Ever fish with a guide?  I never had until the Bahamas.

Now some of you may be thinking….

”Ummmmmm isn’t Captain Mark a guide, like isn’t that kind of the whole point of this Flyosophy website the promotion of his career as Captain of Flyosophy Charters via the horrible business model of having some mildly amusing, attention starved, Pez Dispenser of unrequested wisdom spouting off whatever idea should bounce around his empty and presumably pointy head?”

To you I say the following:

First – Shut up!!!!  You’ll hurt my feelings, my head is not pointy, and seriously who thinks “Ummmmmmmm….” Being an omniscient narrator RULES!!!!

Second – Fishing with a Captain is not at all like fishing with a Bahamian guide.

Like most things it’s probably a cultural thing, the culture in question is one of fly fishing not of the Bahamas or of the Northeast.

The primary service a captain provides is access.  A good captain will safely bring you to the fish – that’s a huge deal when you think of it.  Though he has knowledge of the best flies and gear to use, can provide presentation tips or casting advice if needed, that’s generally something you ask about ahead of time.  The information is offered but rarely volunteered – because that’s not the culture.  When you are on the water, the lion’s share of the actual fishing is on you (minus the whole finding the fish thing which is the greatest share of any fishing endeavor, but you get the idea.)  The culture – though not necessarily the truth – is that a guy who catches a massive striper with Captain X is made to feel he could have caught that fish on his own.  Fishing with a captain is a lot like fishing with a very knowledgeable cousin, friend or something…they’ll help however they can but unless it’s obvious you want help (i.e. you ask…) they may be a bit reluctant to offer.

The Bahamian guide I fished with wasn’t like that, not even a little bit.  He would have climbed inside my shirt and cast the rod for me if I let him.  I did not enjoy this, and in fairness, he did not enjoy me.

Flyosophy Fun Fact:  When I was in High School my plan was to go to West Point.  My grades and SAT scores were incredible. I was even a National Finalist in the Math Olympiad – yes that’s a thing.  So confidently I went through the application process and proudly told my uncle – The Colonel – of my plans.  He is a dour man with the unfortunate habit of telling lousy jokes over and over again until you laugh.  He can’t believe that the joke wasn’t funny, so he assumes you either didn’t hear him or didn’t get it.  He just told me one word that day, “Don’t.”  It was one of the very few times in my life that I actually listened to someone.  Many of my teachers and classmates were surprised when I changed gears and started looking into other colleges, they believed the military was a good fit for me – they also had zero experience with it.  To this day I find it telling that everyone I know who has military experience (like Mark’s Dad) confirms that I would not have functioned well in that environment.  Why? Because I respond negatively to being told what to do…also why I tend to bolt out of relationships…

I did not enjoy fishing with Mr. Guide.

He would aggressively snap his fingers at me and point.

“Cast, Cast, Cast!!!”

I’d start false casting in the general vicinity he was pointing, paying more attention to him then looking for the fish.  I can’t do much in this life – the Good Lord saw fit to bless others with the gifts of intelligence, ambition, and social skills, but damn it at least I can cast.  At least I can when I’m not being told what to do every moment of it.  It’s like brushing your teeth.  Easy beans right?  Now picture a scary dentist in a mesh tank top (That’s right Mr. Guide wore a peach mesh tank top) behind you in the mirror yelling, “Molars, Incisors, the gum line, the GUM LINE DAMMIT!!!!”  It’s a lot harder.

“STRIP STRIP STRIP!!!!!”  Followed by “Why did you strip so hard, strip softly…”

I mean the dude is on the cusp of an aneurysm imploring me to strip like somehow the fate of the universe depends on the fly moving.  He voice is rattling my spine with its insistence that I strip the line with urgency yet he wanted these gentle slow little strips.  He had no concept of matching the tone of one’s voice to the situation.  It was like bellowing “I LOVE YOU PUPPY!!!!!!!!” and wondering why your little dog is quivering under the bed.

Flyosophy Fun Fact:  The best way to torture a Golden Retriever Puppy is to pet it and then turn your back on it saying “Ignore.”  The dog will go nuts trying to get you to pay more attention to it…works on insecure women too…i.e. all of them. Yes I wrote this for no other reason than to include a puppy picture…

Mr. Guide hated me for a lot of reasons, most of them fair.  I did find that when I was fishing on my own I spotted fish fairly well, made good casts, and hooked up a huge percentage of the time. However, with the guide around to look for fish my eyes and brain wandered to observing the weird crabs, shrimp, sea-turtles, poking stingrays with my rod, coming up with characters for the children’s book I’m working on, imitating the Baptist preacher who ran the lodge – he was great dropped f-bombs and the N word (he was black and called his 20 something latent son by no other name) a thousand times a day while accusing the female members of his congregation of trying to seduce him.  Come to think of it the only word I never heard him say was “Amen.”  Anyhow you get the idea, Comedy Gold.

So Mr. Guide got sick of me and started hounding Mark.  Now, Mark possesses a quality I lack.  Though we are more or less bookends in terms of fly fishing ability, Mark exudes a confident air of competence that people respect.   For example, on more than one occasion we will be tying together at some Expo or Event and a guy will come up to us, point to the fly THAT I AM TYING IN MY VISE and ask Mark about it even though I’m sitting right there.  Reminds me of the time I won some prize for Scholarship and my well-intentioned professor suggested I have someone else speak at the award ceremony because I am “Stupid looking.”

So anyhow, Mr. Guide is giving Mark a hell of a lot less crap than he gave me yet one gem stands out.

Mr. Guide pointed to a bonefish Mark had already spotted.  Given the strong winds on his casting shoulder, Mark took his time to keep his eyes on the fish, but bring his rod and body around to lay out a backcast presentation.  Fly fishing 101 – actually that’s would be higher up a core concentration course at least.

Mr. Guide has the patience of a Viagra-doped Frat Boy and starts ordering Mark to make a “70 foot cast” towards the coral beach to intercept the fish.

Mark – forever the exact scientist – says “I can’t do that.” He couldn’t do that not because of the wind or lack of skill, but because the fish was barely 30 feet away, a 70 footer would have placed the fly far up on the dry marl.  Without a second thought, Mark delivers the fly a strip or three later the fish is on.

Later that day on the boat ride back, Mr. Guide decides to use this as a “teachable moment.”  He goes into a lengthy and philosophical discussion of how in life many are the things which seem impossible or daunting.  Despite that we should always try, try to dream the impossible dream, fight the unbeatable foe, seek out the ineffable and see if we can’t eff it after all…  Mark was wrong to say that he couldn’t make that cast, because when he did try he managed to catch the fish.  Powerful life lesson shared and learned Mr. Guide is a philosopher as well.

Mark didn’t see it that way, “No I couldn’t make a 70 foot cast because the shore was only 40 feet away.  What are you on the metric system or something?”

So that was my first, possibly last, experience of fishing with a guide.  I will say this – the guy knew his stuff, and I did learn from him (more on that later, also I’m fairly certain “Mr. Guide” will become a Flyosophy Character the greatest honor anyone could ever receive.)  I firmly believe he was a good guide and I would recommend him to a friend – provided that friend really wanted a guide.  It is a much different culture than I am used to or would like to get used to.  He spotted fish better than I could, his boat provided better access then we would have had doing it ourselves, but all in all I enjoyed the one day we went out and found no fish pretty well – at least I didn’t get yelled at.

