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"Otago Regional Council staff discovered the weed had spread upstream of the Albert Town bridge this week, covering rocks in the middle of the river at Dean's Bank and at the Clutha River outlet at Lake Wanaka." From New Zealand's Stuff.co.nz.
"Bonefish don’t jump. They run. And they run hard. When the 'Familiar Waters' episode airs this spring, don’t expect the usual fare of catching a fish on every cast. It just didn’t happen. Pawlawski, the crew and I worked hard to get every hook up." Virginia's Richard Formato helps film a segment of the upcoming "Familiar Waters" TV show and shows a picture of an (umm) "8-pound bonefish."
"Midges might emerge - and trout might rise - on even the coldest days. Dry flies or emerger patterns fished in the surface film can be effective, but nymphs or emergers drifted just above the bottom tend to be more consistent. Either way, the byword is 'think small.'" Karl Licis gives a summary of the top tailwaters in the Colorado area, including portions of the South Platte and Frying Pan. In the Rocky Mountain News.
A guide to fishing British Columbia's "Rivers of Steel" comes early if you are just now drying out from days of covering a river with a two-handed rod and hoping a 20-pounder turns downriver with your fly. But given the challenges of planning for a slot amidst next year's steelhead run, it's a great time to read up on the options. Read guide Jim Bourque's excellent overview of the heart of B.C. steelheading, the Skeena drainage.
Outfitter Mike Edwards prefers llamas for packing fly-fishing gear and tents into the high Cascade Mountains. The reasons: they tread lightly on the wilderness. "'A llama can pack 40 to 60 pounds, but pull 300,' said Edwards, 37, a 186-pounder who can pack along an entire spike camp and food for three to six days. 'We go into roadless areas (in northeast Oregon) up to five or six miles. The guys on mountain bikes can't stand it.'" Bill Monroe in The Oregonian.
Hatch Outdoors has been around for only about a year and a half, but as a new provider of higher-end fly fishing reels they are already getting their sea legs. "Each of the four body designs are machined from aircraft-grade aluminum and have reel seats included in the frame for additional sturdiness without extra parts, such as screws, which can easily corrode. Hatch also produces a clothing line and accessories for fly-fishing enthusiasts." Jessica Musicar in California's North County Times.
Ask Glenn Brackett what ingredients are essential for crafting a fine bamboo fly rod and he mentions one essential: time off to fish the hatch. Another nice article about Glenn Brackett to come out of the turmoil at R. L. Winston. By Perry Backus of the Missoulian.
Ken Allen considers what invention truly is when it comes to tying flies, since often it is a minor change that makes a fly into a killer pattern. "In February 1985, I saw a new fly pattern -- new to me anyway -- rise into the public eye within two or three years, and the story shows how it often happens." On MaineToday.com.
"When I got back to hauling the fly, on the first tug it got bushwhacked, leaving a big boil in the current. The big pike tore line off the reel, making for the canal entrance fence, which was about the last place I wanted it to go." Neill Waugh does a private exploration of the impact of a recent Canadian National train wreck on the already encumbered habitat of Lake Wabamun — and gets a nice surprise. In the Edmunton Sun.
“'Here, we talk about redfish and rattlesnakes in the same breath,' [guide] Brandon [Schuler] said. 'Just try to focus on the redfish.'” Terry Gibson fly fishes Texas's Lower Laguna Madre, which he describes as "a submerged prairie in the middle of the desert." In Shallow Water Angler magazine.
George Lenker says author Marla Blair's Positive Fly Fishing (The Lyons Press, October 2005, 208 pages) "is filled with positive thinking and humor, such as the story of one fishing partner who learned the cold truth of the need to wear other clothing underneath his waders. But the book is largely instructional, taking both rookie and veteran anglers through the finer points of fly fishing." From MassLive.com. On Amazon.
Besides the Wrangler Pro Gear fishing pants — which we admit might make a better match to the Carhardt jacket than our permanently creased Dockers — Eric Sharp recommends Temple Fork Outfitters' budget-priced large arbor reels for last minute gifts. In the Detroit Free Press.
Montana Highway Patrol captain David Dill started his professional career breaking up bar fights in Park County in the 70s. "'They gave me a car, a badge and a big gun and told me to go out and enforce the law,' he said." Now he wants to become a fly fishing guide on the Bighorn River — where one would not be surprised to see a sign saying "Welcome back to the Wild Wild West." Greg Tuttle in the Billings Gazette.
