Conventional wisdom

Can be wrong…

Being a professional in the fly fishing industry often exposes me to contact with what can be termed ‘conventional wisdom’. This can best be defined as popular opinion or sentiment relating to the equipment, approach, or techniques of this little sport of ours.
The problem with conventional wisdom is that it is tied to trends and popular movements. These movements gain momentum and voice in online forums, magazine articles, youtube videos, and around the campfire, and are often promoted by tackle manufacturers and guides that want you to purchase their goods and services.

This can, and very often is a good thing. Innovation has played a great part in making this sport more accessible and enjoyable for all of us.

However, sometimes conventional wisdom and trends can become so viral that they obscure or mask the truth.

There are quite a few examples of this, but in the cause of brevity and clarity, I will concentrate on just one.

Conventional Wisdom: Using a 15’ spey rod with a longer belly line will tire you out. It is too much rod to be sporting. It is too difficult. It can’t be used when it is windy. It can’t be used when your back is against the wall and backcast room is limited.

Lets examine this.

First off, this sentiment comes from a trend toward lighter shorter rods using shooting heads and those who prefer to cast and fish with them. Often the conventional wisdom is repeated and proclaimed by those who, when challenged, finally admit that they have little or no precedence for their opinion. They are just repeating what the sheeple say. Going against conventional wisdom is difficult, especially in this day and age of internet informational access. Everyone gives advice and backs each other’s opinions. The trend builds until any one who questions it is laughed at.

Debunking popular opinions can also open up new doors to wisdom. Great inventors and thinkers are always asking themselves “Why?” “Where is the proof?” “Is there a different/better way?” We also have to consider the source of the conventional trend. Where is it coming from? Does someone have an agenda?

Conventional wisdom #1:“Using a 15’ spey rod with a longer belly line will tire you out”

The problem here is not that this is a false statement, but with the word ‘will’ instead of ‘can.’
Five or ten years ago I would have drank the koolaid and believed it. Now…. No.
I remember the shoulder pain and all the troubles associated with my 14’ 9/10 spey rod and an accompanying windcutter line. At the end of the day, I would rub ben-gay on my shoulder. People told me it was due to the rod. It was too big a rod. Lifting it into position and sweeping it back to form the D-loop was just too tiring. So…. I bought a shorter Scandinavian shooting head rod and line and used it for a few years, and was happy with the distance and ease, but unhappy with all the tangles. I was looking for ease, or searching for the magic bean.

Then a few years ago, I tried the big rods again, this time with mid and long bellies and 15’ rods. I hated it. It literally drove me nuts. Then something happened: I learned to cast them properly. In the end, it was easy, with far less effort then any other style of two-handed casting I had adopted. See, it was me all along. Not the rod. Not the line. Me.
So, yes, it can be tiring, but with proper technique, it isn’t. Not at all. What IS tiring is all the practice I put in to get to this point, but I guess I have always taken the path with the most brambles; convinced that on the other side the grass will be greener. In this case, it was.

After all, a little voice in my head kept telling me, “All those old-timers at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th cast rods that weighed ten times as much as mine, were they supermen? Was I and everyone else just too damn soft and wussy? How did they do it?”

I guess the answer is that with the tackle available back then, they just dug deep and learned to cast.

Then I brought shooting head lines down to the river and compared them to longer lines on the same rods. Guess what? What ended up tiring me out was all that stripping of running line on the shooting heads.

So there we have it. Conventional wisdom # 1 debunked. It can be more tiring, but with proper technique, it isn’t. In fact, it can be less tiring as the proper casting stroke makes the rod itself do 80% of the work. What is tiring is fighting the rod itself due to improper form. I still struggle with my technique. Casts are good and bad, but when things go right, it is as easy as buttered bread and as pretty as a sunset.

Conventional wisdom # 2: “It is too much rod to be sporting.”

Horse-hockey.

A long rod acts like the proverbial willow tree. It bends against the force of the wind (fish) and thus, through it’s long flexibility, is an ideal tool for fighting fish. I have had my hat handed to me by fish caught on 15’ rods. Bent to the cork with screaming reel and out of control cart wheeling fish, the rod was not at all overkill. Quite the opposite in fact. Stiff shorter rods in vogue these days offer the angler an advantage in power that has been known for years by musky and tarpon fishermen. Fish are not all the same. Some are logs and some go crazy, and I have caught both on shorter rods with shooting heads, and longer rods with long-bellies. The fish decides the fight.

