« September 2005 | Main | November 2005 »
In USAToday, Michelle Archer notes that the arch-environmentalist businessman got his start in "giving back" by teaching himself blacksmithing and inventing the first removable climbing pitons. "From the early days of the company, quality control was a top priority, because, 'If a tool failed, it could kill someone and since we were our own best customers, there was a good chance it could be us!'"
Mountain Home, Arkansas is one of the 12 communities listed in the November/December issue of Fly Rod & Reel magazine as a top fly fishing retirement spot. But those looking for monster browns may find they're "wading a little deeper." "'They move here because we produce these astonishingly sized fish, and then they find out that "Oops, the river is over my head half the time,"' observed Fulton. 'For a traveling guy it can be quite frustrating if they're locked totally into wading. If they're open-minded and willing to learn, they're fine, ultimately.'" Fred Lowe in Arkansas's Baxter Bulletin.
According to posters on the Classic Fly Rod Forum, Glenn Brackett, Jeff Walker and Jerry Kustich all departed Winston this week. Glenn Brackett has been with Winston for over 30 years and was part owner, with Tom Morgan, of the company prior to selling Winston to David Ondaatje in 1991. (Thanks to reader Zach Matthews for this story and link.)
Yellowstone Park biologists are planning to poison the Specimen Creek drainage in order to reintroduce pure westslope cutthroat trout, an endangered species that today inhabits only 2-4 percent of its original native range. "The Park Service hopes to bolster the species by restoring them to the three branches of Specimen Creek and possibly to High Lake, which is on the park's border northwest of Gardiner." Here's an article by Scott McMillion in the Bozeman Chronicle an another by the Associated Press in Caspar, Wyoming Star Tribune. (Thanks to reader John Devault for these links.)
Renowned fly tier, instructor, California fly shop owner and conservationist Andre Puyans passed away on Tuesday night. A detailed description of Andre's considerable accomplishments and adventures can be found on his Web site at www.andrepuyans.com. As the site notes, "Andy started fly tying at age seven, and got his first professional fly tying order at age nine. By age twelve he was able to cast a fly and hit a Lucky Strike package at thirty five feet. He spent long hours at the New York Anglers Roost and learned his art from the Darbees, the Dettes, Art Flick, and Ray Bergman."
That's not a description of the standard Thanksgiving food-induced coma, but rather Bill Lynch's explanation for why the trout weren't feeding on the blizzard of caddis in the upper Sacramento river this week. "This is the time of the year when the caddis ( sedge) flies come out of their little cases at the bottom of the stream, swim to the surface, and pop forth as full-fledged fliers. Caddis come in all sizes, but there is one particular species that is nearly as big as a humming bird." On SonomaNews.com.
Dave Sherwood writes eloquently about the original vision for one of Maine's classic fishing camps and the changes that have come its way. "Some of the signatures, printed in pen on yellowing paper, are illegible. Others -- baseball player Ted Williams, United Nations secretary Ralph Bunche, heavyweight boxing champion of the world (1926-1928) Gene Tunney, and former Maine senator Edmund Muskie -- are testaments to the worldly history of the camps." On MaineToday.com.
As the news spreads on invasive algae in New Zealand rivers, locals worry that foreign anglers might lose their enthusiasm. "For Mike Molineux, the didymo invasion means spending one and a half hours cleaning his boat, then leaving it to dry for 48 hours before taking it to another river to help tourists fish for brown and rainbow trout. 'It's getting pretty difficult to find somewhere to take them' to fish, he said. `'This is a big concern for me.'" Jonathan Underhill on Bloomberg.com.
The always-provocative Yvon Chouinard -- founder of Patagonia -- talks to a Jackson Hole, Wyoming reporter about business success and business failure. "I think General Electric has come to that conclusion. GE spent decades causing a lot of harm around the world, including polluting the entire Hudson River and refusing to admit they did. Then all of a sudden they got a new CEO [Jeffrey Immelt] who sees a lot of opportunity and money to be made in more green products." Ed Bushnell in Planet Jackson Hole.
The best thing about this story is that Rick Osborn watched another angler give up in frustration before he then made more than a dozen casts and hooked and landed this monster brown -- perhaps a new 4-lb. tippet record -- on Missouri's Lake Taneycomo. As we've noted before, just because a fishery is crowded doesn't mean the fishing can't be spectacular. Steve Brigman in the Springfield News-Leader.
According to today's press release, Innovative Designs (www.idigear.com) will begin marketing fishing apparel with Jose, teaming up to produce "the lightest, thinnest, warmest fishing apparel line on the market."
