A little prose on life

This is for all of us who walk through life slowly and quietly, observing and thinking. For us who sometimes seem to wander without direction.
For all the romantics and dreamers. Inspired by Marty Kwitek, who as the legend has it, was seen sitting by the river with his rod and no waders quietly fishing in his mind.

Aimless memories;

Finding myself restless and lonely one summer’s evening I set out from my cabin to gather kindling for the wood stove.
I wandered toward the stream and distant woods in no hurry and without any direct path in mind.
My foot brushed a wildflower, and I stopped and peered at the delicate pink bloom, so small, so bright.
Continuing my journey, I plodded slowly to the little stream, and sitting on its bank watched the little dances of life and death played out between the trout and the mayflies.
A fish flashed in the little riffle, and I knew it was a brook trout by the white slash on its fins.
I smiled and went on my uncertain way.
Past the stream and approaching the woods, I was startled by a grouse that must have been happy and safe under his little bush, only to have me come along and spoil his tranquillity.
I sniffed the pine scented air deliciously.
The gently fading light was greeted by the distant howl of a coyote, and I knew it was time to return home.
I ambled back deep in thought about nothing.
Back in front of the fire with my pipe, I remembered what I had forgotten. My little trip was purposeless, and I had failed in my gathering of kindling. I had brought nothing back with me.
Or had I?
After a bit of thought, I knew that I had gathered memories.
I had hunted without a gun and fished without a rod.
I had taken beauty back with me, and left nothing but footprints.

Spey flies

With the recent explosion in popularity of two handed or ‘Spey’ rods, I have noticed the tendency to refer to pretty much any fly that is not a tube or intruder as a “Spey fly”. Spey flies are very distinct and have the following characteristics:

1. A body of wool or fur wound thin and tight to the shank of the hook.
2. Following tinsel as body ribbing. Usually thicker diameter. Often followed or counter wound with narrow oval tinsel.
3. Little or no tail.
4. Hackle that extends back past the rear of the hook, and is tied in either at the rear or at some point in the body and wound forward; or tied in front, wound to the rear and locked in with tinsel. The hackle should follow the flat tinsel and be tied in directly behind it to protect the delicate stem.
5. A wing of Bronze mallard tied in as slips to form a keel-less boat low over the fly. Wing can be tied in straight or reversed.

That’s it. See the above photo of my Gold Heron Spey as an example.

Most of what I see referred to as ‘Spey flies’ are actually flies that have one or more of the above characteristics, but not all. Thus, they are not Spey flies. I would characterize them as ‘Modern Spey-like flies”. Take a ‘Marabou-Spey’ for example. The only characteristic that it shares with its Scottish cousin is the length of the hackle. We can use marabou as a hackle feather in traditional Speys, but then it must be tied in properly.

Producing variations in style is important to the development of flies, but one must acknowledge that they are variants. For example, My variation on Dee styling in a fishing fly by using hackle wound at the head, hair and mallard wings, and lacking jungle-cock certainly leaves us with a fly that is reminiscent of a Dee fly, but is not a Dee fly per se. If we use hair in the wing it is a hair-wing, not a Dee.

They are not easy to tie. Getting the hackle wound in correctly, setting the wings, and forming the head will take practice. My first Spey flies show all the classic mistakes, and it was three years before I tied one even remotely right.

If anyone is interested in tying them, the excellent books by Veverka and Shewey can serve as guides. Use gray marabou stripped on one side to practice with so you don’t burn through blue ear pheasant.

A wee rant on dumb gear

New fly fishing gear designers; meet Moe, Larry, and Curly Joe inventing the edible celery panfish flyrod. Yours for only $900 bucks.


Perusing the new Cabelas and Orvis catalogues, I am reminded of how much I dislike all the superfluous gear out there which is toted as the ‘must-have’ for the angler. So, without hold, I give you some views on junk. Please read this with a tongue in cheek mood, as this is how it is written. I don’t want to get comments back full of contention. After all, this is the classic angler not the contentious angler;)

You may wish to read my blog post on equipment first; located here.


Pre-packaged leaders.
You know the ones. When I ran a flyshop, these were my top seller, and I pitied all the poor souls that bought them. Why, you ask? No matter what you do, they will never lie completely straight. They are coiled in the package, and will retain those slinky-like coils forever no matter what you do. Go ahead, stretch them between two nails on a hot day, use a useless leather leader straightening tool, have a buddy pull and stretch them, tie them to your dog and throw a ball, it matters not. Those coils will drive you nuts! The only way to prevent this is to buy leaders tied with a stretchy butt material like maxima, or tie your own.

