fishing for words

(and tossing out random thoughts)

Category Archives: Fly Tying


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it boils down to confidence in the little things

If you’re looking to build self-confidence and have taken up fly fishing, there is no shortage of instructional books, DVDs, websites and podcasts. Some folks will proclaim that things like more expensive better rods, a specific brand of fly line and the one killer fly will be the keys to a better fly fishing experience. But the best thing any angler can do is to just keep casting; confidence comes with learning to do things on your own.

Building this necessary confidence took me a while. Those who’ve seen my fishing — specifically my casting — might agree that blind confidence is a much bigger part of the equation than skill.

In casting, confidence requires first believing that you won’t piece a body part and, second, that you’ll get the fly where it needs to go.

When it comes to flies, there’s a prevalent theory that anglers gravitate toward certain flies — and hook most fish with them — because they have confidence in those flies. Confidence or lack thereof can also apply to the landing of or losing those hooked fish. My “confidence flies” are the Zebra Midge, AP Nymph and something like a Copper Chromie, but with red thread and silver wire.

Confidence in flies can be challenged again when you tie your own. The flies that work, the ones in which an angler has the most confidence, will be the ones tied most often. That certainly applies to my tying. (See the list above.)

My confidence was called into question this year, once again, when I hooked that first fish on the rod I built during the winter. My confidence grew with each fish coaxed to the net.

Soon I’ll be testing the limits of that confidence. I’ll be working with knotted leaders.

Yeah, old school stuff. There are folks who eschew modern loop-to-loop connections and extruded knotless leaders and swear by knotted leaders. In my case, I’ll be duplicating a time-tested formula used for stillwater nymphing (3 feet of 1X, 3 feet of 3X and 7 to 10-plus feet of 5X to the depth fished).

It’s my knot-tying ability that’ll be tested…in a lake where 18-inch rainbow, brown or cutthroat trout aren’t uncommon, and often one might get into a 24 incher. It doesn’t help that I have an inherent mistrust of tippet. The formula works; at least when tied by guides I’ve hired.

This time I’ll be me tying the knots, and I’d daresay that any fish I land will be well deserved.


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what we see (2011-08-04)

  • “There’s a great future in plastics.” Maybe not: Researchers find plastic in more than 9% of fish in northern Pacific. http://ow.ly/5TyRs #
  • Supporters of open-water aquaculture take note: 117,500 triploid rainbow trout escape net pen on the Columbia River. http://ow.ly/5Tyy0 #
  • Love the name of the “Shark Taco Hopper” fly, but sure does look like cotton candy for trout. http://ow.ly/5TxrS #
  • A few senators too worried about the eating of genetically engineered salmon as to miss the larger environmental picture. http://ow.ly/5TxeD #


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the slow lesson of fly fishing

Fly Fishing Trip Goals: Fish New Water(s), Fish for New Species/Strains of Trout,
Drink New Beer(s), Repeat. Note: Do so slowly, with great deliberation.

It’s not casting, presentation or fly selection; it’s a deliberate and slower pace that offers the best chance of success in fly fishing.

This isn’t a new or unfamiliar idea. My first appreciation of a slower approach was the pace at which I entered any water, familiar or unfamiliar. Slowing down to take the time to make a few observations. To watch the sun rise. To look for that one rising trout. To take time to fish that small seam a few feet out from the bank.

[singlepic id=1088 w=275 h=368 float=center]The decision to try my hand at tying flies required a slow, methodical approach as I learned techniques and how materials responded to the tying process. I’m not a production tyer, and probably think more what I’m doing when tying than I should. That’s okay; a lot of that thinking is about the fish I expect or hope to fool with that fly; or memories of already having done so.

Rod building again necessitates slowing down. Wrapping thread seems simple, and it is. Wrapping thread well isn’t. Five-minute epoxy is the fastest part of the process. Laying down multiple coats is not.

More experienced fly fisherman might wonder why it took so long for me to come to this conclusion. In my defense, there were trout to fool and success was measured by body count.

Two weeks ago, while setting aside the desire to get on higher-elevation trout water as soon as legally possible, it dawned on me that the fish would still be there even if my arrival was delayed a day or two. Like dominoes falling, decisions were then made to purposely plan a slower pace.

It’s a huge thing to slow down in today’s world. To take a slow, long look at that wild trout. And, when the sunlight’s too dim to fish, to slowly relish the day’s adventures, seasoned with good food and, if you’re lucky, a good beer.

It’s all worth savoring.

To be certain, we lugged along a few new brews to the cabin during our Opening Day trip, but didn’t pass up the opportunity to try something from the tap during dinner at The Rock.

