De-cluttering Fly-fishing and the Tenkara factor

I was poking about in a fly shop the other day when I overheard an interesting and thought-provoking conversation. An angler had arrived for the weekend and was going to hit the local spring creeks for trout. He mentioned that he was going to fly-fish that Friday afternoon and evening, but that for the rest of the weekend, he was going to fish Tenkara style, because as he put it, it was “So much more fun and simpler than traditional fly fishing.”

For those that are not familiar with Tenkara, it is a Japanese style of fishing using a fixed line and a telescoping rod averaging around 10-14 feet in length without a reel of any kind. First developed for Japan’s mountainous and high-gradient streams, it jumped the Pacific and has been adopted in America with an often-evangelical fervor.

My line of questioning (to myself) was why would Tenkara seem so much more essential than fly-fishing? After all, fly-fishing has always prided itself on its inherent simplicity and connection to nature and water. Just a rod, reel, line, leader and a fly… Was it really simply the reel that set the two-styles apart… or was there more to it? An angler with a fly-rod can do anything a Tenkara angler can do, but isn’t limited to casting range by the fixed line. The two systems have more in common than not, just being two similar means to deliver a hook tied with fur and feather to a fool a fish. So why the preference?

The angler answered the question himself shortly as he purchased a bunch of depleted uranium ‘jig fly’ nymphs, and a package of plastic bobbers for his afternoon and evening of ‘Traditional fly-fishing’.

Well, there it was. The answer was right in front of me.

By rigging that heavy fly and a bulky ‘bobber’ strike-indicator on his leader, he had inadvertently destroyed the rhythm and grace of casting a fly rod. Instead of the beautiful loops of line arcing out over the water like a ballet to delicately present a fly, he had turned his fly- fishing outfit into a ‘flop and lob’ rig; effective to be sure, but not graceful. Was that simplicity and grace, that Zen essence of purity missing from his fly-fishing driving his enjoyment and preference of Tenkara? I think it might.

For many hundreds of years, fly-fishing was concerned with casting an un-weighted or lightly weighted fly on the end of a delicate leader. Weight consisted of a few wraps of copper wire or later lead wire on a nymph. That was all the angler needed to get down to the level of the trout. The late Lee Wulff may have put it best when he quipped, “Trout deserve the sanctuary of deep water.”

Time and innovation marches on, and the desire to make the fly-rod do what bait-casters and spinning rods would allow led to changes which would revolutionize the sport. No longer would high-gradient bottom-dwelling trout be safe from the fly-angler. Enter heavily weighted nymphs and the increasingly large, wind-resistant ‘bobbers’ necessary to suspend them at depth. This changed casting as well. High-stick nymphing and the ‘flop and lob’ cast were seen more and more on the streams of the world. Many anglers today know no other way to cast or deliver a fly. They are wedded to the heavily weighted bead-head nymph and the bobber.

So why is this bad? Well, no other form defines fly-fishing more than the art of casting. It is simple, and beautiful to watch and perform. By placing that much weight on the end of the line, and using ‘bobber’ style indicators, the entire dynamic is thrown off. The problem occurs with an interruption of the smooth flow of the unfurling fly-line by hinges and shock-points caused by the clutter attached to the leader. We are making our fly-rod do things that it never was intended to do: thus the lack of grace and the chucking, chunking and lobbing. We cluttered it up. We tried to turn a ballet into a break-dance and ended up with a tangled tango. Then a new thing comes along offering exactly what we had before we adulterated the dance, and we waltz with the Tenkara rod…. back to that ‘Zen’ essence that we miss through our own clutter. How ironic…

Now I don’t have anything against Tenkara. I think it is a fun and simple way to fish. However, I think it may be time to re-examine and de-clutter our fly-fishing if Tenkara is now offering us something which we already had before we goofed it up.

Which leads us to the new fad sweeping the world, the Japanese-inspired ‘Minimalist’ movement of de-cluttering and its popular guru Marie Kondo.

‘Minimalism’ is the concept of removing all the things distracting and non-essential in our lives and possessions to effectively create a modern version of the simplicity of a Japanese room. (Think tatami mat, futon, and a simple table.) Taken to extremes, as everything is these days, it often sees the eager acolyte throwing away all their books and mementos, and leaves them in an empty room seated on an austere wooden Scandinavian design chair in their underwear staring at a blank wall… but I digress. Camus would be proud.

Minimalizing or de-cluttering our fly-fishing might mean questioning things: “Do I really need everything I carry with me?” “Is all this junk attached to my leader really necessary?” “Do I actually use the dozens of gadgets stuffed into every nook and cranny in my pack or vest?” or even “Is this actually fly-fishing?”

Or is it all about the numbers of fish caught…?

Of course, I am not recommending that fly-anglers go down to the river and make their own fly-rod from a willow branch and weave their line from horse-hair, that might be way too Marie Kondo. However, the more junk-in-the-trunk we eliminate and the more clutter we remove from our line and leader, the more we might get back to the simplicity and grace, the beauty and finesse that led us to take up fly-fishing in the first place. It doesn’t mean we need to give up nymphing… ( I already hear the grumbling). Instead it might just mean toning it down a bit… replacing that bobber with a piece of yarn, using lightly weighted flies, and learning or re-learning to cast.

That might be a very good thing in the long run… especially if it cuts down on those impromptu emergency room trips where your buddy hits himself in the back of the head with his three-fly depleted uranium jig-fly setup and the bobber hangs down off his ear… Sure cuts into the fishing time.

Tenkara anyone? ;)

Parental Advice

 

Or… the road to perdition is paved with Wooly-Buggers…

 

Jr. Trout (proper family name Jr. Brown esq.) was a tad late arriving under the bank in the family domicile in time for his evening meal. As he nosed through the silt and rocks to munch vittles of fresh-water shrimp appetizer and awaited the main course of Hendrickson nymphs, his Grandpa eyed him suspiciously.

 

“Boy, you have been hanging out with those brook trout again haven’t you? Now don’t lie to me.”

 

Jr. kind of wiggled his fins in a guilty manner and looked askance at the old man. His grandpa was the oldest of the Brown clan in this part of the stream under the shade trees. He had scars on his back from disagreements with herons, and his fins were a bit worn with age. He was no longer the biggest fish in the pool, but he was the wisest, and all the extended Brown family looked to him for sage guidance.

 

“Sorry Grandpa, but it is hard to stay away ‘cause they are my friends. They even taught me a new game called ‘chase the tail’ today!”