Fishing with a Guide is a lot like having sex with a woman who keeps telling you what to do – it makes you feel cheap, kills any sense of accomplishment, and you end up wishing you just stayed home and did it yourself.

The Maryland Department of Natural Resources (DNR) Fisheries Service is making a significant management change to the commercial Chesapeake Bay Striped Bass fishery. DNR is working to meet fishing industry goals, create a more sustainable system, increase accountability and make it easier for police to enforce the law. The system will also comply with new Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission requirements. These changes are the result of extensive meetings with the Tidal Fisheries Advisory Commission’s Striped Bass Industry Workgroup over the past 18 months.

The proposed change is the allocation of individual quotas to fishing permit holders based on their Striped Bass catch histories from January 1, 2001 through February 29, 2012. New regulations will impact Striped Bass permit holders fishing in 2014.

DNR has set a cutoff (control date) of May 10, 2013 as the date when a waterman with a record of catching Striped Bass must possess a commercial Striped Bass permit in order to be eligible for a 2014 allocation.

“There are watermen who participated in the Striped Bass fishery in the 2001 to 2012 period but no longer have a Striped Bass permit. There are also watermen working with a temporary transferred permit who have accumulated a catch history, which could justify a quota allocation for them under the new management program,” said Mike Luisi, director of DNR Fisheries Estuarine and Marine Division. “It’s important that these watermen understand that their catch history will not be considered if they don’t possess a Striped Bass permit on May 10.”

“We are asking that any permit owner or potential buyer considering a permanent Striped Bass permit transfer after May 10th consult with us before committing to a sale. We want fishermen to be well informed regarding the allocation impacts when making this business decision,” said Luisi.

Baby’s First Bonefish

How many times have you heard some variant of the expression “_____________ is JUST like bonefishing!!!!” ?

I’ve heard in in regards to: fishing for carp, fishing for trout, fishing for redfish, fishing for bluefish, one fish and two fish, and of course most commonly in comparison to striper fishing.  Since I had never been bonefishing, I never thought too much about it.  My last adventure with Captain Mark brought us to Acklins Island in the Bahamas.  This vacation was great because like all great trips there was much to learn and new perspectives to understand.  The one I’d like to share with you today is:

Bonefishing is NOTHING like striper fishing.

In order for some douche-knuckle to honestly believe it is, he would not only have to know nothing about striper fishing, but also nothing about bonefishing.  More likely, he’s just some intellectually lazy smack-tard who has trouble seeing beyond the fact that all fishing (even say ice-fishing and fly fishing) have more than zero similarities.

Flyosophy Grammar Note:  I’m using the word “bonefishing” rather than “bone fishing” because I have come to believe that “bonefishing” is not merely fishing for bonefish but a very distinct set of techniques.

The next few articles will detail much of what I learned on this trip, and for those of you in the audience who see me as an impossibly arrogant ogre (not that that’s too far off) you’ll be happy to know that I had a LOT to learn this trip.  The skills required of a sight-fishing striper angler are not the same as a bonefisherman.

First something of a disclaimer –

I have exactly one week of bonefishing experience, and only in one location of the bonefish’s impressive range.  Take everything I write with a grain of salt, or better still catch on to the overall theme of the article – all fishing experiences are worthy of the time required to learn them.

Spotting fish

Spotting stripers is pretty easy.  They are big, usually pretty black (though they do “blonde-out”) and most importantly the sand flat of the Northeast is a pretty constant background.

Bonefish are a lot harder to see.  They are smaller, their mirrored sides almost allow them to disappear like the Predator, and their preferred habitat is a mixed bottom of sand and chunks of marl (dead coral.)  Their background is a myriad of colors – whites, yellows, browns and greens.  Normally I’d say something along the lines of “There is no substitute for experience” but in this case the eyes of a guide are probably better – if you can stand to have one around – more on this later.

Casting

What took me by surprise was how poor my casting was on the first day.  Granted some of this was winter rust, but a lot of it was the fact that I rarely cast floating lines.  Years and years of striper fishing with fast sinking shooting heads which make distance and the wind a non-issue were not the best cross-training for what is required bonefishing.  Casts need to be made quickly and in nearly any direction, sometimes into the wind, sometimes with it.  Striper fishing the fish generally moving in a predictable pattern across the flat; find that spot and you can set up your shots.  Bonefish though they typically move with the current are far more spread out – this could be more an effect of the habitat that anything particular to the fish.  I mean seriously what the hell do I know…

Habitat

The one thing I noticed about the Bahamian flats that differed significantly from my Cape Cod flats was they seemed far less full of life.  There were almost no baitfish, crabs and shrimp were present but I wouldn’t say plentiful.  In fact given the number of sharks an argument could be made that the dominant forage were the bonefish themselves.

Fly Acceptance

Stripers are not the pickiest fish in the ocean.  Getting one to take your fly is not all that difficult. Yet, the bonefish make stripers look like the discriminating white cat from the Fancy Feast commercials.  On our trip, 100% of flies presented to non-spooked bonefish were taken.  That’s not an exaggeration.  There was not one single refusal, bluegill are like impossible to catch compared to these fish.  If you can see them you can catch them, provided you don’t spook them.  I feel this is a direct response to the tropical flat having far less food resources than the Cape.  The bonefish have to eat what they can when they can…the warm water probably doesn’t help either boosting the cold-blooded metabolism, but that’s just a theory I pulled out of ass.

Wariness

Striper’s rarely spook, in the traditional sense of taking off at a high rate of speed.  If a striper detects your presence or thinks something is amiss with the fly or presentation, it simply won’t eat.   This can be frustrating because there is very little of an outward sign that the fish is aware of you.  Bonefish on the other hand are easier to read.  They with dart off, then calm down.  Mark made 8 presentations to the same fish simply because he waited for the spooky bastard to collect himself before casting again.  A striper on the flat – with very few exceptions – is the apex predator in that environment.  It has nothing to really worry about.  A bonefish, on the other hand, is a full participant in the food chain.  Still I wouldn’t say stripers are less wary, nor would I say bonefish are more spooky.  I’ve never hooked a striper with a fly that was less than 6 feet from my boots…bonefish - two in 6 days.

Depth

Bonefishing is done in water barely deep enough to get the tops of your boots wet.  This is a huge difference to striper fishing which is most often done in water that is at least a couple feet deep.  Stripers can get into very skinny water, but nothing like the bonefish.  This changes the game in terms of gear.  Striper fishermen can use heavy sinking lines and short leaders.  Bonefishing you will need a floater and a fairly long leader.  I used a leader about 12 feet long, enormous compared to my standard striper leader which is often just a few feet long.  The flies need to reach the bottom a head of the fish, but must be lightly weighted so as not to “plop” in front of them.  Also, bonefish seem able to hear the sound of a human voice.  In many years of striper fishing, I’ve never seen any evidence that yelling, talking, or laughing hysterically has any adverse effect on the fishing, bonefishing it certainly seemed to.

The Fight

A striper in the mid-30 size class is one of my favorite fish to fight.  They are strong, savvy, and have good endurance though not so much on the speed factor.  Sometimes they will pull, sometimes take off for deeper water, or do quick change of directions and head shakes.  Bonefish – from what I saw – have exactly one play in their book.  They take off at high speeds.  Impressive if you generally target trout or something, but compared to say a false albacore it’s nothing that amazing.  After this burst, they may manage a few quick bursts but they are pretty much out of ideas.  Unless you hook them near mangroves, sharp marl, or a shark (or if you used Mustad Signature hooks that bend and suck and are totally G’hey) don’t expect to lose too many fish or be able to really remember one fight more than another.