Reels that look like abstract art or an engineer’s high school project and sporting wild colors.
This speaks for itself. Just look at the reels offered in the Cabelas catalogue. They all look like they are trying to outdo each other for the most complicated CNC project award. The classic looking reels are usually the cheap ones. I don’t really hate these things, but they have become so ubiquitous that real consumer choice has lessened.

Reels that sport ultra large arbor designs that take no backing.
Hello…Orvis? A perfect example of this was the first generation Orvis Battenkill large arbor reel. When someone bought one of these, there was much alchemy performed in the back room. I often had to cut the flyline back by one quarter in order to fit it on the spool, and that still only allowed twenty feet of backing. It is a myth that large arbor flyreels always prevent coiling and increase the retrieve ratio. When they are wider than conventional reels this can be true, but in general, a conventional reel with the proper amount of backing achieves the same thing. It is only when deep into the backing that a large arbor design aids retrieval. This is not to say that I dislike large arbor reels, instead, what I dislike is that they are touted as the only way to go. As if anglers such as Zane Gray couldn’t land fish on conventional reels.

Sage bass fly rods.
I cast these for the first time in October, and I must say they perform beautifully. I was able to throw the entire line with ease. They were designed to allow fly anglers to fish in bass tournaments, thus the length is under 8 feet. The rods, which are stiff as a corpse, get their zing from an especially heavy weight forward taper flyline made by Sage. So why does this bother me? Simply because new anglers may purchase these rods to fish for bass thinking that they are superior to conventional nine foot 5-8 weight rods. They are not superior. Perhaps at close range in brushy streams they might excel, but for much of the bass fishing I do, (casting in big rivers with pinpoint accuracy at 80 feet) they have no superiority to my rods. In fact, trying to cast at that distance consistently with these rods one would be in the backing, as the flyline is only 80 feet long. They also remind me of a bait-casting rod. The line is so heavy that it carries out from the rod tip like a spoon taking the mono for a free ride. Another thing I dislike is being limited to this specific line from Sage. What if I want to try something else? Sorry buddy.

Knot tying tools.
With an exception for people with eyesight problems, twitches, or hangovers, I dislike knot tying tools.
One becomes reliant on them and never learns to tie knots the proper way. Enough said.

Dumb gadgets that get in the way.
You know those necklace lanyards made of beads and alligator clips that enjoy so much popularity? One sees pictures of guides out west wearing them while floating the Madison. The reason guides like them is;

1. Everything is handy, so that the guides can locate it after a night of drinking moonshine.
2. It makes them look like they know what they are doing.
3. They are not fishing, just guiding.

Number three holds the clue. The damn things get in the way of everything; your hair, the flyline, tippet material, the spinning reel handle while playing a fish, etc. They even get tangled in your wader suspenders when you desperately have to relieve yourself. Fine for guides, anglers should give them a pass.

Unnecessary and overpriced stuff
Hello… Simms? Simms makes some of the finest waders, boots and jackets on the market. Several years ago they expanded their product line to include pretty much everything. Now anglers can wander around the river as walking advertisements. Much of this expanded selection is horribly overpriced as well, making it the necessary purchase for doctors and lawyers looking for that Brad Pitt look. I even saw a miniature cigar humidor shaped like a little rod tube and sporting the logo of a famous rod company. I guess some people feel that if they pay the top dollar, then they get the best.

$500.00 waders that leak after 6 months.
We can send a man to the moon, but can’t produce breathable waders that are durable. Enough said.

Any product promising that you will catch more fish.
Look in the mirror. The person staring back at you is the only one who can improve your fishing through time on the water, study, reading, thinking, and practice. There are no magic beans, even if fishing companies have gotten rich by selling us those beans.

Hardy Reel blathering

A gear review.