 

“Son…” the old man began slowly with a frown, “I have told you before that those darn fish are no good for you. They are Yankees, and like Yankees, they hang around in gangs and get up to no good. Look at them there in the middle of the water just swimming around like they don’t have a care in the world. If they had any self-respect they would be in the shade being quiet, not doing acrobatics and water-polo where any darned otter or even uncle Fritz could make a meal of them.”

 

“Why do you call them ‘Yankees’ Grandpa?” Junior asked carefully.

 

“Because they are American Trout, boy! See their colors? Like the American flag; all gaudy in their red, white, and blue.”

“Catholics too I would bet, and just as catholic in their tastes… they don’t give a damn what they eat for heaven’s sake.”

 

“And we are Germans, right Grandpa?”

 

“Germans, Protestants, and gentleman too,” the wise one said, swelling up with pride and showing off his spots. “Just look at our colors… Like the German flag, gold, red, and black… quiet colors, respectful colors.” Like gentlemen, we Browns are not frivolous. We don’t play games, we shy away from bright places and street-corners, and we absolutely don’t eat wooly-buggers.”

 

“What’s a wooly-bugger Grandpa,” came the inevitable question.

 

“Well now, take a seat by this here rock, and I will tell you. Don’t tell your Mother or Father or they will get sore at me again for frightening you, but I think any Brown in this family should know a few things before they go out into the next pool. Served me well for years, even if I learned the hard way myself by making the mistakes I keep scolding you about.”

 

The old trout rested back on his little pile of gravel, and taking a caddis case from his pocket, began slowly chewing it as he always did when he was telling a story.

 

“You had a cousin named McSpotty once upon a time. Lot older than you. He was a distant cousin too from some island, on your Grandma’s side,” he recollected with a frown or a wink… it was often hard to tell the difference.

 

"This young trout got his name from the amount of spots on his side… all black and few red. He was wont to fraternize with those brookies, and even to tipple a bit of brackish water even at his young age. You couldn’t tell him anything or get any sense to stick in his noggin no matter how often we tried. He was always chasing the ladies, even the American gals that hung out in shallow water and had bad reputations. He went to worship on Sunday, but we never could find him for scripture during the week.”

 

“Well, McSpotty started to get a taste for exotic foods. I always blame those brookies for corrupting him, but he never would have come to trouble if he ate plain fare like us Continental Browns. He began to chase worms and leap at dragonflies like a hoodlum. He left home after a bit, and preferred the company of his new friends on the wrong side of the rocks.”

 

“One day there was a big commotion and splashing in the water. After a bit, some of your relations and me swam over from the bank to investigate. Your Cousin was nowhere to be seen. Story has it that there was something in the water that the Americans were chasing, but McSpotty got there first. From there it was hearsay. Some of those fish claimed that a giant hand came down from the sky and just scooped him up. Others said that he exploded all by himself. Anyway, he was never seen again. One old gal, the matriarch of the clan, by the name of Char or something like that, finally said that he had eaten a wooly bugger. None of us knew what that was at the time.”

 

“You can imagine that it put us off our food for a spell, and even the frisky fingerlings stayed close to home for the next week. Rumors as to what a ‘wooly-bugger’ was began to run their course among the youngsters, and even the old-timers began to tell stories.”

 

“Some said it was a ghost that appeared when the sun was high and the sand was shifting, others speculated that it was bigger than a beaver or a muskrat and only ate trout who missed church or lied to their parents. My own uncle Günter thought that they came with the rains, and lulled their prey to sleep with a song before they ate them.”

 

“Did you ever see a wooly-bugger yourself Grandpa?” Jr. asked with a shiver of his dorsal fin.

 

“I did see one once, not close-up like, but in the distance and in murky water. It was big and black and ugly, yet enticing. I felt my will tried as it shimmered and wiggled like one of those belly-dancers I read about once in my Pa’s magazines. I still shudder at that memory. Funny thing was, even with all my teaching and learning, my discipline faltered for a fraction of a second. I started to swim over to it when it just disappeared out of the water. Don’t know what I would have done if it hadn’t have off and left. I might not be here now.”

 

That story made a bit of an impression on our young lad. For a month, he did all his schoolwork, and never swam in the shallows. However, as all boys are fickle, there came one day when his family was all out on some errand or another, and he swam over to find out what the brookies were up to.

 

At supper that evening, he claimed he had no appetite, and begged off his caddis soufflé. His Grandpa got suspicious.

 

“What’s that scar doing on your jaw there son? Have you been rubbing your nose on mussel shells again?”

 

“Mrrn…” was all Jr. could answer.

 

“Speak up boy, and come closer. Is that a hole in your mouth? You are getting a likkin if you got any body piercings. You know how we feel about that….”

“Well, speak up…”

 

“Mi mink mi mate a mooly mugger,” Jr. confessed with tears.

“No kidding. You don’t seem to have disappeared, so maybe it taught you a lesson. What did it look like?”

Jr. flexed his jaw a few times, shook himself, stood on his head, blew some water through his gills, and feeling a touch better, answered his Grandpa.

“Mit was morrible! First it looked big and black and ugly, then after I ate it, it tasted like hurting and changed to the hugest, most ugly thing I ever saw. It had a big floppy head and its fins were really long and pale. One of them had a long pole as big as this whole stream in it. I thought I was a goner for sure, but somehow I escaped!”

Grandpa stared long and hard at the boy…

“Now, seeing that you survived, how’s about telling me what you learned…”

“Hanging out with brookies leads to eatin wooly-buggers, and the road to perdition is lined with wooly-buggers!”

“Let that be a lesson to you son,” said the old trout. “Now come and finish your caddis, its getting cold.”

So…take a lesson from poor Jr. Brown. Stay away from those vagabond brookies. Keep out of the shallows. Eat your tiny bugs, and whatever you do, if you fly-fish, don’t have that extra glass of wine with dinner while looking out the window at the rains and flooded streams, it only leads to fables and parables… or wooly-buggers…

 

 

 

 

 

The Psychology of Stimulators

 



Magic Potion?

 

It was a late September afternoon when I received a phone call from a friend I will call ‘Spud’. “In the Driftless area of Wisconsin for the weekend… Fish?” was the question. The answer was in the affirmative, (Duh!) and the time set for late the next morning. I have not fished with Spud more than a few times for trout, our meetings usually occupied with steelhead, or a lack of them on beautiful rivers where I lead him on epic detours and short-cuts which he puts up with for some reason I can only speculate about. When I have traipsed the creeks with him in pursuit of the wily spotted trutta, I have found him to be among the best spring creek fishers I know.