A Wisconsin doctor figures that because fish see ultraviolet light, spraying flies with crystals that reflect UVA rays should enable trout to see flies better. "Treated with these flashing, iridescent crystals, baits and lures attract fish from great distances whenever the sun is above the horizon — even on dark and stormy days, as clouds are easily penetrated by UVA light."
Not many people can claim to have 60 years of bonefishing under their belt. But beginning in the rum running days of the Prohibition, the Bahamas' Israel Rolle has played host to everyone from Ernest Hemingway to Dr. Martin Luther King. Daphne McIntosh in The Bahama Journal.
The University of Miami and conservation group Bonefish & Tarpon Unlimited say that Florida Keys bonefish stocks are healthy after the second of their yearly counts. "The number is up slightly from last year's 300,000-count, but that is probably because more guides were involved this year. Sport-fishing for bonefish is a $1-billion-a-year business in South Florida." Don Wilson in The Orlando Sentinel.
"'Fly placement is critical,' [guide Rick DePaiva] said. 'And that carries over to those who like to cast lures or natural bait. You've got to place the fly where the reds can see it. If they don't see it, they're probably not going to eat it.'" Sounds obvious, but until you've seen redfish buried beyond their eyeballs in turtle grass you might miss the message: drag it right in front of their nose. On southwest Florida's HeraldTribune.com.
Juanita Struble, who ran the Glenn Struble Manufacturing company for 12 years after her husband's death, has sold the maker of fine reel seats and other components to a private buyer, a doctor. Paul Craig on KGW.com.
Bob Gwizdz reviews Bob Linsenman's new book about fly fishing for steelhead on Great Lakes rivers and streams: "Still, it is the where-to portion of the book that will probably provide the most useful information to anglers and that's where Linsenman did a thorough job, using local contacts to describe the tackle and techniques that produce on those particular waterways." Published by The Countryman Press in October 2005, Best Streams for Great Lakes Steelhead: A Complete Guide to the Fish, the Tactics, and the Places to Catch Them
There are many knowledgeable trout anglers who wouldn't think of going fishing without ant patterns in their fly box. Glenn West gives a basic recipe for tiers in The Billings Gazette.
Like James Babb, Ted Leeson writes dense, highly considered prose. But his eye is drawn less toward comic truths than toward the ironic, like the fact that "Fishermen, like the rest of humankind, will talk relentlessly and authoritatively about what they understand least."
If you're looking for an excuse to fit in more wintertime reading, Leeson provides it. Now on MidCurrent you can read an excerpt from the first chapter of his classic The Habit of Rivers.
I'm sure I'm not the only person to see the irony in more and more fly fishers choosing to use more seaworthy boats as flats skiffs. After all, the original "shallow water" skiff was typically a tank, beamy and with a flattened keel. And I've never heard anyone say that they needed 3 boats to handle all of their fishing, but I have yet to see a single boat that does it all, both providing a great ride in rough weather and letting me chase fish with a pushpole. Still everyone seems to need to learn this lesson first-hand. Tommy Thompson writes about two different personal choices in "flats skiffs" in Florida Sportsman.
New Mexico guide Don Oliver tours the Winston factory in 30-degree-below-zero weather and discovers the interesting history by the R. L. Winston name. "The company name, R.L Winston, was derived by combining the initials of the two founders' first names, Robert Winther and Lew Stoner. They then used the first three letters from Winther and the first four letters from Stoner to make up the company's last name." In the Farmington Daily Times.
Harvey Clark notes that the weather on New Zealand's queen of fly fishing rivers has been wet, hot and humid -- perfect dry fly conditions. He also describes an effective and interesting 3-fly set up: one large dry, a smaller dry, then finally a nymph. In the New Zealand Herald.
Name one fly fisher who hasn't dreamed of combining fly fishing with a cruise. OK, name ten. Tahitian tour operator Haumana Cruises believes there's a strong market in offering upscale Tahitian bonefishing tours.
A Bury (England) Free Press columnist has identified the source of most angling woes and reports a simple solution: talk to the animals.