Reading the poll results of this blog, it becomes apparent that some readers desire some gear reviews. Well, you asked for it;)

My Hardy reels are treasured but also used. After all, why not use the good china?
Being an aficionado of classic things from the past, it is not surprising that when I took up fly-fishing I would be drawn to Hardy reels. For the first year I drooled at them from a distance. Then after a tax return, I bid on a Marquis Disc on Ebay, and by a miracle, won it for $100.00. I guess nobody wants these reels because they have a disc drag and not click and pawl, but I was in heaven nonetheless. I think I slept with it for the first week. (kidding)

One thing was apparent right away. Aesthetically, Hardy designed a beautiful but subtle reel. It was not flashy, the anodizing was not in Timothy Leary colors, and all the surfaces were well rounded. The sound even for a single pawl disc was loud, and the tolerances were fine indeed. Thus began the love affair with classic English-made Hardy reels. Note that I defined this a bit. I don’t like the newer modern Hardy reels. They look like an engineer’s fantasy project, full of over-intricate details that are incongruous with each other. Look at the Angel for example. The other aspect of the modern reels from Hardy that bothers me is the move to Asia for much of the production. The quality has not suffered at all. After all, the Koreans are just as capable of producing a quality piece of CNC machined metal as anyone else, and better than most. The problem I have is with the concept of an English tradition ending. If I want to drive a Jaguar or shoot a British double gun, I don’t want to see a sticker on the bottom telling me it was made overseas. Part of the owning and using of a traditional reel is the continuance of the tradition itself. Knowing that a Harris Tweed cap was hand-loomed in the isle of Lewis makes me proud to wear it. Knowing that Charlie Norris designed and supervised the production of my Bougle’ adds a special touch.

As you can see in the picture, I own quite a selection of the Bougle’ Mk IV. I was lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time. If I knew then what I know now, I would have bought even more. These things work like a jeweled Swiss watch. They are weighted appropriately to balance a rod, not too light as many modern reels. The spitfire finish and champagne check screw and spindle covers are set off nicely. The drag is what you can expect from a Hardy; just enough to keep the reel from back-spooling. The reel handle is a dark resin impregnated wood. The first reel handles must not have been impregnated or were a botched job, and they swelled. Hardy quickly addressed the problem. The line guard turns allowing the line to run out without scarring and with reduced friction. When connected to a steelhead downshifting into gear and running for the ocean, this thing wails and screams like the coming of the Valkyries. The lack of a counterweight causes it to wobble as well. The back-plate allows one to “thumb it” for additional drag control, as there is no rim on this reel. It is an easy thing to accomplish once one trains oneself to reach for the backplate and not stick your hand anywhere near the handle. (ouch!)

Bougle’ Mk IV Likes: Pretty much everything. Love fishing with it, love the sound, and the looks.

Dislikes: It is a little bright. The only major problem I have is the softness of the nickel silver center screw that holds the reel together. I have had one fall off on me and have broken one while absent-mindedly trying to take it apart using the incorrect turn of the screwdriver.

Second of the Bougle’ series was the Mk V.
I call this the Bougle’ light. Hardy really blew it here. They seemed to give too much credence to the complaints of anglers that the Mk IV Bougle’ was too heavy, and thus they ported the spool. This causes the reel to not quite balance many two-handed rods, and dramatically reduces the sound and tone quality of the click. It sounds ‘tinny’. They also added a champagne and British racing green color scheme. I really liked this reel at first, and it became my favorite for awhile, but something had dramatically gone wrong at Hardy as far as quality control and overall care between the production of the Mk IV and the MK V series. The line guard would not turn freely, so I unscrewed it. It broke at the head of the screw. I am not a careless guy. I got a replacement from Hardy, and it still does not turn freely. On a fishing trip to the Kooskooskee, I hooked a steelhead, and went to reel it in after a short run. No handle?!! It had fallen off either during the run of the fish, or just before. I wound the fish in using my finger in one of the portholes while my fishing partner laughed his rear off. I had this strange sort of half frown and stupid look on my face. Needless to say, this reel got retired for the trip, and the Mk IV got the nod and performed flawlessly. When I got home I ordered a new handle and went to install it. That is when I noticed something rattling around inside. The small screw that prevents the pawl from getting cocked had fallen out. I disassembled the entire reel and applied lock-tite to all the parts. Problem solved, but it made me lose trust in Hardy.
The Mk VI Bougle’ is in essence a Mk V with the paint removed, and a massive price hike.

I wish I owned some perfects. Perhaps they are in my future, but the larger 3 ¾ and 4” sizes are priced so high they make me break out in laughter. I have had the opportunity to clean and restore a set of ten or twelve perfects for a local angler, so I know them inside and out, so to speak. They are still the finest reel ever made in large production numbers in my humble opinion.