Because of his expertise, I decided to take him to a tiny brush-clogged stream, and one of my favorites: intimate and complex besides being filled with challenging trout. I always feel at home here, like I passed through time and the river to a more elemental and simple place. We met at noon, and after a cup of tea, packed up his truck, and were off.

Although cloudy and cool, we timed the fishing perfectly. The water had warmed enough that a hatch of Blue winged Olive mayflies had begun. Not a major hatch yet, but enough to get the trout looking up for snacks. I tied on a little size 18 BWO dry fly, and Spud tied on a size 16 olive stimulator. Now the curious reader might exclaim “Fung Wa? What???” Yes, a size 16 olive stimulator dry, for that is all Spud fishes with for trout. You have to respect his trust in it, his determination that the fish will see it as a morsel of food, despite it being too large and the wrong shape for the hatching insects on the stream. It works too, at least in his hands, even if old Ernest Schwiebert, author of ‘Matching the Hatch’ might proclaim, “Das fool! Zat is der wrrrong kaput forlunkin fly!”

We progressed up the stream, carefully placing casts to the tight cover and avoiding all the obstacles in the form of myriad bushes and overhanging branches. The trout were cooperating too, as I discovered Spud’s Modus Operandi: simply by over hackling the stimulator, he could place it in the tightest quarters between twigs, bounce it off the water, gently pull it in and out of snags, and effectively fish every inch of productive water near trout cover without worrying about his fly getting stuck. It was almost a fly with built-in weed guard. The fly was his magic power, his cloak of invulnerability, his helmet of confidence.

We both took decent fish out of the complicated chess game the river demanded of us, and spud being a lefty, we traded off in runs based on openings that demanded either a left handed caster or right. After an hour or so, we ran out of river, as it braided out at an upper bridge, and proceeded downstream to a lower section. This is the kind of happy-go-lucky fishing I love: no pressure or worries, and a guide’s day off. Catch or catch not, pick your relaxed pace and fish the challenges with little agenda and a good friend who is as happy when I catch a fish as I am when he does.

The hatch of tiny mayflies of the dusky persuasion we were playing amongst had increased in intensity when we wet our boots in the lower water. I began catching trout with regularity, and spud briefly considered changing to a more realistic pattern, but decided instead to increase his agenda of dancing his seductive little stimulator over, under, and through every obstacle. He picked up the fish my fly didn’t tempt quite enough. The menu specialized in small olives du jour , but the blue-plate special of meatloaf and mushroom gravy with mashed potatoes found on the back page tempted up some hefty and hungry diners.

Then the impossible happened. A nice fish chewed up Spud’s meatloaf stimulator and it would not float anymore. Reaching into his vest, he opened a fly box that… you guessed it… contained nothing but size 16 olive stimulators. Alas, the horrors!… it was empty. What to do? After all, we were only halfway up the stretch of river we were fishing. It seemed that there is a first time for everything, as Spud extended his leader, and tied on a Blue Winged Olive fly similar to mine, and cast it forward into the maze of riffles and protruding flora.

 

The change was shocking. I had to look at him to be sure who I was fishing with. His first cast got stuck in a tree behind him. His second cast he mended into a bush. Then he stood on the line while it tangled around the tip of his rod. “What is going on Spud?” I asked. “I am all discombobulated and un-stimulated,” he replied, while placing his fly into another bush and slipping on a rock. He started teetering back and forth in an uncoordinated manner, and if I didn’t know that he was a confirmed avoider of alcohol, might have thought he had secretly sneaked a snoot-full of potables.

Why? Why is it all happening to me?

I began laughing, and he did too. I said carefully “You know, I am laughing with you not at you… I think this is all psychological…”

“No kidding!” he now almost shouted, “It’s like someone gave me kryptonite! Before, all I could see was water and targets, now all I can see are obstructions and obstacles!” It was like a bizarro world, a world of negatives where black was now white and white now black… targets on the water to be missed, and every branch, rock, tree, or even his hat turned into some sort of magnet… and it was all psychological. Removing that damned stimulator was like pulling out some essential piece of mental DNA, or putting his batteries in backwards. His wet flies floated, and his dry flies sank. In short, his confidence and mindfulness was short-circuited. You could almost hear the fuses popping.

I seem to fish best when being mindful yet in a Zen state… a harmony with everything… a sense of ‘Wa’ as the Japanese would describe it. If I am too distracted, or even too full of concentration and thinking, things often begin to go wrong… not to the extent of Spud’s malaise, but all of us have been there at some point in our angling, or will be.

The answer is to stop thinking of the problem itself, and return to the beginning. Sit down on the bank and close your eyes. Take a deep breath… or follow the path of one ‘Tin Cup’, the golfer and psychological disaster played by Kevin Costner in the movie of the same name. In the movie, a distracted, in love, and nervous Costner is at the practice driving range at the opening of the U.S. Open golf tournament, and keeps slicing his drives into his fellow competitors including some famous PGA pros. The other golfers start staring at him and making comments as he unravels worse and worse, and can only seem to hit the ball backwards and sideways. He had become his own ‘hazard’ on the course, and he had not even begun play yet. The solution proffered by his coach and caddy played by Cheech Marin is to tie his shoes together, put on his hat sideways, transfer his change to his other pocket, and other goofy things. Tin Cup states that he feels like a fool! The coach says “Excellent… swing away!” and Cup does with a perfect drive. “How’d you do that?” he asks. The answer: You stopped thinking about shanking and slicing your shots. That simple.

Spud’s solution was a bit different but equally effective. He went back to the beginning and cleared his head too, as he rooted around through myriad fly boxes and found one last misplaced size 16 olive stimulator, a somewhat battered former gladiator, but ready to be tied on and sent forward into the fray. He cast gracefully and perfectly, placed the fly in an impossible spot, and hooked and landed a fish… and another… and another.

When the fly finally fell apart from all those tiny teeth, he reeled up, thanked me for a great day of fishing, and we walked off the water, and had dinner. It was his closer to the trout season, and would give him all winter to replenish his box of stimulators. I am thinking of tying a few too, and putting them in a small pill box… like medication of the placebo kind for that inevitable day when I become all tangled up in my psychological underwear.

 

 

The River as my Teacher

In the classroom

 

I was beginning a day on the stream teaching a trout master class to another angler when he turned to me and asked “What is the agenda for today?”

I replied with a smile that we ‘Were going to let the river determine the agenda.’

I paused a moment…. What had come out of my mouth? After all, I was the teacher today, or was I? I decided to go with the flow, so to speak, and told the fellow angler, “I am the interpreter…. The fly-fishing translator to help solve the little challenges the river presents to us.”

“The river is the curriculum, and the course will change with every bend.”

