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November 30, 2005

Ed Engle's Winter Book/Media Choices

Ed Engle reviews A Fly Fisher's Guide to the South Platte River by Pat Dorsey, James Babb's Fly-Fishin' Fool and the new DVD "Trout Grass." "This is a beautifully filmed 48 minute DVD that traces the making of a split cane fly rod from the bamboo plantations of southern China to Glenn Bracketts rod making shop in Montana and finally to the river where Tom McGuane (author of The Longest Silence and Ninety-two in the Shade) and David James Duncan (author of fly fishing classic, The River Why) fish for trout." In the Boulder, Colorado Daily Camera.

Fly Fishing Video: How to Attach Balloon Indicators

Zach Matthews has produced another short video (.wmv file, 2:58), this time on attaching balloon indicators to leaders. If you've never considered this technique, it's worth a look. Advantages of the balloon are that it is easy to attach/remove and, of course, highly visible. On ItinerantAngler.com.

Collectible Flies and Jewels: Not So Different After All

Howard Biffer combines two passions in one New York shop and draws a neat connection between fine flies and jewelery. "'Collecting these is my hobby, my passion,' he said. 'I have flies here tied by the greats, some now dead.' Among his collection are the work of Lee Wulff, Walt Dette, Eric Leiser and Poul Jorgensen, all legendary tyers." Glenn Sapir in New York's The Journal News.

November 29, 2005

Cabela's: From Free Fishing Flies to Ersatz Safaris

With the controversy surrounding outsourcing fly fishing products and components from overseas, it's interesting to note how Dick Cabela first managed to find a profit in fly sales. "To think, Dick Cabela started it all in 1961 on his kitchen table in Chappell, Neb., selling cut-rate flies tied in Japan. First, he advertised 12 flies for $1 and got only one customer. He cut the price to five flies for free with a 25-cent charge for shipping and handling, and the orders started rolling in. According to the hardcover history of the company written by his son, David Cabela, the profit margin on each order was 2.2 cents per fly." John Balzar in the Los Angeles Times.

Greg Gianforte

Serial entrepreneur Greg Gianforte, founder and chief executive of RightNow Technologies in Bozeman, Montana, is interviewed while en route to fly fishing in New Zealand. "'Much as I love to fly-fish, I didn't want to end up with a tombstone that said, "He caught a lot of fish",' Gianforte explains." Simon Hendery in the New Zealand Herald.

November 28, 2005

The Next Big Fly Fishing Movie

When Andy Warhol said 'In the future everyone will be famous for fifteen minutes,' I can almost guarantee he wasn't prompted to the thought by images of fly fishers having Eureka moments at the tying vise. But it might be true that one or two lucky fly fishers get their 15 minutes and more next year — starring in a new IMAX movie on fly fishing.

Producers Gene Quinn and Stephen Samuels are looking for the cast for the movie right now. As they told MidCurrent, "Though Fly Fisher has no shortage of candidates for this film, we are trying to reach people that the producers may not have otherwise known about. Aside from being an experienced and personable angler, these candidates must be able to travel to far away places to fish. Candidates don't need to be 'professionals,' but do need to cast like one."

Interested? Fill out the contact form at the Fly Fisher web site.

Royal Doulton China and Fly Fishing as an "English Pursuit"

Michael Doulton of Royal Doulton Company fine china fame categorizes fly fishing as an "English pursuit." Yes, I suppose it is, in the same way that cooking is a French pursuit and driving is a German pursuit. In the Malaysian Star.

November 27, 2005

More North Carolina Albie Video

Here's another video (Windows Streaming Video, 3 minutes) of fly fishing for blitzing false albacore by Brandon White. (Thanks to David Dalu for this link.)

Fly Fishing for Grouper: Going Real Deep

World record seeker Dave Chermanski uses a combination of special gear — including braided lead core line — to reach fish that are 30 to 50 feet beneath the surface. "His engineer's curiosity led him to refine his outfits: heavy rods, lead-filled, shooting-head fly lines and his own glow-in-the-dark flies. And Chermanski targets the fish when they move from their deep-water rock caves and ledges to relatively shallow grounds where they hide in sea grasses." Don Wilson in the Orlando (Florida) Sentinel.

Yellowstone Cutthroat Future Bleaker Than Ever

Despite the gill-netting of predatory lake trout and other management efforts, the number of native cutthroat in the Yellowstone drainage continues a precipitous decline. "The cutthroats face major threats from non-native lake trout and from whirling disease, a European malady that infests the lake and some of its major spawning tributaries." Scott McMillion in the Bozeman (Montana) Daily Chronicle.