The presence of New Zealand Mud Snails in the lower Deschutes River was recently confirmed by Portland State University's (PSU) Center for Lakes and Reservoirs, "documenting snails at Heritage Landing at Deschutes River State Park and forty miles upriver outside Maupin, a popular fly-fishing and rafting destination. This is the first recorded presence of NZMS in this important recreational area." On GlendaleOregonNews.com.
"Loon Biostrike is a high visibility putty indicator that is malleable, sticky and movable on your line while being reusable and biodegradable. I also believe it as “de facto attractor pattern” because it often draws fish strikes as an egg imitation." Columnist Richard Formato raves about Loon's biodegradable strike indicator and other products in Virginia's Roanoke Times.
Of course when a magazine mentions the "best" water in a region it is also usually referring to the "most popular," and this list of the top 5 trout spots in Missouri Game & Fish magazine is no exception. "Despite its name, Lake Taneycomo is still a small, very riverine impoundment of the White River, and so is still technically a stream. It's also a trout stream, and a very good one - Missouri's best for big browns and rainbows." Article by Bryan Hendricks.
Whether its football-sized tarpon in south Florida, trout in Montana, or bass in the tony neighborhoods of Chicago, many good fish are found in golf course ponds, lakes and ditches. Timothy Delaney almost lets out his secret in The New York Times.
A stretch of trout water doesn't get a name like this without a reason, says Chester Allen of this particular part of Washington's Yakima River. "The water is as flat and clear as a pane of glass, so it's easy to see dozens of wild rainbow trout -- including a few that weigh as much or more than a human brain -- feeding on thousands of tiny blue wing olive mayflies." In Washington state's The Olympian.
In an effort to increase cutthroat trout populations on the South Fork of the Snake River, Idaho has adopted a recommendation that rubs against traditional fly-fishing mores. “'In the fly fishing world, all these years we've been trained and programmed for catch-and-release fishing,' [South Fork Lodge manager Shaun] Lawson said. 'It's been pretty hard for fly fisherman to digest a catch-and-keep program.'” John O'Connell in the Idaho State Journal.
Chico Fernandez and Bruce Richards have become the first members of MidCurrent's new editorial board. Bruce and Chico have spent decades helping others enjoy the experience of fly fishing, and their collective wisdom about both freshwater and saltwater fly fishing is just about impossible to measure. We're proud to have them join us.
And he thinks you've got to be tough to play golf....
In a ruling sure to please everyone but irrigators, on Tuesday the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals rejected the Bush administration’s water diversion plan for the Klamath River. The ruling increases chances for Coho salmon to breed and survive in their native waters. On EarthJustice.org.
“'When the leaves fall orange on the water, the October Caddis emerges.' Try a big stimulator on the surface just before dark if a dry fly try is what you want. Don't be afraid of smaller orange flies such as a Fox Pupa either." Bill Tate gives suggestions for fall fishing in the Sierras and northern California in the Mount Shasta News.
Though troubled by the discovery a few years ago of PCB's in the wondrous Big Spring Creek (see our fly fishing article from April 2004) that runs through town, Lewiston boasts an unusual amount of character for a town that most would describe as "way out in the middle of nowhere." Dave Hawpe really captures it in the Louisville, Kentucky Courier-Journal.
Reopening on the site of Fall Creek Fish Hatchery, which polarized conservationists and government officials in the late 90s, the new $7.8 million Oregon Hatchery Research Center is avoiding controversy in its public statements. The hatchery was the hotspot in the debate among pacific salmon advocates over the damage hatchery-raised fish were causing to wild salmon populations. It also led to a federal court ruling that lumped wild and hatchery-raised salmon together for protection under the Endangered Species Act, lowering the importance of wild salmon in the total count.
"Hatchery fish make up about 80 percent of Pacific salmon populations, but for years, scientists have recognized that hatchery practices had hurt wild salmon by moving fish to different watersheds, diluting gene pools, spreading diseases and producing fish that were less able to survive in the wild." Jeff Barnard in the Seattle Times.
Fly fishers always like to feel "placed," in my experience. Most that I know like maps, charts, and even annotated scribbles. Here Peter Kenter writes about the role of maps in the 20th century, noting that modern digital versions may be a bit too egalitarian. In Canada's Montreal Gazette.
During the recent spate of tournaments in the upper Florida Keys two outsized bonefish were caught by the winners -- one a potential women's 12-pound tippet world record. Mary Holt of Carbondale, Colorado caught a 13.9-pound fish during the Women's World Invitational Fly Championship that ended October 7. Read more about the tournament results in Bill Sargeant's article on FloridaToday.com.
Ken Marsh recounts his first experience fly fishing for steelhead on the Kenai Peninsula 20-odd years ago. "For a moment I considered hopping back in, slamming the door and putting off fishing until spring. But young men in search of steelhead don't own that kind of patience." In the Anchorage Daily News.