Like any other company, Hardy put out some garbage during the 1970s. The Marquis multiplier is a good example of this. A great working reel when it actually works, it sports some internal parts made of plastic, screws to major parts like the handle made of soft metal, and the fit is just not worthy of a Hardy. I repaired one for a customer every year, and had fun trying to locate parts.
Another goof was adding the castle logo to the outside of their fine reels, but making the logo out of plastic.
This reminds me of what Winchester did to the venerable Model 70 after 1964 and during the 70s. They replaced metal parts with plastic, substituted a new bolt in place of the long-claw controlled feed extractor which made the Mauser model 98-like action of the model 70 a choice of target shooting competitors everywhere, and instead of hand or even machine checkering, simply burned the checkering in! They must have listened to a “business consultant’ ;)

The reel that is my workhorse is the Marquis Salmon # 2.
Both the reel and spare spool came from British Columbia, so they have a bit of tradition and legacy burned in.
I engage both pawls, and thus it has a more powerful drag than the Bougle’ series. It is bomb proof in construction with little to go wrong. It was built on the K.I.S.S. principle of engineering. The sound is loud and proud. I baptized the reel with a small wild steelhead caught on a bomber. The resulting aria is still echoing in that canyon. I like the gray spools, not the silver ones for some reason. Go figure. Like most Hardy reels, the drag adjuster could be a little bigger and more ergonomically designed. In cold water it stings and cuts, but then again, it is best to just crank it to full and leave it there for the day.

So, in conclusion, I think that long after the current wave of red, blue, or even pink over-sculpted reels with plastic drag systems have fallen out of favor, or evolved into abstract sculpture, the venerable Hardy reels will still be heard in the hands of anglers that care. Anglers to whom fly-fishing is not just the next generation-X adrenaline sport. Anglers who may appreciate that RHB and Wulff used these reels along with Walt Johnson. Even Charles Windsor the current Prince of Wales received a matching set of perfects as a gift from Hardy. I wonder if those will go into the royal regalia in the tower, or whether I could ever catch them at a rummage sale…..

Merry Christmas from the Classic Angler

I tied a Christmas tree!
This was a creative joy, and I bet it would catch fish too.
Happy Holidays,
Erik Helm

Winter miscellany

A fly, some thoughts on literature and flyfishing through the years, and some quotes.

First, Here is Harry Lemire’s Golden Edge Orange. Elegant and simple, it has Lemire written all over it.
I used a mix of angora goat and SLF in hot orange for the body. The wing is gray squirrel under and bronze mallard over topped by a golden pheasant crest. The cheeks are tiny jungle cock nails. The throat was fun. In order to get the small profile and amount of guinea I had to use a technique new to me. There are dozens of ways to tie in gadwall, teal, guinea and other fowl feathers as a throat. I used a wedge shaped piece tied in from the bottom of the hook, and pulled upwards until the fibers adjusted correctly. I found the technique in an older British tying magazine. Always nice to learn something!
I coated the head with red varnish and two clear coats to achieve a translucent look.

I have been looking through my flyfishing magazines, and reducing them to a manageable size. In doing so, I found some interesting discoveries. I threw out most all of the more recent Fly Fisherman magazines, and only saved a few articles here and there. However, I saved the few issues of this periodical that I have from the 1970s and early 80s, which a customer gave to me a few years back. The older issues were full of excellently written articles full of insight, subtle humor, and romance. The ubiquitous ballcap and sunglass era was yet to come. The quality of the English language used was surprising. Even the letters to the editors were literate. As the years went by, the writing was replaced by more and more pictures, and the actual written content shrunk until there was no point to retaining them. I no longer subscribe to any fly magazines.
In these few issues Don Zahner wrote about the last fly rod at Abercrombie and Fitch in 1978, a requiem to a fine sporting goods store, who’s name would be blasphemously resurrected to sell sexed up clothes to pre-teens. Lee Wulff revealed the history of the fly vest, complete with pictures of the first prototypes.
Nick Lyons, Ted Niemeyer, and Eric Leiser wrote articles, and Ernest Schweibert graced the pages with his timeless wisdom. Deke Meyer wrote of simplified Spey flies in 1984, and in 1977 Bill Bakke wrote about riffle-hitching wet flies for steelhead. Classic stuff.

