosen the vernacular, we might lure some youth into the sport with, “Grab some Buds and Rods” or “Tie-stik is Monster Bud” – perhaps bringing hordes of youngsters to expand the coffers of our  angling organizations, or at least those adventurous enough to print the tee shirts.

On a cost basis, your fly tying dubbing is a girlfriend half your age, including the divorce

My poppa was overly fond of the Hershey with Almonds, as he cared nothing for money or markets, it was the yardstick by which he measured the US economy.

…in between telling us when he was a kid, it was only a nickel.

We learned the brightly emblazoned text, “33% more, Free” meant the economy was in tailspin and the price was about to rise, and the plain wrapper sans “free food” meant the stock market was a rocket ship headed skyward … (you can find the Hershey Cost Index here)

Most of this year I’ve been working towards a suite of dubbing under the Singlebarbed logo, not so much raw commercialization as awareness that an entire generation of tiers has never seen or used custom products, relying instead on synthetics that are one dimensional, like the unsatisfying part of a Mickey Dee’s burger.

A fistful of cash

Part of all that market research included buying some from all the major vendors, deconstructing the components, admiring the gilt packaging, noting the superlatives and claims of perfection, weighing, measuring, and studying benefits and shortcomings, as well as estimating their costs.

My premonition was dubbing would be a Hershey bar, only the shop tag obscured the “30% more, free” …

When I think of the expensive items we measure as minor trappings of wealth; a choice steak, a new car, a girlfriend half our age, they’re cheap* (unless a divorce is involved) by comparison.

Dubbing isn’t rare furs and endangered animals anymore. The modern marketplace is comprised of components shat from tubes, boiled in vats, and sold by the ton. So why is a six ounce “steak” of dubbing  just over six hundred dollars, and a new car of dubbing making a dent in the national debt?

The math is simple, I took a representative sample comprised of 10 fly shops and the 10 dubbing products common to all, which yielded a product package weight of nearly 4g, comprised of packaging weighing 3g, whose contents contain 1g of fur.

Given the taxation of those states and the average price,  the fly tying community is paying on average, $3.75 per gram of dubbing.

Most of the products are entirely synthetic, some contain two ingredients – a hint of synthetic sparkle and a natural or synthetic binder layer. Figure they’re paying about $10 per pound for the base synthetic, which they may dye, then re-fluff for packaging, that $10 investment becomes $1702.00 for the respective jobber and subscribing retail shops.

Not a bad return for the jobber, the retail side only gets to double the price once.

Comparison of the same product a decade ago (for those that existed) shows a decline in content weight of 50%.

… like the candy bar of yore, “fur” has shrankeled while doubling or tripling in price.

There’s no mystery to all this. Jobbers dominate the fly tying section and distribute the packaged dubbing too. With no in-house brand for competition they can do what they will, as they’ve got a monopoly on all that pegboard and what it contains.

… I’ll add that to the “ornery” side of why we need more choices. I just wanted to make something better, and already I feel the pull of  Jihad.

Outside of the obvious genetic tomfoolery, exactly where is all that water coming from?

“Extra labeling only confuses the consumer,” said David Edwards, director of animal biotechnology at the Biotechnology Industry Organization. “It differentiates products that are not different. As we stick more labels on products that don’t really tell us anything more, it makes it harder for consumers to make their choices.”

Which is exactly what troubled me about the “Mercury-toxic-no-eat-sign” featured prominently at every junction of the creek nearby, why would you go to all that trouble to label something genetically identical to the healthy specimen?

It must be more of that government waste I hear so much about.

Tastes like Chicken

The FDA defends its approach, saying it is simply following the law, which prohibits misleading labels on food. And the fact that a food, in this case salmon, is produced through a different process, is not sufficient to require a label.

We’re simply reminding everyone that this is the week the FDA rules on genetically engineered fish, our thoughts on the matter being well known, yet it’s still a landmark case with impacts far beyond the current focus.

The company has several safeguards in place to quell concerns. The fish would be bred female and sterile, though a small percentage might be able to breed. They would be bred in confined pools where the potential for escape would be low.

