fishing for words

(and tossing out random thoughts)


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on becoming one of those guys

Opening day of the general trout season in California is this Saturday.

But I won’t be on the water. I will instead sacrifice the first opportunity to be skunked on my favorite stream for the greater good. (Very Vulcan of me, right?)

The first two years after I picked up a fly rod — some seven years ago — I would start preparing for the new trout opener a few weeks after the closing of the previous season.

I do still care about the trout opener. It opens wading access on the west slope of the Sierra usually long before the passes to the eastside are cleared. Being on the water at the earliest legal minute had become tradition. Even back when I was throwing hardware, it wasn’t about filling the freezer; it was simply about being out there, working the rust out of skills unused during the winter. Four seasons ago I accepted the invite of a fellow forum contributor to join him opening day in chasing down backcountry trout. He would provide the four-wheel drive truck, I provided flies. It was a day filled with good friendship, great weather and beautiful country unseen by most. Unfortunately, any trout that may have been in the half dozen streams we visited remained unseen.

The biggest influence in my changed opening day perspective is also one of the bigger rewards that have come with fly fishing. Notwithstanding the excitement of a big Eagle Lake rainbow taking me into my backing, I’ve find an unquantifiable pleasure in helping bring others into the sport. My contributions to the club’s novice fly fishing class aren’t huge, but the enthusiasm imparted by the instructors, including myself visibly, sparks something in the students. The payoff often comes a few weeks or months later, when one of those students, all smiles, presents a photo of the fish caught because of something learned in class.

So, while I’m not retired, but I’ve become one of those guys for whom the trout opener only marks the point in time that most trout water is wide open to fishing. I’m lucky enough to have a place in the Sierra foothills available to me most any time, and I have grown content to head up the week after the opener, often to find welcome solitude on most rivers and streams. I have also taken to the challenge of finding the ‘smarter’ fish left behind after the crowds of opening day.

When I finally do make that first cast for trout this year, it’ll be later, but for good reason.


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on “the movie” and stuff

I was correcting a co-worker who thought “A River Runs Through It” involved the pursuit of bass…

…and after suppressing my laughter, then dispensing a quick education on the differences between bucketmouths and trout; a thought occurred to me. The credits for the movie list more than a dozen categories of fish wranglers. The fish were farm-raised stunt doubles, “harmlessly tethered” and not hooked. So, did these fish earn SAG…um…scale?

Death from above?

I’m not much for bass, likely because bass haven’t had much more to offer me besides more refusals than I care to count…

…now there’s another seventh reason to avoid Peacock Bass, at least in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest. Researchers at the Universidade Federal de Pernambuco have discovered a new species of porcupine that lives in one the country’s most endangered forest ecosystem. It lives in trees. (I don’t know about you, but I have had things fall on me while fishing. Thankfully, nothing alive…yet.) This species joins the six known porcupine species in the region…


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recycling fly fishermen

One of the truly great things about fly fishermen is nearly all of them will join in celebrating any aspect or level of the sport, be it the fish, gear, venue or tactic. There can be some good natured ribbing about one’s choice of Tenkara or pursuit of carp, and while we appreciate the top-of-the-line rods and reels get much of the press, we know that even gear showing the patina of age can get the job done.

There was no better evidence of this than our recent club auction. This is one time that the humblest of gear rubs shoulders with high-end counterparts, where a Sage One rod could be found across the aisle from an old and chipped well-used Pflueger Medalist.

Many of the items, old and new, are donated. Those with that dose of ‘character’ that can only come from service — worn cork grips, dents in metal fly boxes — often find their way from club members’ estates. These items earn appreciative comments and usually find a new home.

Despite a penchant to buy the latest and greatest or the newest must have, fly fishermen seem to be prolific recyclers. That’s pretty awesome.

*And while there’s no denying that their main motivation is to sell new gear, more than a handful of fly shops have programs that facilitate the sale of gear via a store credit. Notwithstanding their ulterior motive, it’s nice to see.


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tie once, pay twice

I’m not the best fly tier. Most of my creations might be ranked as mediocre. I can tie decent flies — some have fooled some pretty crafty wild trout, though hunger might factor into this more than I care to admit. Most importantly, tying my own flies allows me to stock up on patterns I can’t buy in a fly shop. I’m a casual tier, not the crazy old guy who will tie two dozen hopper patterns in a single sitting. With the last kid still at home, I don’t yet have a fly tying room, so I’m relegated to an old TV tray in the corner of the den.

I have read a few fly-tying instruction books, some are pretty good, but aren’t as thorough as they could be. For instance, when I start to tie a fly it goes something like this: select a hook, usually a smaller one about size 20, then drop the hook. If I’m lucky, I find it immediately rather than two days later embedded in my bare foot. I’m thinking my fly tying room will have white tile flooring and a custom desk with magnetic strips inlaid near the edges.