Conventional wisdom # 3: “It can’t be used when it is windy.”

Poppycock.

I used to think this too. I swallowed the koolaid just like everyone else until a day on the river with a gale-force wind blowing upstream. I was fishing with a friend who was using a short shooting head rod. I was using a 15’ rod with a 90’ long belly line. My friend’s running line kept blowing upstream in a huge arc as the cast was made, effectively destroying the cast itself. My longer and more powerful rod was able to drive fishable casts up to 80 feet into the howling wind. The mass in the line lessened the effect of the wind to a great extent. A light bulb went off in my head. Eureka.

Conventional wisdom # 4: “It is too difficult.”

Once again, the problem is with semantics. What is too difficult? What is a challenging path of learning for one person may not appeal to a second person. Difficulty is in how we approach the sport. Some people choose to challenge themselves to the ultimate in fair chase, giving the fish or game an advantage. Others choose to use a difficult tool and enjoy the mastery of it and the challenging efforts that came with it. Some people just want to catch numbers of fish. I expect we could all agree that fly fishing is inherently more difficult than spin fishing or bait casting. Some of us took up fly fishing because we wanted an advantage. Others took it up for romantic reasons. People took it up because for a few years, it was the popular and cool thing to do. Some took it up for its beauty and refinement, and the way it puts us in touch with nature.

Difficulty is on a sliding scale for all of us. The sliding scale also extends to equipment.
Casting a long belly line with a traditional spey rod is NOT easy. However, saying it is too difficult is doing it an injustice. It certainly is challenging, but then, so is fly fishing itself.

Conventional wisdom # 5: “It can’t be used when your back is against the wall and backcast room is limited.”

Actually, a lack of backcast room is what spey casting was invented to solve. Admittedly, this differs with bankside environment. I will be the first to say that short shooting head rods excel over longer rods and long lines in tight quarters. However, that doesn’t mean that the long rods are useless here.

In rivers with overhanging brush and trees, especially deciduous flora, long rods can be a mess. I tested this theory and whacked my rod so many times on twigs and limbs that I came to the opinion that yes, a 15’ rod had no place here. Even 12’ 6” rods struggle in these conditions. However, I also fish wide-open rivers with steep rock banks where wading out even a step more to increase D-loop or backcast room will find one drinking river water. I simply changed the angle of my cast, shortened up my line, or placed my line anchor in a different position. In other words, with the rod in my hand, the fish out there in the river, my back against the wall, and a choice to fish or go back to the car, I chose to adapt and think my way out of the challenge. Was it easy? No. Was it possible? Yes. In certain situations it actually was easier because the long rod gave me much more control over the line.

In conclusion, debunking theories can be a great learning experience. It also can sound preachy due to inherent arguments and counter arguments. In the end we all fish the way we do because we find it fun. One person’s meat may be another’s poison as the old adage goes. One is not better than another. It is just with the endless promotion and justification of the superiority of one’s chosen method over another’s that we begin to mix the koolaid. I don’t care how someone fishes, or what equipment they choose. What gets to me is getting told that I “Can’t do something.” That triggers the curiosity gene and the obsessive-compulsive gene and gets me busy exploring and studying the argument.

Conventional wisdom is a form of dogma. I have found that avoiding dogma sometimes is a path that is worth walking.

The River Tells A Story

During a recent float down the upper Milwaukee River several of my friends and I marveled at the water in places we had never been since dams were removed. Stonefly hatches and crystal-clear water testified to the healing of the river. We found new runs through careful observation, marveled at flocks of buffleheads, wood ducks and a lone owl. Our raft glided silently over the renewed waters.
The river does tell a story.

The story is best read whilst seated by the side of the river, or standing a moment and contemplating. What is the height of the river? What is the temperature? Where would the fish be? What is the story of the day, Mr. River? The story changes every day. The plot meanders back and forth: it wallows, surges, and roars. Somewhere in there are the main characters, hidden in between the words. Did you just flip through the pages, or did you put on a metaphorical bathrobe and with a hot cup of tea, settle down in the couch corner for a good read? If you put on size 13 clown boots with studs and stomp on the pages, you will never understand the words.

