Getting 'Schooled'

I am an experienced angler, and teach casting, tying and fly fishing.
In May of 2008 I fished with Joe Solakian for Smallmouth Bass. Joe has been fly fishing for over 20 years. He schooled me. For some reason I couldn't do anything right that day. I couldn't mend line to save my life. My casting was terrible and hurried. Maybe it was being in a new boat or something, but man was it painful to watch myself blow it time after time, and have Joe show me how it was done. He literally grabbed the rod at one point and tossed a perfect cast, Popped the popper once, and immediately hooked a fish. Damn. In the split second eternity of recognition and reflection, I knew how it felt. I had done it to others too. Joe can cast with one arm tied behind his back and thread a fly through a two-inch gap in twigs. I have seen him do it, and have done it myself...just not that day.
Then a funny thing happened. I was fishing a week or two later, again for Smallmouth, when everything he had been after me to correct just happened. Getting schooled helped. I had been doing things the same way for years and catching fish, now I could look at my fishing with Joe's advise in my ear and make the needed changes. This only happens when you fish with Masters such as Joe or Rob. If you are a beginner, fishing with other beginners will do nothing but develop and encourage bad habits. Fishing with masters can be frustrating and leave you feeling pathetic, but boy do you learn something.
I have spent a lot of time on the water being schooled by my immediate fishing friends, and I can't wait for the next time, so I can continue to improve my skills.
Thanks Joe!

Rebels

These three guys are authentic rebels.


As I write this the streets of Milwaukee are filled with roaring Harleys driven by American 'Rebels' for their 105th anniversary of noise. You know, the guys and gals that buy the consumer culture of HOG biker in order to establish their identity and individuality by looking and acting like everyone else. Rebels, right.

Steelheaders are real rebels. We live on the fringe of society pursuing with passion a life that no one else can remotely relate to. ("Tell me again why you don't eat them fish..")
We dress like geeks, get dreamy at the mention of a river, spend our life-savings on rods, and don't give a fiddler's fart what anyone thinks of us. Going one's own way in the face of convention defines a rebel. Bugger off with convention!

On the other hand, many steelheaders are beginning to dress and talk alike, "Sweet stick dude." "You rolled bad-ass fish karma." We wear the same ballcaps with flies stuck to them, and wear polypropylene on Sundays. We try to fit in. "Have you seen that hat that Mike Kinney was wearing, Man I gotta get me one of those."

We had better watch it, or our rebel status might turn into sub-culture. If it does, at least we won't make as much noise as Harleys do. That is unless we partake in the burrito bar at Huntingtons.

Back against the wall

Spey rods and casting can really come in handy. Just take a look at Rob fishing this run on the Deschutes. If he wades out far enough to make a back cast with a single-hand rod, he would be floating past the camera. In this run the only cast we were able to utilize was the reverse snap-T. It was made for this. I have spent a lot of time with my back against the wall, so to speak. Finally I got good at it. The right equipment helps too. Here is where Skagit and Scandinavian heads shine. Rob got me into Scandinavian casting. I watched as he cast his Loomis and Vision Ace combo to the other side of the river, while I tried not to whack my 14' rod and windcutter into trees and bushes. A shorter rod helps too.
Dec Hogan says in his video "Style points don't count when your back is against the wall." He could not be more right. How ever you get it out there, is how you get it out there. The fish don't live on the bank.

Man that water looks fishy...

A sort of life...

