Reflecting on 2014 - an essay

In 2014 it became obvious to me that photography had surpassed flyfishing as my #1 hobby.  My wife tells me it's been that way for several years.  Don't get me wrong.  I still love flyfishing.  It's just that I don't think about it 24/7/12 like I once did.  Instead I think about photography 24/7/12.

I'm not even sure how many days I fished in 2014, whereas not so many years ago I kept a journal so I would be sure to know how many days I fished, with whom, what the weather was, where we fished, what the water temperature was, what flies worked, etc. etc. 

My best guess is that I fished 15 days this past year. I used to fish 40-50.

There's nothing wrong with fishing less often.  There's nothing wrong with lusting for the latest camera bodies or lenses instead of the latest fly rod or reel.  I think our lives are constantly evolving and re-balancing. As the current saying goes, "It's all good." 

It occurs to me that for most of us, interests exist for finite periods.  Then we move on.

Interests often start off slowly, become more intense sooner or later, and then trail off as other interests come into play.  Some relationships exist this way.  Some jobs exist this way.  Some businesses exist this way. I think there is a natural cycle to everything. For some things and for some people, this natural cycle may last only months, while for others it may last decades or even a lifetime. Interestingly, sometimes an interest "hibernates" for a while, perhaps for years, then re-emerges.

My interests, both past and present and in no particular order, include but are not limited to: archery, fishing, downhill skiing, stamp collecting, jogging, army dinky toy collecting, camping, backpacking, triathloning, bicycling, and photography.  Skiing was my first all-consuming pursuit. It started at age 10, gained intensity in my teen years and early 20s, then trailed off in my late 20s as I redirected myself toward family and children.  It was a very nice and enjoyable 20 year run. 

During the middle part of that period I thought about skiing all the time (or at least parts of every day...but, hey, I've always been a day-dreamer).  I remember during high school when I used to flip through the pages of skiing magazines every day after school and learned about and dreamed about the latest equipment and ski racing techniques.  In my 20s I never stopped skiing entirely, and in recent years I've found myself stepping it up a bit by aiming for 10 days of skiing per year.  Do I think about skiing the other 355 days per year? No, not really. But years ago I would have.

The same thing has happened with flyfishing. Ten years ago I was fishing once or twice a week during three seasons a year, tying flies during the winter, reading all the catalogs, adding books to my bookshelf, participating in the online forums, adding to my Web site, and acquiring gear. Not so anymore. This past year I fished perhaps 15 times.  I have no complaints about that, as I would have fished more if I'd wanted to. During the other 350 days of the year I did not think about fishing. But ten years ago I would have.

What's up for 2015?  

I have no idea how (or if) I will balance my life differently this year.  I'll just go with the flow. I know that I have been reading more.  I'd like to get back to some hiking in nearby mountains.  I'd like to keep my weight down and my conditioning up. And with regard to flyfishing and photography, I'd like to begin a long-thought-about project of using one of my high quality cameras and a macro lens to photograph colorful fishing flies with the goal of making wonderful prints...A more demanding task than publishing images on my Web site or blog. But we'll see it that happens.  

Set up for photographing the finished fly (Part 6 of 6)

Part 6 of a 6 part series

My friend Eric emailed me last week to let me know he was getting set for a fly fishing trip to Alaska and wanted to photograph his flies.  I thought I'd link him  to the tutorials I'd written here, but then realized I had stopped at part 5 of 6.

So... I have just finished Part 6 of 6.

[To read the first five parts of this series, click on "fly tying photography" in the list of keywords in the left side margin... or, you can use this link:

http://www.fishingwithfliesblog.com/search/label/fly%20tying%20photography%20tutorial]  

Below, as an alternative to photographing a finished fly in the vise, I show two other techniques for holding the fly in place.  I like the E-Z Hackle Pliers (about $3 at Cabelas) because the fly can be held just a few inches above a flat surface making it easier to bounce light up and under the fly.

So, here is what I did to prepare the fly

1) Place a big piece of white poster board on my desk
2) Place the fly in the E-Z pliers and stand it up
3) Find something to use as a background.  Here I have used a green folder.
4) Angle two desk lamps so that they aim toward the fly but are also aimed down to bounce light off the white poster board
5) Find a book thick enough on which to place the camera (or use a desk top tripod)

Here's how I to set up the camera assuming you have no manual controls for F-stop or shutter speed.

1) Set custom white balance.  You usually need a white piece of paper to aim the camera at.  The white poster board does the trick!
2) Set the camera to macro
3) Turn off the flash
4) Set the 10 second timer
5) Place the camera on the book
6) Half press the shutter to focus the camera
7) Press the shutter fully to activate the timer

Here's another idea.  I put the fly into a small Leatherman pocket tool.  It stands up nicely.  But in this case I did not use a book to support the camera, nor did I use a tripod.  Instead I braced my forearms against the front of the desk.  If you try this, don't forget to use the self-timer.  I used the 2 second timer.  This prevents the shake that comes from pressing the shutter button.

Use two hands. I'm holding with one hand here, because my right
hand is taking the picture using a second camera.
Note my forearm is resting on the edge of the desk.

