Fly Fishing Calms, Centers, Orients the Mind. Try It.

Wonderful If He Would Carry Chains

DULUTH, Minn. – A Minnesota man has pleaded guilty to driving his motorized La-Z-Boy chair while drunk. A criminal complaint says 62-year-old Dennis LeRoy Anderson told police he left a bar in the northern Minnesota town of Proctor on his chair after drinking eight or nine beers.

Prosecutors say Anderson’s blood alcohol content was 0.29, more than three times the legal limit, when he crashed into a parked vehicle in August 2008. He was not seriously injured.

Police said the chair was powered by a converted lawnmower and had a stereo and cup holders.

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Will There Be a BBQ?

JOHANNESBURG (Reuters) – South African traditional leaders plan to perform ritual animal slaughters to bless stadiums for the 2010 World Cup tournament ahead of the start of the showcase event next June, they said on Friday.

Zolani Mkiva, chairman of the Makhonya Royal Trust, a grouping responsible for co-ordinating cultural activities, said the tournament, the first to be held in Africa, needed to be blessed in true “African style.”

“We must have a cultural ceremony of some sort, where we are going to slaughter a beast (cow),” said Mkiva.

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Mai-teh International Intelligence Research Institute?

TAIPEI (Reuters) – Authorities in Taiwan said on Thursday they would investigate a private training center after receiving testimony and videos showing that children were made to swallow fire and step on glass to build up their courage.

“My child was forced to split wood with his bare hands and wanted to die,” one mother said via local television.

Eyes Have It…. (Polish Streamer Pattern)

Streamer Eyes (Lookin' Marabou)

A simple black leech/streamer pattern with affixed eyes

Midge, Buzzer, Chironomid Emerger (CDC Wingcase and Wing)

ffinternet.com (emerger) Hans van Klinken

This pattern’s significant material is the CDC. The addition of peacock and the variegated body are additional positives. Remember no floatant on the CDC. False casts to dry off the CDC, then re-present the fly and let it set in the surface film. Watch in the vicinity of the fly for a rise or sip. Also, watch the floating fly line’s S curves that extend away from you toward the leader for the slightest vibrations and straightening. If the peccary fiber body is not available another slender body option with suitable ribbing would be a choice.

NW Spiders Hanging Around

OREGON HOBO SPIDER? (swittersb)

Lurking about the yard these two were about the size of a M&M Peanut on steroids. NW Spiders    Hobo Spider

Northwestern brown spider or the hobo spider                     HOBO Not Recluse

“The northwestern brown spider or hobo spider (Tegenaria agretis) is well known in Oregon and Washington and is also quite common in Utah. Spider bites by this spider are becoming recognized more often in California, which may be due to the fact that the spider is becoming better known. The hobo spider often causes a bite that leaves an open, slow-healing wound. Bites from this spider are frequently and mistakenly thought to be brown recluse spider bites. Keep the wound clean and prevent infection. If the bite becomes infected or does not seem to heal, see a physician.”     HOBO SPIDER BITE

HOBO Spider? In Waiting.... (switterb)

Blue Wing Olive’s (Quill Body…fumbling about)

BWO Nymph (SwittersB)

The lens shows how much my assumption was correct as I fumbled about wrapping the quill body over the underlay of partridge fibers (an extension of the tail fibers). I tried to space the wraps and felt I smothered the body with too thick & too stiff of a quill. The thorax was rabbit fur, olive color, and again the guard hairs were a bit much beneath the clear wingcase material. scraggly is generally ok with me given my impressionistic bent in fly tying.; an excuse for my lack of exactness perhaps?  This is a size 16 pupa style hook. I probably should darken the wingcase (per a previous suggestion by Planet Trout). A felt marker would do the trick.

BWO Parachute (SwittersB)

I copied this pattern from one I saw at a Sportsman’s Warehouse in Medford, Oregon. Simple in looks, I frankly struggle with the parachute portion. The tail is a few strands of pearl Krystal Flash, the body is  turkey feather fibers wrapped and coated with clear nail polish (I have used pheasant feather fibers and stripped quills too). The post is white Z-lon (or Antron) wrapped with a light dun dry fly quality hackle. I over hackled in this instance and the brown thread finished off the thorax and head to cover up the post tie in point and hackle tie off points. This was tied on a size 16 hook and I tied maybe a dozen. My patience for such ties is nil of late, but the BWO’s are now beginning to come off in the afternoon on cloudy days. So, my yearly tie of BWO’s must commence.

