« March 2005 | Main | May 2005 »
Outdoors magazine reviews several fly fishing lodges in its May issue, among them the Henry's Fork Lodge, British Columbia's Lodge at Gold River, and Clearwater House on Hat Creek, California. "Here are six North American operations that, despite their remoteness, have built their reputations on matching superb fishing with the finer things in life." Article by Will Rizzo.
"Red quills often emerge on the Sheepscot on an exact date, May 7, dependent on water temperature. When a spring produces normal weather that raises the water to 52 to 55 degrees, I feel quite certain that red quills will start popping to the surface at 2 p.m on the appointed day." Ken Allen disects the arrival of the Red Quills on Maine rivers on MaineToday.com.
New on MidCurrent: author Rusty Chinnis demonstrates the favorite patterns of two expert southwest Florida anglers, Captain Steve Bailey and Nick Reding.
"While Bailey is a professional guide, Reding is an accomplished 'civilian' angler. And though Reding likes to develop original patterns, Bailey concentrates on tying traditional saltwater flies with his own unique modifications. What they have in common is the ability to produce well-constructed flies that catch fish when others won’t. Here’s a look at a fly box full of their favorite patterns."
"The easiest way to overcome the wind when the wind is blowing perpendicular to the casting shoulder is to cant the rod toward the opposite shoulder and have at it. I like to cast across my chest but other anglers pronate their wrists and cast without canting the rod to the opposite side." Bob Krumm offers advice from Dave Whitlock on defeating the wind. In the Billings (Montana) Gazette.
There's an interesting thread happening over on Dan Blanton's bulletin board about drag settings for tarpon, with most of the voters weighing in on the side of "heavier is better." My own take:
Tight is good. Catching tarpon is largely a psychological battle, and making the fish work as hard as possible from the get-go is part of the key to beating them quickly. You'll find that even with 4-5 pounds of drag (on 20-lb. tippet), bowing to the fish gives you plenty of "leeway" in keeping the fish from breaking the tippet. This is not to say that you can't fight a fish effectively with a lighter drag -- it just takes more work and better timing and it's hard not to screw up.
Jeff Currier always wanted to catch a huchen, "a large salmon found in the Danube River and its tributaries and perhaps the rarest salmonid on the planet. As he always does when driving near a river, Currier was looking for fish. His sharp eyes spied something he thought could be a huchen, so he had Trzebunia do a U-turn and return to the spot. The fish was gone, and Trzebunia was skeptical. 'He said "It must be a log,"' Currier recalled." Willy Zimmer in the Jackson Hole (Wyoming) Star Tribune.
Gordon Lewis pits himself against Islamorada bonefish every year, and seems to have developed something of a complex about his quarry. "A simple pursuit, an anglers quest – a pilgrimage of sorts to catch me one of those metallic rockets of the turtle grass flats and scratch an itch twitching under my skin for the past decade or two." In the Nashua (New Hampshire) Telegraph.
Willy Zimmer offers this look a the life and style of Jack Dennis, fly shop owner, Flyfishing Team USA coach and Wyoming native. "He hopes someday to find support to add a collection of fishing memorabilia to UW's American Heritage Center. The center currently houses one of the world's finest libraries of fishing literature in the Toppan and LaFontaine collections." In the Jackson Hole Star Tribune.
"In the spring, fish the shallow edges of weeds and, in summer and fall, the deeper edges. If fish are shallow, floating fly line will do. For deeper fish, Csanda recommends a sinking tip fly line. He typically targets pike with a six-inch fly, such as Orvis' CH Bunny Worm in black." Deborah Weisberg in the Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania Post-Gazette.
Here's a nice yarn about the heritage of brook trout fishing in Maine and a dandy joke played on a fishing partner. "Each late April, when black flies started swarming and alder leaves reached the size of a mouse ear, folks such as Kimball Wilcox, Elrick Grotton and Lawrence French knew exactly where to find these woodland char." Ken Allen on MaineToday.com.
