Losing Weight

When my wife was pregnant with our triplets she gained 100 pounds. One hundred pounds, and our children were six weeks premature. Of course, much of that 100 pounds was fluid; some of it - 15lbs 14oz to be exact - was baby. Most of Amy's weight gain, however, must have been love and hopeful anticipation because not once in seven and a half months of pregnancy did my wife complain. She was a trooper, and entirely dedicated to the well being of the lives growing inside her. All that having been said, she was more than happy to be rid of the weight once our children were born.

Now, to the point ...

Any of the three people who regularly read The Rusty Spinner are sure to know that this blog focuses much more on the why of fly fishing than it does the how of fly fishing. The how is done to death, and when it's done well, it is done much better than I am likely to do it. Over the past several years, however, I've had something of a revelation in my carp fishing that I think bears sharing: to follow the example of my wife and lose the weight.

I've been fly fishing for carp for over twenty years. When I began, I did what most bug chuckers do when they start chasing carp: I threw woolly buggers at them and hoped for the best. A typical outing had me fishing my home river for smallmouth bass, never targeting carp specifically, but always hoping I might find one willing to eat. Every so often I'd get lucky and cross paths with an enthusiastic fish rooting in the shallows, but these carp were always much more likely to spook than they were to take a #4 cone head woolly bugger.

As I matured as a carp angler - if such a thing as possible - and began to chase carp to the exclusion of other species, I tied flies that I thought would be more to their liking. These bugs were almost always constructed with tailing carp in mind. That is to say that they often mimicked crayfish and were heavily weighted - usually with beads or lead eyes - so that when cast to actively feeding fish they would drop straight to the bottom where tailing carp feed. If my casting was on point then chances were reasonably good that a fish would take. If my casting was off - even the least little bit - then the fish was likely to spook. Sometimes, the mere splash of my weighted fly entering the water was enough to send entire pods of fish scattering across the river.

And this is why I've decided to lose the weight. Small unweighted flies enter the water with much less commotion than do flies tied with bead chain, barbell eyes, beads, or even lead wire. As a consequence, I'm able to make multiple presentations to fish that would likely spook if presented with larger and heavier offerings. If made to guess, I would say that on average I am able to make five or ten times as many casts to fish when I am using unweighted flies than I might make with weighted offerings. I'm not a mathematician, but I'm fairly sure this makes me five or ten times more likely to hook a fish.

Of course, fishing with unweighted flies in the the rivers I frequent does present a particular challenge. If my target is rooting on the bottom or suspended mid column then I must cast far enough upstream to allow my fly time to sink into the fish's field of vision. More often than not, the carp I chase are unwilling to move very far in following a fly so my presentation must be in the fish's lane to be at all effective. This can prove difficult at first, but any bug chucker who has spent time fishing for stream trout has likely had thousands of opportunities to practice.

Tis the Season

It's that time of year when I start to daydream of steelhead. Of course, we have to make it through the summer and then salmon season, which brings us to this video ...


It's a little dated, but worth watching nonetheless. Forward to 3:00 or so to see the most interesting part.

Biblical Mayfly Emergence

Fly Fisherman Magazine's website reports a massive emergence of hexagenia mayflies along the upper Mississippi River in Wisconsin. The photographs and radar images - the hatch was large enough to register on radar - taken from local newscasts and the National Weather Service are ridiculous ...

Read the full article and see more images here.

On Amy's Legs and Using the Tools We Have

I hated - hated - high school chemistry. Ionic bonds bored me. Covalent bonds made me angry. I practically hulked out over Graham's law, and Dalton's law - who needs that kind of pressure? The teacher, Mr. DeMarco, was a former NCAA wrestler who was more chemistry than teacher, and at times seemed a strange amalgam of Randy "The Macho Man" Savage and Raymond "The Rain Man" Babbitt.



Most days, Mr. DeMarco had more patience for nitrification and titration than he did for any of the young people he was teaching. He was perpetually angry; at only 5'6" tall and 150 pounds he may have been short of temper because he was short of stature, but more likely he just didn't appreciate having to deal with chuckleheads like me. I enrolled in his class not out of intellectual curiosity but for wholly prurient reasons: Amy Salvadore and her legs.

Amy Salvadore was ground zero for every feverish, hormone induced, adolescent daydream I ever had. God help me, but I could stare at her legs for hours. She was an athlete: a soccer player who as a high school student played in two state championships and eventually went on to play at the college level; her legs told the story of that athletic prowess. They were magnificent - magnificent. Amy Salvadore was my Helen of Troy.

Liz Taylor as Helen of Troy ... look at those ... eyes.