Real steelhead bums lead romantic lives. Lives spent in pristine temples of river and wilderness hooking fish only a day from the sea, and then eating barbecued steaks around the campfire and sipping single-malt. Lives showing wealthy anglers how to catch fish, and getting tipped to boot. A life of being payed to play.
The romantic vision is only an illusion Dorothy. Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.
Sure the wilderness settings are real, and these guys do catch a lot of fish, but reality intrudes with all sorts of draw-backs.
First of all, these guys just want to fish. In order to pay the bills even of a frugal and meager existence, they are forced to guide clients. Guiding is like being in a room full of the most beautiful women in the world, and being forbidden any contact whatsoever while trying to teach an uncooperative autistic child advanced symbolic logic.
ie; You rarely get to fish, and you have to watch the client that does flail away and blow opportunity after opportunity, which is as he will tell you, all your fault.
Dealing with this involves deep philosophical understanding, Zen, and booze. Mostly booze.
The photograph the guides have on their brochure is staged. If it wasn't you would be on the phone after you saw it, reporting a cross between a filthy mountain-man, and a dumpster diver in waders. My friend little Joe comes back from Alaska where he spends a third of the year guiding, sporting an enormous black beard half his size. (He looks good in it though.)
Instead of steaks, the real food often consists of canned alpo washed down with discounted and expired PBR tall-boys. Then it is off to sleep on a deflated air-mattress in a tent, or if lucky, in a pick-up camper. Get up the next morning with your perpetual hangover, drink coffee with an oily sheen on top that tastes like cat pee, put all your remaining earthly funds in your gas tank, and then pick up your client for the day; a rich millionaire who thinks he is gods gift to fly fishing, argues with you about everything, and can't cast past his boots. Miss lunch for the day, and instead discover a dubious squished twinky in your wading jacket. Eat it with relish. Dodge the creditors until you can get back to your small one room apartment above the town dive-bar filled with meth-heads, and find out your girlfriend has left you for good and taken your dog.
When the fish are not running the rivers you can tend bar or work at a flyshop for minimum wage.
I have been around enough steelhead camps to see all this for myself. Many of my angling chums are guides. There is a large contingent of ex-pat Wisconsinites guiding and fishing chrome in the Pacific Northwest.
Now it is not as bad as my tongue in cheek descriptions, but there is a reason that so many of the guides I know are now former guides. The life will wear you out. It is fun to live like this for a couple of weeks a year, but not for good.

I have had some memorable experiences on steelhead trips. The incredibly bad breakfast burritos at the Klickitat Traders definitely stand out. All the rattlesnakes and poison oak I have dodged. The epic food poisoning I got at the Rainbow tavern in Maupin on the Deschutes. Limping around on twisted knees from wading accidents. Entering a restaurant for that much needed meal of real food and seeing all the diners recoil in horror as you realize that sometime last week you ceased to be able to smell your B.O anymore. Visiting the toilet in the middle of the night when that blue plate special of enchiladas wants desperately to come out as a number 2, and finding that the retarded caretaker Lester has locked the door in fear of "Them highway Injins." Waking up at 5:00 in the morning when the temperature outside is 35 degrees and you have to leave the snug warmth of your sleeping bag, put on damp and smelly waders, and make it down to the run you wanted to fish, just to discover two guys from California had the same idea, and got up earlier. Camping next to a group of young drunken metal heads who party all night and don't get up until the evening bite is upon them. Discovering that in your sleep deprived mode and complete darkness of dawn, you accidentally used Preparation H instead of toothpaste, and what's worse, didn't notice until you saw the label afterwards.
Having all your underwear mysteriously stolen from your tent along with your luggage by desperate tweakers, and having to spend the rest of the trip in Wal-Mart clothing.

And catching fish... Lets not forget about the fish.
Ah...the things we do for love....

Books

I am a book nut. Always have been. It comes from Mom and Dad. I grew up in a house filled with books and reading, so it became part of my identity. My small apartment is crowded with literally hundreds of books. They sit on shelves, are stacked on cocktail tables, and spill onto the floor in stacks. When I got seriously into the art of angling, I began to collect books on that subject as well. Above is a small sample of select books I own. Procuring them was easy. I was the book buyer at Laacke and Joys, so I could order books for myself as well as for the store. It was dangerous to my pocketbook.
Books are an inspiration. I love to curl up with a book while listening to classical music. When I sit down at the vise to create, sometimes I don't know what I want to tie. I open a book and find inspiration and ideas.
Books are my friends. As misanthropic as it may sound, I often find more wealth in books than in most people.