Told by the waitress that customers had complained that New Belgium’s Ranger IPA was too hoppy, Sean naturally went ahead and ordered it. Apparently those customers have sensitive palates. I’m not a huge fan of too much hoppiness on the back end, but even I found the Ranger rather mild. So did Sean.

Though not an extreme beer snob, I favor trying local suds, and opted to try Snowshoe’s Grizzly Brown Ale. (And, honestly, I felt an obligation to try the Grizzly as research. The Snowshoe brewery is an hour away from the cabin and will be on the itinerary during my brother’s visit next month.) I’ve grown increasingly fond of a well-done brown ale. The Grizzly didn’t disappoint, and it seemed that Sean might have wished he’d chosen it. It’s certainly dark in color, but semi creamy and not heavy as might be expected. A nice toasty maltiness gives way to a light hop finish.

Certainly a great way to finish a day of fly fishing.


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fishing for words turns five after fourteen years in the making

fishing for words (ffw) was born on April 19, 2006. However and without knowing it, my blogging started fourteen years prior to that.

During the mid ‘90s — the beginning of the end for most grunge bands — I joined the few civilians who could make sense of this thing called HTML to launch a website with the unoriginal title “My Little Corner of the Internet.” It was a kooky little site for which every new entry required incorporating text into hand-coded HTML.

The trend at the time was to post a relatively static website about one’s self, and looking back one can see that the early “posts” — stories about trips or family events — popped up once or twice a year from August 1997 through July 2003. There seemed to be more to write about starting in 2004. I don’t know if was the fact that the kids were growing up and it didn’t take a trunk full of diapers, bottles, food and a stroller to travel more than five miles, or the fact that my new wife actually encouraged me to enjoy some adventures on my own.

My writing was largely directed at family and a few friends. Though a student once thanked me for my page on Aloha shirts (apparently it aided him in writing a term paper), I suffered no delusion that anyone would take an interest in what I wrote if they didn’t know me personally.

The Future of Outdoor Blogging

Perhaps the future will bring a new immediacy to outdoor blogging. (That’s not me...it’s my son with a wild rainbow on Stream X.)

Things changed in 2006 with this stuff called CMS and easy-to-use blogging platforms — both of which coincided with my first experience brandishing a fly rod over a Sierra Nevada stream. It was all in place: a website/blog that could easily be fed and a hobby that could provide material.

Now, 139,512 words and 458 posts later, I still resist defining my blog. It remains a place for family and friends…with a loose definition of “friend.” Over the years, nearly everyone in my immediately family has made an appearance in my blog — whether they liked it or not. Friends run the gamut: fly fishing club members, fellow bloggers I’ve surprised by actually showing up on their doorstep met face to face; folks who thanked me for suggestions on where their kids might have a good first fishing experience; even a few buddies met online with whom I eventually shared a fishing trip or two. Every reader is a potential friend, just like the older gentleman and younger guy wearing waders that were too clean and waving barely used rods.

While ffw doesn’t subscribe to any specific definition, it’s definitely been about sharing a personal story. It’s about stepping out of my little universe to share encouragement, a laugh, an experience, a tip or a trick. And every once and a while I’m pleasantly surprised to learn that my words do encourage or earn a chuckle.

Some folks might lament about how much things have changed in five years. I’d say that it’s only our methods of our interaction that have changed; the folks behind it remain much the same. Take a look at the Outdoor Blogger Network, for example — a group of good folks coming together over common interests. They’ve got to be good folks; they let me and my little blog join in the fun. And fun it’s been, sharing my misadventures and adding a couple of new readers every year.

As for the fly fishing, the places I fish usually are not covered in the slick pages of magazines. These are places that can be reached with relatively modest means and without a 4×4. (I did learn last year that a 4×4 would be helpful on the roads to and from Yellow Creek.)

My hero shots find heroism in fooling small wild and skittish brook trout with a fly tied with my own hands. (This summer, hero shots may include a fly rod built with those same hands.) And though the “body count” isn’t so important to me anymore, it’s still about duping that first dozen fish and the story that comes with it.

I’m hoping that there will be many more fish to write about.