We have to stop and slow down to listen. There are words in there, and bits of metaphorical poetry. Passages of Yeats or Frost. Melting snow trickles down from sun-hungry branches and plays a melody on the water. There is not just one story, but many: as many as there are turns in the river, or boulders on the bottom. We must observe with all our senses to absorb all the words. We must hear, see, smell, touch, and feel. We must close our eyes and think as well: observe and process. We must see between the currents, and observe the unobservable.

Then we can wet a line, and angle in harmony. After all, we should not be out to conquer a river, or a good poem, we should absorb it, and make it part of us. Part of our knowledge and love of life… fish hooked or not.

My rod is better than your rod…

I frequently come across discussions regarding fly rods and their performance vs. price. These discussions can get heated at times as rod choice has become for some anglers, a very personal choice. The discussions also frequently stray off track, and become arguments and rants for and against the fly tackle industry. Mainly the issue comes down to budget rods vs. high-end rods.

Let us break this down. A fly rod is a tool, period. It is a tool for a specific or a general purpose. Beyond functional design and build of a rod, which are the key properties, are aesthetics and marketing. Mainly marketing. When we judge a rod, we ourselves have a huge part to play. Brand loyalty, personal aesthetic preference, casting ability and style, and our fishing need play a large role in our judgment.

Let me concentrate on function for a moment.

I constantly hear people defend their budget $200 rod against the most expensive $700 plus dollar rods on the market without placing the comparison in proper perspective. I have cast surprisingly good rods and shockingly poor ones at both the lower end and upper end of the price scale. One man’s meat may be another’s poison, based on ability and need.

For example: The guy flipping glo-bugs to spawning salmon on our tributaries probably does not need a fast recovery super lightweight casting tool. For this individual’s need, a reasonably strong rod in the lowest price point will do just fine. The rod functions as a lever to fight fish to the bank and less as a casting tool. Take the saltwater angler who has to launch his large fly out 90 feet into the surf to a pod of bluefish and we have a different story.

In addition, what makes a crappy rod and a good rod is all in the mind or hands of the person doing the casting. At casting clinics I am often asked to cast a student’s rod to see “What is wrong with it.” Sometimes the answer is that the rod is poorly designed. More often, it is the line and rod in conjunction that are mismatched. Most often of all there is nothing wrong with the rod, which leads me to my little saying, “It is not the rod, it is the fool behind it.” Incidentally, this saying was originally aimed at myself for selling rods that I did not like due to my inability to adapt to, and take advantage of their special qualities.

Admittedly, there are some outstanding rods out there. The old Sage RPL, the Loomis GLX, the Orvis Superfine come to mind right away. All these rods have or had a unique taper and bend which just felt right for the angling job at hand. There are also some real turds of rods on the market. We all have probably all owned one or two of these before selling them off.

The key to this little discussion is that even a mediocre to badly designed rod will perform fine in certain conditions. To the angler who plies trout streams no more than twenty feet wide, a certain rod may be just fine for tossing grass hoppers to the bank. The same rod at over twenty feet, however, loses all accuracy. Hmmm… interesting. Some rods are meat-sticks designed to pound the western rivers from drift boats with heavy nymphs, split shot, and big dries acting as indicators. Place this rod on a spring creek and it is like throwing rocks into the still water. Here we have a specialty rod once again. The right tool for the right job...

So, in conclusion, when we weigh into the next inevitable beer fueled discussion of who’s rod is better and who’s rod is overpriced, lets all remember to place ourselves in proper relation to the rod as a casting and fishing tool for ourselves, our abilities, and our fishing needs.

Mudflats!

One of the interesting talking points of opponents of the removal of the Estabrook Dam, Grafton Dam, and Limekiln Dam on the Milwaukee River is that, after dam removal, large mudflats will be left behind. These large unsightly stretches of clay and silt will then become homes for weeds, thus spoiling their scenic view of the river.

This is a true statement, but only in the short run. In order to find out why, let us examine what a mudflat is, and how it is formed.

Rivers are great earthmovers and builders. Over vast amounts of time, they erode outside bends and deposit silt and particulates on inside bends. These initially form flats of sediment or rock. In the Midwest, these inside bends are mostly composed of silt, sand, dissolved clay and tiny wood debris. This inherent character of rivers is why they bend and meander in their channels, always eroding earth and depositing it in new places such as inside bends and estuary regions. One look at a map or trip to a river will prove this to be true. As time passes, these inside bends grow larger and larger, beginning as mud flats and ending up as land that people build homes upon. First grasses and hearty plants (weeds to some) grow upon the flats. Then small shrubs and trees take hold. Finally, the former flat becomes part of the shore structure and may be indistinguishable from the surrounding woods.

