The Classical Angler

Conventional wisdom

2011-06-14T12:59:00.001-05:00

Can be wrong…

Being a professional in the fly fishing industry often exposes me to contact with what can be termed ‘conventional wisdom’. This can best be defined as popular opinion or sentiment relating to the equipment, approach, or techniques of this little sport of ours.
The problem with conventional wisdom is that it is tied to trends and popular movements. These movements gain momentum and voice in online forums, magazine articles, youtube videos, and around the campfire, and are often promoted by tackle manufacturers and guides that want you to purchase their goods and services.

This can, and very often is a good thing. Innovation has played a great part in making this sport more accessible and enjoyable for all of us.

However, sometimes conventional wisdom and trends can become so viral that they obscure or mask the truth.

There are quite a few examples of this, but in the cause of brevity and clarity, I will concentrate on just one.

Conventional Wisdom: Using a 15’ spey rod with a longer belly line will tire you out. It is too much rod to be sporting. It is too difficult. It can’t be used when it is windy. It can’t be used when your back is against the wall and backcast room is limited.

Lets examine this.

First off, this sentiment comes from a trend toward lighter shorter rods using shooting heads and those who prefer to cast and fish with them. Often the conventional wisdom is repeated and proclaimed by those who, when challenged, finally admit that they have little or no precedence for their opinion. They are just repeating what the sheeple say. Going against conventional wisdom is difficult, especially in this day and age of internet informational access. Everyone gives advice and backs each other’s opinions. The trend builds until any one who questions it is laughed at.

Debunking popular opinions can also open up new doors to wisdom. Great inventors and thinkers are always asking themselves “Why?” “Where is the proof?” “Is there a different/better way?” We also have to consider the source of the conventional trend. Where is it coming from? Does someone have an agenda?

Conventional wisdom #1:“Using a 15’ spey rod with a longer belly line will tire you out”

The problem here is not that this is a false statement, but with the word ‘will’ instead of ‘can.’
Five or ten years ago I would have drank the koolaid and believed it. Now…. No.
I remember the shoulder pain and all the troubles associated with my 14’ 9/10 spey rod and an accompanying windcutter line. At the end of the day, I would rub ben-gay on my shoulder. People told me it was due to the rod. It was too big a rod. Lifting it into position and sweeping it back to form the D-loop was just too tiring. So…. I bought a shorter Scandinavian shooting head rod and line and used it for a few years, and was happy with the distance and ease, but unhappy with all the tangles. I was looking for ease, or searching for the magic bean.

Then a few years ago, I tried the big rods again, this time with mid and long bellies and 15’ rods. I hated it. It literally drove me nuts. Then something happened: I learned to cast them properly. In the end, it was easy, with far less effort then any other style of two-handed casting I had adopted. See, it was me all along. Not the rod. Not the line. Me.
So, yes, it can be tiring, but with proper technique, it isn’t. Not at all. What IS tiring is all the practice I put in to get to this point, but I guess I have always taken the path with the most brambles; convinced that on the other side the grass will be greener. In this case, it was.

After all, a little voice in my head kept telling me, “All those old-timers at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th cast rods that weighed ten times as much as mine, were they supermen? Was I and everyone else just too damn soft and wussy? How did they do it?”

I guess the answer is that with the tackle available back then, they just dug deep and learned to cast.

Then I brought shooting head lines down to the river and compared them to longer lines on the same rods. Guess what? What ended up tiring me out was all that stripping of running line on the shooting heads.

So there we have it. Conventional wisdom # 1 debunked. It can be more tiring, but with proper technique, it isn’t. In fact, it can be less tiring as the proper casting stroke makes the rod itself do 80% of the work. What is tiring is fighting the rod itself due to improper form. I still struggle with my technique. Casts are good and bad, but when things go right, it is as easy as buttered bread and as pretty as a sunset.

Conventional wisdom # 2: “It is too much rod to be sporting.”

Horse-hockey.

A long rod acts like the proverbial willow tree. It bends against the force of the wind (fish) and thus, through it’s long flexibility, is an ideal tool for fighting fish. I have had my hat handed to me by fish caught on 15’ rods. Bent to the cork with screaming reel and out of control cart wheeling fish, the rod was not at all overkill. Quite the opposite in fact. Stiff shorter rods in vogue these days offer the angler an advantage in power that has been known for years by musky and tarpon fishermen. Fish are not all the same. Some are logs and some go crazy, and I have caught both on shorter rods with shooting heads, and longer rods with long-bellies. The fish decides the fight.

Conventional wisdom # 3: “It can’t be used when it is windy.”

Poppycock.

I used to think this too. I swallowed the koolaid just like everyone else until a day on the river with a gale-force wind blowing upstream. I was fishing with a friend who was using a short shooting head rod. I was using a 15’ rod with a 90’ long belly line. My friend’s running line kept blowing upstream in a huge arc as the cast was made, effectively destroying the cast itself. My longer and more powerful rod was able to drive fishable casts up to 80 feet into the howling wind. The mass in the line lessened the effect of the wind to a great extent. A light bulb went off in my head. Eureka.

Conventional wisdom # 4: “It is too difficult.”

Once again, the problem is with semantics. What is too difficult? What is a challenging path of learning for one person may not appeal to a second person. Difficulty is in how we approach the sport. Some people choose to challenge themselves to the ultimate in fair chase, giving the fish or game an advantage. Others choose to use a difficult tool and enjoy the mastery of it and the challenging efforts that came with it. Some people just want to catch numbers of fish. I expect we could all agree that fly fishing is inherently more difficult than spin fishing or bait casting. Some of us took up fly fishing because we wanted an advantage. Others took it up for romantic reasons. People took it up because for a few years, it was the popular and cool thing to do. Some took it up for its beauty and refinement, and the way it puts us in touch with nature.

Difficulty is on a sliding scale for all of us. The sliding scale also extends to equipment.
Casting a long belly line with a traditional spey rod is NOT easy. However, saying it is too difficult is doing it an injustice. It certainly is challenging, but then, so is fly fishing itself.

Conventional wisdom # 5: “It can’t be used when your back is against the wall and backcast room is limited.”

Actually, a lack of backcast room is what spey casting was invented to solve. Admittedly, this differs with bankside environment. I will be the first to say that short shooting head rods excel over longer rods and long lines in tight quarters. However, that doesn’t mean that the long rods are useless here.

In rivers with overhanging brush and trees, especially deciduous flora, long rods can be a mess. I tested this theory and whacked my rod so many times on twigs and limbs that I came to the opinion that yes, a 15’ rod had no place here. Even 12’ 6” rods struggle in these conditions. However, I also fish wide-open rivers with steep rock banks where wading out even a step more to increase D-loop or backcast room will find one drinking river water. I simply changed the angle of my cast, shortened up my line, or placed my line anchor in a different position. In other words, with the rod in my hand, the fish out there in the river, my back against the wall, and a choice to fish or go back to the car, I chose to adapt and think my way out of the challenge. Was it easy? No. Was it possible? Yes. In certain situations it actually was easier because the long rod gave me much more control over the line.

In conclusion, debunking theories can be a great learning experience. It also can sound preachy due to inherent arguments and counter arguments. In the end we all fish the way we do because we find it fun. One person’s meat may be another’s poison as the old adage goes. One is not better than another. It is just with the endless promotion and justification of the superiority of one’s chosen method over another’s that we begin to mix the koolaid. I don’t care how someone fishes, or what equipment they choose. What gets to me is getting told that I “Can’t do something.” That triggers the curiosity gene and the obsessive-compulsive gene and gets me busy exploring and studying the argument.

Conventional wisdom is a form of dogma. I have found that avoiding dogma sometimes is a path that is worth walking.

The River Tells A Story

2011-04-03T12:07:00.000-05:00

During a recent float down the upper Milwaukee River several of my friends and I marveled at the water in places we had never been since dams were removed. Stonefly hatches and crystal-clear water testified to the healing of the river. We found new runs through careful observation, marveled at flocks of buffleheads, wood ducks and a lone owl. Our raft glided silently over the renewed waters.
The river does tell a story.

The story is best read whilst seated by the side of the river, or standing a moment and contemplating. What is the height of the river? What is the temperature? Where would the fish be? What is the story of the day, Mr. River? The story changes every day. The plot meanders back and forth: it wallows, surges, and roars. Somewhere in there are the main characters, hidden in between the words. Did you just flip through the pages, or did you put on a metaphorical bathrobe and with a hot cup of tea, settle down in the couch corner for a good read? If you put on size 13 clown boots with studs and stomp on the pages, you will never understand the words.

We have to stop and slow down to listen. There are words in there, and bits of metaphorical poetry. Passages of Yeats or Frost. Melting snow trickles down from sun-hungry branches and plays a melody on the water. There is not just one story, but many: as many as there are turns in the river, or boulders on the bottom. We must observe with all our senses to absorb all the words. We must hear, see, smell, touch, and feel. We must close our eyes and think as well: observe and process. We must see between the currents, and observe the unobservable.

Then we can wet a line, and angle in harmony. After all, we should not be out to conquer a river, or a good poem, we should absorb it, and make it part of us. Part of our knowledge and love of life… fish hooked or not.

My rod is better than your rod…

2010-12-03T12:11:00.000-06:00

I frequently come across discussions regarding fly rods and their performance vs. price. These discussions can get heated at times as rod choice has become for some anglers, a very personal choice. The discussions also frequently stray off track, and become arguments and rants for and against the fly tackle industry. Mainly the issue comes down to budget rods vs. high-end rods.

Let us break this down. A fly rod is a tool, period. It is a tool for a specific or a general purpose. Beyond functional design and build of a rod, which are the key properties, are aesthetics and marketing. Mainly marketing. When we judge a rod, we ourselves have a huge part to play. Brand loyalty, personal aesthetic preference, casting ability and style, and our fishing need play a large role in our judgment.

Let me concentrate on function for a moment.

I constantly hear people defend their budget $200 rod against the most expensive $700 plus dollar rods on the market without placing the comparison in proper perspective. I have cast surprisingly good rods and shockingly poor ones at both the lower end and upper end of the price scale. One man’s meat may be another’s poison, based on ability and need.

For example: The guy flipping glo-bugs to spawning salmon on our tributaries probably does not need a fast recovery super lightweight casting tool. For this individual’s need, a reasonably strong rod in the lowest price point will do just fine. The rod functions as a lever to fight fish to the bank and less as a casting tool. Take the saltwater angler who has to launch his large fly out 90 feet into the surf to a pod of bluefish and we have a different story.

In addition, what makes a crappy rod and a good rod is all in the mind or hands of the person doing the casting. At casting clinics I am often asked to cast a student’s rod to see “What is wrong with it.” Sometimes the answer is that the rod is poorly designed. More often, it is the line and rod in conjunction that are mismatched. Most often of all there is nothing wrong with the rod, which leads me to my little saying, “It is not the rod, it is the fool behind it.” Incidentally, this saying was originally aimed at myself for selling rods that I did not like due to my inability to adapt to, and take advantage of their special qualities.

Admittedly, there are some outstanding rods out there. The old Sage RPL, the Loomis GLX, the Orvis Superfine come to mind right away. All these rods have or had a unique taper and bend which just felt right for the angling job at hand. There are also some real turds of rods on the market. We all have probably all owned one or two of these before selling them off.

The key to this little discussion is that even a mediocre to badly designed rod will perform fine in certain conditions. To the angler who plies trout streams no more than twenty feet wide, a certain rod may be just fine for tossing grass hoppers to the bank. The same rod at over twenty feet, however, loses all accuracy. Hmmm… interesting. Some rods are meat-sticks designed to pound the western rivers from drift boats with heavy nymphs, split shot, and big dries acting as indicators. Place this rod on a spring creek and it is like throwing rocks into the still water. Here we have a specialty rod once again. The right tool for the right job...

So, in conclusion, when we weigh into the next inevitable beer fueled discussion of who’s rod is better and who’s rod is overpriced, lets all remember to place ourselves in proper relation to the rod as a casting and fishing tool for ourselves, our abilities, and our fishing needs.

Mudflats!

2010-11-03T12:01:00.000-05:00

One of the interesting talking points of opponents of the removal of the Estabrook Dam, Grafton Dam, and Limekiln Dam on the Milwaukee River is that, after dam removal, large mudflats will be left behind. These large unsightly stretches of clay and silt will then become homes for weeds, thus spoiling their scenic view of the river.

This is a true statement, but only in the short run. In order to find out why, let us examine what a mudflat is, and how it is formed.

Rivers are great earthmovers and builders. Over vast amounts of time, they erode outside bends and deposit silt and particulates on inside bends. These initially form flats of sediment or rock. In the Midwest, these inside bends are mostly composed of silt, sand, dissolved clay and tiny wood debris. This inherent character of rivers is why they bend and meander in their channels, always eroding earth and depositing it in new places such as inside bends and estuary regions. One look at a map or trip to a river will prove this to be true. As time passes, these inside bends grow larger and larger, beginning as mud flats and ending up as land that people build homes upon. First grasses and hearty plants (weeds to some) grow upon the flats. Then small shrubs and trees take hold. Finally, the former flat becomes part of the shore structure and may be indistinguishable from the surrounding woods.

All these building, moving, and eroding processes are natural, so why the fuss over a natural riparian structure? Here we find the irony. Because, simply put, it is man’s interference with rivers by slowing the water flow with dams and creating impoundments, and channelizing the river with artificial bank structure that impedes the river from its earth moving, its ability to push the silt downstream, form new channels, and build new river banks. Thus, the actual composition of the bottom of the river changes from gravel, boulders, silt, mud, and sand, to primarily long flat bars of silt. When water levels are lowered, these become mudflats. Anyone who lives in a tidal basin on the ocean knows this process well, albeit in a natural way.

Flow rates and gradient also play a part. Faster flow moves the sediment, while slow deep areas of a river (like an impoundment) allow the sediment to fall to the bottom and collect.

So it is ironic in a sense that the very dams and resulting impoundments that they create are primarily responsible for the formation of these mudflats that seem to be the bane of dam proponents.

There is, obviously, one missing factor here, and that is time. We measure time in days, years, and generations. Nature measures time differently. Given a long enough time, all mudflats become banks and islands. Walking in a river will prove this. Where did that island come from? Was it always there? Chances are it started as a small gravel and silt deposit forming what is known as a ‘braid.’ Over time it continued to build as the river, flowing around it, deposited more and more silt, mud, gravel, and particulate at its downstream end. Then birds nested on it and brought undigested seeds. Nuts and seedpods washed down and took root as well. Then trees began to grow.

We can see, in a shortened time, how mudflats become land. The North Avenue Dam removal created an enormous set of flats on both upstream banks. The river, which was formerly slow, deep and very wide here, shrank to less than half its width. Where did the flats go…?

The answer is that you are walking on them. At present, the land reclaimed from the impoundment all the way up to Hubbard Park in Shorewood is a jumble of brush, shrubs, grasses, and small trees, but in another twenty years, if we don’t mess with it, that area will return to nature completely, and provide an aesthetic view. We can and have aided that process by securing the former flats with bank stabilization, and planting native plants.

So, dam removal opponents, in a nutshell, that is what mudflats are. They are natural, and in time, will morph and grow into something beautiful. They are your mudflats: created in this instance by the dams themselves.

The Confidence Factor

2010-10-27T13:28:00.000-05:00

The Confidence Factor:

It has been written somewhere that the only single thing we can control as anglers on the river is ourselves: our timing, our approach, reading the water, presentation, etc. We cannot control the weather, the water, the wind, or the natural cycles of nature. We must instead learn to work with nature and fish in harmony. Once one progresses to a point where his or her presentation is decent, and can use whatever technique one chooses to cast and present the fly at the proper speed and depth, then the next step, I would argue is to fish with confidence.

This may be the most difficult barrier to get past in many ways. Firstly, we are thinking creatures. When something goes right or wrong, we tend to want to look to something outside ourselves for an explanation, often where there is none. We speculate on fly color and construction, the weather, sun, moon, rain cycles, barometer, what we had for dinner last night, and what brand of beer our buddy likes. Thinking and analysis is a good thing; it leads to discovery and learning. However, at some point along the way, our speculation causes us to begin a process, or turn down a cognitive road that is a dead end.

For an object example, let us take fly choice. In the world of trout, the fly has a huge part to play in the overall game. Trout eating bugs want to eat certain bugs, and when dining at the all-you-can-eat BBQ shack, Mr. Brookie does not want a plate of spinach. In the world of Atlantic Salmon and Steelhead fishing, the fish do not feed, or rarely feed, and why they take our flies is a mystery, and the subject of hundreds of speculative books and articles.

So, what fly to choose? Lets see… Dark day-dark fly, bright day-bright fly, blue under a full moon, yellow under a quarter moon, orange during a bright day, and green when you drank too much scotch the night before and peed in your waders. Small fly, big fly, fly with movement, most popular fly, favorite fly, etc. As hard as it is to grasp, the fish are far less choosy as to what fly is on the end of our leader than we are. Popular patterns such as the green butt skunk in the PNW, or the egg-sucking leech in the Midwest work because they are good patterns, but also, and here is the catch, they account for more fish hooked than other patterns because they are tied onto our leaders and in the water more than other patterns. Is the blue charm the best salmon pattern of all time? It certainly racked up the most kills in the fly category on many rivers in Scotland. Or, was it because although it undoubtedly is a good fly, somebody made his fame with it, and then, everyone started using it? What about the red and white daredevil spoon? It may have fallen out of favor lately, but for a long time, if you wanted to fish for pike, you had better have a good selection of these lures in your tackle box. Anglers used them, and caught fish. Then the newest plastic thing came along and they used it and caught fish too. See?

The fly in your box will not catch a fish. The one on the end of your leader will. Both Dec Hogan and John Shewey performed an experiment in which they changed their fly pattern every time they hooked a steelhead until they had gone through their whole fly box. Result…. All the flies hooked fish. Hmmmm… Perhaps it was that they fished with confidence instead of fiddling and fussing. Perhaps because they had confidence in the fly they had in the water, accordingly they fished better and more thoroughly?

This concept seems so foreign to us that it rarely sinks in. In a seminar on steelhead fly-fishing I covered reading water, presentation, timing, etc. The questions at the end posed by those attending had to do with fly choice and rigging. Funny.

At a western spey clave, a local guide gave an excellent clinic on fishing the river, and pressed home confidence in the fly, covering water, angles, structure, etc. At the end an old guy stood up and asked…. Drum roll please… “What is the secret fly?”

If you had asked the anglers seated at the seminar along the river what fly they caught their most recent fish on, I bet good money that most of the flies would be unique. I have traded flies on this river with some great anglers. None of our fly boxes looked alike, and we all had success. Funny. Could it be confidence? Could it be that the only secret was to choose a fly based upon actual water conditions and just leave it on?

Once one gains confidence in the fly, one begins to pay attention to other critical factors like water speed, angle of cast, mending, water structure, etc. Bingo! Then the fly becomes magic. Now we turn down another blind alley. We have just had a great day on the river fishing a (insert fly name here), and we only have confidence in that fly. Thus the red and white daredevil, the green-butt skunk, and the egg-sucking leech are born into legend. We don’t like to hear these things, because we want to grasp a hold of a simple concept to boost our confidence, or provide an excuse for failure or our personal agenda/expectations unmet.

Thus, it is that the things we can actually control, our casting, presentation and confidence outweigh all of the other factors on the river. This includes all of the old wisdom out there such as steelhead will not take a fly with full sun on the water, don’t fish after a full moon, a falling barometer, a rising barometer, after your buddy belches twice, etc. All of these things (except the belching) have effect on our fishing, but nowhere near the effect we attribute to them. Seeking to understand, we speculate and look for reasons.

What about the un-carved block? The newbee angler that does everything wrong but catches fish anyway until he or she learns the proper way from those with collected speculative wisdom? I was that angler once. The first trip out to the PNW, I fished a beautiful river. I used classic spey flies such as the Lady Caroline, and classic hair-wings. I fished an intermediate tip. I fished runs backwards and caught fish in the wrong places. I simply had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but put my joy, passion, and confidence in the fly, and spent more time on the water than most anyone else. When the water went off-color, I went fishing. When it turned hot, I went fishing. It was only afterwards, after meeting guides and experienced anglers on the river that I learned that I could not catch fish unless I was using a deeply sunk fly on a sink-tip, the places I pulled fish out of were no good, and it was useless to fish during the middle of the day. Oh…

The next year, armed with my newly acquired wisdom of the sages, I fished a big marabou fly with a sink-tip and…. I caught fish too. Hmmmm…..

I expect that if one placed all the collected wisdom of anglers that have put in their time on the rivers, that every speculative theory could be de-bunked. That is, for every theory and the speculative evidence behind it, there would be another conflicting or countering theory. That is not to say that all fishing wisdom and theories are bunk. Quite the contrary, most are based upon sound experience. It is when they become dogma that they often lead us down a path that may be classified as a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Don’t fish after a boat goes through the water.” O.K., we don’t. What happens? Well, of course we don’t catch fish. If we do fish, then the sense of confidence in the water goes away… because a boat went through. In essence, we play the part in fulfilling the prophecy we proclaimed or believed in. Our actions led to the expected result. Like a science experiment in reverse. Proclaim the conclusion, and then work backwards with the hypothesis in mind the whole way.

Nevertheless, alas, we all grasp for straws when the going gets tough. Positive straws, negative straws, but straws the same. The fly, the sun, the bad luck of a circling raven. Perhaps because this gives us confidence also: confidence to find another reason for our success or failure outside ourselves. A reason to attribute and then find peace in. I often wonder if my friend Og, the fictional Neanderthal that lives in my basement might actually be the ideal angler. He can reason up to a certain point, and perhaps that is enough. Cast it there, swing it so, and have confidence. Perhaps everything else is, and should be a mystery to a certain extent?

Sometimes our overactive brains get in the way of our instincts and senses. We don’t fish the ‘Eagle Run’ anymore because, three years ago we fished it, and given our thought process at the time, it fished too slowly or was too shallow. This year, due to angling pressure and the fading light of evening, we find ourselves pulling over by this run by default. “Might as well fish it,” we think, rather than just go back to the tent. Then we realize that this run fishes wonderfully. “What was I thinking?” we ask ourselves as our renewed confidence results in a great grab and nice fish.

I am reminded of the old (perhaps Norman Rockwell) painting of a fly angler fussing with his leader and fly selection as the trout are jumping around him. His face is turned with jealousy and surprise to a small boy on a bike pedaling innocently past with an old stick as a rod, a piece of string as line, and safety pin for a hook along with a tin can of worms and a glorious stringer of fish. That may be something to reflect on. Not that experience and speculation are not good things, but sometimes getting back to the essence may be necessary. Once the essentials are down pat, just fish with confidence.

Perhaps that would be no fun though. It might cut down on late-night philosophizing around the camp-fire.

Fun With Named Runs

2010-10-21T10:48:00.000-05:00

One curiosity of steelhead and Atlantic salmon rivers is the common practice of naming the runs or pools or water complexes. These names range from the deeply rooted in shadowed lore and history, down to the downright obscure, and even ironic. The runs are often named after a natural structural identifier such as Black Rock, The Slot, The Braids, Pine Trees, etc. Man made structures such as Powerlines, Tractor Yard, The Factory Run, etc. also enter into our river run lexicon. Some runs are named after people who popularized them as well.

One run on a western river is called locally “Gomer’s corner,” due to the fact that it always has one person standing in it, and the run itself rarely produced a fish. When a friend and I heard what the run was called, we looked at each other sheepishly and whispered, “Oh crap, that was us. Remember when we got up at 4:00 am to get into that run?” D’oh! This year, as I drove up and down the river, there was always someone in Gomer’s Corner. I fished a run downstream at last light, and there was an angler standing, seemingly not moving at all, at the top of the Corner. I fished my run through, and as I was making my way back to the car in the dusk, saw that there was still a single figure in Gomer’s Corner, who seemed not to have covered any water at all or moved downstream. I then got it stuck in my mind that instead of an angler, the figure was a scarecrow or dummy someone had fixed up. It made sense, as the angler/object/dummy never seemed to move, and always wore the same gear. Then as I was driving back past the run, I stopped, got out of my car, and stared at the object in the run. After about five minutes, the dummy moved and made a cast, and a quarter of a step downstream. Aha! Mystery solved. Now I know why it is called Gomer’s Corner.

Another run is named “Slickrock,” and has an evil reputation as a wading hell that is well deserved. Slick basalt ledges and shelves are mixed with bowling ball sized rocks that tend to move when to step on them. One step is fine, and the next a complete lulu. A couple of years ago, I lost purchase with both feet at once and did a face-plant in the water in this run. Now I use a wading staff. Duh.

Every river has a run named for an old car or truck abandoned by the river, and many rivers run through towns suffering from poverty, meth, and cultural decay, and have runs named “The Town Run.” Here one dodges garbage and tarps over ratty sofas, and old cars that serve as homes for people who have seen better times.

Some runs are named for Native American folklore. One gets a sense of timelessness on these runs, as if the boulders and structures have not changed in five-hundred years, and if one could be transported back in time, only the costume of the anglers and methods would change.

Back here in the Midwest, we have a sort of tongue-in-cheek convention for naming runs. Shopping Cart, Lower Crack-Pipe, The Low-Hole Run, Parking Lot, etc. The runs are really not as bad as they sound when they actually have water in them, but one never knows what one might encounter on the side of the river or even in it.
Sometimes we might want to pay especial attention though, when fishing a run called something like “Angry Old Man,” lest we accidentally trespass and meet the man himself.

Brief wisdom #1

2010-10-16T08:47:00.002-05:00

It isn't the rod, its the fool behind it...

Misinformation continues to flow over the Estabrook Dam

2010-10-13T13:22:00.000-05:00

Below is an excerpt from an article by Joe Lanane, Daily Reporter, and following that are some comments I have to get off my chest.

Glen Goebel, director of the Milwaukee River Preservation Association, said the Estabrook Dam was originally built as a flood deterrent. If the dam was permanently removed, he said, flood spillover could go as far as one mile out from the river’s banks — enough to potentially reach Glendale City Hall.

“It would do that worse nowadays than it would back then because it was mostly farmland back then,” Goebel said. “It was a flood-control project that we really still need in place.”

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It still amazes me that this fundamental falsehood remains as an accepted truth to many of the Milwaukee County Supervisors, as propagandized by Supervisor Lipscomb, who is hardly partial on the issue, and has an inside seat and corresponding voice on the county board, or Mr. Goebel, president of a pro-dam lobby group, who's wild and scientifically baffling claims as to the positive and negative aspects of dams and removal have been a rather sad commentary on the ability of special interest groups to lobby regardless of the truth of the facts they espouse.

The Estabrook Dam was the final piece in a flood control project. It, by itself, offers little or no flood control at all, especially to the area of Glendale noted by Mr. Goebels, which is UPSTREAM from the dam. The flood control project consisted of driving a straight channel through a series of S-curves in Lincoln park in order to speed the river, and lessen ice buildup on the outside bends in the river, which in spring thaw, created ice-jams and caused localized flooding. The dam was designed as a water-height regulator to control the flow and height of the river upstream. How a dam is supposed to prevent flooding upstream of its location just baffles me. By slowing the water flow and backing up the river in a flood, the dam could conceivably aid in flood prevention downstream, however, that entire area is already a flood plain, and homes and businesses are built high on the river banks. In addition, the design of the Estabrook Dam negates even that possible flood control, as in a heavy rain event the entire dam is submerged, and the river runs over and around it.

What the dam, very ironically does, is increase the flooding potential in a sudden rain event in the impoundment area bordered by the dam itself and roughly Bender Rd. By backing up the river, the dam decreases the flow rate and throughput ability of the river in cubic feet per second, to evacuate the channel and move downstream. So it is sad that this falsehood, maintained by the Milwaukee River Preservation Association (read 'Dam preservation'), and Mr. Lipscomb, actually negatively affects the very home-owners that are being represented as advocating for dam preservation in part due to concerns about flooding.

And yet the Milwaukee County Board, which is literally approaching a financial meltdown, and losing the respect of county taxpayers, is on the brink of recommending and funding the repair of the Estabrook dam based in part, on false and unscientific information which has been publicly refuted by both engineers from The Wisconsin DNR, the Milwaukee Riverkeeper, the River Alliance, and other organizations and bodies that actually have some experience with rivers and dams.

Your tax dollars down the drain, fellow citizens.