November 26, 2005

Bonefishing Video Review: "In Search of a Rising Tide"

New on MidCurrent: contributor David Dalu reviews Jamie Howard's "In Search of a Rising Tide," a film that, as he says, "capture[s] the sense of Bahamas skiff-based angling perfectly."

Trapped Stripers and Deep Fried White Bait

Nelson Bryant counts netting whitebait as the best salve for dashed expectations. "Part of my problem was an unwillingness to investigate new locations, or to visit my favorite spots at odd hours. I began fly fishing for striped bass from the island's beaches nearly 60 years ago and expect them to be waiting for me when I follow my traditional patterns." In The New York Times (registration required).

November 25, 2005

November Chinook on Oregon's Elk River

Oregon's Elk River won't stay on a fixed course to the sea, a fact that challenges anglers to find holding water during the annual November chinook run. "Regardless of water conditions, A series of high tides around Veteran’s Day create a false freshet that triggers a mass rush of chinook upstream after high tide. These set-your-watch-to-it conditions have drawn fly-casters from as far away as Oklahoma, meeting up with other fly-fishermen from around the West to form an old friend’s week." Mark Freeman on MailTribune.com.

John Gierach "Spinning Reel Cover" Now Collector's Edition

In his quick rundown of his favorite new fly fishing books for the year, Bill Thompson includes an interesting note about how the first printing of John Gierach's new Still Life with Brook Trout is now a collector's edition, because the cover depicts a man apparently spin-fishing (you can still see the spinning reel in the Amazon listing). On ConwayDailySun.com.

Books for Boaters: Seaworthy

A new book of lessons learned from 20 years of boating mishaps, as chronicled by Robert J. Adriance, looks like a great gift for anyone who spends time on the water. Adriance has been writer and editor of BoatU.S.’s quarterly publication Seaworthy, and he's kept a running record of all the things that can possibly go wrong at sea. The book, apparently focused on boats in the salt, looks like a pretty good read from the jacket copy. "Here, distilled between one set of covers, is the ultimate boater’s guide to preventing, responding to, and surviving accidents under power or sail, including hurricane damage, lightning strikes, collisions, fires, groundings, sinkings, crew overboard, dismastings, and more."

November 24, 2005

Fly Fishing's Stereotypes

"Has been known to follow a small drainage for four days with a 50 pound pack on his back, with a compass or GPS in one hand and a fly rod in the other, catching 18-inch indigenous cutthroat trout, the color of which has never been seen before." Toney Sisk, who contributed our piece on fly fishing for bass, hosts this amusing piece on fly fishing types — including Rambo with a Rod and The Hummer Guy — on WaywardFlyFishing.com.

Western New York's 18-Mile Creek Browns

Not only holding some of the biggest brown trout in North America — thanks to yearly stocking and the proximity of Lake Ontario — but home to healthy runs of steelhead and coho and chinook salmon, 18-Mile Creek is magnet to lots of fish. Even if it's not what one would call a wilderness experience. Eric Sharp writes about it in the Detroit Free Press.

November 23, 2005

"A River Runs Through It" Deluxe DVD

Even though The Movie has been available on DVD since 1999, Columbia Tristar Home Video is releasing a "Deluxe Edition" of "A River Runs Through It" on November 29. It's not quite clear from Amazon's listing what is new in the upcoming release, but you can read FilmCritic.com's new review ("Redford's second-best movie") here.

Photos: Fly Fishing a New Italian Tailwater

Michael Santangelo posted a trip report on fly fishing in Tuscany and Umbria back in June. It's accompanied by pictures of the fishing on the new tailwater on the Tevere River. On WaFlyFishing.com.

November 21, 2005

French Fries and Brown Trout

A handful of folks are aware that the roof of the Sears building on Roosevelt Boulevard in Key West is a key nesting ground for the least tern, which prefers a flat, pebbly surface for egg laying. But scientists might add it to their list of examples of "biotic homogenization." "'On average, pairs of states have 15.4 more species in common now than before European settlement of North America,' said the University of Wyoming's Frank Rahel, in a study published in the journal Science."

Does this mean that brown trout — probably responsible for replacing more native fish than we are aware of in the U.S. — is the big box retailer of trout species? Amanda Onion of ABC News.

November 20, 2005

Video: Fly Fishing a False Albacore Blitz

North Carolina captain Gordon Churchill just put up a short video of boiling and busting albies. As he says in his post over on OutdoorsForums.com, "They were busting out the end of the point and around where the West Slough Buoy used to be. All day. Literally we had breaking fish around us from 7 am this morning until we left at 4 pm and the fish were still busting at that time." More photos available in his post.

