fishing for words

(and tossing out random thoughts)

Category Archives: Fly Fishing


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pasta, garlic bread, salad, beer, Cancer magister, dessert, and something unexpected

The DVFF Crab Feed (& Officer Installation) ’10 is in the history books.

We enjoyed pasta, garlic bread, salad, various beverages (adult and otherwise), the honored entrée and three different cakes for dessert. The crab seemed sweeter this year and, as usual, our dining companions and conversation enjoyable. We told fishing stories, ate too much Cancer magister (The scientific name doesn’t sound as tasty, does it?), and anxiously awaited the raffle results. No catch and release crab eaters in this crowd.

Lulled into a semi-comatose state by full bellies and bottles of Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, the business part of the meeting began. As asked, I’m taking pictures as our outgoing president thanks the various volunteers who manage the many worthwhile club programs and events. I join the rest of the board members and officers as we receive recognition for a year of service and most of us remain at the podium to be introduced as the 2010 contingent.

Then came funny warm feelings of surprise, shock, gratitude, and appreciation.

While like everyone else I enjoy the occasional recognition, much of what I do – again like many other people – I don’t do for recognition. It’s done because it’s something I can do or needs to be done, something I can improve upon, and hopefully something I enjoy.

Back to those feelings…rather than struggle to write prose that doesn’t sound prideful, I’ll let a picture do the talking. A big thank you to the Diablo Valley Fly Fishermen for the recognition!


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let my hatchery trout go

The hard times faces by many rural California communities
might just get harder if the Pacific Rivers Council and Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) deem Homo sapiens, like trout, to be an introduced species in high Sierra watersheds.

Four years after filing a lawsuit centered on the idea that stocked hatchery trout and salmon have ‘deeply hurt’ native trout, salmon and amphibians, in a press release issued today the CBD unsurprisingly judges the California Department of Fish & Game’s final environmental impact report (EIR) to be a failure. But reading the naturally strongly worded press release — and without wading through the legalese of the original lawsuit filing — it seems that the CBD’s goals seems nigh unreachable.

In response to lawsuits brought by the Center for Biological Diversity and Pacific Rivers Council, the California Department of Fish and Game has released a final environmental impact report analyzing the impacts of stocking of hatchery trout and salmon on native species, including native trout and salmon and amphibians deeply hurt by a century of planting of millions of hatchery fish.

An EIR going back 100 years? We’re all for protecting the environment, but isn’t that reaching a bit much?

The CBD’s approach as perpetuates the piecemeal attempts to save salmon citing a federal study then blowing past the comment about habit quality to focus on hatchery fish.

One federal study concluded that the “longstanding and ongoing degradation of freshwater and estuarine habitats and the subsequent heavy reliance on hatchery production were also likely contributors to the collapse” of salmon stocks. The state’s new report does not propose any specific mitigations to address the impacts of hatchery fish on native salmon stocks.

For catch and release fisherman, the original concept of the lawsuit could have been interpreted as a way to protect wild trout populations from their hatchery cousins. And while the yellow legged treefrog was the poster amphibian for the CBD lawsuit, the lawsuit encompasses 36 ‘imperiled’ species in 47 streams, rivers and lakes. It’s not hard to remember the last time a fisherman bragged about that unarmored threespine stickleback or hard head minnow. It didn’t.

The pullback in DFG stocking could easily amplify the current economic slump in communities that have benefited from stocking. It’s ironic that on the same day of the CBD published its press release that Alpine County’s Markleeville was used as an example in the aforementioned San Francisco Chronicle article regarding the economic reality in rural California communities.

Markleeville is a jumping off point for a good many fishable streams, rivers and lakes, some stocked and some not. The Chronicle covered the community’s hardship from an economic standpoint. Back in November, the Sacramento Bee reported on Markleeville’s response to the elimination of Alpine County lakes and streams from the DFG stocking list:

So when the state Department of Fish and Game this week released a list of lakes and streams that won’t be stocked with fish until at least 2010, it landed in Alpine County with a thud. “These waters are our economy,” said Skip Veatch, an Alpine County supervisor and its former sheriff. “If they are not populated our economy is going to go down the drain.”

And a blogger for Bakersfield.com reported on the dramatic and immediate impact of the Dec. 30, 2008, compromise on stocking that prevented stocking of fish in water that held certain “species of concern.” That meant no fish for a section of the Kern River.

So stocking in the Kern ended a year ago this month.

There was no notice, nothing,” Donna James, who with her husband runs Camp James on the Kern River near Kernville, said. Almost overnight, she said, fishing dried up — and then so did her business.

