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Coming August 8 from Random House, this new history of bamboo rods in the U.S. promises to be good reading for split cane rod anglers and craftsmen. Casting a Spell: The Bamboo Fly Rod and the American Pursuit of Perfection (hardcover, 272 pages) is by George Black, who also wrote The Trout Pool Paradox (Houghton Mifflin, 2004, 336 pages), a history of Connecticut's Housatonic and its tributaries.
Tackle junkies take heart: Joe Doggett advises a rod for every condition and species when destination fishing in the Yucatan. "It's a rookie mistake to rely on one or even two. Three is the accepted minimum, and many veterans feel ill-equipped without four or five." Doggett gives his list of the essential four rods in his lineup in The Houston Chronicle.
As Eric Sharp points out, carp are legendary for their hyper-sensitivity and caution, so anglers must follow strict rules when it comes to stalking them. "Let's get something straight -- we're not fishing for bass, which are so aggressive they'll hit an old doorknob, or trout, which are so dumb they sometimes don't recognize food even when they're starving." In the Detroit Free Press.
Visit Craig, Montana anytime in the summer and you'll find yourself awash in fly fishing culture, if only because 90 percent of the visitors there are fly fishing the upper Missouri below Holter Dam, one of the most reliable fishing spots in the state. "There's air conditioning inside The Trout Shop, an emporium loaded with cool fishing stuff: flyrods, vests, waders, flies, ventilated clothing and even a well-stocked deli offering drinks, sandwiches and chilled salads. Even the thick fleece-lined jackets have a perverse retail appeal." James Larcombe draws a nice vignette in the Great Falls Tribune.
"About 120,000 juvenile chinook were killed in the incident, and these fish are released as yearlings as part of the blackmouth fishery in Puget Sound." Mark Yuasa in the Seattle Times.
Traveling around the U.S. and testing the fishing in various critical habitats, Luca Adelfio has been blogging for TU since April. There's some fine conservation writing here, and some surprisingly good tactical advice for fishing many of the more well-known -- if far-flung -- trout waters. Some decent photos of each location accompany each entry, like this one looking down on Colorado's Gunnison River from July 24. "Peering over the edge of Black Canyon, the Gunnison River appeared straight below me. I immediately wondered if the park ranger had forgotten to issue me a parachute along with my backcountry permit."
Ken Allen recounts a lesson on how to prospect for deep trout from a canoe with sinking lines and long casts. "When casting, I like more fly line (and maybe backing) coiled on the floor or in a stripping basket than I can throw. After each cast, I feed out loose line -- say 20 feet -- so the fly sinks in an L-shape with the tip of my rod being the top of the L." On MaineToday.com.
"I'm north of Waldo Lake, driving my pickup on a road that's like a giant, well-rutted rattlesnake. It's just me, my Nissan and 100 trout." Bob Welch delivers a great comic narrative on his adventures in stocking a high mountain Oregon lake with rainbow trout in the Register-Guard.
There's little doubt that as time passes, those fish that never quite made it to the the net or the hand are the ones most remembered. For me, there are too many to count, but one or two stand out. Like the bonefish that swam by the boat during a big tournament; had I been faster on my feet, I would have netted that fish before he had another chance to go get tangled in the mangroves and we would have been the first team in the history of the tournament to catch a grand slam on fly. There are even fish not cast to because they were so large they didn't look like our quarry. Sad but true. And there were fish that I was glad not to land, like the 500-pound blue marlin that broke a custom-made fly line. All still vivid pictures in memory.
In his Virtual Fish blog, Nick Mills recites a quote from Lord Gray of Fallodin's 1899 book, Fly Fishing: "It is our lost fish that I believe stay longest in memory...." And he recounts a few stories from his own memory bank, like an Androscoggin rainbow that shook his brother's composure. On MaineToday.com.
Weak tides and a lack of almost any wind made fishing frustrating for most of the participants in last week's Del Brown Invitational Permit Tournament in Key West, Florida. Angler Warren Hinrichs did catch 3 fish to take top honors, but only two other anglers caught a fish in the 3-day event. "Hinrich’s catches included a 30-incher that was the tournament’s single largest permit. The fish was three inches longer than the one that earned him the largest fish award in the 2005 tournament." Carolina Bustamante on FishingWorld.com.
