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I found this link to a rather detailed history on the Powell family and their involvement -- and disinvolvement -- with the Powell Rod company. It's a story marked by strong personalities and by the acrimony over the Schwab assumption of ownership. If you're interested in modern rod-building industry, it's a good read, in part because Powell was there at the "explosion" of fly fishing after WWII.
It's telling, in my opinion, that a man like Leigh Perkins, who -- in part thanks to his mom -- has had every opportunity to pursue varied sporting interests for more than half a century, would make a remark like this: "There's nothing like seeing a trout rising, or having a tarpon in clear water, with the wind and the tide and the movement of the fish coming to the fly." From the New York Times.
This piece in Forbes includes what I think is a valid test for any guide: they should own more tackle than you and two other friends own. About encouraging employees to skip business meetings... well, sounds like something a guide might suggest.
John Waldman writes in the New York Times about feeding frenzies on the open ocean and what a terrific spectacle they create. It reminded me of fly fishing for king mackerel once in the Gulf of New Mexico and watching royal terns snapping up pieces of baitfish mangled by the big kings. As one tern wheeled and hit the water for a second pass, a king mackerel about four feet long rocketed in and took him under in a blink of the eye.
Does everyone in West Virginia have incredible eyesight, or just members of the midge cult? This snippet in Field & Stream about anglers on West Virginia's Elk River makes me want to schedule an emergency visit to the ophthalmologist.
Tom Stienstra on SFGate.com writes about Ed Rice fishing northwestern California's Smith River for salmon. I tried to catch Ed his first permit back in July of 1994, but Ed wanted to make it challenging and popped off two fish on 6 lb. Sounds like he's still interested in challenges.
This article by Jack Otter in SmartMoney magazine recounts a first bonefish trip, to the Seychelles islands in the Indian ocean no less. Quoting the article, "'The bonefish in the Seychelles are less expensive than in the Bahamas,' says Chris Ponçon, one of the founders of fly-fishing on the tiny Seychelles island of Alphonse." Does that estimation include the $1700 airfare and the $4790 double-occupancy weekly rate, I wonder?
For comparison, here's an Angling Report's subscriber article on their experience.
A lyric piece by John Gierach in this month's Field & Stream, describing how noodling along a road and looking at a river can excite a fisherman to test himself, even as a long season of trying fishing is behind him. Nice reading, punctuated by pokes at tourism.
Of interest to even a casual outdoorsperson, Cornell's Lab of Ornithology Web site is a treasure trove of bird info. Especially valuable is the extensive Online Bird Guide, which allows a taxonomic or alphabetic selection of species details (including confirmation of my assertion that the Double-crested Cormorant has turquoise eyes). My only complaint is that bird sounds require a hefty RealPlayer plugin -- a browser item that is more like "adware" than a utility in my opinion.
If you haven't seen Charles Lindsay's and Tom McGuane's book Upstream: Fly Fishing in the American West, you are missing a unique artistic perspective on flies, rivers and fly fishing. From this notice of a new exhibit opening at the Sun Valley Center for the Arts, it seems Mr. Lindsay is going to keep keep testing the boundaries of photographic expression. It's incredible stuff.
As Harry Mason says on his Troutflies.com Tutorials page, "A balance, if any, between overkill and presenting just the right amount of information in each tutorial is a real problem." Here are some of the most detailed step-by-step instructions on tying classic trout flies I've seen online.
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