I’m minding my own

“What elements of a natural fly are absolutely essential for the trout brain to use…”

… to recognize food.

Better yet, what elements of a natural (or successful imitation) are essential when it’s moving at eight or ten miles an hour, in concert with millions of oxygen bubbles, scraps of moss and twigs, and the sediment your buddy upstream added?

Does a fish eating stonefly nymphs take your nymph because of its size, or because it’s both big and black? Does the grab you just missed on your Pheasant Tail mean the nymph represents the predominant hatching insect – or was it merely the closest, and the fish was bored of the olive ones ….

Hence the quandary, the simplest of all questions – and there’s no single authority to ask for a definitive answer.

Anglers never look a gift horse in the mouth, we’re free with what little fact we’ve established. Some fellow sees us playing a fish and inquires what they’re eating, and the fact that we’ve caught four on a #14 Pale Morning Dun cannot be denied. If our new found pal knots one on and scratches a fish or two, it’s unanimous, the fish are eating PMD’s …

… but are they?

Caddis are dancing under the overhanging brush, there’s something in the water column headed for the surface, and just above us could be slack water with a spinner fall.

It could be that the PMD’s are emerging upstream and only getting to the surface in the fifty yards we’re camped in – perhaps that caddis has a similar body color, and your mayfly imitation is the next best thing to Nature, accidental like …

… or maybe the outflow from the slack water is bunching the spinners into small rafts of wings and tails and the fish are keyed to anything that looks semi-edible and floats.

… but we’ll never know, as we’re intent on sliding that PMD under that big tree limb where the dimples appear larger.

I love posing the impossible question, and hate being the recipient. Friend Reed has dropped an imponderable in my lap and I can’t tease it loose.

Compounding the problem is my binocular vision, and while I can’t see what fish do we have a couple hundred years of flies to inspect.

If you bounce some mayfly nymphs off your desk the impression you get may be a hint of color, perhaps a lumpy front and a thin rear. Throwing some caddis nymphs yields less singularity, tubelike and a flash of color. Stonefly nymphs give you BIG, and dark – and well defined legs, but only if the pattern is biot based or contains rubberlegs.

Dry flies are like caddis, very little detail other than “stuff in front” and a hint of color, sometimes hackle – sometimes it’s the body.

We’ve always been enamored of the static view of flies, and matching the frozen natural, something a fish never sees. Instead, fish have to cull food items from the moving litany of leaves, bubbles, and debris that accompany them, and if they’re not right 90% of the time they starve to death.

Looking at all the patterns we’ve employed to imitate the Big Three food groups, reduces the singularities to a manageable number. Mayfly nymphs use the traditional construction of tail, body, and folded wingcase, and then eight or nine million different things for legs.

Caddis stages mostly look wormlike and almost always have a light body and a dark head – unless it’s a cased pattern.

Stonefly nymphs are big, also dark.

Therein is the crux – those few necessary features that distinguish one bug family from another. An enormous leap of faith is required, but we’ve already done that; that fish eat selectively, whether they feed on the most numerous bug, or the insect that requires the fewest calories to capture.

I started off conventional enough, but the experimental flies looked just like the stuff we’ve been using for decades, which shouldn’t be terribly surprising – as I was imitating imitations.

Then the Czech Nymph book threw me for a tailspin, as I’d overlooked the entire attractor paradigm. I started integrating attractor elements with physical design and came out with stunning bugs – that looked like all the other stunning bugs I’d seen …

… and while I patiently waited for the flood waters to subside, towing first one fly then another through stained puddles on the creek bank – I glanced down at the fly box and the Angels sang …

… a medley actually, featuring Eminem and Jay-Z compliments of the boom box rattling the parking lot.

First Law of Fusion : The best elements of flies can be contained on a single fly – and the result serves as multiple insects, rather than a single imitation.

We’ve trod that ground before, employing countless flies that imitate nothing yet resemble everything. Most of the better nondescript flies like the Bird’s Nest, Burlap, Casual Dress, and Adams, all fit this mold.

Second Law of Fusion : Combine two bugs on the same hook.

That … is truly different.

