Just got back from the Bear's Den Fly Fishing Expo

The Bear's Den is a big fly fishing shop in Taunton, MA.  Today was their 14th Annual Expo, held at their newer and bigger location just a couple of miles off of Rt. 495 in Taunton.  Below are a few random pictures, all taken with a Panasonic LX5 point and shoot camera I was carrying in my pocket. 

(I had hoped to use another camera I had with me to take some reasonable candid portraits, but left the batteries at home.  It's hard to explain, but it was soooo stupid a move that I didn't even get angry with myself.  It reminds me of the blog post I wrote last year about forgetting my waders at home on a supposed day-trip to the Miller's River.)

You can find all 25 images here:
http://www.peterfraileyphoto.com/bearsden2012

I have posted a few of the images below:

Bob Mead's realistic mosquitoes

As I mentioned in my post the other day, I spent some time with Bob at the Marlboro Fly Fishing Show a couple of weekends ago. We talked and he allowed me to take a couple of photos of one of his realistic mosquito flies.

With the addition of these photos, I just completed an article about Bob's size 20 mosquitoes and their use in a Sarnia anti-itch lotion advertisement.  I have posted it on my Web site in the "Flies With a Story" section, here:
http://www.fishingwithflies.com/BobMeadsRealisticMosquito.htm

I hope you have time to read the article.  But if you don't, below at least are the pictures I included in the article.

Marlboro Fly Fishing Show 2012

The Fly Fishing Show appears for three days each January at the Royal Plaza in Marlborough, Massachusetts. It's not more than a 30 minute drive from my house, and I use the event as an excuse to take Friday off from work.  The doors open at 10 o'clock.  This gives me time to relax at home with a long cup of coffee or two while sitting around the fireplace in our family room, and to cook a big breakfast before heading out on the highway to Marlboro.  Ah, "so civilized a morning," as my wife would say.

I miss Charlie Collins and his rooster and hen hackles. I would think it's been at least five years since he had a booth in Marlborough. I loved the fact that he sold the neck and saddle together as one package.  And both for a price that would have been reasonable for the neck alone. Because I ended up with more hackles than I needed, I would split them down the middle with a razor blade and sell half the neck and saddle to Internet friends who did not have easy access to Charlie's hackles.  I bought my first (and only) cree rooster set from Charlie. It's pretty used up at this point.

Charlie lives in New York and the last time I checked he still sells feathers by phone or mail order (A google search provided the following: Collins Hackle Farm, 436 Kinner Hill Road, Pine City, NY 14871 Phone 607-734-1765.)  But as far as the Marlborough show, I've been told that he just didn't make enough money to justify the expense and time committment.  It seemed to me that he sold a lot of feathers at the show, but I have no idea what it costs to have table.  (Someone else told me he does go to the Somerset, NJ show, from time to time; but I don't see him on the 2012 listing of vendors at the upcoming Somerset show.) 

In recent years, what I like best is talking to old friends and meeting a few new ones.  I seem to spend most of my time around the fly tying tables.  This year, most of my talking time was with Bob Mead, Dave Brandt, Dave Benoit and Don Bastian.  I met for the first time tyer Sharon Wright from Maine.  Dave Whitlock was there with his wife, Emily, selling his gorgeous artwork, and I met both of them for the first time.  What an artist he is!  I loved his drawing called "Six Gentlemen", a photo of which I have included in my flyfishing show photo gallery.  It is six beautifully colored sunfish, one each of six varieties.

I posted 45 images from the show here:
http://www.peterfraileyphoto.com/flyfishingshow2012marlborough

Below are just a few pictures, of the people I mentioned in my post.

David Brandt

Bob Mead

Don Bastian

Sharon Wright

Emily Whitlock



My fishing friend Paul DiNolo talking with Dave Whitlock

David Benoit

  

Reflections on a Serious Hobby

It's been a long while since I've seriously tied flies.  If asked, I would still list flyfishing/flytying as one of my two most serious hobbies; but it has nowhere near the intensity for me that it did 10 years ago.  This isn't a good thing or a bad thing.  Life moves along and interests change and evolve.  I feel very lucky to have had, throughout my life, interests I felt passionate about.  Usually, they involved some sort of outdoor activity and have an equipment component, with two past examples for me being backpacking and triathlons.

I remember a relationship expert saying that honeymoons last five to ten years, and that at some point it just becomes too difficult to maintain the intensity that goes along with a new relationship.  Perhaps the same is true of hobbies?

In terms of fishing "outings", I've pretty much maintained a constant interest in getting on the water.  I've never been a 100-day flyfisherman like a couple of my closest fishing buddies.  For me 20-30 days a year has always given me the balance I needed.

But other things have changed:

Though I still maintain this blog and my fishingwithflies.com website, additions are less frequent (but not inconsequential, IMO.)  Blog: I see I wrote 26 blog postings in 2011 and 25 in 2012. And there were over 4,000 visits last year. Website: Though I have only added a couple of pages this past year, because of the website having 10+ years on the world wide web, readership is still high. It numbered 60,000 visits last year.