At least the county board should consider and debate this important infrastructure issue with all of the FACTS before them, and not popularly accepted myths. Kudos to Supervisor Broderick, who, seemingly a lone voice of reason, has tried to steer the board's decision towards a more open public forum. Funny, but I seem to remember many letters written, facts laid out, and testimony given last year, which somehow got lost or misplaced in the minds of the County Supervisors or masked over by the endless fog of miss-information.

Claiming that the Estabrook Dam prevents flooding in Glendale is like a scene out of 'The Music Man.' It would be funny if it was not our own county board that was buying it, and all of us poor schlubs that will be paying for the decision with tax dollars and bonds that we can ill-afford.

At absolute least, please be honest about why the dam is to be saved. To keep the still-water impoundment upstream of the dam intact so that power-boating can occur and docks can be maintained. All at the expense of the river, water quality, fish, wildlife, and yes... your wallet.

The march of folly continues on...

Zen and the art of fishing the essence.

2010-09-29T10:13:00.000-05:00

Zen and the art of fishing the essence.

Or, building good fish karma, and harmony on the water.

It has probably happened to all of us in our progression as anglers. We enter the river with something to prove, or an agenda to catch the most fish or the biggest fish, and we fail in our expectations. We fish hard and with a purpose, but the elusive goal eludes us. It is or was our goal, our purpose, and our agenda, not the river’s.

Then it happens one day; we finally stop trying so hard, and we wake up and look around us. We notice an eagle soaring above the river canyon, find an interesting piece of driftwood to stare at, sample blackberries on the side of the river, or drift off into a philosophical or nature-based zone of peace.

Then it happens. The hottest fish in the river hits our fly and tries to tail-walk back to the ocean. It happens because we were not trying. We were fishing with enjoyment, and with the proper attitude of respect and relaxation. In short, we had reached a sort of zen harmony with our surroundings. Instead of our own agenda, we followed the river’s. When it rained, we laughed and splashed, when it became hot and sunny, we took off our jacket and basked in the glory. When the water came up, we swung our fly with the same confidence. We didn’t fuss with patterns, we fished with trust that reward would be forthcoming, and the kiss of chrome would bless our offering, far out in the river. We were at peace.

These thoughts came to me after an exchange of emails with my friend William over another angler that I am acquainted with, that fished (at least physically) the same river I recently fished. While I went down to the river with happiness, feeling a great privilege to worship in my way in this spiritual river, and laughed at myself when I managed to break off a snake-guide and put it through my thumb, and marveled at the beauty of the river, this other angler seemed to be fishing a different river. His was a river of frustration. He hooked fish, but as he put it, they were all “duds.” He seemed to have an agenda as, or wished to be viewed as an “expert.” Funny. We seemed to be fishing a different river. One of the fish I hooked was the hottest fish I have ever seen. It jumped constantly at high speed, and peeled off line so fast that my reel shrieked like a banshee. I could not control this fish, and after expertly, and wildly relieving me of ¾ of my backing on a 4” perfect reel, the fish made a leap, spit the fly and was gone. I was not disappointed, but instead elated. I will never forget that wonderful experience. The other angler, who is fulfilling for us the role of an object lesson, would probably have been sore that it came unpinned. I also hit a couple of red-hot wild hens that smoked the reel, and even got the relatively rare glory photo.

Several years ago, in a discussion about big runaway fish, William told me that the ‘Devil Fish’ existed, but that you (me) would have to believe that it can happen and then not try to make it happen, and then it would indeed grace my fly offering by eating it, and provide that great sporting moment and aerial ballet. Funny, but that is exactly what happened last year. I just stopped worrying about everything in my approach, and just fished in harmony, and was rewarded. Build it and they will come? Trust in it, but empty your soul of desire? Buddhism on the river?

Then, as an object lesson, the fishing partner I was with pulled five fish from behind me on the last day, and my zen composure melted down. Guess what? Yup. I got skunked until the last moment of dark in a downpour. I tried too hard. My casting went to absolute pieces. I was frustrated with myself and nearly in tears. When I had passed through this stage to one of calm shivering and acceptance of my surroundings, I re-entered harmony, and hooked a nice fish.

So, it seems to actually matter what our frame of mind is on the water. Some anglers have positive fish karma. It may have to do with just fishing smoothly instead of fiddling, but it does seem that anglers such as Dec Hogan, Mike Kinney, and Bill McMillan also seem to personify an appreciation and love of nature and balance on the river. Certainly skill matters. How one presents one’s fly to the fish in complex and diverse situations matters more than anything, but haven’t we all known someone who could fish really well, cast a nice clean line, but was a neurotic, crabby, disagreeable personality on the river? One of the most notorious anglers of my knowledge has such bad karma that nobody will even buy a rod from him. He spends his time fiddling and complaining on the water and off, when he is not drunk, and rarely hooks anything. He is out of harmony with everything, and it shows.

These days when I fish, even if I struggle with casting a single spey with my back against the wall, up to my waist in water with a downstream wind, and trying hit 100’, I try to do so with a positive attitude, and finding the true essence of the experience: the moon through the pines, the mists lifting from the canyon, the sounds of moving water. There is more to fishing than fish. It is kind of like that cute girl you wanted to get to know. When you looked at her, she looked away. When you showed off, she walked away. It was only when you stopped trying and just became yourself, that she came up and sat beside you. When you stop trying, and appreciate the beauty of the river, it can happen.

Indeed, it will happen, but only once one calms down and cultivates quiet on the river. It will happen only when one abandons Internet chatter, and slips into the bushes. It will happen if one has no agenda, but calmly ebbs and flows with the natural currents. It will happen only if one sets out to love the river and her fish, not conquer her.

I can still see that fish tail-walking…

Extra footage from The Lost World of Mr. Hardy

2010-08-22T09:33:00.001-05:00

The folks at Trufflepig Films were kind enough to place some video and historic footage on the Vimeo page here : http://vimeo.com/channels/mrhardyextra

Here is a sample. Enjoy!

Salmon fishing on the River Test - The Lost World of Mr Hardy extra from Trufflepig Films on Vimeo.

The Lost World of Mr Hardy (trailer) from Trufflepig Films on Vimeo.

Some thoughts from the riffle

2010-08-17T12:25:00.002-05:00

Journeys in two-handed casting

There is a riffle on my nearby river that I haunt as much as possible in the summer evenings. It is wide and shallow, and has a bit of gradient and flow to it (for here that is). I am not here to fish, but to learn. It is my testing grounds for rods and lines. I can cast from either side of the river depending on wind and conditions. It is the ideal place to practice spey casting, and watch the sun set. Owls, herons, osprey, falcons, hawks, kingfishers, and even snowy egret swoop or wade for their evening meals. The riffle supports a large hatch of caddis and mayflies, and every evening, swallows, dragonflies, bats, and cedar waxwings join me on the water. The large population of ducks seems to know me by now. They know I am a harmless fool, and no danger to them.

I wear cheap hip-boots, and carry a rod tube and a shoulder bag. In the bag are lines and reels and, most important, a little book to record thoughts, frustrations, and epiphanies.

I call this riffle my ‘Proving Grounds.’ I cast my first fly rod near here years ago, and my first two-hander nearby as well. For some reason, these workout or practice sessions give me more pleasure than just going out and catching a few small bass. Some think that because of this choice, I am mad. I prefer the word ‘Eccentric,’ thank you. I kind of like thinking about how far I have journeyed in angling and casting, just to return to the same small piece of river.

These sessions on the water are not just aimless. At first, they were intended to learn a couple of casts with the two-handed rod and a windcutter line to allow me to fish a western steelhead river. Many of these casts ended up in corkscrews, or hit me in the head. I used an actual fly, and embedded it in my arm. The things we learn…

As my ability and casting progressed (and regressed for that matter), I experienced the joys of learning: the first successful single spey, my first snake-roll cast, the time a seagull took my practice fly and flew off with it.

Not all was joyful. I can be a perfectionist, and am obsessive about casting a fly rod. I could have said “Good enough,” at any point, but I had a burning desire to make loops as tight as I could with a single-hand rod. That was and has been a heck of a long journey. Hundreds of hours and thousands of dollars were spent in pursuit of an ethereal dream: a pipe dream of a vision of a perfect outbound loop. Frustration was the daily bugbear. The casting came and went. I watched as others better than I effortlessly did what I wanted to do. I tried harder and harder, and failed more and more. 2004 was the year of the tailing and collision loop. Perhaps it was the gear. Maybe the line and rod were holding me back. I sort of knew that this was not the case, but the temptation was too great not to experiment with other styles and methods. Thus, I became one of the first practitioners of the Scandinavian style of underhand casting in the Midwest. Now I could make tight loops and cast far. I had arrived! Or had I?

On a large western river I discovered why running lines are better used to toss lures on spinning rods than play a part in spey-casting. A large steelhead took my bomber off the surface, while I looked at the huge tangle of running-line in my hand. I lost that fish. Rob said he had never heard a tirade of swearing like that before. Back to the drawing board. I still use a Scandinavian head, and enjoy casting them, but not at distance. All those damn loops of running line, inevitable tangles (despite what all those ‘experts’ say), and endless stripping just got to me. Back to the windcutter and the delta-spey for me. After all, as I thought, a 55 foot head is the best to learn on.

I was both right and wrong. After fishing with a short 55 foot head ‘spey’ line for several years, I switched to a 65 foot mid-belly line, and had to learn to cast all over again. I discovered flaws in my casting that had never been apparent before. Anchor-piling, tiny bloody-Ls, lack of body motion, over-emphasis on the upper-hand, etc. My casts came and went. The single got good, but the double-spey went to hell, or vice-versa. I also learned that practice casting and actually making casts while wading up to my chest in windy conditions are two very different things. Some may ask what I thought I was doing to myself out there on the river, obsessively casting four nights a week. Indeed, it was often akin to torture or self-flagellation at times.

This year I obtained a 15’ rod rated for a nine-weight line, and bought a double taper line. Now my riffle would become a nightly water-boarding area. Once again, I had to learn to cast all over again. When it worked, it was beautiful, when it didn’t, well… the nursery rhyme goes “When she was good, she was very, very good, but when she was bad, she was wicked!” That describes it fairly accurately. I could cast a delta-long fairly well, but again, not consistently. Turnover continued to be a problem, as well as trajectory. Why was I doing this to myself…? The simple answer is that on some of the waters I fish, a one-hundred foot cast is required, with proper immediate turnover, and in the wind, to get me into the holding buckets. This is not an all-the-time thing, but when one is in the storied waters of the guts and glory hole, one must make the cast or go home. The same thing applies to presentation in small spring-creeks for trout, or firing a laser-loop between or under woody debris for that huge smallmouth bass that you just know lives there in that heavy cover.

So, this spring and summer, when I had a few hours free after work, I continued playing with the casting, and got better. My single-spey, due to my watching way too many conflicting videos, ended up as an amalgam. Kind of like a soup which ten blind chefs added ingredients to. It may have started as chicken soup, but after the turnips and mushrooms were added, it sort of lost cohesion. It took over sixty hours to correct this. It was like learning to walk all over again. All my muscle memory was against me. My hands did the wrong thing at the wrong time, and would not obey orders. My arms seemed to betray me by applying too much power. I was at war with my own body.

Then after much prodding over the years, I finally bought a used long belly line: an original XLT, with a 100’ foot head, which after some trial, I chopped ten feet out of. I experimented with carrying 85-90 feet in my hands. Miracles of miracles, I could do it. It wasn’t often pretty, but I could do it. I have feared this line so much over the years. I read repeatedly from some of the greatest steelhead experts, authors, and guides how a 15-foot rod was like waving a telephone pole. My arms would get tired. It is overkill on steelhead, It is too hard, yada, yada, yada. I believed them, although deep down I doubted. I sipped their Kool-Aid, but just did not want to swallow it. I just wondered why all the old anglers casting two-handers on big rivers preferred a longer line and a longer rod? Were they supermen? Stronger than us modern wimps? Did they know something I did not? Or, was it all a shell game? Why did nearly everyone on internet forums comment that they were going with shorter and shorter rods and lines, saying it was so much easier? Was I wrong in my hunch, way back in the historical archives of my cluttered brain, that somehow, if this was done right, it was easy? After all, I had watched as I got my clock cleaned and my pockets picked by long-belly casters out west. They made it look easy too. I kept thinking, “This is just like all the students you teach, Erik. They all say how you make single-hand casting look so easy and effortless.” It just has to be a skill issue…

Then, earlier this month, it happened. The training wheels fell off my allegorical bicycle. It happened by accident. All of a sudden, with the proper body motion, timing, and power application, my single spey flew out and got stuck in a tree on the other side of the river. Then it happened again, and again. The amount of effort I was putting in was nearly non-existent. I simply loaded the rod and maintained the load throughout the stroke. I was amazed at the simplicity and ease with which 85’ could be held in my hands and then simply popped out there. A 70-90 foot cast was like falling asleep on the sofa: effortless. No stripping, and just a single small loop of line held in the lower hand to shoot.

Easy is a relative word. It may apply to the proper casting stroke and the result, but certainly not the journey to get there. “Ad augusta, per angusta” roughly translates as “To higher roads, by narrow paths.” I think this nails the journey perfectly. I now am at a point in the path where I can see where I have been, but also see how far I have to go. I also, through countless hours of analysis, mentorship by great casters, reading, and watching others, am now able to wade through the hidden under-water minefield of miss-information and pure horse-hockey. There is a truth out there. All those old anglers with their long rods were not trying to make it harder on themselves in some sort of protestant Victorian stoicism, instead, they were making it easy. That seems a hard concept to wrap your mind around, as you wrap your line around a tree or yourself, but there was a reason why these rods and lines were paired up.

However, the amount of time it took to finally realize this was not minimal. It took countless hours of fishing and practice, getting skunked, watching great casters like W.O. R.E. D.P. or B.S. knock one out of the park in order to even come to this point of realization. For most anglers, the journey will most likely be shorter, especially if you don’t drink the Kool-Aid.

That is not to say that shorter rods of 12 to 13 feet and shorter lines such as Skagit heads, windcutters, or scando heads do not have their place. They most certainly do. What I have found, hidden under all the debris and flotsam of videos, books, internet forums, etc., is that by going to a longer line, all the casting styles become easier. It may be a long journey, but even thru-hiking the A.T. begins with a single step. Lets call that step ‘curiosity.’ Now to get to the same point with my double-spey… 200 hours and counting…

I saw the future in his eyes

2010-08-09T12:35:00.000-05:00

Last week Dan, Josh and yours truly at Orvis Milwaukee taught the last installment of Fly-Fishing 101 for the month of July.
This event is designed to get interested individuals involved in the sport through a free introductory program, and erase all the mystery and ‘elitist’ aura from the process.

In the class was a young African American boy of about ten. His name was Peter. He was as shy as they come, and was accompanied by his big-brother, a middle-aged gentleman who participates in the Big-Brother, Big Sister mentoring program. Peter loves to fish. Although silent and shy, when he was signed up for the course, he could not wait for the day to arrive. Remember that level of anticipation? Remember when you were ten? Remember when you dreamt of ponds, rivers, and trees to climb in the freedom of summer vacation?

He arrived in our store on the day of the event with wide eyes in a room filled with adult white males. During the casting portion, although he had small arms, and struggled, he never gave up. By the end of the class, he was laying out 20 feet of flyline. The smile on his face should grace the cover of a fly fishing magazine, and replace those ubiquitous grip-and-grin photos. When I gave all the students a chance to play a fish (me) on the rod, he did an unexpected thing: he brought the rod up and used side pressure to control me. How about that! In all the years of teaching fly-fishing, I had never had anyone show so much instinct.

I knelt down by his side and gave him a compliment. “You are a heck of a fine fisherman,” I said.
For a moment, our eyes locked. His were deep brown, and a window into his young soul. Mine were tired and old.

Then I saw it. I saw in this poor child’s eyes the future of our sport; the pure joy, the curiosity, the passion.

My eyes are not so old now.

Thank you Peter.

The world’s wettest book…

2010-07-26T11:01:00.000-05:00

Obvious...

A wee bit complicated...

Gee... where to start?

Reading water. The novel.

Just kidding. No need to locate the reading glasses, unless they are polarized…

As I work with anglers of all skill levels, it seems that three on the water skills rise to the top in importance: Casting, Presentation, and reading water.

Of, these, reading water seems to be the most elusive. It seems that many anglers discover what kinds of water structure and flow hold fish by a method of hit and miss. This was my learning process as well, and a painful one full of lessons courtesy of the fish. The more time on the water spent pursuing a variety of fish with diverse tactics of presentation seems to lead to the greatest skill level and literacy in water.

The majority of fly-anglers are trout fishermen. Trout waters offer a variety of challenges, but in many cases, the river or stream requires no rosetta stone to help translate. Riffles are for the most part fairly simple things. Lunker structures are also obvious. Undercut banks may be slightly hidden, but an observant angler can spot them easily. Tailouts of pools or runs, which are great evening and morning feeding areas are also obvious. Deeper holding areas for nymphing are mostly self evident, and if one has a hatch, then there is no need to read water, other than gauging current speeds, directions, and variances that effect presentation.

The problems seem to occur when anglers are faced with a bewildering array of structures, water depth, current seams, spits or scallops, back eddies, bank formations, makeup of bottom, etc. Some seasoned trout anglers flounder in these situations.

So here is an interesting observation. Some of the most adept anglers at reading water that I have ever seen are those that not only fish upstream, but swing flies downstream, especially for smallmouth bass. It seems that the complete reversal of current and approach does something to open doors in the ability to pick apart the river, and optimize the presentation. Current seams and changes in stream flow and even tiny depth changes can hold fish where one would think illogical. The only way to discover this is with a fly in the water, and an intense curiosity.

Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing the same way over and over and expecting a different result. Yet, for many anglers, this is the norm. Repetition is safe, but departing from this and experimentation can be challenging.

The other anchor dragging down angler’s ability to learn to read water is the constant necessity to ‘see fish.’ I run into this all the time. Seeing fish and then fishing to them is a good problem to have, but it does nothing for our ability to read the water. If we cannot see the fish, then we must ask ourselves, “Why and where would the fish be?” Two anglers were out the other day before our local river was flooded, and as I took a nature walk, I could not help myself from watching them for a few minutes. There seemed to be a lot of aimless casting going on. One guy was standing in a nice run and casting to nearly dry land. The other guy waded through a nice current seam below some boulders, and then started to fish in water that was flowing too fast for any self-respecting fish to want to hang out in. When I greeted them as they exited the water, they told me that “The water was too off-color, and they could not see any fish.”

The greatest assets an angler can possess are patience and curiosity. When you catch a fish, ask yourself why it was there. What is it about the bottom structure or current that changed? Was there overhead cover, rock, or wood nearby? Then when one has progressed to a point that without having to spot the fish, one can consistently catch them, start experimenting. This is where the real learning begins. Sometimes fish do the craziest things, and can be caught in places that are downright mystifying. In several situations, it took me several years to figure it out. Reading through old fishing logs, I had tiny epiphanies. Aha! Now it makes sense… until the next time, when the fish is somewhere else, and I have to start thinking all over again.

When the trout stream met the sky, and all became water

2010-06-28T10:37:00.001-05:00

Everyone loves a good storm. Sitting back with a hot cup of tea and smelling the rain as it renews the land, or feeling the approach of a dark cloud in your bones, the unending rumble of thunder filling you with anticipation as the first tentative drops of rain begin to fall.

A really good Midwest thunderstorm can force even the most stalwart farmer to pull his cap down. Storms here reach biblical proportions at times. It is in the month of June that temperatures and humidity levels rise enough to prime the air with a stagnant and heavy load. Steamy air laden with moisture boils up from the gulf and meets the cool jet stream. The resulting storms go spinning off to the east like miniature hurricanes. The dark cumulonimbus anvil clouds expand and rise quickly high into the atmosphere, and the bottoms boil. The entire sky turns a sickly green color.

I knew when I left my home that it would be stormy, but one takes free time as it comes to one. Days off are not to be squandered. So, I raced the coming storm front to the driftless country of south-west Wisconsin and it’s spectacular spring creeks. Four hours later the tent was set up and secured, and I was playing the first little wild brown trout on my new seven foot four weight superfine. The sun began to be eclipsed by little puffy cloud-sentries, and the fishing started to improve. For the next three hours without a hatch, I had spectacular dry-fly fishing. All I needed was an elk-hair caddis in a size 14. Splat it down gently around a bend or far enough ahead and it died a gallant death a hundred times as it was ravaged by trout. I actually felt sorry for the poor fly as its hackle got torn off and its wing lay in tatters. I imagined it looking at me, begging “Enough, PLEASE! Enough already! Don’t throw me out there again. This is murder!”

The cloud sentries by now had spotted me and reported back to the gathering storm regiments. “Trout angler, due east,” they rumbled. As the sky grew ominously darker and rain drops began to fall intermittently, the fishing just got better and better. It is said that trout, and fish in general, feed heavily before a storm, and although I had experienced this before, it was never on a spring creek where it could be perceived so obviously. It was as if someone turned on a switch or rang a dinner bell. The problem was that the fish were so eager, that I had a hard time getting casts to where I wanted them, as the fly kept being eaten before it got there. As the air became thicker and thicker and breathing harder, the trout began to jump again and again. I had to do a double take. Were they trying to escape the creek by swimming in the air?

I was experiencing the best non-hatch dry-fly fishing I had ever seen. As the trout leapt, I giggled. “Off that blade of grass…. Fish on!” “Against that rip-rap… Fish on!” “Wheeeeee!”

It was then at that moment of trout epiphany that the first lightning began to flash. Now wandering around standing in water holding a seven-foot lightning rod and waving it overhead during a thunderstorm is not a good idea. I should have left and headed back to the car. Instead, I fished on, the trout now jumping on the end of my line into the falling rain.

Finally, I felt that I had pushed it far enough and wound in, put on my rain jacket and tromped off. The creek I was fishing runs against the bottom of a ridgeline of a coulee hill. That prevented me from actually viewing the storm as it approached. The first inkling that I got that this storm was a force of nature, an elemental power of water, thunder, and wind was when it came over the ridge. I was twenty feet from my car when a downdraft of wind twenty degrees cooler than the humid 90-degree air of the valley nearly knocked me to the ground. I was then assaulted by a horizontal rain. Each drop was like a projectile. It actually hurt. The sky became water, and I could no longer see at all. Then the lightning struck repeatedly and close. I threw my rod into some nearby bushes and squatted down in the classic duck and cover position, water streaming off my hood and hands like faucets. Water began to trickle and rise around my feet. I thought I glimpsed Noah in the distance sawing wood for his ark.

It lasted fifteen minutes. In fifteen minutes more than an inch and a half of rain fell. As I got back to the car and drove off to see if Mr. Tent had survived, I saw the creek I had just fished. Where it turned back into the wooded ridge and increased in gradient, it was a muddy torrent pushing rocks and boulders before it. Further down the road the storm dropped the first of its five tornadoes.

I guess the thing that struck me was that I was not disappointed. Two and a half days of trout fishing had turned into three hours, but experiencing that storm, and being made to feel helpless in the face of nature was an experience in itself to be treasured…. Once. Next time I will just pull into some rural bar, order a tap beer from Stash or Erma, and say “Ya, how’s about them Packers?”

Getting started in 'spey' casting

2010-06-10T09:59:00.000-05:00

Learning to cast a ‘spey’ or two-handed rod
Copyright 2010 Erik F. Helm

Note: This article is designed to be a simple introduction to spey casting, and how to best get involved in it. More in-depth resources can be found at the end of the article.

One of the most common questions I am asked on the river, and one that is commonly seen on internet forums is “How do I learn to cast a two handed or ‘spey’ rod?”

Fishing with two-handed rods has exploded in popularity recently. New rods and lines have made it easier than ever to pick up spey casting, but the plethora of tackle available has also led to confusion among new spey casters regarding rod length, style, types of lines, etc., and can lead to a very frustrating learning experience. The entire language of ‘spey’ can be confusing as well.

Spey casting is essentially a form of aerialized roll cast with a change of direction. It utilizes a loop of line (often referred to as a ‘D’ loop) that is anchored in the water at the tip of the fly line or leader, thus providing enough resistance to allow the rod to load as it would in the overhead cast. It is mostly used in swinging flies in the water, which is accomplished by casting across the river and letting the fly drag back across to dangle below you. Drag in this case is good, as is a tight line to control the fly.

Before I cover the learning process, let us briefly examine the different two-handed or ‘spey’ casting styles and their equipment.

Methods

Traditional:

Traditional spey casting made its way to America and Canada via the British Isles, originating on the river Spey in Scotland. Typically using rods longer than 13 feet and up to 18 feet long, traditional spey casting is a method designed to defeat a lack of back casting room, and allow an angler to cover the river with a swung fly much easier than conventional tackle would allow. The rods are often, but not always, full or progressive in their flex. The lines used are usually quite long, with weight-forward tapers running from 65 to 90 feet. More traditional double-taper lines are also utilized. Due to the nature of using longer lines on long rods with slow to medium actions, the traditional method uses more body rock and pivoting motion, as well as exact timing. The caster often uses a short pause after the formation of the ‘D’ loop in order to allow the rod to load properly. Traditional casting is the most graceful form of casting with a two handed rod, and is often the most difficult to perfect. Traditional casting makes total use of both hands, the lower pulling back to the body, while the upper hand steers the cast by extension. Traditional casts include the single-spey for an upstream wind, and the double-spey for a downstream wind. Traditional casting is used mostly to deliver small to medium steelhead and salmon flies to distances over 65 feet. The lines are commonly of the floating variety or have a sinking tip. Some anglers cast full sinking lines using this method as well.

Scandinavian style:

Often abbreviated as ‘Scandi’ and popularized by Goran Anderson, the Scandinavian style often makes use of stiffer rods than the traditional method. Many are shorter as well, although when casting great distances, rods up to 15 feet long are utilized. The lines used are in essence shooting-heads. Usually running from 30 to 50 feet long, these heads are tapered and attached to a running line of PVC or monofilament. A long leader of 14 feet or longer is utilized to anchor the cast in the water. A very strong use of the lower hand is emphasized in order to load the rod, as is a lower hand position on the rod. The upper hand extends very little, and the arms are kept closer to the body than the traditional style. The cast requires a minimum of effort compared to the traditional style, and some find it less fatiguing. For those of you coming from a single-handed casting background, learning the lower hand power stroke may be difficult. Casts that work best are the single-spey and snake-roll, both being casts that use a touch and go anchor. Other casts can be used as well. Scandinavian casting is used in full floating applications, as well as using sink tips, and even density-compensated full-sinking lines.

Modern Spey casting:

Making the most of the recent innovations in rods and lines, the modern style generally uses a shorter 50 to 65 foot head length in the weight-forward line. The rods are usually of medium length and generally run from around 12 feet to 14 feet long. The rod action is typically between traditional and Scandinavian: not too fast, not too slow. Popularized in the Pacific North West of the United States by anglers such as Jim Vincent, Simon Gawesworth, and Dec Hogan, the modern style is probably the easiest to learn. Less body-rock and pivoting is needed, and the casts are less apt to be sabotaged by improper timing. The arms are used in unison to power the rod, with the power stroke being delivered mostly with the lower hand. The progressive rod and heavy line does most of the work. Modern casting covers the full gambit from a full floating line to using heavy sinking tips.

Skagit Casting:

The most recent style of casting is the Skagit style. Born by necessity on the Skagit River in Washington State, the Skagit style uses very short and heavy heads attached to a running line much like the Scandinavian style does. The difference is that the Skagit head is less tapered and heavier, being designed primarily for, but not always limited to fishing with a sink tip attached to the head. Rods for Skagit casting come in all lengths from 12 to 15 feet, but the rods purposely designed for this style have actions that are slower than in Scandinavian casting. The casting stroke-length is shorter as well. Most Skagit casting is performed with a sustained anchor cast such as the double-spey, the Perry poke or Armenian cast, or the snap-T. Deep sink tip work and large flies work well with the Skagit style.

Cast groups, anchor, water direction, and wind.

In the prior examination of casting styles, I mentioned some casting strokes and anchor groups. Let us briefly take a look at when and why to utilize them.

Wind is the prevailing factor in determining which spey cast to utilize. When your fly is on the water and off to one side of your body, a wind blowing into you will often result in landing the fly in your ear or somewhere else, resulting in an impromptu body piercing. Thus, the casts are divided roughly into upstream and downstream wind casts. In general terms, the single-spey, snap-T, and Armenian or Perry poke cast are used when the wind is blowing upstream toward the caster. The anchor and D-loop occur on the down-wind side of the body, so hooking oneself is less likely. Consequently, the double-spey and snake-roll are used when the wind is blowing downstream. The forward-spey is the one cast that does not change direction, and is effectively an aerial roll-cast. The forward-spey is less a fishing cast and is usually used to reposition the line downstream prior to beginning a spey cast.