Huey Lewis and other landowners want the Mitchell Slough near Victor, Montana, to be a ditch, not a stream. This despite the fact that it was once part of the nearby Bitterroot River and is apparently fed by underground springs. "The long-running controversy began in 1991, when two brothers, Randy and Robert Rose, who some view as the Rosa Parks of the fly-fishing set, defied the landowners’ restrictions and went fishing on the slough. They were arrested for trespassing but were found not guilty by a jury in the court of Justice of the Peace Ed Sperry." Jim Robbins in The New York Times.
"We were a happy group, strangers at first, friends within days. Arguments abounded under the palm-studded sunsets, but most debates concerned tackle and technique — no exchange to my knowledge dealt with global power or political preference, or right and wrong beyond the merits of an 8-weight over a 6-weight for tailing bonefish under the afternoon trades." Joe Doggett relishes a week away from world news and computers during a trip to the Yucatan's Boca Paila. In the Houston Chronicle.
"When explorer Jacques Cartier visited Labrador in 1534, he called it 'the land God gave to Cain...fit only for wild beasts.' While I doubt he was referring to the native brook trout that thrived in Labrador's nearly countless lakes, he may as well have been." Dave Sherwood writes about the enormous brook trout that populate Labrador's many lakes, ponds and waterways on MaineToday.com.
Children teach us that the most simple and abundant pleasures of fishing can come from reinventing a basic skill, like jigging. I'm reminded of this all the time when I hear someone's story of a brand new fly or a secret fishing spot. But with kids, there's no worry over authorship, no whispering or vows of secrecy. It doesn't matter if they are relearning something practiced thousands of years ago or sharing something they just figured out that morning.
C.J. Chivers describes a summer tale of perch fishing in southern Finland and the magic of falling under fishing's spell. "In fishing terms, Mick is teaching himself to jig. Granted, yellow perch are not the most game of game fish, and jigging — a form of tricking fish that can be traced to prehistory — is not exactly Mick’s invention, although he thinks so. But important things are happening here, which can give a life part of its shape." In The New York Times.
As we reported on July 6, a Norfolk Southern train derailed near Gardeau, Pennysylvania and dumped 48,000 gallons of caustic soda into Portage Creek, causing a total loss of aquatic life in at least 10 miles of the stream. State officials are now trying to come up with financial estimates for the cost of restoration, while many distraught locals are wondering how to keep something like this from happening again.
"Two days after the spill, [watershed specialist Jim] Zoschg visited one of his favorite fishing spots along the Driftwood Branch of the Sinnemahoning Creek, about 16 miles downstream of the derailment. Instead of a fly rod, Zoschg carried a digital camera. 'I was thinking, "I should be down here fishing wet flies, and here I am photographing dead fish,"' he said." Christian Berg in Pennsylvania's The Morning Call.
A landmark fishing store housed in the Chelsea Hotel in downtown Manhattan is moving to less pricey digs after 42 years of selling tackle to the notable and the notorious. "'Sid Vicious used to come in here with Nancy Spungen,' said Richard Collins, 51, a former clerk who has owned the store for the past 32 years. Mr. Collins, who is known as Richie, makes this statement as if he were describing Sheriff Andy Taylor dropping by with his young son, Opie, on 'The Andy Griffith Show.'" Anthony Ramirez in The New York Times.
One of the best bits of advice given to me as I was learning to fly fish for trout came in the form of a question: "Why don't you use a fly you can see?" Mind you, this was on what was known as a "technical" stream, where the fish were feeding on a specific (dark) insect. It certainly didn't occur to me that there was more to hooking these fish than presenting them with their food du jour. That much, I thought, I knew. But the casts were long, the wading deep, and I wasn't really able to see my tiny fly at all -- I just thought I knew where it was.
Turns out I didn't. Tying on a pattern with a small white post showed me that the fly was taking on drag much earlier than I had imagined. The change was made, the fish began biting, and I had absorbed an important lesson in dry fly selection.