I no longer thumb through the latest catalogs, putting "stickies" on pages with equipment or supplies I wanted to consider buying.  I have all the equipment I need or want.  I probably had all the equipment I "needed" years before I stopped buying all the equipment I "wanted".  I can't remember the last time I even flipped through a Cabelas Flyfishing Catalog. I used to love the Feather-Craft catalog, but don't even know if I still get it.  I used to speak frequently with Jim Kruel at English Angling Trappings and Chris Helm at Whitetail Flytieing [his spelling] about tying materials.

As far as fishing equipment, I have more than many and less than others.  My rod rack is full with about 8 rods and the little drawer under it has 5 reels in it.  The past several years I have used only two of the rods and two of the reels.

I am sure there have been many fly line "upgrades" over recent years and all kinds of specialized lines for all sorts of fish.  But I am perfectly happy with my classic Cortland 444 (peach colored) lines. All the smallies, largies, trout, sunfish, pickerel, perch, rock bass, fall fish, and crappies that I caught last year were perfectly happy with the distance, accuracy and color of the 444 peach!

I am amazed that I have four tying vises.  I plan to sell my Regal and Dan Vise.  That would leave me with two vises that go well beyond my skills: the LAW bench vise and the JVice.  Both were bought during more passionate times.  They are beautiful machines.

The LAW Bench Vise is a thing of beauty.  Though my skills can not match its capabilities, it is an absolute joy to use.



I can't believe all the tying materials I have.  During a three year period (ending perhaps 4 years ago) I believe my supplies increased about 10 times.  I will never use this stuff up.  But I think it is the result of fishing have many sub-hobbies.  Acquiring good tools can be a hobby all unto itself.  The same goes for the acquisition of nice materials, such as buying yet another hen neck from Charlie Collins or Denny Conrad.

Finally, I have just now broken away from writing this post for a minute...to look at my fishing bookcase (3 shelves on a wall) and to take a photo of it.  It's hard to believe that I have read all of these books.  I doubt I have looked at any of these books during the last five years.

...No, that's not true.  I have spent some time with the awesome Leeson and Schollmeyer's Benchside Reference, Hughes' Trout Flies, and Hellikson's Fish Flies.

These are all fishing books, except the several Dummies books stacked horizontally on the second shelf.

My other current "Serious Hobby" is photography.  It consumes the energy and dollars that I once applied to flyfishing.  As hobbies go, it is actually quite similar to flyfishing.  I have a photography Web site (see link in the left side-bar) which includes a blog, just like I do with flyfishing!  I might blog about the similarities some time.  In the meantime I am wondering if I should sell most of my flyfishing books to make room for all the photography books I am buying.

... No, I don't think so.  More likely, I will just build another shelf (or two or three) in my den (a.k.a.  Pete's Playroom).  I think the two hobbies live pretty well together.

Just updated my Hoppers page with two patterns from Adrian Pop

I first saw these two patterns on Adrian's fly page on Hans Weilenmann's site.  Adrian and I communicated by email (Adrian lives in Romania) and sometime in June he mailed to me these two samples.  I must appologize to Adrian for being so tardy in getting these patterns posted.

The pattern instructions can be found by going to my Hoppers page.  They are listed alphabetically under "A" so are at the top of the page.  Photos are there too, and also below:

Hopper #1

 

Hopper #2

A picture of the one that got away!

Earlier this week I received an email from my friend Chris, who had spent some time "out west" fishing the Henry's Fork of the Snake.  He sent along the photo below of one trout that got away... sort of. 

Chris reported that he was fishing a PMD spinner on a 5-weight and that getting this trout to the boat was an "enjoyable battle".  Seems there was a bit more fight left in this one.  Nice fish!

It just occurred to me: I'm curious as to what size spinner and tippet Chris was using... I'll email him and update this post when I get the answer.

Based on the exif file embedded in the jpeg (as it is in all jpegs) this shot was taken at about 1:30 on July 3rd.  It amazes me that there is some blur in the trout's tail, as this was shot at a shutter speed of 1/1250th of a second.





I am happy with yesterday's pictures... trout, flies and bears

I am getting very much behind on some of the stuff I want to post here on the blog, including pictures of a marathon trout fishing day last month and several fly photos.  I also have some equipment I have been happily using for ten or more years, that I want to comment about.

Even with this backlog of ideas,  I nevertheless decided this morning to post photos from yesterday.... mostly because I want my fishing buddy Paul to be able to show the bear pictures to his young granddaughters this morning. 

Through my bleary eyes (it was near midnight when I got back from the day trip) I think the pictures came out as well as can be expected (the bear pictures, that is) because I really did not want to get any closer.  In fact it was very comforting to have a few human bodies between me and the bear.