Unfortunately, I never had the courage to try to convince Amy that I was the Paris to her Helen, the Antony to her Cleopatra, the Solo to her Leia. She was intimidating, aloof, and out of my league by any reasonable measure. My only solace was that while I was content to quietly fixate on her legs, Amy focused on her studies and soccer; she had no interest in the many boys that hovered around her like so many vultures circling a carcass.

From time to time, however, Amy would look up from her chemistry notebook and smile at me from across the classroom. Insecure as I was, I always looked away, embarrassed at having been caught staring. I should have thrown off my teenage cowardice and held her gaze if only for a moment. I should have returned her smile, and struck up a conversation after class. I should have been bold, swept her up in my arms, and carried her off to the locker room; I never did because I did not recognize those glances across the classroom for what they were - opportunities.

As I sit here at the keyboard, it occurs to me that writing The Rusty Spinner is a little like sitting in chemistry class and staring at Amy Salvadore's legs. Inspiration and opportunity are always just that close. Whether it's steelhead or trout, carp or bass, pike or musky - my next opportunity to write is never further away than a sloppy double haul. The trick is to recognize the moment when it comes, and be willing to take a chance. Sometimes everything comes together, I catch a few fish, and write something that may actually be worth the reading. Other times, not so much.

For the first time in over 20 years, I today found myself thinking of Amy Salvadore's legs as I stepped out of the shower and reached for the bath towel that hangs from the back of the bathroom door. Imagine my dismay at having discovered that someone - likely one of the three gremlins my wife and I spawned some seven years ago - absconded with my moisture wicking, Turkish cotton towel and left in its place a toddler's hooded body swab. More to the point, I was left to use this ...

Arghh Matey.

And there it was, my Amy Salvadore moment of inspiration: a diminutive caricature of an 18th Century pirate masquerading as a grown man's bath towel.

Bear in mind, that at 6' 3" tall and 300 pounds on the very best of days, I've quite a lot of surface area to cover. Anything less than an over-sized beach towel just isn't going to do the job very well. It's a simple matter of mathematics.

Needless to say, I didn't have many options. I could have swabbed myself with toilet paper, but the price of top shelf, double ply T.P. made that a cost prohibitive choice. I could have gone into my wife's cabinet, grabbed a handful of the cotton balls she keeps, and used that wad of cotton to dab the essential areas. The risk of chaffing made that an equally bad choice. I could have streaked from the bathroom to my bedroom, but as I've already said there were children in the house. With all I've done to mess with their minds over the years, I just couldn't bring myself to brand them with the indelible image of naked Big Daddy darting down the hallway. Wait for the air to do its job? Who has the time? Not this guy. I had no choice; it was the pirate towel or nothing.
  
Finally - after much rambling and digression - we come to the point, and the point is simply this: use the tools you have. How many times have we missed out on a moment because we weren't properly equipped? We show up to the river and discover that the hennies are done and the sulphurs have begun. Of course, we've left our box of sulphurs at home. Maybe we packed our waders but forgot to pack our wading boots. Perhaps we brought a 5# rod, but grabbed a reel mounted with a 7# line. We finally arrive riverside after a 40 minute drive, discover our mistake, and rather than take a chance we head back home, cursing our own stupidity along the way.

We've all been there - all of us - and while a toddler's pirate towel may not be the best tool for the job, it will still get the job done. Trust me. I know. I also know that hendrickson emergers and nymphs will continue to take fish during a sulphur hatch. Sneakers work every bit as well as our over-priced, sticky rubber, didymo resistant wading boots. Put a 7# line on that broomstick of a 5# rod, and you might discover you're casting better than ever before.

For my part, I'm going to chase muskies with an 8#. I've been putting off a muskie trip because I've convinced myself that I need a 10# before I go. Fly fishing companies must love that type of thinking, and it is just so much nonsense. No doubt the 10# is the better choice, but I'll get the job done with a lighter rod. As I see it, using the 8# may actually do more to improve my skills as a bug chucker and fly tyer than using what some folks might suggest is a more appropriate tool. So long as my line is in the water I've a chance, and a chance is all I really need.

If nothing else, I can say for sure that in twenty years I won't be looking back on this moment and wondering what could have been.

Google Translator

My wife is a teacher - a very good teacher by all accounts - and like all good teachers she has stories to tell. Just yesterday she came home from work and told the story of an 8th grade boy who had been caught cheating on a final exam. For whatever reason, this young man was allowed to use a computer to type his answers to the test questions, which covered the student's second year of foreign language - Spanish. Apparently, the he was very quick on the keys (or the proctors were oblivious to everything around them - a distinct possibility) as the student used Google Translator to devise an answer to nearly every question on the test. It wasn't until after the test that the cheating was discovered, and the boy was called to task.