This week on MidCurrent Rick Kustich writes about Hi-Viz patterns and why they work in "Eyes on the Drys." As Kustich, author of Fly Fishing for Great Lakes Steelhead and other books notes, "The challenge is to produce flies you can see from a distance, but without compromising their realistic appearance."
Nick Mills does some good-natured fuming about the newly arrived Orvis catalog, which advertises "the end of the season." "End of season?? Wait a *#&$@% minute! Tempus fugit and all that, but end of season? Can't be, I thought, and a quick check of the ol' calendar on the wall proved that they were only half right." On MaineToday.com.
Back when Tom Bailey was divorced in 1991, it was rumored among the guides that the only thing he and his wife couldn't agree on splitting was his week with a Key West tarpon guide. Perhaps that's as good an example as any of the obsessive commitment he brings to his pursuits, such when he managed the Janus Fund, a progenitor of the many famous mutual funds that took root in the last 30 years. What's he do now? Work with cutting horses.
"A fuzzy, black dry fly on a size 24 hook looked a little too big for a perfect imitation, but a large split shot on the tippet carried this offering to the bottom and turned my day around. The browns slammed this micro fly pattern all afternoon." Ken Allen notes the age-old controversy over the use of weight on leaders, but determines that the loudest opponents are those who get to fish wherever and whenever they want. On MaineToday.com.
Fish & Fly magazine has posted an excellent video interview with Tibor Reels founder and master craftsman Ted Juracsik on its new Web site. The video shows the making of a typical saltwater reel in detail -- from cutting the billet to shaping to polishing, anodizing and assembling. There's plenty of interested detail: how cork drags are instrinsically smooother than synthetic, for example, because of the ability of the individual cork granuals to begin moving before friction is created on the drag surface. Ted tells his own story of escaping the 1956 Hungarian revolution, learning English in a Brooklyn orphanage and finding his way as a machine worker in the U.S. -- worthy of a video by itself --in between segments.
"The sun poked out as we reached our destination. Kerteminde, a typical Danish fishing port, sits at the mouth of a shallow fjord on the island of Fyn, wedged between the mainland Jutland and the major island of Zealand. Fyn, with its 1,100 kilometers of coastline and brackish waters, is known for its sea trout of well over nine kilograms; commercial fishermen net fish over 18 kilograms. The fish migrate upriver each autumn to spawn, returning to the sea in spring." Steve Percy writes about learning to fly fish for sea trout on the Danish coast, and the Wall Street Journal actually posts pictures of fly patterns (!).
While fishing with MidCurrent reader Chris Miller in Biscayne Bay a few weeks ago, our guide, Bob Branham said many things that brought back memories. Among the stories about wealthy but penurious clients, Bob inserted a veteran guide's truism: "There are easier ways to make money." Add to that the fact that there are many more direct ways for a person to go connect with fish than to depend on someone else to do the catching, and you begin to sense the rarified atmosphere in which a guide who has worked for ten, or twenty, or thirty years has learned to operate. Bob Rosner's blog on ABCNews.com reminded me of this and of something I said to myself -- many times over -- during my first year of guiding: "Damn, this is hard work." As Bob observes: "Fly fishing, sex, working in your yard, photography, cooking … [fill in the blank with one of your favorite ways to pass the time]. Now I'd like you to take that favorite activity and do it for eight hours starting on Monday. Then do it for another eight hours on Tuesday. And for good measure, do it 40 hours a week, 50 or so weeks a year."
But then, as some folks who've managed to turn their passion into an avocation will tell you, there's much to be said for taking this route in life. Somehow surviving the disappointment of having the things you love to do turn into a chore is transforming. Number one, being forced to learn to enjoy something all over again teaches you aspects of your passion that you can't learn any other way, if only because you have to look for confirmation in things other than your own psyche: people, places, events. Two, you find, perhaps decades down the line, that you have been gifted with opportunity to truly know something at your core. It's not a privilege everyone can claim.
So "draining?" Yes. Rewarding? Like nothing else.