Made of three layers of material instead of the standard two and cut with 12 peaks in a star shape pattern on the outside layer, the new Airflo Ridge Line takes an interesting new direction. "The Ridge Line's increased water retention dramatically reduces the friction caused when the line runs through the guides of a fishing rod, making it easier to cast and control." Aled Blake on ICWales.com.
"Prior to the disastrous Cedar fire in 2003, Allen Greenwood, co-founder of San Diego Trout, led a group to collect 16 native coastal rainbow trout from the upper waters of Sweetwater Creek in Cuyamaca Rancho State Park. With permission from the California Department of Fish & Game, the fish were put into an aquarium at the Chula Vista Nature Center, which sits at the mouth of the Sweetwater River." The October Cedar fire wiped out all of the native trout in the Sweetwater River, and now scientists are trying to turn those remaining fish into a breeding population. Ernie Cowen in the North County Times.
Yep, that's right. Target the apex of the food chain with a fly rod while floating on a popsicle stick.
"It goes like this: Motor anywhere from 5 to 30 miles off the Southern California coast in a 24-foot open hull boat until the ocean floor drops away into canyons over a thousand feet deep. There, you ride the swells above schooling baitfish, mackerel, and tuna to chum, tease, and hook a predator as large as yourself on a 14-weight fly rod." Kirk Deter in Field & Stream.
According to USAToday columnist Theresa Howard, girly men and their girly gifts are out this year. "Marketers are eager this holiday season to tap the übersexual trend, including with the men themselves. That's because men are expected to outspend women by 60% this year on 'self-gifting' — buying gifts for yourself." Among her suggested perfect gifts for the hirsute of mind are fly fishing travel, gear, and instruction.
So next time you decide to self-gift, remember that you have placed yourself neatly into a marketing category.
"Ernest Schwiebert, an architect and planner whose lifelong passion for fishing led him to write influential books on piscatorial matters like how trout perceive insects - all the better to make lures to catch them - died on Saturday at his home in Princeton, N.J. He was 74. The cause was renal cancer, said his son, Erik." Even though the obituary speciously credits Mr. Schwiebert with being the first to "link" artificial flies to emerging mayflies, it does include interesting details about Schwiebert's extraordinary contributions to the sport. Article by Douglas Martin.
Stu Apte, John Morris, George Parker, Donald Tyson and Edward vom Hofe were inducted into the IGFA Hall of Fame at a special dinner ceremony on December 11, two months after hurricane Wilma interrupted the original event. Pete Johnson on FishingWorld.com.
This week Mike Mercer delivers a comprehensive look at Alaska lodges: their types, locations and seasons by species. "Alaska Trips: Choosing a Lodge" gives key advice on planning a trip to one of the many fantastic fisheries there, including tips on how to uncover openings at the top lodges.
"'It’s a real eye-opener when you see how many fish use these creeks,' [Oregon state fish biologist Chuck] Fustish says. 'So when you wash your car, paint your house or use herbicides, don’t dump them in a drain....'" Rogue basin scientists are discovering that even the smallest streams — creeks that often are dry in summer — provide a winter-time refuge for trout. Mark Freeman in Oregon's Mail Tribune.
Ernest Schwiebert, author of several important books in including the Nymphs
New York Times writer Peter Kaminsky has a new book out that confirms his status as unrecovered fishaholic. "Peter Kaminsky does not merely love fly fishing, he is giddy, schoolboy-crush besotted with it, still -- after 32 years." American Waters
Of course they are an altogether different experience than you'll find with native steelhead on the west coast, but the fish that come out of Lake Ontario and Lake Erie and muscle their way up Ohio, Pennsylvania and New York rivers are numerous and big. J. Michael Kelly gives a good intro to well-known New York steelhead rivers in New York Game & Fish magazine. "Steelhead begin nosing into Great Lakes feeder streams in late September and October to feed on eggs tumbling from the redds made by spawning Pacific salmon and brown trout."
Here is a mildly disturbing, vastly entertaining series of pieces by Outside magazine writers who were asked to talk about their various preferred guilty pleasures. Among the less questionable is Ian Frazier's article on the cheap thrill of watching things get eaten. "I know this minor outdoor pastime is not entirely healthy, but it scratches an itch, somehow. On a river I can get so absorbed in watching trout feed on mayflies that I forget to fish." Frazier, by the way, contributed an excellent article to this week's New Yorker magazine on the accelerating spread of wild hogs around the U.S. and the world.