As my wife told the story, my mind wandered off - as it is prone to do during the unabridged versions of my wife's stories - to the water and all things piscatorial. I thought about brown trout on the Delaware and carp on the Hudson, bass on Ballston Lake and bowfin on Champlain. In one instant, I was on the oars of my buddy's low-side Clack, and in the next moment I was casting to lily pads from the bow of a Coleman canoe. Before long, I was at the confluence of my wife's story and my own rambling stream of consciousness, and I found myself wondering if Google Translator might not help us bug chuckers better communicate with the rest of the world.

So ... what if? What if Google Translator made possible the translation of Bug Chucker to standard English?

Common Bug Chucker: "The wind is brutal today."

Standard English: "Listen, I am paying you $400.00 - FOUR HUNDRED DOLLARS - to row me down this ditch of a river and set me up on fish. How about you take one last drag off that Camel non-filter and move this friggin' boat just a little bit closer to shore. I obviously haven't the zip on my double haul that you expect me to have. If I was Steve Mother-F@%king Rajeff, I wouldn't have hired you in the first place."

Common Bug Chucker: "Fish on!"

Standard English: "Look at me! Look at me! I hooked a fish! Get the camera! Get the net! Get the camera and the net, but be careful with my camera. It's not waterproof, and still has pictures of the kids' birthday party on it. If that camera gets wet and I lose those pictures my wife will divorce me before she murders me. They'll never find my body. Look at me! Look at me! I hooked a fish! Get the camera! Get the net!

Common Bug Chucker: "My rod broke."

Standard English: "As a consequence of my own careless neglect and/or inability to cast in such a way as to prevent the collision of 2.5 troy ounces of lead with the carbon fiber blank of my (insert brand name and brief description of fly rod),  I  (insert owner's full name to include middle initial)  have broken my fly rod. I hereby absolve the manufacturer of any culpability, which might otherwise be associated with the destruction of said rod. Furthermore, I pledge not to harangue - with an equally fantastic and false narrative of the rod's final moments - the minimum-wage fly shop employee who will assist me in the repair and/or replacement of my fully warrantied (insert brand name and brief description of fly rod).

Common Bug Chucker: "It's good just to be out."

Standard English: "F@%k fly fishing! I spend ... what ... somewhere in the neighborhood of $3000.00 on flies and gear, plus another $200.00 on a hotel and gas, and all I have to show for my investment is this f@%king sunburn and a couple dozen mosquito bites. F@%k these fish! Tomorrow, I go at 'em with dynamite and bleach." 

*** NOTE: In Steelheader Parlance (a dialect of Common Bug Chucker endemic to the Pacific Northwest and Great Lakes regions) the above quote translates quite differently. "It's good just to be out" simply means, "I need a beer."

Common Bug Chucker: "While you're getting rigged up, I'm gonna' run down and check out the water."

Standard English: "You are a better fisherman than I am. As a matter of fact, you are a much better fisherman than I am. If you get to the water before I do - or even at the same time - there is no way I will catch the fish we both know calls this run home. So ... in order to give myself a fighting chance, I have arrived riverside with my rod already strung. While you looked off the bridge, I hid your rod tube under the van's bench seat and your wader belt in the center console. The time it takes you to arrange your gear should be all the time I need to get half a dozen drifts over that brown trout. Hopefully, six drifts will be all I need."

Common Bug Chucker: "Nice fish. Where'd ya' get him?"

Standard English: "They've not yet developed the metric by which we might measure my laziness. I have neither the time nor the desire to trudge through the mountains looking for water that holds fish like the one in your photograph. Instead, I'll ply you with the expensive IPA of your choice and several Slams from the Denny's breakfast menu in an attempt to beguile you and loosen your tongue. Once you've told me where you caught that fish, I will post GPS coordinates on the internet. In the process, I will completely destroy your faith in humanity."

Been Busy ...

Been busy lately - too busy to write anything of any substance that might be worth the time to read. The little bit of time I've had has been spent on the water ... hence the lazy photo dump.

Probably Knot

When I worked in a fly shop - a time in my life that is lately much on my mind - I was frequently asked mundane questions about the most mundane aspects of bug chuckin'. It was just the nature of the job. New fly fishers ask new fly fisher questions.

At times I found the questions tedious, but the people asking them were usually sincere and well intentioned so I always did what I could to offer my help. From time to time, I couldn't help myself and tried to have a little bit of fun with folks - usually the shop regulars who were used to some good natured ribbing.

My waders are leaking. How do I patch them?

I wouldn't know. Our shop's waders never leak. You should buy your next pair from me.