If you've been a lifetime reader -- or anything close to it -- of National Geographic, you know that the Great Smoky Mountains in the southeast U.S. are a favorite topic. They just added a convenient guide to the Park to their Web site, mentioning travel in and around the region and several choice spots. "The 2,115 miles (3,404 kilometers) of streams found within the park provide plenty of opportunities for fishing. Licenses are required and must be purchased outside the park in North Carolina or Tennessee. Brook trout fishing—prohibited for more than 30 years—has recently been reopened under experimental park regulations." Blue-liner paradise, as far as we can tell.
"In all directions around me I can see nothing but an endless world of blue and green — water, mangroves, sky. There are no other boats or people, nothing but the wind blowing notes through my rod guides. Standing on the bow deck of a small motorboat, I scan the wide, sandy shelf for movement but see only mirages. Out on the flat, everything can look like a bonefish, while bonefish themselves can look like nothing." Author Scott Bowen describes his first experiences bonefishing, interestingly enough in the Turks and Caicos. On MidCurrent.
It's been a long time since the fly fishing industry has enjoyed an "upside surprise" in any participation research. Still, it's worth digging into the most recent numbers a bit, if only because data can be skewed by weather events and sampling techniques. (Note, for example, that bicycling showed an even larger decline in 2004-2005 than fly fishing, this in a year that Lance Armstrong won his 7th Tour de France and bicycle retailers reported increased sales.) Perhaps the numbers say something about buying habits: sports that require "technical" gear are on the decline. We think it also says something about time management; activities that require an overnight commitment are also losing participants.
But here it is: the annual Outdoor Recreation Participation Study done by the Outdoor Industry Foundation was released on June 19 and shows that between 2004 and 2005, participation in fly fishing decreased by 20 percent. Overall, total outings decreased by 11 percent. Trail-running and snow-shoeing showed the largest increases in participation. "'The Outdoor Recreation Participation Study confirms trends that emerged last year: participants are focusing on low-commitment activities, especially those that can be done in a day, in locations near their homes and with limited technical equipment.'"
Interestingly, if you look at the OIF data for the past 5 years, the trend in fly fishing participation is still up. Since 2004 was a peak year, with 18.2 million participants, 2005's 14.7 million participant count looks like a big drop, but it was still higher than participation in any of the three years prior to 2004.
You can read more details of the study on the OIF Web site.
A landmark of Catskill fishing, the Antrim Inn was being renovated as a lodge and restaurant when it was ruined by fire yesterday morning. "For nearly three decades, beginning in the 1950s, the Antrim Lodge was as much a part of the area's rich fishing tradition as the famed tributaries that surround it. Sportswriters like columnist Red Smith would take part in the annual 'Two-Headed Trout' roundtable on the eve of trout season. President Jimmy Carter, a fly-fishing enthusiast, once ate there." Victor Whitman in New York's Times Herald-Record.
One could describe poet and author Jim Harrison as a master of obsessive behavior, but the neo-Victorians among us are sure to misinterpret: Harrison has lifted his obsessions to a fine art and done as much to vindicate them as anyone of his generation. New West writer Allen Jones gives us more of a good thing with his interview of Harrison, who in the opinion of many -- anglers and non-anglers, writers and non-writers -- is as gifted a writer as we have. "He likes his things. Four shelves in his writing shed are devoted to mementoes, including a garish, ceramic human skull (something maybe from Mexico's festival of the dead) as well as an array of gourd rattles. A jawbone. Photos. He handed me an antique bronze metal tag, stamped with a number and the words, Bureau of Indian Affairs. He said, 'That was a body tag. I guess they liked to keep track of the people they killed.'"
Looks like long-time light tackle guide and "Spanish Fly" host Jose Wejebe has a new fascination: kit planes. "'A benefit to experimental aircraft is that you are able to install parts and systems that are sometimes better than those on certified planes,' said Wejebe, who did more than 50 percent of the construction on his own plane over the course of a year and posted a photographic diary of his experience on his Web site for fans." (Look for the "diary" in the What Up section; thanks to reader Ben Stafford for this link.) Gayla Schaefer in Florida Today.
