There isn't much I could say that this doesn't say better ...
.
Showing posts with label Fly Fishing. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fly Fishing. Show all posts
Monday, February 15, 2016
Tuesday, July 17, 2012
Carp, New Waders, and Videographers ... Right in My Backyard
Amongst the many fishing blogs that I frequent is the OrvisNews.com. For those of you who haven't visited the big O's weblog, I really have to recommend that you give it a look. It is very nicely done - polished and professional - and intrepid bug chuckers might be surprised at the abundance of material that isn't directly related to the company's products. I digress ...
While perusing a string of recent entries on the big O's site, one in particular caught my eye. The entry is a video promoting a new line of waders that will be available in the fall. The waders look promising, and I'm sure I'll end up with a pair, but that isn't what caught my eye. What did get my attention were segments of the video that feature Tim Daughton (one of Orvis' many product developers) and Christine Penn (a merchandise coordinator with the company). Those of you that have followed my blog for a time may remember Tim from posts entitled, Boys Day Out and Dyslexic Steelheading. Again, I digress ...
The video segments that feature Tim and Christine were shot - quite clearly for someone who knows what to look for - right in my backyard. It would seem that my carp water is also Orvis' carp water. A brief correspondence with Tim confirmed my suspicions. For the sake of context, Daughton is the narrator of the video, and while it's clearly a marketing piece, I think you'll enjoy some of the footage as I did. Certainly, it's worth a couple minutes of your time.
While perusing a string of recent entries on the big O's site, one in particular caught my eye. The entry is a video promoting a new line of waders that will be available in the fall. The waders look promising, and I'm sure I'll end up with a pair, but that isn't what caught my eye. What did get my attention were segments of the video that feature Tim Daughton (one of Orvis' many product developers) and Christine Penn (a merchandise coordinator with the company). Those of you that have followed my blog for a time may remember Tim from posts entitled, Boys Day Out and Dyslexic Steelheading. Again, I digress ...
The video segments that feature Tim and Christine were shot - quite clearly for someone who knows what to look for - right in my backyard. It would seem that my carp water is also Orvis' carp water. A brief correspondence with Tim confirmed my suspicions. For the sake of context, Daughton is the narrator of the video, and while it's clearly a marketing piece, I think you'll enjoy some of the footage as I did. Certainly, it's worth a couple minutes of your time.
Monday, July 2, 2012
New World Record Brown Trout
Brown trout caught in Milwaukee harbor recognized as world record
Jack Vitek, IGFA record coordinator, said Haataja’s application had been approved and would be posted to the organization’s website Tuesday.
Haataja, a fishing guide from West Allis, caught the fish Dec. 16, 2011.
After measuring and photographing the fish, Haataja released it. The records are officially entered in metric units – Haataja’s catch measured 97 centimeters.
The all tackle length division was created two years ago by the IGFA as a catch-and-release category. Anglers are required to photograph the fish on top of an IGFA tape measure.
*** The remainder of the article and a photograph of the beast may be found here ***
Friday, May 18, 2012
On Blogging and Fishing (But Not Necessarily In That Order)
I follow quite a few blogs, 90 percent of which are at least tacitly related to fly fishing. More often than not, I enjoy the time I spend thumbing through the digital pages. Some days are better than others, but all things considered, it isn't a bad way to spend an otherwise fishless afternoon. One of the bloggers I follow recently wrote a piece lamenting what he referred to as, "the insufferable quality" of the writing that many fly fishing blogs share.
I've no way of knowing if this particular writer has ever laid eyes on my blog. If he has then I have to wonder if he finds my scribblings as shallow and insipid as the writing he describes in his post. But I have to say that my experience couldn't be more different from his. I've found there to be some really good stuff out there, written by folks who are both adept writers and seemingly talented anglers. More than anything else, however, the writing is enjoyable to read simply because fly fishing bloggers - at least those I follow - are genuine.
Unlike published authors who derive a portion of their income from writing, bloggers have few extrinsic motivations for doing what they do. Certainly, there are a select few bug chuckers who have figured out how to turn blogging into a business. I commend them for their entrepreneurial spirit, but these folks are far and away the minority. Most bug chucking bloggers have no incentive to write anything that is not personal and spontaneous. They fish because they enjoy fishing, and they write because they enjoy writing. Blogging about fly fishing is simply the inevitable collision that occurs when two interests gravitate toward each other.
And while it is true that a blogger's writing may seem at times amateurish and unpolished, it is also true that a lack of professional finish often appeals to the readers of blogs. As a rule, bloggers are raw. Bloggers are real. Bug chuckers who blog sometimes drop their rods too low on the back cast; they miss too many hook sets ever to call themselves experts. They tie flies albeit poorly, and they tear holes in their overpriced waders. They're every bit like the rest of us.
