July 31^st 08

When I opened the site this morning I was surprised to see a new one up there.  Thanks Sean for all your effort and good work.  I have hopes for an easier site to work with and one that is more user friendly and easy to edit and change.  I am sure that this one will be exactly that.

 

I plan to create a separate site connected to this one that will have more in depth articles and video’s showing many hard to describe techniques like mending in the surf and deep

drift fishing both with salt water flies and with fresh.  I hope to do some steelhead trips this coming fall and winter and perhaps make some video’s that are helpful to others who want to try that kind of fishing for themselves rather than ones focused on catching fish alone. A bit of how too mixed with practical approaches to the situations we all run across. I am wide open to suggestions by the way and appreciate all ideas however small or large.  Perhaps this addition to the mix will be a password site - I am not sure right now but I would like to keep it free of emotional debris.

 

I am pleased that the store is up and working and with the rod orders that many of you have made.  I plan on designing several more new rods in the future for both fresh and salt based on practical fishing needs and I appreciate all of your support.  It has been soothing to my spirit to know that people are willing to look at old problems with new insights to find solutions that are outside of the box of what everybody says or does.   That is where the good ideas are always found not through mimicking the Status Quo but by discovering them and trying them out for yourself. 

 

An aside… not a rant.

 

I have been reading European web sites of late and I find them to be quite different in terms of content from the ones we have here.  They are fishermen focused not manufacturer focused and the innovations and new ideas are always from the fishermen themselves. I was reading one from Wales and I was surprised by one paragraph that was a part of a story about Spanish nymphing techniques.  It said words to this effect.

(Unlike the Americans we are not led by what is sold in the shops or by what the manufactures put out for us to buy.) I found that interesting to read coming from a source so far away because it does put a focus on what we do here to a large extent, which is look to the manufactures to tell us what flies to use, what rods to use, how to cast and where to go and what techniques are popular and must be used. We look to the experts.

He went on to say that most of the flies being used over there and he includes all of Europe, are not sold at all in the shops and are designed and created outside of the industry by fishermen themselves

I find that to be true here in New England also.  The best flies are not manufactured overseas in mass and sold in the fly shops. The popular ones are but not the cutting edge ones.  It is a catch 22 situation.   People trust that the manufacturers are giving them the very best choices that money can buy and they are right.  They are but the innovation in fly design is always grass roots in origin and based on practical solutions to particular fishing problems not general solutions or generic solutions.  Manufacturers cannot be that diverse or specific and so must sell what is popular of lose money.  The whole product line of the fly fishing industry in America is manufacturer generated as of now and that is one of the reasons why everything is so similar in all the shops around the country. I find it interesting to be aware that the flies one chooses to use; if based solely on what everybody says are the best flies are in fact the only ones that are sold in shops.  There is no room for new ideas in that scenario.  Only the flies that get the most press in the advertisements will be carried because they are the ones people will buy.  Same is true with rods and sundries.  This if fine and normal - but - it is interesting to think about why certain flies are popular from a marketing perspective alone - if you want to think about it at all.   New ideas are not welcomed by the industry if they upset the fixed and predictable mass marketing apple cart.  They have to move the stock in house or …Give it away.   They stock what already sells.  Why take a risk if you are controlling the market already?  It just doesn’t make good business sense to take risks with no certain monetary outcome.. It is timid at best and opposes and suppresses new innovative ideas being offered in the marketplace at worst. There is a fundamental truth in what the Europeans are saying about the way things work over here.  I don’t like hearing it but I recognize it even so.

 

I like what the grass roots fishermen come up with.  I am always amazed by how creative and innovative they are when faced with difficult fish. I like the internet because it gives the ordinary fisherman a forum to express ideas and it is not controlled by the internet police. It is a boon to all and I hope it continues to grow in importance as it truly is of the fisherman by the fisherman and for the fisherman and - that is a good idea.

Freedom of expression - an American birthright.

Went trout fishing again to the Farmington. Stayed with Paul Rossman again and fished with the same two fellows I fished with the last time and Denise.

Went way down river the fist day and had a very good time fishing for trout in the middle of July in the daytime and there were no lack of trout. The water was cool even so far downstream fro the trout management area and there was more than enough water flowing to make it interesting and fun. I had thought of fishing the rips at Watch hill this weekend in my boat but decided to take a bus-man’s holiday and enjoy the woods and sweet water and I had a new rod I designed and wanted to try it out and see what it could do. I designed it to be able to cast down to a three weight so I could offer a Salmo Sax in a lighter version that would be suitable for trout and a few other things and it is that and more.

I wanted to see how it would fare as a nymph rod as it is ten and a half feet and has the length and flex to handle long lines and cast to the far side of the river if needed. It casts short and medium and long and loads with a three weight line to boot! It also handles a nine wt line with ease and holds it high in the air with no effort and I have been catching stripers with it for about three weeks. This was its debut with trout and deep nymphing techniques. I am very pleased and am going to do a bit of tweaking but I won’t have to do much. Change a guide here and there and redesign a new reel seat for the fresh water version. I won’t have it ready to sell for a while maybe close to a year but hopefully less. The other thing it does is handle line beyond my hopes and if you have to make a long cast in glass water with a tiny dry it does it with very little effort at all. Long leaders straighten right out. The range is amazing and it also fishes short. I am a bit excited about it.

So, enough about that rod. Except for this. A three to a nine and effortless with both ends and everything in between. 

Where we fished was rocky and cold and slippery as one can imagine. Tough wading and greased cannonballs everywhere and long hikes but well worth the effort. No people either where we fished the first day or that is no small thing. What a great trout river the Farmington actually is over its whole length or at least as far down stream from the management area that I have seen. That is about twenty five miles down maybe a little less. What a gem.