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what we see… (03/09/2011)

  • Something worth celebrating…the one-year anniversary of year-round artificial lures and barbless regulations on Putah Creek, and its connection to Creedence Clearwater Revival: http://bit.ly/ez1NRw (And cool video on PutahCreekTrout.org: http://bit.ly/dRP1pE
  • The Naturalist’s Angle comes up with a must-have (and very cool) fly if you’re chasing salamander-eating fish: http://bit.ly/g2RPHa
  • An obsession with a certain facial feature at Singlebarbed and Trout Underground?: http://bit.ly/hkvmvz; http://bit.ly/eJFEvM; http://bit.ly/eNc1En
  • Not just because I’d love to say my car employs torque vectoring, but because it offers all-wheel drive for those Forest Service roads, a long hatch that’ll fit assembled fly rods, the speed that’ll allow more time on the water, and, most importantly, because it didn’t make the Unaccomplished Angler’s list of Top Six Stupidest Fly Fishing Cars: http://aol.it/i8RlQ6


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what we see… (03/02/2011)

  • Fly fishing folks can be pretty generous (Scroll down to “53. Fly Fishing Fantasy). (Of course, the winning $70,000 bid gets two days of fishing for you and seven friends at Brigadoon Lodge in the deal): http://bit.ly/hsPCyA
  • If we taught a club’s fly tying classes, we’d be on doorstep of Singlebarbed.com‘s shed headquarters: http://bit.ly/gvsGmx
  • While lucky enough to spend many a summer in Tuolumne Meadows, I’d had loved to earn college credit for traipsing around Yosemite’s high country oh-so-many-years-ago, in my youth: http://bit.ly/e2f8z6
  • From the All Too Personal Observation Department: While we thoroughly enjoyed our volunteer time with Northern California Council Federation of Fly Fishers at the Pleasanton Fly Fishing Show last weekend, the experience suggests that I am able to help people learn to cast better than my own ability to do so.


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new fishing license; origami encouraged

California 2011 Fishing License of 22.25 Inches

At 22¼'' it’d be a very nice trout.

One of the more common discussions these days among Golden State fly fishermen these days, besides whether a bead head nymph can be called a fly, is the new fishing licenses. For those who don’t know, it’s likely that California’s fishing and hunting licensing system finally matches something your state was using 10 or more years ago.

My permanent annual license was kicked out by the Automated License Data System and it arrived the other day (a temporary was printed from the computer). Attached to the dollar-bill-sized basic sport fishing license is a required report card for the steelhead I’ll never hook.

I measured it. It’s sad when the license is longer than most of the trout that end up in my net. …Sad that the license is so long; I’m perfectly happy with smaller wild fish. Folks who add sturgeon report cards, hunting licenses or are lucky enough to have a lifetime licenses have reported lengths of 10 feet or more.

(I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that the license I purchased in Washington state last year and recently returned with fat zeros on the catch record card measured just about as long as my new California license.)

There’s an upside. It’s no longer a requirement to visibly display your license. I thought about putting mine in my wallet, giving it a girth not seen in many years.

That, on the other hand, may not be a great idea.

These licenses are printed on waterproof thermal paper. Waterproof good; thermal paper bad. Leave it exposed to heat source and you’ll be making a trip to get a new one.

However, a swipe of your driver’s license your local vendor can retrieve your current license data, and for a small fee, print a duplicate. Applying circular reasoning, maybe the boys in Sacramento, short on revenue, did know what they were doing all along…

P.S. Sometime after this post goes up I should be applying epoxy to a certain 4 wt fly rod.


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anticipation: the early edition

For a few weeks now it’s either been raining like cats and dogs or bitter cold. At least for this neck of the woods, where anything below 40 degrees is uncommon. A day ago it was -18 degrees in the in the Sierra Nevada’s Long Valley Caldera, a little volcanic crater of roughly 200 square miles that I’m not likely to fish at such temperatures. If I do, it’ll be via snowmobile and with a supply of Glen Morangie.

It’s good weather to mark on the new year’s calendar the days that’ll be dedicated to fishing. They’re adding up nicely.

It’s not that I’ll be sitting on my hands until the general trout season reopens. There’s a fly rod to be built and flies to be tied. We’ll finish the rod by early February during a series of Saturday sessions. Fly tying will include giving guidance to a son who wants to learn. Then there are trips to plan.

I think it was about three years ago that the realization set in that there was pleasure to be found in the planning of fishing trips. Planning can be a pain in the arse, sometimes literally, because the Internet has opened the doors to a crushing abundance of information; then it took a while to learn to let go of the niggling worries about the actual outcome of a trip.

So, rather than wantonly throw out New Year’s resolutions that are likely to remain unachieved, my inclination is to etch things in wet cement as soon as possible. Things were set in motion this year by that preference and petitions for early planning from some of the folks who’ve participated in the club-sanctioned trip I lead in the Eastern Sierra.