November 19, 2005

Fly Fishing Book Excerpt: LaFontaine's "Anticipating a Caddisfly Hatch"

Gary LaFontaine, who died of Lou Gehrig's Disease at the age of 56 in 2002, wrote one of the few books that could be called "revolutionary" in the world of fly fishing. His Caddisflies brought science and art to the study of an important staple of the trout diet — an insect whose benign neglect in the literature had resulted in endless hours of frustration for many trout anglers.

If you didn't know Gary LaFontaine, once you read his books you'll wish you'd been given that chance. He had a way of writing about flies and entomology and tactics that was direct without being dry, lucid but packed with information. This week on MidCurrent you can read the first chapter of his great work on caddisflies, "Anticipating a Caddisfly Hatch."

A Trout Ladder for Trabuco Creek Steelhead

Trout Unlimited and California's State Wildlife Board have teamed up to build a $1.2 million fish ladder to help spawning steelhead in Trabuco Creek. "State biologists spotted southern steelhead trout in May 2003 at the bottom of the culvert, where they hadn't been sighted in decades. The fish have ranged from 17 to 30 inches long and weighed about 7 pounds. In 2002, the federal government extended the southern steelhead's endangered status from Malibu to the Mexican border." From the Associated Press.

White Gulch Westslope Cutthroat Recovering

Thanks to a $350,000 project of Montana Fish, Wildlife and Parks, a few surviving cutthroat are now spreading back over their original range in a stream near Helena, Montana. "'We brought in a consultant, and he told us we could do it,' Ihle said. 'He said it was just a dirt deal.' The first job was creating a holding pond for the cutthroats, Montana's state fish and a candidate for listing under the Endangered Species Act." Eric Newhouse in the Great Falls Tribune.

"Sculpin Fish-O-Rama"

Chester Allen has a magic touch when it comes to hooking sculpins — not necessarily a good thing when you're fishing for chum salmon on Big Mission Creek. "I rigged up my rod, tied on a deadly chum Comet fly -- a chartreuse Comet fly tied with marabou, sparkle chenille and weighted eyes -- and cast out toward the roiling fish. When I'm fishing for chum in an estuary, I like to cast toward the school and let the fly slowly sink right in front of their tooth-studded snouts. Then, if no fish bites the fly on the drop, I'll slowly strip it in." In Washington state's The Olympian.

November 18, 2005

The Cape Breton Conga Line

Monte Burke describes the atlantic salmon fishing on Nova Scotia's Margaree as "courteous, festive affair. Locals and 'fromaways' share the pools, moving along in an affable conga line, so that everyone gets a shot at the prime salmon lies. Anglers make a cast, swing their fly through the pool, then take a step downstream." In Forbes magazine.

Fly Tiers: Terry Hellekson

Fly tier Terry Hellekson, author of Fish Flies: The Encyclopedia Of The Fly Tier's Art (Gibbs Smith, 2005, 832 pages), learned his art the old fashioned way. "Terry spent his youth in California. His father was a fishing guide on the Klamath and Trinity rivers at a time when there were few fishing guides in the West. 'My father got lucky in that most of his clients were celebrities of some kind,' Terry said from his home in Libby. 'Everything from Bing Crosby, Harold Smith (founder of Harold’s Club in Reno), a great number of Hollywood executives, the governor of Nevada, and the list goes on.'" Peggy O'Neill in the Helena, Montana Independent Record.

November 17, 2005

Trout Unlimited Takes Away Washington State Charter

"Trout Unlimited apparently felt the Washington Council was too preoccupied with hatcheries, harvest stats, allocations, state and federal regulations, and the other issues important to putting a hook successfully in the water, and not enough with habitat enhancement and other aspects of hard-core conservation." In the Everett, Washington Daily Herald.

Virginia's Second Creek

"It was so clear, though, you could have read the stock reports from the Wall Street Journal in 4 feet of water without squinting." Jim Brewer has a classic fall day fishing low water on Virginia's Second Creek. In the Charlottesville Daily Progress.

November 16, 2005

Ted Lund Named Editor of Fly Fishing in Saltwaters Magazine

According to a press release from World Publications, Ted Lund has taken the top editorial spot at Fly Fishing in Saltwaters magazine. Read the full press release in the extended entry.

Fly Fishing in Salt Waters Names Lund New Editor

Winter Park, FL ­ World Publications Fishing Group Publisher Glenn Hughes announced today the appointment of Ted Lund to Editor of Fly Fishing in Salt Waters magazine. Lund moves to his new position from another World title, Sport Fishing, where he was Managing Editor.