Above is a minor variation of the traditional Hare’s Ear, I’ve added some attractor elements; a little flash blended into the body dubbing, and a hint of Claret and Yellow to the front of the thorax…

Here’s a glimpse of the same fly only a bottom view. We’ve fused the traditional Czech nymph attributes – the caddis “worm” shellback, with the traditional “mayfly” design of the Hare’s Ear. The hint of claret and yellow is revealed to be the traditional multi-color Czech element, part attractor, part tradition.

Here is a smaller size Czech nymph (tied on a traditional Knapek Scud hook), and the underside is revealed to be the venerable Hare’s Ear.

The idea is sound enough – with the complimentary flies needing a shared body color – although the shellback of the Czech-style eliminates even that restriction.

Tugging flies through puddles demonstrated that anything tied on scud wire, competition or otherwise, rides upside down. Allowing me a blank canvas to build the mayfly on top.

… and for the rest, it’s a homework assignment. There’s infinite possible ways to combine two insect groups on a single fly. Giant stoneflies are troublesome as their size restricts fusion to either Crane fly larvae or baitfish on the underside.

Which of you stalwarts is willing to risk public castigation to offer a better fused mousetrap?

Damn you Reed Curry, you’re the stealthy hand that forced inspiration past the normal cranial pathways and into the realm of outright mirth, as if they’re not giggling yet they certainly will be when I debut the Loch Ness dry fly series.

Tags: fusion flies, Knapek scud hooks, crane fly larvae, Hare’s Ear nymph, Reed Curry, The New Scientific Angling, Eminem, Jay-Z, inspirational fly tying, shellback,

I had cork in my hand, the creek was a river – and hip boots weren’t enough to get me to the other bank.

Unsettled flood gravel gives no purchase when fording, and the water’s pressure merely drives you and the pile of gravel downriver without regard to how the cleats bite or the frantic tap-tap-tap of a wading staff.

I was content. A winter worth of couch pupation had birthed the awkward predator – the young lion, clumsy and unsure of footing and every disturbance an excuse for the stalk and pounce, yielding only dry leaves and dandelions, adventure of a sort as the den and safety only a few feet distant.

The river hosts a single green frog.

The insects are largely absent, many perished during the drought and those remaining were hunkered down for Spring. Cracks in the clay banks yielded small scuds and water fleas and little else.

The beaver dams are gone, but they served their purpose. Alder shoots driven flat by flood are starting to emerge from the matted grasses and sticks cast onto the bank by receding water – prime forage for beaver and the multitude of muddy tracks and gnawed ends suggested a few survivors.

I added a single green wing teal to my collection – the outdoor’s equivalent of dumpster diving, as everything manmade eventually becomes entangled in a root ball. This year was mighty slim as the scour was thorough and even the ever-present water bottles were gone.

I was content to throw experimentals at imaginary steelhead lies – or dangling them in the current to see their posture. Scouting via long line – as the far bank was inaccessible to foot traffic.

With the first week of dry weather scheduled, I expect flows will begin to dwindle and allow me a little elevation and ability to see whether any fish remain. Until then my fishing is reduced to out of practice, out of shape, and out of luck – old friends in our annual Spring purgatory.

Tags: Little Stinking, spring flood, green wing teal, spring purgatory, fishless fishing

Entitled, “Eat the Fly” it’s an ambitious undertaking that will contain the common food items and insects available to fish, offset by some of the fly patterns used to represent them.

It’s a hellish undertaking to be sure, but the rest of us have the easy part – admiring the photographs and remarking, “so that’s what a Black Nosed Dace looks like…”

He’s got species, phases, links to additional resources, flies that represent the food depicted, and where possible, seasons and emergence dates, coupled with locale information.

- Horny Headed Chub, Alex Cerveniak Photo

It’ll take some time before he’s scratched the surface – but there’s a great deal of work (and effort) already available, and he could use an assist on compiling all that information, you may want to drop him a note if you’ve got some compelling photographs of known food items.

Tags: Eatthefly.com, Alex Cerveniak, Hatch’s Blog Network, angling resource, baitfish, aquatic insects

Visions of me

The book signings, the adoring fans, followed by the reality show and ample syndication stream.

Instead I’m spiraling back to earth as another blogger has unveiled the “Ultimate Brownliner Cookbook”, without so much as a mention of the proper rinse cycle for Mercury abatement, or a simple descriptive on rendering toxic algae bloom less so.

While I can’t say “E.V.O.O” with a straight face, our dishwasher repertoire includes liberal applications of “TCG” lozenges to rid our prey of that cloying muddy taste.