Some businesses in the Kern River Valley saw as much as a 40 percent decline, said Jim Hunt, former president of the Friends of the Hatchery, the Kern River hatchery that farms the rainbow trout Fish and Game uses to stock the river.

I’ll admit to periodically enjoying some waters that regularly used to receive hatchery trout, particularly when snow blocks routes to high Sierra streams. I’m also all for easing pressure on existing wild and native trout populations. However, in my opinion, Noah Greenwald, endangered species program director at the Center, misses the mark himself when it comes to the recreational aspects of fishing.

Fish and Game has missed the mark with this review, which fails to consider alternatives that better meet their mission to conserve native wildlife,” said Greenwald. “On top of that, it’s questionable whether the current fish-stocking program effectively provides fish for recreation or commercial purposes.”

In my small world there are two types of fishermen: those who catch and release, and those who don’t. For the latter, hatchery trout tend satisfy their ‘recreational purposes.’ So, without an ‘appropriate’ level of stocking, am I wrong to worry that fishermen who want to keep their catch might horn in on waters previously left to the eccentric and lone fly fisherman?

Where’s wise Solomon when you need him?


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Mother Nature wants us to fish

On the heels of the old-is-new-again “wild salmon” movement comes the rediscovery of “natural hooks.” It appears that Mother Nature wants us to fish.

On the Juneau Empire (Alaska) newspaper’s JuneauEmpire.com, an interesting little article travels the West to tell the tale of a Dr. Bob Bosworth, a retired physician and fly fisherman living in Denver, Colo., who ties flies on hook-shaped spines plucked from Fish Hook Barrel Cacti growing in Arizona…

Look closely, these are no ordinary flies.

It’s not metal, or wood. Not cast or carved. It’s cactus. And these flies have caught fish.

It’s not metal, or wood. Not cast or carved. It’s cactus. And these flies have caught fish.

One might notice the hand-tied details, the tiny imperfections in the hackle or the individual wrappings of thread. One might even recognize the common imitation stonefly pattern, but it’s unlikely the hook will get a second glance.

It’s an innovation from the tying table of Dr. Bob Bosworth, a retired physician and fly fisherman living in Denver, CO.

And the flies have the local fly fishing club, the Raincountry Flyfishers, talking. Bosworth’s son, Rob, recently presented these flies at a meeting in December. Jaws dropped and the questions came in.

“I’ve been tying flies for over 50 years and I’ve never seen or heard (about) anything like this,” President Tony Soltys said. “I was amazed that someone would do that, and I wanted to know why.”

Soltys wasn’t the only one interested. In fact, at the club’s upcoming meeting, which will be held on Wednesday, Jan. 20, a “tie-off” will determine which club member get to take home one of these “cactus flies.”

Fittingly, their journey began thirty years ago in the southern deserts of Arizona. Bosworth remembers clipping some hook-shaped spines from an aptly named Fish Hook Barrel Cactus growing in the backyard of a friend living in Tucson, Arizona.   Read more…

With these hooks fly fishermen could soon stake out an environmentally friendly high ground. I can see it now…flies tied with natural bird and animal fibers on natural hooks, bamboo rods, all cotton vests…a return to using silk fly lines…then eventually ditch the wading boots for flip-flops and the waders for Speedos.


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getting my winter fly fishing geek on

Occasionally, I’ve been know to get a bit deep into this little hobby called fishing.

It ties well into the touch of Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

The shorter and darker days signal that it’s time to do one of the things you can do when you can’t really go fly fishing: plan. Then let the anticipation set in.

No sooner had I cleaned the gear and started to tie flies for future offerings to fishing gods via streamside branches and brambles, I began planning. To be sure, there will be plenty of weekend fishing trips to the cabin, but since I’m a late bloomer in so far as fly fishing goes, my plan is to orchestrate opportunities for at least one remarkable-than-most outing every year. This year just might have more than most, and at least one is in the books.

Research was conducted. Emails sent back and forth. Phone calls made. The first trip to be set in wet cement won’t be the first of the year, but it will be the first to take me to foreign fly fishing waters.

Mid summer we’ll be on Washingotn’s Puget Sound, not fly fishing, but fishing just the same for salmon with Dad, The Funny Looking Brother, and a group of guys who think they’re brave enough to put up with us.

Then, and this is not to say the salmon charter is an excuse, I was able to fit a guided fly fishing drift trip on the Yakima River into my visit. One if not the only blue ribbon trout waters in the Evergreen State. And maybe, thanks to a fellow fly fisherman’s generosity (a trait not uncommon to the fellowship of fly fishing), I’ll get time in on some water not so far away from the parents’ little bread and breakfast.

