I try not to regurgitate too much content between this site and the Saltwater Fly Journal with my writing & editing duties over at the Clear Cure Goo blog, but this is too good not to share.
New Jersey-based CCG and Regal Vise pro staffer Tim Geist runs an awesome website called The Flybrary; you'll be hard-pressed to find better photography of flies anywhere else on the internet.
While I was working in West Africa, we discussed getting a step-by-step tying tutorial on the CCG blog. It turned out to be quite detailed and picture-heavy - too much for West African internet - so into a DropBox shared folder it went until I was away from a slow, goat-powered internet connection.
Now I've landed on the west/left/wet coast, and I had time last week to finalize the editing and formatting of the post.
It. Is. Awesome (if I do say so myself).
Tim went above & beyond online fly tying tutorials for this one, with FORTY-NINE high-quality pictures in the tutorial.
No, I haven't been fishing...except for a few hours chucking fowl-sized flies for muskie. And no, I didn't hook (or see) any.
The vise was hauled out a few nights back, tying a few mid-sized ugly flies to refill the bass box for next season. But even that burst of spontaneous creativity was short-lived due to traveling for work.
It's -12°C here in Idaho (about 10°F in Yankee units), with snow on the way. I didn't bother to bring any fishing gear this trip for my post-work / pre-flight pilgrimage to the Boise River. Time constraints and such.
If you can't tell, I'm about three weeks deep into the winter blues and we're not even past the midway point of November.
I'm hoping for Sage to release a high-priced, angler-themed ultraviolet light to combat Seasonal Affective Disorder. I'll be one of the first to buy.
Only 154 days to go...
Note: my SADness is self-diagnosed and caused almost exclusively by lack of fishing. And probably not real. I'm sorry if people who truly suffer from Seasonal Affective Disorder are offended at what they may perceive as insensitive humour. It's not my intention to offend, only to entertain...and whine...
I'm going to help spread the word about Clear Cure Goo and its overall awesomeness, so if you're at the show this coming weekend, stop by the CCG booth to say hi to Brian and I...and buy some Clear Cure Goo!
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One of the mid-sized uglies I tied up the other night came out pretty good, if I do say so myself:
It's pretty simple, can be done in any number of colours, and only has seven ingredients including hook & thread:
I used some Clear Cure Goo on the eyes & to finish the head, but any head cement could do the trick.
In the bass bug pictured, I used three legs per side (resulting in six legs/side), which, in the end, is a little excessive & a bit of a pain in the arsehole to deal with when wrapping the chenille. I'll only use two legs per side (four legs a-danglin') in the future.
This was the first fly in my new Bass Fly Philosopher's Collection, in which there are two components:
Surface flies: Sexy is good. Flashy is good. Precision is good. Think of deer hair bass bugs, hand-crafted foam & balsa poppers, so on, so forth. Care & effort is worth it.
Sub-surface flies: quick & dirty ties. Clousers, buggers and their variants that can be tied quickly, cheaply, and thus lost on bottom or structure without too much grief for time and dollars spent.
Most of my bass fishing is in a smallish river; hence, the majority of bass flies I use (and lose) are weighted flies I dead-drift along bottom or toss into structure. Because I'm one of only a handful of bass-on-the-fly guys in the area, the fish aren't all that heavily pressured by seeing a lot of flies. I don't need to antagonize over near-perfect appearance of crawfish claws to get some fish to eat.
For subsurface, simple is better. And cheaper.
The Ancient Greeks said it best, lamda phi balla ding dong: Keep it simple, shithead!
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A couple of notes about the TMC (aka Tiemco) 8089 bass bug hooks:
They are awesome. Big, wide gap & a good, stiff shank (that sounds dirty, huh?).
They're sharp as f**k (if you need a translation for that, here's a handy guide on understanding my people). I wasn't paying attention while palmering some rabbit hair, and, well, it really fuckin' hurt.
They are really big. Like, big. Don't think a TMC 8089 #10 is equivalent in size to some Mustad streamer #10. Because they are not. Not at all. I even did a little graphic for y'all on how goddamned huge these TMC 8089s are:
Yes, that's your standard Mustad 34007 saltwater hook. Like redfish, baby tarpon, snook-sized fly hook. The TMC 8089 #10 is almost the exact same size, albeit with a thinner gauge wire. The Tiemco engineers must've been huffing a little too much glue when labelling the 8089 series...