That’s good enough for an intro and overview, I’ll be fleshing out a few more details in the next few articles.  All in all when I go on a trip I ask myself two questions:

First, would I do it again?

In the case of bonefishing – certainly it’s a very enjoyable yet technical type of fly fishing, plus the whole tropical island paradise is easy to get used to – though there are some downsides – more on that later…

Second, would I do it in June?  (June being the time when striper fishing is best…not because bonefishing – or whatever –  is better or worse then)

Honestly, No.  As much as I liked bonefishing I doubt I will ever love it as much as the pure variety and challenge of striper fishing.  They are both special and unique, but my heart beats for colder waters.

I certainly would never lessen both by lumping them together.  Bonefishing is just like bonefishing.  Striper fishing feels just like home.

My mother is the worst story-teller on planet Earth.  That is possibly an exaggeration since I haven’t met everyone on planet Earth.  I’ve always assumed that if there was a worse story-teller that person would be arrested as a serial killer for all the suicides she inspired.  No one, as of yet, has killed themselves to get out of listening to one of my mother’s rambling aural abortions, but nearly everyone has thought about it.

Why are these stories so horrible?  She has no concept of omitting insignificant details.  If she is talking about a neighbor, the story is really about all her neighbors, every neighbor she has ever had, what all of them do for work, who they are related to, what they drive, the types of pets they have, and naturally whether or not they go to church.  There usually is some point to these tales but good luck shifting through the endless list of proper names and driving directions for every setting.  Also, this is truly the Never Ending Story.  Listeners come into the story and leave, yet she doesn’t stop talking.  Any questions lead to more details which are only tangential to the main theme because they took place on the same planet.  It’s really that bad.

Math – specifically the Scientific notation – enjoys a concept of “significant digits.”  This is essentially a way of rounding off numbers that are either incredibly large or incredibly small.  1,000,000,000,000 and 1,000,000,231,276 are not considered significantly different.  This is a math concept, and not a bad one, but it can lead to some quirks.  Especially if one considers that of all the celestial bodies known to exist in the universe there is only one known to harbor life…one could argue that life is insignificant.

Now let’s consider last week’s special guest, a small carving of a Cigar store Indian or Native American to be Politically Correct.

Flyosophy Fun Fact:  The Flyosopher has fished with exactly one Native American who was adamant that the term “Indian” is less offensive than the term “Native American.”  Why?  Because “Indian” refers to the fact that European explores had not clue where they were when they first interacted with native cultures…whereas the term “Native American” names these peoples after an Italian cartographer Amerigo Vespucci. People using the term “Native American” ought to have known better, and simply called the various peoples by the name of their nations.  It’s an interesting perspective to consider.      

The detail that the carver, Kevin McKenna, was most proud of…the blank of wood used to create that Indian was taken from a cigar box.  There are much softer woods that are a lot easier to carve, but to him it was significant that the wood match the theme of the piece even though there is no way anyone could know that just by admiring his work.  He also carved some General Patton’s, created a mold, and cast brass statues from 1944 and ’45 pennies.  The one cent piece of those years were made not from copper due to war shortages but brass shell casings.  So the prominent general of the war immortalized in the spent bullets used to fight it.

Whether a detail in a fly is significant or not depends not so much on the fish but the fisherman.  If a fly with some small detail gives you confidence the significance of that can not be overstated.  However, I do find it silly how many flies are published which vary so little from others, often by the very same tier.  Color changes, size changes stuff of that nature.  But I am considering these differences more as a fly tyer rather than a fly user.  I consider techniques used to make the imitation more significant than any detail or even material.

With that in mind I submit the following

Mole Crab

Hook:  Mustad Signature Shrimp Size 1

Thread:  Tan something or other

Eyes:  40# Mono melted, Sharpied, and dipped in Soft Body, Small non-lead

Mouth bit: Orange Craft fur

Legs:  Loco Legs Tan

Body: Amber Polar Chenille

Wing: Badger hair

Like nearly all the flies I tie this is a variant of a variant.  I got the idea from Dick Brown’s Ghost shrimp, and a Crazy Charlie variant shrimp pattern tied with badger fur.  I simply merged the patterns, swapped the body material to polar chenille which is great stuff, and made the whole thing bigger.

Mole crabs – ankle biters, sand fleas, or really any smallish crab – make up a significant portion of what a striper eats, especially on the flats.  I never used to like to fish crab patterns, but I’ve learned to love them.  The key is to get the fly to the bottom ahead of the fish.  Though you are sighting the fish, it is often better to play zone rather than man to fish coverage.  Casting at a cruising fish you are unlikely to get the fly deep enough unless you use a fast sinking line, and then there is a good chance the splash may spook the fish.  Casting to likely structure and waiting for the fish to cruise by is often the most productive way to fish these patterns.

The mono eyes are sections of 40# test mono which has been melted to form a ball and then colored with a Sharpie and dipped in Soft Body – an epoxy substitute.  I’m sure you can use any of the light cure stuff or 4-real epoxy, but I really like the Soft Body for this and since I hate it for everything else, winner.

To begin wrap the shank, tie on the dumbbell eyes and add a small clump of craft fur. I like to use orange because it contrasts well and many crustaceans have orange in their shells or egg sacs.

Next tie on the mono eyes to the sides of the shank.  The most important thing is to not get in the way of the hook bend.  Eyes may or may not be a significant detail, but they can definitely screw up the fly and make it harder to hook fish.  Next add a couple rubber legs.  I use on on each side but more could be better.  Finally wrap the body with the polar chenille.  This will create the illusion of legs.

Last step, add a wing of badger hair – for smaller flies possum may be better.  Like many natural materials the color of the badger fur will vary, if available I prefer to use a ginger tan over a darker brown.  As is the case with most flats flies, it should look like it belongs there and crabs despite what you may have read from other D’bags named Murphy – can’t fight off stripers.  They hide or they die.

That’s it.  Easy fly to tie and to fish and that may be the most significant detail of all.

Philosophy, religion and science are all attempts to describe the nature of things.  This is most often written – Capital “T” Truth.  The lines between the big three get a lot blurrier the deeper you go.  For instance, Science takes the high ground because of the Scientific Method, which is nothing more than a philosophy, and often conflicts with religion’s nature of attempting to control how people live – yet what controls a person’s life and life-span more than science and its brain-child technology?  One could argue that despite Science’s lofty goal of expanding the human mind, its greatest accomplishment is making people dumber. Religion is naturally not free of this either often tiptoeing into the sciences though leaving the necessary method of science behind.  It’s a poor world view that is more certain of the answers then of the questions.

Also there exists an element of faith in both – though science may claim otherwise.  But seriously, string theory?  Infinite alternate universes created every time a person chooses chocolate ice cream rather than vanilla? (Oreo is my favorite ice cream for you people obsessed with every detail of my amazing life.)  Mathematical theory…you’re kind of asking a lot there.  I personally do not believe in infinity nor that retarded “i” thing for the square root of negative 1 – give it up it doesn’t exist, imaginary reality my ass.  If there was an imaginary unit, I would be the chairman of its Treasury.  Like say I had Green Lantern’s ring, you would never not see green cartoony things orbiting around me: green belly-dancing girls, a green butler who hates me named “Murphington,” a green shaker of cayenne pepper that I’d dash in the yellow eyes of my hated foes.  Against my imagination Superman would be defenseless and Wonder Woman would be disturbed, but I digress.  Actually one last thing, it does bother me that the imaginary unit probably was a currency of childhood once upon a time, today kids seem a lot more boring, and I’m not ok with that.