The Art of Angling Journal is a favorite of mine. I wish it were still in publication. The earlier issues were the best. As they ran out of good material from their tying books, the publishers began to add a little too much filler. I still pour over these volumes quite often. They are beautifully done. Too bad Schmookler is such a nut. Shewey's book on spey flies is another favorite. I love the history and photography. Veverka's book is equally good, but seems mis-titled. He spends over half the book on Dee flies, which is fine by me. Schmookler's large volume of fly tying furs and feathers and patterns is a real treasure. I wish I owned the other volume. The star of my collection are signed copies of Ken Sawata's books. The book on tubes shows why he is possibly the finest tier out there today. It seems like he must be located between a museum, zoo, and aviary in order to tie with the exotic materials he uses. I have read Dec's book about twenty times now. Sometimes I think I can recite chapters in my sleep. A fine job, Dec.
I also own about two dozen books on fly fishing. Most all of them are literary or anecdotal in nature, not how-to books. Seth Norman, Nick Lyons, and John Gierach top the list. I like authors that can laugh at themselves. I own a copy of The Philosophical Fisherman by Harold Blaisdell. A heck of a gift that Dad or Mom found at a thrift sale at a retirement home. Another favorite is Six Months in Scotland by Sylvester Nemes. It is full of history and observation, and comes complete with a fly tied by the author. It is also autographed.
Good writing is tough to come across. That is why I enjoy John Gierach so much. He has a talent in the craft and use of the English language that I appreciate. One gift from a co-worker when I departed Laacke's was Fly Fishing through the Mid-Life Crisis by Howell Raines. Howell's position at the Times, and his background in literary endeavors and journalism created a fine writer. This thing was a total surprise to me. What a book.
For every good book out there there are ten bad ones. Any clod can write a book and get it published, even if he dropped out of school in the sixth grade, spent the following forty years fishing every day, and thinks that Scotch are people from Scotland. There are also pretend know-it-alls. One great example of this is Matt Supinski. He wrote Steelhead Dreams, a book about the pursuit of steelhead on the fly. Parts of the book are good, and parts are so bad they make any reader in the know wretch up his or her supper. The parts he gets right are fairly easy. Fish live in water, steelhead will eat a fly, etc. The parts where he errs are truly awful. He describes himself in a photo "The author performs a perfect Spey-Cast." He is casting upstream with a sloppy loop, and dropping his rod tip so far he can be described as Derek Brown would as "A nodding Donkey." Donkey is right, ass is more appropriate. Nice twenty foot cast Matt. He then went on to become the Orvis expert of all things 'Spey', which pretty much proves that Orvis has no clue beyond the trout streams where they were born.
Reputations are fragile things. Authors and book sales often live and die by them. In our little community of self-absorbed fly fishing goons, stretch the truth even a little bit and you will be called out.
There are a lot of books that should be written but never are. Self doubt, lack of time, lack of literary skill all torpedo the process. I think there is a book in each of us. Imagine if all the knowledge that is in Harry Lamire's head could have been placed on paper, or Walt Johnson, Syd Glasso, Ed Haas?

Go write something now. Or, just curl up with a good book and drift off to a river full of mists and wild fish...
I know I will.

Equipment

I really appreciate good equipment. When I started fly fishing I was so poor that I built my own flyrod, as I was unable to afford a commercial model. (O.K., so it also might have been a craft project as well)
I bought a pair of nylon bootfoot waders from Cabelas, and used these for the first two years or so. I owned no polypropylene, it was too expensive. Instead, I utilized an old pair of cotton pajama bottoms and an old pair of sweat pants with worn-out elastic. I kept them up with rope. Once when fishing in cold water with ice still flowing, (I should not have been doing that) my less than adequate waders and insulation left my legs literally blue. My reel was from Cabelas too. I still have it. It was an early Okuma model. The line I bought came from LL Bean on close-out. It set me back eight dollars. With this outfit I taught myself to cast and fish. My first acquisition of good equipment was a Hardy Marquis Disc reel I picked up on Ebay for $100.00. I ate peanut butter and jelly for a month after that. I would argue that people like me who save up to acquire good equipment appreciate it more. When I was able to afford it, I obtained an Orvis 5 wt T3, and a matching 6 wt. I still love those rods. Then I went on a Sage craze. I now own around 15 fly rods. Some see no use at all, and others are favorites. Every one of them fills a niche or purpose.
Working at a flyshop allowed me to purchase goods at a discount, else I would not own all the fine rods and reels I do.
So, I appreciate and treasure the ability to own and fish with good stuff. Maybe that is why it irritates me to no end to see some rich guy buy a new $700 Sage as his first rod. Match that with a new Ross reel and Simms waders and boots, Simms underwear, Simms bandanna, Simms suppositories, a $200.00 felt hat, vest with a thousand pockets, three fly lines, and twelve flyboxes, and the poor bastard is out fifteen grand and has the privilege of standing in the middle of my steelhead run flailing around while he tries to figure out what all the gadgets in the pockets of the vest are really for. Don't get me wrong, I welcome new participants to the sport, but I just wish they had to put in their time before they deck themselves out like they are ready for an Orvis endorsed vacation destination.
I probably lost a lot of sales potential at my flyshop. I always believed in easing the customer into the sport. Sell him or her a decent rod and reel, a box of flies, a nipper and forceps, and provide them with a casting lesson. Then send them off to fish for bluegill on a pond somewhere. Several weeks later they would return to the shop with a gleam in their eye, and a story for my ears. "I caught over 30 fish!" "None of the guys with worms were catching anything, but I did just what you told me, and I did it, I did it, I am a fly fisherman!!" Now was the time for the wader and boot sale. I think that by being honest I actually gained customer loyalty rather than taking advantage of a customer by drooling over the fleecing I could give his or her wallet. I always told them "You don't want this to end up in your closet with the karate uniform and soloflex."
I wish every shop would take that approach.