Water direction plays a huge part too. The right-handed caster would use the double-spey and snake roll when the river is flowing from their left, and the other casts when the river is flowing from their right.

These casts can also be divided into two groups by how the anchor is achieved. The single-spey and snake-roll are ‘touch and go’ casts. The line is aerialized during the cast, and the anchor is only a kiss of the end of the line or the leader on the water. The line itself loads the rod. They are ideal for floating lines. The second group of casts can be referred to as ‘sustained anchor’ casts. The double-spey, snap-T, and Perry poke or Armenian casts all use the sustained or locked line tension of pulling against the line on the water to load the rod. While the touch and go casts use little or no pause depending on the length of line used, the sustained anchor casts use a slight pause between the set of the anchor and the D-loop stroke.

All these casts can be performed with either hand uppermost on the rod, depending on the circumstances. Some casters prefer changing hands when appropriate, while others use the strong arm uppermost at all times, a practice that is commonly referred to as ‘cack-handed.’

Now that you have a basic sense of the casts, anchor groups, and styles of casting with a two-handed rod, we can look at the learning path to allow you to realize the joy of casting and fishing with them.

How to learn:

First things first. Before you go out and spend your next mortgage payment on a spey rod, line, and reel, think about the different styles of casting and ask yourself some questions. Will you be using the rod primarily for sink tip work, or will you use a floating line too? What types of rivers you will fish is important too. Using longer rods of 14 or 15 feet on small rivers with trees overhanging the banks can be frustrating and lead to a broken rod, and trying cast a 90 foot taper traditional line is probably not the best choice for these circumstances. Your fly has a higher chance of ending up in the overhanging trees above/behind you and the line will likely not fully load the rod at these distances. Likewise, trying to use short rods and lines on vast rivers may also lead to frustration. In general, the longer the rod, the farther one can cast, especially when wading deep. There are a lot of considerations here.

Once you have a rough idea of what style you want to learn, get some professional instruction. I didn’t, and it took years to correct flaws that could have never have occurred in the first place if I had instruction. The lessons do not need to be weeks long and cost an arm and a leg. Many instructors are available at gatherings of spey casters known as ‘claves.’ One can get formal and informal instruction as well as trying out different rods and lines. The events are usually free, the more formal instruction may not be.

Now that you have fooled around with a dozen rods and a myriad of lines, had some formal instruction, and wrapped the line around every conceivable object including yourself and your poor dog, it is time to start kicking the tires at purchasing a rod. Get as many qualified opinions as possible, and utilize online forums such as the Speypages.com. Be careful. Frame your questions properly, and beware that just like belly buttons, everyone has an opinion. What works for them may not work for you. When you have some sort of idea what you want, visit a qualified flyshop where you can speak to someone who knows what he or she is talking about when it comes to two-handed rods. Keep in mind that the rod and line must perfectly compliment each other. Bad line and rod combinations ruin spey casting. Don’t break the bank at first, but buy a quality rod with a warranty. The longer the rod, the more chance it has of getting caught in car doors, or tangled in trees. A warranty can pay for a rod many times over.

Along with your first rod purchase, I recommend a DVD or two. Spey casting is dynamic, and the motions are not easily described in print. A video can make things much easier. Later, when you are analyzing your casting and correcting flaws, a book can aid in the learning process.

The Art of Practice

First, put that pretty fly away. Use a piece of yarn as the fly and tie it to your leader. You don’t need any accidental body-piercing at this stage.

Now that you have narrowed down your options to a rod, line, and casting style suitable for your waters and intended purpose, stick with it. Fooling around with different styles at this point can lead to disaster. Practice one cast at a time. Start with the easier casts such as the forward-spey, and the double-spey. Work on these casts until you can make the head of the line and the leader turn over cleanly. Use a floating line when beginning. Floating lines give you a better feel for your stroke. Start with just the head of the line out of the guides. Worry about distance and shooting line later. Just as in golf, we cannot start learning properly by trying to drive 300 yards. Cast in near slow motion. That way you can correct errors as they develop. Take notes. Keep a casting log recording errors, fixes, thoughts, and inspirations. This will prove an invaluable tool. At some point, you will need to determine if you want to switch hands or cast cack-handed. Some people are nearly ambidextrous, while others (like me) can’t get the hang of casting with the ‘other’ or weak hand on top. If the two-handed rod is too much at the beginning, practice with a soft single-handed rod. Spey casting is not limited to the long rod. Some people feel that adding the use of both hands, at the same time as attempting to learn a whole new legion of strange casts, is difficult to overcome. Don’t be afraid of the single-hander, the casts are the same.

As you advance and become competent with the various casts, begin to vary the depth of water in which you are casting. Cast both short and long distances. Have a plan to your practice, be methodical, don’t just go out there and flail around.
Above all, try not to get frustrated. Even the best casters in the world had to start just where you are now.

Common errors:

This list is far from definitive, instead it will point out the most commonly seen errors by beginners that lead to frustration as the line lands in a spaghetti-like pile around your head.

· Over emphasis on the upper hand. You will have to learn to use the lower hand to help load and power the rod.

· Hacking or chopping wood. Arms hurt yet? If they do it may be a sign that you are not stopping the rod high enough and positively on the forward cast. This leads to hacking or chopping, and downward pointing floppy loops of line.

· Too much line-stick on the anchor. The cast should be able to pull the line out of the water. If you hear a splash and slurpy sound on your forward cast, and the line goes nowhere, too much line is anchoring the cast. Set your anchor closer, and make a more positive D-loop stroke.

· Casting too fast. This is the cardinal sin. If there is one thing that you should keep repeating, it is “Slow Down!” Spey casting is a graceful waltz, not a break-dance.

· Using too much effort. Spey casting should be easy. When you are casting correctly, it should be a joy. Let the rod and the line do most of the work.

No matter how accomplished a caster you become, casting practice will enhance your enjoyment of time spent fishing by removing the process of working out kinks to your off time. Standing in a run full of steelhead or Atlantic salmon, while futzing with your casting, can lead anyone to snap their rod in two in frustration.

Some recommendations:

I have opinions too. One of these is that one of the best ways to learn spey or two-handed casting is with a medium length rod, and a short-head spey line. This would be the modern method covered earlier. A moderate action rod of 13 to 14 feet, and a line with a 50-55 foot head is a perfect learning tool. If the rod is too stiff, feedback is affected. You can always buy that super fast action cannon later… once you have learned to cast.

Using lines with heads shorter than 50 feet while initially learning may result in developing a casting style that does not allow one to easily move to casting longer lines.

If it all sounds too confusing, remember that we just covered a lot of information, and that every journey begins with a single step. That initial step could open up a whole new world of fly-fishing enjoyment.

Some select resources:

Spey Casting by Simon Gawesworth (book)
Modern Spey casting by Rio Products (DVD)
From Spey to Z (DVD)
The art of Speycasting (DVD)
Speypages.com: Informational site and online forums
Two-Handed Fly Casting: Spey Casting Techniques by Al Buhr (book)

Erik Helm is a fly-fisherman and writer based in Wisconsin. He has chased steelhead with the two-handed rod extensively in the Pacific North West as well as the Great Lakes region. Erik teaches fly casting to individuals and groups, as well as keeping a literary fly fishing blog. His work can be found at Classicangler.blogspot.com

Summertime, and the livin is easy…

2010-06-02T10:15:00.000-05:00

Fish are jumpin, and the cotton is high…

Recent sunny and muggy days have drawn me to the childlike romance and innocence of fishing ponds for sunfish and largemouth bass. Warm water opportunities abound in the Midwest. Ponds and small lakes are literally everywhere. This little pond was packed with eager fish chasing dragonflies. They literally jumped out of the water after the bugs. My little popper didn’t quite look like a dragonfly, in fact, one would have to have Timothy Leary eyes to see a size 12 chartreuse popper as anything remotely resembling a dragonfly, but the cooperative fish were abiding by the philosophy “If it is on the surface and moving, it must be food.”

There is an inherent joy to ponds. No pressure or pretensions, plenty of room to cast, and spontaneous laughter when tiny bass come unglued in attempts to eat your popper. I recognized the laugh. It came from the ten-year-old boy within me.

Shallow ponds like these are simply made for the fly-rod. No other form of fishing can deliver food with the little ‘splat’ that drives pond-dwelling fish nuts. The best technique is simply to ‘ring the dinner bell.’

A good reminder that fly-fishing is supposed to be fun. Who cares if I couldn’t remember the Latin name for dragonflies as my shoes squished in the swampy ground and my shirt, pants and hands smelled like fish.

That frosted mug of root beer at an A&W afterwards tasted pretty good too.

Fitting the fly rod to the angler

2010-06-01T11:05:00.000-05:00

A frequent scenario I encounter is the mismatching of a fly-rod to an anglers casting ability or style. It is common enough that thought I would take a few minutes and flail away with the old keyboard on the subject.

At a casting class awhile back, an angler showed up with a super-fast action tournament casting fly-rod. He had difficulty loading the rod, and his sense of timing was all over the place. The rod was just too stiff for him at the present stage of his casting learning. I had him cast a more moderate flexing rod, and the difference was immediately apparent. He could feel the rod load, and therefore his timing improved greatly. What is the lesson here?

A common aphorism states, “One man’s meat is another man’s poison.” Translated, this means that what works for one person may not work for another. This is why purchasing a rod based on an article in a magazine or a review can be dangerous. It also offers a partial explanation as to why so many rods are dumped on the used market every day.

We are all different, and our casting strokes are too. Some people have soft progressive strokes and like to feel the rod load into the mid or even the butt section. Some people like to cast a stiff cannon of a rod.

However, If an angler cannot load the rod with 30 feet of line out, and does not know how to double-haul, the super-stiff rod may be more of a hindrance to casting than an aid. Likewise, a soft rod used for distance casting can work, but requires a steady and experienced hand.

I have written about this type of situation before. What is best for person ‘A’ in a given situation, may not be best for person ‘B’ in the same situation.

Often anglers question their rods. “Is this rod any good?” they ask themselves. The answer once again, is that in the hands of an experienced caster, most rods on the market today can be made to shine. It all has to do with the person doing the casting, which brings us back full-circle to fitting the tool to the job and the user.

That takes some skill, and a bit of experience. Quite a few questions should be posed and honestly answered. What, where, how, etc. Few people would buy an automobile they are unfamiliar with without a test drive. Anglers should test-cast rods before purchasing. The line being cast can also make a difference. I have heard it stated that if one has to over-line his or her rod (six weight line for a fast action five-weight rod), then he or she does not know how to cast.

Horse-hockey.

We are all different. Rod and line combinations that work for an expert caster, may not work for you.

The key in the rod selection process is that when you are on the river or lake, it is just you, your casting stroke, and the rod and line. The guy who sold it to you, or the magazine review you read will not be there with you. Get all the best advice you can, and visit a quality fly-shop and take a rod or two out for a test spin. If the person doing the selling tells you all about how you should buy his or her favorite rod, use caution. A good salesperson should always place themselves in your shoes, and ask leading questions before they sell you something. This way, that new rod of yours will see some river time, and not sit in the closet gathering dust.

Haiku Steelhead

2010-05-28T09:55:00.000-05:00

My friend Ken Campbell has revived his blog 'Haiku Steelhead'.
Ken is an artist in his appreciation for those things sublime and beautiful, and is one of a small brotherhood of those of us that attempt to find a deeper meaning in our fly-fishing adventures. Please check it out here.

The wonderful aerial ballet of frustration: The single spey cast.

2010-05-17T13:46:00.000-05:00

It reminds me of a Chinese gymnast with a long red scarf dancing through the air painting fleeting pictures and creating beautiful forms like a Picasso sparkler drawing on a long exposure film. It is at once the most perfect of all casts, with the power of a double-haul and the grace of a ballet dancer. Performed perfectly, it is grace.

But, dear reader, the single spey is a fickle friend. Forgive me for the analogy, but is like some girls I dated in my college days: so beautiful and interesting that you kept coming back, even if she messed up your head to no end.

The single spey is a delicate flower as well. That perfect loop is only attainable through precise timing and cast structure. Do it wrong, and it lets you know right away.

This is why I am drawn to the art of the single-spey like a moth to a flame; no matter how many times it burns me, I always come back for more.

The funny thing is that the single-spey is the one cast that goes off for me over the winter, or when not practicing. The double-spey, poke, snap-T, snake-roll, reverse casts, etc. all fly out, but the single-spey lets me know when I am not paying it enough attention.

The single-spey even haunts my dreams at night.

One of the major problems I have with this cast is over-analysis and too many sources for input. After watching a video or reading an article, I will change something and get a positive result, which then goes awry the next day. Then I watch a different video, and make another change…
The result this early spring was like a bunch of unrelated spare parts welded together to form something that didn’t work, and looked ugly.

So, learning from my past mistakes, I started from scratch, and concentrated on basics again. Slow lift angling to the casting direction, an ever-so-slight dip created by the underhand, a rising flat sweep and turn, pause, and stop.

I then realized that I had been making basic errors for the last seven years at least.
My anchor landed piled due to an up and down dip thanks to one video. My upper-hand was over-dominant. I had to begin the use of the underhand at the beginning of the cast, and maintain it throughout in order to form a large enough D-loop. I also lacked, and still lack body twist, and I over-compensate for that. I stop too low, and fire my casts too low. Etc.

Funny thing is, with a shorter head and sustained-anchor casts, these problems correct themselves, and faults are not as easily noticed, but add a mid-belly or DT line, and watch out! Now all the errors get multiplied to create frustrating and seemingly unsolvable problems.

So, to make a long story short, I will be down by the river when the winds are not blowing at 30 mph, and trying to re-discover beauty in the simplest but most difficult cast of them all.

Competition

2010-05-09T10:55:00.000-05:00

From time to time I run into people who tell me all about how they out-fished a buddy, or how they caught more fish than ‘fill in the blank’.

I guess competition is inherent in human nature. After all, it tends to be how we measure ourselves, and our abilities and success. However, ideally, competition should not enter into the little games we play on lakes and streams with our cherished quarry.

Competition should be something that occurs naturally within our own heads. It should have to do with bettering ourselves, learning, casting more precise, or presenting better. It should be an internal challenge to read the water better, choose the proper fly, or adapt to conditions. It never should be something that occurs between yourself and other anglers. That is a perversion of the spirit of angling with a fly.

This is a difficult path to walk. All it takes for us to get side-tracked is to observe another angler catching fish behind us, or figuring out a difficult hatch or fish in a particularly nasty lie, and then we want to catch more and bigger fish than they did.

I have some wisdom to share here. No matter how good you are, how many fish you catch, how far or how accurate you cast, there will always be someone better, usually just around the next bend.

So, the only way not to drive yourself crazy and end up in a straight-jacket mumbling incoherently about the impending cucumber revolution, is to limit the competition to yourself.

Satisfaction should be measured in baby steps, not great strides. Finally raising that big brown that lives under the alders in the bridge pool with a half-reverse slack line reach cast should matter far more than actually hooking it. This kind of personal growth should be celebrated.

With each step we take as anglers on our personal journey and path, we should grow in wisdom as well as skill.

If fly-fishing becomes a true competitive sport, at least we may want to avoid the NASCAR crossover look…

Orvis Milwaukee

2010-05-08T14:50:00.000-05:00

Orvis Milwaukee

Those of you who are local and have enjoyed reading some of my rather enigmatic wandering prose and thoughts will be able to visit me at the Milwaukee Orvis store at the Bayshore Mall. I will be the fishing manager, and responsible for outreach and everything outdoors or fly-fishing related. That includes classes, seminars, etc. Perhaps a reading of a short story...

The store opens May 15th. Come say ‘Hi.’

Being employed full-time and running a business on the side will no doubt leave me with less time for blogging and writing, but I hope that quality instead of quantity will suffice for the future. Meanwhile, I have submitted an entry to the Robert Traver fly-fishing writing award from Fly Rod and Reel magazine. Wish me luck! I hope “Hop on Pop” is not already entered…

April showers and trout

2010-04-26T12:17:00.000-05:00

Here are some nice photos of a Wisconsin trout stream visited recently. Nothing was hatching, and the pocket water made for technical fishing, but Joe and I managed to have a blast anyway, and some fish were caught. Buttery and feisty browns mostly. Just having the privelege to fish beatutiful water such as this and see the wildflowers blooming makes for a perfect spring day.

Save wild fish and get gear

2010-04-23T09:11:00.000-05:00

Stop over at Save our Wild Salmon to enter a photo contest and win a pair of Snake River Mountain Khakis pants, and support river conservation in this most endangered of our precious salmon and steelhead rivers.

The Poppies forever Grow over their lost Dreams

2010-04-16T14:16:00.002-05:00

Painting by Otto Dix, German Expressionist.

Life’s dreams do not always die when we do…

Copyright 2010 Erik F. Helm

The fire had died to a pensive glow and the three bottles of scotch were at half-mast that cold spring evening in Larry’s cabin on the West Fork. The fishing had been poor, and the conditions so brutal, that the five of us hearty anglers sought refuge earlier than we had liked. The Blue winged olive hatch had not come off, but the hatch of self-pity was in full force.

There is something about the company of men around a fire that brings out personal details, admissions, and tales that never before had seen the light of day. For some reason, like kids at a summer camp, we had strayed to telling strange tales and yarns. Bob had just admitted that he believed his house was haunted, and explained in detailed histrionics the spectral visions in the attic, and strange unexplainable sounds coming from under the old covered well in the cellar. This led to a rather long pause, as my turn came, and I considered whether to relate the strange events surrounding a small estate appraisal of a few pieces of vintage tackle I had performed out of kindness in the late 1960s in England.

Pouring more scotch into my old tin cup, Allen egged me on. “You gotta have somesing to tell dats wierd,” he slurred slightly.

“O.K., sit back and listen then,” I started, “It’s a long tale, but worth hearing. If I wasn’t there, I never would have believed it myself.”

I took off my hat, moved closer to the fire, took a powerful pull of scotch, and began.

“How I came to be fishing England’s chalk streams is unimportant. Suffice it to say that it was on an invitation from an angling club based upon the stipulation that I write a feature travel and fishing article about my adventures for my column in Field and Stream. It is because of what I am about to tell you that I never actually got around to writing the article, and because of this, was never invited back.”

“It was 1967 or ’68 when I flew over to Britain. In America, it was the summer of love. In Britain, it was the summer of fog and labor strikes. The angling club was charming and comfortable, the members and hosts relatively friendly, and the fishing very technical. I made mistakes, botched hook-sets, and spooked more fish than I am comfortable telling. I certainly gained a new respect for a stealthy approach on spring creeks. Some of the better fly-fishermen crouched or even crawled along the side of the river, hiding themselves in reeds and grasses.”

“It was along on the third or fourth day that I took a break to catch up on correspondence, and to that end, visited a local P.O. to mail off postcards and letters. I was completely unaware of the fact that, having come directly from the stream, I was still wearing a hat festooned with flies. That was an observation not missed by a middle-aged man with a well-worn coat, the squinty eyes of someone who has spent his entire adult life working in an ill-lit factory, and a pleasant crooked smile. He introduced himself, although the name now escapes me, and asked me if I was fly-fishing. As the line slowly wound forward towards the only service window, we engaged in a nice banter. After I had told him my profession, he took off his hat and scratching his curly coal-black hair, wondered aloud if I had any expertise in antique fishing tackle. In those days I got asked that question more than my name. It seemed that everywhere I went, somebody or other had some old bent and worthless rods and rusty lures in a closet somewhere, and were convinced that they were ‘worth a fortune.’ Some actually were, but most were the run of the mill general or hardware store types. The reason he asked, he explained, was that he was helping out an old widow that lived down an adjacent lane dissolve some of her household goods, and she had several ‘fishing-poles in wooden tubes’, and other stuff I may want to look at before it went to a local auction, and the widow to a room in a pension.”

“I’m a soft one for old tackle, and so, even though I had a busy schedule, I agreed to the short rail ride to the little town of Sassoon the following evening after fishing. As the train car clattered its way down the line, I looked at a map, which showed Sassoon as not more than a junction. When I dismounted, it was already getting dark, and shadows played off the dark stained brick of the small square. The man I had met the day before was dutifully sitting on the lone bench, smoking a foul-smelling cigarette. He smiled at me, and leading the way, began walking down a narrow and damp lane. After several twists and turns and nodding wordlessly to a group of urchins sailing paper boats in the stagnant water running down the center channel of the cobblestones, we arrived at a leaning stone portal with a decayed wooden sign hanging by thin wire with the words ‘Graves Lane.’ The irony was not lost on me.”

“‘Here we are,” he said, pointing to a small stone house through the portal. The name fit the place I thought. At one time there had been a garden. How long ago that may have been was anybody’s guess. What grew there now was an assortment of brown feral weeds. It may have once been a victory garden, but now it certainly looked defeated. The house itself was tiny and not much to look at, save for two window boxes bearing bright red poppies. Mr. Whatshisname begged off, and left me with the words that Mrs. Higgins was expecting me.”

“As I walked through the neglected yard toward the house, A shadow passed before the dimly lit and dust filled windows; that shadow proved to be Mrs. Higgins herself, who opened the door carefully, and stood in the failing evening light like a frightened candle afraid of the wind. She was slight and bent and wore a gray frock and dress that once may have been a floral print. The brightest things about her were her pure white hair, which she wore long, and her bright blue left eye. The right eye was filmed over white with cataract.”

“She may have been as ageless as the trees, but when she spoke, her voice was immediately one of kindness and compassion. It was also as clear as a bell. ‘Of all days of days…’ she murmured, ‘Welcome and thank you Mr. Allen. Come in out of the dark and have a cuppa.’ She stood aside as I entered a tidy sitting room and attached kitchen. A cheaply framed and yellowed sacred heart of Jesus hung above the fireplace, which admitted a slight but pitiful glow of a single coal. Mrs. Higgins seated me on a wooden chair seemingly designed to torture backs, and went to fetch the tray of tea. As I glanced around the room, a sense of pity filled me. It must be the same anywhere. Poor widowed women living in isolation with some meager pension, alive only in the past and with nothing to look forward to but death, surrounded by memories in the form of old photos of their husbands, children, and friends in better times. The furnishings were sparse, well-used, and obviously repaired and cared for carefully. The wing-back that Mrs. Higgins carefully lowered herself into with apologies to me for the lesser chair due to her back, had doilies covering up the frayed upholstery on the armrests.”

“After we had exchanged small talk and finished our tea, she retrieved several wooden rod cases and a cardboard box from the kitchen. ‘Here it is,’ she said. ‘These belonged to my late husband William.’ As I unwrapped the cases that she had obviously treasured and kept dear, she retrieved an old photo from the mantelpiece and handed it to me. Staring out of the cracked glass was a handsome young man in uniform. His hat was cocked slightly, and his smile was beguiling and hopeful.”

“The rods consisted of a bait caster made from solid wood, a 7-foot cane trout rod, and a three-piece salmon rod from an Aberdeen maker. All three were in immaculate condition. As I nodded in approval and complimented her on the care of fine tackle, she told me the story of her husband.”

“‘He enlisted in the Great War in 1915, only three years after we were married. William was a smart man, even if his education was limited. He trained first with a standard infantry regiment. They only had fake wooden rifles to practice with then, he told me; the real ones were needed at the front. This picture was taken just before he shipped out. He had to wait to have the picture taken due to not even having a uniform. After a few months of drill, he was transferred to a fusiliers regiment. He was so proud!’”

“‘He loved to fish for trout and salmon. It was expensive even then, but he had an uncle that had some rights on a river in Scotland, and he shared his fishing with William. I still remember baking a salmon for him that he caught and had shipped back to me on ice. Only time I have ever had it. He was proud of his fishing equipment. He had saved for it for two years while working in a warehouse on the docks.’”

“As she continued, I opened the box, revealing three metal containers of flies, and half a dozen large minnow lures. The flies were mostly rusted and the feathers eaten away, but the lures were in passable condition. Under the boxes of flies were two reels: a bait caster made of brass, and a tiny trout reel. Both were serviceable.”

“I explained to her that this collection could fetch the maximum number of pounds in a London auction, and not some provincial town, and wrote down both what I thought the range of prices might be, and the names of three creditable auction brokers. She thanked me repeatedly, and reaching for her purse, fumbled with some pound notes. ‘Please, I protested, no charge… I insist! It is privilege enough to just get to see such fine tackle so well preserved.’”

“It was then that it dawned on me that there were three rods and only two reels. ‘What happened to the salmon reel?’ I inquired cautiously. She paused a moment, and again lowered herself into the chair. ‘That reel is the one piece of his fishing things I will never sell. You see, it was my wedding present to William. It is also very special, for, well… sentimental and other reasons. I have it in my dresser, If you are willing to stay a bit longer,’ she said looking at her watch, ‘you may come to understand.’”

“She went into her bedroom and returned with a cracked leather case. She laid it down on the small center table between us. Along with the case, she brought a bottle of wine and two glasses. ‘Currant wine’ she explained. ‘I always have a glass at this time every month.’ She carefully measured out the homemade wine, and sat back.

“‘William loved that reel’ she said, raising her glass in a toast. ‘He hoped to get leave and fish it once again with his uncle.’ She carefully unbuckled the leather strap and took out the reel, setting it on a piece of velvet in the middle of the table. I knew right away it was a Perfect Reel made by Hardy Brothers. It had an ivory handle, and a hand-leaded finish.”

“‘William was sent with his regiment to France in the spring of 1916. I still have a dozen letters from him. I knew him well enough that, even if he didn’t write it directly due to censors, I knew something big was ahead. He was excited and nervous. In mid-summer I got a letter and a visit from an officer. I knew what it meant. The papers were filled with ‘Our gallant day’ and the ‘Big Push” that had spelled the beginning of the end for the Jerries. But I knew better. Women were crying and wailing. My neighbor lost her son and her husband at the same time. On July 1st, William and 57, 000 others of our best and loved went over the top of the trenches at the Somme, and fell before the Jerry lines. Their feet got tangled in barbed wire that the artillery was supposed to cut, and they got mired down in mud. The Jerries were anything but dead. Our generals were sipping champagne back at their French villas. They thought it was all going marvelously.’”

“‘It is just about time,’ she said, leaning forward toward the reel and looking again at her watch. ‘It does it on every first of the month at 9:27 PM. William must have laid a-dying the whole day in front of the German wire. They found him the next day. He had crawled forward towards their lines, dragging his satchel of grenades behind him. Machine gun got him they told me.’ At that very moment, the handle of the reel began to turn on its own, emitting a 'tat-a-tat-a-tat' sound from its check mechanism that exactly matched the sound of a maxim machine-gun. ‘1912 model,’ I mumbled, the hair on my neck standing up and shivers running down my spine. ‘Yes,’ she answered, ‘the year we were married.’

“I understand,’ I reassured her as I left the small house in Graves Lane.

“What ever happened to the reel?” Larry asked with rapt attention.

“I never found out, nor did I inquire. In some ways, I am glad for that. You would have had to be there to hear that eerie machine-gun noise that the reel admitted all by itself. I guess William did not want to let his dreams die so easily. Perhaps this was his way of protesting to future generations the bitter futility of war.”

“To a whole generation that were butchered and damned." Eric Bogle, from the song ‘No man's land’

Author’s note: This story was inspired by a discussion I read on the classic rod forum regarding the early Hardy perfects and some speculation as to what became of their original owners due to the reels being in remarkable shape for their age. I took a walk, mused a bit, and came up with this. The reader may recognize the names of Sassoon and Graves, which I borrowed on purpose. These refer to Siegfried Sassoon and Robert Graves, two English poets and authors who became outspoken critics of the war, and the way it was being conducted with disregard to the wholesale waste and sacrifice of human life.

Another very worthwhile blog

2010-04-13T11:32:00.000-05:00

Samual at Headwaters of History ( Link: http://www.headwatersofhistory.com/ ) has put together a site dedicated to fly-fishing history, conservation, and other subjects and musings. An excellent read, inciteful, and frequently updated, this blog is one of the little gems, in this writers opinion.
Check it out!

Back into the Trout dark-ages in Wisconsin?

2010-04-10T11:43:00.000-05:00

So much has been written about this recently that I do not wish to re-invent the wheel here.
I shall simply summarize.