(P.S. The purple Egg-sucking Leech is also an excellent tarpon fly pattern.)
"They’re strong, they’re silent, and they’re incredibly elusive -- which is why bonefish are the saltwater fly fisher’s most desired quarry, and Boca Paila, at the very bottom of the Yucatán’s Mayan Riviera, his paradise." New York magazine lists 50 "euphoria-inducing" destinations.
"What other game fish can you catch that is longer than your fly rod? Fisheries scientists tell us that the sailfish is very likely the fastest fish in the ocean, and from personal experience I tend to agree. The entire process of catching a sail on a fly — which starts with the sail attacking the teaser and ends when you finally release the fish — is exciting to the extreme. And for those of you who have yet to try it, this is how it works." Bob Stearns offers some good advice on getting started in fly fishing for sailfish and marlin.
"Fabled Western writer Zane Grey fished avidly here in the 1930s, followed a few years later by Ray Bergman, who included a special chapter on the North Umpqua in his classic book, Trout." Here's a quick primer on Oregon's North Upmqua in Field & Stream.
Charles Gaines writes eloquently about the precious opportunity to fly fish Iceland's Laxá in Ásum River with his wife Greta. "One spring day in 895, Ingimundur went down to catch a salmon from his river and found a neighbor--named Hrolleifur--poaching from the opposite bank. Commanded to leave at once, Hrolleifur threw a spear across the river and well into Ingi, thus initiating his own speedy demise at the hands of Ingi's sons." In Forbes magazine.
William Tapply, known among fly fishers for Gone Fishin' and A Fly Fisherman's life, is better known among the general public for his 20-odd Brady Coyne mysteries, including the recent Nervous Water
Sounds vaguely alien -- and it is, but even the Star Trek references tickled the fancy of this reviewer of the recent Boston Legal episode featuring William Shatner and sea lice. Chris Schults in Grist magazine.
James Babb offers perspective from the edge of winter in Gray's Sporting Journal. "The first thing you notice is, your fly line no longer shoots through the guides with the soft sibilance of silk but with the bumpty-bump of barbed wire. The second thing you notice is, your fingers can no longer form a blood knot."
"These are the fish we seek each September, swooping like grand ospreys in deHavilland Beaver float planes. Lower Talarik Creek, Upper Talarik Creek, Kvichak River, Moraine River, Battle Creek, Gibraltar River, Copper River, Newhalen River, and Big Kukaklek River are among the storied drainages." Joe Doggett gushes -- and it seems justifiably -- about his annual trip to Alaska's Bristol Bay to hunt grayling and giant rainbows. In the Houston Chronicle.
The colorful Capt. Amanda Switzer holds sway in this piece by Terry Gibson about the annual fall migration of stripers out of Long Island Sound and the frenzy it creates. "And after catching a half-dozen carbon copies, Mike Neil asks over his shoulder if Amanda would like to fish. He doesn’t see the 6-foot set she’s regarding with nonchalance.'“No, thanks,' she says, spinning the wheel. 'I’m a voyeur.'" In Shallow Water Angler magazine.
20 tons of trout were lost in South Africa when an agency failed to give notice that a dam's valves were being turned off. "'The Department of Water Affairs and Forestry closed the valves at Theewaterskloof without informing us,' Henk Stander, who manages a trout farming operation at Kleinplaas, said on Tuesday." On IAfrica.com.
MoldyChum offers a great list of Web sites featuring realistic flies this morning. The list includes Paul Whillock's very elegant and appealing Web site (well, what would you expect from someone who can legitimately employ the phrase "Art Flies"?).
Tonight on the television show "Boston Legal," William Shatner takes on the threat fish-farm-generated sea lice present to the native salmon population. No kidding. "Nimmo Bay Resort plays a lead visual role in the episode that sees Emmy-winning actors William Shatner and James Spader, who play Boston lawyers, arrive at the remote fishing hole for a weekend of male bonding, but end up getting tangled in a local issue that involves the politics of fish farming versus wild fish." Dirk Meissner on Macleans.ca.
"Fishing the shallow points off these tumps is a tide-dependent game, and we had a wait to endure while the flood made up. Josenhans had classy, nine-weight Loomis flyrods rigged with sink-tip line and we used them to cast weighted minnow imitations along the banks." Angus Phillips describes how cooling weather brings more opportunity for fly anglers on the Chesapeake in the Washington Times.
According to Bruce Richards, Scientific Anglers employees thought donating money to a local treatment center for kids who are abused, neglected or in trouble with the law made a whole lot of sense. In the Midland (Michigan) Daily News.
