SCOF Tie-One-On-athon

A tip of the cap to the boys at Southern Culture on the Fly for a terrific day in Asheville at their Tie-One-On-athon to benefit Project Healing Waters. The project's dedicated to the physical and emotional rehabilitation of disabled active military service personnel and veterans through fly fishing and fly tying education and outings. That works for me.

A keg (or ten), fifty tiers, a couple hundred onlookers/kibitzers, and a thousand stories; too many to know where to start. So, instead, I'll just shut the up and let the pictures do the talking.

Special thanks to Dave, the swagmeister (above) and the whole crew at SCOF - especially Steve who let the hordes invade his space. Personal nods to Dave Hosler from The Pile Cast for making the long trek from Hoosierland and to Cameron Mortenson from The Fiberglass Manifesto for being such good company.

For more pictures from this terrific event, look here.

The View From Coal Creek

The cane tells you what it wants to be… It’s length, space between nodes and bug damage, speak a natural inclination. Just like people, I think. Its soul not evident in perfection, but in its imperfection. Its character, shaped by scars.

Few hear the cane. Fewer understand it. Only a handful can translate, can pass along what’s said so that the rest of us can begin to understand. Erin Block is one of those handful and her debut book, The View From Coal Creek: Reflections on Fly Rods, Canyons, and Bamboo, is a Rosetta Stone carved in bamboo. More importantly, it’s a tribute to and celebration of the beauty in our natural imperfection, in “hand made,” and in all that is odd and unique in each of us. For me, and I suspect for many, that’s a great comfort.

Coal Creek is the story of the building of an eight-and-a-half foot 5wt Garrison 202-E taper, a classic bamboo trout fly rod, by hand. But really, it isn’t…

… it’s not about making a rod, it’s about seeing your life through the process. It’s about the journey… It’s about tradition and friendship and alchemy, and about not completely understanding why six strips of bamboo glued together mean so much to you… And at long last, it’s about the rough, ugly, and uncut, refined into something beautiful, through a hell of a lot of hard work. And that – that is life...

The View From Coal Creek spans the winter and early spring of 2012 as Erin travels the roads between her cabin in the mountains of Colorado and the shop and home of her rod-building mentor, Frank. The book is full of the comings and goings of friends, the passage of season in her remote canyon, and day-to-day alpine life as the snows obliterate, then surrender, her perch in the hills; all relayed with loving backdrops of local lore and family history, told with warmth and insight…

Dark eyed Juncos are out early this morning, getting their fair share of breakfast before the Jays wake. Landing on snowbanks, they make angels like children, imprinting their faith in flight.

…not to mention a healthy dose of self inspection and deprecation.

The snow has fallen evenly in no wind, as if a dump truck cloud has parked over the opening of pines above the cabin and evenly distributed its contents. A blanket on a bed with no lumps. No forgotten books, socks, or stocking caps. Smoothly pressed, tucked and trimmed as a bed always should be and mine never is.

And, to my delight, Erin also gives us scribblers some candid looks at the trials of a writer’s world…

Jay pecks behind me on his computer, like a chicken at grit and gravel, fed for digestion, editing photos and writing. It’s a comforting sound, that of writing. But I know better than to think it’s a comforting thing to actually do. Rather, it’s only comforting once it’s out – once you’ve thrown it up and are sipping ginger ale.

… and almost always with her delightfully quirky perspective on things.

I’d had nightmares about the glue not setting right and everything going to hell in a handbag. Which, I’ve always thought is an appropriate place for handbags to go, however odd the saying.

Erin writes like she builds a fly rod. She lets her materials, her stories, her bamboo, choose their weight, their length, and then carefully and precisely shapes them into perfectly fitting pieces. She wraps the guides, giving the book direction, in fine, tight analogies and strong insight, and varnishes the lovely thing with coating dips of humor and heart. Her cork, her prose, is comfortable in our hand and in our mind. It all casts, it all reads, like butter.

And then I switch out for my rod and write my name very slowly and thoughtfully on the flat and below that I pen the length and weight and taper. My hand begins to shake a little bit. Then the month and year – I’m nervous – whereupon I have the secret hope that several hundred years from now someone will find this rod in an attic, or woodshed, or closet with a secret door, and will wonder who Erin Block was.