Dan Blanton took a photo of fellow angler Mike Matica's new earring while on his annual trip to Australia. Ray Sasser shows the image -- poorly optimized, unfortunately -- in his article in the Dallas News. "The fly guys could take self-inflicted body piercing to the next level. Each fly worn through the eyebrow, ear or nose could signify an exceptional fish caught and released. Thus, you could look at the anglers and quickly tell how many big fish they've caught and what fly patterns they favor."
"Commonly referred to as the mahogany dun, this fly officially lives only in a half-dozen places. Yet from the heavily-fished waters of the Au Sable and Manistee to my favorite little secret stream in the western Upper Peninsula, I've found a No. 10 mahogany to be a reliable fish catcher starting about the first week in July and often continuing through the first frost in September." Eric Sharp writes about the under-recognized Isonchia and the often-misidentified green drake in the Detroit Free Press.
Norfolk Southern could be fined $35,000 a day, starting with the day one of its trains dumped caustic lye into Sinnemahoning-Portage Creek, based on a finding that the train far exceeded the speed limit in that section of track. "Cole Davis, a committee chairman with the Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen, said the train's event recorder shows it was traveling 73 mph down what he described as a 'treacherous hill' when it derailed." Don Hopey of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.
Lee Dunn and Gordon Churchill wander the spartina grass flats near Newport, North Carolina hunting up redfish and providing a classic vignette of how it should be done. "Churchill spotted another fish feeding next to a grassy hammock and again slowly eased his way into casting range, fighting a stubborn east wind while trying to cast to the fish. As Churchill worked, Dunn, perched high on the poling platform, could see three other drum, and he kept Churchill apprised of their movements as Churchill tried to work his way into a better angle, the soft bottom necessitating steady, slow movement." Mike Zlotnicki on ScrippsNews.com.
The Kennebec River's rainbow trout are something of an anomaly in Maine, but they tug at the soul of a few dedicated anglers, including Jim Messer, who seems to have found a recipe for perfect fishing: live with your parents, fish in your socks, and utilize a customized 20-foot Jon-boat imported from Arkansas. "He spends 50 hours or more on the river each week, fishing hard every day until thunderstorms, high water flows or darkness drive him home to bed, bleary-eyed, sore-shouldered and exhausted." Dave Sherwood on MaineToday.com.
Canadian National Flyfishing Championships competitor Mark Anderson writes about his somewhat accidental achievements and inevitable return to reality in the Ottawa Citizen. His storyline includes mention of the Coral Booby, which achieves secret killer fly status during the tourneys -- deservedly so, from the looks of the picture.
Maybe my Wranglers will finally get a pocket large enough to hold a fly box. The CEO of the world's largest jeans maker -- VF corporation -- mentions Orvis as a possible acquisition target in Forbes this morning. "[Mackey] McDonald won't comment on Eddie Bauer, which is up for sale, but mentions hunting-and-fly-fishing supplier Orvis, which also makes clothes. 'It may not be fashionable to some, but it will be to others,' says McDonald." Article by Suzanne Hoppough.
Son Erik Schwiebert and editor Scott Bowen have confirmed with MidCurrent that Ernest Schwiebert's last book, a complete update and revision of his 1973 classic, Nymphs, will be published in two volumes by The Lyons Press in the spring and summer of 2007: Vol. 1 The Mayflies, and Vol. 2 Caddisflies, Stoneflies, Midges, and Others. This new two-part edition will contain a number of new illustrations by the author, which he completed shortly before his death in December 2005.
Here's an update and thorough review of whirling disease, a problem that remains invisible to the average angler but which is not going away any time soon. "The worst fears about whirling disease did not come to pass, but whirling disease continues to spread. 'If anything, it's just as severe a problem as it was in the 1990s,' said Dave Kumlien, executive director of the Whirling Disease Foundation, a non-profit organization he co-founded in 1995 in Bozeman to primarily help develop a research plan and promote solid scientific research on whirling." Peggy O'Neill in the Helena, Montana Independent Record.