What concerns me outside of the obvious, is where is all that water going to come from? Most of the known world is already using its potable water multiple times between snowpack and faucet. Trucking saltwater in from the ocean would be cost prohibitive, yet terrestrial fish farms located close to market implies yet another water-craving industry determined to siphon those last few droplets from native fish.

Close to market means Los Angeles, Phoenix, Las Vegas, and a host of other desert cities, no?

Nestle and the bottled water crowd may be a blessing compared to the the rich soup we’ll soon see in our spigot. The agricultural industry has locked up the rights for any source of significance, yet the aquaculture crowd will insist on something “clean” to grow salmon in – and that combined payload of antibiotics and fertilizer should follow whatever slope is available to mix with local waters or intermingle with groundwater.

If they mix in salt you can add toxic to that blend.

Yummy.

The upside could be a gene or two added to all them roman nosed fish lying doggo in the salmon wastewater pond. If we get lucky we might wind up with sea-run Carp, or they’ll get white faces like the Joker – sight fishing would be so much easier.

Can fly fishing regulation restore fisheries with a stroke of the pen

Increased regulations Outside of some rare conservation program that’s reshaped a creek with instream cover or dredging, regulations, or fish plants, I don’t think any angler will make the claim that his favorite creek fishes better than it did a decade ago.

Intervention at any level is always a temporary boon. The organizations that promote quality public water can’t sustain them for more than a couple of years, and with funding drying up in lockstep with a battered economy, and increased threat to other creeks and rivers, the result is too many chicks vying for a meager worm.

Few in number compared to other anglers, we can still degrade a fishery quickly with constant pressure. All them feet tearing into the bank at the egress points, all those fish mishandled or gut hooked, thousands of crushing feet on the aquatic wildlife, and the continual stream of guides and clients that are part and parcel of the premier waters.

Over time, no matter how slight the mortality rate, we compromise everything.

Kirk Deeter of the Fly Talk blog brings up a worthy point in a different manner, but ignoring the beadhead-bobbercator issue entirely, are fly fishermen willing to adopt even more stringent regulations in return for big fish and watershed preservation?

Not more water reserved for fly fishing, rather more stringent regulations on our existing water, potentially hampering us enough to buy additional years prior to destroying a unique fishery due to our weight of numbers.

It’s something I’ve witnessed first hand. Living on the banks of Hat Creek during it’s reopening as a trophy trout fishery, it’s popularity enhanced due to vigorous magazine coverage, that resulted in most of California making the pilgrimage to test their skills on large wary trout.

About six years later anything over 16” was a rarity, and six years after that it was just another creek, despite the occasional attempt from CalTrout to intervene. A two year stint as CalTrout’s Hat Creek Streamkeeper during its heydays made me privy to the causal agents and much internal discussion, but the meager and uncertain funding meant the creek had to defend itself once the initial makeover was complete.

Certainly there were many issues that were unrelated to anglers, the Baum Lake canal burst, sending a slug of PG&E’s sediment into a spring creek among others. Regulated flows prevented the watercourse from freeing itself of sediment – as it lacked the winter scour so important to sediment flush and ridding itself of foreign objects.

Most of the persistent issues were related to anglers. California hosts a large population, plenty of fly fishermen, and the trophy water being a scant three miles long magnified the impacts of all them feet.

With all the emphasis on invasive species, and watching the Powerhouse riffle widen an additional 50 feet due to wading anglers wearing the bank down by entering and exiting the creek, I’d think a “no wading” regulation is now more pertinent than ever.

“… fishing is Catch & Release only, artificial only, barbless hook, no wading allowed.” 

With the new conservation ethic disposing of the flat felt bottom, cleated rubber soles (equipped with studs to improve traction) may reduce invasives – but due to cleats and steel studs will certainly increase the amount of bank removed by a fishermen scrambling into or out of the water.

Via regulation are we prepared to get us out of that business entirely?

It’ll send half of us back to the casting ponds as the available fishery is what you can throw and mend effectively. It’ll increase the amount of car traffic on nearby roads as we bounce between access points rather than crossing at the shallow spot, and will add “safe havens” for fish – as neither bank affords access or the ability to cast effectively.

