Streamer Dreamer, Return of Gear Porn

Thinking of going after those winter pigs?  Thinking of all those problems you had this year getting into position against banks, dead-fall, swift water?

Thinking trout spey?

Look. I know trout spey is the "hot" business. I know it is our fly fishing equivalent of chasing fireflies on a summer evening when you are six. I know technology does not solve problems.

Wait.

I have a Winston Boron IIIx 4wt. I have Wulff triangle taper lines (roll cast machines). I use Wotton SLF dubing.

Ok, maybe technology can contribute to the on-the-water experience. It isn't a substitute for competence but then, my mechanic uses more than a pair of vise grips and a hammer most days.

OPST: Olympic Peninsula Skagit Tactics.

OPST home.

These guys have micro-heads that seem to work for trout guys. Yea, I know.

"Heads" for "trout guys."

When did those words start coming together in a sentence?

I've spent time here these past four years improving my casting. I started using single-handed Spey techniques and found joy. Water I could access grew. Success on the water grew. Frequently, I could fish where I wanted instead of where the river conditions dictated.

I fish Michigan brush-piles -- er, rivers -- and not Colorado meadow streams.

Fast water. Deep water. Runs where I cannot get good footing (slippery clay). High banks. High banks with leaning brushy vegetation. These are all still problems.

I do think there is something that can help: OPST micro-skagit heads.

I'm going to try them. I'll let you know.

I'm buying several heads. I'll fish them on my fours (epoxy+boron and fiberglass), my fives (graphite, glass, and Hardy's epoxy and silica), and a big five/six (glass).  I won't use it on my cane. My collection I small (2) and I've protective of these bits of grass.

I do use a three frequently; but, I don't really need to change anything for the water on which I cast the three. It's fine as it is. YMMV.

I'll report. The super short head is attractive. 2018 might be a year of the swing -- streamers and soft-hackle teams. Still playing with that. Never too early to get a jump on next year.

I need a new seven.

I have two Sage sevens and both are two-piece rods -- wait, gave one away [ Trident ] and ... Look, I don't like graphite in two-piece. Seems hideously impractical. It's graphite, for dog's sake. It isn't anything like cane. Cut. It. Up.

Questions? I found a fellow to help answer some of them. Oliver Sutro seems to cover the basics quite nicely.

Listen for yourself.

Prost

Fly Fishing Dollars, and Sense

Frederic Halford at left tying flies.

Public domain image hosted on wikicommons. Some sort of attribution ought to go to Mike Cline who is listed as the author. I'm not sure Mr. Cline is the original photographer but I'm happy to have the public domain image to use.

It's the season of shopping. 

They'll no doubt be plenty of chances to acquire fine tackle and other gear during the next six weeks. I have no less then five "fantastic blow out deals" in my email bin now.

Careful, anglers. Careful.

There's a lot of money to be spent in this pursuit. Unfortunately, damn little of your money actually does that much from the trout's perspective.

Yes, that's coming from a man who has bought a couple rods a year for the last half-dozen years.

I've a nice stout 4/5 piece of split cane that Chris Lantzy sold me out of his "ready bin" this spring. I'll post the review here but I've spent more on a dinner this year than I gave Chris for the rod and the rod is a charmer. The point being is that great gear -- meaning gear we can effectively use on the stream -- isn't necessarily expensive gear.

I like SA System One click-and-pawl reels. You can find them for less than fifty bucks with a spare spool (Got a whole collection of spare spools. Easier just buy a whole new reel than fumble with a bunch of spools.) I like my Galvan Brookie too and a I gave a lot more than fifty bucks for it.

To the trout, which is better? The Brookie reel holds a three weight Wulff TT line that can roll cast the skin off a cat. (Catgut reference. No actual cats skinned in the writing of this bog entry). My usual SA has a five weight Wulff TT line.

Now, both reels throw the same class of line just fine. I could carefully buy a half-dozen SA Ones for what I gave for the Brookie and that I bought on a brother-in-law deal from my fly shop owner. Dirk is a soft touch about reels. Don't let that get around.