Here are links to active threads and posts on the subject:

http://busterwantstofish.com/?p=1795

http://uppermidwestflyfishing.com/phpBB3/viewtopic.php?f=17&t=5888

http://www.headwatersofhistory.com/2010/04/rampant-historical-illiteracy-in-wisco.html

The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources will be petitioned by public advocacy during the Conservation Congress, to remove the system of special regulations on our trout streams in favor of a single five fish per day limit, effectively throwing back the clock to the dark-ages.

This proposal makes no sense on the surface, so I drilled down into it a bit.

Here is the real beef in a nutshell, once one sweeps aside spurious arguments and obfuscation.

The effort is led by several very disgruntled individuals, spearheaded by the supposed expertise of a certain rogue former DNR employee, and championed among others, by a certain former guide who has the rather dubious distinction of being banned from many internet forums due to constant inflammatory posting. The essence of what they stand for is the ability to harvest fish, especially by locals, who are represented as no longer able to fish due to restrictive catch and keep regs. Their youth and elderly can or will no longer fish argument is a mask. There are plenty of area and river sections where selective harvest is allowed, and stream access in Wisconsin is better than most any other state.

Fly-fishers have been vilified by this group as well as Trout Unlimited. Habitat improvement has been dismissed.

Effectively, this whole thing boils down to “In da good ole days we used to go down to the creek and drop a worm and catch our fill in an hour.”

The regulations which this group wishes to overturn were solidified after a drought in then late 1980s. They have allowed blue-ribbon fishing to emerge and stay. Changing the entire state to a single five fish limit effectively throws us back into the era before advanced management. The ‘good ole days’ when people could catch a bunch of brood-stock lunkers dumped in their back yard by the stocking truck, and the streams were clogged with silt, and too warm in the summers to hold trout.

Fly-anglers have pegged as elitist snobs by these guys, but it is these same ‘elitist snobs’ who every weekend, are on the streams, installing in-stream habitat improvements, bank stabilization, lunker structures, etc.

The whole bait and hardware vs. fly polarization that this group has ignited and fueled does us more harm than good. We are all stewards of the environment.

Grafton votes to keep ‘historic and iconic’ dam and millpond on the Milwaukee River

2010-04-07T11:20:00.000-05:00

Citizens of Grafton voted by an overwhelming majority (75%) to keep the dam on the Milwaukee River, and prevent the village board from using federal dollars available to remove the dam. The Wisconsin DNR has ordered the village to replace/repair the dam by 2019 in order to be in compliance with new flood control measures.

It is no wonder that the referendum passed. The wording was one-sided, and no mention was made of the larger issues of dam compliance, federal funds available, or any vision of a restored river. When the time comes to repair or replace the dam, the folks of Grafton will most likely have to pony up the funds themselves.

Too bad that Grafton is not able to envision the asset that a free-flowing river can provide to the community, wildlife, and all recreational users downstream of their impoundment.

Water quality on the river has improved so much that stoneflies have now become resident. Stoneflies only hatch in areas with oxygen-rich water that is free of siltation. Areas of the river that run wild have seen a recent return of bald eagles, nesting wood ducks, and other signs that nature appreciates the return of a restored river.

The Estabrook Dam has been open now for several years, and the water clarity downstream is the best this writer has ever observed. The lack of the seasonal opening and closing of the weir to fill and draw down the impoundment has allowed the river to cut channels in the silt backed up by the dam, and that very silt has been more or less blocked from pouring into the lower river.

The dam at Limekiln Park in Grafton is slated to be removed this spring, and the dam at Thiensville has received a new fish ladder, allowing migratory fish species such as sturgeon, bass, pike, and steelhead to ascend to new spawning waters.

All in all, our river, which used to be denigrated for its stench, is well on its way to recovery after years of being ‘managed’ by man. It is just kind of sad that the village of Grafton has refused to be part of a new vision for a restored river that already has proved an aesthetic, recreational, and natural asset in areas where it has been allowed to recover.

The Perfect Perfect

2010-04-03T12:35:00.001-05:00

Any one who knows me knows that I am a huge fan of the reels made over the years by Hardy Brothers of Alnwick (pronounced Annick). The Marquis, the St. John, the Lightweight series, the St. George, the Bougle’ and others possessed a simple utility and art that was so perfectly merged. They were not fancy, the finish was hand leaded and tended to make them look like antiques after a few years of use, but they just lasted and lasted. They may require more maintenance than modern reels, but many old Hardy fly reels are now on their third or fourth owner, having given service for multiple generations of anglers. The designs Hardy produced were copied far and wide. For a while at the end of turn of the twentieth century, to perhaps the 1930s, most reels on the market were copies, adaptations, or were heavily influenced by the reels of Hardy Brothers.

The Hardy reels still stood out in the waning years of the British Empire period because they had a unique feel and sound. When one picked up a Hardy reel, a glance and a turn of the handle to engage the check or ratchet, and one knew he was holding a Hardy.

The most popular, most widely produced, most influential, and perhaps still the best gear and pawl reel ever designed came out at the end of the 19th century. Designed in 1888, and patented in 1891, the brainchild of Forster Hardy was christened ‘The Perfect Reel.”
It ran on a ball-bearing race, had an adjustable check mechanism with a unique sound, and the back-plate turned to allow one to apply finger pressure to increase the drag. The first Perfect reels were manufactured by hand out of brass.

The Perfect was continually modified and improved, and by 1912, the body material was changed to various alloys of aluminum. The reel was lightened, and a new check was introduced: the famous ‘1912 ratchet.’

It is this version of the Perfect that anglers and collectors consider the ‘Perfect’ Perfect. It has a sound and power to the check that was never before or since duplicated. In fact, 20/20 hindsight would wonder what led Hardy to abandon the 1912 lever adjusted spring and single pawl.

Around 2002, or 2003, Hardy, now House of Hardy, decided to hand make a limited production run of 250 reproductions of the 1912 perfect in 3 ¾, 4, and 4 ¼ inches wide. All would be the wide drum salmon model. 200 were sold in sets of three, one of each size, and encased in a leather box, while 25 each were available for purchase individually, 25 in right-hand wind, and 25 in left-hand wind. They featured the original check or ratchet and ivorine handle, but added a faceplate that had a spitfire finish. This finish originated during the war, when materials for finishing became difficult or impossible to obtain. Each reel was finished entirely by hand, and stamped as of old, with the maker’s initials.

1912 Repro set. I took this photo of an old edition of The Art of Angling Journal

I have always wanted a Hardy Perfect reel. I came close to purchasing one several times, only to balk at the price at auction. I missed the time when a wide-drum salmon was easily obtained for a couple of hundred dollars.

Now I am glad I waited all these years. If anticipation counts for anything, my years of Perfect lust led up to obtaining more or less unexpectedly, what I consider the ultimate Perfect. Meet the 4-inch, left-hand wind spitfire finish 1912 reproduction made by Charlie S. Norris, Hardy’s head reel maker. One of 25 made for individual sale.
I will be committing blasphemy and actually fishing with it. After all, life is too short not to use the good china!
However, one of my leather reel cases will always accompany it, on the river or off. The hand finish is too easily damaged. The maintanance will be akin to a silk line, with the stripping of the line, cleaning, and drying, but all that love and attention will be worth it when this thing gets wound up by a fish.
I can hear it now...

THE check

How to fall in the river.

2010-03-28T11:25:00.000-05:00

Readers of this blog may be aware that from time to time, I toss a bit of barbed humor into the mix, and the most frequent target of that humor is myself. After all, if one cannot poke fun at oneself, then one may be in danger of taking oneself too seriously.

The other day I placed a loop of line over a budding branch hanging over the water. I rolled my eyes and tried to free it. It remained stuck like it was attached with glue. Instead of wading back to the branch and carefully freeing the line, I instead commenced pulling on it. Newton’s third law of physics states that for every action, there is an equal and opposite reaction. Thus, when I freed the flyline, I cart wheeled ass over teakettle backwards into the water. Unbelievable. I laughed and shivered all the way through the next two hours. It is amazing that I can wade through minefields, only to manage this Laurel and Hardy sort of act.
I hope someone got a good laugh out of it. I know I did!

The Weightless Wonderod

2010-03-27T08:39:00.000-05:00

A wee bit of humor for a Saturday:

In the never-ending quest for a lighter rod, the Sagorviloomiston rod company has come out with a revolutionary line of flyrods, the ‘Weightless Wonderod’ series.

These new rods are invisible as well as weighing nothing. Rod designer Mortimer Haggis says, “The Weightless Wonderod series is what anglers have been asking for for many years. The lighter the rod, the less fatigue placed upon the arms while casting. Since these rods weigh nothing and effectively don’t exist, fly anglers can fish whenever and wherever they like, without the least effort at all. This opens up whole new avenues to the fly such as couch angling, dream fishing, and standing in the river waving your hand.”

The W.W. rods retail for $999.95, are available from 0 through 000 weight, and come with a matching fly-line made of helium atoms. They feature reel seats made from a proprietary blend of unbelievium and nonsensium, and a fetching blank color of ‘oxygen.’

A ‘satisfaction or your hallucination back’ warranty is offered as well.

For more information, contact Sagorviloomiston at thelighterthebetternomatterwhat.clom

The “Sport” of gravel raping

2010-03-25T12:23:00.001-05:00

Well, here we are. Spring is in the air, the robins are singing, “Cheer up… cheer up…cheerily!” cardinals are calling their mating song, and ‘fly-fishers’ are on the gravel chasing spawning steelhead. In the past week, the water level has fallen and cleared enough to allow the use of those nifty polarized glasses to spot fish on the gravel. Guys with expensive cigars wade the shallows looking for bedding fish, hook them on nymphs and glo-bugs, and drag them away from their mates during the act of procreation. The poor fish flop around on the gravel until trapped in a net effectively damaging their protective slime layer, and then get to star in grip and grin ego photos.

Is this sporting? I guess the answer depends on what one considers fair chase. Would it be sporting to wait for a deer buck to mount a doe and then shoot it? That is effectively what is happening here.

To me, and this is my opinion, chasing steelhead, or any fish while they are attempting to build redds and spawn is the lowest form of ‘fishing’ shy of intentional snagging. Even the snagger is probably being honest in his or her game, however illegal it is. Gravel rapers on the other hand actually think they are fly-fishing. Sad.

After many years of swinging flies for steelhead, I can spot a gravel-raper just by looks.

Usually the most expensive vehicle in the parking area, Lexi, Range Rovers, and other obnoxiously large and irresponsible SUVs, will belong to them. Often they sport fly-fishing stickers, or even TU logos. The anglers rarely fish alone. They most often show up in twos and threes. It must have something to do with the glory photos, and the sense of camaraderie in pounding the gravel with your buddies ready to offer congratulations on your ‘catch.’ They wear all the latest gear, especially if it has a logo. They dress up to look like some image in their mind of how a fly-fisherman should look. They ask every person they come across, “Have you seen any fish?” They wander around the river in unpredictable directions, most often again, in groups.

Most of these guys are trout fishermen. That is sad in itself. Instead of learning the skill of reading water in a large river, they just do what everyone else is doing, and rely on sighted fish on gravel before they can make a single cast. I am a trout fisherman as well, but it just kills me to see people that I know from the small streams rely on these tactics for steelhead. Would they fish that way on a trout stream? Is that why the streams are closed for part of the year to protect spawning fish? If the streams and creeks were not closed, would these ‘anglers’ hook as many spawning trout off their gravel beds as they could?

It is getting to the point that an ingrained belief, culture, or even tradition surrounds the use of single-hand rods: nymphing, or glo-bugging over gravel. Swinging streamers seems to be relegated to spey rods now. This is sad too. The single-hand rod is an excellent tool for streamer fishing, if only this method would catch on here. If only these legions of anglers in the Midwest would depart for a day or two and not rely on sight-fishing, the sport that would be discovered by them would be enough to put them off the bedded fish forever.

Alas, this takes a leap of faith, and the ability to appreciate a single fish caught fairly after a full day of wading and casting, versus tallying numbers and measuring the skill of the angler by the sheer number of fish to hand, however crude the method. That leap of faith, and sense of fair chase seems to be beyond most anglers. Indeed, they often defend the practice, and I have been told by one fisherman that “He feels sorry for me, if I don’t get enjoyment out of sight fishing for steelhead.” Sight fishing and gravel raping are not necessarily bonded together. If a fisherman walking the banks and looking down into a pool spots a pod of fish holding in the water, and then swings flies or nymphs for them, that is different than fishing bedded fish. In our rivers, 99% of steelhead spotted are on the gravel.

The thing that really bothers me is that these gravel rapers think that, because they are using a fly rod, they are somehow elevated above the gear fishermen or center-pinners that are legitimately hooking their fish. This very deservedly gives fly-fishing a bad name. Being snobby about an abominable method of fishing is just sad. This is sad, and a disservice to all the other anglers, whatever the method or gear, who are actually fishing.

An ode to our river at spate

2010-03-20T11:58:00.000-05:00

*Spate: A U.K. term meaning flood, large influx of water, full of water, freshet, etc.

The river is deep and dark with mystery, danger, and expectation. It presses on your body and moves you. It surrounds you. The trees in skeletal state stand as patrons, ever watching. Voices come and go, created and swallowed by the black water.

Somewhere in that cold river waking from winter’s sleep moves a sleek form. Born to wander, the prodigal fish returns. So too, does my joy return. I immerse myself in the vast emptiness, and in that dark forbidding and cold water, find renewal. I cast my long line over the water with an offering, a hope of a connection to nature and some hidden or forgotten part of myself. Snowflakes tickle my nose, melt into drops of water, and join the billions of others flowing with authority to the lake.

My boots shuffle off the gravel and cobble. I bob through hidden holes as the water hisses around my waders. Where others find loneliness, I find harmony, in those waters as deep and dark as our souls.

Production salmon and steelhead fly dressing

2010-03-16T13:27:00.001-05:00

Cooped up in the Midwest winter, I decided to practice a bit of production tying. The aim was to produce a set of sample flies to display at shows, and ~~barter for dog-food~~ sell.

First off, I discovered to my dismay that this kind of tying can be tedious. In a production or commercial run of flies, every fly must be almost exactly the same. That means heads must be uniform, hackle and wing lengths measured and trim, and proportions correct.

Until one tries this for real, it seems easy. Take ten flies and look at them separately, and they look fine. Then place them close together and voila! we see differences. The old Sesame Street game of “One of these things is different/not quite the same” comes to mind.

I frowned and scratched my head. When I examined the ever-so-slight differences in the flies, I discovered that often it was related to selection of materials. One wing was tied denser than another due to a few too many black bear hair fibers, or the hackle lengths were not uniform. There was also the human factor at work, but the pre-selection of materials, and laying things out properly solved the issue of my mind wandering when reaching for fur or feather while contemplating Mahler’s ninth symphony.

So here is what I learned:

Choose the hook sizes first and lay them out.

Pre-select the winging material and collar or throat hackles. These are the two material areas where careless prep work can sink a fly.

Place a piece of cork or Styrofoam near the vise, and place the completed flies there before lacquering. This will allow one to check exact proportions.

Dress at least half a dozen flies of the same size and pattern at the same time.

Do not answer the phone or get distracted.

Too much ~~sniffing head cement~~ coffee leads to errors.

From the left: Rusty Rat, Will Taylor Special low water, Silver Doctor low water, Laxa Blue varient, Unnamed winter fly, and the Blue Bear. The last two are winter dressings, while the others are intended as summer flies.

Exercises in Critical Thinking

2010-03-15T10:34:00.001-05:00

A short exercise in thought, or inside the mind of fly-fishing marketing.

“The ABCDXYZ flyrod is the lightest in its class.”

A true statement no doubt. However, the critical thinker ponders, “What class?” “Who defined the class?” “What are its boundaries?” Is it weight, price, length, intended use, type of fish pursued, water type, or what? It turns out in this case to be price point. Reverse-engineer the thinking, and we see how marketing is applied, and how it can be a bit deceptive while still being absolutely true. The rod is the lightest in its price class, as no other rod costs exactly $265.95. See?

“This rod will throw a tighter loop at X distance than ‘insert competitor here’”.

The critical thinker wonders in whose hands the rod throws a tighter loop? What about a neophyte looking to improve his or her casting? Is this a rod designed for experts? Will the inability to cast such a fast rod with minimal feedback actually result in sloppier loops at distance in the hands of inexperienced casters?

Avoid the word “best” like the plague. If you see it used, discount the claim in entirety. There is no ‘best’, it is all relative.

“New lower price!” This translates to “It did not sell too well at the old price.”
“20% lighter than the old model” translates to “The old model was too heavy.” Or possibly that the manufacturer had to keep tweaking the product to keep it new and cool, and actually has made it too light now.

“More durable than ever” equals “The older models got returned too often for warranty.”

“World’s finest!” equals “World’s most over-priced.”

“Traditions of English design, but with a modern twist.” The twist is that it is made in China now.

“Hot fly of the month.” This often translates to “The fly we ordered way too much of last year, and have too many of now.”

“Save money!” This usually means you will be attaching a vacuum to your wallet soon.

“Beginners and experts alike will appreciate this widget.” This translates to “The product is priced for experts, but we want to sell it to wealthy beginners too.”

I bet the readers have examples too. Please feel free to share them in the comments section.

An inspiring commercial

2010-03-10T10:05:00.000-06:00

Yvon Chouinard for AMEX and the earth. A beautiful little piece including his being a dam-buster.

On Being Challenged

2010-03-07T09:17:00.000-06:00

Here is an interesting topic for thought…

Many of us progress down a path and become stuck in our ways. We do the same thing in the same old way at the same time over and over. We become ‘good enough’ at something that we can achieve decent results, but often lack the inner strength, passion, or drive to question our methods or evaluate our accomplishments objectively. We have reached mediocrity, drank of it deeply, and sleepily poured ourselves into the couch of laziness.

Then someone comes along who looks at us and says, “You can do better.” Sometimes that person is an inner voice of unresting perfection, and sometimes a human colleague.

If we think back on our activities, sports, crafts, arts, etc., I think most all of us at one time or another had someone poke us with the cattle-prod of challenge. Yes, it is ‘good enough,’ but it is not ‘right.’ That cast was just not quite right. Do it again…. and again. The head on that fly could be smaller or tighter, that wing straighter, that popper closer to the downed log.

Great practitioners of a sport or art, be they musicians, dancers, painters, sculptors, fly tiers or casters have one thing in common: an almost obsessive drive for perfection. Want to know how someone got so good? Ask them. Chances are that they challenge themselves every day, or are challenged by their peers.

The peer group we place ourselves in is also important to this concept. Is it no wonder that so many good casters came from the Golden Gate Casting Club? They inspired and challenged each other. They grabbed the whole collective by their bootstraps and raised the bar.

I have fished with some amazingly good anglers over the years; people whose abilities far exceed my own. Sometimes this can be frustrating, but it also can lead to inspiration and a rolling up of the sleeves as I strive to achieve a higher level.

This ‘challenge or inspiration’ cake must be devoured in small slices. If one is new to an activity, and watches an acknowledged expert perform, and then tries for all he or she is worth to mimic the level of performance, one is setting up for failure. Baby steps first. Small bites.

To those that challenged me to make my fly heads more even and tighter, my mends in the flyline more exact, my single-spey more precise, thank you. Most of you won’t know who you are, as you led by example, and I merely followed with inspiration born of your prowess.

Ad augusta per angusta

2010-03-02T10:26:00.000-06:00

The latin quote found on the top of the page translates roughly as “To high places by narrow roads.”

The path less taken can be a lonely one filled with rocks and brambles, sheer cliffs, and rough going, but when one finally climbs to the top, the entire journey is worth it. All the lessons learned along the way are yours - wisdom.

We all come to forks in the road of life. 90% of us will look to see what the rest of the sheep are doing. 5% of us will never be able to make up our minds and be swept away or sit on a rock at the crossroads for eternity.

The remaining 5% will branch out onto deer paths, dry creek beds, country roads, or mountain passes, and discover the essence of life and living.

That 5% will never be famous. They march to their own drummer.

A wee project

2010-02-27T15:05:00.000-06:00

Perfect activity for recovering from the Chinese Hackle Flu.

Years ago, I used to do a fair bit of antique leatherwork. I made armor, thigh-high medieval and renaissance boots, shoes, drinking vessels, pouches, scabbards, etc. I also tooled designs into leather. The other day, I rooted around in the basement and found what remains of my formerly large collection of leather and leatherwork tools. It now consists of one lone box.

The idea was to make a case for protection of the reel when it was both on and off the rod. Reels get scratched in two major ways:

Dropped at home while being played with and fussed over.
Dropped, scraped, or fallen on while entering or exiting the river.

The reel case prevents #2.

The whole thing turned out decently, except for the side material being cut a bit short, and the main panel cut a bit crooked. Whatever. Not too bad for the first time in twenty years. I remembered how to sew by hand using glover's needles and a sail stitch, and how to tool leather. I even used handmade scissors/shears to cut the leather, and sewed it to music from Europe and England from the 14th through the 17th century. How organic. Hope it provides some good JuJu.

The original neoprene case for this 4" spey reel got dropped in the river. Hope that does not happen to this one!

All in all, I enjoyed this project immensely. I forgot how much fun it is to create from scratch; to start with a simple idea, and with very little planning, just see what happens. Total time, around eight hours. Less if not hand drawing the knotwork.

Awaiting finishing

Tooling the Celtic knotwork circle for the rear panel

Ready for coloring if desired

I thought a green knot might be nice.

Staining the medallion

Front with adjustable closure flap

Rear panel with Celtic medallion

Feathers, Asian bugs, and fevers

2010-02-25T10:20:00.000-06:00

There are bugs, and then there are BUGS…

I received a package of hackle the other day, among other fur and tinsel type stuff, from a reputable mail-order materials company. I sat down to tie some salmon and steelhead classics, and lo and behold, I needed the very color of hackle that I had just received. I opened the package, ran my fingers through and noted the excellent quality of the feathers, and began to tie flies.

Flash forward to the next evening.
An itch in my throat quickly turned into a cough. The cough in turn turned into a full-blown old-fashioned fifteen-round full-monty Midwest late-winter cold; the kind of cold that I have not experienced since childhood; the kind of cold and fever that finds one sitting on the bed attempting to read a passage by James Joyce and drooling on the page.

Oh Good.

Well, since I needed my rest, what activity, other than sleep, is so relaxing and sublime as fly-tying? My addled and Nyquil saturated brain sat down at the vise for an hour or two and turned out the most incredible array of fouled-up rejects I have yet produced. I forgot whole steps. Wings were mounted to my nose, I sneezed on the teal feathers, scattering them all over. I dropped spools of tinsel and floss, rolled around on the floor trying to corral them, and ended up covered head to toe with fur and feather clippings.

Then, while reaching for that wonderful new Chinese rooster hackle dyed just the right color, I read (or hallucinated) a small label attached near the bottom of the plastic zip-lock bag. It read “New and improved! Now with 20% less Asian bird-flu germs.”

“Aha!” I thought, as I wrapped a piece of popcorn on the hook, and chewed on some soft-hackle.
Makes sense now.

It's all very complicated...

2010-02-22T13:26:00.000-06:00

“You must really like to eat fish,” the friend of a friend says to me while sipping her latte.

“Um, well, actually I release most of the fish I catch,” I mumble, aware where this is inevitably going to end up.

“So, you like to fish, and you admit you like to eat fish, but instead you release them?”

“Well, see, it is all about nature, and beauty, environmental stewardship, appreciation of the fish and the river… See, fly-fishing is more than just fishing…”

Really, though, when it comes down to it, I reflect, it is just a simple game with rules that a four-year-old could grasp: Go down to lake or river with rod and reel. Catch fish. Repeat.

Being romantics, we always want to make more out of it. Take a simple essence and surround it with volumes of philosophy.
Make it into some sort of metaphysical and existential reflection and journey. Make it into a metaphor, and find life-lessons in it. Sit by the river pondering Camus. Assigning anthropomorphic qualities to things we see around us. Our flies are art, not craft we argue to ourselves, as if just accused anonymously by an upstart and impudent thrush. We’re not just fishing see… we are, well, experiencing some sort of primal harmony. “It’s all poetry,” we murmur out loud, even if the hypocrisy peeks its irritating head through a tiny doorway in our brain, reminding us that the last time we attempted to read Frost, we fell asleep.

It just has to be more than a simple game of cat and mouse. We refuse any assertion that at times it can be quite easy. “Takes years and skill,” we argue to the trees while raising fish after fish with a fly that the carefully tied hackle fell off of on the first cast.

We have been caught by family members while lying in the filled bathtub with scuba gear, congratulating ourselves on the latest revelation or innovation in fly design. We have been admonished and punished by angry spouses when our latest attempts at dying hackle stained the sink a very interesting shade of green.

‘Normal or mundane’ folks refer to them as bugs, but we know better. They are Ephemerella subvaria. It makes a difference we reflect… Appreciation and knowledge and such.

There was once a time when we contemplated homicide as a careless Aunt referred to our cane fly rod as a “Fishing pole.”

We don’t just take a drink from the river, we sip of the essence of life, forgetting while we do so, that the last time we did this we ended up with the runs for a week.

What other kind of sport could so inspire, that we could be found late upon a cold winter morning, seated in front of the fireplace in the study, dressed only in a robe and our underwear, surrounded by tackle and fly-boxes, dreaming dreams of spring.

I once read somewhere that a newlywed bride told her friend, “My husband does not drink, smoke, or chase women, instead, he fly-fishes.”
Several years later, she admitted to the same friend that if it were up to her, she wished he did a few of those other things, and a bit less fishing.

“It’s complicated,” I try to explain to the friend of a friend; “It’s sublime.” Hearing those words from my mouth with the clarity of an out of body experience, I smile about how I am going to explain why it is ‘sublime’ to match wits with a creature with a brain the size of a match-head, attempt to fool it with a bit of old string and some smelly fur, and end up coming up short most of the time.

“Perhaps it is a journey in humility,” I reason out loud, remembering when arrogance kept us from talking to that guy with the spinning rod that was out-fishing us ten to one. Pride before the fall? Arrogance before humility, or humbleness only because of prior arrogance… More philosophy.

What other sport would have us attempt, via some hidden and unknown rosetta stone, to decipher and make sense of the many ill-written books on fly-fishing? Some being tomes of astounding tediousness and practically unreadable. What other sport would have us chuckle with the fine author Nick Lyons, as everything possible goes wrong and he falls in the river? Perhaps it is because we have been there ourselves. We may reflect back to the time when, on the subject of beauty and fly-casting, we attempted, in a local park, to show our spouse the inherent ballet in a properly made loop, only to have a seagull eat the piece of yarn we were using as a fly, and after taking out all the line, tangle it forever in a large oak tree.

“It’s complicated…” I mumble through current muffin crumbs, watching the departing back of the friend of a friend, and looking down at the spilled coffee, and the single word traced with it on the table: “Crazy.”

After much reflection, I have come to completely agree.

An historical and inspirational poem

2010-02-19T10:11:00.000-06:00

Old Time Salmon Fishing

Written in 1925 by John Cossboom, renowned American angler and originator of the famous ‘Cossboom’ series of flies.

Did you ever cast for salmon in the spring,
For the big bright shining fish fresh from the sea,
With the leaping strength and vigor that they bring
To the swollen flood-fed river running free?

Did you ever feel the fever in your blood
When a dirty cold Nor’easter threatened rain,
And you smelled the river clearing after flood,
And you sensed the salmon in the pools again?

Did you never wield a rod of eighteen feet –
A Leonard, old, with handles wound with cane –
The “Church of England” rods we used to meet,
Swung by anglers of the old school without strain?

Did you ever use a cast of Hebra size?
Did you ever cast a sixty-thousandths line?
Did you ever tie on Durham Ranger flies –
Big 5/0 flies, and cast them in the wind?

Did you ever see a wave behind your fly
And know it for a fish of monstrous size,
And when that wave exploded two feet high,
Feel your great rod bend near double to the rise?

Did you ever have a guide yell in your face,
When your salmon surged across the heavy pool
And dragged your rod down level with your waist,
“Keep your tip up, or you’ll lose him, you dumb fool!”?

Did you ever race along the slippery shore
With your rod held high and bended to the fray,
While down across the rushing pool he tore
And jumped two hundred feet and more away?

Did you ever feel your rod and line go slack,
And cry, “He’s gone!”, in disappointed pain,
And when you found he’d only started back,
Did you madly reel the strain on him again?

Did you ever think you had him tired out,
When his tail began to show above the stream?
Did you ever think him yours without a doubt
Till he rushed and made your old reel fairly scream?