Don’t expect vendors to help push this sterile initiative as it’ll remove a third of the gear we’re equipped with and a third of their gross.

“… fishing is Catch & Release only, artificial only, barbless hook, maximum 10 anglers, reservation only.” 

Limiting the human traffic will solve many ailments. Figure a fee-based system that pays for the 24-hour reservation system and limited back office staff to settle squabbles.

There’s brown water aplenty to handle those reserving too late, or turned away at the toll booth.

Profit can be recycled back into the fishery. Assuming a year long season and 300 capacity bookings, a $50 use fee equates to $150,000 per year. Figure half of that being chewed up by overhead and trash collection, road maintenance, and an occasional Porta-Potty, that would leave $50,000 a year for watershed improvements – or a Riverkeeper to maintain a constant patrol during daylight hours …

“… fishing is Catch & Release only, artificial only, barbless hook, dry fly only.”

Gear restrictions of any type would aid fish too, whether limiting the kind and type of artificials we throw, or how they’re thrown, should buy a watershed additional seasons of prominence. “Dry Fly Only” has a purism taint that obscures the conservation issue, but if adopted would impact fishing significantly.

… and no, an indicator is not dry. Nor is a dry fly with nymph dangling below, we’re insisting on only surface fishing – but we might overlook the dry fly pulled under and twitched fetchingly …

Having fished on dry fly only water, with mown trails between small fishing platforms (with seating) at each pool, I can attest that it’s rarified – but still fly fishing.

… and each phase of the aquatic insect would have to be ruled on in advance – and posted whether it’s dry or wet just to avoid your claims of innocence while being carted off in manacles.

I’m not sure that we’re capable of policing ourselves, so each turnstile into the quality water will have to be equipped with brass and tungsten detection…

“… fishing is Catch & Release only, artificial only, barbless hook, floating fly, upstream presentation only.”

There’s a perverted element that would welcome hideous restriction as the bragging rights would be commensurate. Thankfully they’re a minority albeit intensely vocal, but they exist.

Unfortunately as we pile on the restrictions we’re obligating ourselves to an increase in stern eyeballs monitoring all this extra ritual. Wardens being in short supply and with thousands of miles to patrol, we’d have to hire someone to monitor us while we alternate between spirit and letter of the law.

Which brings the spectre of fee based fishing and similarity with Europe.

The antics of Donny Beaver and viability of the private fishing club proves there’s enough rich folks to pay for exclusivity, the question becomes are us less fortunate willing to pay for a similar increase in quality?

“Quality” being a surrogate for less people, bigger fish, catered lunches, or whatever you find most attractive.

Despite their stated intent, many states tap license fees to cover shortfalls in other budgets. In the current economic climate that will persist for some time. Fee based fishing offers some small possibility that the funds would be dedicated to the watershed, the question would be is the angling brotherhood willing to pay for equal measures of restriction and pleasure?

The growth in “farm pond” fisheries suggest that both size and quantity are very compelling to anglers, enough so that many shops feature this type of “private access – hatchery enhanced” fishery – and participants are willing to pay extra for access to artificial lakes enhanced with brood stock.

Regulations are at the whim of the landowner, and some even charge by the hour.

It’s certain to be off-putting to some, but with all of the fanciful threats forecast by global warming, population growth, invasives, and alternate land use, and should only a fraction of that come true, it’s plain that public agencies and their stewardship of the public water could be unsustainable.

“… fishing is Catch & Release only, artificial only, barbless hook, floating fly, no wading, upstream presentation only, and the river is opened only in odd numbered years.”

How about resting the water every other season? That would make patrolling the Precious easier for wardens, as they’d be able to open fire on anyone seen on the bank …

With all we have vested in the sport, and all the conservation dogma we espouse at every cocktail gathering, why not alternate venues or pursue some other noble, more plentiful quarry in alternate years?

It would be curtains for many of the destination shops who are struggling already, but the agile will exploit the Internet, and the fortunate have more than a single watershed to service.

Perhaps three or five year closures might make more sense. Giving our discarded tippet and water bottles more time to flush.