This last weekend I went through the ritual of tying a few dozen flies of the coming trout season in the Sierra Nevadas. I had procrastinated more than ever this year and it was the prodding of the fly fishing club’s auction chairman for donations that finally got me to spend a day at the vise. This auction is held every year and is our single biggest fundraiser. The money raised goes to organizations such as CalTrout, Project Healing Waters, Putah Creek Trout and United Anglers of Casa Grande High School, as well as a club-sponsored scholarship.

The fact that some of these flies would be on public display — with an expectation that other folks might buy them with real money — has always been a good motivator. In the end, I deemed about every other fly worthy of such an honor.

The other, not-so-pretty-flies, ended up in the fly box. I am sure they’ll still fool the fish.

But I can help thinking that I’ll have to buy back the better-looking flies at the auction…


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two birds, one stone

I tend to keep the soapbox tucked away when writing for this modest blog, but sometimes errant thoughts are worth sharing, particularly when they might just benefit all of us while making the most use of federal tax dollars. The following is presented without further editorializing.

Gun Control Proposals Marriage Control Proposals
Require universal background checks for all gun sales, including those by private sellers that currently are exempt. Require universal background checks for all marriages, especially those performed by private Las Vegas chapels.
Limiting ammunition magazines to 10 rounds. Limiting marital arguments to 10 rounds.
Financing programs to train more police officers, first responders and school officials on how to respond to active armed attacks. Financing programs to train more marriage officiants on how to respond to and dissolve ill-advised engagements.
Starting a national safe and responsible gun ownership campaign. Starting a national safe and responsible marriage campaign.
Send a letter from ATF to licensed dealers with guidance on how to facilitate background checks for private sellers. Send a letter from The Library of Congress to licensed marriage facilitators (civil, religious and otherwise) with guidance on how to facilitate background checks AND DNA TESTS for both engaged parties.
Remove barriers that prevent states from reporting information on people prohibited from gun ownership for mental health reasons. Remove barriers that prevent states from reporting information on people prohibited from marriage for mental health reasons.


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what we saw last (few) weeks…

  • Am I wrong to think it more than a bit odd, weird in fact, when a 60-plus-year-old guy ends a conversation with “peace out?”
  • Great, now we have monster goldfish breeding in Lake Tahoe. http://ow.ly/hVpMr #carp #carpocolypse #invasivespecies
  • Yesterday’s long drive to NorCal on Hwy. 5 from Palm Desert showed Lexus has replaced BMW as the brand favored by the more obnoxious drivers.

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dusting off good memories

Just about two weeks ago I awoke to two unfamiliar sights that dusted off old memories. Bright sunshine, a cloudless sky and startlingly green lawns made possible by man’s influence on the course of water in this Southern California desert.

I hadn’t been in Riverside County for more years that I care to count, and this was the first time in a long while that I was visiting the lower half of the state without any plan or itinerary. There was a more mundane reason for this trip, but much of the time it offered a chance to really look around.

There’s always a risk that memories won’t match up with the reality of a place after the passing of decades years. Not this time. Sure, there probably where more people, more cars on the road, and more of those funky strip malls that seem endemic to Southern California, but it was the nature of the place — something that I tend to tune into more than man-made landmarks — that matched my memories.

My viewpoint was a bit muddled…I had spent my early high school years looking east to find Mt. San Jacinto; this trip it was west. But much of the terrain was familiar. The steep escarpments of the San Jacinto and Santa Rosa mountain ranges. The dramatic demarcation between the watered and arid land of the Coachella Valley. The canyons carved over decades by flash floods. Clusters of course native grasses and sparse bushes watched over by the occasional ironwood tree.

A beauty of its own.

A beauty of its own.

High above were the “sky islands” of the mountains. The Palm Springs Aerial Tram took us from a dry canyon (2,643 ft.) to the near alpine conditions surrounding the mountain station at 8,516 ft., where the snow was in the foreground of a view of the vast and dry valley below. This engineering marvel — only the first tower is accessible by road, the others only on foot and by helicopter — passes through five climate zones during its 2.5 mile climb.

Looking out over Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley desert from 8,500 feet.

Looking out over Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley desert from 8,500 feet.

Our drive one day included a stop at one of the big date ranches in Indio, where I was reminded how much I enjoy that fruit. (Those with lower moisture content, thus not sticky, can be good snacks to carry during hunting and fishing…) We also passed the Salton Sea, an ecological oddity that no one seems to know what to do with.

It’s always a risk revisiting a place of the “good ol’ days.” I’d dare say that this trip, and memories it created, were almost as good as those days long gone.

A beauty of its own.
Traveling down Box Canyon Road.
Looking down Box Canyon Road.
At the Forever Marilyn statue in Palm Springs.
Looking up at the route of the Palm Springs Aerial Tram.
Karen and mom at the overlook of the Palm Springs Aerial Tram.
The top station of the Palm Springs Aerial Tram.
Look down on the route of the Palm Springs Aerial Tram.
Looking out over Palm Springs and the Coachella Valley desert from 8,500 feet.
The ridge line at top of Palm Springs Aerial Tram.


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what to do when someone whispers “gumball”

It’s likely that many of you have never seen “The Gumball Rally.” I have. I’m likely one of the few to see it on the silver screen (as a kid). This weekend, I’ll have my own little Gumball Rally.