Did you ever back up slowly on the beach
And draw him gently toward the waiting guide,
Then have him stop and stay just out of reach,
And chug those scary chugs from side to side?

Do you recall that long last surging plunge
That took him up and out across the tide,
And how you swung him back down to the lunge
That sank the gaff into his silver side?

Do you recall your fervent thankful prayer,
As his forty pounds lay shining at your feet,
To the Red Gods who had smiled on you so fair,
To the Red Gods who had made your joy complete?

That’s the fishing that they called a “Sport of kings” –
When thet fished in swollen rivers’ springtime flow
For the big bright shining fish of other Springs,
With that heavy rugged gear of long ago!

What it means to me

2010-02-17T10:44:00.000-06:00

I tried to capture with available photos some of the romance I find in this fine sport of angling for bejeweled fish in glorious rivers.

A couple of spring patterns

2010-02-16T09:51:00.000-06:00

Although these flies can and are tied more sparse for lower water situations, here I tied them more full for spring spate flows in March and April.

Will Taylor Special varient and the Blue Bear. Both Canadian Atlantic Salmon patterns.

The Blue Bear is pictured as tied with krystal-flash, but I substituted peacock sword.

The Will Taylor Special comes from the Miramici River, and according to the best information available to me, was originated by Boyd Dunnett.

Both flies have bodies spun of dyed wool. I kind of like the green I got by mixing a bit of chartreuse with kelly green.

The Lost World of Mr. Hardy DVD Review

2010-02-13T11:35:00.000-06:00

The Lost World of Mr. Hardy DVD

By Trufflepig Films.
Buy Here

Review by Erik F. Helm

“This is history!” Says the last Mr. Hardy emphatically, as he watches a film from 1939 showing the fly-casting of a rod he himself designed.

The Lost World of Mr. Hardy is at once both an historical documentary and a requiem. An elegy to a lost time when the craftsman took as much pride in their fine hand-crafted rods, reels, and lines, as the discerning anglers around the world did in their use; an elegy to the craftsmen and women themselves who, apprenticed at 13 or 14 years old, spent their entire lives dedicated to producing the world’s finest fishing tackle. That was Hardy Brothers of Alnwick, producers of the Perfect fly reel, the Palakona rod, the Smuggler, jewel-action bait reels for Zane Grey and tackle for kings and maharajas. A family of tackle makers who spanned the 19th and 20th century.

Subtle and reflective piano music accompany the slowly unfolding scenes. Period black and white films of sportsmen decked in country dress fishing for salmon are mixed nicely with scenes of nature; the sounds of a riffle trickling or the drops of falling water. Loops unfurl over the water as herons crouch and songbirds sing.

If one loves the traditions and history of fly-fishing as well as being familiar with, or even owning a piece or two of Hardy tackle, you may very much enjoy this film. If these conditions don’t apply, then you may enjoy the nostalgia for the first half-hour, and then simply pass out. This is a film about passion… the passion of fine tackle and its history at Hardy. If one has any sensitivity, it may bring a tear or two.

Several scenes of the historical footage are priceless. In one scene, one of the Hardy Brothers fishes a salmon river at full spate with a spey rod. After hooking several salmon, one gains new respect for the ghillie. It seems that in order not to over exert himself or get his lovely shoes muddy, Mr. Hardy would hand the rod to the young Ghillie, who would run off chasing the salmon down the river and out onto rock bars while the sport lit a cigar. The joy seemed to be in the hooking of the fish. The rest was a job for the plebs. The fact that these fish, which were up to 50 pounds were hooked and played on 8/0 Black Doctors might give us some food for thought.

Another scene showed and described the bombing of the famous London Pall Mall Hardy Bros. shop during the Blitz in WWII.

In several repeating scenes, we see auctions and large tackle sales where Hardy products of the past are featured, and prospective collectors finger tackle carefully, examining old reels and rods with jeweler’s glasses. Then we see the same tackle sold for unbelievable prices.

The film also displays the meticulous art of tying full-dress married wing salmon flies by hand and without a vise, and shows Ken Middlemist at work, the last of the Hardy fly tiers.

The stark reality of the late 19th century and early 20th century apprentice system becomes quite apparent in the film. Apprentice fly tiers would tie fly after fly on the same hook, have it critiqued, and then snip off all the fur and feathers and start again. For the first number of years, they were not allowed to complete a fly for sale. This sort of purgatory of learning also included several of the Hardy family who would constantly berate the workers, check their work, and if they found it wanting in any way, smash it to pieces in front of them. The worker would then not be paid for his work. No bangers and mash for you this week!

The funny thing about this system, which was no different than other industries at the time, was that the workers were very dedicated to Hardy’s, and all those years spent meticulously learning their trade paid off in the quality of goods they produced.

A dying tradition:

If the film is an elegy to a lost time, one may ask where did it all go? The answer is here in the film as well. Modern production methods, new materials, and a search for cheaper production costs slowly led the industry-leading company to outsource their production. Hand-made split cane gave way to fiberglass, and the young girls that sat in rows tying trout flies now sat in those same rows in Asia and Africa. Slowly, but inexorably, each of the crafts was eroded, until Hardy Brothers became a design and marketing company instead of a production company. This was not a smooth process, which the film hints at. Indeed, at several points in their later history, Hardy’s direction and product offering became rather lost. It was as if they were looking for their way in a dark room with no light. Hardy had their feet rooted in tradition and history, and were reaching out to the new high-tech market: disc-drag reels, lighter rods, etc. To give an example of the opportunities misused, Hardy may in fact be the first company to build a graphite rod, but missed out in bringing it to market like the could have.

As the film wanders to its conclusion, several elderly workers and fly fishermen reminisce about what the loss means. The term ‘bespoke’ is a British one, meaning hand made to the customer’s specifications. The bespoke industry may have gone from Hardy’s, but as the film shows, it just turned around and emerged as a cottage industry, where the craftsmen work from their tool shops in garages and produce hand made reels and cane rods to this day.

Hardy’s may have changed, and the world of the true craftsman and the gentlemen that used their tackle lost, but the tackle itself was so well made that it exists today as collector’s items or is cherished on the river.

They say that if an author’s work is read, than he or she lives on through the words. If this is true than the lost world of Mr. Hardy is not altogether lost. It can be found in that wonderful ratchet sound of their reels still heard today, crafted by men and women in a lost time. The time may be history, but the appreciation of their craft is not.

If you are a fly-fisherman and a fan of fine tackle, this film, especially its historical footage, may make a welcome addition to your collection, and serve as an inspiration much as the old Hardy tackle catalogue did to several generations of dreamers. E.H.

A Few Flies, or it is a long winter…

2010-02-11T10:37:00.000-06:00

First up is the Bloody Mouse.

Tail is sable, wing is skunk, and the body is made from segments of grizzly soft hackle and fiery red SLF.

Next up is the famous Atlantic salmon bomber style fly The Green Machine.

I tied this one more like a traditional bomber.

Next, a cross between a Rusty Rat body and Cossboom with a green wing I call the Highland Rat.

Next, A sort of experiment in orange, yellow and green.

And Last, my attempt at a married wing Irish style Thunder and Lightning. Dressing per Alcott.

Ethics, and the Gentleman

2010-02-09T13:16:00.001-06:00

“Ethics involve an individual’s values. They’re about an angler’s understanding and endorsement of the concept of Fair Chase, and the desire to capture and release – or kill – salmon as humanely as possible.

This is the real-world difference between fishing and merely gathering food. It’s also the difference between the ritual taking of salmon in a clean and simple way and turning salmon into props for egotistical stunts.

Fair Chase is the philosophy of accepting restrictions that help level the playing field, giving salmon – or deer, or partridge – a chance to elude capture by craft, agility or strength. The ethical angler doesn’t merely want to get a salmon; he wants to catch one in a way that demands skill and the fish a chance to win. The laws of Fair Chase change, and there’s no universal agreement on them, but they can be described as sportsmanship. Just where an individual draws the line – does Fair Chase demand the use of barbless hooks, or is that just an additional flourish for anglers seeking a greater challenge? – defines the nature and quality of his ethics.

The concept of sportsmanship evolved from the Anglo-Saxon notion of the gentleman – the secular equivalent of a priest, who adhered to a code of conduct, or ethics…”

Peter Bodo, The Atlantic Salmon Handbook.

I consider the (modern) concept of the Gentleman to be a very important one. One of the highest praises that can be placed upon a man is that he be called a gentleman. It refers to a bearing and manner, an approach to life itself in all its intricate paths and myriad pursuits. A gentle-man is gentle. This does not refer to pacifism, but to respect and restraint, kindness and quiet. A gentleman walks through life with compassion, understanding, and the ability to listen. He treats others as he would himself be treated. He adheres to an ethical code. A gentleman is not born; he is made by his actions and reputation. Above all, he is wise. He bears himself with dignity and his touch is light upon all that cross his path.

The title or more correctly, the mantle of ‘Gentleman’ cannot be assumed, one’s peers must confer it. A sort of non-armorial peerage of manner.

The concept of the gentleman as emerged from Victorian times is a confusing one, with public education (read Eaton and Oxford), class, social status, organizational membership, armorial peerage, and ethics all jumbled together. It also may be good to note that their was quite a bit of hypocrisy in how a gentleman acted. People who referred to themselves as ‘Gentlemen’ slaughtered the ‘heathen’, cheated in business, oppressed others, took unfair amounts of game, opposed woman’s suffrage, etc.

To quote John Henry Cardinal Newman of the 19th century;

“It is almost a definition of a gentleman to say he is one who never inflicts pain. This description is both refined and, as far as it goes, accurate. He is mainly occupied in merely removing the obstacles which hinder the free and unembarrassed action of those about him; and he concurs with their movements rather than takes the initiative himself. His benefits may be considered as parallel to what are called comforts or conveniences in arrangements of a personal nature: like an easy chair or a good fire, which do their part in dispelling cold and fatigue, though nature provides both means of rest and animal heat without them. The true gentleman in like manner carefully avoids whatever may cause a jar or a jolt in the minds of those with whom he is cast; — all clashing of opinion, or collision of feeling, all restraint, or suspicion, or gloom, or resentment; his great concern being to make every one at their ease and at home. He has his eyes on all his company; he is tender towards the bashful, gentle towards the distant, and merciful towards the absurd; he can recollect to whom he is speaking; he guards against unseasonable allusions, or topics which may irritate; he is seldom prominent in conversation, and never wearisome. He makes light of favours while he does them, and seems to be receiving when he is conferring. He never speaks of himself except when compelled, never defends himself by a mere retort, he has no ears for slander or gossip, is scrupulous in imputing motives to those who interfere with him, and interprets every thing for the best. He is never mean or little in his disputes, never takes unfair advantage, never mistakes personalities or sharp sayings for arguments, or insinuates evil which he dare not say out. From a long-sighted prudence, he observes the maxim of the ancient sage, that we should ever conduct ourselves towards our enemy as if he were one day to be our friend. He has too much good sense to be affronted at insults, he is too well employed to remember injuries, and too indolent to bear malice. He is patient, forbearing, and resigned, on philosophical principles; he submits to pain, because it is inevitable, to bereavement, because it is irreparable, and to death, because it is his destiny. If he engages in controversy of any kind, his disciplined intellect preserves him from the blunder.”

This of course, is a rather saintly and glaringly catholic description, and one that may place too much emphasis on meekness.

Geoffrey Chauser clarifies the concept when he writes:
"Certes he sholde not be called a gentil man, that... ne dooth his diligence and bisynesse, to kepen his good name"

and

“Loke who that is most vertuous alway
Prive and apert, and most entendeth ay
To do the gentil dedes that he can
And take him for the gretest gentilman”

I have had the fine privelege of meeting a number of true gentleman in my life, and in every circumstance, have taken a bit of their wisdom and approach to life, and tried to make it my own.

They lead by example. Whether on the stream, or on the street. Virtue, ethics, and bearing.

My personal funniest moment of 2009

2010-02-08T18:11:00.000-06:00

The setting: somewhere in a river valley.

The plot: Erik’s car breaks down, and he has to ride with his friend for a day of fishing and then off to a mountain town to see about a tow and find if anyone can work on a VW.

The incident:

Well, I had to transfer all of my necessary items from my dead car to my friend’s truck. I needed food, fishing gear, and essentials. Somehow I forgot something.

We get to the mountain town after a morning of fishing and begin to search for a foreign car repair place or somewhere with someone with most of their teeth left. We locate one, and as I am going to go inside, I realize that I have left my shoes in my car, which is dead beside the river. What to do?

My friend, ever the helpful sport, offers to loan me his unused but brand new extra pair of wading boots. I agree. As I tie the laces, I realize that I am dressed in all black capilene, and now am wearing size 13 lime green clown shoes. Walking in the things was like a girls first attempt at pumps. Here I am in some mountain town, dressed in black spandex and giant lime green clown shoes and about to ask for a tow.

They must still be talking about the strange way people from Wisconsin dress…

Moral of the tale: We all look like complete idiots sooner or later.

The Marmalade Skies

2010-02-06T10:08:00.000-06:00

I recently obtained some dyed coyote hair from a friend. (Thanks Dave!)

The guard hairs were just crying out with wild colors, so I sat down at the vise and answered the call of inspiration. The idea was for a winter fly I could fish on a light sinking poly-leader. I wanted this fly to have calling power.

I actually liked the first result, which is often rare. I have a whole box of reject ideas; things that seemed like a good idea at the time, but when they came to fruition, looked like cat pee. That would make an entire article there; things that didn’t quite make it.

When posting this fly on a tying forum, I wondered aloud what other names people would come up with. Marmalade Skies was a clear winner. Lucy in the sky with diamonds…

Dressing:
Hook: 2/0 Bartleet

Tip: Fine oval gold long

Tag: Burnt yellow floss

Tail: Four peacock sword barbs tilted upward to meet wing

Butt: Black ostrich

Ribbing: Med. Oval gold followed by small ovel gold

Body: Rear in front of butt, six to seven turns of orange floss, Orange Angorra Goat mixed with hot orange SLF remainder

Body Hackle: Claret neck

Wing: Four peacock herls under yellow dyed coyote. Orange coyote over.

Collar: Doctor blue followed by kingfisher blue

Head: Black

I have a suspicion that the early spring fish in dark cold water may like this.

* Note: No hallucinogenics were consumed in the conceptualization nor the realization of this fly. Is that a flying purple monkey?

Trailer for the Lost World of Mr. Hardy

2010-02-04T15:08:00.004-06:00

Very interesting historical production. Two trailers.

Available for purchase here. http://www.thelostworldofmrhardy.com/

Enjoy!

Neat Vintage Video of the Hardy Factory

2010-02-03T11:32:00.001-06:00

Found on Youtube. A neat little piece of a bygone era. Enjoy!

The no-hitch Stealth Bomber

2010-02-01T14:54:00.000-06:00

A while back, I posted a picture of this fly, and some of you wondered if I had fished it. New designs and prototypes are fine as art, but until actually tested in river conditions, they are an unknown quantity.

So, this fall I did fish the N.H.S.B. Here are my conclusions.

The fly works as designed. The bare hook at the rear anchors it, and the radically tapered head pushes water. I did not need to place a hitch on it, although I have no doubt it would work with a hitch just fine. I did not catch anything on it, but that is my fault. I only used it a couple of times, once in a run that was most likely fishless, and the second time as a comeback fly for a fish that chased and boiled.

The action of the fly was solid, but after around an hour or so of being in the water, it had a tendency to sink into the surface film. All I had to do was squeeze out the water and it worked for a further half-hour or so before becoming waterlogged.

As graded by the harsh professor:

Aesthetics: A

Design: B+

Performance: C+

Definitely a fly for faster water. Works well in riffles. Works fine in glass water too, unless waterlogged.

And there we have it. From concept to vise to river.

Coming of Age

2010-01-29T10:44:00.000-06:00

My mother’s family lived in a small town in central Wisconsin. My Grandfather moved the family there somewhere around 1920. Grandpa started a hardware store and ran it with his brother until he retired in his 90s. The memories I have from visits to the homestead and small town with my family in the early 1970s led to the setting for this story. All characters are fictional. I believe that the old story of boy gets fish, or man conquers nature have been done to death, so I thought I would put a bit of a twist in this tale.

Copyright 2010, Erik F. Helm

Coming of age.

Ronnie’s converse high-tops pattered and thumped against the pavement as he rounded the corner of Oak Street at full tilt and turned onto Division. His canvas newspaper satchel with the Courier logo in bold letters bounced against his hip to the rhythm of his legs. He was running from old man Hebert’s bullmastiff. The huge dog was Ronnie’s nemesis. It lay in wait in the bushes or behind the garbage cans until he opened the screen door to Mr. Hebert’s house to deliver the paper, and then chased Ronnie all the way to the corner. This game had been going on for months.

Although Ronnie was running from the dog, (anyone could see that) he also had a hidden agenda; for standing in the middle of Division Street was Theisen Brothers Hardware, and in the window was the latest object of Ronnie’s dreams; a fishing pole.

Ronnie slowed a bit as he approached the shop, and for the hundredth time that summer, tilted his ball-cap back, and cupping his hands to the side of his head, peered in the large display window. The pole was standing next to a wicker fishing creel, a softball and bat, and several bins of nails. Between Kerberg’s five and dime, and Theisen Brothers, A kid could find everything he desired, and more.

As he always did, Ronnie dug deep into his front jean pockets, and pulled out his collection money from the newspaper route. Forty-three cents: half of which would have to be turned over to his mother when he arrived home. Minus Bazooka Joe gum, a pack of baseball cards, and the Saturday afternoon gangster film at the Aurora, he might add another nickel to the money he had stashed under the old squirrel’s nest in his tree house.

Ronnie knew it was a fly-fishing pole. He knew this for a sacred fact because of the Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue from 1942 that he had found in the trash along the curb on his paper route. In the long evenings and rare occasions when Ronnie, Joe, and Fatty Smith were not throwing crab apples or swapping comic books, Ronnie could be found in the tree-house savoring a warm piece of corn bread, eyes glued to the pages of the catalogue, and dreaming of what it might feel like to catch a fish.

Not that Ronnie had never been fishing. Indeed, he had been fishing twice with his father. Once when he was just old enough to remember getting his jeans and sneakers full of mud and receiving a spanking, and the last time Dad had been home on leave from Germany before, well… before that day the telegram arrived and Mother had cried. Dad had caught a few bullheads from Stoker’s Pond, but Ronnie just lost his worm and corn to nibblers.

Ronnie knew he didn’t need a fly pole to catch a fish. He had Dad’s old cane crappie pole in the shed, but Ronnie possessed a secret so precious that he wouldn’t even tell it to Fatty or Joe.

On a stifling July evening so typical of a Wisconsin summer, Ronnie took off after his supper to try to find some relief from the heat by swimming in Stoker’s Pond. He had had to endure the endless cautions and fussing from his mother before he was free. Mom had changed, he thought, in the months since Dad had ‘gone away’. She just seemed so much more protective.

He was seated with his bare feet dipped in the tepid water, reading a Hardy Boys mystery he had traded with Fatty for a broken cap-gun, when the pond was disturbed by rings and splashes at the surface of the water. Strange bugs like the ones that gathered around the streetlights downtown suddenly filled the air. Ronnie slapped at his ear, and looking at his hand, found an insect with clear upright wings, an elongated body, antenna, and long tails trailing behind it. The town kids, who delighted in stomping on the flies when they became disoriented or hit the glass bell of the streetlamp and fell to the curb, called them ‘crush-bugs’. Ronnie knew they were Mayflies. He also knew, thanks to the Abercrombie and Fitch catalogue, that they hatched out of the water in rivers and lakes. Now he knew something else too; that the mayflies that he and the other kids had just assumed appeared out of thin air, attracted by the mating call of the incandescent light, had an origin, and he had found it less than a mile from his house.

Although Ronnie may have had trouble with his math homework from time to time, he was not slow. It took him a grand total of five seconds to put two and two together and realize that the carp in Stoker’s pond, some of which, to his youthful imagination, he thought must have weighed more than a hundred pounds, were feeding on the mayflies at the surface, and making a messy feast of it at that.

He was down at the pond the next evening with Dad’s crappie pole, and the mayflies were back. The carp were circling lazily on the surface, sucking down the easy and tasty bugs. He rigged up the pole and chose the smallest hook in the old chewing tobacco tin his dad used to store his tackle. He caught a mayfly, and carefully placing it on the hook, heaved it out as far as the length of gut would take it.

It was if someone had suddenly pulled some magical switch. One second the carp were at the surface, and the next they simply disappeared. Ronnie looked for his bait. It too had sunk. It, and the sloppy cast had put all of the big fish off their evening meal. For the next week, he tried corn, worms, grasshoppers, stale liverwurst, and a ball of mushy dough, but the notoriously spooky and selective carp would have none of it.

That was last year, and by now, Ronnie had devised a plan for catching the big carp. The secret, as he had learned from his catalogue, was a floating mayfly imitation on a tiny hook, and the only way to make this work was the fly fishing pole: the very one that now teased him from Theisen Brothers’ window, the very one that he saved his paper-route pennies for and could never tell his mom about.

At first, he thought of telling her of his desire, but Mom was a girl. She understood magical things about carrots, naphtha soap, cabbage, and how to get chocolate stains out of Ronnie’s Sunday church shirt, but she could never understand about tadpoles, carp, jack knives, or why he would need a fly-fishing pole. For his birthday that spring, she baked him a cake, gave him a hand-knitted sweater too large for him, a new pair of sneakers from Kerberg’s, and sent him to a double feature at the Aurora. No, Ronnie would have to keep the secret to himself for now.

He calculated that with his meager savings, even if he cut back on the gum and skipped the weekly cinema film; he would still be a bit short on the price of the fly rod by the critical time for the mayfly hatch.

Providence sometimes intervenes, and it does so in its greatest effect in childhood. Ronnie had completed his paper route that happy Friday afternoon, when the elderly Mrs. Thompson came out of Abel’s grocery store with a large bag of produce and breathlessly asked if Ronnie could help her carry them home. He consented happily, and after setting down the bag in Mrs. Thompson’s kitchen, was asked if he would be willing to help her every Friday, and with a few chores around the house as well. She was getting on in years she explained, and it would her happy to have the company as well as the help. Reaching into her purse, the ancient lady extracted a quarter and smiling, handed it to Ronnie. Like everything about Mrs. Thompson, the quarter smelled like baby powder, but it was his now. He quickly agreed to the job, and clutching the quarter, ran for home.

A week later, he marched into Theisen brothers with his head held high and his eyes wide.

“Well hello young man, how may I help you?” asked William, the taller of the brothers and the more friendly.

Ronnie got right to the point.

“I want to buy that fly rod in the window,” he stated with eager anticipation.

“Well, now…” said Mr. Theisen, “That is a fine rod for a young boy, a model made in Indiana if I am not mistaken. She runs two dollars and a quarter,” he stated with raised eyebrows. “Sure you don’t want one of these cheaper poles over here?” he asked pointing to some crooked telescoping steel rods displayed under the brand ‘Catch More!’

“Nope, just the one in the window,” Ronnie replied.

Mr. Theisen carefully removed the fly rod from the window, gave it a dusting, separated it into two pieces, and wrapped it in yellow butcher’s paper.

Ronnie selected a dozen of the smaller tan flies from a bin by the counter, and laying them next to the rod on the counter, placed his pile of coins next to them.

“Well, young man, will you be needing a reel and line with the rod, or do you already have them?” Mr. Theisen asked.

Somehow, in all his planning, Ronnie had thought the rod came with everything. He was so fixated on the fly rod itself that it had never occurred to him that a separate reel and line would be needed.

“Um, well… How much are they?” he asked in trepidation.

“Well son, the reel we got to match this rod is a dollar, and the line and gut are fifty cents.”

Ronnie, who all this time was almost hovering above the wooden floor in excitement, suddenly felt deflated. The dreams of the carp were vanishing before his very eyes.

He began pulling out his pockets, unearthing a sour apple, a screw, a broken pocketknife, and three pennies.

At that moment, William Theisen remembered what it was like to be ten years old and to want something more than life itself. In his case, it had been a catcher’s mitt.

“Say… son, can you hold on a minute? Let me look in the storage room, I think I might have something there for you.”

He returned in less than a minute with an old tarnished and rusty reel that was still attached to a broken rod. Mr. Theisen carefully placed a chisel against the rod fragment and with the single tap from a wooden mallet, freed the reel.
He handed it to Ronnie.

“Here you go, son,” he said, placing the reel in Ronnie’s outstretched hands.

“It is a bit bent and rusty, but a bit of an oiling will fix it up nicely. The line is in serviceable shape too. It should work just fine.”

“How much?” Ronnie asked, not grasping the intention of the moment.

“What you have here will just cover it,” Mr. Theisen said smiling. He pushed his glasses onto the top of his head and placed the coins in the register.

“Not a word though, son. Can’t have folks thinking we just give things away,” he stated with a wink.

That evening after supper, and with his math practice completed and delivered to his mother, Ronnie ran to the tree house and assembled the rod, reel, and line. The reel was a bit bent, and even after oiling, would squeak and grind when the handle was turned. It didn’t matter though, it worked. That was the point. He carefully ran his hands down the intermediate red wraps on the cane rod, and sighted down its length, just like the man in the Norman Rockwell print from the cover of The Saturday Evening Post that he had saved, and which now hung by several nails in his tree-house.

It was sort of straight. Not perfect, but not too bad, he thought. He attached the gut, and stored the flies in an old cough-drop tin. He was all ready for tomorrow. He hid the rod under some old comic books in the corner, and went in to listen to the radio. His mother didn’t even have to remind him to wash his face. He was asleep in minutes that night, dancing mayflies filling his head.

All day long on that Friday that he and Stoker’s pond had a date, Ronnie had difficulty concentrating. He delivered papers to the wrong houses, barely escaped Mr. Hebert’s dog, and poked at his chores. He ate his dinner so fast that his mother had to warn him three times that he was going to give himself a stomachache.

After helping dry the dishes, he was excused for the rest of the evening. The screen door banged on its hinges as he made the dust fly running to the tree house.

The sun was just touching the tops of the trees that lined the far edge of the pond when Ronnie arrived. Standing well back from the water, he assembled the rod, attached the reel, and strung the line through the guides. He reckoned that he had around half an hour before the bugs started hatching, so he decided to try a practice cast or two in the clearing where the townspeople parked their Fords.

At first, it was as if the rod had a mind of its own. Whatever Ronnie intended to do, the rod would just not cooperate. It was like learning to ride a bike, he thought, as he tangled the line around his head. The harder he tried, the worse it got. Finally, he sat down in the grass and tears of frustration began to well in the corner of his eyes.

Then he remembered something he had read in one of his trips to the library. It was something about casting slowly and stopping the rod, something about loops. He stood up and tried again. This time, to his delight, the slower motion of the rod caused it to bend and unbend, and the line went forward and fell in a heap. After a few minutes more, Ronnie was able to make the line turn over and land the gut gently twenty feet from him. It would be enough, he thought, to place a fly in front of those carp.

Looking up at the gathering dusk while wiping away the remnants of his tears, Ronnie noticed the first mayflies over the water. They seemed to coming from the surrounding trees instead of the water, Puzzled, he peered through the tall grasses at the surface of the pond. To his eye, there seemed to be two colors of mayflies, some were creamy white, while the others were sort of tan. The tan ones had clear wings and were flying, while the creamy ones struggled in the surface film and crawled up the stems of cattails. Ronnie tied on one of his cream colored flies to the length of fine gut.

The first carp were surfacing and slurping in the bugs as he stood to make that first delicate cast of his life.

The rotten apple hit high up on his right cheek and shattered in fragments. Ronnie’s eyes exploded in colored lights as his nostrils recoiled from the stench, and he fell backward into the shallow water. As he sat up and shook off the water and apple crud, he heard laughter. Standing to his right, not thirty feet away, was Tommy McRory, the pimpled bully of the fifth grade, standing filthy and barefoot as he always did, and grinning through his yellow teeth.

“Ronnie ponnie, puddin and pie, you got apple slime in your eye,” he sang as he approached, his matted hair almost covering his eyes.

Tommy was the eldest son of the extended McRory clan. They lived together in a run-down single story house on a slope above the swamp that bordered Stoker’s Pond. Ronnie knew that people whispered about Tommy’s pa, who delivered coal when he was not sitting behind the firehouse drinking something from a paper sack. His mother warned him to stay away from the McRorys, but she herself often left slices of cornbread or a potato or two by the coal chute. These would disappear, even if Mr. McRory avowed that he “Didn’t take no charity from no one!” to anyone who would listen.