"Ted is very focused and excited over the prospect of taking Fly Fishing in Salt Waters to new heights," Hughes says. "We really couldn¹t have found a better person to take over the magazine. In addition to his skills as an accomplished editor, Ted has great knowledge and affinity for the fishing industry and fly fishing in particular."

Prior to his tenure at Sport Fishing, Lund worked for the Associated Press and The Miami Herald. He also has served as an editor in Key West, Florida, for the Citizen and Solares Hill newspapers. On the water off Key West, Lund was a light tackle and fly fishing guide specializing in tournament and competitive fishing. He and his clients have held 27 International Game Fish Association world records, and his fly patterns have accounted for dozens of other records.

"Having been a frequent contributor to Fly Fishing in Salt Waters ­ starting with the first issue ­ I consider this an incredible opportunity," says Lund. "For more than 10 years, the magazine has been the leading authority on our sport. I look forward to carrying on that tradition and working with the top writers and photographers in the field, like Lefty Kreh, Stu Apte, Barry and Cathy Beck, Bob Popovics, John Cave, Nick Curcione, Dan Blanton and Flip Pallot. The masthead really reads like a who¹s who of our sport."

Steelhead Win Respect From NOAA

As evidence that NOAA (the U.S. National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration) is finally beginning to trust their own scientists, the agency is reversing an earlier initiative to lump together rainbow and steelhead trout. The decision helps calm conservationist fears that endangered populations were about to be delisted under the Endangered Species Act. "The federal agency that oversees efforts to restore the 10 groups of steelhead protected under the Endangered Species Act has formally proposed to adopt a different policy for designating populations for protection — one that is not based solely on genetics and the ability to breed together." From the Associated Press.

November 15, 2005

Fly Fishing and Photography: Exercises in Attention

This article about photographer Stephen Shore captures a vivid comparison between camera art and fly fishing, the artist's other passion. "'Fishing, like photography, is an art that calls forth intelligence, concentration and delicacy.' When I read that quote back to him, he nods and says: 'Now I'd add the word "attention". That's the big connection. Fishing and photography are both exercises in attention.'" Sean O'Hagan also notes that author and realism monger Raymond Carver was an avid fly fisher. In the U.K.'s The Guardian.

UK Counts Victories in Acid Rain Efforts

"Aquatic plants and acid-sensitive mosses have been found at some sites for the first time in 15 years, while three of the most acidic sites have been playing host to young brown trout for the first time since monitoring began." Not only British and Welsh fisheries but Scandanavian fisheries as well are beginning to show results of 15 years of emission controls. Fiona Harvey in the London Financial Times.

November 14, 2005

Dominion Continues Trout Unlimited Support

One of the largest producers of energy in the U.S., Dominion has made the news more than once in recent years by donating money and resources to help Trout Unlimited on special projects, like educating kids about the effects of acid rain and building access for disabled anglers. Just recently they've given $100,000 to a project to help T.U. restore the headwaters of the Potomac River in West Virginia.

Video: Making Braided Loop-to-Loop Connections

Zach Matthews does a nice job of demonstrating how to make braided loop-to-loop connections over on ItinerantAngler.com. (Note: this is a streaming file, but large - 9 minutes and 9MB).

November 13, 2005

Fly Fishing Coach Mark Few

"The only thing more remarkable than the fact that I might actually go fly fishing is that I was doing it with a major college basketball coach, during the season, less than an hour before the start of practice." Sports Illustrated reporter Seth Davis goes fishing with Mark Few, one of the most successul college basketball coaches in history.

November 12, 2005

Folk Artist Steve Earle, Fly Fisher

Grammy Award-winning folk artist Steve Earle, gave up heroin and innumerable other bad habits and found fly fishing. It didn't hurt that he found New Zealand too. "I'd heard New Zealand had some of the best fly-fishing in the world and I can only conclude it's where fly-fishermen go to die. There's nothing in the ecosystem that eat fish that big and, as a consequence, the fish are huge." On Stuff.co.nz.

Fly Fishing Brooklyn Stripers By Kayak

"On my maiden outing, Novick lent me a wetsuit, which is necessary for safe kayaking from October to June when the water is colder. An outgoing tide swept bait and assisted our kayaks under the overpass of the Belt Parkway and into Jamaica Bay." Peter Kaminsky talks about the challenges of being the small boat in a big pond in The New York Times.

