We’re Off To See The Wizard……..

Off For A Little Bit To Wet A Line & Do That Camping Thing

In no particular order of importance (after fly fishing), I will enjoy: bacon, beer, cigars, morning birds, the afternoon breeze while napping, thunderstorms, frogs, last light and the evening rises, chipmunks, my dog snoring, french toast, word find, morning coffee while everyone sleeps, evening camp fires (maybe), the camp just so, Ponderosa’s, trout in hand, the greens and blues and giant white clouds, a billion stars at high altitude, the moon, cold mornings, ‘the moment’.

Didymo (Invasive and You Can Be A Carrier)

Didymo! Not a Detroit Lyrcist for Jay-Z

What’s didymo?

It’s a microscopic alga known as a diatom that’s invading our rivers and streams. Didymosphenia geminata, also known as ‘rock snot’ or ‘didymo’, can smother entire stream beds with mats as thick as eight inches and can ruin just about any river or creek.

What does it look like?

Didymo can be found on rocks in moving water and is often mistaken for fiberglass or toilet tissue. Unlike most other algae, didymo feels like wet cotton and isn’t slimy. It is generally brown, tan or yellow in color.

What to do? Mountain River Journal offers advice for you river hopping fishers: “The procedure is pretty easy, the hard part is remembering. And it really is best done here before you drive home…”

Rock Snot

Didymo U.S.

The Lightning~Fly Rod Connection (retreat and sit it out)

http://chiwulff.com/2009/04/08/fly-fishing-and-lightning-safety-part-1-illuminating-the-issue/

“In case of a thunderstorm, a cardinal rule called the 30/30 rule needs to be put into play at once. If the time between the lightning flash and its resulting thunder is 30 seconds or less (indicating that the thunderstorm is six miles or less away) safety measures to be discussed below should be instituted immediately as distant lightning strikes are a possibility. Resumption of activities should not take place until 30 minutes after the last flash. This is because the trailing storm clouds may still carry enough lingering charge to create lightning. Studies of lightning strikes show that most people are struck at the beginning and end of a storm.” (Part 2)

http://chiwulff.com/2009/04/10/fly-fishing-and-lightning-safety-part-3-help-i%E2%80%99ve-been-hit/

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“And I felt like someone had just beat me and lit me on fire,” Christian Neal said. “I was paralyzed from the waist down. I couldn’t move my legs or my toes or anything else……..Immediately I realized my legs would not work, and it felt like they had been blown off. That was a pretty dark moment,….”

“Staff at the hospital told us, ‘We’re just going by trial and error,’ and that took me by surprise. I said, ‘Why?’ They said, ‘We just don’t treat very many lightning victims,’” Gabe Neal said.That’s because people hit by lightning usually don’t survive.”

I have done it and so have you. Lingered out on the water, especially a stillwater while the storm approached. No one esle out there, just you….the obsessive dumbshit, who cannot abandon the search. So, given the consequences, it is akin to driving with a blitzed BAC and assuming nothing will happen. Eventually, it will. I will retreat….you should retreat. You are not in your back yard…you are hours from medical assistance if the usual fly fisher.

“Gabe Neal, who makes fishing rods for a living, said he thinks his graphite rod served as a lightning rod. He thinks the lightning struck the rod first, instead of his son, and that may have saved his son’s life.” Don’t Count on It!!!

Yellowstone Lake (Inviting Horizons from Creekwalker)

“It is a rare photo of Yellowstone Lake. You have to go past barriers and get into a very tough place to get this picture.” The renegade, Creekwalker, sent me this photograph she took while searching for the expansive horizons of Montana.

Montana Sunset @ Creekwalker

Loop Knot for streamers & nymphs (Non-slip mono knot)

ADDITIONAL KNOTS

NON-SLIP MONO LOOP TUTORIAL

Well suited for Buggers, Baifish Streamers, Saltwater patterns and Jigs. Some use with chironomids, emergers and nymphs too. I use it primarily for and Buggers/Streamers. Easy to tie.

Oregon Fly Fishing Authors (writing about ‘the moment’ far and wide)

Oregon authors dip into flyflishing literature

by Jeff Baker, The Oregonian

Wednesday August 26, 2009, 7:40 PM

Two Oregon writers have found a comfortable home at Barclay Creek Press, a Massachusetts publisher devoted to literary fiction and nonfiction with an emphasis on flyfishing and the outdoors.