You can tell a fly fisherman anywhere. They have special hats and shirts that help establish their view of their own identity. The shirts are usually nylon ones designed for fly fishing, or one of those annoying cotton print shirts with old flies and bamboo creels pictured everywhere. They are often walking billboards for their favorite tackle company. I am guilty here too. I own a dozen ballcaps given to me by various tackle manufacturers, but they are full of sweat and slightly chewed and rusty flies. When I teach flytying classes somebody inevitably shows up like they are going fishing; sporting a Sage ballcap, Simms flats shirt, and nylon zip-off pants. I don't get this until I realize that these poor guys spend all week dressing like corporate America tells them they must, and this is just their little way of daring to express themselves. I always fantasize about showing up for one of my casting clinics or tying classes dressed in a "Kiss my Bass" T-shirt, and a Coors hat. I really am that deviant.

Getting back to hard goods. I enjoy comparing tackle as much as the next guy, but I also enjoy using it. I can only tolerate so much gear talk before my mind wanders off to the river. The exception is in the middle of a Midwest winter. Here I will gladly drive through snowdrifts to meet in a coffee house and chat about flies, reels, and other junk. Some people however, seem to do mostly talking and little fishing. That is O.K. if you are elderly and have spent the last fifty years crawling around the Trinity wilderness fishing and kill rattlesnakes by biting their heads off, but more and more I see younger people that seem to enjoy the equipment talk as much as or more than the fishing. You know who these guys are. They own a closet of 35 spey rods and plan on purchasing twenty more. I refer to them as 'Gear Nazis'.

The fly fishing industry doesn't help. They are like a ten thousand pound vulture getting the scent of blood. Just as the post-movie boom was dieing off, and the boomers went back to their golf courses, the fly fishing industry expanded ten fold. Instead of five or six reputable rod companies, there were now hundreds pouring both awesome and pathetic products on the market. One needs a seeing eye dog just to navigate it all. I feel sorry for the people taking up the sport. That is why I never stocked anything in my shop that I had not personally approved. When Orvis apparently decided to hire the three stooges as rod designers, I dropped half their rod lineup. I was the first dealer in Wisconsin to stock the excellent and affordable Echo series of rods from Tim Rajeff. I saw it as my job to navigate through the sea of product bullshit and guide the customer to the other side.

So, now when I look down at my Hardy Bougle' and boxes full of fine flies, I can be proud of owning good equipment. I deserve it. Its what I do...

BTW, the photo at the top of this post is of my old flyshop at Laacke and Joys. Bill Schreiber built the business, and I carried it on. When I left, the owners turned it into a clearance room. Alas, a requiem for a fine flyshop. Laacke and Joys flyshop 1979-2007. Rest in peace old friend. I left a piece of myself with you.

A Lady

Meet Lady Caroline. She is named after Lady Caroline Elizabeth Gordon Lennox, Daughter of the Duke of Richmond Charles Gordon Lennox. The pattern most likely was devised by ghillie Geordie Shanks,and is first mentioned by Kelson.

Although the tendency today is to call anything cast with a two-handed rod a 'spey fly', the true spey flies were fairly drab and sparse.

The Lady Caroline is the most famous spey fly, most likely due to it's wonderful coloration and regal name.
I used to fish this fly a lot, until I started losing them on rocks. They are just too pretty to sacrifice to the rock gods.
This one is tied by hand blending olive and brown wool for the body. The ribbing is flat gold followed by small oval gold. The hackle is genuine imitation blue eared pheasant.

I have to replace the photo with a better one.