 “Imagination will often carry us to worlds that never were. But without it we go nowhere.”

Carl Sagan

In the quest to understand the nature of things I feel the most complete and accurate answer thus far comes in the form of the Religion/Philosophy of Taoism.  That’s not to say I think it is complete or accurate, just the best so far which is kind of sad given that these ideas are thousands of years old.

When people see some things as beautiful,
other things become ugly.
When
people see some things as good,
other things become bad.

Being and
non-being create each other.
Difficult and easy support each other.
Long
and short define each other.
High and low depend on each other.
Before and
after follow each other.

Therefore the Master
acts without doing
anything
and teaches without saying anything.
Things arise and she lets
them come;
things disappear and she lets them go.
She has but doesn’t
possess,
acts but doesn’t expect.
When her work is done, she forgets
it.
That is why it lasts forever.

Lao-tzu

In a nutshell, Taoism offers an often paradoxical view of the duality of creation.  A man who digs a hole also creates a hill of dirt that sort of thing.  When a thing is in harmony with its nature it is good.  Tigers kill, sheep don’t, and water flows to the sea…that sort of thing.  Think about your own life, odds are pretty good that the most stressful times have been when you were forced by society or some familial duty to be in a position contrary to your nature.  Far more difficult challenges in harmony with your nature weren’t nearly as bad.  That’s why one man can cheat on his wife without losing a wink of sleep, where another guy feels guilt after refilling his soda at Burger King – there are few if any universal truths when dealing with individuals.

This brings us to last week’s special guest, my precious precocious pup Daisy.  Golden retrievers are great dogs, gentle, friendly, happy to be with you and smarter than they seem, but not overly so.  Daisy was a soft dog even by the cushy standards of Goldens.  She wanted to play fetch, swim and be petted, but never liked rough housing or even playing tug.  She never chewed up her toys, not even fairly delicate stuffed animals.  One day I found her in the yard trotting along with a possum.  She’d gently put it down, go sniff something, gently pick it up and carry it to the next destination on her adventure.  When I saw this, I figured the possum was dead and called Daisy in but told her to leave it outside.  Sure enough after being in the house a few minutes, the possum shook itself up from its self-defense coma and wandered off none the worse for wear.  Daisy was a gentle dog.

However…When I first came home from the hospital after my injuries, Daisy was completely different.  She stood by the window and would viciously bark at anyone who passed by the house, something she had never done before.  She would literally bristle, with her hackles erect around her neck and down her back growling at all the world like an angry German Shepherd.  I was slightly concerned she’d bite the mailman, who she always loved.  She wouldn’t play, she didn’t want to get petted or brushed – brushed was always her favorite; she was a completely different dog.

This lasted about a week.  Once my mood and condition improved, Daisy went right back to being a happy playful dog who loved the mailman and never barked at cars.  Clearly, the dog was taking her cue from me.  When I was hurt and weak and needed to be protected, she sensed that and sprang into action though it stressed her out.  When those things were no longer true, she went right back to her gentle nature.  Every dog is a wolf; it’s always there just often buried, but it’s in the nature of the thing to come forward when needed.

It’s in my nature to be simple and a minimalist.  That’s what inspired the following fly.

Herring Fly

Hook – Owner size 1

Extended body – 35mm Articulated shank (Tube, cut hook, Waddington shank or equivalent)

Tail – Marabou

Body – Bill’s Bodi Braid or equivalent

Wing – Yak Hair, Steve Farrah blend

Spreader – Estaz Grande

Eye – Whatever don’t bother me with details

This fly is what I use to imitate baby herring which live in the many Cape Cod kettle ponds (but not nearly enough) trout love to eat them, especially the large hold-over browns.  Now I have a zillion patterns for stripers which imitate this bait, and these patterns would work.  However, they were intended to be cast on 8wt rods.  I do most of my trout fishing with a 2wt rod.  I can fish this pattern on a 2wt, because even though it is a fairly small fly, I tied it using the techniques of big fly tying from last week.  Sneaky.

I tie just a bit of marabou and flash to the hook – the smallish hook easily fits in a trouts mouth, and I perfer to have the hook near the rear of the fly when fishing for trout.  Bass just swallow baitfish, trout tend to bite at them.

The hook shank and the extender have been wrapped with bodi braid and I added a bit of yak hair as a tail.  Unlike a traditional Rangely Lakes streamer – the shank on the hook is very short and a fish will not have a lot of leverage.  An important consideration given the light tackle I plan to use.

Here you see the Estaz ball which will function as a spreader.  I decided to use peral instead of read because I have the bleeding effect near the tail.  A fish bleeding from the gills is probably screwed, a fish bleeding from its tail is totally screwed.  Just like last week I add small bundleds of Farrah blend to give the fly size without bulk.

Pearl around the body with a thin topping of peacock with an eye to complete the illusion.

Now why not just bring a heavier rod for streamer fishing…because carrying two rods is a pain.  With this fly in my box I can plan a day around say dry fly fishing or as is more often the case fishing scuds.  If I find a mess of baitfish getting whacked by trout I’m in the game with a big fly and the same rod.  It’s just another way of approaching the situation, maybe this interests you, maybe it doesn’t.

It’s not really in my nature to care.

Last week’s special guest was Sylvanus Packard…hold the applause.  No doubt you have heard of him, he’s the visionary who, in addition to obviously being a favorite of the ladies, donated enough money to Tufts University so that they named a building after him.  There they hung his likeness on the wall until a bored student thought it would be funny to steal it.  The student – who shall remain nameless – though never a favorite with the ladies -  was the true visionary because nearly 20 years later, it’s still funny.

No one wants to be forgotten, or worse to feel like their time on Earth was largely unnoticed.  Philosophically, I think we have little understanding of how much impact we have on the lives of others.  All of us whether we like it or not live in the same reality. Certain individuals or professions are honored more than others, but everyone plays a role – though possibly a negative one.  For instance, say you needed surgery, clearly the skill of the surgeon will determine your recovery, but also the work ethic of the dude who cleans the operating room.  It’s just much less likely anyone will ever thank that guy, or know his name, or remember him.

Of course not many people will remember the surgeon either…at least not for very long.  If we accept that both guys saved lives, and then consider the Butterfly Effect.

Side Note: The Butterfly Effect – this is the belief that seemingly minor actions ripple through space and time to create powerful effects in the world.  This idea is credited to the mathematician Edward Lorenz whose attempt to describe chaos theory led to the now proverbial expression “A Butterfly flaps its wing and causes a Hurricane on the other side of the world…”  Nice story, but never forget the first rule of Chaos – it’s chaotic.  A much better story, and earlier, is the Short Story A Sound of Thunder by Ray Bradbury.  The tale is about Time Travel and how the accidental death of a single butterfly millions of years ago altered the future in ways no one could imagine.  I have imagined this.  I imagine a lot.  I once imagined that if I were transported back in time to England during the period where the Angles, Saxons, Latin-speakers, and Jutes (no one remembers the Jutes) were verbally duking it out in the war of words that would eventually become the English Language.  The key difference my presence would have made:  today the subject of every imperative sentence would no longer be “You Understood” but “Bitch Understand!!!!!!”