However good the articles were, the advertisements were a trip through time. Ugly and obviously badly built Martin reels were touted, Irish country hats offered for sale, and every angler seemed to smoke a pipe. The first Columbia vests were shown, and man were they ugly. The guy in the advertisement didn’t help either, as he looked like a cracker, complete with bad greasy hair. Pflueger claimed that their new Medalist was “Engineered to be the finest fly reel in the world.” Perrine offered their automatic reel, a product that older flyfishers remember with a shudder. Although Perrine actually made a pretty good automatic, the cheaper knock-offs available at local hardware stores often exploded during use, dropping small parts into the water. They started rusting the second you left the local sporting goods store. Vintage tackle was offered for sale and the prices made me laugh out loud. A good Leonard or Payne cane rod would run you around $200.00 and you could buy a Hardy Perfect for $70.00. The best one was a Vom Hofe 6/0 salmon reel for $120.00!

Here are some memorable examples and quotes from Don Zahner’s “Anglish spoken here” column.

“It is interesting to note, for what it is worth, that our country has never fought a major war during the administrations of presidents who were fly fishermen: Grover Cleveland, William Howard Taft, Teddy Roosevelt, Calvin Coolidge, Herbert Hoover and Dwight Eisenhower. In fact, we seem to recall that practically nothing happened during the administration of President Coolidge!”
(Editor’s note; George W. Bush must fish with spawn…)

On weighing fish:

“ Weigh-ins are for prize fighting, not for fly fishing. If God had intended trout to be weighed, He would have given them bigger scales.”

While on a bass fishing trip in the Ozarks, he and a fishing partner discover a horrible odor in their camp cabin and trace it to two pairs of waders and rancid fishing clothes abandoned in a closet, which leads Don to write “This adds new depth, if only by paraphrase, to the oft-repeated pronouncement of the venerable Dr. C.M. Henshall about the sporting qualities of his favorite game-fish. Thus we can state that, without qualification, inch for inch and pound for pound, smallmouth-bass anglers are the gamiest fishermen in the world.”

On Roots:

“We should accept gratefully, and without vanity, the fact that some of us have developed the finely honed sensibilities that ultimately place a fly rod in our hand 90 percent of the time and a martini the rest of the time. This is nothing to worry about, just the forces of evolution at work-natural selection and all that. A fellow we once met in the Men’s Bar of the Biltmore Hotel in Manhattan, while screwing up our courage to enter the tackle department at Abercrombie & Fitch, reminded us of this, and that this evolution extended far back into time, beyond the anthropoid, to that stage of our development at which we had gills instead of ribs, He had actually gone so far as to trace his lineage, with the help of a Yale ichthyologist, and had found that his people had originally been brown trout. We started to pursue this a bit further, but he suddenly rose to a Dry Martini and was never seen again.

Can you tell that it is mid-winter in Milwaukee? As I write this the wind-chill in 30 degrees below zero.

The Dunt Dee fly

Another Dee fly, this one is named the ‘Dunt’

According to Kelson, the Dunt originates with W. Murdoch who contributed to the Fishing Gazette, and wrote the book Moonlight On The Salmon.
He (Murdoch) says of the fly “There is not a better all-around fly of the plain sort than the Dunt put upon the Dee in spring or Autumn.”
The Dunt is a bit more somber fly than some of the loudest and brightest Dees, but still has inner body colors that glow through the long waving hackle.
I tied this one with dyed blue eared pheasant and used a more traditional scissor-wing style with turkey feathers. The body is yellow blending into orange and claret seal substitute. I used angora goat. This is the dressing according to Kelson. The original dressing probably was orange blending into fiery brown.
The word ‘Dunt’ according to the Imperial English dictionary means ‘to strike a blow or a blow’, but the actual origin of the name comes from the Scottish idiom for the “Proper thing”, a “Proper Dunt.”
The background is a plate from the Lindisfarne gospels.

Here is an excerpt from the fishing gazette written by Murdoch;
Dawson is responsible for the invention of several flies. Seven years ago when he was fishing the Kineskie water we used of an evening to drop down to see him work, and have a chat with him in piscine and piscatorial matters. When we got down to the river we used to call out to him from the top of the bank, “Have you got anything, Dawson?” and invariably his reply was, “O ti.” “What did you get him with,” we then queried, and he used jocularly to reply. “The proper dunt.” This led us to invent a fly which we christened the “Dunt,” to perpetuate Dawson’s “Proper Dunt,” which means the “proper thing.” That the Dunt has proved the proper thing no one will deny. It is a particular favourite everywhere on the Dee, and in one day more fish have been killed with it by one and the same rod than any other rod has got with any other fly in one day on the Dee within the last seven years – to wit, nine fish by Lord Strathallan on the Cambus O’May water some years ago in the spring.. MAC.