Pat Dorsey's new book is reviewed by Ed Dentry in the Rocky Mountain News today. "Spiced with sharp color photographs, illustrations, maps and insect-hatch charts, it might qualify as a coffee-table book, if it weren't so useful. With congenial prose, Dorsey stays focused on revealing what the South Platte has taught him and others." A Fly Fisher's Guide to the South Platte River
Bill Cochran gathered this list of Virginia's pay-to-fish trout waters from Dan Genest, a corporate communications specialist for Dominion power company (see our entry on how Dominion has been supporting Trout Unlimited in the Virginia area). "I fully realize some anglers frown on paying to fish. I’m not one of them. If someone is willing to offer me the right to fish on their private stream, I’m willing to pay in order to keep the stream open to angling," Cochran says. In the Roanoke Times.
Stu Apte, who is to be inducted on Sunday into the IGFA's Fishing Hall of Fame, recalls catching his 12-pound-tippet dolphin record off of Panama in 1964. "It was 41 years ago, in early December 1964, while Apte was fishing out of Pinas Bay, Panama. He was scouting the ocean that day in an old single-engine, lapstrake boat when he spotted a mahogany tree bobbing on the surface. 'You could see the big, blue pecks,' Apte said. 'There were three of them. I had a popping bug with a 2/0 hook. I bounced the popping bug off the log. After the second big chug, the smallest of the three came up and ate it.'" Willie Howard in the Palm Beach Post.
Chief fly fishing instructor David Pilkington at Devon, England's Arundell Arms hotel says the reason why women are better at fly fishing is simple: it's their "deadly, focused attitude." He suggests that they also have a reputation as better salmon fishers because of "the male ego. Get men together and they can't resist casting the longest line possible, whereas women understand a fish is just as likely to be lying under the bank at your feet rather than on the opposite shore." Carolyn Bankes in the U.K. Telegraph.
Of all places to find animated knots.... The Grogono family Web site recently moved its animated knots pages to their own domain, www.animatedknots.com. There aren't a ton of fly fishing knots here, but the presentation is well thought out and better than many animated knots we've seen. Kudos to the Moldy Chum blog for uncovering this one.
Robert Ramsay, previously a financial advisor with Raymond James in Atlanta, Georgia, took over the role of president of the American Fly Fishing Trade Association on December 1. He replaces Mark Vidovich, who had been AFFTA's president since October 2001.
Depleted by drought and fire, the trout of the Cleveland National Forest streams are replenished by state agencies and local volunteers, despite objections from Forest managers. "Lugging buckets fixed with battery-powered aerators, they carried wiggly trout to pools at Boulder and Cottonwood creeks. Flashing as fast as fireworks, the trout disappeared under rocks and grassy stream banks." Terry Rodgers on MercedSearch.com.
As we noted back at the end of October, Glenn Brackett and much of his team at Winston Rods are departing the company. The Associated Press notes more details about the reasons for the departure in today's Billings Gazette. "Said Wayne Maca, another of those resigning, 'They do not seem to understand that you do not simply walk in the door and learn to build bamboo rods.'"
"With colder water, [Craig] Dennison said, 'They will start seeking deeper holes, slower water, and still prefer seams in front of and behind rocks. They are less likely to travel more than a few inches to take a fly.' That means the angler needs to drop his fly ('egg patterns are still highly effective') to or near the bottom." Gary Fallesen describes the methods New York anglers use to target cold weather steelhead in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.
Fly Fishing Team USA member George Daniel has already racked up quite a few interesting fly fishing experiences at the age of 26. "Logging more than 220 days of fly-fishing a year, it's no wonder he excels at the sport. But a little bit of luck and a good-luck charm don't hurt. 'I wear my Richardson chest fly box every time I'm on the water. I have worn one since I was 12 and I feel lost without it on the stream,' he said." Jeffrey Allen Federowicz on Pennsylvania's CentreDaily.com.
The purpose of the American Bamboo Rodmakers Association, as noted on their Web site, is to "promote the use of bamboo fly rods, preserve the legacy and craft of making bamboo fly rods and dispel the myths surrounding them."
"Make your bottom fly the larva stage. Just above the fly imitating the larva s