According to the Butterfly Effect, the surgeon saved some lives, but the dude who washes the floors saved a hell of a lot more, since the surgeon did a few, if that, operations a day where that guy cleaned like every operating room every day.  Does this mean anything?  Of course not but that’s the true legacy.

Fly tiers aren’t immune from this.  It would be great to have a fly named after you, to be a part of history, to be remembered.  Partly this drives innovation, it definitely drives publishing, but in the end history decides what to remember and what to forget.  History reflects more of the needs and desires of the people writing it than the people about whom it is written; sometimes, only sometimes it even reflects the truth.

Something to think about…here’s something else.

Bunker Fly

 (Adjust the colors and it can be anything, herring, golden shiner, perch…whatev)

 Hook – Mustad 8/0 – with a weighted keel

 Thread – Like I care

 Tail – Super Hair support, yak hair

 Spreader -  Blue Water Chenille Pink

 Wing – Steve Farrah blend, White, Rainbow, Peacock

 Eye – Something big

 This fly is a big fly.  It’s not a huge fly or anything, but like all big flies it needs some consideration when tying it.  In a nutshell, a big fly needs to appear bigger than it actually is because if the size were created entirely with material it would be very difficult to cast.  The other consideration is a bit harder to appreciate until you have tied a few.  Mistakes in a small fly are small mistakes; mistakes in a big fly are big mistakes.  The easiest way to picture this is to consider a small baitfish pattern like the deceiver.  Often there is white material below the shank, colored above.  This looks ok on a small fly, but ridiculous on a big one, since baitfish are generally only darker down a thin part of their back.  Also, profile errors in a tiny pattern are hard to detect, in a larger pattern they scream out at you.  Nothing to worry about, just something to consider.  We’ll bring this concept back later…actually next week…

Now what may seem counter intuitive add some weight to the shank.  I prefer to use strips of Non-lead Tungsten wire.  The difficultly with casting large flies has less to do with their weight and more to do with their air resistance.  A fly that is actually heavier with be able to functionally reduce the drag.  It’s a balancing act.  There is a point where adding more weight will make the fly hardier not easier to cast.  I learned the right amount of weight to use for patterns by experimenting with an unweighted fly and adding beads to the hook during test casts to get an idea of the amount of weight to use for flies of a certain size.  Sorry I can’t be more technique specific, but for this fly 15 inches of wire does the trick.

Tail support, tie in a stiff material – I like Super Hair.  This material will be surrounded by others and subdued, so feel free to use something bright.  I like chartreuse.

Yak hair makes the best material for a tail.  Though it is a natural material, just pretend it’s a synthetic.  All the techniques and rules for tying in synthetics apply to yak hair.  In addition to its beautiful translucence in the water, yak hair rarely fouls.  It can of course, but compared to long saddles it’s a non issue.

Spreaders have been used in a number of flies for years now.  My favorite was Buffy the Striper Slayer, mostly because I liked that show.  How hot is Charisma Carpenter?

Answer: Incredibly Hawt

I have given up using EZ body as a spreader for Blue Water Chenille simply because the chenille adds a gill effect flash and some movement.  It does the same job, but with a big fly anytime a material can serve two purposes its better to use than having to add a pink hair or something else to achieve this.

To finish the fly use the light airy Farrah blend.  I like to lay small bundles like shingles along the spreader.  Keep them fairly short, only a tiny bit longer than the tie-in point for the yak hair tail.  Farrah blend fouls like Greg Kite and keeping it short is the best way to reduce that.

Glue on an eye and done.

Oh look the nameless feeb has a predictable comment to make I’ve heard a billion times, yet I’ve:

A). Never killed anyone for saying it yet

B). Have yet to win a Nobel Peace Prize for my Stalwart self-control.

“But can you cast that fly?”

 Nameless Feeb

Of course I can, you could to if you learned to cast.  There I said it.  Learn to cast people, if I encounter one more simp who goes on and on about his love of fly fishing yet can’t make a simple cast.  What am I to make of that?  Are you lying about loving fly fishing?  Are you deficient in vitamin T? Seriously, ask yourself that question for this is how you are presenting yourself.  Rant over.

A big fly can be a key to success in the right situation.  I’ve used flies like this in off shore rips, pike fishing, last at night, and during spring herring runs and when the bunker are in.  I’ve also used it sight fishing when the stripers had corralled some adult bunker.  Day in and day out a smaller fly is generally easier to fish, and often more effective, but again everything depends on the situation.

Play around with the ideas of bigger flies and who knows maybe you’ll cement your own legacy into the lore of fly fishing.  We may all want to be the next Alexander the Great, but if we end up like Sylvanus Packard, that’s just fine.

Sexy Librarian – in Context

Did you catch last week’s special guest?  Probably not since it would have required insider info, and even the people with insider info barely noticed the single most traumatic emotional experience of maybe not my life but possibly my adult life…

The special quest was a key, the key to my truck, the truck I no longer have…Koiko was murdered.

It was an odd feeling.  The day I took possession of my new ’12 Tacoma, I did not feel happy but somewhat miserable.  A sick knot in the pit of my stomach, the feeling you only get when you know you are doing something wrong.  I could have gotten Koiko repaired – it would have cost nearly twice the value of the truck – but I could have done it.  Instead I bought a new one, the 01’ Tundra and the ’12 Tacoma are extremely similar in terms of size and body shape.  Also, I bought a green one.  The differences are so subtle that no one noticed I had a new truck.  There’s Murph, there’s his green Toyota truck…

The reason I still feel off is because it’s not yet my truck, and I’m not sure it will ever feel that it is.  I get that this is weird.  I understand that it isn’t normal for a person, a human, to feel more love and devotion for a thing than for anything else.  Am I really this emotionally crippled?  I think we all know the answer to that.

But then I read something about love, about forming emotional connections.  Think about your friends, your family, and especially your siblings if you are lucky enough to have some.  Do you really have that many common interests or similarities bonding you?  Or is it more accurate to say the four-letter word “love” is better spelt “TIME…”

I caught the 2013 Fly Fishing Film Tour – and my favorite film was the Brother’s Brown.  It’s about the three Grajewski brothers who fish together for brown trout.

Flyosophy Fun Fact:  I know Matt quite well – though we have never met, the internet is strange like that – for years I lobbied hard to either marry into his family or get his parents to adopt me.  Regrettably his sister had standards or something…more regrettably the three brothers I already have don’t fish.

The film is enjoyable to watch and it is easy to see why the three guys are so close.  What is less obvious but more powerful is the deeper under-current.  They aren’t close because they fish together; they fish together because they are a pack, because they are brothers.  They have put in the time, and in a world full of other things to do, and other equally valid demands on that time, they continue to spend it together.  You should check it out if you have a brother or a son- and if your son doesn’t have a brother maybe you won’t pull out the next time you’re violating his mother…

Which brings me back to Koiko…because of the time/love beautiful sensitive side I was showing, not because of that whole “violating” thing…

I drove that truck for 12 years.  Maybe 12 years doesn’t seem like a long time but to me it is.  It’s nearly four times longer than any place I’ve ever lived, far longer than any relationship, at least twice as long as any job I’ve kept and much longer than I’ve known Mark – my oldest fishing buddy.  12 years, sadly, is more time than I have ever had a dog, and it’s longer than I had a father…so there’s that.

