The Fly Fisherman's Christmas List 2022 Edition

 

This year's list is inspired by literary license. Thus, the Two Hearted River.

Ernie didn't actually write about the Two Hearted. He wrote about the Fox River; but, Two Hearted sounds so much better in print.

So, our annual gift recommendations. I hope everyone has emerged on the far side of the Covid scourge relatively unscathed.

Oh - Fox River: 

 Accuracy counts but in literature, it counts for bupkis.

The list:

10) Fingerless Wool Gloves ( Wool ). 

Stretching the fishing season means cold hands. The issue is one of comfort and functionality. Full gloves are useless to a fly fisherman because: knots. Going gloveless means the cool fall or early spring breeze amplifies the evaporation and function is lost to cold paralysis. Fingerless gloves in wool retain heat in an inadvertent wetting, protect the paws from cold, and provide for twisting tippet into rudimentary knots.

These are a gift of  care, concern, and thoughtfulness.  Maybe they aren't quite right for the brother-in-law.

9) Amazon Kindle Paperwhite ( Paperwhite ).

There is a lot of time in camp, on the bank, and generally waiting about in this game. There's more of it than you think depending on your fishing partners. ( Detour for a new battery)

While waiting on the brother-in-law, wouldn't it be nice to be able to do a bit of reading?  Well, he'll feel the same when subjected to your random delay events.

Teddy had his pigskin library.  With the paperwhite, you are gifting someone their own version. I upgraded in 2021 to the new version as my original kindle of nearly ten years of age was left in a lovely home at Sun West Ranch as I fished the Madison. 

8) Bertucci Field Watch ( Bertucci ).

My "big iron" Breitling is on the table in front of me but on my wrist? My field watch. I don't worry about dings, loss, immersion. It's handy in the kitchen as well. Help the fisherman in your life make dinner on time: field watch.

7) Darn Tough Over-the-Calf Wool Socks ( Socks ).

I'm known for a total disdain of cold, wet feet. Comfort is itself a holiday gift. Try the Paul Bunyan variant. 

When your buddies go on their Alaska steelheading adventure, they'll thank you!

6) Stormy Kromer Choppers ( Mitts ).

For fishing? Sure. Brushing the snow off your vehicle or worse - your vehicle's door frame - so the snow doesn't fall onto the driver's seat requires a certain attention to detail. Oh - you've seen your buddy use an industrial ice scraper and sweeper combo? Where does he keep it? 

Inside the SUV.

Yep, so he brushes the snow off with his now wet, bare, cold hand to get to the ice scraper. If he had these choppers, that wouldn't happen! 

These are excellent for all manner of winter chores. They look cool. Most of all, glove liners can be worn inside so if a dexterous task is required, a chopper can be removed easily.

Mitts allow the fingers to heat their neighbors. Gloves do not. 

Floridians need not apply.

5) Solo Stove Titan and Pot ( Solo ).

Hot coffee. Hot soup. Tortellini. The gift of a Solo stove provides a light field expedient relief that is especially welcome on the bank during the border season.

Who knows, your buddy might even see fit to make a cup for you at the campsite early one summer morning! 

The solo stove seriously works. 

4) Rubik's Cube ( Rubik ).

The Rubik's Cube represents the budget-minded gift this season. We've covered that there is a lot of sitting and waiting in this game (for the hatch, the weather, the brother-in-law). What else do you expect a fellow to do? 

Maybe your buddy doesn't read. Hopefully we're not discussing your husband but there's no accounting for taste. In the event of the willfully ignorant in your life: try the cube. 

It's a great campsite party favor and if your buddy/husband/red-headed step-child masters the thing, well there's that, too.

3) Hand Tied Flies from your own vise.

This is always a hit. You know the waters. Your know the flies. Boxes run less than $10 for six of them and flies just thrown inside would be fine! It's the gift that counts. 

I have a renegade tied by my buddy Scott at a session in 2019 here on the desk in front of me right now. I haven't seen him since the pandemic which coincided with his relocation to a town only twenty miles away. Might as well have been twenty-thousand miles away.