Lest anyone think that there’s an inherent selflessness in these acts, the record should be set straight. Part of my willingness to teach Sean to tie flies is rooted in the self-serving belief it’s high time that he lose his own flies. It’s with as much resignation as can be mustered that I’ll inform The Wife that I must again act as ‘fishmaster’ for the club’s Eastern Sierra trip, quietly omitting the multitude of benefits it offers.

Most fly fishermen will ascribe good fishing and great scenery to favorite fishing venues. The Eastern Sierra excellently fits that bill and hopes are high that this year it will be even better. The snowpack is in great shape and water levels are good; both point to fantastic things in the fall. For those who’ve never been, the attraction of the Eastern Sierra can be modestly measured by the six folks who’ve already committed to a trip that doesn’t take place for another nine months. Those benefits that need not worry my wife: good food, home-brewed beer and great fishing far away from clocks and everyday concerns.

This year my volunteerism will extend to kindly offering to aid a fellow fly fisherman to get acquainted with Crowley Lake.  We’ll spend our first day on the lake with a guide I’ve employed a few times each of the last several years, as an introduction to Crowley for my friend and an opportunity to update my knowledge of current conditions. During the subsequent days there might just be an occasion or two to spend more time on the lake fishing from my friend’s boat. As you know by now, in no way did this influence my desire to help.


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feeding that full-blown addiction

There’s a sinister side to fly fishing. One’s entrance into the sport is often innocent enough. Like many before me, it’s nothing more than the next step in the evolution of a fisherman who’s looking for a way to catch more fish or perhaps find a greater challenge in doing so.

But if fly fishing were a living and breathing thing, it’d be the Borg.

Slowly, you find that you’d rather fish than eat — I’ve lost more weight when fishing. (Only to regain it later with the unsound rationalization that I somehow can calorically afford a huge steak. And beer.) Sleep becomes an inconvenience to arriving streamside at sunrise. Work serves to only fund the acquisition of new gear, flies and too many lines, rods and reels.

They say the first signs of an addiction go unnoticed. That second rod, then a third, are justified as “back ups.” Another reel, ‘cause you need it for those back up rods. One more rod in a different weight; either to gain an advantage over bigger fish or to offer a fair chance to smaller ones. Thankfully, this accumulated paraphernalia can hide in the garage.

Then, if you’re really unlucky not paying attention, the Wife will find that first fly tying vise attached to the dinner table. Around it may be scattered thread, feathers, and perhaps a few hairs from the dog and cat. Not to mention surgically sharp hooks lost in the carpet. Over time, an allowance is made for a TV tray to be left in the corner of the den, overflowing with materials amassed from fly shops, craft stores and the irresistible treasure troves offered up free by fellow fly fishermen who’ve been told volunteered to clear out years of collected fly tying provisions.

Try as I might, it seems there’s no turning back. So I’ve given in.

Just before Thanksgiving, hidden in a darkened garage and goaded on guided by a fellow addict, I will choose a fly rod blank, a grip, a reel seat and guides.

Come January, I will begin to build a fly rod. Resistance is futile.


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my wife doesn’t use nail polish. i do.

I’m not the philosophical fly fisher. I fish to catch…despite knowing it’s called fishing, not catching.

I care for my gear, ensuring that loosing that bigger-than-expected trout can only be blamed on my lack of skill bad luck.

And I tie flies to replace those that have proven to be effective.

March has become the month of anticipation. The worst of winter is probably past, spring’s ahead with another season of trout fishing; either fishing alone, with my sons, with club members, or with a fellow fly fisherman just met on the stream. The Sierra Nevada streams in which the flies I tie will float or sink…and sometimes float when they should sink and sink when they should float…won’t be open to trout fishermen for another 58 days, 5 hours, and 42 minutes.

But fly tying isn’t a cure for the itch to fish. It’s merely a distraction.

I tend to use subsurface flies, or nymph, a lot. Last summer I discovered that a certain nymph designed by a certain guide produced quite a few fish for me on a certain river.

I’m not a great fly tier. Those who call fly tying an “art” haven’t seen some of my attempts. And by no means was I able to dissect a fly and end up tying a suitable duplicate.

Until now. The key: nail polish.

Any fly tier with more experience would appropriately laugh at my discovery, but for me it was the lost ingredient in this fly’s recipe. I’ve never dabbled with nail polish in fly tying ‘cause I never used any fly recipes that called for it.

But that thin, clear coating of polish that brings out the rainbow, almost opalescence, of the flash tied on the base of black thread. Cool stuff.

Now it’s only 58 days, 5 hours, and 41 minutes until Opening Day. But there are plenty more flies to tie. A few to lose in the bushes behind me, a few to share with family and friends, and at least one to tie for that bigger-than-expected rainbow.