 After a successful day presenting casts and techniques to open up the hidden doors I reflected… “We all get stuck in ruts, but if we lack an agenda and just follow the river, it will take us into uncharted halls of higher learning.”

 I learn every day from my teacher… the river. It is my professor of ease and difficulty, of frustration, surprise, and problem solving. The waters are my classroom. I decided to follow my new philosophy on the next solo outing.

 Instead of having an agenda, and rigging up at the car, I placed no fly on the line and simply went down to the side of the stream and sat awhile. What would I learn today? The next few hours would be an open book with the chapters hidden, and the solutions and morals to be discovered. . The problems were there – the solutions are the challenge for me to solve.

 I decided to fish every inch of water, and not pass up a challenge. How would I get my fly into a tangle with overhead cover hiding an undercut bank? I asked the teacher, but he just murmured back at me. I had to find the solution. After getting caught up several times, the solution occurred to me; get out of the water and walk around the obstacle and approach it stealthily from the upstream side. I was awarded with a feisty little brown trout that ate a dry fly presented with a modified roll cast with my body hidden by a bush. Only the tip of the rod ever showed over the water.

 In the next run a new lesson began. This one included a large trout cruising in shallow water slowly circling and eating some sort of bug. Here I had to solve the menu as well as the presentation. I placed on an ant and shot my back-cast into a bush behind me. The lesson was clear: take inventory, and don’t get your nose so far into the book that you lose sight of the big picture of the exercise. I nodded to the teacher and pressed on.

Here was a long riffle with a single big fish rising at the head of it. It required a 50 foot cast with a left reach-mend. I was up for the challenge. I stepped forward and stripped out line and the fish stopped rising. I had placed a foot into the tail of the pool and the small fish holding there had panicked and swum helter-skelter up the run and put down the big fish. I smiled at the lesson and began to move on when I spotted a beautiful orchid growing at streamside. Here was a part of the new lesson I failed to appreciate. Take time to smell the roses. I sat on the bank and closed my eyes. A few minutes passed as I listened to the river and the breeze in the trees, the warblers and a kingfisher calling and singing. Then I heard a ‘Slurp.’ Yes, grasshopper… here was another sublime side-lesson the teacher reminded me of. Taking time to pause resets the trout, and quiets their fear. I made a good cast and missed the strike. At least I had a shot.

The lessons continued into the evening. I learned: why it is important to tie one’s bootlaces properly, not to try to wade through quicksand, when to pass up the little fish for a single shot at a nice trout. When to use a bow-and arrow cast with a weighted streamer in a tangle, when to slow down, to eliminate my shadow, and when to by-pass a problem and come back to it later.

Passing up those challenges and whatever the river serves up to us is like choosing the same math problems that you already know the answers to from a book, and calling it education. Even as a ‘teacher’, I was still learning: learning with every cast and footstep. To close my eyes, to open them, to listen to the river…

Learning by breaking the habits of our common approach, and letting the fish and the river determine what we do… We must mirror the problem with a response or solution, not force our own preferred solution on the equation. Four plus four does not equal six, so why do all of us, me included often try to present a ‘six’ for the solution to diverse problems? We may be fishing a bobber and a nymph, and an opportunity presents itself that may call for a change in the proffered answer...  a dry fly or a change in position and a streamer… Do we change the answer to fit the problem and put on a proper fly for the water… or do we try to force the answer to be ‘six?’ Let the teacher tell you… listen.

 

My final lesson appeared to me as the sound of distant thunder rumbled… when to go home. The bell had rung… school was over for the day. What would tomorrow’s lessons be?

When we stop learning, we stop breathing. I took a deep breath of the smells of the forest, and smiled. Thank you teacher.

Dear Theo,

Authors note:

 

I was reading a large volume on the history and artwork of Van Gogh and enjoying his letters to his brother Theo, when the name struck me…. What if Vincent was a fly-fisherman, and he wrote a letter to his brother Theodore Gordon? What if there was a bit of anachronism or time juxtaposition? What if he explored the world of art within fly-fishing… what if he was a bit mad….

There is a lot to be interpreted or contemplated in the themes Vincent touches on in his letter. Enjoy!

 

 

Dear Theo,

 

I hope this letter finds you well. Yes! I am working again! I am in the middle of going a bit mad tying colorful buck tail streamers. New colors! Glorious. I start with a picture in my mind, and then use the blending of the fibers to produce my palette and create a composition as a fly! Why? you are asking as you read this… Well, you know me. Always detouring on the path…. Distracted by beauty.

 

After all Theo, this spur of creativity is your fault! Remember when we sat on the bank of the Neversink, and after you had hooked and landed that 3 pound trout, you took your rod down and we sat sipping absinth and discussing the entanglements of art and angling?

That set me thinking Theo. Often I no longer sleep now.

 

Why fly-fishing my brother? You used the word “Grace.” I don’t think that begins to penetrate the issue. Fly-fishing is essentially an art, and artful in its expression. The casts are graceful, the line curves like a model’s curves and sinuous. The flies are pieces of craft, but if you take it like I do, they are an expression of the angler and his or her spirit and approach to the water. That rod of yours, the newer one you tied those dozens of exquisite flies in trade for is art too…. At least you make it so. My strokes are too forceful… too violent.

 

But I am sitting here in my room obsessively creating these new flies that the world must take notice of after I am gone because I have to. And because I can. I am free here Theo! Free to create without any snarky looks or turned up noses. I am free to make something deserving of the fish we caught that day! They are beautiful. Don’t they deserve the best I can do?

 

Art, they told me in a class was an expression of God. I would add nature too, for what is man’s best effort in art except a flawed imitation of divine nature? Prometheus unbound? Or a humble tribute? Nature is the canvas on which we paint this sport. Nature underlies it all, and man’s understanding of nature is exhibited by naked fear and expressions of joy.

 

But Theo, I often wonder in the dark if my creations will ever be appreciated beyond this little asylum of four walls… because art may be dying. Perverted by the materialism I used to rage against at the pulpit.

 

A lot of water has passed under the bridge since that day on the river Theo, and in your corner of the world you may not be exposed to the relentless ‘progress’ of the sport, but let me rage a bit… and yes… I did eat something yesterday. Don’t worry.

 

See… aesthetics in this fine sport somewhere down the line got replaced with pure technology. Beauty was forgotten. People use rods with giant blazons of corporate logos on them in wild colors that are disparate. They put bobbers on their leader and lead split shot and everything is now made out of plastic. “New” equals better now, seemingly without any reserve, precedent, or understanding. Aesthetics have been replaced by raw utility and pushed with an attitude that frightens. Have you heard of the “Inter-net.” There are moving pictures on there! I saw them! There were people with fly-rods or something like fly-rods jumping out of flying machines with parachutes accompanied by a god-awful noise worse than this new dissonance! At one point they ate a monkey and did a dance while holding up trout and doing some sort of ritual involving shoving it at us and making funny faces!