The anticipation is almost as exciting as that brought on by expectations surrounding the trip to Alaska almost two years ago.

Time to go. The wife would like a word…something about a credit card statement or something.
Drifting the Yakima River


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why I’ll voluntarily send cash to Sacramento

I know I shouldn’t have been surprised, but after thinking about it the last two weeks, I still am.

Many, if not most, of California’s 210,200 full-time government employees were ordered six months ago to take three furlough days a month. Blame whatever feel-good program or pork barrel project you want for the not-so Golden State’s $63.9 billion in general obligation debt. Standard & Poor lopped the state’s credit rating to A-minus this afternoon. And Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is working to cobble together a state budget that relies on a 15% reduction in state personnel costs through a 5% reduction in salaries and a reduction in workforce…

It’s always good to see a contraction of an already bloated government — but in this mess it doesn’t make sense to not extend the Bay-Delta Sport Fishing Enhancement Stamp (BDSFES) program.

As of January 1, 2010, the Bay Delta Stamp is no longer required for anglers in the Delta. Money collected in past years will still be used to fund projects benefitting sport fishing within the Delta boundaries.

The Bay-Delta Sport Fishing Enhancement Stamp (BDSFES) Program was established in 2004 to benefit Bay-Delta sport fisheries. Exhisting law requires a person to first obtain a BDSFES before sport fishing in the tidal waters of the San Francisco Bay Delta and the mainstem of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers, including major tributaries, below the most downstream dam.

The BDSFES Program has authority to spend approximately $1 million a year on projects that benefit sport fish populations, sport fishing opportunities, and anglers within the stamp’s geographic range. The Department of Fish and Game solicits proejcts for funding annually through the Proposal Solicitation Notice process. The BDSFES Program has funded a wide range of projects including warden overtime for sturgeon poaching, salmon acclimation, sturgeon forensics, fishing access facility improvements, salmon spawning habitat restoration, salmon escapement monitoring, angler surveys, fish tagging programs, and more.

Sure, it saves me $6.30. And yes, the program was set to expire Jan. 1, 2010.

But as I understand it, it was one of the few fees deposited into a separate account within the Fish and Game Preservation Fund. I’m all for money going straight to the DFG and wildlife programs as long as that money can’t be siphoned off to the general fund.

I’d honestly become so accustomed to the BDSFES fee that I accepted it as part of the cost of enjoying the hobby of fly fishing in my state. And who thinks $1 million a year will go very far towards projects benefiting fish in the San Francisco Bay Delta and the mainstem of the Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers and major tributaries? It’s a bit disturbing to spend so little, particularly at a time when those in power ponder pulling more freshwater out of the delta.

As for me, I’ll still be sending an extra fin Sacramento way this year. Voluntarily. To the California Fish and Game Warden Stamp program.

I was already expecting to spend the money anyhow. Here’s hoping fellow California anglers will think the same.

Even with the 30 cent increase in the basic sport fishing license fee, I’ll still be $1.00 ahead of the game.


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my fly fishing resolutions 2010

I sort of figure that the best method to ensure that one keeps New Year’s resolutions is to make them fun, something you want to do. So, here it goes.

1.) Fish more this year.
2.) Carry less in my vest; only the necessary flies, leader, tippet, floatant, forceps and camera. Take the net only if I think I’ll need it.
3.) Spend more time concentrating on the small trout in the small streams at higher elevations, the ones where a cell phone absolutely, positively won’t receive a signal.
4.) Lose more weight that I’d care to fess up to, so I can hike into more of those higher elevation waters.
5.) Teach anyone who asks how to fly fish. Or at least point ‘em in the right direction.
6.) Find rivers or streams, or even stillwater, (and tactics) to fly fish near family in Snohomish County and King County, Wash.
7.) Learn to tie a wider variety of flies. And catch fish with those flies.
8.) Maybe, must maybe, build a fly rod…or at least start to build one. I’m thinking a 1 or 0 weight for those small, high elevation fish.
9.) Spend a bit more time in the Eastern Sierra during the late fall, on the Walker River system.
10.) A perennial favorite: Fish places I haven’t fished before. (Already set up for Eagle Lake.)

All definitely doable.


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would be a heck of a commute

The commute’s too long, but my natural avoidance of moving from the left coast to the right could be breaking down.

Found the below (and attractive) job listing for Orvis today, and I guess that access to fresh maple syrup might somewhat offset winters that come with too much snow.

