Fly Tying Uber Geek Alert!!!

Our West Seattle neighbor P. Diddy pushes the envelope to the near genius level…

She won’t make the jump to light speed but the SloughVette is plenty fast.  Stealthy too.

This one’s pal saw the fly first but she jumped on it, leaving him in a puff of mud.

Come to Daddy.

Right in the kissa!

The sprang is almost here… just a few weeks away. About two, if I’m counting, here in teh Alabam. The bass will be in their pre-spawn frenzy and prolly haven’t taken a gander at a fly or lure in quite some time at the places I mostly frequent. That being said and all, I need to start getting my shit in order. I’ve started to go through boxes, organize flies, and get to tying things I’m desperately in need of….basically all the stuff you’re supposed to do in the winter time. Hunting season kinda gets in the way for me.

I’ve got an old arse Star Inflatable sitting in my garage that hasn’t seen water since October. And I’m really feeling like a looooser over this fact. Normally I would float a few places in North GA and Western NC this time of year and then start hitting my locals first of March. I need some help. Ol’ Big Blue, as we like to call her, has a bigass breach in her hull. It started two years ago when some old adhesive loosened. Then last Fall, the aforementioned October float, she came busting out the seams. I had a couple rolls of duct tape, in matching royal blue, to hide her cleavage till we could make it to the boat ramp. Anyway, I need some advice for anybody who specializes in hypalon magic. Like I said she’s an old girl, has a bladder system…so the repair wouldn’t have to be perfect. I just need some adhesive and/or some technique that will get the job done. I’ve tried two adhesives over the last few months that didn’t work. I’ll throw in some Buster swag and/or other goodies to whoever gives me some damn good advice and instruction. As always, smartassery will not be frowned upon.

THE P-51 DOUBLE BUNNY: prop drive + Red Devil color scheme =  a heavy stringer.

Built for the upcoming SE Arizona Quail Bake

First, some theme music before the build

Start off with the mock up and layout. Total cost in materials was $14. Could be free if you can scrounge up what you need.

 Drill the appropriate holes for the mounting bolts and a pilot hole for the jig saw.

Cut on the line. I also recommend removing the front crossbar for “clearance”

Mount seat, tighten bolts and you’re done

We never had it so good

Behold, angler, thee “Crossbar Cooler Raft Drink Holder”. This thing is made by RiverRunner Essentials straight outta Missoula, MT. It is a fine idea, is it not? Simple, spartan, utilitarian. Now the bad news: They want $33.95 for it.

walk like Jesus

Starting in ‘09 the folks at Native Watercraft will be offering a paddleboard for “stand up paddling, shallow water poling, or sight fishing.” What? A fly fishing paddleboard? Why not? I don’t know if this thing actually works well to fish from but it looks like a stealthy way for getting around on the flats.

Buster approves of this kind of out of the box thinking and would like to see more of it from the rest of the industry…

- fly rods that won’t be catastrophically weakened if they get nicked by a beadhead
- a Boga Grip that floats
- high pressure propane tanks, seems to me that there’s room for lots more propane in most tanks
- float tube speedometer
- spey rods with built in hand warmers
- why stop with the gummy minnow? lets see some flies with propellers on ‘em
- strike indicators made out of whitefish swim bladders; totally sustainable, organic as hell and biodegradable
- Drake Magazine Swimsuit Issue
- who needs a full length waterproof zipper when you got reverse-osmosis waders?
- spey lube (they’ll buy it trust me)

Zee camo-painted slough-vette, she is stealthy no?.

fishizzle

Only nut jobs and crazies fish during the winter around here. Oh sure, I’ll go out and swing flies for steelhead once or twice. I might even make a trip over to the Olympic Peninsula. But the winter steelhead runs are getting smaller and the fish are harder to come by. Besides, it’s cold and wet out.

For better or worse (worse, it’s sad really) winter is the season for watching fly fishing DVDs. Oh yes, me and Baby sprawled out on the living room floor eating bananas and pretzels, drinking from our own little sipper cups, living vicariously through fly fishing celebrities. ’tis the season.

Here we go…

secret tarpon

Released by Howard Films in 2007, Location X is supposedly a documentary about a secret tarpon Valhalla that only a handful of anglers know about. The film makers are vigilant about keeping the locale secret going so far as to blur out license numbers on boats and coordinates on GPS screens. They even make the guide wear a mask. The “world class” anglers featured in the film are blindfolded, presumably until they are turned over to Guide X and set out for the flats. It’s a shallow premise (pun intended) which I don’t believe for a second. I did appreciate all the pretense though.

I’ve never fished for tarpon and probably never will but it looks easy enough. The sports handily catch lots of giant tarpon which I suppose is the idea, the spirit of Location X. The cimemopography is excellent which is probably a piece of cake too, in Tropical Saltwater Fishing Nirvana.