Last night we fished into the darkness up above the management area for fussy trout in glassy water. They were rising in good numbers and were on something that I never discovered but I have a few ideas. I had two nudges and one take but I was dozing and never struck. There were Light Cahill’s hatching and Denise was watching the cedar wax wings eat every one as they left the surface and the swallows were homing in on them both in the air and on the surface. She rescued a couple and walked them to the shore and placed them on the leaves of trees and wished them luck.

I love the not knowing that comes with trout fishing and the challenge of wanting to come back and figure it out the next day or the next week or the next month and I wish that, that river ran through my back yard. I have met a few people that moved there so that it would run through their back yard and I envy them. For many years now I have been saying that I was not old enough yet to enjoy trout fishing the way I would like to do it and have stuck mostly to the salt for about twenty of those years. I am old enough now and I am happy I am still around to savor the real fishing challenges that it offers.
Fly fishing for trout is a perfect way to fly fish.

I am so grateful to may dad for initiating me into it at such a young age. I am also grateful to Denise for the Beaverkill the Esopus, the West branch and the East Branch of the Delaware and the Housatonic and the Willowemoc and the Farmington and soon the Ausable and the upper Conn. 

And, I hope I have enough years left to add many more incredible rivers to this list.

When you have fished a long, long time you notice that your old haunts come back to haunt you. Places and times and memories of fish and ways of fishing that you have not done in decades return and simmer in your unconscious wait to re-emerge again.

Giant tuna you have caught and the fights and the excitement of the first one. Marlin lighting up and crashing a bait so close to the stern that you could touch it if you thought of it at the time but you never do. First trout on a nymph when you were six or seven. First striper on a fly rod when you were with your dad in the boat at five.

Casting a big swimming plug with an eel skin on it and seeing an explosion the size of a Volkswagen beetle engulf it and the feel of that fist run when you were nine or ten.

Endless memories of fishing all night in the bay with your dad for days on end eating crackers and peanut butter and drinking Nehi non-carbonated orange soda and a sandwich now and then. Fishing in the canoe all night for largemouth bass with jitterbugs and crazy crawlers. Abbot Run and the blizzard hatches of light Cahill’s all through May and bluefish at Barrington beach every day all summer long.
Fishing the Hex hatch on the Wood River for years and years all alone and never seeing a soul there after the middle of May. Trolling Flatfish lures for trout on opening day in Wallum Lake and drinking hot chocolate out of a thermos and sandwiches that my mom made. Living at the beach all summer every summer and having my own outboard boat when I was old enough. Eleven years old was old enough then.

Riding my bike with a tackle box and waders and two rods and…
I do not know how I managed to do that all the time but I did.
Stalking Grasshoppers and catching them every time.
Watching a family of mice move along a mouse track with the mother carrying the little ones on her back.
Friends.

So much to remember and remember I do.

Life is sweet.

It has been over a month since I had time to sit and write. It has been frenetic and full.
Been lots of places and fished with lots of people. Sean Ransom has been working on the web site and a new one will be up soon, easier to work with and update and post pictures and all the rest of the modern improvements. 

Stripers are everywhere and people are catching them. The Atlantic Herring are on the move out of the harbors and the blues and the bass are paying close attention. 
The ocean front is fishing well and there are bass in the waves. The upper regions of the salt rivers are full of fish and some of the ponds are a little slow unless you know where to look. The crabs have probably done the mating thing already and the little 1/8 to 1/ 4” tiny ones will be around soon and the bass will be feeding on them making everyone crazy. The ocean is an amazing place.

I have been fishing a lot with three weights and have had no problems landing fish quickly. It is actually more in keeping with the size of school bass to catch them on lighter gear and learn how to fight fish yourself rather than horsing them in with heavier equipment if conditions allow for their use. People who dismiss light gear as too light and hard on the fish could learn how to fight fish rather than grouse about it. It is the person’s lack of fish fighting skill that makes the fight last too long not the equipment in almost every case. Five weights are great striper rods. They are strong enough to cast nine weight lines or heavier easily and can handle school bass and even larger fish with grace and the fish is not overpowered. It is a fair fight because it is balanced. 
Sometime you lose. 
That can be a good thing.

It is summer and a great time to fish for stripers that are not moving around but hanging out at home. We are in between moons so many places with soft current will be holding fish that are focused on bait that is staging to move on the next moon. This is normal and occurs near and on the half moons every month. The bait changes but the pattern is the same if you can see it and work with it. Not everyone can but some can and do it with great success. There are squid around and sand eels and the silversides are moving down from the upper bay. Lots going on and we have big menhaden to keep the bigger fish content to graze on the schools and hang out for an extended time. For some people the fishing is easy, bait guys are having a ball.

There are fish to be caught by fly rodders along the rocky shorelines and the cliffs in Newport and Narragansett. This is a great time to try that as the fish are there and willing and they are close and content to stay there for a while.

Fish the little pockets of white water from the waves and the small rip currents that flow out between the rocks. It is much like fishing in pocket water in a trout river. Short casts and short swings through the places where a fish may be hunting for its next meal whether that is a baitfish, a shrimp or a little lobster or crab. Fish along the rocks are opportunists at this time of the year. There are some very big fish in the rocks right now.
In years past the month of July was always a time to fish the beaches and rocks along the ocean front. The bay is great and full of fish but July was a time to explore the open surf again and poke along finding little pods of fish and sometime vast numbers of them that were unmolested and wouldn’t be until September came and the hoards of surf fishermen arrived. The fish are there but few people go and fish for them. I have caught more weakfish doing that along the sand beaches at night the last few years than in any other way.

It is a great time to find perfect solitude along the shore when fishing