Product Development Specialist – Rod and Tackle

Location: VT – Sunderland (Corporate Office
Category: Merchandising / Product Management
Shift(s): Days
Position Type: Full Time
Date Posted: 11/13/2009
Relocation Available: Yes

Position Profile: The Rod and Tackle Product Development Specialist will be responsible for the development, growth, and profit of key Orvis fly fishing sub categories of fly rods and fly reels for retail, catalog, web, and wholesale at Orvis. This individual will have an excellent background, knowledge and experience of the outdoor market with solid experience in freshwater and saltwater fly fishing.

Company Interfaces: This position reports directly to the Divisional Merchandising Manager of Rod and Tackle with a strong relationship with the VP of Rod and Tackle. The position will include ongoing interaction with the Fishing Product Development Specialists and Inventory Control Buyers, advertising/ catalog production personnel, quality assurance managers, retail merchandise manager, and the tech specialists in Roanoke.

Key Performance Measurements: Gross profit across mail order, web, dealer, and the retail business for above categories

  • Quality as measured by returns, as well as feedback from customers, sales personnel in retail and wholesale, and the endorsed guide network
  • Cost of goods and sourcing for fly rod rods and fly reels.

Responsibilities:

  • Ownership of the development of fly rods and fly reels for a planned increase in sales and gross margin.
  • Interface with the VP of Manufacturing and development staff at the rod shop to meet product introduction timelines.
  • Ensure quality at all phases in the process and product life.
  • Coordinate testing of all products in way that is consistent with our brand standards.
  • Analysis of the business utilizing our in house systems to monitor sales, gross profit, and establish a vision for where the business has the most potential for growth.
  • Vendor negotiations for costing and implementation of best sources to assure product delivery and quality.
  • Timely processing of product information for appropriate forecast / purchase processing, delivery of photography and rep samples, and effective management of merchandising calendar.

Qualifications:

  • Strong teamwork and organizational skills
  • A strong preference for experience in product development and sourcing in outdoor hardgoods and 3-5 years experience in fly fishing retail
  • Excellent judgment, decision making ability, and analytical skills
  • Solid Fly Fishing knowledge in both fresh and saltwater
  • Must possess excellent communication skills
  • Must be familiar with the Orvis lifestyle
  • Computer skills including Excel and Word
  • Flexible travel required in this position for shows and sourcing
  • College degree preferred

Click here to apply

So, let’s think about this. A job in an office located on the edge of a 377-acre natural black bear habitat, with a small on-site gym, hiking trails, a casting pond, nearby trout streams, and a company cafe. A location that’s truly all about the outdoors. I’ve heard tell that local restaurants close by 9:00 p.m. Gas stations close by 10.

I certainly could get used to fishing after putting in a full day’s work and getting to bed by 10 o’clock.


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tootin’ (my horn)

In yet another example of my unwillingness to leave well enough alone, I’ve launched yet another version (v3.0) of my fly fishing club’s Web site.

I’ll be upfront here; I consider myself somewhere along the line of an adequate webmaster or decent weblackey. And though it didn’t have to be done, it wasn’t all that hard.

This is probably my fifth or sixth redsign of a Web site or blog. Modestly speaking, I think it is by far my best.

The subject of this post, the Diablo Valley Fly Fishermen Web site.

The subject of this post, the Diablo Valley Fly Fishermen Web site.
Wondering why the funky green line at the top of the pages?
Squint and you might just see a resemblance to fly line.

There’s sometimes too much said about creative use of white space, and I could justify its use here with the physical and psychological idea that text needs room to breathe and our brains need this breathing room to absorb the displayed information. I think it just looks good and lends quiet elegance to the design.

Yes, I’ve dropped the “fill every pixel” philosophy to instead trust that even dim intelligent visitors will find their way to the information they seek. A calculated but somewhat sparse placement of photos nicely balances with the content. The PaintShop Pro-aided addition of a plus sign to the attractive 40th anniversary patch easily extends it useful lifetime.

All this is a sly way of saying I wasn’t happy with the design crafted just about a year ago.

A week later, I still like this new design.

We’ll see how I feel in another 51 weeks.


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last hurrah ’09

[singlepic id=746 w=200 h=267 float=right]We’re back. The second annual End of Trout Season Trip is history. And we caught more browns, brookies and rainbows than could rightfully be expected.

It all started late and slow as less adept drivers transformed former automobiles into too many ready-to-be-recycled bits strewn along Hwy 680. We picked up speed through Livermore, grabbed a sandwich dinner in Dublin, then came to a stop in Manteca. Younger son Christopher needed his first look at a Bass Pro Shops store and a few pieces of gear. Eyes suitably glazed over, it was a quick 70 miles to the cabin and an early bed time.