 

What happened? We should be ashamed.

 

The trout are painted by God Theo, who are we to perform heresies and tarnish his work?

There is something brutal here. I get the impression, even if I don’t understand it, that the sport has become pure social status and no longer about nature and art.

 

I saw an advert for a new fly rod promising that it would make me catch more fish. That would like a tube of paint that promised me I can produce a better painting.

 

I miss the clarity Theo. It all seems so confusing. I don’t recognize it anymore. Subtlety seems to have disappeared. Silence overtaken by non-stop stimulation. I don’t think people catch a trout anymore, instead they conquer it.

I know you worry about me in this little room, so I walked to the stream on Monday and went fishing, and what a clarion day it was, for without the noise in my head of the marketing and materialism and the posing, I drank deep of the purity, the essence of fly-fishing.

 

See, when I look at a piece of music or art, I don’t just see a bunch of people jumping around to audible tones, or colors and lines on a canvas. I look for a deeper meaning. Something beyond or beneath the surface of the stream or of simple perception. I caught a beautiful trout as the stars began to fill the sky and the setting sun set fire to the world. It was a conflagration of madness and divinity! Then I looked down and saw the dainty fly with rich colors of red and green and yellow. Primary colors Theo! Primary thoughts! Down to the essence. A rod, a reel, a line, a leader, a fish, and what God gave us to appreciate this small thing we do and embellish it with aestheticism and expression, with interpretation bold and subtle. It is simple, but so much more… an abstraction! I sat down and watched the sun set and drank that bottle you sent to me last week. Thank you again! The moment just spoke of art, and alone with nature there was no other to defile it with measurements of efficiencies or commodity. Art was all around me. The trout splashed in agreement as my simple rod with no adornments bent and bowed to a greater artist that we can ever explain. The spots on the trout glowed in brilliance.

 

The rent is due in a week, but don’t worry, something will come up. I can always trade some of these new flies for some bread and cheese…

 

Don’t worry… and be well Theo. I feel on the edge of a breakout. That accident with the fly-tying scissors was just an isolated…..

A portrait in miniature: Driftless trout streams

We slow down as our footsteps take us into the woods and up the valley where the stream gets smaller and more intimate. Stepping quietly, our senses detect the little music; tinkles of bells, murmurs of woodwinds, swirls of flutes, brush strokes both bold and exact.

It focuses the eyes and concentrates the senses. We are one in harmony with the stream. We are part of it. We stepped into its realm one foot in the element of water, one foot on earth, our minds in the air above and eyes in wonder, searching… heightened senses… spot a wild orchid, a water spider, watch a tiny brook trout explore a riffle in circles unaware you are now a part of its world. We feel welcome, not an intruder. The gallery opens for us…

They are intimate because we enter the portrait. We are part of it for a fleeting moment…

 

The streams are introspective. Dancing lights of water sparkle like little flashing mirrors and highlights provide the lighting to make the portrait glow. We are reflective now among the tunnels of valleys hidden among hills. We pause to strive to understand… to interpret.

We even seem to breath in miniature in order not to disturb this quiet song.

This art exhibit was not promoted, and the portraits so hidden that the show does not begin until we stop to smell a flower, or turn the artwork on its side to reveal its colors: Brown trout… toasted Amish bread with honey and raspberries with halos of ripe blueberries. Brook trout so colored that they seem out of proportion to size. How can such a bright canvas be hidden here? They are tubes of paint rolling along the cobble-palette at the bottom to be uncovered for a mere moment in time, splashed across our memory in bright strokes like a Van Gogh.

Is it a portrait or a landscape? Only the artist knows, and we may think we know his or her intentions, only to be confronted around the next bend, as the gallery changes anew.

The streams are awash with color and shadow, their features thrusting forth proudly in personalities captured in a mere sitting. A moment in time ageless now as they move from birth to death, from spring to confluence, only to sit again for a new portrait the next time we step into their studio and smell the colors of the foliage and water on the artist’s brushes sweeping gently like trees across the canvas of nature.

They will be there next time we visit, differently intimate and small, but with such art to kiss the senses each moment, around every curve, every cheek, lip, and riffle.

The Eclipse of the Wet Fly

 

Of all the aspects and methods of fly-fishing, none stood so dominant and disappeared so fast as the wet fly and its fishing techniques. Look back to the book ‘Trout’ by Ray Bergman, one of the seminal tomes of the sport, and we find it opening at the very front with 9 pages filled with wet flies. Within 40 years of its publication, the wet fly in all its style, colors, and glory was eclipsed and disappeared like the passenger pigeon as newer nymph and bobber techniques developed allowing easier catching. Wet flies were banished to the lochs of Ireland and Wales from which they were born. Except… for people like me that are so curious that they can’t leave well enough alone!

Wet Flies on Hardy reel with my wet fly box.

For those that think that fishing with a wet fly is no longer a good way to catch trout, or inelegant, au contraire! It worked in the past, and it works just as well today… if it could emerge from the shroud of history. Not that there is much opportunity, for a trip to a fly shop and a query regarding a stock of wets might raise some eyebrows as very few or none are available, and the kid behind the counter may not even know what they are.

This is a shame, since all the thought and skill put into their development deserves another look. What about those gaudy colors one might ask? Well, see.. the developers of such flies as Greenwell’s Glory, Claret and Grouse, Tup’s Indispensable, Butcher, etc. designed them to be fished wet. When wet that yellow silk with a dark hook underneath turns the perfect olive. The claret becomes a wonderful glowing deep brown, and the oranges a fiery sienna. Wet flies can represent anything in the water in a swimming stage. Swung downstream they are a hatching nymph, pulsed and twitched a swimming nymph, and fished upstream an emerger. They are as versatile as they are beautiful. Those names that call from the past such as the Professor or Governor were lovely too. The lighter flies could be dressed with floatant and fished dry. Indeed, this is how the dry fly developed. The wet fly was first. A partridge and green, a wet fly without a wing known as a North Country wet due to it’s origin in Yorkshire makes a deadly caddis emerger in faster water. ‘Soft-Hackles,’ the category of fly that includes unwinged flies often hackled with soft grouse or partridge feathers have seen a resurgence in some circles due to their being championed and written about by Sylvester Nemes, but still seem to be a long shot to be found in an American trout fly-box.