I can’t say whether my opinion is biased because I saw “The Gumball Rally” before “The Cannonball Run” (1984) and its sequels. But to this day I think “The Gumball Rally” is the best car-centric movies about an illicit coast-to-coast race than any of the Cannonball films.

Sure, it didn’t have A-list stars (it did help move along the careers of Gary Busey as his nutty self and Raul Julia as Italian loverboy and Le Mans winner Franco Bertollini) and one has to get past the initial shock of its 1970s production quality. But it’s a better film.

Gumball Rally Poster“The Gumball Rally” starts in New York. “The Cannonball Run” starts in…Connecticut? Both end up in Los Angeles.

A comparison of all the cars in each film is a wash. However, the lead characters in “The Gumball Rally” (Michael Sarrazin as Michael Bannon and Nicholas Pryor as Professor Samuel Graves) drive an AC Cobra while the protagonists in “The Cannonball Run” (Burt Reynolds as J.J. McClure and Dom DeLuise as Victor Prinzi) drive a souped-up Dodge Tradesman ambulance. Hal Needham and Brock Yates’ actually drove a Tradesman in the actual 1979 race upon which both movies are based, but I’ll take the painfully quick and sexy Cobra any day. The stunt driving by 1960s Cobra racer John Morton lends realism to “The Gumball Rally” and, overall, the cars in “The Gumball Rally” are more beautiful.

If you want stunts, “Cannonball Run” wins. But the scenes of pure speed in “The Gumball Rally” don’t get in the way of funnymen being funny and vice versa.

I love the one liners peppered throughout “The Gumball Rally.” Erstwhile race organizer Michael Bannon: “Some of you won’t make it, but for those of you that do there will be no glory, no headlines. Just a few magic hours flat-out against the red line with no catalytic converter and no 55-mile-per-hour speed limit.” Then there is Raul Julia’s race car driver character’s commentary, with a somewhat corny but appropriate Italian accent, on the rear view mirror: “What’s behind me is not important.”

A final showdown in the L.A. River puts “The Gumball Rally” over the top. (The actors reportedly drove the cars throughout most of the movie, even in the river.)

This Monday I’ll be leaving Palm Desert with my wife, driving a Lincoln Town Car to the San Francisco Bay Area as a “hired driver.” I’ll be Jose from “The Gumball Rally,” the down-on-his-luck mechanic who hired on drive a Rolls-Royce Silver Shadow without telling the owner would be racing cross country, to my wife’s Angie (Jose’s girlfriend).

It’ll be like my own personal Gumball Rally. Except for the high speeds, a paint-peeling sandstorm or trophy.

It’ll only be 500 miles instead of 2,800, but with the right attitude, any road trip can be fun.

( I dedicate this trip to all of my Gumball crew from Perris High School, Class of 1981. It was what I did with you that led to my so-far 27-year career.)


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a not-so-rugged Bass Pro woman

Would a Rugged Eddie Bauer Man or his more “metro” cousin want a Bass Pro Woman?

On the water, particularly from a distance, there’s an unsexy equality brought about by waders that usually don’t fit well, a vest that bulges in all the wrong places and hats that should shelter a small family. Longer hair might be a giveaway, but I’ve met a fair share of more liberal men on the water, so don’t trust that as a sign of gender. It seems this is slowly changing, at least on the waders front.

Bass Pro Lingerie Email

The email.

But yes, in the inbox the other day, that was an email from Bass Pro Shops with a subject line reading, “Shop Our Valentine Lingerie.” Nothing like a pink camisole trimmed in Realtree® camo… (Please, let’s keep the jokes clean.)

The occasions that found me visiting the Manteca, Calif., Bass Pro Shops store, it has only been a because it’s a convenient stop on the drive to the Sierra foothills (and because there aren’t any good, easily accessed fly shops along the route). I only pass by the women’s clothing department on the way to pick up some tippet or leader, and I’ve never seen any lingerie on display, but it’s clear the retailer is taking aim at indoor recreation.

However, I don’t think lingerie will do a great job of wicking away moisture under breathable waders.


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from above the water it’s all conjecture

I remember my first attempts to fool the trout I hoped were there, with doubts that my own brain could conceive of what they were thinking.

That’s the problem with drowning some thread wrapped around a wire, only the result offers a clue that something’s being done right.

Above the waterline trout are thought of as efficient eating machines and for all the bluster about understanding why they do what they do, it’s all observation and anthropomorphic guess work without any true knowing.

I find myself leaning toward acceptance that more often than not I’m only fooling the quarry I hook during a momentary lapse of vigilance.

Recent studies, however, may offer a scientific glimpse into what’s so far only outwardly apparent.

Scientists have just observed a thought swimming through the brain of a live fish, and that thought concerned getting something good to eat.

— via Discovery News, Jan. 31, 2013 (from Current Biology)

Extension of this research could offer real insight.

Makes me wonder if I really want to know what that trout really thinks about my home-tied fly that it just refused.