“What you got there?” Tommy said as he grabbed the fly rod out of Ronnie’s hand.

“A fishin pole, huh? This here is my pond, sissy, so this must be my rod too.”

“Give it here Tommy, it isn’t yours and you don’t even know how to use it,” Ronnie shot back.

“Who’s gonna make me… little girl, you?” Tommy spit with foul breath. He shoved Ronnie in the shoulder and laughed in hysterics as Ronnie staggered and fell once again into the mud at the edge of the pond.

“Watch me crybaby, I’m gonna catch the biggest fish in this pond.”

The young McRory waved the rod forward as if to cast a conventional bait-caster. When it didn’t work, he threw it harder, causing a dangerous bend in the rod.

“This rod is stupid, like you, prissy-boy. It don’t work right.”

Although tears were already trickling out of his eyes, and he was unable to form words in his anger and blubbering frustration, Ronnie began to feel a sober rage forming in his belly. He wished his father were here. Dad would send the bully home with a sore behind he thought. But his father was not there, and Tommy was much bigger than he was anyway. What could he do?

Ronnie’s sneakers made a squishing sound as he rose.

“Cut it out, Tommy, you are gonna break it.”

The bully didn’t reply. He was too busy poking the rod into the water at a large carp, trying to spear it. Ronnie thought about all the money he saved for the rod, the hours spent mowing lawns and delivering papers, all the anticipation, and Mr. Theisen and the hardware store. He thought about how he would have to explain all this to his mother, and how his classmates and friends would find out; find out that in the end, Ronnie really was a scaredy-cat. A coward.

“Give it here NOW!” he shouted.

The person that uttered those words, and that now advanced on Tommy McRory was somebody Ronnie did not recognize. The words may have come from his own mouth, but they sounder older, more determined, more commanding.

Bullies are cowards at heart, and the last thing they expect is the humiliated victim to fight back, but the fist that hit McRory square in the nose was no illusion; neither was the blood that flowed down his shirt or the sudden fear and panic that sent him flying back towards the shelter of his family hovel.

Ronnie sat down and cried. Never before had he had the guts to stand up to a bully, and the raw emotion of pain and humiliation followed by triumph overwhelmed him.

When he calmed down, he looked at the rod, now broken in three pieces and lying before him. He looked for a long time in silence, then he removed the reel and line, threw the broken pieces of the rod far into the pond, and after washing the mud from his clothes and shoes as best he could given the circumstances, turned and began the long walk home, the reel safely in his jeans pocket.

For some reason, a sense of calm came over him. He reasoned that it would take some extra work, and maybe a second paper route, but next year he could buy another rod.

He had come as a boy to catch a carp. The young man that walked back on the path away from the pond felt slightly sorry for Tommy McRory. At least Ronnie had something to look forward to, he later reasoned, as he dreamed of the carp and the new rod in the deep stillness of the hot Wisconsin summer night.

The Distracted Take

2010-01-26T10:06:00.001-06:00

Huh? What the…? Zzzzz ZZZZZ!!

Anticipation. Expectation. Hours of repeated confidence reminders. The Zen zone. Nothing, and more of nothing. Wading practice.

You see an eagle, osprey, owl, or fumble in your wader pocket trying to locate that half of a granola bar. It is then that we are most vulnerable. Mr. Steelhead often picks this very moment to strike.

The first occurrence happened on my first large steelhead. It was bank side squirrels rioting in a crunchy, leaf blanketed back yard that pulled my attention away for just long enough to… BUMP! TUG! WhirrrrrrrrrRRRRRRRR ZZZZZZZ!

My knuckles still hurt from getting in the way of that reel handle. I must have looked like a panicked juggler as I frantically did everything possible to lose that fish, but somehow failed.

My first steelhead on the west coast came when the sun rose above the canyon walls and I fumbled for my sunglasses. I actually had them half out of the case when the fish pounced on my spey fly. Glasses and clip-on sunglasses in one hand, rod in the other, I blindly squinted down river at the blurred scene of a chrome fish jumping and spitting the fly.

The typical scenario on a river goes like this. All full of coffee and in that zone of concentration, I fish for a few hours like a studious heron. I crouch, lift and reach my rod, mend attentively, and follow every nuance of the water. If a midge landed on my rod tip, I would feel it. I know exactly when and where that jolting take is going to occur. My fly tracks through the water like a poem on a mission.

Then slowly, after endless casts through productive water fail to produce, my mind starts to wander. I make a cast, and with my fly still swinging, take a photo, fumble with the wading staff, talk to a buddy, or watch wildlife.

There is also something about moving water, and the light patterns and reflections off the bottom that tend to mesmerize me. As the day wears on, I spend more time looking into the water than I do watching my fly.

One of the cardinal rules of fly-fishing is this; “If your fly is in the water, you are fishing.”

We all know this to be true from the times when suicidal or mentally challenged trout, panfish, or bass have hit our fly as it dangled in the water at our feet while we were picking out a wind-knot, or rooting around through various pockets.

A number of years ago, a partner had just landed a spectacular steelhead from a western river. I stepped up to the plate and began to strip out line. The fish had taken his fly on the other side of the river. It was going to be a long cast for me. I rolled out the fly, leader, and sink-tip, and stripped off more line. Suddenly all hell broke loose, and I was attempting to fight a steelhead just twenty feet from me with line everywhere. The fish came off of course.

The moral here is about that cardinal rule, but also that one should cover the water properly. Lord, all the things I have learned the hard way. However, perhaps those lessons stick in our brains better. A kid that reaches over a hot burner tends to equate fire and pain quite effectively after one lesson. I on the other hand am the kind of idiot that has a pebble in my wading boot for six weeks. With every step I mutter “Ow, ow, ow…” and so on. It never occurs to me to actually remove the offending pebble.

This past year I had a couple of wonderfully jarring takes when my mind and tongue were dedicated to something else. A nice hen almost yanked the rod out of my hand as I was asking a friend where his new puppy sleeps. “Does she sleep in a little box or in a cage by the …? *&^%$#@!!!!!! ZZzzzzzzZZZZZ!!!! Man, those Hardy reels can ratchet up a complaining song!

The same thing happened to me on my home river. Once again, my head was turned and I was yakking about some inane topic when my reel decided to play a Wagner overture at 125 decibels. The look on my face was one of shock and confusion.

I often wonder if there is something to this. Perhaps it might have something to do with being relaxed, or not trying so hard. In addition, the distracted take seems to lead to a higher landing percentage. This may be due to our inability to react and ‘screw it up’ at the time of the initial pull or take.

On the other hand, perhaps all the anthropomorphism is apropos; steelhead may have a sense of humor after all.

Bass Pond Apocalypse

2010-01-22T10:00:00.001-06:00

In June of 2008, I drove to a friend’s apartment complex for a day of fly-fishing and classical music listening. This was the first time I had visited him in his new location, and I had heard talk of huge large-mouth bass and cooperative panfish in several ponds. I arrived armed with music disks, and a large duffle of tackle.

The day was as hot as the face of a griddle and sunny, and upon arrival, I noticed that my friend was already fishing. The apartment complex was enormous and sprawling. The land consisted of hills and valleys, and several small dams backed up a creek to form a series of weedy ponds. I greeted my friend and found that he and his roommate had already landed several panfish. I armed myself with a foam cylinder popper, and went to work. The first cast produced a ten-inch largemouth. This was going to be a blast!
I don’t necessarily believe in fate or karma, but I do notice that when success comes too easy and soon, disaster is likely to follow. These bass had had every lure in creation thrown at them. Local kids with snoopy rods and random tactics had turned the bass from willing players to extremely dour and spooky. I could see bass up to six pounds slowly swimming through the weeds. In four hours of fishing, all I had to show for it were two missed takes, one panfish and one small bass, muddy feet from stepping in a hidden hole (I am great at locating these), and a nasty sunburn. I also caught a lifetime supply of weeds. In fact, it seemed at times that I was doing a one-man job at weed reduction in the pond.
Then it began to rain: lightly at first, then steadily heavier. We had noticed ominous black clouds moving in from the west, so we retreated to the apartment.

My friend and I share an interest in weather in general and storms in particular. Soon the television was tuned to the local news broadcast. No matter which station we tuned in, the weather personalities were wide-eyed and visibly excited. It doesn’t take much to excite these guys anyway, but now they were hysterical. The radar showed the entire southern half of Wisconsin as one giant red blob. Sirens began to go off as I moved my car into the shelter of the underground garage. Just in time too. A massive storm front with evil rotating green-gray clouds and constant lightning began to dump hail that covered the ground like snow. The temperature dropped fifteen degrees in a minute, and more sirens declared the obvious. White wisps danced before a boiling wall-cloud and kissed the tops of the trees and roofs. I half expected the four horsemen of the apocalypse to ride out of the looming and churning storm.

Then it began to really rain like I have never experienced before. I almost thought I heard a deep voice saying “Noah, build an arc.”
All visibility was lost, as the entire air became water. The television proclaimed flood warnings, downed power lines, stranded motorists, tornados, hail damage, and the end of the world. When the downpour let up enough to see out the window, we witnessed strange fountains of water shooting twenty feet into the air. The hills of the subdivision were partially drained by a system of culverts. These culverts had gathered so much water that they became pressurized, shooting water in great arcs into the sky. A turtle emerged from the nearest pond, and crawled across the sidewalk to take refuge in some bushes. That’s when we noticed the water level in the ponds had risen by at least a foot. Weeds were no longer visible. Then all visibility was lost for the next two hours as the skies opened, and a truly biblical downpour began. Local storm and sewage systems were overwhelmed, and manhole covers shot into the air. Roads turned into raging rivers.
We alternated between music and the weather broadcast for the next few hours until hunger drove us to attempt to find an open restaurant. We made our way through a labyrinth of streets blocked by squad cars and filled with debris, and by a miracle, found a greasy hamburger joint. The food was wonderfully awful as it always is in these locally famous grease-pits. As we ate, the rain began to slow to a drizzle.

Back at the apartment, and sated with food, I suggested that we venture out and see how the bass were doing. We donned waders and rain gear and hit the pond. By now the water had fallen enough that the little footpath surrounding it was only submerged by a couple inches of water. I made my way to the inlet to the main pond, which was gushing forth a stream of dirty water through the cattails, and put my popper as close as I could to the incoming water. What followed can only be described as insane. Every bass in the pond was gathered at the inlet eating all the small fish, insects, and what ever else that had washed down to them. They liked the popper too. I missed more fish than I know in the darkness as they exploded on the fly. I had to set the hook by sound. We had found the secret to the dour bass. They were like sharks on a feeding frenzy, arbitrarily hitting everything and anything, even each other, in their mania for food.

That could have been the end of the adventure, but as they say, “When it rains, it pours.” After navigating flooded streets and hydroplaning on the freeway, I got within two miles of home and reached a dead-end. The main road was closed due to a flooded underpass. I drove through side streets filled with up to two feet of standing water for an hour before I found a way home.

I awoke in the morning in time for the parting shot. Another storm blew through and knocked down half the trees in the neighborhood.

All in all, six to ten inches of rain fell within an eighteen-hour period. Half of Wisconsin was a disaster area, and some communities were entirely isolated when rivers rose all around them and washed out bridges.

This was the day, of all days, that I picked to go bass fishing. We later learned that the tornado warning that was issued was due to the large rotating cloud that passed directly over us. Nice.

The moral of the story is simple. You choose the day to go fishing, not me. My track record is a bit tainted.

The Attitude Problem

2010-01-19T12:02:00.004-06:00

Some readers of the Classical Angler may wonder from time to time why I seem to get my knickers all bunched up over what I perceive as an attitude problem among many of today's steelhead "Hot Sticks."

Here is a photo that will say it all. I am not going to say who it is, nor where it came from and have blacked out the faces, but even if it is a hatchery fish, it not only shows disrespect, but almost displays a kind of psychosis.

Pouring beer into a steelhead's mouth is beyond silly. It is childish. Childish behavior and unsporting. Especially as this was the 'last rights' before killing the fish.

Grow up.

And another from a different site. Yes, they are only hatchery fish, but should they be treated like this, much less photographed and posted on the web as if it were a badge of coolness?

Grow up.

---------------------------

Editors note: 1/21/10 - O.K. Boys, I think that is about enough for now. The guilty parties are aware that I called them out. Enough of a nest of hornets.
I have a few last thoughts before we put this to bed.
First, how all of us behave reflects on the sport as a whole. That goes for me as well as you. This was not a matter of a hatchery fish and whether or not to dispatch it. Far from it. To me, it simply showed a lack of respect for life, for our fellow creatures, other anglers, and displayed a maturity level on par with the denizens of a video arcade.
My hope is that I made people think. That is and has always been my goal in my writing. Perhaps we might take a moment and think before we post our latest exploits and conquests on facebrag. The world is watching, and I am on the same team as you are. PETA is not.
Secondly, it is interesting that with the variety of writing that I place on this little corner of the blogosphere, that controversy gets the most attention. If I had one wish, it would be that I could share humor and inspiration as successfully.
Erik Helm

Things people tell you

2010-01-18T09:39:00.001-06:00

Readers of the Classical Angler seem to enjoy observational humor. At least that is what I gather from feedback.

We have all been given advice regarding fly-fishing. Some is good and some bad. Most of the advice is well intentioned, but sometimes it is hard to sort out the useful tips from the silly ones.

What is it that makes a person want to give you advice when they see you with fishing equipment?

An old adage worth noting states “Better to keep silent if you have nothing worth while to say, than to open your mouth and remove any doubt as to your ignorance.”

Here are a few of my favorite pieces of advice or opinions that should have been left unsaid.

Around six o’clock on an August evening, I made my way down to the river at a local park. It was cool and overcast, and a downstream wind was blowing steadily. I thought it was the perfect time to work on my errant double-spey cast.

There was a small gathering of executive types near the river. It looked to me like a corporate retirement party or something. Wine and cheese were being served. As I passed the gathering, a tall distinguished looking executive type sporting perfectly trimmed graying hair and a Ralph Lauren button-down oxford dress-shirt came over to me.

“You’re a little early,” he said.

“Pardon?” I replied.

“I usually start fishing in early October, the salmon don’t run before that,” he stated.

“I am just practicing my casting,” I told him.

He just would not accept that I was just going to practice my casting, and not fish. Then he started to offer me advice regarding fly selection (glo-bugs again) and tactics for fishing to our zombie salmon.

Now, you must understand that I was wearing a waxed cotton Filson wading jacket, carrying a 14’ spey rod and Hardy reel, wearing a ballcap with the logo “Born to speycast…Forced to work”, adorned with a muddler and a weathered full dress Ackroyd Dee fly, and had a Hardy canvas and bridal leather stream bag slung over my shoulder containing dozens of lines to try on the rod.

My point in mentioning this is not to call attention to myself as the overdressed angler, but simply to state that to most observers, I probably looked like I knew what I was doing.

Not to this gentleman though.

I missed the opportunity. I held my tongue, mentioned how lovely the river looked, and bid him farewell.

Here is what I wanted to ask him:

“Say, do you mind me asking what you do for a living… because I thought you might want to hire me to help you with critical thinking…”

O.K. so, it went unsaid. I was polite. Perhaps he was a GM executive? It would explain a lot.

Once a guy yelled to me from across the river that I was “Doing it all wrong.” He explained that I had to “Wave the rod back and forth like this,” his arms flailing above his head. He knew this, he said, because his friend fished with a fly rod.

I was casting a 14’ spey rod…. Thanks for the advice.

People show me their flies and actually present me with a lucky fly. I will finish swinging through a nice piece of water with a classic fly, and when headed to another run, meet a fly fisherman on the trail. We will exchange greetings, and then often enough, the person will offer me one of their glo-bugs. They are actually being quite kind and generous. It is hard to reject the offering with some curt statement, so now I have a bunch of egg patterns at home that I will never use.

This worked the other way last fall when a guy stopped me as I was walking by the river and wanted to know if he could buy some flies. He had driven to the river with only two and had lost them. I gave him four of my lesser-used classic hair-wings, and refused monetary payment. As he thanked me, he tied on one of the flies and then reaching into his pocket, squirted fish scent goo all over the fly. Ugh! So much for generosity…

Then there are the guys that are always catching huge numbers of fish. A guy came into my shop one day wanting me to donate gear for a charity auction. In way of introduction, he mentioned that he loved fishing for steelhead. The conversation turned in that direction. He told me that he had caught 37 fish in an hour and a half. It turns out he was gravel raping in a river no bigger than a trout stream. He was trying to impress me, but ended up making me sick.

People often wrinkle their noses at me when they see me in my local river, their impression being that the water is polluted and nasty. It has become my response to reply to the incessant question “Did you catch anything?” or “Any luck?” with the reply “Just typhus, I was trying for cholera, but couldn’t get any.”

One guy entered the water near me while I was practicing with the two-hander. He was fly-fishing for smallmouth bass. He told me that the key was to use a rubber twister tail on the end of the fly. He waded into the river, stood in the best water, and cast his chartreuse lure into places where no bass in his right mind would ever live. I briefly ‘hooked’ two bass on the yarn I was using for practice instead of a fly. I guess I would have done a lot better if I had a chartreuse twister tail fly.

Somebody wrote that they “Never let their steelhead get into the backing.”

This one baffles me. Is he using piano-wire for a leader? He sure must not be catching the same fish I am. Was this meant to be bravado? As in “I just clamp down on the line and bust my rod?” Talk about missing the best thing about steelhead…

Another guy wrote to me: “You don’t need a two-handed rod to fish this river.” His opinion is both correct and incorrect at the same time. If I am fishing in low flow and flipping glo-bugs, I certainly do not need a two-hander. However, if I wish to fish runs where by necessity my back is against the trees and bank side brush, or if the water is high, then a two-hander is a real advantage. I also can cover the entire river and don’t have to wade all over the place.

A friend was told that if he was going to use an orange General Practitioner then he was “Only taking up space in the river.” He caught a fish on his very first cast, much to the chagrin of the other angler who had just offered his sage advice.

A guy told me that Lake Erie tributaries were “The best steelhead fishing in the world,” and that I “Should really fish there.” He then asked where I spend time fishing. I replied, “Mainly crappy places like the Columbia and Snake tributaries.” He had never heard of these rivers so he asked me if they were any good. I told him “Nah… not as good as Ohio apparently.”

It seems that anglers that are numbers fishermen tend to immediately dispense advice if they find out that you have caught one less fish than they have. Apparently, I need to: “use more weight, use less weight, use a black leech, use a glo-bug, cast farther, cast shorter, nymph with my spey rod, add split-shot, use a stone fly, use a yellow fly, and stay in the same spot.”

I also have been very privileged to receive guidance and mentoring from some of the finest fly-fishermen I know. One of the reasons that I tend to know the difference between horse-hockey and the real McCoy is that I listened to them first.

I have learned by now that when offered advice that is obviously spurious or specious, to just smile and nod. Helps keep the peace anyway.

So, thanks for all the advice!

Simple joys: less is more

2010-01-13T10:12:00.003-06:00

This past spring I was retying a leader while seated on a grass bank high over a trout stream, when I witnessed another angler making his way toward the run directly upstream. He seemed to be encumbered as he walked. He was not old or infirm; he was just overloaded. Every pocket of his vest bulged with gear. In addition, he had both a chest pack and a waist pack, and each of those seemed full to the breaking point as well. He carried a net suspended from the rear of the vest, which kept tangling in the riverside brambles. He reminded me of myself just a few years ago.

It seems to be a common progression as we advance from novices in the world of fly-fishing, and begin to view ourselves as more advanced, that we buy into all of the goodies and gadgets that the tackle industry offers us. Perhaps it is a quest for that magic bean: the tool that will improve our catch-rate. We purchase nippers and pliers, floatant and knot-tyers, tippet gauges, twelve fly boxes, thermometers, multi-tools, zingers, hook sharpeners, laminated hatch-charts, containers of split-shot, a leader tying kit, three different packages of strike-indicators, a leader straightener, magnifier glasses, fly-threader, leader wallet, line dressing, tape measure, catch and release tool, and a partridge in a pear tree. We then buy various hip and chest packs and a vest to store all of this stuff. We cannot leave home without carrying every last scrap of fishing tackle that we own.

I remember fishing an area trout stream for the first time a number of years back. I had a full vest, a rain jacket over it, also with stuffed pockets, and a large canvas shoulder bag crammed to the brim. I could have outfitted three complete anglers. Why I was carrying an extra reel and an extra fly line I will never know. The canvas bag contained enough food and water to keep a small African village well fed for a week. I was like a reality version of a Dungeons and Dragons adventurer, carrying forty weapons, sixty pounds of gold, a suit of armor or three, a library of magic books, and every other conceivable item around on his back. Speaking of backs, mine began to ache that day on the trout stream. As I fished, I had to drop the canvas shoulder bag off and then come back for it.

Was all this necessary? The answer would be yes if I was backpacking for several days in the mountains, but since this was a stream an hour from home… no.

Then I fished with an acquaintance that was a real veteran, having spent years fishing all over North America for multiple species of fish. He carried in his minimalist vest only the essentials: a nipper and forceps, a spare leader, two tippet spools, one fly box, floatant, a plastic bag containing two strike-indicators, a granola bar, and a small notebook and a pencil. All this was stored in pockets with the exception of the forceps. He traveled light.

I began to notice what other anglers carried on the river, and their experience level. Sure enough, in most cases, the more experienced the fisherman, the more pared-down was his or her gear. The neophyte was always the one saddled like a pack-mule.

I dumped my vest and packs next to the car and proceeded to remove anything that I deemed non-essential to the day’s fishing. I was now around twelve pounds lighter.

So, why do we so encumber ourselves while fishing? I think it has something to do with wanting to look like we know what we are doing. The guy with the ratty plaid shirt and an old fiberglass rod can’t be much of a fisherman; he just doesn’t have enough cool stuff! On the other hand, the guy with all that shiny new equipment who looks like a walking tackle catalogue must know what he is doing…

It also might be due to some latent boy-scout tendencies that whisper to us “If you don’t take it along, you will surely need it.”
Back on that stream, I had finished my recollections and musings as well as the new leader, when I noticed a fly box float past me. That was followed by a package of strike indicators. The source was obvious; it was the other angler upstream of me, who was now seated on a midstream rock, furiously rooting through his various bags, pockets, and packs in search of some item or another. His flotsam still had the price tags attached.

Perhaps less really is more…

A, like, Modern fairy tale

2010-01-10T09:45:00.000-06:00

A wee bit off topic, but funny.

Once upon a time, there was a teenage girl. She was walking from the shopping mall to her grandmother’s house when she was approached by a big bad wolf.

“Hello little girl, I am going to eat you,” said the wolf.

The girl sneered at the wolf.

“Oh my God,” she exclaimed. “You are like, totally, like gross and stuff. Eeew!” Like, you are totally not going to, like, mess up my hair, are you?”

“Huh? said the wolf,” confused.

“Like, I am totally gonna twitter this and then you will, like, be in big, like, trouble, and stuff!”

As the girl began texting on her cell-phone, the wolf opened his toothy jaws, and in one bite, ate the girl all up.

The English language lived happily ever after.

Company vs. Crowds

2010-01-06T13:22:00.001-06:00

When I was a young lad, I often played with a number of neighborhood friends. Two of us would play without incident until a third kid joined in. Somehow, two of us always ganged up on the third person. Who the third person was didn’t seem to matter, and I was the odd man out as much as not. Parents required to break up the fray would often mutter the cliché, “Two is company, but three is a crowd.”

The other day, I was reading an essay about the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River in Idaho. Those who practice the art of far and fine presentation to spooky trout consider sections of this water sacred. Accompanying the story was a photo of dozens of anglers lined up helter-skelter in the water. The article was full of praise for the river and its fishing, but my mood as I was reading it became soured. Why?

Somehow, the beauty of the trout, the scenery, and the holiness, history, and tradition of the place was lost for me when I looked at all those fly-fishermen. It looked like a convention of graphite, cane, and floppy hats.

What constitutes a crowd differs with each angler. Some of us like to fish alone, or with a carefully chosen partner. Others form in groups to fish. However, I would venture that there is some hidden number for all of us that defines the razor’s edge between comfort and discomfort in the numbers of people fishing near us. It may vary depending on the water type and size, or the type of fishing.

We fly-fishers have a lower tolerance for crowds and need more space for our fishing and peace of mind than most. Here in the Midwest on any weekend in summer, area lakes abound with dozens of boats jockeying for position within yards of each other. This is considered normal in the bait and hardware world. Place the same pressure on our fly-waters and I along with the rest of us would skulk off into the bushes muttering misanthropic thoughts.

This past year I ran into a few situations that pushed the buttons of my crowding alarm. One weekend day on a large western steelhead river, there must have been a drift-boat conclave. I have never seen that many boats on the river. They had every run sewn up. I started high on the river in an attempt to find an open run. I drove to a hidden spot, made my way through the poison ivy and loose scree down to the river, and was beaten into the run by seconds by a drift boat. The run is big enough for only one or possibly two anglers, as it has a defined sweet spot. The boat dropped four anglers. I drove off muttering to myself. For the next six hours I dodged drift boats, got sandwiched between boats, got low-holed by boats, etc. Finally, I got the idea of going back to the upper stretches of the river above or close to where the boats launch to find peace. Since it was now late in the afternoon, I figured there would be fewer boats. I was correct, as were the four or five other anglers that had the same idea I had. Now we got to compete and crowd each other for the few runs open to us. Sigh.

On another occasion, I was fishing a trout stream in my home state, when I noticed a pair of anglers working down toward me, as well as another pair of anglers moving up towards me. I was busy catching brook trout on dry flies during a sporadic hatch, and as the anglers approached, I began to feel as sociable as a pissed-off rattlesnake. The numbers line had been crossed. My personal space had been invaded. The worst effect of crowding actually drove a fishing partner and I off a river this year and sent us over a mountain pass to another river in search of seclusion for a few days.

Success and misery love company. Toward that end, many fishermen gather in groups or eventually gravitate towards each other in the river. When the number of people reaches a critical mass, thinking persons like me can no longer hear our inner-voice. Our sense of harmony is disturbed. Our place in relation to nature and our surroundings becomes unbalanced.

Some people like to fish in crowds. Others like to take the path less traveled by, and find themselves in a remote or spiritual place where they can practice their art in silence.

The nice thing is that it is usually our choice. There are exceptions to that rule though. As steelhead populations decline and dwindle, and more rivers are closed to fishing, more pressure is placed on the few rivers with healthy populations of fish. The same can be said of areas with trout streams that are suffering from drought. Healthy rivers with water concentrate both fish and anglers.

Weather can play a role too. Most people these days are soft. Raised on a couch in front of a television, they are afraid of snow, ice, wind and rain. Dark clouds send them scuttling back to the SUV. This opens an opportunity for others of us that enjoy getting a bit muddy or wet, and consider a few mosquito bites or a twisted ankle a right of passage.

Sometimes getting away from the madding crowds is as easy as putting as much distance between you and a pullout or bridge as possible. I found this out once again this year when I passed up several anglers fishing within a hundred yards of each other on a little trout stream. I drove upstream into a remote section and went exploring. I found myself alone in a cathedral setting. Granite walls a hundred feet high on one side and forest on the other. For the next four hours, I never saw another soul, and buttery brown trout were caught.

As the environment suffers, and consequently, opportunities for quality fishing decline, some of us will have to travel farther or crawl through more brambles to find the peace we seek on the water.

Back to that picture of the Henry’s fork, you can keep it. I will be somewhere else where I can listen to owls, and nobody can witness when I put down every fish in the pool with my first sloppy cast. Fly-fishing was never meant to be a team or spectator sport.

What’s the best…?

2010-01-03T10:57:00.001-06:00

They are everywhere these days. They dominate internet forums with page after page of opinion, advise, and blather.

They are the dreaded “What is the best…?” thread.

Questions without proper framing or background such as “What is the best 5 wt. Rod?”, or “What is the best casting video?” are so subjective as to often leave the door open to such a wide and varied set of answers that the questioner ends up more confused than before they asked the question. Add to that the fact that anybody can post an answer regardless of skill level, scope of knowledge in the area of questioning, or any precedent at all, and no wonder so much bad advise gets disseminated.

Here is an enlightening fact; there is no “best” rod, reel, line, book, video, wader, hip pack, suppository, etc.

It is all subjective.

