This fine book by Arlen Thomason has been out for awhile and already reviewed by many. I came across it at the Back Country Fly Shop in Corvallis, Oregon. I can only say what everyone else has said: fabulous, amazing details, painstaking photography, new understandings, great effort, well done. I have really enjoyed this book! Buy it.
Also, as a fellow Oregonian, I like the fact that Thomason lives by the McKenzie River in Walterville, Oregon. Don’t you wonder, when you hear those town names, who Walter was?
“Walterville post office was established in 1875 and named by the first postmaster and prominent Central Oregon rancher, George Millican, for his son Walter” Wiki
One of these most volatile seismic areas in the U.S., the New San Madrid Fault is surrounded by over a dozen nuclear power plants.
“The USGS report predicts that a major quake would create horrific scenes like something out of a science fiction movie, potentially cutting the Eastern part of the country off from the West in terms of vehicular traffic and road commerce.” ABC News
I hope there is an honest and immediate assessment of what would be needed re the nuclear power plant’s failures in the event of catastrophic quakes in the New San Madrid area?
“…a major quake along the New Madrid fault line could displace 7.2 million people and knock out 15 bridges. The response would require 42,000 first responders from local firefighters to the Pentagon. Another study by the Mid-America Earthquake Center last year estimates that nearly 750,000 buildings would be damaged, 3,000 bridges would potentially collapse…”
More powerful than any footage I have ever seen. This is truly frightening to watch. Horrific power.
My daughter Theresa, dubbed the Polish Princess by her grandma, has an emerging flare for cooking and entertaining. She whipped up this simple sauce this weekend and I can tell you a couple ways to use it for Summer time fare…well anytime fare:
First the Tzaziki Sauce:
8 ounces of Plain Yogurt
Pinch of minced, mild green onion; touch of dill.
One half tablespoon sugar, then salt & garlic to taste, touch of black pepper.
Now slice and add to this sauce cucumbers or sweet onions. Leave the onions in rings. This is sloppy good for gyros, with lamb, with steaks, with pork, at the gathering. Chill before serving and let the sauce meld with the onions or cuc’s. Excellent & refreshing.
This is a simple, effective pattern for the beginning tier. It utilizes a simple scraggly, dubbed abdomen/thorax and a wing/clump of the Snowshoe Hare fur.
How To S-T-S Tutorial or Snowshoe Hare Emerger
Bob Wyatt Snowshoe Hare Emerger (Danica)
When I was a kid there was not a BBQ in our family. Steaks were cheap cuts and maybe cooked in oven under the broiler, spattering and bursting all over. More often they were fried on the stove top. Seems odd these days when many have gas grills on the back deck or charcoal BBQ’s. Of course, the ‘old’ way is still an option (outside of restaurants):
This may take you back a bit, the smells of fried food in the house? Eventually, my dad acquired the charcoal BBQ and steaks were no longer cheaper cuts, but T-Bones (our tradition) or other good cuts suitable for family celebrations. For most of my young life, cuts of beef were a treat. Even Round Steak was a treat.
Wind & More Wind
Lakes and the wind. A given element almost everyday at some point. You must plan for this. The picture above: Spring time. Cold. Winds kicked up. At this point, I had come into shore to take a break. In short order the wind kicked up big time. We considered heading back, but the fishing promised epic memories. We anchored. The wind blew harder and we moved even with heavy pyramid anchors.
We decided we had to try to row the long haul back to the rig…at least a half hour of steady, hard pulling. We pulled hard and gained nothing. We lost water, so to speak. Eventually, both of us, in excellent shape, could not beat the wind. We made for the far shore to wait out the wind.
The wind did not stop. There was not an access road near our shoreline and our rig was a good mile and a half away if we walked the shoreline. We were wearing booties, the type you wear with fins. We were seriously lucky by the shoreline configuration (rocks and shallows) and walked along into the cold wind, each pulling our pontoon boat with a twenty foot section of poly rope we had each always carried but never envisioned using in this way. Had we had a treacherous shoreline and deep drop off from the shoreline, we would have been stuck until the wind dissipated.
We were prepared clothing wise and booties wise (they had good soles). We made our way back after a very long (time wise) walk. Point being: plan for the wind blowing you to hell and not back. Ask yourself what is on the far side of that lake. What if you end up over there? Is there an access road over there? If you had to wait a long while for the wind to die down, do you have adequate clothing/shelter? It was an extreme exception to normal conditions. I had never not been able to row against big winds and waves. Met my match and now have a better sense to plan: what if?
It is both. Depending upon your weather, seasonal closures/openings and freedom to fish. An example of late for me: I have recently spent more time researching patterns I had fleeting chances at last year and was not prepared with the right patterns and/or correct presentation (Yellow Sally Stonefly, Sculpin/Streamer Patterns).
You fish and see you need to figure out an insect for the next time (what was that large, yellow, fluttering fly popping out of mid-stream? (Mayfly, but it looked like a Stonefly?). Or, you are still cut off for the season (weather, closures, work, obligations). You plan for the time span you will have to fish and study the hatches you will experience on the bodies of river you will most likely visit (example: August-October for Crooked R., Deschutes R., Metolius R., McKenzie R., Tunkwa L., Leighton L. etc.).
This is part of the ongoing fun of tying and fishing (or, fishing and tying).
I will be the first to admit I don’t have all the species of the Caddis memorized nor can I readily identify them. I study up on the waters I am intending to fish and attempt to match color and size of the pupa and adults. Previously, I have tied up some large pupa for the Caddis Sedge patterns. I tied them with the buggy eyes so that they could also, possibly, suggest the long bodied dragon fly nymph for a stillwater presentation, but added the swept under wings/legs or the emerging caddis. I did not add any antennae. 
The hook is a size 8, straight eye hook, the thread was 6/0 black. The eyes are black, plastic dumbbell shaped and tied in on top of the shank due to their lack of weight. The ribbing is gold/silver tinsel with the gold side out. The body (abdomen) is brown rug yarn wrapped and then ribbed with the tinsel. The underwing/legs is tied in beneath the abdomen and is a section of turkey feather with dark deer hair swept back. The thorax is a blend of brown and dark olive dubbing wrapped forward and around the plastic eyes.
Arctopsyche grandis Caddis Pupa (McKenzie R. Caddis)
Stillwater Box SwittersB