John Merwin offers this extended look at the famed rivers and streams of New York's Catskills, where American fly fishing found its birth. "People come here as much for tradition as for trout, and both are abundant. The fishing can be exceptional, especially in the spring along less traveled sections of the various rivers. Then, too, there’s the parade of famous anglers. Fishing where Theodore Gordon or Lee Wulff or A.J. McClane wet their lines in decades past is part of the appeal." In Field & Stream.
"There are several ways Polish nymphing differ from the way most American anglers nymph:
* First and foremost, it is practiced without a strike indicator. The technique relies on keeping the line taut so the angler feels the strike.
* The leader is short — 6-8 feet — and has a heavy nymph or weight at the end to 'feel' the bottom. A nymph dropper or droppers are tied above it.
* A long rod -- 9 feet is a popular choice -- is used, and kept parallel to the water. The rod tip should move slightly faster than the current to keep the line tight.
* A turn of the wrist is added at the end of the run to move the fly sideways to entice any undecided fish to strike."
Jack Dennis and Jeff Currier describe the techniques popularized by Polish angler Wladyslaw Trzebunia in their presentation at the Wyoming Angler's Symposium. Willy Zimmer in the Jackson Hole Star Tribune.
"The world is in soft focus. Wind blows the snow sideways. Clouds cling low to the nearby hills. Yet to the east, the Absaroka Mountains rise as startling and steep as the hair on a mad dog's back." Here's a fine article by Brett French about the history and legend of Montana's Paradise Valley Spring Creeks: Depuy's, Armstrong/O'Hair's and Nelson's. In the Billings Gazette.
If you're thinking of fishing the spring creeks this year, here's an excellent primer on midge fishing by Brant Oswald.
"A key element of the technique is the tuck cast, which boils down to overpowering the forward cast. This causes the fly to bounce back under the fly line. When it hits the water it leaves a good amount of slack fly line on the surface. The slack line allows the fly to get to the bottom before drag sets in." Ed Engle talks about short-line nymphing, a technique popularized by Joe Humphreys. In the Boulder, Colorado Daily Camera (registration required).
John Gierach suggests a few "dirty water tactics" for springtime anglers. "I know it’s plenty clear enough to fish if I wade into a stream and still faintly see the toes of my boots in knee- or even calf-deep water." In Field & Stream.
David Dirks reviews Bert Darrow's recent book Bert Darrow's Practical Fly Fishing (The Lyons Press, January 2005, 208 pages) in New York's Times Herald-Record. "How do you take more than 35 years of fly-fishing insight and expertise and make it available to everyone? Darrow's solution was to publish his first book. The truth is, Nick Lyons of Lyons Press had been urging Darrow to put his angling experience on paper for years."
Amidst encroaching tract developments and just beyong the reach of traffic, the San Gabriel Canyon in the Angeles National Forest offers fine trout fishing for those who know what they're doing. Neophyte Steve Lopez sees it for the first time with an excellent guide. "Yes, I could get into this. I'm not going to start bringing peacock and rooster feathers home, but Darrell's five stages of trout fishing began to make sense to me. First, he had said, you want to catch a fish. Second, you want to catch many fish. Third, you want to catch a large fish. Fourth, you want to catch a tough fish. Finally, you just want to hang out along a pristine stream, miles away from the things that ordinarily clutter your mind." In the Los Angeles Times.
"'The Sunshine State is a paradise of scandals teeming with drifters, deadbeats, and misfits drawn here by some dark primordial calling like demented trout. And you'd be surprised how many of them decide to run for public office.'" This is novelist and fly fisher Carl Hiaasen describing his home state. On KUTV.com.
Marty Seldon recently reposted formulas for estimating fish weight on Dan Blanton's bulletin board. In summary the number used for dividing into the total of Length X Girth squared to get the estimated weight is 800 for large-girthed fish, 900 for slender fish — implying that a fatter fish should get a weight "bonus." Still not sure how accurate the results are for various species, or what the margin of error might be.