If she keeps writing like this, they'll surely know.

Throwin' Chickens

The Fish of Ten-Thousand Casts, my ass. Darrin stuck one in two. Boated his first musky on the second pitch. While on the cell phone with his wife. With a trout set. No big deal.

This shit’s easy.

Easy, except when you’ve been dreaming of musky for fifty years and now the beasts are right under the boat.

...except when you’re chunking eighteen-inch drag-queen feather boa chickens on 400 grains of cold, stiff fly line after months of twitching 4wts with #20 nymphs.

...except when a saw-toothed wind is somehow hitting you full in the face no matter which direction you turn and the six insulation layers that you’re bundled up in are not getting the job done.


...except when four feet of torpedo-sleak, tiger-striped, waterwolf glides up behind your pink bird, five feet off the boat, and every orifice puckers, watertight.

...except when it unhinges its jaw, and time stops…

...except when it starts again as the fish shuts its maw, turns slowly, and slips away because you do something, always something; pause the fly, raise the rod tip, fail to switch directions abruptly enough, or simply hold your freekin’ mouth wrong at the worst possible moment.

...except when Blane says it’s 50/50 whether the beast will hit during the retrieve or need to be enticed at the boat and you find yourself praying to God for the former so that you won’t see the approach and freeze like some scared little bitch...

...again.


...except when you move another fish and Blane pleads, “Get it back out there. That’s the biggest muskie I’ve ever seen,” and you can tell by the tremble in his voice that he means it.

...except when your wrist and forearm and shoulders and traps scream from burying the rod tip, deep, and sweeping-right, sweeping-left, doing it again and again and again. Stirrin' the river with a swizzle.

...except when Darrin nails one in two goddam casts, putting it all on you to bring the boat's average back to ten-thousand.

19,998...Sweep...19,997...Sweep...19,996...

Yeah, this shit’s easy.

Note: My thanks to Blane Chocklett and Jake Grove at New Angle Fishing Company for a mighty fine day on the water, chasing the big uglies. Can't wait to get back on the bow. And thanks as well to my traveling companions, Bill and Jim. Always a pleasure, boys. And finally, to my buddy Darrin Doss, for joining us short notice and for some great pictures, including the bottom one in this post. Nice fishin', dude.

Hitting the Glass

I hear the thunk from two rooms away and my heart jumps to my throat. “This window here,” Mary calls from the bathtub. “He hit pretty hard.” I worry that it was too hard.

Sitting here, high on the ridge with lots of birdfeeders and lots of glass, window-rattling collisions are not uncommon. They’re mostly glancing blows, but occasionally the contact is solid and we fear the worst. In this new year I have surrendered a winter-tarnished goldfinch and a dipped-in-grape-juice house finch to their final nests, carrying them gently to the top of our ridge where they're forever surrounded by blue sky, placing their humbled husks in the depression left by a fallen oak. Back to the roots.

I seldom return dry-eyed.

The past few days we’ve been host to a swarm of pine siskins (my naturalist friend calls them an eruptive species; the term, perfect) and the envelope around the thistle feeders has been an air-traffic controller’s vision of hell. It was only a matter of time before bird met glass, at pace, and I’d be walking around outside, once again. Checking the ground.

“This window here. He hit pretty hard.”

Sure enough, under the large bathroom window, a small, unkempt wad of feathers lies in the leaves, blending into the woodland floor, but visible, nonetheless, for its awkward angles. With a sigh, I resign myself to another solemn procession up the ridge, but then feel the slightest of movements as I pick up the crumpled bundle. There's a flicker of life in the eyes, but no comprehension. Maybe there's hope.

I place the small siskin on the back woodpile, on some freshly split pieces so that I can see it easily from my desk, its tiny brown body more evident on the fresh, yellow grain than on more weathered wood, and leave it alone to recover, if it will. An hour later it's still there. Two hours, unmoved. With a heavy heart, I step outside once again and prepare for the somber climb.