Scott Sadil, a high-school teacher in Hood River and the president of the Columbia Gorge Fly Fishers, and John Larison, a teacher at Oregon State University and the Northwest field editor of Fly Fisherman, are the first two authors from Barclay Creek, which was founded last year by publishing industry veteran James D. Anker. Sadil’s new book is “Lost in Wyoming: Stories” and Larison’s is “Northwest of Normal: A Novel.”

Sadil has been promoting his book all summer with the Get Lost tour, a 3,000-mile trip through the best trout country in the West. His vintage fishing van has graphics from the book on the sides and he enlisted his students to help him with promotional duties. He is the author of two previous books, “Angling Baja: One Man’s Fly Fishing Journey Through the Surf,” and “Cast from the Edge: Tales of an Uncommon Fly Fisher.”

Larison’s novel is set in the fictional mountain town of Ipsyniho, Ore., and follows a flyfishing guide who’s trying to redeem a mistake from his past. David James Duncan called “Northwest of Normal” “a downpour of a novel” and Ted Leeson said it’s “disturbingly emblematic of the contemporary Pacific Northwest.” Larison is also the author of “The Complete Steelheader.”

Fly Boxes, Fly Boxes (Semper Paratus…But, for everything?)

I was raised with Semper Paratus, not as an expressed term, but as a mindset. I had a career that demanded it. And, now I appear to either abide by it, for my hobby or I am a hoarder. It seems so simple, to just pick a container (or two) and put all your fly boxes in there for a pending camping trip.

Seems Simple Enough, At First

But, just to be safe, I had to make sure I had what I needed. Well, one thing led to another and it became evident I had no idea how many flies I had tied. To be honest I stopped pulling all the boxes out of the green container. How many flies do I need? Well, all these are fine, but frankly I had forgotten what I had tied and stashed away in those boxes. I pretty much only take 4-6 boxes with me in the pontoon boat and maybe two streamside, but an inventory is periodically in order. I made some great discoveries today!!

Nope, I can't hear you!

I bet many of you could beat that couldn’t you? Rehab does offer hope of a simpler approach, an easing of decisions to be made….but, when the craving, the impulse comes, to answer the what if’s and maybe’s…well, a slippery slope ensues in preparation. Yep, Semper Paratus

Sometimes My Primary Box...

The Cowboy (timely good deed)

 A cowboy appeared before St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.

‘Have  you ever done anything of particular merit?’ St. Peter  asked.

‘Well, I can think of one  thing,’ the cowboy offered.

‘On  a trip to the Black Hills out in South Dakota , I came upon a gang of bikers,  who were threatening a young woman.

I  directed them to leave her alone, but they wouldn’t  listen.

So, I approached the largest and most heavily tattooed biker and smacked him in his face ….

Kicked his bike over, ripped out his nose ring, and threw it on the  ground..

I  yelled, ‘Now, back off!! Or I’ll kick the sh*t out of all of  you!’

St. Peter was impressed, ‘When  did this happen?’

‘Just a couple of minutes  ago…’

Hatches (larger to smaller progression into fall)

As you move into cooler mornings and Fall fly fishing, remember to downsize your Mayfly offerings. Those June, size 14 Callibaetis patterns will be oversized by September. A size 18 will be in order. BWO’s are looming so those smaller dry’s will be doubly important. Not just the dry, but the nymphs as well. One exception (probably others as well) is the October Caddis…the big, orange beauty streamside in the early Fall. See this is how you end up with so many flies….more on that later.

SwittersB Spreading The Word For ‘the moment’

I am not given to self promotion. Starting this blog, at the time, seemed overtly self promotional. So, when Creekwalker suggested I entertain a little bit of mobile advertising, I was hesitant. But, then I reconsidered given my blog’s purpose….to stimulate interest in fly fishing and fly tying primarily for beginners. So, I did the previously unthinkable…

Yep, and I don’t sell or promote anything that will put a penny in my pocket. Simply spreading the word and hopefully the passion for our great sport. The ‘moment’ is understood by us all.