Burn One Down

It's 4/20. 'Nuff said.

See ya'll tomorrow. I'm gonna hang out with Bob Marley and Cheech for a while. Peace.

The City Skunk

Where I am is probably the most important part of fly fishing for me. There is something about being in the middle of a river in the middle of nowhere surrounded by mountains. My mother called me on Easter and asked if I was going to church. I responded, "Yeah, I'm going fishing." She knows that the rivers are my church and the flow of the streams are my sermons, and in a bit of reverse fortune the river makes its offerings to me in the forms of beautiful trout, although the offering plate often reveals nothing in its bowl. Flyfishing is spiritual, it's pure. I don't have to meet my neighbor unless I want to and I can wear whatever I want.The hymns I choose to sing are generally by Bob (Marley, Dylan or Seger) with a little Creedence thrown in the mix. Instead of going to Macaroni Grill or Luby's, I can sit on a rock and eat a sandwich in silence.

Certain days when you don't have the time to drive three hours to get your spiritual fix, you find the closest thing possible. For me, if it's not a small bluegill pond it is the river that runs right through the city. The shad are running right now and all the rednecks are out trolling and chucking bait from the banks. I decide I really need to go, and I've never caught a shad before so I might as well give it a try.

When I get to the river, I see almost 50 boats and twice as many anglers on the shore with lines in the water. I figured this would be the case so I was not disappointed. The wind was whipping and the air felt arctic. The bank was at a steep decline going down to the river meaning a steep incline looking back. I had to cast at about a 45 degree angle vertically to avoid the rocks behind me, not to mention dodging my shad dart as it whipped by my head being coerced by the wind to take me out.

As I look out at the boats I notice one guy with a flyrod. All the idiots around him are sitting in their boats watching as the lone wand waver hooks up with one silver, shining shad after another. He probably pulled in around eight or nine fish in the 30 minutes I watched him in jealousy and admiration. I needed a boat, no question about it.

I knew my efforts were for not, but was still happy to give it a shot. After a couple hours of fishing and then searching the river for better spots and fishing some more, my friend and I call it a day and realize we can still catch the tail-end of the 4-7 happy hour at a local bar where PBR pints are $1. Into my third tasty Pabst I am assured I made the right decision, and my day was fulfilled. The skunk and the river, the beer and the bar, telling stories with a friend. It was a good day.

Something out of Nothing

I haven't been in the tying game very long and so when you don't have a lot of money you have to slowly build up your supplies. I had a decent amount of materials starting to get built up when my tying world came crashing down. Someone threw away all of my materials. Stupidly I had them in a big paper grocery bag, and so it's not surprising, but I'm still pissed. I had to go get a few things to start all over again.

When I sit down I usually have no idea what I'm going to tie. I just grab some stuff and think about it right then. I think that is a great way to be creative and learn how to use things differently. Anyway, I wanted to tie a couple streamers and all I have to work with is black and white zonker strips, a couple packs of dubbing, thread, and white and yellow marabou. That's it.

So here are three flies I tied with just this material. The first one is called the Heidi Fleiss because it's really easy. One white zonker strip wrapped around the hook and 7-10 1" pieces of peacock tail. That's it. It can be a little rainbow or any kind of fingerling or tiny baitfish.

The next fly is called the Gator. It's nasty looking, has a long tail, and is deadly. The side shot is a yellow gator. It is just yellow marabou tied at the hook shank, then a black zonker strip tied in front of that and then more yellow marabou tied in front of that. I then dubbed some white rabbit fur on right before the bead.

The shot from the back is a white gator with some yellow in it. Same technique, just different color marabou planted. The black zonker strip give is great lateral action and the marabou provides great body and color. Both of these patterns are great for post-rain, off-color water.

More important, I tied these with no materials other than zonker strips and marabou and thread.

A Day in the Park

Saturday Cy and I went to Shenandoah National Park and fished one of the many Brook Trout streams in the park. It was in the mid 50s and overcast; not ideal brookie conditions. We hiked in (a hike that was longer than we anticipated) and headed to the stream. It was a beautiful, small typical mountain stream.

First cast and I was hooked up. A nice, but very small native brookie. Third cast, same result. Cy caught fish as well, but all of our fish combined were caught on nymphs. The water was still a little cold to get the fish to come to the surface. I saw a few insects (Epeorus Pleuralis, I think) but not much was coming off. It was great to get out in the park and fish for brookies again. We each caught a handful and were satisfied. The hike out was brutal in our waders and wading boots. It was not even 60 degrees and were were sweating, and both of us are in good shape.

All in all it was a great day as most any fishing day is. We headed out of the park and went to another stream and caught the evening caddis hatch. It was great to see bugs again. Spring is here!