Tags: dishwasher cuisine, fish recipes, brownliner sterile, Rachel Ray, EVOO

All the gnashing of teeth and mention of asterisks will be done away with … and by them that protested the most. Mother Nature’s version of the Brown, Rainbow, or Brookie won’t be able to compete – and we’ll be writing congressmen insisting our stream should be the next stocked.

Ten years of research has conceived the genetically super strain of Rainbow Trout, complete with six pack abdominals, broad shoulders, and  capable of peeling 400 yards of backing in a single run, adores mayflies, and can chew through dams and fallen logs.

According to Bradley, the number of muscle fibers in mammals is limited after birth, but in fish, muscle fiber numbers increase throughout their lifespan. Since inhibition of myostatin increases the numbers of muscle fibers, it had been a mystery as to whether inhibiting myostatin would cause an increase in muscle growth in fish.

-via University of Rhode Island

The problem is us. Once ova are commercially available and the barest of research is complete, some land owner will insist on adding “Bonehead Rainbow” to the upper reaches of his property – or some big city charismatic with visions of dollar signs will lease some drainage ditch and start selling memberships.

What fisherman could resist? Plentiful and enormous, able to leap tall buildings with a single bound, and a known weakness for Peacock herl.

Twice the musculature as the normal fish and a viable breeding population that’ll shoulder the hatchery fish aside while racing up the Mississippi to eat all them scaredy-cat Asian Carp, then clean the beaches of small children, wino’s, and miniature poodles …

… while we clap and shout encouragement.

It’s in our nature. We’re practitioners of a classic blood sport, callous to pain and disfigurement, willing to complain loudly when something tastes bad or smells poorly, but in this we cannot be trusted.

Didymo looks like Goat puke, but if we could smoke it – or it had some form of innate beauty, I doubt we’d wrinkle a brow over its invasive qualities. Big muscular salmonids are what we’ve dreamed about for the last couple hundred years – and we’ll be complaining with great fervor should someone take exception to their spread.

License sales will soar, tackle will be obsolesced overnight, vendors will be ecstatic, and the rarified experiences of the pricey remote lodges will be available to the newly frugal.

Trophy lakes with named fish will lead the way, IGFA officials will be in a tizzy – and the former purists will find themselves alone with a dusty rack of salmon eggs, while the rest of us troll T-bones and wonder which of our neighbors is worthy of a ripped, muscle-bound fish whose delicate flavor is reminiscent of Tang mixed with stale bread.

Having posted on this subject two years ago, the only surprise is they’re here already.

Tags: genetically superior trout, superstrain, IGFA, Peacock herl, Bonehead Rainbow, Donny Beaver, goat puke, salmonids, genetic engineering, rainbow trout

I’ll be sprawled amidst all that oak and cow leather sending another smoke ring towards the ceiling fan, while the earnest young chap insists he’s onboard … he’s got the full weight of his sprawling legal enterprise behind my corpulent frame …

… then I’ll stob the cigar out on his forearm, and if he flinches slightly I’ll be looking for another legal team to defend my use of barbless hooks, light tippets, and small flies.

Fly fishing will be part rodeo spectacle and part courtroom drama. We’ll have stern accusations, wooden faced judges, and be paraded through the docket in an orange jumpsuit, but there won’t be any victims.

… no maimed witness to demonstrate our instream excesses, no grieving relatives to narrate the hideous deed, and only the warden and his ever present stopwatch between us and freedom…

Last month, Antoine Goetschel went to court here in defense of an unusual client: a 22-pound pike that had fought a fisherman for 10 minutes before surrendering.

- via The Wall Street Journal

… because dead fish tell no tales.

It’ll undo the last couple of decades of conservation ethic, and angling organizations will have full color brochures on how best to off your quarry with dignity – we’ll finally listen to doctors and be surprised how good fish taste …

Largely because our neighbors are no longer interested in being an accomplice to our crime.

“0X is the new 8x” – the Boomers will claim, and we’ll be launching curious or dim witted six inch smolts into orbit – compliments of long rods and hawser cable tippet.

… and when that nearly imperceptible take occurs, and the warden steps out of the underbrush holding the incriminating stopwatch, we won’t be worried about the niceties much, it’ll be hand over hand – dog the fins down with piggin strings, yank the gills and lower jaw hook out and yell “Time.”