Contrarily, I think the canon of published fly fishing writing is - for lack of a more suitable word - contrived. So much of it is cookie-cutter, and very much the same as everything else. Many of the fly fishing books we might purchase on Amazon.com or in the local fly shop, read like DIY texts on roofing or bathroom restoration. They lack distinct form. They lack style, and this may very well be because they're so polished and heavily edited. Blogs bring us the unedited, often unvarnished truth.
Please don't take this as a blanket condemnation of professional writers; it is not meant to be. I'd be lying if I suggested that I wouldn't want to earn my living as some writers do. And I realize that the history of fly fishing is rich in literature and the writers who produce such writing. What I am most emphatically suggesting, however, is that blogging and bloggers - many of whom are much more talented than myself - have given us a new means by which we might better learn and appreciate our sport.
I've no way of knowing if this particular writer has ever laid eyes on my blog. If he has then I have to wonder if he finds my scribblings as shallow and insipid as the writing he describes in his post. But I have to say that my experience couldn't be more different from his. I've found there to be some really good stuff out there, written by folks who are both adept writers and seemingly talented anglers. More than anything else, however, the writing is enjoyable to read simply because fly fishing bloggers - at least those I follow - are genuine.
Unlike published authors who derive a portion of their income from writing, bloggers have few extrinsic motivations for doing what they do. Certainly, there are a select few bug chuckers who have figured out how to turn blogging into a business. I commend them for their entrepreneurial spirit, but these folks are far and away the minority. Most bug chucking bloggers have no incentive to write anything that is not personal and spontaneous. They fish because they enjoy fishing, and they write because they enjoy writing. Blogging about fly fishing is simply the inevitable collision that occurs when two interests gravitate toward each other.
And while it is true that a blogger's writing may seem at times amateurish and unpolished, it is also true that a lack of professional finish often appeals to the readers of blogs. As a rule, bloggers are raw. Bloggers are real. Bug chuckers who blog sometimes drop their rods too low on the back cast; they miss too many hook sets ever to call themselves experts. They tie flies albeit poorly, and they tear holes in their overpriced waders. They're every bit like the rest of us.
Contrarily, I think the canon of published fly fishing writing is - for lack of a more suitable word - contrived. So much of it is cookie-cutter, and very much the same as everything else. Many of the fly fishing books we might purchase on Amazon.com or in the local fly shop, read like DIY texts on roofing or bathroom restoration. They lack distinct form. They lack style, and this may very well be because they're so polished and heavily edited. Blogs bring us the unedited, often unvarnished truth.
Please don't take this as a blanket condemnation of professional writers; it is not meant to be. I'd be lying if I suggested that I wouldn't want to earn my living as some writers do. And I realize that the history of fly fishing is rich in literature and the writers who produce such writing. What I am most emphatically suggesting, however, is that blogging and bloggers - many of whom are much more talented than myself - have given us a new means by which we might better learn and appreciate our sport.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Reciprocity
Ten or twelve years ago, fly fishing - like much of the rest of the world - began with earnest to feel the impact of the internet. Data driven bug chucking started with message and bulletin boards, those online forums that allow bug chuckers to connect with folks of a similar mind, swap ideas, and - more often than not - degrade each other. These boards are ubiquitous, and continue here and there with varying degrees of success.
Fly fishing retailers were quick to recognize the potential of the internet for reaching customers and expanding business. Today, a fly shop cannot be truly competitive if it fails to present itself to digital anglers - as eager for online shopping as they are for an evening spinner fall. This phenomena has proven problematic for the local fly-shop that caters to a relatively small group of semi-loyal, resident bug chuckers. Unfortunately, loyalty does not pay the bills, and oftentimes it is a quality that lasts only so long as the span between discount rod sales on Cabelas.com.
Perhaps the greatest impact of the Web on bug chucking has been in its unique ability to connect people who may not otherwise meet, and allow them to share not only their ideas, but also their water. I must admit that I am extremely reluctant to share my rivers and streams (mine in the sense that their meandering currents are as much a part of me as is my too thick mid-section or too thin hair) with people I haven't known but through an online forum or social media. I am suspicious by nature, and I do not trust relative strangers to respect or appreciate the water as I do. If I am honest with you (and with myself), there is also a certain degree of selfishness at work. This may be one of the great failings of my character, but each of us knows that there's just no changing a bug chucker's nature.
I mention all of this by way of illustrating just how significant is the moment when I ask you - my cybernetically connected brother of the angle - to join me for a day on the water. Understand that on those first few outings, I will not take you to my favorite water. I may not even take you to one of the rivers I fish with both enthusiasm and regularity. What manner of fly flinger would I be if I simply handed the grail to someone who may be - regardless of appearances or reputation - a non believing heathen? I need to get to know you beyond the limits of email, Facebook, or this blog. I need to trust your character the way I trust in the morning's hatch or an afternoon spinner fall. That is to say that I need to know - with absolute and crystalline certainty - exactly what is happening even when I am not on the water.
