one more hobby

October 24th, 2008 by Patrick Konoske | Leave a comment

One more hobby — and boatload of money — and I’ll be ready to retire.

As mentioned before in this space, fall’s close to the top in my list of seasons, and motorcycling in the crisp morning air with a glowing sunrise at my back is part of that greatness. I’m closing in on the first year anniversary of owning my bike and now that I’m back in the saddle after a month-long forced sabbatical, I’ve found that it’s another one of those things that prompts sudden smiles.

Those smiles turn into dreams about moving up from my vintage — yep, it’s 26 years old — 1982 Honda CB650SC to something a bit more contemporary. Preferably with locking hard saddlebags. The dream is a late ‘90s BMW R/R series bike or an even younger K/RS-series. Then again, if the price is right Honda’s ST1100 looks nice…  Like the Goldwing too, but a contemporary model’s out of my price range.  Regardless, gotta start saving the pennies.

While motorcycling gives me something to do throughout the year in sunny California, it’s more of a spring/summer/fall thing. Same goes for fly fishing. That means I need a winter hobby.

It’ll be a while before I can set aside money for myself — seems for now I’m ensuring my parents’ social security checks don’t bounce — but it’s never too early to start thinking. This is your chance to throw ideas in my direction as to a suitable winter hobby. But forget skiing. I already know about winter steelhead and can tie only so many flies. What do you think is a good rainy day hobby?

P.S. Flying to the tropics doesn’t count.

forget brownlining; call me “guppy hunter”

October 21st, 2008 by Patrick Konoske | Leave a comment

Forget the too-weak magnifying glass on the fly tying vise…we’re gonna need a microscope.

And no fish will be safe.

While others resort to fishing the foul-smelling irrigation ditches — brownlining — close to home in the off season, I’m betting my marbles on “buckypaper” for that smallest of fly rods…maybe a size .01 wt¹ for those guppies in my fish tank. (It’d all be catch and release, of course.)

Here guppy, guppy...

Here guppy, guppy...

A thin nanotech “buckypaper” developed in a Florida lab offers a super-thin material 10 times lighter and about 500 times stronger than steel when it’s stacked in sheets to form a composite. This “paper” is made from tube-shaped carbon molecules 50,000 times thinner than a human hair, so putting a few of these tubes together should yield a dandy super-ultra-lightweight fly rod.

The problem will be tying those size 44² flies in a “flake” pattern.

¹ For non fly fishers, the smallest fly rod currently is a 0 wt.
² Roughly one-eighth of an inch long, maybe smaller?

the “other” konoske web site

October 20th, 2008 by Patrick Konoske | Leave a comment

That’s really a cousin of mine — on some level — at konoske.com.

Despite my displeasure three years ago that he squatted on konoske.com long before even posting a single photograph, it’s hard to ignore the quality of the end product. Sure, konoske.net might enjoy recognition as THE Konoske Web site, but for anyone who enjoys cars, Brian’s portfolio is something worth a longing look.

Brian’s work takes aim a various vehicles — new, vintage, mild, wild, on road, off road, fast, not so fast and probably not mobile at all — in typically wonderful compositions. It’s camerawork like this that can be blamed for my infamous fetish renowned fondness for a well-cleaned car.

Good work Brian.

brown trout named as an invasive species. I say airlift ‘em my way.

October 17th, 2008 by Patrick Konoske | Leave a comment

Just about booked a flight to for long stay in Dullstroom, South Africa.

One might not expect to find the words “plague” and “brown trout” uttered in the same sentence here in the Queen’s North American Colonies, but it seems the British Invasion of lo’ so many years ago created just such a problem in South Africa.

From a Time magazine article in the Oct. 27, 2008 issue:

Here, in the waters that feed the grasslands and carve out the escarpments of the Highveld plateau, trout are a plague. The lakes, dams and rivers are overflowing with them. So is the town. Almost every shop, hotel and gas station in Dullstroom features a picture of a seven-pounder curling around a fly. (And no prizes for guessing which delicious, pink-fleshed fish dominates the restaurant menus.)

The kind of plague I wouldn’t mind in my backyard.

But you’d better get there fast.

As part of its Africanization program, the [South African] government is considering poisoning the [brown] trout in its lakes and rivers. This sounds drastic until you get to Dullstroom, on the edge of Kruger National Park, east of Johannesburg.

Don’t know how the folks of Dullstroom view this plan.  They tout their town as “South Africa’s premier flyfishing region.”

So, those with more money and time on their hands might want plan a trip after reading more on the Time site, and anyone willing to drag along a wanna-be trout bum companion, gratis of course, can email me here.

what California water shortage?

October 15th, 2008 by Patrick Konoske | Leave a comment

Thanks to climbing flows, plans for the club fishing trip this Saturday to the Stanislaus River have been abandoned. Guess I’ll clean the nine months of accumlation from my desk instead.

We were to hit the Two Mile Bar section after flows hovered just above 200 cubic feet per second; eminently fishable. The flows climbed to 225 cfs on Oct. 8, to 425 cfs on the 9th, peaked at 669 on the 10th, and seemed to have settled around 655 cfs; definitely not fishable.

The "Stan" was good until last week.

The Stanislaus looked good until about a week ago...

Seems a bit odd to see so much water flowing downstream. It’s been a heck of a year for our reservoirs — the average level stands at 59.6% of capacity and as low as 21% — so one would think we wouldn’t see massive releases.

Seems I’ll have to head upstream when I’m fishing the foothills next month…