The case revolved around the idea that the pike suffered excessively because of how long it took for the angler to reel it in. Mr. Goetschel lost the case last month, but is considering an appeal.

The IGFA will pull a “Tiger Woods”, confessing their Director of the 2lb tippet class always seemed a bit twitchy – but he’ll wash up somewhere, likely with his commodore hat still set at a rakish angle.

Barbless hooks will disappear along with the barbaric regulations that promoted unnecessary suffering, along with dry flies – when chicken feathers prove unable to float that meaty treble.

… and you’ll be demonstrating fly tying technique and hook removal to both Fish & Game and your insurance agent, as there’s no chance you’ll be licensed without being bonded.

It’s a bold new litigious world your kids will inherit.

Tags: animal lawyer, animal rights, Pike, Antoine Goetschel, fly fishing the Bloodsport, animal cruelty, Tiger Woods, IGFA, dry flies, Tiger Woods, heavy tippet

Now that the California Chinook is a couple seasons away from being a genome hidden in a long bank of drawers buried in Cheyenne Mountain, legislators want to adopt the poor downtrodden anadromous “bag lady” and restore her to prominence.

The Chinook salmon, largest of the Pacific salmons and once in abundance in the Central Valley where they spawn in the rivers and creeks, would become California’s official state anadromous fish under a bill authored by Assemblyman Jared Huffman, D-San Rafael.

But the bill would do more.

It establishes a state goal to restore Chinook salmon to sustainable levels within a decade. The population of the fish has declined dramatically in recent years to the point where some feel it is headed toward extinction.

Or perhaps they just want to pull on Senator Feinstein’s whiskers by adopting the Chinook salmon as the official California anadromous fish. Rebellion against her proposed legislation extends throughout her constituency, with 15 Democratic legislators signing a letter asking her to cease and desist on the planned water grab.

It’s likely the noble Chinook will require modification of the state flag – our repository for the noblest of California wildlife long extinct.

Since the California poppy is California’s official state flower, it is protected by state law prohibiting persons from picking or destroying it.

The state affords some small protections for harvesting official wildlife, perhaps some canny legislator recognizes he can undermine the farm lobby by conferring an official title.

This bill would require the restoration of the Chinook to historic norms – in addition to conferring the official designation, naturally it lacks all detail to achieve that lofty goal.

Tags: Chinook restoration, Official anadromous fish, Senator Dianne Feinstein, water wars, California Poppy, on the brink,

Now angling will be removing the muffler off your wife’s Subaru and driving along the levee with the top down. It may not have the refinement of lovingly placed chicken feathers and ancient grass rods, but we’ll get fed for sure.

Whoever said the “good old days” were behind us, was wrong.

Tags: Asian Carp, French patois, spotlight fishing, market hunters

For fishermen all we need know is the next generation of mosquito repellants will be cruel and unusual – which is an appropriate punishment for something that has nothing to do at dusk then cause us grief – or keeps us awake all night as it hovers near the choice flesh at your ear.

Like all finely tuned aircraft there’s a max payload – although us donors never see it that way, and upsetting the delicate aerodynamic balance renders the mosquito easy to swat – or especially vulnerable to predators.

Scientists have concluded the best way to intercept our irritating friend is to prevent them from urinating, which is part of the feeding process at the pump.

… yet another indignity we’ve been suffering these many decades.

“they have to undergo rapid urination when feeding, or they can’t fly away”

- via Cornell Chronicle Online

Which is the vague leaden lining of the research. To my untrained ear it  still sounds like something’s biting someone to get the payload delivered.

Tags: Mosquito research, next generation of insect repellants, blood sucking

Somewhere between your groggily becoming aware of the festivities and the consumption of night before last’s leftovers, some poor fellow strode to the podium (looking uncomfortable) and accepted his destiny.

Acceptance speech wasn’t terribly memorable, but then jigging cheetah skinned  underwear as it attacks sorority girls isn’t terribly memorable either.

We naturally perk up anytime Hollywood intrudes into our rarified space, debating everything from casting doubles to fly pattern selection. No doubt you’ll complain that a six weight would’ve been more lifelike – but the sorority girls will ensure it’s queued on your Netflix.

Tags: Attack of the Killer Thong, Netflix, fishing, sorority girls, Oscars, the out-of-work angler