A large part of that trust comes from your willingness to reciprocate kindness with kindness. An invitation to fish with me should be matched by an invitation to fish with you. This is more than simple courtesy (although it certainly is that). This is and has been protocol ever since we bug chuckers first began to compete for dwindling resources, ever since we began to keep secrets from each other. Quid pro quo. If I risk a revelation, will you do the same?
Know that if and when you do take that risk and invite me to fish with you, I will understand the import of that invitation. I will treat your secret as if it were my own secret, and I will never betray your confidence. I will never betray your water.
Fly fishing retailers were quick to recognize the potential of the internet for reaching customers and expanding business. Today, a fly shop cannot be truly competitive if it fails to present itself to digital anglers - as eager for online shopping as they are for an evening spinner fall. This phenomena has proven problematic for the local fly-shop that caters to a relatively small group of semi-loyal, resident bug chuckers. Unfortunately, loyalty does not pay the bills, and oftentimes it is a quality that lasts only so long as the span between discount rod sales on Cabelas.com.
Perhaps the greatest impact of the Web on bug chucking has been in its unique ability to connect people who may not otherwise meet, and allow them to share not only their ideas, but also their water. I must admit that I am extremely reluctant to share my rivers and streams (mine in the sense that their meandering currents are as much a part of me as is my too thick mid-section or too thin hair) with people I haven't known but through an online forum or social media. I am suspicious by nature, and I do not trust relative strangers to respect or appreciate the water as I do. If I am honest with you (and with myself), there is also a certain degree of selfishness at work. This may be one of the great failings of my character, but each of us knows that there's just no changing a bug chucker's nature.
I mention all of this by way of illustrating just how significant is the moment when I ask you - my cybernetically connected brother of the angle - to join me for a day on the water. Understand that on those first few outings, I will not take you to my favorite water. I may not even take you to one of the rivers I fish with both enthusiasm and regularity. What manner of fly flinger would I be if I simply handed the grail to someone who may be - regardless of appearances or reputation - a non believing heathen? I need to get to know you beyond the limits of email, Facebook, or this blog. I need to trust your character the way I trust in the morning's hatch or an afternoon spinner fall. That is to say that I need to know - with absolute and crystalline certainty - exactly what is happening even when I am not on the water.
A large part of that trust comes from your willingness to reciprocate kindness with kindness. An invitation to fish with me should be matched by an invitation to fish with you. This is more than simple courtesy (although it certainly is that). This is and has been protocol ever since we bug chuckers first began to compete for dwindling resources, ever since we began to keep secrets from each other. Quid pro quo. If I risk a revelation, will you do the same?
Know that if and when you do take that risk and invite me to fish with you, I will understand the import of that invitation. I will treat your secret as if it were my own secret, and I will never betray your confidence. I will never betray your water.
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
The Essential Element
Please take a moment to consider everything you enjoy about a day on the river: speckled, spotted, or striped fish, the rhythmic metronome of well executed casts, the flies you proudly tied in the wee hours of the morning - between work, diaper changes, dance recitals, soccer games, and the assembly of a backyard deck. Consider the canticle of the river as it passes over bedrock, the perfume of budding evergreen, and the thunderous strike of an outsized predator as it wraps its vomerine teeth around your streamer just as the fly slaps the water. Consider all of this and the tie that binds it together.
Water ...
We take it for granted, don't we? Even though it is the well spring of our shared obsession - the vehicle that daily conveys our collective distraction - we rarely stop to consider the water in which we wet our lines. In recent months, I've come to appreciate my rivers - and the water that shapes them - in a way I previously had not.
Late last summer, Tropical Storm Irene struck my area with, "great vengeance and furious anger," and rivers that usually flow at 150 to 300 cubic feet per second, were flowing at over 40,000 cfs.
Try to imagine the volume and ferocity of the water as it blew its banks, and the implications of what has been described as a 500 year flood on the river valleys and adjacent communities. One hundred year-old trees snapped like so much kindling. Bridges and roads disappeared. Homes - and the lives and memories they represented - were simply swept aside. In one case, part of a cemetery was washed away; the receding river left caskets strewn along its length. Damage estimates ranged from one billion to two billion dollars. Naturally, these estimates did not account for the impact of the storm on angling and other recreational activities.
For well over a month following the storm, the rivers that we collectively call our home water were tinged with silt, and like a plague this silt had the effect of infecting all it touched. Grey-green grime covered everything. Every inch of river bottom took on the chalky whiteness of sun dried clay; low growth vegetation along the banks withered and died as a result of having been covered with a thin layer of muddy death. In certain spots, one could clearly see a mud line cutting across trees - 15 feet or so above the river's surface. This line marked the spot at which the rivers crested.