BWO Emerger w/ Quill Body (SwittersB)

This one looks better in the abdomen area. I had packaged quills that I soaked and they seemed to wrap in nicer. I tied the quill in at the fragile tip, at the tail or bend of the hook. I broke off this tie in a few times before getting a good connection. The quill and olive thread thorax were again covered with clear nail polish for durability and sheen.  Again a size 16 pupa style hook. The mashed hackle is a sign of my clumsy wraps. It will work, but I will never win a fly tying award. I have noted before that if I had to tie a dozen flies for one of those fly tying silent auctions deals, I would probably struggle through several dozen before arriving at a solid, uniform dozen. Ugh….. Anymore, I am beginning to think a simple tapered thread body with a contrasting thread rib would be adequate for a body. Buoyancy is my only consideration….would it work? I have become to pragmatic in tying to dilly dally about with exact imitations and many minutes per fly… impatience is not a good trait for fly tying. But, I will invest enough time for a functional, productive creation. Nothing more. Hence, I don’t muck about with Atlantic Salmon patterns. Spey tube flies are the extent of my creative bent.

I need to tie a simple nymph dropper. My initial efforts were blah and boring. Back to the drawing board. Simply ran out of patience and hate! size 18 hooks:

Whatever...Enough for Today

Wet Fly Pattern (The Goblin)

The Goblin (SwittersB)

Just a little ditty, of the old stripe, to celebrate Fall and whatever might intercept on the swing. Nothing fancy: Size 6-10 hook, 3/0 to 6/0 thread body with gold tinsel ribbing, orange Ice Dub Thorax, black hackle and orange Krystal flash.

More celebratory than functional perhaps. Basic wet pattern…choose your own colors.

Fly Fishing Survival Considerations (Are You Prepared For The Worst?)

Red Sky Morning....... (SwittersB)

I have more gear and what if stuff in the back of my rig than a group of Explorer Scouts at a SAR Callout. But, often I hardly carry any gear with me once sauntering down the trail. Well, I am close to the truck, kind of. That is true more often than not. They would eventually find me upside down, over the embankment, where I slipped and tripped over the tree root that hooked my toe….eventually. Or, that short walk down to the drift results in “I think I will move on down below those rapids and fish there.” A mere 200 yards from the p-u.

The point is that, if alone, you have slipped, fallen, stumbled, broken rods, twisted your ankle, slipped atop boulders with wet boots on gritty sand, walked into bushes and branches narrowly missing your eyes, fallen so hard you had to stop and consider if you can actually break your ass. Well, maybe you haven’t but I have. I am clumsy at times. The older I get the more clumsy I seem to become. I recently mentioned a loss of hip/leg strength contributing to poor wading and I know it affects me boulder hopping and moving up and down muddy embankments crisscrossed with protruding roots.

I should be more prepared and certainly be prepared on a cold afternoon, when injured, to ride out the hours into the night or the next morning to avoid hypothermia and shock. This article by Kirston Koths is entitled How To Survive Fly Fishing (Preparing For Being Lost, Injured, and Other Angling Emergencies) is informative and a reminder to carry survival gear with you, not just in the back of your rig.

“The most likely serious injury that might happen while fishing is a gash, incapacitating sprain, or broken/dislocated bone as a result of falling. Over two hundred search-and-rescue operations occur in Yosemite each year, many for hiker with broken ankles.”

Fly fishing and ‘the moment’ (for real…….)

“The result was a fishing trip where you stop your pursuit of trout every few minutes to appreciate what you’ve submerged yourself in, and even then you still can’t quite grasp it.” Tom Chandler in a piece for FlyAddicts.com

I once had the time (10 years), the shifts and the lack of commitments to fish two to four times a week. I purposely took M/Tu’s off and often hiked the rivers alone and often in sync with my surroundings. Family, work/’success’ took away those schedules and now I am more like Chandler’s statement; partly wanting to pinch myself that I am free to attempt to get in sync. My home water is in my mind. I go there often. I need to, at some point, in this AARP time frame go there, on a more regular basis, for real.

New Age Gibberish (spare the rod…)

Participants paid between $9,000 and $10,000 to attend the retreat.

Could have had a hell of a trip to mind altering locales, rod in hand.

The Door To.........

Russian Spey Casting (sort of) and, well the rest.

KINGS CREATED THE FISHING ‘POLE’ SO THE TRULY GIFTED COULD NOT RULE THE WORLD

SORT OF  (no Snap-T or D Loops)