Maryland artist Jay Falstad just paints fish. But he's good enough at it that his paintings, which often depict someone's trophy catch, are being sold at the rate of 75 or more per year. "Orders come from around the world. Fly-fishing great Lefty Kreh owns one. Wives buy his paintings as gifts for their husbands, often preemptively: They don't want a fish carcass hanging on the living-room wall." You can see examples of Falstad's work at his Web site: www.fishpaintings.com. Art Carey in the Philadelphia Inquirer.
Knowing most of the characters in this story personally, it's hard for me to ignore the kinds of issues raised by this article by John Gieger in the Florida Keys Keynoter. The piece talks about the recent killing of a 135-pound tarpon by Diana Rudolph and guide Dale Perez; the fish was taken to establish a new women's 12-pound tippet record (the current record is 83 pounds). As Gieger notes in the article, "...there is almost no way to set an International Game Fish Association world record without an accurate weight on a certified scale. Weighing on a boat is not allowed, according to the IGFA. Anglers seeking records for smaller fish, like bonefish, can slip them into their live well and keep them alive while they motor to a scale on land." There are some voices calling for the IGFA to eliminate the need to kill large fish altogether, though it seems unlikely anyone will come up with a solution to verify large catches without weighing them on land. (There is already a significant challenge posed by inaccurate -- intentional and not -- weights submitted for records.)
If you read the first piece, it's also worth seeing guide Dale Perez's well-considered response. One of the points listed by Dale — and one that I think is easily overlooked — is that many released tarpon die. We may never have good mortality data that gives us the ability to estimate how many released large tarpon die, but the fact is that fishing — even release fishing — puts the life of the quarry in danger. Tarpon are notorious for "fighting themselves to death." We know, still, that we can reduce the numbers of tarpon that die by doing these three things:
1. Fight the fish quickly. Sure, it's hard to finish the fight in 15-20 minutes, but doing so is better for the fish — and the angler.
2. Don't gaff the fish, even with a lip gaff. It's not at all necessary to use a lip gaff to control a tarpon; in fact, it is harder than simply wearing good rubberized gloves and grabbing the fish by the lower jaw.
3. Don't lift the fish out of the water. The internal organs of large fish may not withstand the lifting (and attendant struggle) to pull them out of the water.
As to whether you choose to leave the fly in the fish's mouth, that's a hard one to decide. I like to remove flies, but there's little question that popping off a large fish after 20-30 minutes, if it looks like the fight will last much longer, is probably a better choice.
There's no easy answer to the dilemmas raised by world record requirements. Does it help that dedicated anglers like Diana Rudolph and guides like Dale Perez raise the bar for the sport? Certainly the excitement that surrounds a catch like Rudolph's keeps the sport visible to a larger audience. And rarely are records like this set by people who are not dedicated to the preservation of the species.
Should there be an alternative way to recognize the prowess of anglers like Ms. Rudolph? To take nothing away from the efforts of the IGFA, I think there should be. It may be that enabling records to be set for smaller fish that can be weighed and returned to the water is not enough; and who knows how many of these fish survive after all.
Of course, for many of us, it is enough to say — especially if we have a witness to share it with — "that sure was a big one." That won't be enough for more than dinner-table talk, of course, so each of us are left to decide how significant the moment is, with whom we should share it, and how important it is that we are believed.
As anglers, we all know that belief is often suspended in favor of fun ... and occasionally in favor of a momentary dip in glory hole.
(Thanks to reader David Dalu for providing the links to for this story.)
"Take, for example, the rich, dappled red, snakewood salmon rod that William Mitchell, of New York state, made in the 1880s. Hatton, who also fits mortised slices of snakewood into some of his rods, calls the material 'incredible.' 'It's one of the craziest woods in the world to work,' he said. 'You work it too fast and too hard, it'll shatter like glass. It smells almost exactly like the pipe tobacco that A.K. Best smokes. It's really pleasant smelling.'" For bamboo aficionados and those even marginally interested in the history of rod building, this new book by Jeffrey L. Hatton looks like required reading. Rod Crafting (Frank Amato Publications, January 2005) is reviewed here by Ed Dentry in the Rocky Mountain News.