The sports are; a Welshman who guides for bonefish in the Bahamas, a girl fly fisher from Orygun and a honest to goodness tarpon guide - who shows his face - from the Keys.

As far as I know Guide X plays himself, a role that he totally owns. “Be patient alright, be patient,” he tells the Welshman. You can almost hear him add ‘STFU, I’ll tell you when the fish get here’ under his breath.

location x fly

It was the X Fly that almost stole the show. A fishy looking fly similar to a Toad the X Fly is tied with strips of foam instead of poly yarn. X swims tantalizingly just beneath the surface, tarpon go ape-shit for it. I bet bass will go ape-shit for it too so I’m gonna tie up some small X-Flies this winter. I’ll keep you posted.

“I think there’s many Location X’s out there, anyone can find their own Location X.”
- Guide X

Sovereign words from Guide X. Sadly, some fisherman these days don’t believe that there are any more secrets out there. They complain that the internets and the national fishing magazines have spilled all the beans. Location X reminds us that there is plenty of secret-water out there yet. Buster adds that much of that water it is probably closer to home than you realize.

You’ve just killed a moose. Hungry, you’ve a hankering for nothing quite as much as some hot soup, flavored perhaps with wild leeks whose flat leaves you see wavering nearby. Why not take the sharp end of a dead limb and scoop a small hole in the ground? Why not line this concavity with a chunk of fresh hide? Then after adding the water and other ingredients, why not let a few hot clean stones do your cooking while you finish dressing out the animal?

- Bradford Angier, How To Stay Alive In The Woods

Rock Creek Road is like an asteroid belt in 2-D. My rig doesn’t have blasters so Chet cracks a couple beers and I do my level best to dodge the holes in the road. Forty five minutes later we’re in camp and standing next to the trailer counting the dead and wounded, the Trout Slayers have taken the worst of it. Next time we’ll keep the beer cooler in the rig. Meh, live and learn.

Camp Souphole, Bitterroot Flats

Ken roles into camp as we’re rodding up. We drink more beer and watch him set up his tent then go fish for a few hours above the Microburst. Before day’s end Carl, Nice Guy and Caveman have arrived and set to adding their accouterments to the camp.

Though it rains nightly the clouds burn off every morning before we leave camp.  Blue skies keep the hatches down so streamers, attractors and nymphs are the rule. Rock Creek holds 3 species of trouts, 2 of char and the mountain whitefish. There is no shortage of fish and they are not offended by the lack of dry fly fishing.

It’s impossible to cram more than a day of fishing into a day of fishing. I know this but can’t help myself cause these are my first days on a trout stream this year. Despite fishing like an asshole I catch fish; lots of little browns, cutts and a few rainbows.

Sculpty the Woolly Head Sculpin

The big trouts come to a well fished streamer. I throw a wool head sculpin with a spankin’ new 6wt that I bought just before the trip. It’s a beauty of a stick that casts fat smooth loops where ever I want it to. Yeah, yeah there’s a recession on but I had to replace the six that I lost on Clark’s Fork last year. Besides this one has had my name on it for awhile now.

Chet’s on the hatch! Rock Creek

BWO’s and mahogonies finally come off under the partly cloudy skies of the fourth day. The bugs first appear when I’m working a streamer down a fast and narrow run. By the time I make my last swing through the tailout I see trout rising on the other side of the stream. For two hours I work upstream through a slick of flat water pinched between the main current and the bank. The cutts and their inbred hybrid cousins rule the run. I’m all for genetic purity but I can’t help but dig on those hard fightin’, high flyin’ cuttbows.

Camp Souphole, Kelly Creek

After five days on The Creek it’s time to bug out. Camp Souphole is re-deployed to the mountains of North Idaho a few hours to the west. The higher elevation and greater exposure to the weather coming in off the North Pacific make for a cooler and wetter conditions. The only thing between us and the elements are wool, down, canvas, fleece, gore-tex, gallons of propane, two chainsaws and half a cord of freshly bucked firewood. Risk of exposure held at bay we settle in for a night of consumption; brats, beers and brownsauce.

The rest of the boys have four more days but I have only one more day before I go home to Mama and Baby. Me, Ken and Nice Guy hike three miles upstream then work our way back down with streamers and wet flies until the hatch comes off late in the day. My last casts are over large trout rising to tiny mayflies.

Myth: You need to replace your tippet and leader at least once per year. The subtext being that we can’t engineer a plastic that will last longer than that.

The Reality: Doszapatos, after ripping down a 1″ dead branch that had snagged his fly: “Replacing your leader every year is bullshit. This leader is 40 years old.”

The peanut gallery asks “40 years old?”

Dos: “Yep, came from an Orvis starter kit that a friend’s dad had bought 40 years ago.”

Dos, laying it down like a puma, with the 40 year old leader

Well played, Coolconman. Buster wants to see some more. Get up on it, people.