In the past, and still practiced in the British Isles is the technique of assembling the “Cast.” This is an arrangement of a number of flies attached to a leader at different spacing and different arrangement. A point fly and droppers and dapplers: the arrangement of such and sequence leading to many scotch-fueled arguments and squabbles after the fishing was done. However, we don’t have to place 3 flies on a leader to fish a wet….

In fact, the oldest technique to fly-fishing may be the wet-fly swing. Funny, but that was eclipsed too, banished to the world of spey flies and rods. I keep having to explain it to anglers on the stream. No, drag is good! Just cast it across and swing it down below you. Control speed and depth by leading or following the fly with the rod tip. Add mends and experiment with casting angles. How many today could identify the Leisenring Lift? This is the moment the swung fly becomes tight and begins to rise in the water column: a sure sign to the trout that this bug is alive and needs to be eaten! A single wet fly fished on the swing or actively can be deadly! Tied on a larger hook such as a size 8 heavy wet hook, they can represent even a baitfish. One can fish them just as we fish a modern streamer.

It isn’t only the flies and how they were fished that were eclipsed and then relegated to the ash bin, but also the amazing art of tying the wet fly. The blending of dubbings and colors takes up whole books, as does correct feathers for winging and the proper colors of floss. The techniques of hackling a wet and how to reverse and hump a wing, correct proportions, and dubbing blending are an important aspect of the art of fly-tying, yet few people would even know where to start.

The ironic thing is it is easy. Tying the flies is comparatively easy, and fishing them is simple as well.

 

You don’t need any special equipment either. I like fishing heavy and long old wet-fly rods with sloppy action because I think it is fun, but any rod will work. Add a small sink-tip or sinking poly-leader to your line if you wish.

British tubular steel wet fly rod with a nice brown trout caught swinging a wet fly.

 

It might open angler’s eyes to a whole ‘new’ way of approaching the rivers and streams, but first we have to overcome the prejudice of unpopularity. G.E.M. Skues and Kingsmill Moore rusting away in some attic…

 

It makes no sense. The wet fly is still viable… Possibly even more so today when generations of trout have never seen its like on the stream…

 

Perhaps it is time to get a little wet…

Well Bought and Well Worn



One of Frosty's old fly boxes with 1920s Monatague rod and Hardy reel.

This year I went on my first deer hunt. I inherited from my Father a beautiful Steyr Mannlicher model ‘M’ bolt action with rich wood stock and fine bluing. He may never have shot it, and it certainly had never seen the field. I put on dad’s old hunting boots and took along a pair of wonderful Swarovski binoculars he used for bird watching for many years. After 3 hours of sitting in the cold on the last evening, the deer season ended without a shot being fired. I got up with numb legs and made my way down the hillside back to the cabin. Halfway there I had to step over a series of logs. Since I had limited feeling in my feet, my right boot caught on the obstruction and I took a header, putting a scratch in the rifle.

 

Back at the cabin after a dinner of wild game I showed the scratch in the rifle to my compatriots. “Good,” one of them exclaimed… “Now it is used and a real hunting rifle.”

 

I pondered on that a bit and then began a discussion on equipment and tackle for hunting and fishing. The theme that was developing was one of choosing one or two special pieces of gear, using them well, and caring for them.

 

Back home, I met with the son of Frosty Stevens, a fly-fisherman back in the day on the northern Wisconsin streams such as the Wolf and the Peshtigo. He and his wife made the 3 hour journey from home to make the gift to me of Frosty’s tackle including framed trout prints, his vest, and his beautiful hand-made wooden trout net among other things. It was a very special moment. They wanted the memories to continue with someone who could truly appreciate it. I was and am grateful and humbled. In the course of discussions, we discovered that his old fishing partner was Carl Blomberg. Carl’s son was Ron Blomberg, who married my mother’s cousin. We said at the same time ‘Six degrees of separation.” A connection had been made.

Frosty's wooden net. Hand made by Harry Baumann

 

As I examined the gear, I noticed one thing right away. The gear was well worn and cared for. The flies were used and little bits of tippet were still tied to several. They were arranged meticulously in old metal boxes, and most were hand-tied locally. The rods had dirty grips and sets to them. The leader wallets were worn at the edges. Frosty owned tackle that was among the best one could buy back in the day. It told a story of a man who was passionate about his sport, and the small collection of tackle was well maintained and well used. He chose his gear carefully, and from examining the knots and whatnot, I realized that here was a man who knew what he was doing, and did it very well indeed.

 

This is why I love old fly-fishing gear. It has a legacy. It seeps of history and encounters on the river and stream, and its owner’s personality and soul are part of it now.

 

Later that day I was looking at used tackle sites online, and I noticed something. So much gear had been purchased and was now for sale that was very lightly used and practically new. That led to some reflection on a bygone era in America and the modern world.

 

My grandmother owned a Singer sewing machine. A treadle model of all metal, it was used for years and years converting the older boys pants into skirts for the girls, sewing dresses, and endlessly patching and fixing things. For all I know, it most likely is still being used. It was probably an expensive model, and for a family raising ten children on one income in rural central Wisconsin, it was an investment. They had bought the best they could afford, used it well, and cherished it. They oiled it, tightened the belt, and polished it. It gave back in functionality by clothing the whole family during the Great Depression. Parallel this to fly-fishing gear and look at Frosty’s equipment and we see the same themes. Well chosen equipment, cared for and used. The purpose of the tool was more important than the quantity owned. Collectors would be laughed at.

 

If the limitation of owning a few pieces of fine tackle instead of 20 rods ever occurred to people like Frosty, it would be a foreign concept. One used what one had. Skill in the outdoors and reading and learning made up for limitations. If one had a hard time casting, he or she didn’t just sell the rod and buy a new one hoping that skill could be purchased, instead they went fishing and learned to use the gear they had.

 

Trout I caught this fall on Frosty Steven's old H&I Tonka Prince, his CFO reel and his line.

Contrast that with today. In our consumer-driven world things are commodities; their souls stripped by mass production, they no longer mean the same thing to us. They no longer carry the years and the memories in their dents and scratches, their worn pawls and gears. People buy and sell things in a never ending quest for the magic bean, buying into the concept that new equals better. Can’t shoot straight? Better buy a newer gun! On and on it goes.

 

Maybe it is time to take a trip back in the philosophy of commodity. There seems to be an emerging movement of downsizing and the craft movement is giving us special hand-made things that are beautiful and have character like Frosty’s wooden net. They used to call any of us that showed up on the stream with battered and well-worn gear “Old Timers.” I think that should rather refer to the philosophy of use rather than our physical age. “Buy the best you can afford, and choose it well. Educate yourself on and in the sport. Take care of and cherish the gear, and hand it down to the next generation with scratches and memories.”