There is a Part II to the story.  About an hour later and a couple of miles from the original bear siting, the same bear walked across the stream about 100 feet from where we were fishing.  It was a little after 8pm.  We fish here often.  It is my guess that the same or different bears pass through all the time... and we just don't seem them.

IMAGES IN CHRONOLOGICAL ORDER

We traditionally start our fishing with a restaurant breakfast (with all the stuff we shouldn't be eating!) and a stop at North Country Angler to talk about water and fishing conditions.  NCA is in North Conway, New Hampshire

We thought for sure these cumulus clouds would develop into rain clouds.  Fortunately we had no rain until 8:30 pm on the drive home.  These next three images are of remote areas of the Ellis River.

We didn't see many bugs in the air, but obviously they are around.  This is a stonefly shuck on a rock at the edge of the stream.

Typical native brook trout.  Only a few of the probably 100 that we caught were any bigger.  Most were smaller... some only 4".



The dry fly of choice for me is a herl body pink-post parachute.  Most often I tie it with a tail of hackle fibers but it works just as well without at tail.  The pink is for me, not the fish.  Size 12 is used wherever it works.  I've never gone smaller than 16.  These fish are opportunistic hunters most of the time.

Paul is a big Elk Hair Caddis fan.  But to add some visibility he concocted a bunch of these pink post low riding caddis, first used by him on this trip.  They worked nicely.  We both use a lot of peacock herl in our flies.  This caddis was tied with a herl body.



This was our dinner spot, eating sandwiches and snacks at one of the picnic tables.  It is across from Bretton Woods ski area, and is where we first saw the bear.  To be honest I felt a bit more comfortable seeing the bear here than an hour later when he crossed the river downstream from where we were fishing.





Interesting sign

Yesterday, as we drove into one of our prime fishing spots along the Ellis River in New Hampshire I felt a little disappointed when I spied this new sign.  On other hand, I found some comfort in it.  The property had always been labeled "private property" though I knew fishing was allowed.  Nevertheless, until I saw this sign yesterday I had always felt a little uneasy fishing there... even though "private property" does not necessarily man "no trespassing"...

Trusted Review, a British photography site, has review of 6 waterproof cameras

Trusted Review is one of the many photography sites I have in my feed reader. Last week I received an update notice about its three-page review of six point-and-shoot waterproof cameras.  The first page reviews two budget priced cameras; the second page reviews two mid-priced cameras; and the third page reviews two "premium" cameras. 

My favorite is the Panasonic Lumix.  Though the review says image quality is "so so", both the Lumix and the Sony (both reviewed as "premium" cameras) were nevertheless the best of the group with image quality scores of 8 of 10.

On the other hand, if you already have a good camera and just want something to stuff in your vest to take pictures of the "fish that didn't get away", perhaps one of  the budget options would be worth considering.

If you are in the market for a waterproof camera to take fly fishing, here's the link:

http://www.trustedreviews.com/opinions/the-best-waterproof-shockproof-and-dustproof-tough-cameras-of-2011

Have you ever forgotten your waders? Part II

Though my fishing trip (fortunately it was only going to be a half-day trip) ended as soon as I found out that I had forgotten my waders, I quickly developed a "Plan B".  I always have a small waterproof camera in my vest, but I realized that I also had one of my "pretty decent" cameras in the glove box. It's not a dSLR, but a high-performance compact camera I would happy to be my sole camera on vacation.

So, not wanting to go home right away, I decided I would enjoy a couple of hours along the river taking photos.  If I couldn't capture any fish, perhaps I could catch a "keeper" of a photo!

A beautiful building in Millers Falls.  It was completely vacant.

I found myself spending more time looking at the old mills and bridges than ever before. At this point today's post might be a bit OT (off topic) as mill town architecture and fly fishing don't exactly fit together.  But both deal with the life of the river.



Before the mills and dams, the Millers was filled with Atlantic salmon during their spawning runs.  The salmon would swim upstream from the Atlantic Ocean into the Connecticut River, which travels north through Connecticut, bisecting Massachusetts and then becoming the border between Vermont and New Hampshire.  Its flow starts in northern New Hampshire, in what are called the Connecticut Lakes.  The Millers River and the Deerfield River are the two biggest tributaries in Massachusetts.

The history here along the Millers is old and the towns were once filled with the economy of the paper mills and tanneries.  The water was polluted then, of course, just as it was in other areas of the country where raw waste was dumped into the river.  The water is "clean" now, but PCBs still exist in the bottom sediment.  Though the fish seem healthy, it is not wise to eat them as PCBs work their way up the food chain.

The three photos below were taken in Orange, MA.

I have caught every species of warm water fish imaginable below the dam to the left.  The trout fishery is quite a bit downstream (and also far upstream) from here.

Viewing upstream toward the dam.  (For those into photography, I took three identical photos at different exposures and combined them in photoshop to get this image, as I wanted a reasonable exposure of the dark buildings without overexposing the beautiful blue sky and puffy clouds.)