This week (October 9 thru 15) is National Wildlife Refuge Week in the U.S. and a great time to remember how fortunate we are to have a history of turning local (and not so local) lands into public wildlife preserves. "Beginning today, the 100-plus-year-old system of protected lands across the country celebrates National Wildlife Refuge Week, a weeklong recognition of the 540 or so parcels of land that were set aside as early as 1903 to protect critical habitat and wildlife areas across the United States." In the Anchorage Daily News, Melissa DeVaughn talks about one of these great refuges, the Kenai National Wildlife Refuge.
Regular readers of MidCurrent know we prefer stuff that is written by experienced, dedicated anglers and guides. That's why we were excited to see a new book out by A. K. Best about all the little tricks and techniques that an expert trout angler picks up over decades of fishing and teaching.
This week you can read an excerpt from Best's Fly Fishing With A.K., a book John Gierach describes as "A fishing book by a guy who really knows how to catch fish." "Casting Techniques" is the author's look at several different casts -- not all of them well-known -- and how to use them on a classic trout run.
"On one particularly large, clear pool, an obvious mayfly hatch - pale white bugs that eluded my modest entomology catalog - entertained what looked to be a fairly sizable school of brookies. An occasional deep brown caddis fly fluttered near the surface, almost always drawing a strike." Chris Hunt fishes a magical small stream in the midst of Rocky Mountain National Park. In the Pocatello, Idaho State Journal.
Robert Cochrane (www.robertcochrane.com) is a maker of fine custom leather sporting cases, but in the mind of reviewer Ian Scott, one of his finest products is a waterproof canvas bag that replaces the fishing vest. At this rate it won't be long before people are stuffing leaders and flies and whatnot into their shirt pockets. On About-FlyFishing.com.
Lately online discussion boards have been buzzing with talk about drastic changes in the rules governing the commercial harvest of permit (see threads on Dan Blanton's Board [1][2], and Fly Fisherman).
After reading the regulations carefully we contacted the commercial liaison at Florida Fish & Wildlife and were told that in fact not only have protections not been reduced, but they will be clarified to be stronger.
Previous rules did not make it clear what the bag limit on permit between 11 and 20 inches -- the "slot" for commercial fishermen -- was. In fact, commercial fishing bulletins issued in 2004 and in July 2005 included tables that showed the bag limit for permit as "None."
Dan Ellinor, commercial outreach liaison for FF&W, now says that this was inaccurate and plans to issue a clarification to all commercial fishermen. According to Elsinore, who confirmed this with FF&W legal yesterday, the actual bag limit on permit for commercial fishermen is "only fish between 11 and 20 inches, but no more than 100 pounds on any one vessel." These fish also have to be caught on hook and line, which means, according to Jennifer Macauley, finfish biologist for the Marine Fisheries Management division, that only a handful of commercial fishermen in Florida make any attempt to harvest permit.
Any clarification will benefit recreational anglers, since the previous rules did not clearly state a commercial bag limit. As far as we can tell, Florida does not want protections on permit removed and intends to close any loopholes that allow commercial fishermen to target permit.
If you want to read the actual current rules for permit, you can find them here (go to Chapter 68B-35). You can read the FF&W commercial bulletin that contained the error here (see bottom of table on page 9).
Testing for Didymo algae begins on the North Island rivers today. "The cotton wool-like algae makes waterways look grey and polluted, smothers insect food sources needed by fish and can ruin the aesthetic aspects of fishing by clumping on lines and lures." On Stuff.co.nz.
O.K., all you masters of piscatorial bombast and the 100% dragless presentation, Fly Fishing Team USA hosts the first of three regional tryouts for the 2006 U.S. international team Oct. 29-30 near Fresno, California. Among other things they are looking for that "competitive, never-give-up team attitude."
It will probably also help if you know Czech nymphing.
Wally Zimmer in the Jackson Hole, Wyoming Star Tribune.
An Acrefair, England angler ended an all-night carp fishing expedition by almost losing his eye to a heavy lead weight. "He flicked his 12 foot rod and the line broke free which caused the heavy weight to shoot out of the water and fly into his face. It went into his left eye socket, smashing his cheekbone and lodged in his face." Sue Austin in the Shropshire Star.
"'Everyone that comes into the store this time of the year brags that he or she has a red-hot streamer that is a killer. The truth is that about any streamer pattern will work this time of the year.'" So says the proprietor of a Billings, Montana fly shop in this piece by Bob Krumm about the variety of effective streamer patterns for fall brown trout. In the Billings Gazette.
Bob Triggs writes a new review of Tom Deck's "The Orvis Fly Casting Guide" on WashingtonFlyFishing.com. "Every good teacher knows that one never truly 'arrives'; it is always the process of growth, learning and improving. The great ones never stop practising and learning."