It’s just a bird, you might say. Why the funk?

It’s not just the creature, you see, though there’s that too, but also the thought of being young and vibrant, riding the winds, gliding, soaring, to be dropped to the earth in the blink of an eye, by the unseen, the unexpected, the unfathomable. That strikes a little too close to home. That stabs a little too deep. For I’ve hit the glass in the past, a glancing blow, and survived. But there are those I have loved who have struck it full on. They've returned to the roots much too soon.

I reach for the bird, to carry it to its final rest, only to have it spring to life and take wing as my hand draws near.

And my heart takes wing with it.

Rings of Salmon

A full moon rises veiled in winter's arboreal lace
Through thin high clouds, rings of salmon
Swim streams of light to the celestial spawn

A Day at the Beach

I close my eyes and stand, barefooted, a half-mile off the pristine shores of a lush south seas island, rocking gently on the forward casting deck of a brilliant white skiff, an 8wt in one hand, a Kona in the other. I lift my chin and savor the smell of salt, the sultry caress of light Pacific breezes on my tanned brow, and the balmy, soothing rays that radiate deep into my core. I’m at complete peace, drifting blissfully along, warm and toasty, here in this equatorial paradise. This heaven.

The sublime ruse implodes with a teeth-rattling shiver. I open my eyes to find that I’m still knee-deep in this dark Appalachian tailwater. Freezing my ass off.

The only things even remotely “tropical” are my Maui Jims.


I’m a long-time fan of Maui Jim sunglasses. I’ve worn a vintage pair of titanium Mauis on the soccer sidelines and while driving for nearly a decade and I have been fishing in Lahainas, non-prescription, for the better part of the last four years. Mary has a pair of MJs as well and loves them. They’re simply great glasses.

And Maui Jims’ customer service has been stellar. I've played hard and have done some pretty destructive (okay, stupid) things to my Mauis. In most cases they've absorbed the abuse but in the handful of instances where I have taken it too far the company has bent over backwards to help fix what I’ve broken, quickly, and with a smile.

So when the folks at Maui Jim, having somehow seen my earlier post about a competitor’s prescription fishing sunglasses, dropped me a line and asked if I knew that Maui also does prescription glass and would I be interested in trying a pair, I was thrilled. I've been thinking about a good pair of polarizers for low light situations for a while now and Maui's Evolution HT lenses looked just the ticket. I accepted their generous offer and requested a pair of Stingrays, so kitted. They arrived last week and I put them to their initial test on a dreary, snow-edged day on the Smith. They didn’t disappoint.

Maui says that HT is an acronym for High Transmission, but I honestly think it stands for Holy $#!T, the first words out of my mouth when I slipped them on in dim conditions. Tucked under the overhanging trees, in deep shade, these “sunglasses” seemed to lose nothing in the light department and their subtle green tint brought a sharpness that made my field of vision pop with surprising clarity. MJ’s literature says that they “embed (their) lenses with three rare earth elements and other compounds to enhance definition and contrast” and, as new-age-hokey as that sounds, it appears to work.

As I’ve gotten older, the amount of light available has become increasingly important for good vision and, to my aging eyes, there is little discernable reduction through these lenses. Quite the contrary, dark shorelines appeared to brighten, dim streambeds became crystal clear. The combination of contrast, clarity, and perfect polarization left me no visual excuses for missing fish, even in the dingy conditions.

Don’t worry. I have more than enough other excuses to make up for it.

Bottom line, these things are serious fly fishing tools and I look forward to them being an integral part of my gear from this point forward. They expand the angling day, providing polarization and clarity, early morning and late evening, when darker lenses are too much. More time to fish. Or, at least, to see what I’m doing.

So if you’re thinking sunglasses, don’t just think sunny southern surf and sand and fruity drinks with little paper umbrellas when you think of Maui Jims. Think daybreak assaults on overgrown eastern mountain trickles. Think rainclouds and snowfalls and fog-shrouded drifts down deep western canyons. Think catching that last hatch as the sun sinks behind the dense North-woods tree line. Think seeing clearly when things get dark, wherever, whenever you’re bending a fly rod.