Muddler Minnows: A fly that uses its head

My friend Paul DiNolo has written an article about muddlers that will appear in "On The Water" magazine (March, 2014).  He's also written a few paragraphs specifically for fishingwithflies.com which I uploaded to the Web site yesterday, along with six or seven muddler photos.  All the flies were tied by Paul.  I took the photos using a couple of desk lamps and a green folder for the background. The flies were supported horizontally a few inches above my desk by standing "E-Z pliers" on end.

Below is just one of the photos, this one being a standard muddler tied in the "Dan Bailey" style (i.e. full head, rather than the original Gapen design which was tied rather sparsely).

New: check out the photos and Paul's text and comments on my Web site, here:

www.fishingwithflies.com/Muddlers.htm

A Merry Christmas Photo

Not exactly fly fishing.  But very cute....   ice fishing through a graham cracker.

More Patterns: Check out the main Web site

I notice as I write this post that I have 27 posts that are labeled/keyworded with "patterns".  This means that for anyone looking down the left-side margin to the list of key words, he/she will find "patterns" prominently displayed within the alphabetized list of labels/keywords.  Less frequently used keywords are shown in smaller fonts.

If you click on "patterns" (or any of the keywords listed) you will get all the posts that have used this keyword, with the most recent on top of the queue. Alternately, you could type a keyword into the search box and get the same result.

It occurs to me that many people coming to this blog may not know about my main Web site (www.fishingwithflies.com), although I do have links to it and my photography Web site in the left-side margin.

If you haven't visited the main site, I want you to know that I have more patterns there, most of which have not been incorporated here on the blog.  Below are links to three pages on my Web site, each with their own links to  individual pattern pages:

http://www.fishingwithflies.com/MyFavoriteFlies.html with about 10 patterns

and

http://www.fishingwithflies.com/FliesWithaStory.html with about 90 patterns

and

http://www.fishingwithflies.com/Hoppers.htm with about 30 patterns

Casual Fly Fishing

I just got this picture emailed to me from my friend Steve.  He took this picture of our mutual friend Jim last Sunday up in northern New Hampshire.  The two of them and my friend Paul drove up for the day to try to duplicate the great day Paul and I had several days before.  The weather conditions and stream conditions were apparently similar, but they were unable score as many fish as did Paul and I.  As always, fishing is an unpredictable endeavor.

Anyway, this picture from Steve made me smile.  I hope it makes you smile too. There are simply times when it feels good to sit down, even if it is on granite!

Taken by Steve P

Wed: This season's last day of NH trout fishing

New Hampshire (with some exceptions) officially shuts down to river and stream fishing after the Columbus Day weekend.  But in the small mountain streams it is very likely that the fish will shut themselves down in the next couple of weeks.  Of course, it all depends on the weather; but the colder it gets and the longer the string of cold days and nights, the sooner things shut down. Regardless, due to my schedule it is unlikely I will get up there again this season.

With this knowledge, my friend Paul and I decided to seize the day. Indeed, Wednesday was a beautiful day.  A bit breezy, but low humidity and temps in the mid-70s. There was nary a cloud in the sky... until we reached the mountains of Lincoln, North Conway and Pinkham Notch. But even then the landscapes and skyscapes were spectacular.

The fly of the day for me was Paul's Elk Hair Parachute Caddis.  This is one of the flies that worked so well for Paul on our trip to the Ausable River in New York in June.  [Just type in Ausable River in the search tool to read my series of posts about the Ausable River trip.]

Size 12 2xl hook

What we were catching were gobs and gobs of small wild trout.  Both of us lost count.  But you need to like small fish.  If you catch an 8-12 incher, it's probably a stocker.

Here are a few wild trout.  As you can see they are slippery and flip and flop and wiggle.  Most of the time if you just hold the fish, fly and leader out of the water the trout will flip itself right off the hook.

I rarely have pictures of me.  Paul took the camera and took this shot.

Yesterday: This season's last day of sunfishing

I am sure I will catch another sunfish or two before winter, but yesterday was the last day of the season for fishing the private farm pond that I float tube many times every year.

You can definitely tell that Autumn is on its way

I have been fishing this productive resource for over 20 years and don't think I have ever caught fewer than 50 sunfish during my 2-4 hour excursions around the pond's circumference.  I still remember fondly the day I fished here with my then 8 or 9 year old son in the front of the canoe with a fly rod he bought with his own money (thank you Cabelas for reasonably priced gear) and a woolly worm he tied himself, and proudly counted"1" through "100" each time he pulled another one to his hand.

Yesterday was a better than usual day.  Mixed in with well over 50 sunfish (of which perhaps 3-4 were 10") was a half dozen small bass (10-13").

What was interesting to me is that all of these fish were caught on the same gray "double hackle" I wrote about in my prior post.  It was the same actual fly.  I think I'm going to retire it.

This thing simply will not quit.  And it still looks great.  I am thinking it is the most durable pattern I have ever used.  Now, partly that might be because I didn't lose it on submerged structures of tree branches.  And the 4x tippet helped when the tippet got wrapped a couple of times around lily pads by really pissed off sunfish.  Or, maybe it's the fact that the long shank meant fly-damaging forceps were rarely needed to get a hook out.