Le Frog

Le Frog Noir

the slough buggy

The Slough Buggy was in dry dock last week for some hull maintenance and retrofitting. While most modifications are below decks the addition of the flying bridge can hardly escape notice. And for good reason; any seasoned flat water angler can tell you that every inch higher you can get your eyes above the water equates to yards of increased visual conical sphere radius of visibility (north of the equator that is, all bets are off down under). And yes, that beer cozy is secured with Velcro.

beta testing

After spending the afternoon reconnoitering the carp flats (under four feet of muddy water and unfishable) I drove further into the desert to one of my fav bass ponds. I put the buggy in at last light and made a few practice casts into the reeds with a new tie I’ve come up with, results were favorable.

slop

I like to fish the heavy cover so I turn the Buggy south and pull on the oars until I’m at the other end of the lake. It doesn’t look like much but there are channels and potholes interspersed throughout the islands of slop. I have to cover a lot of water, dropping my bug into patches of open water near and far. I switch from the slider to a popper and play with different retrieves.

another piglet

The old time, down home method to fishing bass bugs prescribes very little if any movement of the bug. The closest I can come to the old way is to slow down my retrieve to a strip - pause - strip, like a tired old frog resting for a second between kicks. That seems to works well enough and for the last of hour near-darkness I pull in a fish every few casts, give or take a couple casts. Its all good because even the smallest bass hit the fly aggressively.

according to the washington post, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney received a whole buncha gifts last year:

The forms show that Bush and Cheney both received a variety of gifts last year, mostly related to outdoor activities. Among the gifts Bush kept were a $6,160 bicycle given to him by a Wisconsin bike manufacturer, custom Hawaiian shirts and fly-fishing equipment.

As dog is my witness, I hereby pledge a BWTF t-shirt and some brand new “corporate fly fishing still sucks” stickers to the reader who can identify the source of the fly fishing gifts.

Jack of all trades (master of none), close personal friend, West Seattle native and Alaska fishing pioneer G_Smolt has kicked off a new project. Alaska Fly Fishing Goods is the place to start if you are even thinking about fishing in AK.

So we’re gonna give some of their stuff away. Callers number 25 and 50 will each get a $20 gift certificate from AFG. You know the rules, no more than three comments per person, no comments twice in a row. I’ll do the counting.

Remember Alaska Fly Fishing Goods: Always Outnumbered But Never Out Gunned.

This lake is close to where I live and is also on the “Report Board” at Sportsman’s Whorehouse. For that reason I held off on going there because it would fairly reek of desperation. After being taunted, en mass, by the collective here, I swallowed my pride and went. Pulling into the parking lot, after driving through the rolling grasslands of southeastern Arizona, and spotting the bank apes out in full force, I was a little skeptical of what this place would have to offer.

However the normal rule of “the crowds thins about 1 mile from the parking lot” applied and after walking about 1/2 mile, I was pretty much alone, which is great considering the masses crowded lawn chair to lawn chair within that radius. The lake was probably created by a CCC or WPA project back in the 30’s and is stcoked with troutski’s, and has resident bass and ‘gills. I scouted its four mile circumference and came to a startling conclusion: I need new gear.

The fishing from shore wasn’t hot, but looking out across the size of the lake, it hit me- I need a float tube

A float tube, YES! and damsel flies and rainbow trout style double bunnies for those whore bass. Sink tips and hope springs eternal!

Warning- gratuitous snake porn

Been groovin’ on my shiny new Burkheimer 7133, matched with an Airflo Skagit Compact 540, nine feet of t-14, three feet of 10lb Maxima Ultragreen, and obscene amalgamations of arctic fox, cashmere goat and prism flash in assorted combinations of red, purple, blue and black. And holy dammit if this little slime rocket didn’t just bust my honey baby’s cherry. Pics courtesy of the Scotch Poacher, fresh off the southern-hemi bus and just about five minutes late to the bucket, else I’da prolly been taking these shots of him.

Yours truly, bent to the task.

A touch to the leader = a notch in the cork.

Hairy arms and all.

I remember when I first met you. I had shredded the soles of my issue jungle boots hiking around the Franklin Mountains in El Paso. I went straight to that boot repair place on Dyer Ave, walked past the Justins, Larry Mahans and Tony Lamas and asked Mr Rodriguez at the counter if he could hook me up. He pointed, without a word, to your display on the wall. I thought you were kinda pricey at $80 for a resole, but you know what? I rolled the dice and went all in. I thought you were kinda stiff at first, a little uptight, but once you got broke in, you were fine, fine, fine. You are firm, yet supple and you grip like a champ and that’s everything I look for. You never let me down, no matter where I took you- Georgia, California, Korea (shit, I could hear you laughing at the Manchu Mile). I thought I might have to let you go once I got to Florida, what with all them sandals showing some skin, but then you showed me what you were made of out on the flats. Oyster bars and rip rap were no match for you. All them years. You’re showing some wear at the heel now, but you still my number one.