The point is: flies tied by someone you know have a meaning beyond the value of imitation.

 2) A book of rare value.

The North Country Fly: Yorkshire's Soft Hackle Tradition by Robert L.Smith. ( Smith ).

Trout Spey & the Art of the Swing by Steve Bird ( Bird ).

Matching Major Eastern Hatches: New Patterns for Selective Trout by Henry Ramsay ( Ramsay ).

All of the above texts are wonderful. I'll let you decide on your own if trout are "selective" because I don't talk politics, religion, or trout selectiveness with friends.

Smith and Bird have volumes whose images are stunning in their clarity and depiction of the intent of the author beyond the mere utility of illustration. The lucky recipient will find themselves returning to the volumes year after year for the rest of their fishing careers.

Ramsay? The insects one needs to know are clearly depicted though I wish the view presented was from the trout's perspective: bottom-side up. I don't know why editors miss this fact. Probably, they are not on the stream enough.

1) Single Malt Scotch Old Enough to Vote.

I don't include a link because if you have a fisherman in your life, you know where to go to buy booze.

Which scotch?

Glenfiddich 18, Glenmorangie 18,  or Dalmore 18 (ouch ...that'll leave a mark) are wonderful. No fly fisherman would turn up a nose at any of these. 

If the brother-in-law offers to drive on your trips up north? You owe him one of these.

If the brother-in-law has a cabin in the north country you can use anytime you ask? You owe him one of these.

If the brother-in-law's cabin is steps from a trout stream? Move on up the the 21 year-old stuff. It'll prove a bargain in the end.

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year, and tight lines for all of us in the days to come.

Dean, I miss you buddy.

Prost.

Not Dead Yet

 Above: a copyright free image from the Art Institute of Chicago.

 

Part of the social distancing policy for we hermits involves social invisibility. 

Since the last post, I've been fishing the Madison in Montana, and have been up north in Michigan camping and fishing a dozen times. Somehow, posting the trivial narrative of my adventures seems meaningless.

 

I am alive, tying flies, and planning for next year. 

 

I have also started some pursuits in astrophotography as trout and stars both like clean air in remote locations away from a population, its lights, and its pollution of all sorts.

 

This year my Christmas gift giving list only includes  only vaccinations (shingles, pneumonia, flu, covid I & II, and a booster). Give the whole set. Keep your fishing partners alive.

Until the spring sunshine sees us all in better states of mind and health ...

Happy Holidays.

Trout Family

 

At left, my trout family. Picture courtesy the Lovely Courtney.

We make our own way upstream. We look for cooler water. We try to find a place with cover and food.

These are my trout guys. On the right: Big Bear. Next: The Senator. Third from the right is Mike who is part steelhead whisperer. Third from the left is his brother Mobes whose wedding we had the pleasure of attending this weekend. (Welcome Debs). The guy wearing the tablecloth from an Italian restaurant is the Wilson. I'm the guy on the left who minutes before shed his sport coat due to the 85% humidity and spousal dancing obligations.

We're out of uniform being reasonably cleaned-up,  mostly shaved or at least trimmed, questionably sober, and sans waders.

It is important to have  trout family. It's important to make family if yours turns out to be a festering bowl of shit. It's a biological luck of the draw if you leave it to nature. These folks have removed the random affair and made family from active choice. We're chosen family.

So, We're preparing for outings. We're talking trout. We're pondering gear we don't need and waters we've read about.

Next up: Montana for me. For the group? Maybe Washington. Maybe Alaska.  We talked NakNek rainbows. We talked Situk steelhead. We talked other places. We'll see.

We're planning trips. I hope you are too.

Prost.

 

 

Trout Camping Summer Style

 

At left, my walleye fishing buddy Mike (takes me into Canada with him when Canada is open)  in front of the Nemo Dark Timber tent we used for four nights here this past week up on the Au Sable outside of Grayling, Michigan.