What is best in one situation or circumstance is not the best in another. Then add in our skill levels, preferences, maturity, physical fitness, and style, and it really becomes a morass. Add in the river conditions, the weather, summer vs. winter, wind, etc.

What is best for me in a given situation may not be the best for my Neanderthal friend Og, who lives in my basement. For example, I am having a sandwich with summer sausage and mustard for lunch, lets ask Og what he is having for lunch. “Hey Og, what are you eating?”

“Og eat old shoe, mmm… old shoe best.”

Blech. See? Best is subjective.

Another problem with the concept of ‘best’ is that it often translates to ‘easiest.’

What is the ‘best’ method of fishing for trout in a river? How about bait? That would be best because it would place more fish to hand. However, what if a hatch was occurring? Then fly-fishing with a dry fly might be best. Does skill enter into this at all? Is what is ‘best’ for the neophyte angler different from what may be best for a master of the sport?

Does best mean the most fish to hand? Most difficult? Easiest for Og? Most colorful? Shortest? Longest? Perhaps 'Most efficient in the hands of beginning to moderate casters and fishermen' might be better. To most people though, it means "What will make me a better fisherman and catch more fish than my buddy without having to put in any work or practice of my own." ‘Efficient’ in many cases may mean the easiest way.

Let’s ask Og what he thinks.

“Og fish best. Og smash fish with rock. Fish good!”

O.K., so Og might not be the right person to ask, but it helped illustrate the point. Og, being a creature of little intellect and a subsistence feeder, jumps in the river and grabs a fish, then hits it with a rock and swallows it whole. That is what is ‘best’ for him.

When it comes down to it, the best for you may not be the best for your neighbor. What works for me may not work for you. As the proverb puts it, “One man’s meat may be another man’s poison.”

We tend to look for simple answers to complex questions.

Beware of the simple answers in life.

The Og factor

2009-12-31T10:26:00.000-06:00

If you have not yet met my friend Og, a little introduction is in order. Og is a Neanderthal that I discovered is living in my basement. He is harmless, but not too bright. He takes an interest in my doings, so I sometimes take him to local parks and short fishing outings.

I have to be careful, because as dim as Og is, he more than makes up in strength and energy. He is apt to leap into the water and kill zombie salmon with his bare hands, or turn tackle into abstract sculpture by accident. He always is sorry afterwards.

Og has been pestering me to go fly-fishing for steelhead with a two-handed rod for several months now. I hesitate to do this for many reasons. Then, the other day, I found a cheap two-handed rod at a sporting goods store for $20.00. I figured “Why not?” I fitted it with a cheap spare reel and an old line, and invited Og to accompany me to the river.

He is quite excited as we walk down the path to the water. “Stop jumping up and down, Og, you’re making me dizzy!”

“Og fish! Og cast good! Og splay cast!”

“Actually it is ‘spey’… never mind. Stop swinging from that power line and come down here Og.”

“Og fish good!”

“Right, but first I need to teach you how to cast a two-handed rod. It is not about strength, Og, but involves a bit of finesse. O.K. Now take the rod like this, swing it around so, and then sort of pull and push with your arms, and cast it out. I am starting you out with a floating line for now.”

“Fromoting rine good! Where fish?”

“They are in the river, Og. Just make a short cast.”

Og tries for the next half-hour to make even a single cast. He manages to wrap the line around his head, hook me in the ear, and fall down several times.

“Og mad! Og kill”

Og manages to see a squirrel and chase it into the woods. When he returns a few moments later, he has fur all over his face and a tail sticking out of his mouth.

“Feel better Og?”

“Og frustrated. Splay cast hard. Shoulder hurt. Squirrel taste funny.”

“Maybe you should not eat raw squirrels that… oh never mind. Look, Og, your shoulder hurts because you are trying too hard. Lets start you off with this spinning rod instead.”

“Og spin good!”

Og manages to create a bird’s nest of line, and fall into the river.

“What Og do wrong?”

“Hmmm, I expect we might just try this cane pole and a bobber for now.”

“Og bobber good!”

Og manages a sort of flop cast that ends up in bouncing the bobber off of his head. In frustration, he eats the bobber.

“Og bobber crunchy!”

Yes, well….

To make a long story short, I was never able to teach Og to cast that day. We returned home instead, and Og returned to his corner in the basement.

I had tried a fly-rod, a spinning rod, and a cane pole, all to no avail. What type of rod and line would enable Og to make even a basic efficient cast, I wondered?

Then it hit me. Og was sort of human. Could it be possible that he was limited by his lack of skill? Was it possible that it was not about the rod, line, or style of fishing at all, but instead stem from Og’s lack of practice? After all, I remember hitting myself, hooking myself, and falling in the water too. Perhaps Og was human after all?

The Og factor… the human factor. The 99% slice of the mastery pie. It seems that this is always the last thing to be examined. Instead, we attempt to compensate for our lack of skill through adoption of ‘more efficient’ tackle and styles instead of realizing that as Og Shakespeare found, “The fault lies in ourselves, not in our squirrels.”

Love and Beauty vs. The maniac and the narcissist

2009-12-29T19:08:00.000-06:00

As part of an essay examining the sport of fly-fishing, I wrote the following…

“Trout live in beautiful places, as do other fish we fly anglers pursue. Nature is simplicity and a force. We try to capture the essence of nature and the natural world in art and music, the smells and sounds in poetry. Nature and its language and silence are part of each of us. It is where we came from. To practice a quiet sport among such beautiful and diverse surroundings as mountain streams, big freestone rivers, and northern forest brooks is a privilege and our worship at our temple. Nature’s spiritualism is a large part of fly-fishing. At the end of the day, we are as likely to lock into memory the moment the sun burned off the mists on the river at dawn, as the fish we caught. This attention to the aesthetic qualities of nature leads us to care about our treasured places, and to become concerned with the forces that threaten them. There are few true fly anglers that are not closet tree-huggers, if not outright members of conservation organizations. We care because we love, and we love because of beauty. We are connected to the natural world by the footprints we leave and the loops we make.”

This is how it should be, but instead there seems to be a growing number of anglers that
worship themselves instead of nature; the maniac or the narcissistic fly-fisherman.

I take the term maniac from the excellent introduction written by Thomas McGuane for his book The Longest Silence.

Here it is:

"The sport of angling used to be a genteel business, at least in the world of ideals, a world of ladies and gentlemen. These have been replaced by a new set of paradigms: the bum, the addict, and the maniac. I'm afraid that this says much about the times we live in. The fisherman now is one who defies society, who rips lips, who drains the pool, who takes no prisoners, who is not to be confused with the sissy with the creel and the bamboo rod. Granted, he releases that which he catches, but in some cases, he strips the quarry of its perilous soul before tossing it back in the water. What was once a trout-- cold, hard, spotted, and beautiful--becomes "number seven."

I am seeing an increasing amount of this these days.

What I was trying to say in that first quote was that by appreciating the inherent beauty in nature, we grow to love it. In loving, we begin to care, to respect, and to conserve.

We worship at the temple of nature. The maniac does not care or respect, therefore the maniac does not love. He instead copulates in nature for only his own benefit and then discards the corpse. The rivers are whored out until they are no longer capable of giving a thrill. Then the maniacs move on to a new river, bragging about the number of their conquests. The whored-out river is left hollow and forgotten: unloved and used up.
You can easily tell who these people are because they are often the loudest voices out there.

The maniac is not completely oblivious. He often cloaks himself in at least a touch of environmental concern, but really cares more about becoming a rock-star than working to support the rivers. Narcissism. Love turned inward to oneself instead of outward towards nature.

The maniac is incapable of fishing alone. His friends and worshipers must accompany him at all times. Silence is his enemy. He must have his ego constantly stroked. He is relentlessly pushing the ‘F5’ key of life. The maniac lives for the moment. Neither the future nor the past exists to him. “Look at me!” he shouts.

The maniac is the opposite of the purist. In his world ‘easiest and most efficient’ often equate ‘best.’ Whatever technique gives him pleasure the fastest.

The maniac is always measuring his angling. He measures himself against others. The fish get measured and counted as well; how many, how far, and how long replace the aesthetic experience. After all, it has been said that a man without a soul cannot understand aesthetics and beauty. The maniac is nothing if not a soulless machine with a large mirror to peer into. Appreciation is limited to that mirror’s surface. There is no depth - a stark hedonistic two-dimensional world.

You will never find a maniac sitting beside a river, looking at birds, listening to the trickle of water speaking poetry. No, they are too busy running to get to the next spot. ‘The rolling stone gathers no moss’ they will tell you.

The maniac is a dead-end. He may burn out before or after the last fish is killed or suffocates in the stream. I hope for all our sakes it is the former. You will know of his passing by his rare silence.

How to dress for Steelhead and Atlantic Salmon fishing

2009-12-28T12:14:00.000-06:00

The other day I was re-reading a history of my hometown when I came across a photo from the early 1900s. It showed a dozen or so men and boys fishing in Lake Michigan off of a pier. They were using long cane poles and bait. Each was dressed in a shirt and tie and a bowler hat. Not a sport shirt in the crowd. That set me thinking about the sport of fishing and dress in general.

Now I am known as something of an oddball. I am one of the last people of my age to actually study classic English dress, and often enter the river sporting one of a multitude of Irish hats, or British cloth caps. Flyfishing, like all other sports these days, has its own couture. Trout fishers have the Lee Wulff vest, the ubiquitous ball cap, the necessary or unnecessary do-dads and accessories attached to zingers, and the little net hanging from the back. Want to be a trout fisherman? Then one had better look like one.

At least this is better than the NASCAR/BASS circuit, where participants become walking advertisement space; billboards to commercialism.

After a long string of emails with a colleague concerning proper traditional dress for Salmon fishing in the UK, I began to think of the differences between the aristocratic and exclusive nature of Salmon fishing, and the rather proletarian nature of Steelhead fishing.

Atlantic Salmon are the nobility of fish. In general, one also needs to be a nobleman or at least wealthy to enjoy good Salmon fishing. Private associations, clubs, and districts own the rivers, with some less quality water being set aside as public. In Scotland, Salmon fishing was divided by class. The upper classes (nobility, peers, wealthy industrialists, etc.) leased the fishing from the crown, while the estuaries were reserved for the lower class tackmen that pulled nets behind boats. Water bailiffs made certain that Joe lunchbox never poached the river itself.

North American Steelhead in contrast is the poor-man’s Salmon.

Rivers are free and belonged to the public in many cases. Licenses are inexpensive, and everyone can participate in the sport. Sort of egalitarian fishing. (As long as there are fish left…)

The way we dress for the two sports and their complete contrast struck me as fodder for a little humor. So here is my tongue-in-cheek guide to dressing to fish for the respective species.

Atlantic Salmon:

Go to a high end sporting clothing retailer specializing in wing shooting.

Purchase a Barbour Bordor waxed cotton jacket for $399.00. Add a suit consisting of matching tweed breeks, vest and jacket. Partner that with several tattersall shirts. Should run between $899.00 to $1,200.00 Accessorize with leather-lined Wellingtons for $430.00, and a Harris Tweed cap for $50.00 Woolen knit or silk regimental tie will cost about $30.00.

You should look quite sporting while in the bothy, or seated at the dinner table sipping a fine merlot.

Steelhead:

Go to garage. Locate old hooded sweatshirt you use when you work on the car. You know… the one with the hole in it caused when it got tangled in the torque-wrench; the one bearing a large oil-stain. Tear off the sleeves. Wear this over a piece of capiline so old that you can see through it. Add either a ball cap obtained from a Nebraska farmer, or a knit hat with holes. Spend $499.99 on sunglasses. Find abandoned gloves behind dumpster. Cut off fingers. This will cost nothing, and provide for a good conversation piece, as well as keeping your hands warm. Spend $479.00 on Simms jacket. Use sleeves torn off old sweatshirt as socks.

You should look quite sporting while passed out in your car, or seated at a picnic table eating a gas-station chili-dog.

Grounding and progression

2009-12-26T18:05:00.000-06:00

Grounding and progression

“Why the ‘Classic Angler?’” I pondered the other evening. I began writing essays under the moniker “The Classical Angler,” or “The Classic Angler” when I was forced to come up with a domain name for my internet writing ventures. I considered the name for a few seconds, and then ended up committed to it. I still don’t know why I chose it. However, in these recent evening musings and daydreams, I think I put my fingers around it.
Classical.

I guess to me this refers to the fine arts: Music, literature, architecture, visual art, etc. Its connotation is a little less direct, and here lies the majority of thought and substance: A dedication to fundamental principles and roots, an emersion in study and examination, technique and theory. It also refers to tradition, but that is another essay altogether.

Lost yet? I am.

Allow me to map out my train of thought. The map is drawn on an old used cocktail napkin, so forgive me for straying or getting lost.

Classical music is structurally the most advanced and involved form of music. Take the counterpoint of Bach, or the building development of a Beethoven symphony, one cannot but listen critically. It is also difficult to learn. Many of today’s most popular musicians have roots in classical music. It teaches technique. This is why my father practiced the piano incessantly, and why, when advising a talented young jazz bassist, Dad encouraged him to attend the Wisconsin Conservatory of Music and study classical as well as Jazz. It was good advice as it turns out. Once the technique, theory, and structure are understood and mastered, one can branch out and create or interpret.

It was the same with my mother’s painting. She studied technique incessantly both at the old Layton School of Art, as well as on her own, often hauling home armloads of books on the great European masters every week. She learned to mix her own mediums and colors from scratch. People often wondered how she was able to paint and sketch in so many diverse styles and wander from somber to exuberant moods in landscapes. The answer was that she spent years building a foundation.

Perhaps the discipline of that foundation is the main road I am trying to find…

This can be applied to all of life, as well as fly-fishing: learning to walk before trying to run, or studying the elements of a discipline as Marcus Aurelius would.

If you have followed some of my writings, you would know that tend to over think things, and am often guilty of a lack of discipline that allows me, for example, to attempt to tie Atlantic Salmon married wing flies before I know how to place the thread on the hook. My path is not always an even one.

We all tend to want to receive five minutes of instruction or study in the underlying foundations and elements of a discipline, and then go forth and conquer the world. Impatience? Perhaps.

In the movie Shine, the young David Helfgott is taken to his first professional piano teacher by his father, who instructs him to teach young David how to play Rachmaninoffs notoriously brutal 3rd piano concerto; a piece so devilish that it is known as “The mountain.”

The teacher instead grounds the pupil in Mozart.

I made the same mistake. The first major writing I did was to produce a 300-page memoir. This ambitious project took a full year, but since I had not yet learned to properly use language, it is requiring laborious and tedious editing. Instead, I should have first concentrated on short works. Study, learn, and then build on the foundation and progress.

Some people fumble around in mediocrity for a while, and then, concluding that they are stuck there, return to the roots and begin to study and practice the essential basics. Most people though, refuse to return to the beginning to learn.

In fly-fishing, I can find no better example of this than casting.

Casting is the one thing we anglers can actually control. We can’t make the fish bite, control the water temperature, clarity, or height, or calm the wind, but we can be prepared for anything our fishing outing throws at us by practicing the elements of proper casting.

One of the most common things I see on streams, lakes, and rivers is frustration caused by an inability to make the proper cast needed. This could be a wind-defeating double haul across the river to deliver a popper under a tree limb, or it could be a delicate ten-foot cast in a crystal clear and tiny stream with overhanging branches and spooky trout.

Yet, as I teach private and group casting lessons, or observe anglers on the water, I see the same persons making the same mistakes and exhibiting frustration. It is the rare person that, after struggling for a while, goes back to basics and solves his or her issues.

Its funny, golfers will spend hours at the putting green and driving range in order to look less like a buffoon in front of their boss at the annual company outing, but the same person will make a trip to the Henry’s Fork without the ability to mend line or roll-cast.

I don’t know why this is, but it seems universal.

Where was I? Ah, here I am on the right edge of the cocktail napkin next to the gravy stain and just short of the place marked ‘X.’

I guess it is my personal philosophy that in order to understand things one has to dismantle them, isolate the essential structures, and ground oneself in the fundamental underlying elements of technique that together make up the discipline or activity.

If you will, a classical approach.

If I had to create a moniker a second time, I might go with “The philosophical fool.”

(Mis) adventures with fur and feathers

2009-12-22T16:45:00.005-06:00

Top: Hmm...

Middle: Um...

Bottom: A wee bit better

When I began fly-fishing, it was inevitable that I try my hand at fly tying. It was not just the creative aspect that drove my decision, but the fact that I am notoriously cheap. Store-bought flies were expensive, and it seemed that I could save money by creating my own patterns. It also might have been some sort of karmic fate or curse. I am still kind of divided on this. At least being a fly-tier has given me an excuse to be enigmatic, as in “Don’t talk to Erik over there, he is kind of weird. You know…he ties his own fishing lures…”

Every journey begins with a single step. In my case, I tripped and fell into the river.

To begin with, I did not have a vise. I also had no proper materials. I used old yarn and cotton sewing thread and attached them to inappropriate odd hooks using my hands. I wanted them to look like the few flies pictured in my book The Big Book of Fishing, which must have been tied by the three-year-old daughter of the publisher. Mine were not even that good. For some reason, I failed to grasp the simple concept that the thread belonged under the materials. My first flies looked like something the cat choked up.

I fished with them anyway, but was puzzled when, after a dozen casts, all the materials fell off. It didn’t matter though, any fish retarded enough to give my tying abominations a second glance, would be just as likely to eat a bare hook. I added glue in an attempt to secure the materials better. I lacked head-cement, so I used five-minute epoxy. This solved the problem, however the flies now lacked any motion at all, being entirely stiff with glue.

Then one Christmas, I received a vise and toolset. Santa must have a sense of humor. Either that or he’s a sadist.

I began the process of acquiring some actual fly hooks and inexpensive materials. What I should have done at this point was visit a fly shop and buy a book. Instead, I went to a craft store and a shop that sells lure-making supplies. I bought colorful craft yarn, plastic pony beads, ostrich herl, a package of various feathers intended to decorate masks, some hackle, three thousand yards of black chenille on sale, peacock herl, brass wire, and a single spool of tying thread. To this I added several packages of Mustad hooks. I returned home with excitement, brewed up a pot of coffee, put on some Bach, and arranged all my various acquisitions and the vise on the dining room table.

The first step in this gloriously creative day was to place the hook in the vise. This was far more difficult then it looked. The vise was one of those Indian import jobs, based very loosely on a Thompson classic (or perhaps on a Medieval thumbscrew). It sported an adjustment handle in the rear and a screw knob that one turned in order to, in theory, hold a hook securely. All I really required of the vise was to hold the hook. It did even that poorly. After a few minutes of fiddling, adjusting, pricking myself with the hook, more fiddling, and a good amount of freeform cursing, the hook sat in the jaws of the vise. It stayed put as long as I didn’t touch it. As soon as I attempted to wrap it with thread, the hook popped out with a loud “SPRONG!” and flew across the room to be located later by the vacuum cleaner.

Then the cotter pin that held the adjusting lever broke.

Undaunted, I fixed it with a bit of old wire, realizing all the way that one gets what one pays for.

I finally got the thread on the hook. Champagne all around! Then the thread broke for the first of ten thousand times, and I sliced open my fingers on the hook. I noted on the grocery list on the refrigerator that I needed to restock band-aids. The yarn I was using for the body was by now kind of claret colored by blood. I added some peacock herl, wound in a saddle hackle and some tinsel, and ran out of room at the front of the fly. Lesson #1: Don’t crowd the head.

I began to attempt to use the tools that came with the vise. These consisted of a pokey thing, a strange curved springy thing, something with two prongs on it, and some sort of pliers. These tools were obviously designed and made by Pakistani orphans, who had as little idea as I did as to their intended use.

Everything that could go wrong did. Materials that seemed secured mysteriously unwound themselves after the fly was completed. My heads unraveled. I tied in feathers upside down and backwards. I forgot steps. I had a blast.

I persevered and continued tying. Out on the water, I showed off my small collection of flies to others, who politely nodded and smiled. The common consensus was that “Those flies will catch a fish,” which is the stock courteous reply when unable to think of anything positive to say.

One of the first materials I collected were several packages of marabou. These I tied in as a tail. I liked the effect, so I added more colors. The first Wooly Bugger I tied consisted of thirty Marabou blood quills, a whole lot of thread, and a plastic pony bead. It floated.

The only solution to this, as I reasoned it, was to add more materials. More marabou would make the fly heavier, and thus it would sink faster. Right. The resulting monstrosity was nearly impossible to cast. After two or three hours of fishing, the fly became saturated with enough water to allow it to sink. Once it was waterlogged, it weighed around a pound or so, and became impossible to use. Back to the drawing board.

At a local fly shop, I found a giant grab bag of deer, caribou, antelope, and elk hair clippings dyed in wild colors. This collection of floor-sweepings, end-pieces, and mangy fur set me back only eight bucks. Man was I pumped. I had begun to collect some fly-fishing magazines, and was fascinated with what one could do with spun deer hair. Talk about running before learning to walk…

I created, in order, a succession of mutations that could only be appreciated by a person on an acid trip, and a huge mess in my apartment. Wherever I went, deer hair of various colors fell off my clothing. Lacking the proper razor blades, I employed an old pair of dull scissors in trimming my creations to shape. The results looked like a near miss by a hedge-trimmer with the shakes. Several neighborhood bass actually ate the things, proving that bass are just not that bright. Adding to the difficulty of working with the hair was the fact that most of the pieces were in effect unusable, which was something that never occurred to me.

After a few months of tying some Polar Shrimp that looked like rejects from a pre-school craft fair, some Dahlberg Divers that sank backwards, and a set of Double Egg and Sperm flies made from non-colorfast materials that bled into a sort odd pinkish-white mess, I found a picture of a Thunder and Lightning in an English magazine. Aha!

By now the reader may realize that I lacked completely in the needed skills or the proper materials to even think of tying a full-dress salmon fly. Nevertheless, I forged blindly ahead. My motto seemed to be “Enthusiasm will make up for skill.”

All sorts of colorful feathers and furs were used to create this first salmon fly. It actually looked pretty cool, especially compared to the other crimes against nature that emerged from my vise. I proudly gave several of the flies away as Christmas gifts. My father placed his in an Irish hat, which was a bit too much of an honor. (To the fly, not the hat)

Then one day I ran into a strange character in a local flyshop. He had suitcases of flies he tied, all mounted expertly in small plastic boxes. He seemed to be an unlikely candidate for a fly tier. He spoke with a deep hillbilly accent, made wild claims and exaggerations, carried a bowie knife, and smelled like mothballs. I figured that if he could tie nice flies, I could too. Besides, I had one major advantage; my father and mother were not cousins.

Few flies remain from that early era. My wet flies floated, and my dry flies sank. Most were discarded or mercifully lost in trees.

Slowly, my flies began to improve. I broke the thread less often, bought a vise that actually held a hook, purchased quality materials, and began to practice technique.

So, where was I?

Oh right; the original goals of creating pretty flies and saving money. I guess I am mostly successful at the former, but failed miserably at the latter. I expect I am not alone in this. There should be a warning label on fly tying materials and tools.

A couple of other rather unexpected things happened too. The dining room table, and in fact, the entire dining area somehow slowly morphed into a tying area. I never intended this to happen, but one day I walked past the piled-up mess, took a sip of tea, and muttered, “Well, there it is then…”

The second and even more unexpected thing was that I found myself enjoying the creative process and beautiful finished results of tying flies almost as much as I did fishing.

It was a heck of a fun journey.

So, as I type this with an old Lady Caroline embedded in my sock, a piece of tinsel stubbornly caught in my hair, and surrounded by dozens of fly boxes, I can honestly say that it was worth it.

I just need to get a better vacuum cleaner.

The Rejuvenation

2009-12-18T15:35:00.003-06:00

A short story Copyright 2009, Erik F. Helm

As Richard listened to the speaker from the Fish and Wildlife Department address the room on the subject of PH levels in area streams, he slowly looked around at his fellow club members. Al had melted into his chair, his pipe intermittently disgorging a cloud of smoke. Henry’s head was slowly nodding forward as sleep took his eyes and brain. Cuthbert was picking at his fingernails as always, and Ed was attempting to show he was paying attention by hitting himself between the eyes repeatedly with the eraser on his pencil.

This brought to Richard’s mind the same problem that had been bugging him for the past six months. The fly-fishing club had become stale. Boredom plagued the members. Richard had attempted to encourage new subjects from speakers, had pushed a membership drive in order to infuse new blood, and tried to interest the members in outings to new places, all to no avail. The club seemed to be happy with the status quo, however sleepy it was. Ennui.

Thinking back on the last several meetings and outings, Richard sighed as he recalled Al’s fly-tying seminar. Al was a good tyer, Richard had to admit, but for some reason, Al limited his fishing to three patterns: a pheasant tail-nymph, an elk-hair caddis, and an Adams. He tied them all perfectly, but that is all he tied. Richard had wondered more than once if his constraint in fishing the three patterns had anything to do with the fact that those flies were the only patterns Al had ever learned to tie. He also seemed to recall that at the last tying seminar the club held only three months ago, Al had demonstrated the same three flies.

Then there were Henry’s outings. Usually around half a dozen of the club’s members would take part in a group fishing day on a local stream. This April it had been Muskrat Creek. It was always Muskrat Creek for trout, or Custer Park Pond for bass. The members would begin arriving late in the morning, put in a desultory few hours of fishing, and then retire to a local watering hole where Al would tell them about his three flies, or Peter would talk about the time he almost met Jack Hemmingway.

The outings had originally been intended as mentoring sessions for newer anglers. However, since there had been few new members in the last seven or eight years, the fishing days became more of a day to get away from the wife for a few hours. What few new members there had been mostly faded away within a few meetings, and never returned.

Therefore, as president, that was Richard’s dilemma: how to infuse new energy into the somnambulant angling club.

Last meeting he had booked a local guide who had a slide show on fishing for Atlantic striped bass from shore. One of the club members, Richard could not remember exactly which one, had followed up the presentation by asking the guide how the tactics he described might be applied on Custer Park Pond. Richard had cringed in embarrassment.

The speaker from the Fish and Wildlife Department had finished and departed, and the lights had been turned back up. Chuck, the club secretary and treasurer, was yawning and wiping sleep from his eyes as he began the formal part of the meeting: reading the minutes and taking care of new business, of which there usually was very little indeed.

She walked in carrying an old canvas rod bag in her left hand, her scent and legs preceding her.

The silence was so complete that Richard could hear Al’s pipe clatter to the floor.

“Hi!” she said with a sweet smile revealing a set of perfect teeth and full lips. “Is this the Peterborough Anglers Club?”

It was in the way she said it. There was no hint of shyness, just clarity and confidence. Her name was Ann, and she was spending her summer with an Aunt before returning to Boston to complete her master’s degree.

She was six feet of Boston Brahmin breeding and curves, topped off by long wavy red hair and green eyes. Her purple skirt flowed as she moved to find a chair and settle in. The green cable-knit sweater she wore complemented her perfectly.

Ann was looking to find some fly-fishing nearby, and had brought her grandfather’s seven-foot Payne bamboo rod with her for the summer. She told the club that she fished the Catskill region from time to time, but had not been on a stream for the past three months. Was there any chance of trout fishing nearby?

Richard sat in his car at the pullout of Muskrat Creek and watched with a wry smile as the club members fished. It was seven a.m., and fully two dozen members were in the creek by now, following Ann slowly through the riffles. Henry seemed to have lost his limp, and left his wading staff back in his car. Cuthbert had a new hat, and was wearing it at a jaunty angle. Chuck had broken out his Bogdan reel, something he said he would never do. Richard grinned as he heard Al explaining to a member how to tie a Quill-Gordon as they walked down to the stream.

Even Stash, the oldest member in his late seventies, had a spring in his step, and had finally managed to stop dropping his rod-tip as he cast.

Richard shook his head in laughter as he reflected on all his attempts to rejuvenate the club, only to have the answer walk right through the door in the form of a feminine fountain of youth.

The next three months sure would be fun, he thought aloud as he pulled on his better pair of waders.

How to write a Fly Fishing Article

2009-12-18T11:50:00.002-06:00

How to write a Fly Fishing Article

By the Classic Angler (Who can’t get published, so he should know)

Ah, the rejection letter. I just love them.

“Dear Mr. Helm,

After reviewing your manuscripts, we feel that they do not fit with our needs at the present time. Good luck with future writing and please keep ‘Useless Angling Journal’ in mind. You should also consider suicide.”