The point is this: good gear isn't expensive. There is fine inexpensive gear that will catch trout all season long. Trout gear isn't scotch.

Cheap scotch is seldom any good. Once you get old enough tmmo like a decent scotch, there's no such thing as a cheap bottle.

What can you spend money on here in "sale" season?

Decent boots. If they're on sale, buy a good pair. Pinched feet and hammer toes scrunched into a neoprene vise ruin a day faster than anything. I like the old "Centurion" style for cobble bottoms but for hiking-in they're just brutal. We've little cobble here in Michigan and I'm looking hard at something lighter. Once upon a time I used Chuck Taylor high tops with felt I cut and epoxied. Those days are gone.

Lighter boots make the day easier. Consider it.

A new line. Yes, I make fun of Airflo Super-Dri Bandit lines. No, I won't use one. However, finding a line you like at a discount to new is probably a good deal. Haven't bought a line in three years? Haven't washed your line in that time? Might consider a new line. Your old line sucks (water). The finish on your line breaks down with age and use.  The line becomes less a precision instrument. If you're throwing water on the backcast, you are seriously in need of a new floating line.

A Tackle Buddy spinner holder. Yes, this comes from the walleye world where old guys fish with pre-spliced and tied spinner rigs of 30", 45" or even 60" lengths. These hard plastic and rubber devices are little more than waterproof paper towel rolls that prove incredibly convenient to hold pre-tied dropper rigs.(Look here ). When the sun goes down and you need to re-tie, having one of these pre-spun with half a dozen dropper rigs you can splice-in with a surgeon's knot is the difference between catching and swearing for half-an-hour. It'll fit in your bag and for sawbuck, it's a bargain.

There's no fun in packing out because you can't see to tie a knot.

A flask. Look, you've got your priorities. I've got mine.

A decent whiskey. My priorities are working overtime.

That flask needs something more than Jack Daniels. Ditch that domestic bourbon and get some decent Irish Whiskey (which means Bushmills -- the oldest continuously operating distillery in the world, thank you very much). If you grow-up and discover some actual taste buds, a scotch old enough to vote is a nice treat but we're talking bargains here ... and that scotch won't be.

If you're an occasional angler on the water a half-dozen times a year, don't be cheap with your beverage. A nice whiskey travels well and goes down fine after that trophy trout you'll land. Trout have taste and class. They've no proven affinity for Old Milwaukee Light.

New Tippet. I know half of you out there in Troutland are using three year old tippet. I know it. That stuff gets brittle. Don't hoard tippet. Buy it as you need it, seasonally. Now counts as "next season."

A pipe. Now, I'm a cigar man and have been since before I could buy a drink. I had a locker on Fifth Avenue for over twenty years (my tobacconist moved and thus no more locker). I have a weakness for women I cannot afford, scotch whiskey I shouldn't afford, and cigars I shouldn't be allowed to to afford. I still love them all.

However, that cigar will ruin a line or leader if the two should meet. Yes, that's the same advice I give to friends seeing the other woman: let the two meet and it'll ruin your day. My close friends are old enough to be past the stage of infidelity. They cannot afford any other ex-wives.

You'll be sitting on the bank watching the river at some point next year. Hopefully, you'll be doing that a great deal. A pipe is a safer alternative to the cigar. I save cigars for around the campfire or on my deck. The pipe is the field implement of choice. Peterson makes a nice product that won't break the bank.

A Decent Set of Compact Field Glasses. Now, I know there's always too much stuff in the sidebag or the vest. I know it. However, you'll be better served  "glassing" the water than your present "squint and search" method allows. The fish you miss could be because you aren't looking before fishing or you aren't looking well enough at the water you intend to cover.

There's also the utility of looking at all the lovely birdies. (Obscure Missouri Breaks reference but I've a weakness for killers and Brando plays a good one). Seriously, a pair of waterproof compact binoculars good enough for glassing the water will run under $40. More seeing = more catching.

Never take anything on the water whose loss will pain you something sore.