There are no grayling in Grayling, Michigan anymore. Just wanted to clear that up.

Trout? Yes. Grayling? No.

Mike fishing the Holy Waters section of the Au Sable mainstream down from Guides' Rest against a lovely batch of iris. They're not native but they are lovely.

So, we had bluebird days without a cloud (trout hate bright days without clouds) and cool nights (37 Wednesday night by the tent thermometer before dawn). 

 It was a Michigan summer outing. We had warm. We had cool. There were rumours of Drakes and Hex. There was a dramatic cool down in the evening we went hexing and ...no hexing. In fact, the river died about ten minutes before sunset that night and stayed that way for over an hour growing cooler and less hex-like.

We caught fish. Nothing big ... but fish.

We ran into poachers on the Black taking fish on chicken parts in a john-boat and putting all of the catch into a cooler. We didn't realize what they were doing until they slid the boat past us over gravel then proceeded to float a spring hole and vacuum the fish out indiscriminately. They were locals. They were in camo, And, I didn't want to get shot. It happens.

We ate well.

Mike cooking double Iowa chops one evening.

We fished the Mainstream Holy Waters, the Mason Tract South Branch Au Sable, the North Branch Au Sable, The Black, The Deward Tract Manistee, and the mainstream Manistee below Goose Creek Horse Camp (thanks, Lauren!).

 We ran a dry camp. No alcohol of any sort consumed. No damage done there.

We engaged in first class bushwacking without breaking any rods. We caught fish on size 18 soft hackles and size 14 caddis as well as a few more specialized flies and micro-streamers.

It was a good outing and all worked well. 

 We fell asleep in the Nemo Stargazer chairs reviewed in the preceding post so I have to say they passed a "trout fishing" comfort test.

Obligations keep me from the "trout belt" of Michigan until August. My next big outing will be the Madison River at Sun West during July. Lifetime trip, I think. I'll let you know.

Prost.

 

Nemo Stargazer Chair for Camp

 

Waiting. We spend a lot of time at trout camps waiting. Watching. Thinking. Talking. 

Sure we fish; but, for every hour on the stream is an hour in the darkness, the too bright, the too early, the too late. We're sitting through those times.

I can't fix your chronic wind knots or mis-matched hatch hopes (and aren't all our fly choices merely hopes unrealized from the other parts of our lives?). I can fix your sitting and waiting.

We all have 1960's era webbed chairs or the Wal-Mart special collapsible numbers with the poor support and finger-pinching expanding set-up.

I give you: The Nemo Stargazer.

This chair solves your problems as you and your buddies are solving the world's own. Or the trout's. Or the reason why that 1990's era F-150's  electronic ignition is a P.O.S.

I digress.

The Nemo Stargazer: a super-comfortable chair able to double as a suitable recliner for trout-camp naps. Works on your deck. Works on a bank. Works at the campground. It even works at the community ice cream social and symphony band concert (I have a great many professors in my small town including a sizable number from the faculty of the music department of Giant University next door - so our community band approaches the level of the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields). 

But, the chair.

It is a rocker due to its suspended nature. It is sturdy like a fine shovel. It is supportive (back patient here so I know supportive) and comfortable all at the same time. It reclines to about a 140 degree position with a headrest secured by velcro which is easy to reposition.

Stargazing? Sure. Trout napping? That too.

It isn't too low, too high, nor does the band under your thighs cut into you after an hour of discourse.

You should buy one. Hey, they're way cheaper than that rod you have in the arsenal which your rarely fish. How many "rods I don't use" do you need, anyway? You have twice that number.

Pictures:

Angled view on my deck.

Recline-o-matic webbing strap. The mechanism works like a Barcalounger: you just push back or sit up and the chair adjusts. It is stable in the whole range of motion.

The frame: shock-corded poles (think tent) of heavy aluminum and the cross-piece brackets are milled aluminum. Tougher than a Bougle. Yep, I'll stand by that statement.

The suspension clips with a positive locking mechanism. The chair does not "slip off" the stand in use. Good thing, that.