Fly Fisherman Drowns on Upper Missouri

It takes only seconds to get into serious trouble if you're wearing waders. "'He had hooked a fish and, in an effort to dislodge it, dropped his pole, slipped and lost his footing,' Fish, Wildlife & Parks Game Warden Bryan Golie of Cascade said. 'Then his waders began to fill up,' Golie said. 'But they float, and they're on the surface, holding your head down.'" Eric Newhouse in the Great Falls (Montana) Tribune.

November 11, 2005

Solitude on Colorado's Animas

Fly fishing guide Don Oliver goes to where the fish are happy and fat: between the Home Depot and 32nd street in Durango, Colorado. "First you will be fishing between a highway and a county road. Next you will notice the total lack of other fishermen. And the best part about fishing the Animas is how healthy the fish are; they just aren't caught very often." In the Farmington, New Mexico Daily Times.

Good Steelhead, Great Steelhead

"The great ones are the fish that, if they don't break your tackle, they'll push its limits. At the end of the battle, whether you pick up the pieces of your broken rod, or get the fish in the net, you're out of breath and your chest can hardly contain its pounding heart." Gary Lewis in the Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard.

Notice he doesn't include "bad steelhead."

Destination Clubs and the $90,000 Discount

That's the kind of thing being used to lure new members into the high-end "destination clubs" popping up around the U.S., including some dedicated to fly fishing. "Flyfishing Destinations, based in Sandy, Utah, will be even smaller. Plans include five lodges in fishing hot spots like the Madison River in Madison Valley, Mont., and the South Fork of the Snake River in Idaho." Michelle Higgins in The New York Times.

President Hoover's Fly Fishing Camp

Turns out Hoover's famed camp in Virginia's Shenandoah National Park got started with a publicity stunt: "In a nutshell, William Carson, then a Virginia official, lured Hoover by raving about the land, building a road, buying fishing rights and stocking the river with trout." Lee Graves talks about the former president's approval rating and the camp that sits where the Laurel Prong and Mill Prong form the Rapidan River. In the Richmond Times-Dispatch.

November 10, 2005

Rio Acquired by Sage Owners

The fly fishing industry seems to be finding more value in consolidation. The news release posted over on Moldy Chum says it all: "Far Bank Enterprises, a wholly owned subsidiary of the Joshua Green Corporation of Seattle, Washington, today announced that it has acquired RIO Products Intl. Inc. of Idaho Falls, Idaho. Sage Manufacturing and Redington are also owned and controlled by Far Bank." Click the link at the bottom of the entry to read a letter from Rio's founders, Jim and Kitty Vincent.

Utah Gets Clever: Naked Girls in Hip Waders

In trying to draw tourists to Utah, it's Out with creative subtlety and In with Marketing 101 ("the only things that sell are greed, sex and fear"). "'Gov. Huntsman wanted something hip, young and different,” said Mark Hurst, president of the victorious ad agency W Communications. 'And, hey, what’s more hip, young and different than naked girls in hip waders?'" D.P. Sorenson in the Salt Lake City Weekly.

Fishing Flies: Blue Quill Shopping

George Grant describes what to look for when buying one of his favorite fall flies, the Blue Quill. "If you’re buying them, look for a slender body tied with a clearly segmented peacock quill and sparse dun hackle. The segmentation is produced when a quill from near the eye of the peacock feather is used for the body and many commercial flies lack it because they are tied with quills from the shaft of the feather."

November 9, 2005

Umpqua Moving to Colorado

According to a press release posted over on Moldy Chum, Umpqua Feather Merchants will be relocating to Louisville, Colorado over the next 18 months. Why depart the banks of Oregon's North Umpqua River? "Availability of a larger labor pool, many of whom are skilled practitioners of the sport Umpqua serves; Three-day shipping to almost anywhere in the U.S., ensuring quicker service to all customers; Reduced transit time to and from overseas suppliers; and shorter travel time for Umpqua personnel to all customer locations."

Hope for San Mateo Creek Steelhead?

Near San Mateo Creek, one of southern California's last free-flowing streams, volunteers hope their search for the almost-extinct southern steelhead aids the fight to save this critical watershed. "Hazzard hikes up Devil Canyon to explore pools that may contain steelhead and finds a 50-foot-long stretch of creek so still it reflects canyon walls. Insects dart overhead, oaks shade the surface, the water is cool and the gravelly bottom is suitable for spawning, but it's not deep enough for steelhead. There is no sign of the fish or grooves they make on the bottom to lay eggs." Dan Weikel in the L.A. Times.

November 8, 2005

Pimp My Korkers

If you fly fish for striped bass or fish anywhere that extreme terrain demands a slip-proof wading shoe, you're probably familiar with Korkers. Recently the folks over at StripersOnline.com added an article about retrofitting a standard Ko