 

My dad’s hunting boots which he never used are now muddy and need to be cleaned. I think I will leave the mud on, but polish them a bit and treat them with wax. A day one comes home without muddy boots is a day wasted.

We all have to pass through some day. I would like to go in style, with my boots worn, my vest patched, my reel scarred, and the cork on my rods well worn with memories of a life well lived.

 

The Wisdom of Grasshopper Bridge

 

Sometimes not catching fish can spur observations that lead us deeper into understanding the world of trout and nature itself. That was the case one late summer day full of allergies, sneezing, and sunshine when a friend and I stopped at a tiny spring creek where a bridge runs over it.

 

When we got out of the car on that hot day, we immediately noticed that we were scattering grasshoppers. They were everywhere. An inch long and green, they bounced off our legs as we walked to the bridge to observe the water. Sure enough, trout were rising below the bridge, presumably feasting on the hoppers.

 

I quickly geared up and went downstream to work my way up to the bridge. I tied on a hopper and placed a cast among the fish. It went ignored. Puzzled, I began to vary the presentation: splatting the fly, dead drifting it, twitching it… all to no avail. My friend, watching from the bridge above, quickly caught a grasshopper in his cupped hands, and dropped it over the side of the bridge. GULP! A trout came shooting off the bottom as the natural insect hit the water and ate it with enthusiasm. I cast again. No dice. I changed flies. No luck. My friend dropped another hopper into the water. SMACK! A foot long brown feasted on the dainty morsel. I couldn’t get a grab. What was going on?

 

Then a car came slowly over the road and a local farmer drove over the bridge. The hoppers sunning themselves on the road scattered in a chaotic panic, many of them flying into the car, careening off the abutment, and falling in the water. The feeding frenzy that followed was a sight to see. I threw my hopper into the melee, but it got ignored again. This was a puzzle that needed some thought! I climbed back out of the water and joined my friend on his perch on the bridge. There we dropped more hoppers in the water, which were eaten like Oliver Twist going at his gruel. Interesting….

 

We went over to the other side of the bridge. The water was quiet on the upstream side. I cast a hopper into the pool and immediately hooked a nice brown trout. The puzzle was beginning to come together. The hoppers that fell off the bridge on either side were washed to the downstream side where they were quickly examined and eaten. The fish living on that side were so use to hoppers that they had become highly discriminating; counting the legs and measuring the size while examining the color of the bugs in a millisecond before eating them. The fish on the upstream side were not so discriminating, and could be fooled with an artificial fly. We experimented with our little hypothesis a few more times, and sure enough, the upstream fish were game, while the downstream fish were college-educated.

 

Getting back into the car and driving to a different section of river, we discussed and debated what we had learned. Perhaps it was not just the trout and the hoppers that provided us with lessons, maybe it was taking the time to observe and think on the stream while getting skunked that was the lesson in itself.

 

These years later, reflecting on the lessons of Grasshopper Bridge, I don’t remember the fish that well, instead, I remember the joy of learning. Those memories spur me these days to take more time out to observe and enjoy everything about this sport of fly-fishing. A sport that occurs among the wonders of nature, which if we make the effort to appreciate them, can often be much bigger than the fish.

Scales…. Of difficulty

 

“If God had intended us to weigh trout, he would have given them bigger scales."  Don Zahner

 

I had a conversation with another trout angler the other day, when he asked me “What is the biggest trout you have ever caught?” I am a little too sly and old to be drawn into this ego trap, so I answered “10 inches.” He looked at me strange, and walked away to refresh his barley pop.

 

Of course I was being facetious, but as I thought later about memorable fish this year, it seemed that many of the bigger fish were left out of the trip down memory road, and instead I seemed to value fish I had worked for with a special presentation, an amazing cast, or….? Foremost may be a ten inch brown that took a grass hopper cast with little back-cast room at fifty feet and requiring the fly to ride down a 6” slot and kiss the left side of a boulder to put it under a clump of grass. When the little brown ate the fly, my friend exclaimed” Wow! You earned that fish!”

 

How do we measure success? Or should we? Is it measured in size, quantity, or happiness? Can that happiness come from a small fish caught a certain way? The questions and the philosophy filled my head as I hiked the coulee hills near my home and finally emerged accompanied by a cheap merlot, (it was a good Monday) and some jazz later in the evening.

 

See, the comeback to that anglers question should have been “What is the most beers you have drank?” and then “Now, what is the best beer you have ever had?” Provokes thought doesn’t it?

 

Satisfaction does not always equal large or many, and neither skill. A sip of a vintage wine may be more memorable than the college party when you drank all that punch, strapped a bra to your head and ran naked into the dean’s swimming pool… or maybe not…. Bad example.

 

Degrees of difficulty may be like a fine wine that makes the dinner come together. You figured it out. You delivered the perfect cast. You beat the wind, tied the perfect fly, figured out the hatch, etc. You solved the little problems on the stream.

 

Size does not necessarily equate skill as one angler figured out after he returned from a big western tail-water full of pictures and stories of 20” browns and rainbows, only to get skunked in a spring creek ten minutes from my home. This is why some of the most popular destinations in fly-fishing involve a simple equation: Where can one take a person who can’t cast or read water, and get them into a big fish? (or even a fish at all!)

 

Aha… are the lights going on yet? How many pictures of enormous rotting Midwest salmon do we have to look at before we realize size is relative? They don’t count you say? Well… they did for the guy who caught them…. Which is fine too. We all have to start somewhere.

 

However, there inevitably comes a point when we perform a miracle on the stream, and are rewarded with what we consider the booby prize: a small fish.

 

I think it is the effort and the skill that are their own reward. Satisfaction and difficulty are inherently related.

 

So don’t get down in the dumps when some fumble klutz bounces a wooly bugger off the back of their head and somehow hooks the biggest trout you have ever seen. That 6” trout you took with an unweighted nymph fished upstream without a strike indicator has it beat.

 

Just don’t get it mounted…..

 

 

Onomatopoeia and the Active Dry fly

Onomatopoeia and the Active Dry fly

An active Caddis took this Brown from a very small creek in Wisconsin's Driftless area.
 

I was setting down this essay and coming up with words to describe active presentations such as “Skitter, Pop, Twitch, Flutter, Dapple,” etc., when I remembered from my poetic days a concept word which always amused me, that of Onomatopoeia: Words whose sounds suggest their meaning. Surely a Twitch suggested a well… twitchy short sudden movement, and a Pop... well… and arguments can be made for all of those words, and their effect on the fish which can often result in poetry of a different kind when the fly is moving seductively.