“The strangeness of Time.  Not in its passing, which can seem infinite, like a tunnel whose end you can’t see, whose beginning you’ve forgotten, but in the sudden realization that something finite, has passed, and is irretrievable.”

Joyce Carol Oates

Life is as transitory as the tides.  Everything and everywhere and everyone you know or care for will eventually leave you, unless you leave them first.  Nothing is set in stone, and considering all the sand on the flats not even stone is free of this.  If there is something you love and enjoy, best to love and enjoy it now.  Time is relative, and we must never lose sight of the relevance of this. The greatest gift is time; it’s all you have to give.

I love fly fishing and fly tying.   I’ve put a lot of time into both of these things.  I enjoy playing with new materials, creating new patterns, and tinkering.  Working to achieve a certain effect, or to maximize a certain quality to test the limits of what I thought was possible.  Sometimes these creations are successes, more often they are not what I hoped to achieve, but they all teach something.  If that’s all they can say about me, then I’d be happy with that.

Now for the single most controversial comment I may ever make…

 “Tying with synthetic materials requires more tying skill than tying with natural materials.”

The Flyosopher

This is not to say that the results are more or less effective, or that synthetics are superior to natural materials.  Simply, if you find good natural materials and lash them clumsily to a hook – they will work.  The tyer’s skill is often secondary to the quality of the materials.  Marabou, hackle, rabbit fur – these all have a beautiful inherent motion and life.  Synthetic materials do not have this, and creating the illusion of life with these materials requires more of the tyer.

To illustrate this consider the following fly…

Super Hair Baitfish

Hook – 2/0 Mustad

Thread – Danville 210 White

Tail and wing – Super Hair – a bit of flash material

Eyes – Whatev stick on or 3D it’s all good

Super Hair is a fairly stiff synthetic, which reduces its movement but a skillful tyer can use these qualities provided he follows steps that are unnecessary when tying with natural materials.  Nearly everything life-like in this fly is there because the tyer put it there – very little comes from the material itself.

Before tying in any synthetic material it is important to stagger the tips.  Natural materials do this naturally.  The taper with cause more vibration and allow the material to twitch and pulse and not look like a paintbrush.

Flash – adding flash adds movement.  While natural saddle hackle is always moving in the water, a hint of flash creates this effect for synthetics.  Don’t go nuts with the stuff, but its possible to pull some out in the field.

Variety is the spice of life, but it is also a sure sign of it.  Synethtic materials have little variety fiber to fiber, so the tyer will have to create this.  I use: Pink, Yellow, Chartreuse, Grey, and Teal added to white to create a baitfish medley with all the colors of the rainbow.

The colors are hard to see in the pic…but thats not important what you should focus on is the method they are tied in.  Most synthetic materials will not compress much under thread tension so the fold back technique is useful.  It’s also useful for creating a more realistic profile.

I added a throat of white and a topping of light tan, stuck on an eye and Viola a nice baitfish pattern.  Flip through any pattern guide and you will find similar flies tied by Captain X with material Y – they are all fairly effective.  I used Super Hair because unlike say Farrah blend it is more of a blank slate to illustrate my point that synthetic materials require more skills than natural ones.  Now is this fly more effective than that rabbit one – can’t say that, but this is a lot easier to toss around, and if I want to throw something huge I have to use synthetic materials – or my beloved Yak Hair with is almost a natural synthetic…add to this the reality that if you tie big, anything that may seem unnatural to a fish is also embiggened.

Take the time to learn how to work with ONE synthetic – if nothing eles you may find it imporves your skills the next time you work with bucktail or hackle tips or even marabou.

Time is the most percious resource available too you.  Share it and spent it wisely – invest in your family, invest in your friends, invest in yourself.

Flyosophy Fun Fact: When the Flyosopher was a Youth Soccer Coach the team was named “The Sons of Gargamel.”  The Smurfs are evil, the represent Collectivism and its hard growing up in the 80′s with S.Murphy written on most of your books and crap. 

Sorry for the delay but my house is in shambles.  See I decided to follow my sister’s advice and strip the “Pop Corn” Texture off my ceilings before I put down my new floor.  Seemed like a good idea until I got to the kitchen, where it had been painted.  Suffice to say, I had to sand the crap out of it several times, fill the house with potentially deadly dust, and ultimately retexture the damn thing because it was in horrible shape…the rest of the rooms look great though so hey, Brightside.

I do get some crap from my family because I’m reluctant to ever hire someone.  It’s not that I’m cheap – actually given that I could spend the time working at my job it would probably be a financial gain – it’s because I feel proud of the handyman projects I’ve accomplished, mostly because I’m not terribly handy.  In fact, most of the things I feel proudest about are things I’m not very good at.

I doubt I am alone, and there are two reasons for this…

First, things that naturally come easy to us we tend to dismiss as easy, or view them as things that everyone finds easy.  Worth and pride come more from the struggle not merely the result.  This is, in many ways, a good thing.  A gifted athlete who struggles to maintain his C average probably should feel more pride at say getting a B on a paper than winning a game; the kid who gets A’s without studying but who is painfully shy should feel a strong sense of growth if he gets a bit part in the school play.  The downside is this can lead to undervaluing their skills, or having a lack of compassion for people who have to struggle in areas that come easily to them.  One of the best things that happened to me in high school  was when I was more or less forced to become a tutor.  It taught me compassion – not that I express much of that here or verbally ever – and gratitude that I was pretty smart, something I had never really appreciated before.  Teaching other people is often seen as a self-less act, but don’t be fooled, the teacher gains as much if not more than the student.  I was extremely proud when Rob Winsor (think Nelson Muntz) aced his Algebra final and passed the class – but make no mistake I learned more from those sessions.

The second reason –  wasn’t held enough as a child.

 “A-student Huh?”

The Flyosopher’s Dad Every time the young Flyosopher did Something Stupid: i.e. a Lot

This is only half of a joke.  Parents and society as a whole tend to reward and praise certain endeavors while minimizing others.  There are skills that are undervalued, and other skills that are overvalued, and other skills that sucking at is more or less normal and accepted.

For example: Let’s pretend you suck at calculus (unless you really suck at it then there is no need to pretend)…congratulations you are more or less normal.  The number of people who are really good at advanced Mathematics is low enough to label them “deviants” since they deviate from accepted norms.  See how I used a math term in a poetic way.  You won’t see writing of this caliber in many places because again it is something of a dying art.  Most high school and even college graduates have lower linguistic skills than eighth graders did just a few decades ago.  Call it sad, call it a shame, but you can’t call it abnormal, at least not accurately.

Memory is an overvalued skill.  It requires no real thought, creativity or intelligence, yet with a good memory you can go far.  In fact a student who can do nothing but read and remember, or better listen and remember has no need to develop any other mental skill to excell in a traditional academic setting.  This does the student a major disservice and is ultimately part of the reason many highly intelligent creative famous people did poorly in school.

Finally, how often are kids told to not be too social or not to socialize in lieu of studying?  Socializing is a highly undervalued skill.  Think about it…how often will someone who is not Alex Trebek ask anyone anything about say: history, the arts, geometry?  Yet how many times does that same person have to use their social skills – that’s right all the time.  In fact, one could easily argue that the most important thing that anyone ever learns in a school setting is how to be social.  A person with below average academic skills, but considerable social skills can be a success in nearly any industry.  Now let’s just say there was a person who excelled at math, science, had a great memory, could write well, but struggled in social environments what do you suppose happens to that individual?  I think we all know, and no its not pretty…

Suffice to say the usefulness of a skill is not always proportional to how it is valued.