The result was that the autumn's hatches generally failed to appear. Nymph fishing usually proved fruitless, and even ripping a streamer through likely runs rarely drew a follow. Usually, high water through the summer is a boon, but at the close of last season the prognosis was bleak. The mood among the river's anglers was both pessimistic and forlorn. What would the spring bring?
Early April helped to alleviate the worries of bug chuckers and gear heads alike, but while the rivers' fish appear alive and well, the mood is guarded. Much of the silt from last fall remains. In a normal year, routine spring floods would have cleaned the previous season's crust from the river bottom. This year, however, we've witnessed record lows in the same rivers that were well over their banks just seven months ago.
With the water this low - and several days experiencing air temps near 80 and 90 degrees - we've been fishing dry flies during a hendrickson hatch that likely began mid March. Hennies don't usually make their first appearance until the last week of April or the first of May. If the season continues as it is, we might be fishing sulphurs come the third second week of May. The two pronged assault of excessive siltation followed by extremely low water does not portend good things to come.
Our recent trips to the river - however successful as they've been - have each ended with a certain sense of foreboding. As low as it is now, where will the water be in another month or two? Where will the water be come July and August? What will happen to the trout if the springs aren't refreshed? What becomes of a river if she hasn't any water? Perhaps even more to the point ...
What becomes of a bug chucker if he hasn't any water in which to chuck bugs?
Water ...
We take it for granted, don't we? Even though it is the well spring of our shared obsession - the vehicle that daily conveys our collective distraction - we rarely stop to consider the water in which we wet our lines. In recent months, I've come to appreciate my rivers - and the water that shapes them - in a way I previously had not.
Late last summer, Tropical Storm Irene struck my area with, "great vengeance and furious anger," and rivers that usually flow at 150 to 300 cubic feet per second, were flowing at over 40,000 cfs.
Try to imagine the volume and ferocity of the water as it blew its banks, and the implications of what has been described as a 500 year flood on the river valleys and adjacent communities. One hundred year-old trees snapped like so much kindling. Bridges and roads disappeared. Homes - and the lives and memories they represented - were simply swept aside. In one case, part of a cemetery was washed away; the receding river left caskets strewn along its length. Damage estimates ranged from one billion to two billion dollars. Naturally, these estimates did not account for the impact of the storm on angling and other recreational activities.
For well over a month following the storm, the rivers that we collectively call our home water were tinged with silt, and like a plague this silt had the effect of infecting all it touched. Grey-green grime covered everything. Every inch of river bottom took on the chalky whiteness of sun dried clay; low growth vegetation along the banks withered and died as a result of having been covered with a thin layer of muddy death. In certain spots, one could clearly see a mud line cutting across trees - 15 feet or so above the river's surface. This line marked the spot at which the rivers crested.
The result was that the autumn's hatches generally failed to appear. Nymph fishing usually proved fruitless, and even ripping a streamer through likely runs rarely drew a follow. Usually, high water through the summer is a boon, but at the close of last season the prognosis was bleak. The mood among the river's anglers was both pessimistic and forlorn. What would the spring bring?
Early April helped to alleviate the worries of bug chuckers and gear heads alike, but while the rivers' fish appear alive and well, the mood is guarded. Much of the silt from last fall remains. In a normal year, routine spring floods would have cleaned the previous season's crust from the river bottom. This year, however, we've witnessed record lows in the same rivers that were well over their banks just seven months ago.
With the water this low - and several days experiencing air temps near 80 and 90 degrees - we've been fishing dry flies during a hendrickson hatch that likely began mid March. Hennies don't usually make their first appearance until the last week of April or the first of May. If the season continues as it is, we might be fishing sulphurs come the third second week of May. The two pronged assault of excessive siltation followed by extremely low water does not portend good things to come.
Our recent trips to the river - however successful as they've been - have each ended with a certain sense of foreboding. As low as it is now, where will the water be in another month or two? Where will the water be come July and August? What will happen to the trout if the springs aren't refreshed? What becomes of a river if she hasn't any water? Perhaps even more to the point ...
What becomes of a bug chucker if he hasn't any water in which to chuck bugs?
Saturday, April 7, 2012
When Choosing Friends ...
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| What the hell is wrong with the anchor ... Ahhhh ... Frozen ball o' anchor rope, gets ya' every time. |
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| This fish was only 13" long ... Shawn held it really close to the camera |
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| Not sure if Shawn Photoshopped himself into a photo of my fish or if my fish is Photoshopped into a picture of Shawn ... result is the same I guess. |
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| The only decent fisherman on the river ... |
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| Would you believe this fish was actually 32" long ... Shawn has HUGE hands. |
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| Yes, I have an adipose fetish ... I am so ashamed. |
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| Not only did I talk him into rowing all day ... |
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| All the cool kids sold their Clacks and bought Hydes ... @#$% the cool kids. |
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