“… fishing is Catch & Kill only, limit two fish over 6”, artificial only, barbless hook, floating fly, no wading, upstream presentation only, and the river is opened only in odd numbered years.”

Limiting our time on the creek might also work, although we’d have to stooge around on the bank waiting for a buddy to get his limit, or convince him to claim one of the carcasses was his. Naturally, you’d have to cough up cash or buy the dinner as you’ve obligated him to cease fishing on his next successful grab …

Local tourism and fly shops would be the benefactors, perhaps a few anglers would take up upland birds – spending the balance of the evening blowing hell out of pine trees.

“… fishing is Catch & Release only, artificial only, no wading, upstream presentation only, barbless hook size 20 or smaller, and no artificials may contain : a) rubberlegs, b) lead, c) beads, d) synthetic fibers, e) or may be predominately Olive, Brown, Gray, or Black.”

Now that most of the stoneflies, half of the dry flies, and three-quarters of your fly box is off limits, remember to get there early … to allow for ex-TSA employees to go through your vest and impound everything you can’t use.

As a fly tier I wouldn’t object too much. Knowing what goes in every fly I’ve tied has me dressing on the other side of the fence, watching you get hustled to the ground for illegal synthetics you didn’t know you had.

I’ll avert my gaze when I hear the snap of the rubber gloves …

The “20-20” Club is something that motivates a lot more anglers than you think, and with hooks being what they are and 18” fish having imaginary extra length there’s many fewer members than claim credit.

How big would the average fish have to be for that kind of rigor? Remember we’re protecting both fishery and fish, and any indignation is worthy…

“… fishing is Catch & Release only, artificial only, no wading, upstream presentation only, barbless hook, and each angler is limited to a single fly in possession.”

Again it’s a time limiter, you can select the fly after much observation the evening of your arrival, I suppose you can take a roundabout way back to the car after you snap it off on a tree limb and get another – which will spawn new paths through the underbrush to avoid the turnstiles and the watchful eyes nearby.

Or you can merely go straight to the extreme and stand in line for what will surely be the new esthetic:

“… fishing is Catch & Release only, artificial only, no wading, upstream presentation only, barbless hook, and each angler must construct his terminal tackle using native flora or the contents of the parking lot’s garbage can.”

Sadly Tonkin cane is in short supply throughout much of Montana as well as the Rockies or Sierra’s. The invasive threat being what it is, it should arrive within the decade however.

Saplings are fair game, and those skilled in furled leaders could conceivably weave some type of weight forward from the native grasses. Small game will suffer – as they’re chased about and disemboweled to return gut leaders to prominence. It’s not much of a reach to plant pen raised squirrels to ensure survival of native fish, and their fur can be utilized to craft both dry flies and nymphs, ensuring full utilization as a resource.

While I’ve strayed fairly far afield from the original question, given the trend of irreparable damage fostered by us stewards, and the outside issues that add to that mix, should we consider changing regulations to restrict our impacts on the Pristine, and in what manner would you make that palatable?

Fly fishermen are compensating for something, certainly, our rods aren’t fully automatic, belt-fed, or both

All I had to do was read any of my past posts to recognize “I don’t measure up”, yet PETA had to send me a zinger just the same …

compensating_something They’re on the warpath, and with the death of the UK’s famous “Two Tone” carp, PETA erected a billboard to chastise local anglers …

I’ve often wondered whether dry fly purists weren’t compensating for something, but I hadn’t trod the masculinity route. I’d left it at thinking these were the kids whose Ma cut the crusts off their PB & J, and they still had a chip on their shoulders.

PETA delights in bearding the prophet, nearly as much as we like laughing over their latest protest. This episode is no exception, featuring the debut of DoAnglersHaveSmallRods.com – which hosts a test to determine whether the water is both … cold … and deep.

I don't quite measure up

Finding out about my shortcomings doesn’t redden my cheeks a bit. What’s really going to be funny is when “Casper Milquetoast” knocks at my door to borrow a power tool, and he gets an abacus and a scratch awl to repair his roof.

“Yo, Casper, looking a little damp there, Sweetheart. Is that madam’s chamber pot you’re emptying – Wow, I bet she is pissed, huh?”