The same can be said for flies.

The fly last week is hard to appreciate and certainly hard to feel any pride in.  It is almost too simple, and because it works everywhere it is hard to think it is the best fly anywhere.  This week’s fly doesn’t have that problem.  In fact, I feel very confident saying that when there are sand eels on a flat, the wind is calm, the sun is bright, and the water is perfectly clear, this is the very best fly to use.  In a world full of flies, this one is the best one.  However, in just about any other situation the usefulness of this fly diminishes.  The fur strip fly is a Jack of All Trades, this fly is only Master of one.

Cyborg a.k.a The Invisible Fly

 Hook – Mustad Signature Tarpon size 2

 Thread – Whatev – I use 210 Danville

 Medium dumbbell eye

 Tail – Yak Hair – White

 Body wrap – Fyrewerks needlepoint stitch stuff or Body Braid or Equivalent

 Topping – Steve Farrar Flash blend – Mullet  

This fly is one of my designs – which is to say it is a variant of something but because of the different materials and techniques it’s probably less confusing to just describe it rather than reference whatever flies its components came from.

Secure the eyes tie in a bit of yak hair for a tail, be sure to taper the ends.

Wrap the body

All materials are tied above the shank (why drag them through the sand) secure a bit of yak hair top with the Farrar Blend…note the wing extends to just beyond the bend, no further.  This is to reduce fouling.

Did you find last week’s mystery guest?  Hidden on my cluttered desk was none other than THE COBRA COMMANDER…is there one this week…Maybe…maybe not…

Next week the Flyosopher says the single most controversial thing he has ever and likely will ever write…limber up your hate-mail typing fingers don’t want to get a cramp…

So the Cape got whacked by a blizzard, I’m not sure what the snowfall totals were (I had snowdrifts to my roof in the rear of my house, in the front the snow was barely a foot or so, but I do know the wind gusted to over 80mphs and there was some awesome lightning, with flashes lighting up the night sky for several seconds at a whack.  I’m glad I got to experience that storm it was really something else.

The aftermath a bit less fun, most of the region lost power which is annoying, but also heat which is more of a concern.  Especially when you consider that Cape Cod is in a lot of ways a retirement community.  It’s no big deal to camp out in the living room next to the fireplace when you are young, it’s actually pretty fun.  The old folk not so much, so I made the rounds, checking on my neighbors, even the old-bitch who nags me because I rarely mow my lawn, seriously get off my nuts.

The next old couple, the dude, all I know about him is he mows his lawn EVERY DAY at 7 am, I found in his house with his wife and he was well kind of blue, the color not the mood but more on that later.  The wife was just knitting away.  Luckily for him, I’m a genius and also gifted with the under-rated ability to ignore most of what people say, since what he was saying was a bunch of crap about how he was alright.  Called the ambulance guy, got him to chew some aspirin and what surprised me most he calmed down.  My guess is he was worried about his wife, his dog, and the way he was feeling.  Once most of his decisions were removed so were most of his concerns.  First glimpse of the uniformed ambulance guy he was pretty damn peaceful.

Turned out, he had been having a heart attack, but he’s mostly doing alright now, so that’s good.  Last time, I checked on his wife she handed me her phone to talk to her daughter.  The daughter didn’t say “You are the very Cadillac of Men,” nor ask what my favorite pie is so she could bake me one, or even say “Thanks.”  Instead she starts bitchin’ me out, implying because I work for the phone company that somehow this whole incident was my fault.  So I hung up on the stagnant slake, and told the woman in my nicest voice that her daughter was a lovely person and I hope I never get to meet her.

A part of me understands that the daughter was probably feeling a rush of several emotions, fear, guilt, relief, among others…a bigger part of me is profoundly adverse to having to deal with people and their issues, and there is the significant part that is proud of inventing the phrase, “stagnant slake.”

Later that night, I was in my sleeping bag debating if I should stoke the fire that had burned out, or just stay in the warm bag.  When I started thinking about winter, and how, with the power out, the short days felt shorter, the persistent cold was probably a good way to burn calories without having to diet or exercise and someone ought to market the Survivalist Weight-loss plan, and that staying in bed most of the day and not doing much was probably one of the best strategies for enduring a winter during the days before History.  Or, phrased another way, seasonal depression was probably in some ways a vestigial survival trait.

Depression, along with the appendix and that nasty gunk in the corner of your eye, is likely one of those things our ancestors benefited from but kind of sucks for modern humans.  If you were trying to survive a winter, depression would function not entirely unlike hibernation does for other mammals.  It would conserve energy by slowing down your activity level, and sleeping a lot well that may even protect your psyche from the mind-numbing boredom of waiting for spring.  I was all excited to think I had stumbled upon something revolutionary like that time I thought I discovered the concept of epigenetics, but turns out some folk already thought of this and it’s being studied as a real thing, which is depressing.

Suffice to say a man alone with his thoughts is in poor company.

It does make you wonder about other things though.  Like a baby’s laugh or a dog’s love, are these merely tricks to lure our brains into providing care for these cute fairly helpless creatures?  Why is it that fish are so easily duped into taking flies, but a cormorant, though it feeds on the same baitfish, rarely, if ever, is?  Why does a loner feel social pressure to look in on the elderly?  Are we even in control of our own thoughts, or were the chemicals responsible for them put in motion millennia before our births?  Why is it that when we see a good fly, we know it will work?

Yeah, I know you are not entertained…give me a break they can’t all be gems, plus I’ve been working 16 hour days for like I’m not even sure what day it is…if your communication systems are up and running – You’re Welcome – if they aren’t…well that’s the other guy’s fault.  Now that I think about it I’ve been wearing the same pair of long underwear for five days now, no six.  That’s pretty nasty, also there is something just not quite right about coming home from work and instead of taking off your jacket you pull another one on.  I could start a fire, but I probably should just go to bag.

Anyhow, first fly up for discussion.  Luckily its simple. This fly is hands down my all-time best fish catcher, so much so that I almost never fish it anymore.  It also caught my largest striper so far, so there’s that too.   The fly has worked for stripers, bluefish, pike, bass, trout, and I really don’t think there is any predatory fish that wouldn’t take it.  I am taking a few of these when Mark and I go to the Bahamas’ because whatever we encounter I know this fly will work.  I first saw the fly in the LL Bean Striper Fishing Handbook by Brad Burns it had a name like Fur Strip Fly or something like that.  Barry Reynolds has a fairly similar fly called the Bunny Bug.  Here’s the version I like:

Hook:  Mustad 34007 or similar size 1-2/0

Thread: Whatev

Material:  Zonker strip

Tail Support:  40# Mono

Tie in a loop of mono beyond the bend to limit fouling.

Tie the zonker tail about half again the length of the hook shank – DON’T cut it.

Using the remainder of the zonker strip, palmer wrap to the eye.

Tie off – Done.

If you feel like it you can add eyes or flash or even a dumbbell eye for weight.  Personally if I want to go deep I’ll just use a sinking line and a short leader.  The rabbit strip is heavy enough to cast and I figure why not add weight in a manner that eases casting.

This fly works because of the inherent movement of the rabbit strip and fur.  It is durable and no matter the retrieve in looks alive.  My only complaint is after using one of these flies there is a chance the hide will dry and become extremely brittle.  Not all zonkers will do this so its probably a reaction between the tanning process and saltwater or something.