Are you a swinger or do you nymph for steelhead?

That's a conversation you need to have with your wife.

How long have you been fly fishing?

Eleven days. No ... twelve. Twelve days as of this morning.

Do you have a favorite knot for connecting  fly to tippet ... tippet to leader ... leader to line ...?

Probably Knot.

While I suppose it's possible that you've never heard of the Probably Knot, I can say with absolute certainty that you've used it from time to time. The Probably Knot is often the knot of choice for angling neophytes and experts alike. Sometimes, the Probably Knot is the only knot a fisherman knows how to tie. The Probably Knot is neither a Bimini Twist nor a Blood Knot. It's not a Palomar or Perfection. It's not an Albright or an Improved Clinch, and it sure as hell isn't a Surgeon's Loop. It's none of these, but at different times it steals bits and pieces from each.

The Probably Knot is the knot we tie when we're in the final three hundred yards of a twelve hour float. It's the knot we use when we can't control our excitement at the oversized snout slowly sucking spinners from a foam line. It's the knot we're most likely to tie just moments before stinging the largest fish of our lives. It's almost invariably the knot we use when we blink into the rapidly darkening sky as we try desperately to tie on a #18 trusty-rusty before the light fails completely. The Probably Knot is the knot we're most likely to use at both the dawn and dusk of our angling lives.

What's best about the Probably Knot is that it doesn't derive it's strength so much from the principles of chemistry or the laws of physics as it does from an angler's hope. Hope may not have 100% breaking strength, but as Emily Dickinson once penned, "Hope is the thing with feathers / That perches in the soul."

In.

The.

Soul.

The strength of the Probably Knot comes from the soul - from an angler's faith that the knot will work when the angler needs it to work. Wars have been fought and won - whole nations have been conquered by faith. If given a choice between fluorocarbon and faith, I'll take faith every time.

But for those of you for whom faith is never enough ...

Dear River ... Nevermind

Dear River,

Never mind my last post. I was out of my mind when I wrote that letter. Someone must have slipped me some bath salts or a badger tranquilizer. We're fine. In fact, we're great.

I love you Baby,

Rusty

Dear River

Dear River,

Hey. We need to talk.

No.

Wait.

Scratch that.

We don't need to talk. I need to talk. You need to listen.

We've been together for a long time now; this season marks 21 years. When we first met, you were a mystery - nothing more than a faint blue line winding its way across a forgotten page in my Gazetteer. I was eager and full of energy, and you were the undiscovered country - an unknown whisper of a trout stream in an otherwise forgotten corner of my world. I had heard whispers - of course. Old men spoke of you quietly and with a gleam of fond remembrance in their eyes. "If only I were still your age," they'd say. And the stories they told - they were too fantastic to believe. They were too fantastic to be true.

But they were true. Every story. Every time. They were true. You were every bit the river those old men said you were. Nearly a quarter of a century has passed, and I'm still wading your runs; our history only makes more difficult those things I have to say.

I never thought the day would come; I can't believe I have to say this, but I think we need some time apart. I want to say, "it isn't you ... it's me" but that's just not true. The truth is that it's you - entirely you. For years you were constant as the north star, a friend whenever I needed a friend, a confidant who helped me soldier through my worst moments of worry and regret. You made me feel loved, but something is different. Something small but significant has changed. You're not the same river with whom I fell so desperately in love all those years ago. It's like I don't know you anymore - if ever I did.

There was a time when I knew - with absolute certainty - that the first week of May meant fiddle-head ferns and a tremendous hendrickson hatch. Fish would rise - big fish - with the carelessness born of a long winter, and I would leave the river every evening having been reminded that I am a man. After the hendicksons were sulphurs, and after the sulphurs came drakes, olives, and white flies. Every hatch - every fish - was an assurance that you loved me the way that I loved you.

And as much as it pains me to say, it's over, isn't it? Seems I just don't know anything anymore. Last year, the hendricksons came in March. March? Really? This year the hendricksons have been sparse at best and entirely absent at worst. Why?

How could you so easily discard my favorite hatch? You must know that the first hatch of the year is always the best hatch of the year. Was it deliberate? Did you want it to cut? Did you want it to hurt? It did.

So that is why - as much as anything else - I've decided that we need a break from each other. You need time to become whomever it is you're becoming, and I need a chance to explore other corners of the world. Please don't misunderstand. I love you. I will always love you, but I am afraid that I cannot go on loving you if things continue as they are. Maybe after we've spent some time apart we'll discover that what we really need is each other. I hope so. I do.

Affectionately,

Rusty

Project Healing Waters ESPN

Not much to say really ... a good organization doing good - and necessary - work.