I had read all the books, you see, back in my neophyte days of pursuing trout. Books that explained repeatedly the necessity of a drag-free drift. Books written in the best British and Catskill tradition, they correctly referred to a natural presentation of a newly emergent dun or spent spinner of a mayfly. Drag was an evil to be avoided on any costs!

So I was doing my darndest on the local brook an hour’s drive from home to channel those authors and fishermen of the chalk streams and the fabled New York free-stoners by careful manipulation of the line, mending, and patient control of the speed of the fly. I was fishing an elk hair caddis dry that day, placing it up against an undercut bank and watching as it tantalizingly bounced back to me looking proud and erect in the current. I was catching nothing. The trout were having none of it. When the sixth cast dropped the leader over a twig overhanging the stream, I decided to allow the leader and fly to just come back naturally, instead of attempting to free the leader and possibly entangle the fly in the twig. As the leader came back over the twig, the little caddis fly was dragged up into the air and over the stick. It never made it all the way over. A small brown trout jumped out of the water and missing the caddis, ate part of the stick by mistake, causing the fly to be knocked back toward me. Standing there rather dumbfounded, my fly now trailing behind me and gently skittering or skating back and forth in the tail of the pool, I felt a tell-tale tug, and hooked another brown without even trying. All my efforts had been in vain, while my errors had resulted in two fish taking the fly (or trying to.)

Still the lights did not go on in my head. Over the next year, I fished a wonderful Blue-Wing Olive hatch during a thunderstorm when my fly only got eaten while I was pulling it out for the back-cast. Here I was a little quicker on the uptake, and realized that the fish were eating emergers and that my fly was being drug under effectively imitating the hatching activity. Another time I was fishing a size 24 midge pattern through a hatch, unsuccessfully but doggedly, and once again, after the dead-drifting produced nothing but frustration, picked up the line quickly from the water to produce the load for a little spey cast, causing the midge to come waking across the surface of the water like a water skier. A nice 14” brown fell all over himself in a stupor of reckless passion to eat the midge. I never set the hook, being too shocked to gather my senses.

Over the next several months, back hose years ago, the light bulb slowly but finally came on as I observed more and more erratic insect behavior, and it became my habit to sit and simply watch bugs on the water. Yes, most mayflies behaved like they were described in the books and articles, mostly motionless. Others popped and dove into the water laying eggs, and even danced an exotic and erratic ballet for no apparent reason. Caddis and stoneflies often behaved like bugs; they ran around seemingly at random, fell down, crashed into things, dived in and out of the water, and behaved altogether like the players in one of those awful 1960s electric football games. Remember those? This was the game where after endless time spent setting up the play, the switch was turned on and we adolescent would-be coaches found to our horror that 1/3 of the players ran the wrong way, one third crushed into a little blob and did little else, and the remaining third rotated in circles and fell down.
This is exactly the random behavior I began to consistently notice during insect emergence on the stream, and a behavior I began to copy with incredible results by fishing the fly actively and making it behave like a bug. Drag? Yes, drag could be good now, especially if it mimicked the actual bug on the water…

How to behave like a bug: A primer

No, don’t start buzzing abound looking for a mate and wondering where those wings on your back came from, this is a different kind of behavior. Lets discover a simple set of presentations and approaches that may add a curve-ball to your standard repertoire of pitches on the river.

The Downstream approach:

 After working a piece of water with a conventional upstream presentation, try moving to the head of the run or pool by moving around it, being careful not to be spotted by the fish, and try a skitter, skate or a dapple. A dapple simply uses the leader dangling out of the tip of the rod over the stream to dangle the fly on the water, allowing it to skate on the surface. If this does not produce, strip out a bit of line and, holding the rod-tip high, allow the fly to skate back and forth on the water using subtle rod-tip manipulation to achieve this effect. You can continue to let out line a bit at a time and cover the whole pool. In addition, try pulling the fly suddenly toward you, causing the bug to quickly pop under water and skitter upstream slightly. Raise and lower the rod-tip and cause the fly to hop about on the surface to really cause the trout to lose their minds. Try daisy chaining the presentations together: twitch, hop, skitter, skitter, skate, hop, pop, drift, skitter….

Upstream too:

All these tactics can also be used with a little practice on an upstream cast. Raising the rod tip slowly can cause the fly to rip across the water back toward you and skate on the surface. A sharp abrupt mini-roll cast can cause a skate and hop back effect, and all the while, you can impart small twitches to the rod tip, causing the same action in the fly. A short and abrupt roll-cast can also place the fly back into the window where the trout are now excited by the active fly and drop it on the water where they will want to take it.

Down and across:

Using a wet-fly swing albeit with a dry, simply cast the fly across and down from 90 degrees across to 45 degrees down stream and allow the fly to skate and wake on the surface. You can add twitches as well to this presentation in which drag is now a good thing!
Add a dropper!
Adding a nymph emerger as a short dropper off the back of your dry causes two things to happen during active-fly presentations: The second sinking fly can anchor the dry and make hopping and popping more effective, and it adds a tantalizing second presentation, that of an emergent insect just under the surface bobbing up and down and back and forth.
Active presentations can also be called waking the trout up. Dour fish that will not rise freely, or have seen everything but the kitchen sink thrown at them may need their meal moving a bit to awake the appetite, and in addition, you will be more exactly mimicking the actual behavior of the bugs on the water, which is what presentation is all about! Just make sure to hold on to your rod. Takes on active drys can be powerful!

Notes on flies and casting:

The active presentation works best at relatively short distances of around 30 feet down to just the length of your rod. Often no cast is necessary at all. More line on the water equals less control of the fly action by the angler. At very short ranges just the last foot of tippet should be on the water. The best flies to use when presenting actively are very buoyant. The addition of hollow hair such as deer or elk, CDC feathers, and even small additions of foam can aid the fly in staying up and doing what you intend, instead of one of those toy football players mentioned before. Stiff hackles are a big plus too. One of the most effective patterns I fish actively was once very popular, but has fallen out favor: the bivisible. This fly uses two contrasting colors of hackle to cover the entire fly in barbules. The rear hackle or the abdomen may use shorter hackle than the front. This fly skitters like no other, and can produce some very large fish that rise with abandon to that strange thing on the surface they just can’t resist.
Expect a big ‘Bang!’ and a nice’ Gulp’ to reward your active efforts, and if the reader didn’t catch that, those are Onomatopoeia too! Gulp, Smash, Swallow…. Words that sound like their meaning!