All these building, moving, and eroding processes are natural, so why the fuss over a natural riparian structure? Here we find the irony. Because, simply put, it is man’s interference with rivers by slowing the water flow with dams and creating impoundments, and channelizing the river with artificial bank structure that impedes the river from its earth moving, its ability to push the silt downstream, form new channels, and build new river banks. Thus, the actual composition of the bottom of the river changes from gravel, boulders, silt, mud, and sand, to primarily long flat bars of silt. When water levels are lowered, these become mudflats. Anyone who lives in a tidal basin on the ocean knows this process well, albeit in a natural way.

Flow rates and gradient also play a part. Faster flow moves the sediment, while slow deep areas of a river (like an impoundment) allow the sediment to fall to the bottom and collect.

So it is ironic in a sense that the very dams and resulting impoundments that they create are primarily responsible for the formation of these mudflats that seem to be the bane of dam proponents.

There is, obviously, one missing factor here, and that is time. We measure time in days, years, and generations. Nature measures time differently. Given a long enough time, all mudflats become banks and islands. Walking in a river will prove this. Where did that island come from? Was it always there? Chances are it started as a small gravel and silt deposit forming what is known as a ‘braid.’ Over time it continued to build as the river, flowing around it, deposited more and more silt, mud, gravel, and particulate at its downstream end. Then birds nested on it and brought undigested seeds. Nuts and seedpods washed down and took root as well. Then trees began to grow.

We can see, in a shortened time, how mudflats become land. The North Avenue Dam removal created an enormous set of flats on both upstream banks. The river, which was formerly slow, deep and very wide here, shrank to less than half its width. Where did the flats go…?

The answer is that you are walking on them. At present, the land reclaimed from the impoundment all the way up to Hubbard Park in Shorewood is a jumble of brush, shrubs, grasses, and small trees, but in another twenty years, if we don’t mess with it, that area will return to nature completely, and provide an aesthetic view. We can and have aided that process by securing the former flats with bank stabilization, and planting native plants.

So, dam removal opponents, in a nutshell, that is what mudflats are. They are natural, and in time, will morph and grow into something beautiful. They are your mudflats: created in this instance by the dams themselves.

The Confidence Factor

The Confidence Factor:

It has been written somewhere that the only single thing we can control as anglers on the river is ourselves: our timing, our approach, reading the water, presentation, etc. We cannot control the weather, the water, the wind, or the natural cycles of nature. We must instead learn to work with nature and fish in harmony. Once one progresses to a point where his or her presentation is decent, and can use whatever technique one chooses to cast and present the fly at the proper speed and depth, then the next step, I would argue is to fish with confidence.

This may be the most difficult barrier to get past in many ways. Firstly, we are thinking creatures. When something goes right or wrong, we tend to want to look to something outside ourselves for an explanation, often where there is none. We speculate on fly color and construction, the weather, sun, moon, rain cycles, barometer, what we had for dinner last night, and what brand of beer our buddy likes. Thinking and analysis is a good thing; it leads to discovery and learning. However, at some point along the way, our speculation causes us to begin a process, or turn down a cognitive road that is a dead end.

For an object example, let us take fly choice. In the world of trout, the fly has a huge part to play in the overall game. Trout eating bugs want to eat certain bugs, and when dining at the all-you-can-eat BBQ shack, Mr. Brookie does not want a plate of spinach. In the world of Atlantic Salmon and Steelhead fishing, the fish do not feed, or rarely feed, and why they take our flies is a mystery, and the subject of hundreds of speculative books and articles.

So, what fly to choose? Lets see… Dark day-dark fly, bright day-bright fly, blue under a full moon, yellow under a quarter moon, orange during a bright day, and green when you drank too much scotch the night before and peed in your waders. Small fly, big fly, fly with movement, most popular fly, favorite fly, etc. As hard as it is to grasp, the fish are far less choosy as to what fly is on the end of our leader than we are. Popular patterns such as the green butt skunk in the PNW, or the egg-sucking leech in the Midwest work because they are good patterns, but also, and here is the catch, they account for more fish hooked than other patterns because they are tied onto our leaders and in the water more than other patterns. Is the blue charm the best salmon pattern of all time? It certainly racked up the most kills in the fly category on many rivers in Scotland. Or, was it because although it undoubtedly is a good fly, somebody made his fame with it, and then, everyone started using it? What about the red and white daredevil spoon? It may have fallen out of favor lately, but for a long time, if you wanted to fish for pike, you had better have a good selection of these lures in your tackle box. Anglers used them, and caught fish. Then the newest plastic thing came along and they used it and caught fish too. See?