Think this cold, dreary Appalachian tailwater.

But, if it's all the same to you, I think I'd rather be back on that skiff. Where I could feel my toes.

Aloha

The Photo Bin - January 2013

Welcome to Season Three of The Photo Bin.

For those of you who are new to the blog (or for you regulars with memories like mine, you know who you are), the Photo Bin has become my opportunity to wander through the odd images that have tumbled out of my camera during the past month and re-examine those that didn’t find footing in a post but still had a small story to tell. It’s fun, at least for me, to give them their moment.

Not surprisingly, I begin the year by breaking the rules with the first two pictures. They were not taken in January. In truth, they were captured a scant few minutes earlier, just before the stroke of midnight, New Years Eve. We ended our annual progressive community crawl at the under-construction, river-overlooking home of neighbors Sam and Robin where we illuminated their fabulous greatroom-to-be with strings of Christmas lights and a wide array of candles, lending a festive warmth to the proceedings; a warmth also inherent in the fine company who attended.

Above, Mary lights up the room, as she does my life, and below, an exquisitely set table is prepared. The perfect start for a new year, each of them.

Of course, getting the first fishing trip of the year under my belt was an imperative in January and the shot above was taken a couple days later, along the edge of one of my favorite winter streams. The cold week that followed gave me time to play with the image, a shot of an abandoned mill, and create the moody tableau you see above.

Mary saw this view of the redfish flats I visited during a brief warm spell and commented “Oh, another of your twisted pictures.” What more needs to be said?

They don’t call it “shine” for nothing. A conversation on a fly fishing forum brought Carolina mountain dew to mind so I dug into the back of the pantry for my mason jar of pure corn-sourced sunshine and snapped this picture on the back porch. I caught the light just right, but the question is “Was the light outside, or inside, the jar?”

And finally, apologies for my vanity, a self portrait. Generally, I hate pictures taken of me, just like I hate recordings of my voice, because they always deviate so radically from my perception of myself. They disappoint.

But this is different. This shot is me, in all my scraggly cantankerousness. I took it to be used in an upcoming Maui Jim sunglasses review but got sidetracked and ended up with this image instead. I friggin’ love it, though the asymmetries in the shot – the glasses, the nose, the lighting - both intrigue and annoy me...

...much like the man that’s portrayed.


Note: I think that most browsers will let you click on a picture to see it in a larger format. Give it a try, especially the black-and-white stream scene. You might, however, wish to skip the last one. It's scary enough as it is.

A Fish Too Many

How do we get ourselves into these things? Okay, never mind that. How do we get ourselves OUT?

To a large degree, we’re redfish rookies, Bill and I, but enthusiastic ones. So when we saw two of the state’s best puppy drum guides scoot by us, five minutes apart, out on the vast network of salt flats and creeks that we'd decided to explore for the day, we congratulated ourselves on our ability to sniff out prime fishing habitat. But while we were busy stretching our casting arms by patting ourselves on the back, we should have been considering the fact that Lee and Seth, both, were headed in the other direction.

And so was the tide.

Now, despite all evidence to the contrary, we’re not completely clueless. We knew it was dropping. But we also felt comfortable that the main channels through these particular flats would hold up for a few more casts before things bottomed out and that Bill’s nineteen-foot Carolina Skiff would see us through some pretty skinny spots. We were right. Almost.

It's all this guy's fault

After what turned out to be one fish too many, we stowed the rods and successfully squeezed out of the creeks only to find that their northern egress into the intercoastal was shallower than the creek channels themselves. Our exit was blocked. We turned to try to run the flats and escape via the southern route, but by then it was too late.

Navigable water turned skinny, turned ankle deep, turned to wet sand and as the sea slipped away we found a soft run and let the boat settle. Casting decks became picnic plots, then napping platforms. We waded a while, casting casually at what little water was left and watched the mullet skip through the puddles while pipers overran the place. Afternoon faded to evening. Evening slipped towards night. The tides simply turned, slowly, with the rising moon.

But turn, they did, and in time we were gently lifted and pushed along from whence we came, back into the shallow bay. We headed home a bit later than planned.