Peter Kaminsky makes an epic-length journey to break a 20-year-old rule against not killing wild trout. "With the brook trout, or fontinalis, as it is known in Argentina, fly-fishing connoisseurs anywhere in the world often feign disinterest concerning the size of the fish. "They are so darned beautiful," I have heard anglers say at least a thousand times in praise of pint-sized brook trout, which has been reclassified as a char and not a true trout at all." In The New York Times.
"It’s all about timing and the delivery of a line in that period, usually very brief at this stage of the year, when flies are hatching. A little cunning skill is obviously useful, and luck is a vital ingredient that I like to enjoy in large measure." The columnist for The Scotsman includes a quick review of Lesley Crawford's new Trout Talk (Swan Hill Press) in his thoughts on early-season fishing.
"Fishing is just as efficient at eating money. Is it a coincidence an Orvis T-3 763.2 Mid-flex 6.0 fly rod built with carbon fiber technology lists for the same price ($575) as a set of Nike forged irons." Willy Zimmer writes about the choice between golf and fly fishing. In the Jackson Hole, Wyoming Star Tribune.
New on MidCurrent: Brant Oswald reviews Western Mayfly Hatches: From the Rockies to the Pacific by authors Rick Hafele and Dave Hughes. "The new book is well designed and beautifully printed, all in color — a grand improvement over the earlier work for students of insects and fly patterns. The book also benefits a great deal from the talents of two of the authors’ fishing friends — Jim Schollmeyer, who contributed the fly pattern photos, and Richard Bunse, who provided the insect illustrations."
"The better you get with the equipment, the less the equipment matters," notes Jim Seegraves, one of the most accomplished U.S. big-game fly fishers. "Anybody who can turn the crank of a big reel can land a marlin," he said, "but I think there is a higher skill level needed for fly-fishing. With the fly-rod, the person who takes the time to perfect the art is going to do better than the person who doesn't." Nanette Holland in St. Petersburg (Florida) Times.
In this fascinating piece about the "relabeling" of fine art to attract higher prices, a cover of the Atlantic Salmon Journal recently showed a painting that had been altered (and not by the magazine) to show the signature of John Whorf instead of the lesser-known but real artist watercolorist Henry McDaniel. "The Atlantic Salmon Journal cover painting, identified as Whorf's 'Fishing in the Rapids,' had appeared with the caption 'One of the beautiful unnamed pools' in a spread of Henry McDaniel watercolors in the July 1957 issue of the Ford Times, a magazine published by the Ford Motor Co." Carolyn Y. Johnson in The Boston Globe.
John Merwin fishes the Green River tailwater below Flaming Gorge Dam in northeastern Utah and reports on the overabundance of good trout fishing. "'This part of the river is called the aquarium,' [Gordon Tharrett] explains, 'because the water is so clear and the fish numbers are highest here. Lots of people drift the middle with small nymphs or scud imitations under a strike indicator. That's a good way to take trout, but today we'll fish the banks with small dries. Pay close attention to the riverbank, and you'll see fish holding very tight to the grass and rocks.'" In Field & Stream.
"He can kill, clean and cook a yak in the time it takes me to put up two fly outfits. He can swim a horse across a river so high in flood that forests are being uprooted. He can ride a camel 20 hours without pause and wrestle down a wild goat. I’ve only seen him ill at ease once, when the camp was visited by a group of Siberian Tsaatan folk." In this fascinating article about John Bailey's pursuit of taimen, his guide Batsokh assumes an almost magical protective aura. In Gray's Sporting Journal.
Dances With Sharks is the new Dave Ames title to be released in October. Ames is the author of True Love and the Woolly Bugger (Greycliff Publishing Company, 1996) and A Good Life Wasted (The Lyons Press, 2003). He's also battling prostate cancer, as this article by Peggy O'Neill notes. In the Helena, Montana Independent Record.
"When I was a kid, I understood perfectly that both baseball and flyfishing are slow. What I didn't get--and what I get now--is that they are gloriously slow, a drowsy summertime slowness, the wonderful indulgence of more or less doing nothing." Dave Hurteau draws an analogy between baseball and fly fishing, suggesting a quiet snore is out of place with neither. In Field & Stream.