Trout are heartbreakers. Don't give 'em extra chances by overspending on gear.

Prost.

... Foreign and Domestic

Brook trout, left. Public domain image hosted on wikicommons.

When I think of all the trouble I've caused -- both foreign and domestic -- I am hard pressed to associate any of it with time on a trout stream.

So, following the popular technique of citing a carefully chosen specific event then generalizing its outcome to all manner of "logical certainties" I am here to suggest trout fishing will save the American political system.

Think of it yourself. How much trouble do you really cause when you are in a stream? Really?

If all our politicians spent fifteen percent of their terms on a trout stream, they'd cause fifteen percent less havoc.

Why, go for broke and put them out with a rod in hand for fifty percent of their allotted time in office.

One day in congress means one obligatory day fishing.

There'd be a lot less Mickey Mouse and a lot more attention on habitat maintenance and improvement projects. Maybe there'd be some legislation about egregious fly line proliferation, too.

Okay, okay. I'm not really that bigoted. I respect another angler's right to buy a line called "Super-Dri Bandit" if they want to. I will however make fun of them.

Endlessly.

Trout: save the fish, save the vote.

Look - it's a better platform than anyone else has going right now.

Prost.

The Trout Industrial Complex

AT left, a copyright-free image from wikicommons thanks to the Queensland State Archives.

From the film The Magnificent Seven, screenplay by William Roberts:

If God didn't want them sheared, he would not have made them sheep.

Baaaa.

Hello lambs.

I tell you here in these pages that you are being mislead, deceived, and lied to.

The Trout Industrial Complex is no different from the automotive industry, the consumer product industry, even the durable goods industry.

We miss the label "brighter, whiter" or the old salt "new and improved" or my favorite "new for 1958." That's about the only difference.

When you are a public company and you have investors who are interested in growth, as a CEO you have to produce growth. Most common institutional investors are generally loathe to invest in declining markets - those industries whose comprehensive gross revenue number decline year-over-year.

SO, we come to the recreational products industry and the segment near and dear to all of us: fly fishing.

You have noticed the uptick in the frequency at which gear catalogs appear in your mailbox. 

 You go to your local fly shop and see gear and gadgets which your father would not be able to identify. Hell, you might have to ask about some of it yourself.

Worse, you pull up to your favorite stream and there's a suburban in the lot covered - and I mean covered - with manufacturer's stickers like some 70's era Winston Cup stock-car and you don't recognize most of them.

You're being "marketed."

There is the prevailing notion that newer is better. There's the idea that the right gear makes the fishing better because it makes the catching better.

There's the idea that if you are not spending to keep up with the latest gear, well. You're a second-hand Joe and maybe ought to consider a different sport because, after all, serious anglers use  a Helios 2 tip-flex 10' 4 wt or, well. I guess dry fly isn't for you.

Guys that make fishing shit generally have to keep selling you new fishing shit, attract new guys to the sport to sell new fishing shit, or advance model/design/styling/label to make your old fishing shit old embarrassing fishing shit so you buy ... new fishing shit.

I know a guide (who doesn't like me at all) whose gear was frequently held together with tape and who can catch more trout off rusty bits on his sun-visor in a tea cup than most of us will catch in a season. He uses an ancient RPL 6wt a bamboo-loving client declared as shit back in the day and gave it to him in lieu of a tip.  He hates the thing. Won't spend money on his own gear, though. He knows that the gear doesn't matter.

You won't find that particular sensibility within a hundred miles of a fly-fishing show, however. Gear "is here."

The guide's an old front-range communist who was just smart enough to keep his mouth shut about it  until some young kid showed up with a recon-cut wearing a painted leather jacket that said "this machine kills communists" on its back.

I'm bitching, so I'll get to the point.

What makes your fishing enjoyable? Not catching - I'm not talking about catching. I'm a fly fisherman. Catching is immaterial.

What makes your day enjoyable?

I like Squadron Leader in a beat-up briar and Glenfiddich old enough to vote.