There’s a benefit to regularly falling getting out of bed during the five o’clock hour. It’s that much easier to hit road early when fishing. On the road in the dark, with Christopher asleep and few episodes of “Ask About Fly Fishing” queued up on the iPhone, the 93 miles to the upper East Walker River quickly slipped away.

Mother Nature was nice enough to cooperate, and the weather was exactly as if I had ordered it up…cool, crisp and high-desert clear. I don’t think it was much above 40° and never rose much above 50° on the EW. The nicest surprise is that this would be the first time I would been alone on the East Walker, if for just the first hour.

[singlepic id=745 w=200 h=150 float=left]Once we were bugged up and on the river, the rest of life drifted away. Cast, mend, watch. Repeat. That went on for a total of, oh, maybe ten minutes before the confidence inspiring first strike. That’s the way it was to be all morning. Grand total: twelve browns in three hours. Not a one less than twelve inches long and some stretching to fourteen. Nice fish. All fat, sassy and seemingly ready for winter. There we’re bigger fish around to be sure. In a slower moving, slick surfaced stretch we caught sight of a wake that would do the Lock Ness Monster proud. Big fish to the net or not, it was a great start to the weekend.

Eating lunch on the go, it was south to Tioga Pass Road. We tried a familiar lower stretch of Lee Vining Creek, but most of those fish were holdover stockers that had earned an education over the summer and weren’t having any of what we were selling. So it was onwards and steeply upwards to the upper sections of Lee Vining Creek and other high-mountain creeks, where I know of a few wild populations of brook trout just right for the 3 wt. rod.

It had become a mandate that I visit these little trout. I did so during May, only to find a few fish, and those few fish unwilling to fall for any of my offerings. This time it was to be different.

[singlepic id=747 w=200 h=267 float=right]The air temperature was, at best, in the high thirties, and a stiff wind whipped down off the snow fields. I mentally marked the time: one thirty. ‘Cause I had just walked into what seemed to be one heck of a hatch. Or at least a feeding frenzy. Pods of brook trout, dazzling in their spawning colors, slashed at the surface. Others breached like freshwater whales in miniature. And I could do no wrong with a size 14 Royal Wulff, off which I hung a size 22 “Ghost Midge” of my own design. (Simply tie a tiger midge with gray thread instead of black, with a small flash tail if you’d like.)

I stopped counting at twenty. A number of ten-inch trophies made up for lack of length with brilliant colors. Yes, that’s a trophy fish at 9,990-something feet in the Sierra Nevada mountain range. There’s something amazing about fishing a small, crystal clear mountain creek, no deeper than 12 inches and landing fish after fish. I would have liked to have spent the entire afternoon there. But we had older son Sean to meet and some one hundred-plus miles to go.

Sunday dawned cold and clear again. Soon we were packed up and ready to return to reality home, but not without one last cast or twenty. On the road home there are a few small West Slope streams that feed into Don Pedro Lake; good places to delay our reentry into the world by a few hours. The morning started off slow and Sean wandered downstream. I should have seen the signs. No witnesses. No one to man the net.

It could have been predicted. It was a soft take. Subtle in fact. Muscle memory set the hook. Then all hell broke loose. Apparently a torpedo had attached itself to my line. It accelerated upstream. Three leaps later the fish made the mistake of almost grounding itself in shallow water. Then I could see its back – a big back – break the surface. A short second of indecision preceeded a downstream charge; a charge powerful enough to take me with it. In the end, fifteen minutes later, and 100 feet down stream, a slab of a fish was in the net. Barely. Twenty four inches of rainbow. The biggest trout I’ve landed in moving water. And no witnesses. Only the camera to trust to tell the story.

[singlepic id=752 w=470 h=352]

The rest of the morning was filled with multiple double hook ups as Sean and fished favorite spots side by side. We landed a number of DFG-raised rainbows, with just enough casts required between strikes to keep it interesting. Sean was lucked enough to bring an eighteen incher to hand. I got another good fish of twenty two inches. I also had a repeat of last year. I’d heard years ago that in the fall some wild Don Pedro Lake browns occasionally find their way upstream thanks to spawning urges. This was proven to me to be fact last fall went I landed an eighteen-inch brownie. Got one again this year. Even if it was only ten inches, I’ll count it.

My last hurrah for Trout 2009.

The slideshow:

The gallery:
[nggallery id=65]