Yours,

Bob Flob, Executive Editor

--------------------------------------------

So here in a nutshell is my tongue-in-cheek guide to successful writing for today’s sporting magazines…

Write with a formulaic style: Man vs. Beast, or I went to this exotic place and caught big fish, or this is how I nymphed ‘em up, etc. Make your writing as close to everyone else’s that it is hard to tell the difference.

Under no circumstances should you allow your creative side to take over. Wipe any sentimentality, romance, existentialism, aesthetics, or self-examination out of the article.

Make frequent references to specific products in your article. “I could really cast a mile on the Henry’s Fork using the Sagorviloomiston XTPS 9’ 6 wt. It was balanced perfectly by the Rosovison sylk-drag large arbor 3400 xsr.”

Mention area lodges, businesses, guides, outfitters, restaurants, shuttle-services, etc. by name in the article. This sells advertising.

Make heavy use of pictures. After all, given the choice between words and pictures, pictures win every time.

Keep your articles under 1,500 words. Anything over that and people fall asleep.

Fail to mention that in return for the publishing of the article, you were flown into the exotic location you wrote about and literally molly-coddled into a fish.

Include photos of flies that work. Make certain that they are all commercially available so that advertisers can sponsor the magazine.

Include a glory shot of a huge fish. It does not have to be the same river or body of water you are writing about. It doesn’t even have to be on the same continent.

Make frequent references to Hemmingway.

Remember that your target audience is people that move their lips when they read. The fact that higher educated and literate individuals tend to take up fly-fishing should not carry any weight.

Make use of fly-fishing clichés in your writing: Tight loop, hopper-copper-dropper, pigasaurus, slab, etc.

Write everything in the first person singular. Use ‘I’ as every other word.

Make the guide that you are with the hero of the story. Portray him as some sort of angling godling blended with battle-scarred war veteran. His eyes should be ‘steely’, his arms ‘rope-like’ and his personality as rough as the river. He should never blink. He should know every fish in the river by name.

Either play down your own ability, becoming a buffoon next to the guide and other anglers, or exaggerate your prowess to expert status. There should be no middle ground.

Nature should always take a back-seat.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Here for your reading pleasure (or not) is the perfect article.

Mike’s steely eyes and steady hands guided us through broken pelvis rapids in the upper stretch of the Big Silver River. Guiding on the river every day for the last ten years, Mike is part owner of Silver River Outfitters. There were rumors of steelhead and salmon so big that Zane Gray would have a heart attack. As we floated down the rapids in the morning mist, I imagined myself as Hemmingway’s Santiago from The Old Man and the Sea, hopelessly locked in a death struggle with the fish of a lifetime.

We were throwing a Bumpqua mouse pattern at the edges of seams with excellent luck. Catching all these big fish made me hungry, and I looked forward to the sirloin steak, lobster bisque, and fine merlot that would be served at the Silver River Overlook restaurant that evening.

Ken hooked into a monster in a rapids and as his Lamroson large arbor 348 sang, he made his way down river, his Primms boots anchoring him solidly to the gravel…..

Blah, Blah, Blah

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The question that always strikes me is whether the demise of print magazines is due to a lack of interested readers, or if the dumbing down of the contents to attempt to appeal to a younger audience with a smaller attention-span is actually accelerating the disinterest.

Chicken and the egg?

The Cadenza

2009-12-13T10:55:00.003-06:00

The Cadenza
Fiction Copyright 2009 Erik F. Helm

I just had to get out. There is a point in our winters in the Minnesota north woods when serious dementia can take hold, despite our best efforts. Call it cabin fever, seasonal affective disorder, or winter blues; it is what drives Alaskans and others in desolate climates barking mad each and every year.

I was suffering from writers block, or more appropriately, composer’s block. Having completed a commission for a short piano concerto, all that was left was to write the cadenza. How one runs a metaphorical marathon of inspiration, only to come up short, unable to continue and within sight of the finish line, is beyond me to explain, but here I was.

I sat for days at the piano scribbling notes and crossing them out. I listened to recordings. I cooked, cleaned, wrote poetry, reorganized the sock drawer; all to no avail. If something didn’t happen soon, I was going to run up against the deadline, and the regional symphony would have no holiday showpiece. As I stared out the frosted window while sipping hot cocoa I knew I needed a change of pace.
I expect everyone has a special little place they go to get back in touch with the voice of their soul. For me, that place was a creek that ran though the woods not a mile from my cabin.

It was December 15th, so I had little expectations other than the possibility of a bit of open water in the riffles. I grabbed my knocking-around rod, an old South Bend cane with a bit of an actual southerly bend, donned my parka and snowshoes, and with a single box of tattered flies, set out for the stream. If nothing else, the fresh air and exercise would help to clear the cobwebs from my head.

The world was painted with a deep and soft background of white intersected by brown, black, and gray vertical lines. Dark and moody clouds loomed overhead. I took the path through the woods, and noticed that a hare and a skunk had preceded me. Chickadees and cardinals imparted motion to the sleepy landscape as I trudged forward. I still had no real idea what I was going to fish for on the frozen creek, escape, trout, inspiration, or perhaps just solace.

Arriving by the little riffle, I was delighted to find a twenty-foot pool of open water. I cleared the snow from my snowshoes, and began rigging the rod when the clouds parted and the sun shown forth in all its glory. Tying on a dark nymph with a slightly rusted hook, I crept slowly to the edge of the pool and peered in, letting my eyes become accustomed to the sun and the water.

Then I saw it. There was a flash of silver in the very center of the pool. There was a brook trout down there, moving from side to side and examining his upside-down world.

I tossed the fly to the top of the pool and slowed its travel to sink it. The fish immediately flashed on the nymph. At the very moment I struck and missed, strange sounds started to issue from the bushes and branches surrounding the stream. They began slowly, almost tentatively, and then grew steadily. I was at a complete loss. What was this?

Then it dawned on me. The forest was alive with the sounds of melting snow and the formation of icicles. It made sense now. The temperature according to my window thermometer at the cabin was 12 degrees Fahrenheit. The sun was heating the branches and melting the snow, which in turn, froze into icicles. Then the icicles began to crack. Snow fell from the uppermost branches of trees, and unloosed the ice, which tinkled onto the frozen surface of the stream. The limbs above began to groan in low notes.

“Groan, tick, tick, tinkle, swoosh, tinkle, ping, crack said the woods in ¾ time.

Suddenly I had it. Here it was: nature’s own music and rhythm. The perfection of snow and ice and winter sun playing on their own instruments a delicate ode to the end of the year. I quickly found the stub of a pencil and began recording on the back of my fishing notebook the chords and melodies that were playing before me. The little fish could wait.

I had found my cadenza.

Some tips from the tying bench

2009-12-12T13:13:00.000-06:00

There are so many good books out there on tying that I am reluctant to add my mediocre voice and skills to the chorus, but most articles and books focus on patterns and materials and are light on advice.

I am not a great fly-tyer. Period. However, I do spend a bit of time at the vice, and over the years have learned much from my own mistakes. In do tie enough that friends often pick errant pieces of feathers and fur from my clothes. I now smile ruefully at the flies I tied in years past, and showed to colleagues. Some were good, some bad, and some downright ugly. Some very accomplished tyers looked at my flies and said, “Hmm… this fly should catch fish.” As time went on, I realized that this was a catch-all response to avoid tearing the fly apart and discouraging the tyer. As an obsessive perfectionist, I am rarely satisfied anymore with results, but do realize that to ere is human.

So, permit me to bore you with a few select generalized tips from the vice and bench. (Far from definitive…)

1. Know your skill level, and do not attempt to tie patterns that are far beyond your skills. Trying to tie full-dress salmon flies when you are struggling to get a pheasant-tail nymph down can lead to frustration.

2. Use a vise that you are comfortable with. No need to break the bank, just use what you have until your skills outgrow the vise.

3. Use good tools. Your wife’s old craft scissors just won’t (pardon the pun) cut it. Good tools make tying a joy. Bad tools just lead to more frustration.

4. At the beginning, practice with cheap hooks and second-grade materials. Practice technique. Don’t waste that floricon bustard until you know what you are doing.

5. Have a plan when you sit down at the vice.

6. Try to tie four or more of the same pattern at one sitting. Try to make each one a carbon copy of the others. This builds consistency and proportion.

7. When tying a fly, work for correct technique at each step. If you are having trouble mounting wings, then practice the wing until you get it right. Don’t just tie six flies with bad wings. This teaches nothing.

8. Learn about thread tension and length of thread. This is an overlooked and critical aspect.

9. Learn about materials: how to work with feathers, wrap hackle, fold collars, mount the feather without a bulge, etc.

10. Study proportion in your flies. Divide the hook into halves, thirds, and quarters as necessary. Start the fly in the proper place and finish it without crowding the head.

11. Learn to tie in materials with a minimum of thread wraps. Using thirty wraps where four are needed leads to unsightly bulges.

12. If you make a mistake, undo it, and start again. Since the canvas of a hook is so small, mistakes tend to domino on each other and end up as a mess at the front of the fly.

13. Tie with a picture of a perfect completed fly in front of, or near you. Refer to the picture often.

14. Use the correct hook for the fly. Learn about different hooks and hook terminology.

15. Learn to dub properly with different materials.

16. Instead of using pre-made body wraps, make them yourself. Spin a dubbing loop of flashy seal substitute. It is amazing what one can do with a dubbing loop and blended materials.

17. Challenge yourself by tying flies just a bit harder. This is how you get better. Don’t go too far though. (See #1)

18. Take a tying class. However, first make certain that the instructor is not just a good tyer, but also a good teacher. Otherwise, the class is just a tying demo.

19. Fish with your flies. See how they move in the water. See how they float or sink, test the durability. If they fall apart quickly or unravel, something is wrong.

20. Once you have some competence, be creative. All the flies in existence started this way. Let inspiration be your wings.

21. Tie a bit every week. Long dry periods tend to decay skills.

If I had to pick one thing to tell new tiers, it would be to develop solid technique with materials and thread. Solid technique builds a foundation. Once that foundation is built, one can look at a fly in a book and instantly duplicate it.

Above all, have fun. Catching a fish with a fly you tied yourself adds a new dimension to the sport.

Traditional Skunk

2009-12-11T13:08:00.002-06:00

Meet The Skunk.

The prevailing theory is that this fly originated on the North Umpqua, but the exact original tier is a matter of debate. Wes Drain is mentioned. It is one of the original flies used for steelhead in the Pacific North West.
This fly, once very popular, has fallen out of vogue and was eclipsed by the Green Butt Skunk.

I tied this one according to a number of different sources. The fly is usually tied with a black chenille body, but the original may have used peacock herl.
So, I started with a dyed golden pheasant tail. The body is peacock herl and black ostrich herl spun together with fine silver oval tinsel. The wing is polar bear.

I was priveleged enough this fall to see and touch some actual 3/0 to 5/0 skunks purchased directly from Joe Howell's flyshop on the North Umpqua.

Defining fly-fishing and drawing lines.

2009-12-09T10:41:00.000-06:00

Defining fly-fishing and drawing lines.

We all draw lines. It is an inevitable part of how we go about forming our identities; our concepts of ourselves and our place in relation to others and our surroundings. This is true of our fly-fishing as it everything else in life. Where we draw these lines often changes with time and maturity. Taste also plays a part, as do aesthetics. What we consider sporting definitely applies.

If we go back in time to the essence of fly-fishing, what do we find?

First off, we may look at the word ‘fly.’ Fly-fishing originated, as far as we can tell, by imitating hatching insects in a body of water. In Macedonia as well as England, and other areas in-between, the sketchy historical records agree on this one point; mayflies, wasps, aquatic moths, caddis or sedges.

Presenting an artificial fly, or even a live fly on a hook in order to fool wary fish took special equipment. Until the 18th century, there were few records of winches or reels. Rods were commonly switches cut from bushes and trees such as yew. Dame Julia made hers a composite. The line had to be delicate in order not to spook the fish. Silk and horsehair were used, as well as other materials. It is doubtful if the flies actually floated. More likely from historical documents, the flies were ‘dappled’ into the water where the fish were rising or eating bugs.

Thus, if we take matters to their absolute essence, fly-fishing is a way of delivering an artificial fly imitating some sort of hatching insect to the fish.

This leaves much of what we call fly-fishing today outside that first boundary-line.

If we stop here, most fishing for bass, steelhead, Atlantic salmon, warm water and saltwater fish is not really fly-fishing.

Interesting, but rather pointless, unless we now add technology to the equation, and the resulting changes in technique that result.

Let’s fast forward to the present.

Today we have flies that look like crank baits, lines that sink to 30 feet, bead-head nymphs, and every other possible advantage to allow us to pursue species in places and ways never before possible. Technology has expanded our horizons, as well as opening up fly-fishing to the masses.

Somewhere in all this freedom and hybridization of fly-fishing, we draw our identity lines or fences. We will or will not cross these lines. Some anglers draw no lines at all, and anything goes. Spinning reel and mono on a flyrod? Bring it on! Fifteen weight shark rods? Lets Go!

Other anglers draw a line in the sand sooner or later, as to what they will or will not do. Much of this is species specific. One may only use dry flies for trout, but see nothing wrong with using foam poppers for bass. Some of us may only use un-weighted nymphs and no indicator, while others have no issue with attaching split-shot, running multiple nymphs deep where allowed, and using a balloon bobber. Some fly-tiers will not use artificial materials outside of tinsel, while others of us consider anything fair game as a material. Some anglers use only gear and pawl reels, while others use only large-arbor disc-drag models. Some casters only use long-belly or DT lines, while others praise the ease of shooting heads and attached mono. Some anglers refer to insects with their Latin names, in effect becoming amateur taxonomists. Others know them as “those little cream bugs.”

Most of us fall somewhere in between, comfortable to just catch a fish.

The drawing of lines and distinctions as to how we pursue game, (for that is really what we are doing, despite catch and release) can also become platforms of refinement.

We fly-anglers often think of ourselves as more refined that the guys in the BASS tourney.

Why?

Perhaps it has to do with the inherent limitations in our tackle. No sonar detectors or depth-finders for us. Limited casting distance. No corporate logos. No motors or noise. No tourney $$.

But what about the persons who limit themselves to casting with a cane rod and a silk line using dry flies only? Do the limitations he constrains himself with make him a better angler per se? Alternatively, is it the skill that it takes in order to consistently catch fish this way that elevates the approach? Good questions.

Let’s take this analysis out of fly-fishing for the moment in order to make it clearer and remove it from our own feelings on the subject.

Deer hunting. Let us imagine a set of hypothetical hunters pursuing deer. The hunters are all skilled, and each kills a deer. Each is a humane hunter, and is skilled enough in technique to make a clean kill.

The first hunter fells his prey with a wooden bow that he made himself, a bow-string that he made from the sinew of a deer he shot, an arrow he hand fashioned, and an arrowhead he made of bone.

The second hunter uses a commercially made wooden longbow, and commercial wooden arrows.

The third hunter uses a fiberglass bow and aluminum arrows.

The fourth hunter uses a compound bow with optical sights and a stabilizer.

Which is the best way? The easiest? The most effective? The most refined? Which method takes the most skill?

Now lets add in the method they got to the woods. One used his own two feet, one a horse, one an ATV, and the last was driven in by the guide he hired.
Where does fishing with glo-bugs or indicator nymphing fit in this hierarchy? Does it matter?

Does the end justify the means, in that fishing is just catching fish, or is there some sort of journey of maturation in technique?

When it comes down to it, this is just a brain exercise to make us think.

I don’t know. I still get crap for not owning a cane rod.

The whole Experience

2009-12-08T10:19:00.002-06:00

The whole Experience

At the beginning, it was just fishing. Just us with Dad and Grandpa, a world of anticipation, a bucket of worms, new smells, faded overalls, sunburn, and a connection to a panfish through careful and patient watching of the bobber.

That is still how most people think of fishing when they ask me what I do.

I usually kind of beg off, because to explain even the basics of this passion involves complicated analogies and comparisons.

How did our fishing evolve to this? Why?

Because we love. Because many of us strive to always explore even more difficult techniques, more beautiful locations, fussier fish, perfect casting, take tying to an art, and generally surround the core of fishing for a fish with a picture frame of structure that enhances its beauty. Like an elegant dress on a beautiful woman, a sublime aria, wine in a crystal glass, our fly fishing gains in brilliance with the lore we surround it with.

The remote plunge-pools of a trout stream under overhanging boughs of pine trees forming a virtual nave of a cathedral.

The sound of moving water as the whispered voice of God or nature.

The electric jolt of a steelhead eating a waking fly.

The colors on a fall brook trout like an impressionist painting.

The music we hum when it all comes together.

The favorite cane rod.

Dad’s old fishing hat.

Our faithful old dog.

Drinking directly out of the stream.

Fishing with equipment that puts us at a disadvantage.

The wild berries we eat along the river, which always manage to taste better than anything we had ever eaten before.

The wildflowers.

The thoughts of those that have gone before and those that will come after.

That perfect cast with the loop unfurling like an aerial ballet.

Romance.

The whole experience is the most important part, and it means something different to each of us. If we were to strip it naked and just fish to catch a fish, it would lose its appeal and luster like a fading and withering flower.

It is more than just fishing. It is more than the fish.

Think about it.

The Golden Demon

2009-12-05T15:56:00.001-06:00

Another very fetching pattern

The Golden Demon was a British Empire pattern discovered by Zane Gray in New Zealand, and popularized by him through steelhead fishing in the 1930s.

The original version has no dubbing, but I added a turn or two of seal.

I also reinforced the bronze mallard wing by using an underwing of blackbear.

The Classical Angler Slideshow

2009-12-03T16:35:00.001-06:00

Looking back on the journey in fly fishing, tying, art, nature, and passion for the sport. Presenting the Classical Angler photo montage. Enjoy!
(Note: Updated Dec.4 2009 with more thematic flow.)

Irish Shrimp

2009-12-03T14:03:00.000-06:00

Introducing the Irish Mourne Shrimp.
I found this fly along with others in a copy of Fly Fishing and Fly Tying (UK) from Sept/Oct of 2000.
The flies are designed to pull fish from slow flows with hackles that pulse. Hmm... sounds like something that can work on some of our slow-water reaches, and provide a possible alternative to leeches for those of us that are into classic flies. The oval tinsel body provides plenty of flash, while the schlappen segments and gold pheasant tail should provide movement.

I actually fished this fly on the Kooskooskie for a day, and it did pulse quite well, and had great presence in the water. I also fished it on my local river two years ago, but got it caught in a tree, and decided that was enough of that!
But this year, with dedication to the floating line, and trying to solve the problems associated with soft water and low flows with classic flies, I pulled it back out and fished it.

They are rather easy to tie.

Morne Gold Shrimp:

Tail: Several full feathers from golden pheasant in various colors
Rear body: Med. Gold oval tinsel to half point followed with four or five turns of orange schlappen.
Front Body: Med. Gold oval tinsel to front followed with four or five turns of black schlappen.
Wings: Jungle cock turned upright.
Head: Red
Hook: Should be heavy enough to actually sink the fly.

This series of Irish shrimp flies may actually be the grandfather of our General Practitioner pattern.

Cutthroat Stalker's 2009 slideshow

2009-12-02T10:48:00.000-06:00

A must see from Scott (Cutthroat Stalker)
Very well done photo montage. A tribute to nature, trout, and our sport done with respect, tact, and artistry.
It is everything missing these days from the mainstream fly fishing press.
Enjoy!

See Here: http://scarles.org/blog/cutthroat-stalker/1995/2009-fly-fishing-slideshow/

Wonderful spey casting video on the Dee River

2009-12-01T16:52:00.000-06:00

As traditional as you can get. It does not get any closer to its origins.

Mike Donald on the Dee

Asian Carp knocking on the Door to Lake Michigan

2009-12-01T10:51:00.000-06:00

Stopping Asian carp might be like trying to undo the opening of Pandora's box.
If or when they establish themselves in the Great Lakes, say goodbye. Possibly the largest ecological disaster in United States history. You just have to love man's unending fooling around with mother nature.

Good article and background information here: http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2009-11-30-asian-carp_N.htm

More Estabrook Dam Nonsense

2009-11-30T12:43:00.000-06:00

More Estabrook Dam Nonsense

We just are not that bright. Here in Milwaukee County our board of supervisors passed a budget for 2010 including a bonded allocation for 2.1 million dollars to repair the Estabrook Dam on the Milwaukee River. Bonded so that our children can pay for our stupidity.

They did not debate the issue, nor did they fully weigh the county’s own workgroup report. They just included it in a budget. Sneaky!

County Executive Walker vetoed the amendment, but was over-ridden. He wrote “The future of the Estabrook dam is a difficult policy decision that the County Board will have to address. This is a decision that should be made through an appropriate process of public hearings and committee discussion and not through an amendment adopted at a late-night budget meeting”

Good for him.

Of course, the county’s own workgroup estimated repairs as costing between 7.7 and 12 million. What the 2 million is being allocated for is a mystery. Band-aids? Discount Dam Repair Inc.?

It seems as though the County Board is either unwilling to actually weigh the issues and make an informed decision, or is running from the issue.

Hydroelectric study, $5000.00 to repair a stoplog structure, and now an allocation of money that is badly needed elsewhere in the county to address needed infrastructure maintenance. Workers are losing their jobs. Positions are being cut. Our parks are falling apart. We are constantly being told, “There is no money.”

Yet the County Board can waste badly needed dollars on only partial solutions. Dollars that if actually used, may be wasted if insufficient to address the DNR orders for repair and upgrade.

All so that we can keep our historic recreational dam, and the silty impoundment it creates.

We are just not that bright…

The Magic Bean Factor

2009-11-30T11:37:00.000-06:00

In our journey as fly anglers, we progress through many stages. At one point or another, many of us fall for the magic bean factor. I define this as a search for a short-cut, usually in equipment, which will give us an advantage or substitute for a lack of skill. The magic bean factor is what often sells expensive high-end fly rods to novices. By purchasing that wonder-rod that costs more than a mortgage payment, we may be able to reach further, be more accurate, or become a better angler.

In some cases where necessary skill-sets and foundations have already been developed, buying that wonder-rod or reel may actually step up our performance. However, in many cases the money may be wasted. Thousands of golfers spend millions of dollars every year buying the very set of clubs that Tiger Woods is using, in hope that they can hit the ball farther or more accurately. In essence, they are attempting to buy a skill advantage.

Often it does not work. I see anglers all the time that have very excellent equipment, and cannot use it. I was and am still guilty of this myself. Some rods I fell out of love with, only to pick them up years later when my skills had matured, and then fell back in love with the rod. The equipment does not make the angler; the angler makes the equipment.

In simplified terms, it is the skill of the angler in conjunction with carefully chosen equipment for the situation that produces the best results. No short-cuts to the top.

When we get frustrated with something in our casting, we must ask the question “Is it me or the limitations of the rod/reel/line?” I would argue that in the majority of cases it is us. Equipment has come a long way in the past two decades. Although there are a few truly bad rods and lines out there, most manufacturers produce fine tackle. They could not stay in business in an increasingly competitive industry if they made junk. Chances are that any modern rod that we own today would cast circles around the rods that anglers such as Walt Johnson, Lee Wulff, Wes Drain, Earnest Schweibert, or Lefty Kreh used back in the day.

A good way to find out what your rod and line are capable of is to hand it to a good caster. Sometimes it is so humbling to watch as he or she tosses out a perfect cast. Harold Blaisdell wrote about his meeting with Wes Jordan in The Philosophical Fisherman. He was humbled to watch Wes pop out hundred foot casts with a small cane rod, while he reached a certain distance and then turned the loop into wild noodles. He discovered his limitations vs. the limitations of the equipment he was using.

This is not to say that one should not go out there and buy the best equipment he or she can afford. By all means, do so. However, if the equipment upgrade is intended to solve issues best worked out through time on the river or in practice, we have the magic-bean factor at work. The equipment will never make us better anglers, only we can do this.

Beat rotation fishing, Midwest style

2009-11-29T12:01:00.000-06:00

Beat rotation fishing, Midwest style

Nearly everywhere in the world of Atlantic Salmon and Steelhead fly fishing a system of angler movement and ethics is used which allows multiple anglers to fish the same run, beat, or pool. Everyone gets the same fair chance.

The system is simple.

The first angler in the run casts until he or she has worked out enough line to cover the run. Then they take one to three steps downstream after each cast depending on the conditions. The anglers following wait until the person before them is comfortably down the run and then start in themselves. If someone catches a fish, they move to the back of the line to allow someone else a chance or move on to the next beat. This effectively forms a sort of conga-line in the run. It works for fly-fishing and gear as well as long as everyone progresses down the run. Everyone gets to have fun and cover the water. Under no circumstances should somebody enter the water in front of somebody else. That effectively torpedoes the whole concept and is called low-holing. If one is unsure what someone else is doing or where they can get in the run, they ask the angler in the water. Asking usually prevents incidents of misunderstanding.

Boy do I wish that this would catch on here in the Great Lakes, but alas, it never does except with a few enlightened souls.

Instead, here in the Midwest we seem to have a separate set of rules. Here anglers behave like the players in an old electric football game. They wander in aimless directions, one goes to the left, one to the right, one spins in circles, while the fourth one falls down.

Here are the rules as I see them practiced:

1. If you do get into a run, you are one lucky boy! Under no circumstances should you move. Cast from the same position in all directions. If you wait long enough, a fish might swim through the run and eat your fly or bait/lure.

2. If the approach you are using does not prove effective, under no circumstances change what you are doing. Keep it up and sooner or later you will either catch a steelhead or die, whichever comes first…

3. If someone is in a run, under no circumstances talk to them or look at them. Just proceed below them to their casting distance and low-hole them. They will get the point sooner or later that the entire river belongs to you.

4. If you are fishing with spawn, make absolutely certain to tell everyone how many fish you have caught.

5. If you see someone about to enter an otherwise empty piece of water, run down the bank and jump in the water before they get there. Remember the spoils belong to the bold and greedy.

6. If you are fishing from the bank with spinning gear, make sure that you cut off anybody wading from any good fish holding water.

7. If you are new to fishing with a two-hander and are having trouble casting, just stay in the run and practice your casting without moving. Since you have no chance, neither should anybody else.

8. If you are wading below a nice piece of holding water or a run and want to fish it, do not get out of the water to walk up to the run on the bank or a path. Instead, splash your way stumbling upstream through the heart of the run. This should stir the fish up and put them in a biting mood.

Or, as an alternative, how about adopting a simple rule…?

“Treat others as you yourself would wish to be treated.”

I saw a guy with a spey rod fishing a run the other day. I fished through two runs above him, then one run below him. He had not moved. Not one single step. I left for another part of the river in frustration. My friend Rick was arriving as I left and I told him about the anchoring angler. Rick fished through a couple runs himself and still the guy had not moved. He was there for three hours. Later I saw him walking out of the water. For a second I wondered if it was the same guy because earlier in the day he was a young dude in his 20s, while the octogenarian before me sported a long beard, a bent back, and was having trouble walking. Then I noticed his hat. Same guy. He had spent so much time in the run that he had grown old. (O.K., so I made that last part up.)

Here are some very well thought out rules of the river courtesy of Poppy at the Redshed flyshop. If we all practiced them, then we would all have a better experience on the river.

"TREAT OTHER ANGLERS AS YOU WOULD LIKE TO BE TREATED"

"RESPECT OTHER ANGLER'S FISHING SPACE,

DO NOT LOW HOLE"

"ALWAYS ASK PERMISSION TO SHARE A RUN,

START BEHIND OTHER ANGLERS ALREADY FISHING"

"WHEN FISHING A RUN WITH OTHER ANGLERS MOVE DOWN A COUPLE STEPS AFTER EACH CAST IS FINISHED"

"AFTER YOU LAND A FISH GET OUT AND GO BACK TO THE TOP OF THE RUN"

"HELP A NEW ANGLER IF IT'S OBVIOUS THEY ARE HAVING TROUBLE, OFFER USEFUL TIPS, SHARE A FLY OR TWO"

"WHEN FISHING CATCH & RELEASE USE TACKLE HEAVY ENOUGH TO LAND THE FISH WITHOUT A PROLONGED FIGHT, MASH THE BARB TO MAKE THE RELEASE EASIER ON THE FISH"

"RESPECT PRIVATE PROPERTY, ASK FIRST,

LEAVE GATES AS YOU FOUND THEM"

"PROTECT THE RESOURCE, DON'T LITTER"

"REPORT GAME LAW VIOLATERS"

"RELEASE ALL WILD STEELHEAD"

"LIMIT YOUR KILL, DON'T KILL YOUR LIMIT"