By the way, my friend Jim, who tied the original batch of these flies I have now fully consumed, read my prior post, and I think he might be sending me some more!  Seriously though, if he doesn't have time for that, these are certainly easy enough to tie.  Or, maybe it's because when forceps were used I could grip onto the middle of the shank without breaking any fly materials.

This is my final photo of the day.  This one fly 
has caught over 100 sunfish and about a dozen bass, during the two
days I used it.  I think I will nominate it for my "hall of fame".

My very last "double hackle"

I was fishing from my Hobie Float Cat on Saturday for bluegills and bass.  There had been some big shifts in the weather conditions last week and this usually puts the fish down.  It did this time as well.

Poppers didn't bring the fish up, so I went deep.  Using my usual patterns; specifically, a weighted small peacock herl bugger and a "fluffy" grey beadhead nymph I was only picking up a fish every 5 minutes or so.  For this particular fishery this is very slow fishing.

So, I pulled out my big Bugger Barn box and looked over the other choices.  In the corner was a single grey chenille "double hackle" fly.  This type of fly is also called a "fore-and-aft" fly.  I've never tied one of these. Instead, quite a few years ago, I received a dozen or so of them from Jim LaFevers, a friend in Texas. There's an article about this pattern on my Web site, here.

This fly stood up nicely.  This is how it photographed
after catching some 40 bluegill and several bass.

I had forgotten how productive this simple pattern could be. After all, its only chenille and hackle. I love and prefer simple patterns. It is always a joy for me to catch fish on something simple.  (Maybe it makes me feel like I am a better fisherman for it.)

In many ways the "double hackle" seems to be a rather primitive pattern, coming from the day when we were less sophisticated about fly patterns.  "Back then" patterns were fewer as materials were harder to come by, pattern books were less available (with small and sometimes only black and white pictures), and there was no Internet to share ideas, techniques, fly photos and patterns.  I'm thinking back to the 1960s when I first started fly fishing. The only flies I had were those bought at the local hobby shop. Although I didn't tie flies back then, all one needed to tie this pattern was chenille from a fabric or craft store and hackle of just about any quality.

On Saturday this fly turned out to be a winner.  On the first three casts I picked up three fish, and I was off to the races.  I really believe the pattern's attractiveness was mostly about the presentation.  Not so much my presentation of the fly, but how the fly by its nature presented itself.

This is what I am thinking....

The fly casts beautifully on my 9 foot 5 weight Sage DS2, a moderate or moderate-fast rod.  The fly holds water easily which adds weight when being cast, but wind resistance is far less than, say, a fully hackled woolly bugger.  At any rate, the fly turns over nicely on 4x or 5x tippet.  When it lands, it splats.  Maybe this is a trigger, though it had to sink a bit before I would pick up strikes.  And when it comes to sinking, perhaps the rate of sink was the trigger.  Unlike other flies I fish below the surface, this had no extra weight on it.  The size 8 3x long hook was weight enough.

In terms of matching something found in nature, what I saw mostly on the farm pond I was fishing was dragonflies.  My guess is that the size of this "double hackle" matched closely the size of a dragonfly nymph.  But who knows...

I don't need to know why this pattern works.  I just know that I need to tie some more. (Or, send an appeal to Jim!)

A Monday flyfishing trip to New Hampshire

Sustenance... The Poor Boys Diner

This is the first river we fished, along rt. 16 in the Pinkham notch area.

Me.  Taken by friend Steve P.

The Elk Hair Caddis - parachute style, pictured below, worked great for me.... once I found it in my fly box.

I usually fish a parachute with a simple tail of a few strands of feather fibers or a few strands of hair from a ground hog. This would be more of a mayfly parachute. And I started the day that way.  But it simply did not produce for me on Monday. 

However, the longer and fuller profile of this caddis tied by my friend Paul DiNolo worked wonders.  After finding it in a corner of my flybox, and after catching a few trout on it, I remembered earlier hearing Bill at North Country Angler in North Conway talking about this being the time to fish terrestrials and hoppers. To the extent that grasshoppers were working, this caddis perhaps imitated the profile of a struggling grasshopper.  I have always felt that the parachute hackle can connote action and motion.  And a downwing of elk or deer hair has long been used to imitate grasshoppers, the most famous pattern perhaps being the Latort Hopper.  Add a pink post parachute and now I can see it among white foam and bubbles!

My friend Paul will be the first to tell you that these flies were tied to be fished and not photographed.  I think he is right; I caught a mess of trout on this sample, and it held up well.  I find that if you can use your fingers to get the hook out of the fish, the fly will last longer than if you must use forceps to remove the hook.  One more reason to pinch down the barb!

Below are a few pictures.  It looks like the elk hair (or perhaps coastal deer hair, from the looks of it) is tied in about 2/3 from the eye and the poly post is tied in about 1/3 from the eye.

This is a lot of material tied onto a size 12 hook.  It takes a little practice to get this pattern clean and neat.