It just plain works, but it will never impress your buddies.

The fish you catch might…

So the Super Bowl is over and the Ravens won, as did the electricians union, and finally I don’t have to listen to a bunch of morons who know absolutely nothing about football talk football, endlessly.

One of my least favorite social gatherings is the Super Bowl Party.  I hate them.  Why you may ask?  Because it’s the one game of the year I am forced to watch while surrounded by people who under normal circumstances wouldn’t watch a football game unless Ray Lewis held a knife to their throat.

At the average Super Bowl Party, 17/18^th’s of the guests are more interested in the commercials than the game.  Instead of feeling shame and holding his fact close to their blouses (not that this applies exclusively to females but make no mistake they aren’t men) they boldly declare it like some badge of honor.  This, naturally, doesn’t stop them from prattling on during the game like John Madden the later years.

Seriously someone needs to snap the leash on these bitches, and it is not ok to babble endlessly during the game and then shush the few people who were watching it during the commercials.

In short, The Super Bowl Party is an American Tradition that glorifies all the negative stereotypes about Americans.  The Flyosopher has known enough Europeans to dislike that entire continent – except the Icelanders they are cool and Belarusian chicks are hot as hell though single-minded with a stunted sense of humor, but I digress – but if they see Americans as meddlers who are overly opinionated on topics that we have no business having an opinion on….the Super Bowl Party is hardly the place to argue that particular point.  Take the compliment you spineless Euro-trash feebs.

“Mon Ami, do you not realize that your whole rant was overly opinionated and the only part of Europe you have any personal experience with you claim to have liked….”

Euro-feeb with some accent the chicks dig

I did, however, enjoy one remark by my sister-in-law.  She is from Japan and this may have been her first Super Bowl.  After the game, she asked why the brother’s didn’t fight, since having been around my family and my brothers that would have been the most likely outcome.

So now let’s ask an impossible question…

What makes an elite quarterback?  Is Joe Flacco an elite quarterback given his three game streak of phenomenal play (and loser coaching by both the Broncos and the Patriots – seriously Denver lost primarily due to clock management which is just piss-poor, the Pats well they didn’t bother to show up which is shameful)?

I know the answer, but let’s pursue the question.

Many simply claim that there is some benchmark that they must achieve: total yards, quarterback rating, something of that nature.  Others may claim it comes down to simple victories drawing the line at either divisional, conference or Super Bowl championships.  Both of these benchmarks are wrong, because you can’t fairly judge an individual by the outcome of his team.  Baseball fans tend to make this mistake, because the stats of a player are often independent of the actions of the team.  A guy who hits a homerun every time he’s at bat is a super-star, but his team may lose every game.  Pitchers have much the same reality; a good pitcher, regardless of his team, will reflect good stats.  From my personal experience as a football player, I was a linebacker, and led the league in tackles nearly every season.  That statistic points more to the fact that our team sucked – seriously we lost nearly every game – than my athletic ability.  We couldn’t get a defensive stop, the offensive went three and out most drives so our opponents had a ton of snaps and I recorded a ton of tackles.  In football the statistics never tell the whole story.

For example, Tom Brady won three Super Bowls – all of which he could have easily lost had the kicker missed a field goal.  The success or failure of the kick determined the victory, but this was an event in which Tom Brady personally played no part. Also consider Dan Marino, arguably one of the greatest quarterbacks of all-time, but he never won the Super Bowl.  Finally consider John Elway, he won two Super Bowls in the twilight of his career when Denver was a rushing juggernaut, though he had been a skilled quarterback those last two seasons an average quarterback would have sufficed, he handed off more than he passed.

To answer the question you have to ask:  What is it that a quarterback can do more than any other player on the field?

If you answered pass the football – just leave.  I am all done talking to you.

The correct answer is – lose the game.

A quarterback can fumble, sprint backwards like a tool and lose tons of yards, and naturally he can throw an interception – if he’s Mark Sanchez he can do all of these in the same game, the cherry on top being running his face into the enormous ass of his own blocker and fumbling the ball into the open arms of a defender, seriously might as well have put a bow on it.

Comparing quarterbacks comes down to the situations they were in:

“An average quarterback will win most of the games you should, and lose a few you shouldn’t.  A good quarterback will win all of the game you should win.  An elite quarterback will win all of the games you should win, and occasionally steal a game you should have lost.”

Paul Stanton, Football Fan and Rage-oholic

So Tom Brady for much of his career was playing behind one of the greatest offensive lines ever – seriously the line coach Dante Scarnecchia did and continues to do an amazing job protecting him even with injuries, free-agency and retirement.  Also earlier in his career when the Patriots won three out of four Super Bowls they had one of the most INTELLIGENT defenses ever.  Football players don’t get the credit they deserve for their smarts, but when you have an intelligent core of players it shows.  Most of the games Tom Brady has ever played, his team should have won.  They did win most of them, would another quarterback have lost them…it’s impossible to say for certain but I think most quarterbacks would have liked the opportunity to play behind a line like that, and to then have that defense come in like a big warm security blanket.  Consider Dan Marino, inventor of the fake spike, the man who once threw a touchdown pass to himself, most of the games he won during his career the odds either weren’t in his favor or were far more balanced than the heavily favored Patriots…it’s something to consider, but it is not the answer.

This is the answer:

An elite quarterback puts asses in seats.

If a quarterback inspires faith in the home crowd so that they fork over their hard-earned cash then that’s what the owner needs.  Joe Flacco may be an elite quarterback in Baltimore, at least for the next few seasons.  Almost anyone would probably be an elite quarterback for the Jets – because they have to know that Sanchez sucks and if they traded for say Alex Smith – a journeyman at best – they would have more hope – hell Drunk Joe Namath would be better and wants to kisssshhhh you.  This is the same reason so many head coaches get fired and then hired elsewhere – because this is the time of year fans are buying, or not buying season tickets, and they need a reason to believe.

Which of course is the primary quality a fly has to have, you have to believe it will work.

Oh YEAH I did it again…the undisputed master of the topic introduction.  ARE YOU NOT ENTERTAINED!!!!!

My mom used to say “Self-praise is no praise.”  She also used to say “M’eh” when I’d bring home a report card with all A’s.  So I figured I might as well get the love and respect of someone I appreciated and revered – myself.  So to hell with all y’all I don’t care.

“You Americans are such narcissistic nincompoops. Were you not, how they say, held enough as a child?”

 Euro-feeb

“Beat it Frenchy, before it gets beaten for you.”

The Flyosopher

The right fly is the one you have faith in.  Maybe this comes from personal experience, maybe from the recommendation of a companion, or maybe you just looked back from the vise and you just knew.  Like when Juan Valdez sees the perfect coffee bean, this is a good bean.  There is no real logical reason for this, two anglers can be fishing side by side with very different flies and enjoy similar success, or they can both get refusal after refusal.

I do find it interesting to talk flies, especially with the guys I have fished with.  A few enjoy flies that I dislike, the solid epoxy or epoxyish baitfish, some like flies in wild loud colors, for myself I tend to fish flies that are either much larger than average or flies that are very sparse and difficult to see – a fly many others would consider a waste of time, which if that is their belief, it is right.

So it might be worth our while to look at a series of baitfish patterns and see what we like and dislike about them.  Fair warning, all of these flies are effective but many I don’t fish because my time on this Earth is limited and I don’t want to spend any of it fishing flies I don’t believe in….

Or dating women with short hair…