You'd be sound asleep if it did slip off so, all's the better.

The chair/net/basket. It's a one-piece meash chair with embedded supports for grab handles (sit/stand for old guys) and two continuous vertical back support rods.

 

 

 

 

 

Last picture, I promise. Freestanding on my deck in maybe better light.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The only complaint: maybe could want a footstool. Well, you have a cooler in the truck, don't you? It isn't doing any good in there. Pull it out, perch up, and enjoy trout bliss.

You might need to set an alarm so you get up and go check the hatch. Just sayin'.

Nemo Stargazer 

Prost.

Odd Sping

 

My buddy on the water last Saturday. We fished the Upper Manistee (Deward) during a too bright day.

It started well. We waited for shadows and had a couple fish hit. Then, nothing.

It has been very cool then quite hot for us. We had 88 degrees last weekend. Sleep on top of the bag type weather.  There is a theory that while the bugs have caught on, the trout lag and the unusually bright skies are not helping.

We fished the evening hatch on the Au Sable until well after dark. We landed rough fish. No trout.

Fun though.

George: my 3 man Marmot Tungsten.  My buddy has the same and pitched it Saturday night.

Solid tent.

Interior with a low cot.

Tarp practice. Haven't rigged a shelter for a while but this did indeed work well. Those heavy poles are especially nice to prop out the wings. Stood up to a bit of a blow before dawn on Saturday.

The holiday weekend is coming which to me means project time. Back to the rivers in June.

Prost.

In the Swing

 

The Deward Tract on the Manistee River last weekend.

It was a beautiful weekend but the nights were very cold. I slept in my Canadian 0 degree bag with a fleece over bag. Indeed, I was toasty but for the tip on my nose.

I had a great weekend camping and fishing even if the fish were more inclined to nymphs than I was. My faith lay in the soft hackle and the Leisenring Lift. Alas, it was not enough.

One must embrace one's beliefs without reservation and I've never been sufficiently dogmatic to will things to happen.

Some flies I worked over this wonderful water:

A Coachman style soft hackle which usually rouses brookies.  Partridge hackle, silk in scarlet and herl.

Here, a proven winner.

I believe this is Pearsall's purple (dwindling supply) but my color vision has left me. If I'm wrong, apologies. I believe this is one of the grouse variants tied thanks to Brian giving me one of his wonderful skins.

Ah, we are going old old school here....

The cock-y-bondu tied in a simple style. Furnace hackle and herl on a Partridge heavy soft-hackle hook I bought a few years back at Dette Flies in New York.

Anyway, I had an awesome weekend despite the cold and the uncooperative trout. The bugs were out. I had plenty of bugs: BWOs, a few Hendrickson, a smattering of caddis.

Below, camp pictures. The bear tent.

 

The new cookstove which made awesome chili ( hey, when faced with a cold night chili is a welcome meal).

This is a Camp Chef Everest stove (the 2x model) which is a beast. Built like a tank it generates an impressive 20K BTU that will boil coffee toot-sweet. What makes it special? Low low simmer where the burner really does hold the flame. 

Eggs over easy are no effort at all on this thing.  If you cook instead of boil: get this stove (but don't pack it in ... heavy).

Below: a panorama. Michigan did some selective harvest forestry (aka clear-cut)  on ground next to Canoe Harbor campground. This was a wonderful wooded campsite four years ago but today is less than a stump farm. It will come back but not for a bit. The breeze will however keep the bugs down!

I'm big on field hygiene (thanks, Col. Wiley) and here hanging is my Sunday morning wash basin.

This is the ice off the top of the water. Froze up nicely. 

Bracing!

Lastly, two pictures of joy. 

A Hardy perfect sized 3 1/4" trout in gunmetal on a McKellip M84.

Great rod, Mike!

Nice reel, John. Thanks for the sponsorship for this model.

A marsh marigold.

And what looks back at me from the mirrors all too often.

Maybe I'll see you next weekend -- on the water.

Prost.