The fly in your box will not catch a fish. The one on the end of your leader will. Both Dec Hogan and John Shewey performed an experiment in which they changed their fly pattern every time they hooked a steelhead until they had gone through their whole fly box. Result…. All the flies hooked fish. Hmmmm… Perhaps it was that they fished with confidence instead of fiddling and fussing. Perhaps because they had confidence in the fly they had in the water, accordingly they fished better and more thoroughly?

This concept seems so foreign to us that it rarely sinks in. In a seminar on steelhead fly-fishing I covered reading water, presentation, timing, etc. The questions at the end posed by those attending had to do with fly choice and rigging. Funny.

At a western spey clave, a local guide gave an excellent clinic on fishing the river, and pressed home confidence in the fly, covering water, angles, structure, etc. At the end an old guy stood up and asked…. Drum roll please… “What is the secret fly?”

If you had asked the anglers seated at the seminar along the river what fly they caught their most recent fish on, I bet good money that most of the flies would be unique. I have traded flies on this river with some great anglers. None of our fly boxes looked alike, and we all had success. Funny. Could it be confidence? Could it be that the only secret was to choose a fly based upon actual water conditions and just leave it on?

Once one gains confidence in the fly, one begins to pay attention to other critical factors like water speed, angle of cast, mending, water structure, etc. Bingo! Then the fly becomes magic. Now we turn down another blind alley. We have just had a great day on the river fishing a (insert fly name here), and we only have confidence in that fly. Thus the red and white daredevil, the green-butt skunk, and the egg-sucking leech are born into legend. We don’t like to hear these things, because we want to grasp a hold of a simple concept to boost our confidence, or provide an excuse for failure or our personal agenda/expectations unmet.

Thus, it is that the things we can actually control, our casting, presentation and confidence outweigh all of the other factors on the river. This includes all of the old wisdom out there such as steelhead will not take a fly with full sun on the water, don’t fish after a full moon, a falling barometer, a rising barometer, after your buddy belches twice, etc. All of these things (except the belching) have effect on our fishing, but nowhere near the effect we attribute to them. Seeking to understand, we speculate and look for reasons.

What about the un-carved block? The newbee angler that does everything wrong but catches fish anyway until he or she learns the proper way from those with collected speculative wisdom? I was that angler once. The first trip out to the PNW, I fished a beautiful river. I used classic spey flies such as the Lady Caroline, and classic hair-wings. I fished an intermediate tip. I fished runs backwards and caught fish in the wrong places. I simply had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but put my joy, passion, and confidence in the fly, and spent more time on the water than most anyone else. When the water went off-color, I went fishing. When it turned hot, I went fishing. It was only afterwards, after meeting guides and experienced anglers on the river that I learned that I could not catch fish unless I was using a deeply sunk fly on a sink-tip, the places I pulled fish out of were no good, and it was useless to fish during the middle of the day. Oh…

The next year, armed with my newly acquired wisdom of the sages, I fished a big marabou fly with a sink-tip and…. I caught fish too. Hmmmm…..

I expect that if one placed all the collected wisdom of anglers that have put in their time on the rivers, that every speculative theory could be de-bunked. That is, for every theory and the speculative evidence behind it, there would be another conflicting or countering theory. That is not to say that all fishing wisdom and theories are bunk. Quite the contrary, most are based upon sound experience. It is when they become dogma that they often lead us down a path that may be classified as a self-fulfilling prophecy. “Don’t fish after a boat goes through the water.” O.K., we don’t. What happens? Well, of course we don’t catch fish. If we do fish, then the sense of confidence in the water goes away… because a boat went through. In essence, we play the part in fulfilling the prophecy we proclaimed or believed in. Our actions led to the expected result. Like a science experiment in reverse. Proclaim the conclusion, and then work backwards with the hypothesis in mind the whole way.