I like a slow flexing rod that reminds me of a crappy piece of fiberglass I carried around until I crushed the top section in a door for the third time in her life (cabin screen door this time) and she de-laminated for good.

I've got a couple damn fine pieces of fiberglass now. Glass is not dead.

I like warm feet and cool knees. I like enough breeze to keep the worst of the mosquitoes away but not enough to cause my light casting any trouble.

I like the last hour of almost-light. I like the first hour of that, too.

I'm delighted over 8" brookies.

I like a warm beer I forgot about in my bag late in the day. I like a cold beer at 9 AM I'd intended to save for lunch. I love finding hot coffee left in the thermos after lunch.

I like cinnamon jolly ranchers and spicy beef jerky.

I like threading and tying a fly in about fifteen seconds. Doesn't happen nearly enough.

I like hearing my buddies laugh at jokes I didn't hear.

I like fishing so quietly I don't flush the chickadees from streamside brush.

None of this has anything to do with a Sage TXL-F fly rod.

What the duck does that even mean?  TXL-F? Christ, you're not going to shoot down a MIG with the thing. Can we please shit-can the "tactical" naming around here?

Fly fishing is expensive. I'm not going to defend that.

It's a couple hundred dollars to step in the water and another couple hundred to catch your first fish and that's if you've got a buddy who can protect you from the marketing hype of  "might as well buy good gear" when you personally know exactly shit about good gear.

Nobody starts with a Jim Payne or a Bob Summers - and that is good gear. The rest of it is just "ok" gear which frankly, is good enough.

Cheap is usually crap and expensive is usually - well. It's sending someone else's kid to college.

Expensive gear sure isn't more fish than a kid on the bank with a cane pole and worms. It was a long time until my biggest trout was not one caught with worms as a kid. I still haven't caught one bigger in Michigan and I've been here seven years.

The circumstances which make fly fishing fun are the places in which we tend to practice the sport, the times at which we do it, the people we gravitate towards to do it with, and the solitude of standing in cold water waving a stick and largely not catching fish.

I stole a bunch of that sentence from better writers I've read, I'm sure.  They probably aren't surprised or upset, either.

That's part of it.

The new gear, the sponsor labels, the hottest "new" fly - none of that shit in the catalogs or the ads means any more than the pile of crap in your yard from your neighbor's labrador. You knew he was going to shit in your yard the day you saw the puppy out with his kids and you hoped he might turn into a decent duck dog because you could sure use one come November.

I don't have any problem with the cost of solidly built gear that you learn to enjoy. I don't see why a decent rod doesn't have a fifty-year horizon of use. Keep throwing it, and chances are you'll learn to use it just fine.

Don't buy something that makes you hot and sweaty. You'll regret it. Think of having it on your person when it is eighty and sunny (I'm in Michigan. 80 and sunny is now "hot." Yes, I know it isn't hot in Georgia. I lived through a summer stacking hay when we had 30 days in a row over 100 so I know hot, mister. 80 is now hot).

Don't buy gear you have to baby. Don't buy camo anything. Digital camo fly box? Really? Silver - maybe not. Green is good. Go with green.

I spent money this week on a Hardy Marquis reel. Nothing too bad for price  - but it hasn't been made in fifteen years (this one is forty years old) and the gentleman I bought it from wrote me a letter and told me how he'd bought it for a grandson who doesn't fish and now he himself cannot wade any longer and hoped I'd enjoy its use.

New. In. Box.

Leather case. Paperwork. Kid's name in pencil on the bottom.

I'm not sure I know a sadder story right this minute but I'm damn sure that a new Lamson ULA Force SL reel at three times the price will never mean as much as this Marquis I have on my desk.

The Trout Industrial Complex understands exactly shit about "the why." If they did, they'd try to sell you that, too. Maybe packaged like a candy bar.

Try new Redington Solemn Reverence ZV-DNW Mk3 in salted caramel. It'll melt you heart. Casts 70' in a parking lot, too - in case there are any trout hanging out 70' feet away in a parking lot.

Dog knows I've caught a shit-ton of fish there.

Would I like to you, Lambchop?