The new Super 5 Narrow ("S-5N") is a large arbor, narrow spool, disc drag trout reel expressly designed for 5- and 6-weight flylines. "The American-made S-5N is machined from cold finished 6061-T aircraft quality aluminum. 'Cold finished aluminum is significantly more expensive than extruded aluminum; but the cold finishing process dramatically increases the molecular density. It creates a stronger metal. Reels are then precision machined (not die cast) on C.N.C. lathes and mills,' said [Abel spokesman Don] Swanson." Email Abel Reels for more info.
The East fork of Yellowstone Park's Specimen Creek will be blocked and poisoned three times over the next two years to help recovery of genetically pure Westslope trout. "Once the fish are killed and removed, park officials will replace them with westslope trout. The trout will come from a previously unknown, genetically pure westslope population found last summer on the western edge of Yellowstone." Mike Stark in the Billings Gazette.
Oregon's Elk Creek is the target of local commissioners who want to build a 186-foot-tall dam to provide irrigation water for farmers. This while Congress, after 20 years, is finally close to approving the $13 million required to remove the disastrous Savage Rapids Dam on the Rogue, into which Elk Creek flows. "They are hoping that U.S. taxpayers will cough up at least $100 million to build a dinosaur of a dam that will burden future generations with substantial, undeserved economic and environmental liabilities." Douglas Larson in The Oregonian.
Hal Herring interiewed Thomas McGuane for New West, which has, in our minds, become one of the most insightful online rags out there (it was started by Jonathan Weber, who founded the meteoric The Industry Standard which some may remember from the Dot.com years).
From the interview: "'There was a time, about ten years, where I didn't do anything but work. One day Russell Chatham came over and stood around, finally said, "I could never live like this," and left. And that was not a particularly productive time for me. This year, I've already been tarpon fishing twice. So many of my friends have gotten old and just fish for a little while and they're ready to head in. I still like to fish from, as my rancher friend Buster Welch in Texas would say ‘from can't see to can't see.'"
"'They were dive-bombing in the root beer floats,' said Gary Rudy, owner of Rudy's Drive-In, whose family has been slinging burgers and soft drinks since 1966." LaCrosse, Wisconsin residents who flipped on National Weather Service radar on June 30 saw a puzzling atmospheric phenomenon: billions of mayflies clouding the screen around the Mississippi River. Lee Berquist in the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.
Biologists think they have discovered the source of the lake trout that have been decimating the cutthroat trout population in Yellowstone Lake. The evidence comes from matching otoliths with lake trout in nearby lakes, and it seems that "bucket biologists" were likely responsible for transporting trout into Yellowstone Lake in 1989 and 1996. "By comparing the age of the fish to the location of change in the otolith, the scientists found that lake trout most likely moved from their original habitat twice, once in 1989 and again in 1996. Further, by comparing the early strontium/calcium levels of suspected transplants with fish that lived their whole lives in either Lewis or Heart lakes, the scientists concluded that the source of the Yellowstone Lake lake trout was most likely Lewis Lake." Cory Hatch in the Jackson Hole News and Guide.
Perhaps predictably, some non-fishing residents of Livingston Manor, New York, think that the best way to protect houses that have been built in the flood plain is to have the Army Corp of Engineers dredge the Willowemoc. The alarming thing is that some officials are actually listening.
Gene Mueller describes the ingredients necessary to play in the game of saltwater fly rod record-chasing. "All you need is to practice fly-fishing, learn how to cast accurately, then hook a large number of fish to get a feel for the 'magic wand,' as some wags describe a fly-rod. When you're done with that, stop by the nearest hardware store and purchase a deep wheelbarrow. You will need it to transport all the money necessary to chase one record after another." In the Washington Times.
"Asproth will tie them purposely with bent wings. He'll bend a perfectly good hook and tie a Hex with one wing dragging so it looks injured. He'll trim off some of its hackle so it lies on its side. He'll tie a Hex spinner fly with an egg sac attached to it." Sam Cook profiles well-known fly tier Dave Asproth -- a man whose larger-than-life flies match his personality in the eyes of many anglers. In the Duluth News Tribune.