Frustrating? Yes, but beautiful. The flats are a special place when the sun sets. And without a fish too many, we might have missed it.

Beautiful, but next time we're following the guides.

Flush

If you look closely, you will see that for much of the year I am a subtle shade of green. It is an affliction that I refer to as Montloradaho Envy and it's onset is caused by all my western "friends" who fill my browser with stories and pictures of their Rocky Mountain trout streams and high plains fisheries. Cuts, bows, browns, ad nauseam. BAH! It's tough to deal with, here in the eastern flatlands, and most of the time I have to pick my wardrobe carefully so as not to make my odd complexion quite so obvious.

But in January my rosy hue returns when those "friends" begin to whine about what to do for the next couple of months as they huddle shivering in their homes or, when they do get out, whimper about dealing with -14 degree days and wind chills that are, frankly, obscene. And when they bitch and moan while I put together a few North Carolina days like this, I am positively flush.

January 4th

Brookies in the Appalachians

46 degrees with a 4wt

January 10th

Largemouths in the Piedmont

64 degrees, 6wt

January 13th

Down East Reds

74 degrees, you guessed it, 7wt

So, take that, you Montloradahoians. For the time being I'm good, and a positively delicious shade of pink, right here in the Old North State. Mountains to coast, it's damn hard to beat.

And I'm itchin' to get out the 8wt.

Blue Lines

Grasshoppers whirl at my feet like playing cards snapped into a stiff wind, a sound that is enough like a rattlesnake to skip my heart a couple of beats.

There’s this high lake in Montana, perched invitingly above the Centennial Valley, and at the bottom of this lake lies a swim fin. It belongs to Tom Reed. I know this because I put it there.

When I ultimately got the float tube back to shore, doing one-legged kick-circles all the way in, I breathlessly fessed up, apologized profusely for dropping the fin, and promised to replace it. Tom just laughed. With a warm grin he waved off my offer said it was just a damn good excuse to get a better pair. I like his perspective.

And I like his book.

The soul of the fisherman is filled with places like Cochetopa. Rivulets to streams, streams to rivers, time rolls on. But the heart of the angler remembers. It remembers places where sunlight slants to laughing water, it remembers perfect fish and precise casts and it remembers place. Years slip over life's smooth stone, and still the soul does not forget.

And Tom's soul remembers with an easy style and grace. Blue Lines is a simple gem. No earth-shattering revelations. No deep contemplation on why things are what they are. No new-age, belly-button examinations of the mystical powers of fly fishing. The book, like its author - or at least my impression of the man after our all-too-short two-day adventure - is focused on the celebration of the now. The short essays in Blue Lines are the honest, beautifully expressed observations of the sights and sounds and smells that surround someone immersed and in tune with the outdoors. They’re the lean-back-and-close-your-eyes recollections of someone who has spent a lifetime in a dogged (and dog-accompanied) pursuit of his hunting and fishing passions.

Sometimes, at a cost.

The carnival was in town when she moved out…

She left me a note, not an explanation. “Thanks! We had some fun. I left you the boat. Enjoy!”

I went off to work that morning and came home and she was gone. The only thing the note lacked was smiley faces and hearts. Lots of exclamation. No explanation. Maybe, I told my buddy, she ran off with the carnival. I was only half kidding.

“Dude. She left you a boat.”

Perspective.

Perspective, indeed, but done simply, allowing the reader to draw the conclusions. Or not. From the simple recount of day-to-day living during a summer spent on a grass farm in the plains and celebration of the hardy folks who live these lives (The Endless Thirst of Grass), to the earthly quiet of a late summer ride on the day the towers fell (Beneath an Untracked Sky), this book lays the day bare and lets the readers wander where they will within it.

But it’s hard not to follow along directly in Tom’s boot prints.

I have the afternoon and the river is just outside of town. It flows clean and cold. It is early yet and the water is too cool for a good bug hatch, but I go anyway, for I have the afternoon and when an afternoon is stretched out before you with nothing to do but fish, you should fish. You need to fish, if only for the fishing.

What more needs to be said?