"My failure was pointed out when twice I lost hooked fish, only to pull my line in to find the end of my tippet curled like a pig tail, right where the knot came undone. The lesson, somewhat painfully learned, is that when you are fishing for big fish you should make sure your knots can handle the pressure. This applies when fishing for trout or any other kind of fish." Jeffrey Mayor talks about how knots kept him a novice for longer than he would have liked. In the Tacoma, Washington News Tribune.
"Wind coming from your casting-arm side is dangerous because it can blow the airborne line—and the fly—into your body. The usual result is a hook in your back. There are several ways to beat this, but the easiest is simply to turn around 180 degrees." Another — and we think perhaps easier — way to defeat a right-hand (or left-hand, if you're left-handed) crosswind is to simply move your casting stroke to the other side of your body. This is easier to with lighter lines; with heavier lines, you can also learn to water-haul, which aids loading the rod and reduces the number of false-casts you need to make before delivering the fly. John Merwin in Field & Stream.
When most of us hear the name Roderick Haig-Brown, we think of his A River Never Sleeps (1944), or perhaps The Seasons of a Fisherman (1939). We don't automatically connect him with keeping British Columbian salmon safe from dams and being broadly active in environmental education. But as Mark Hume points out, he rivals fellow British Columbian David Suzuki for his impact on the province. In the Toronto Globe and Mail.
Jason Neuswanger's TroutNut.com just gets better and better as a resource for fly tiers as he adds to the library of interesting photos of insects. Of course we don't want to stare at stacks of caddisfly larvae. Or do we?
Aggressive stream improvement has made a big difference in southwest Wisconsin. Judy Nugent writes about the fishery there and how to take best advantage of the opportunity on the Wisconsin Natural Resources magazine site.
"'It's deep, it's huge, and it's fly-fishing only. Trolling is not permitted. It's 5 miles long, three-quarter miles wide, and 119 feet deep. It's one of the best fisheries in the lower 48 states. And the river that connects Kennebago Lake and the Little Kennebago, well, it's as productive as a New England river can be.'" Joseph Monninger writes about the historic pursuit of brook trout in this famous Maine fishery. In the Boston Globe.
"'Sound travels,' said Hemingway, whose dark eyes glitter merrily despite his 76 years. 'And especially when there's a pretty girl to impress in the boat, how often have I heard a guide say, "Oh, this isn't really me, I'm just doing this for now." My God, can't these guys even stand up for their profession?'" (Well, just try standing up for your profession on those once-in-a-blue-moon moments when a pretty girl actually does step into your boat.) Pete Bodo writes about the life and philosophies of Pat Hemingway in The New York Times.
"The lesson to learn is that you need to let the fish take the fly - actually close his mouth around it. At the same time, however, you do need to set the hook quickly ... Setting the hook, then, is a dicey thing. A bit early, and you pull the artificial away from the fish. A bit too late, and the fish spits it out." Dennis Jensen give a thumbs up to Tom Fuller's Getting Started in Fly Fishing. In the Vermont Times Argus.
Andros certainly has as much square mileage of bonefish flats as any destination in the world, and it deserves the accolades it gets from Roy Attaway in MotorBoating magazine. "I have pursued bonefish in the Florida Keys and elsewhere, largely without result, and I can tell you that no chemical is as addictive as fishing for them. Christmas Island, off the northwest coast of Australia, is the darling of the fly fishing jet set, but Andros produces such numbers of bonefish that you need go no further than right across the Straits of Florida to find mecca."
"Cutcher’s bag of tricks includes watching for the telltale flash of a spawning female twisting over a redd, or nest, and watching for the sandy cloud thrown up off the bottom by a female digging a redd. 'If you’re going to get into steelheading in Ohio, you’ve got to learn to fish dirty water.'" Steve Pollock writes about the big steelhead available to northern Ohio anglers on ToledoBlade.com.
The publishers of Field & Stream have finally thrown caution to the wind and admitted publicly what we have known all along: that we enjoy the outdoors more when we do it in fashion. GQ & Stream is the foil for this April Fools piece in the George Mason University Law magazine.