Nevertheless, alas, we all grasp for straws when the going gets tough. Positive straws, negative straws, but straws the same. The fly, the sun, the bad luck of a circling raven. Perhaps because this gives us confidence also: confidence to find another reason for our success or failure outside ourselves. A reason to attribute and then find peace in. I often wonder if my friend Og, the fictional Neanderthal that lives in my basement might actually be the ideal angler. He can reason up to a certain point, and perhaps that is enough. Cast it there, swing it so, and have confidence. Perhaps everything else is, and should be a mystery to a certain extent?


Sometimes our overactive brains get in the way of our instincts and senses. We don’t fish the ‘Eagle Run’ anymore because, three years ago we fished it, and given our thought process at the time, it fished too slowly or was too shallow. This year, due to angling pressure and the fading light of evening, we find ourselves pulling over by this run by default. “Might as well fish it,” we think, rather than just go back to the tent. Then we realize that this run fishes wonderfully. “What was I thinking?” we ask ourselves as our renewed confidence results in a great grab and nice fish.


I am reminded of the old (perhaps Norman Rockwell) painting of a fly angler fussing with his leader and fly selection as the trout are jumping around him. His face is turned with jealousy and surprise to a small boy on a bike pedaling innocently past with an old stick as a rod, a piece of string as line, and safety pin for a hook along with a tin can of worms and a glorious stringer of fish. That may be something to reflect on. Not that experience and speculation are not good things, but sometimes getting back to the essence may be necessary. Once the essentials are down pat, just fish with confidence.

Perhaps that would be no fun though. It might cut down on late-night philosophizing around the camp-fire.

Fun With Named Runs

One curiosity of steelhead and Atlantic salmon rivers is the common practice of naming the runs or pools or water complexes. These names range from the deeply rooted in shadowed lore and history, down to the downright obscure, and even ironic. The runs are often named after a natural structural identifier such as Black Rock, The Slot, The Braids, Pine Trees, etc. Man made structures such as Powerlines, Tractor Yard, The Factory Run, etc. also enter into our river run lexicon. Some runs are named after people who popularized them as well.

One run on a western river is called locally “Gomer’s corner,” due to the fact that it always has one person standing in it, and the run itself rarely produced a fish. When a friend and I heard what the run was called, we looked at each other sheepishly and whispered, “Oh crap, that was us. Remember when we got up at 4:00 am to get into that run?” D’oh! This year, as I drove up and down the river, there was always someone in Gomer’s Corner. I fished a run downstream at last light, and there was an angler standing, seemingly not moving at all, at the top of the Corner. I fished my run through, and as I was making my way back to the car in the dusk, saw that there was still a single figure in Gomer’s Corner, who seemed not to have covered any water at all or moved downstream. I then got it stuck in my mind that instead of an angler, the figure was a scarecrow or dummy someone had fixed up. It made sense, as the angler/object/dummy never seemed to move, and always wore the same gear. Then as I was driving back past the run, I stopped, got out of my car, and stared at the object in the run. After about five minutes, the dummy moved and made a cast, and a quarter of a step downstream. Aha! Mystery solved. Now I know why it is called Gomer’s Corner.

Another run is named “Slickrock,” and has an evil reputation as a wading hell that is well deserved. Slick basalt ledges and shelves are mixed with bowling ball sized rocks that tend to move when to step on them. One step is fine, and the next a complete lulu. A couple of years ago, I lost purchase with both feet at once and did a face-plant in the water in this run. Now I use a wading staff. Duh.

Every river has a run named for an old car or truck abandoned by the river, and many rivers run through towns suffering from poverty, meth, and cultural decay, and have runs named “The Town Run.” Here one dodges garbage and tarps over ratty sofas, and old cars that serve as homes for people who have seen better times.

Some runs are named for Native American folklore. One gets a sense of timelessness on these runs, as if the boulders and structures have not changed in five-hundred years, and if one could be transported back in time, only the costume of the anglers and methods would change.

Back here in the Midwest, we have a sort of tongue-in-cheek convention for naming runs. Shopping Cart, Lower Crack-Pipe, The Low-Hole Run, Parking Lot, etc. The runs are really not as bad as they sound when they actually have water in them, but one never knows what one might encounter on the side of the river or even in it.
Sometimes we might want to pay especial attention though, when fishing a run called something like “Angry Old Man,” lest we accidentally trespass and meet the man himself.

Brief wisdom #1

It isn't the rod, its the fool behind it...