The sixth edition of three items/subjects/places/people worth checking out to make life as an angler and global citizen far more enjoyable.
Random, somewhat-out-of-context photo of me & my first bonefish. Yes, I'm proud of it.
(Photo by Dylan Rose of Fly Water Travel LLC)
1. SCOF Issue #5
Yes, I'm late to the party. It was released on Sunday. I even read it on Sunday. Things of Three comes out on Thursdays. It's the 'th- th- th-' thing: THings of THree on THursday. It's a principle THing.
Anywho, back to SCOF, aka Southern Culture on the Fly. I think it's their best issue yet. It's the one-year anniversary issue. The redfish footage from Louisiana is cool as hell. Definitely watch both videos, especially Captain Gregg Arnold discussing the strip-strike. Right to the end.
And note my pumping out a little promo/review of SCOF #5 has little to do with the editor rowing my girl & I around on a lake one fine Sunday afternoon a few months back in what turned out to be a guided trip. The issue stands on its own. If Grossman & Co. ever put out a shitty issue, me promoting it will be part of the payback for the fishing trip. Well, that & the case of PBR I left in the boat cooler.
Check out SCOF #5 by clicking here or the image below.
2. Clear Cure Goo Brushable
Clear Cure Goo's brushable UV-epoxy is an absolute joy to use: simple, clean, effective. I've yet to scratch the surface for its many uses, but I've used it on Clouser Deep Minnows for both fresh & salt, for stiffening up deer hair collars on a few different patterns, as well as on the Clear Cure Charlie (which happens to be the unseen fly stuck in that bonefish's mouth in the pic above).
Brian Carson of CCG is a cool dude; he's developed several different types of CCG UV-epoxy, plus the CCG eyes and bodies. From reading along on their website, they put the different formulas & products through the ringer to perfect them before making them available to fly tyers. I haven't tried any of the CCG epoxy besides the Brushable, but I will be real soon. And I'm looking forward to it.
Note: That's called foreshadowing in the literary biz...
CCG's pro staff features some of the rising stars in the fly tying world right now, too; guys like Thomas Harvey, Brad Bohen and Pat Cohen. It'll definitely be worth your while to be checking in on CCG's blog page in the very near-future to see what those guys and many other CCG's pro staff will be up to.
Note: That's also foreshadowing. Trust me on this. Let's just say the next time I write about CCG, I'll need to add in the standard disclaimer. But not yet. The Brushable was purchased on my dime. And worth every penny. web: clearcuregoo.com
3. The Harpoonist & The Axe Murderer
Last Friday I threw out a request to the twitterverse for some new music to listen to.
I received a few replies featuring a lot of good bands.
But this one is my favourite.
Blues rocks. Especially blues that rocks.
H&AM has three albums. I now have all three. They're good. Check 'em out.
Disclaimer #1: I am not a professional fly tyer. Disclaimer #2: I am not a professional bonefisherman.
Both of the bonefish eats I had on Friday were on this fly pattern I tied up before the trip.
During marathon tying sessions prior to departure, I quickly tired of wrapping both flashabou and v-rib on the hook shank. Enter the Clear Cure Goo (laziness breeds ingenuity, folks).
Using the Clear Cure Goo instead of v-rib probably saved three-quarters of a minute for each tie, and it was fun pretending it was becoming irradiated to give it superhero powers when I blasted it with the ultraviolet light (e.g., the Hulk, Spiderman, Radioactive Man, etc).
An additional bonus to using the CCG is it makes the fly nearly indestructible. Like it had...superhero powers!
Disclaimer #3: Yes, there's a zillion patterns and recipes that are derived from Crazy Charlies (no tail) and Gotchas (with tail). This could be called a Gotcha, because it has a tail. I don't really care what it's called, it seemed to work, so I'm sharing it.
Hook: Tiemco 811S, size 8
Thread: Fire Orange, size 6/0
Eyes: small bead chain
Tail: 8-12 strands of pearl Crystal Flash, ~1.5x length of hook shank
Body: 4-5 strands of pearl Flashabou wrapped flat on shank, coated with a fine smear of Clear Cure Goo Brushable & irradiated with UV light
After some delays caused by spending 8 or so weeks in Nunavut & Alaska, I finally have my redfish gyotaku print framed & hung above my work/tying bench.
It's pretty awesome just to zone out & look at the scale pattern and the artist's work on the edges of the fins & tails.
But it does nothing to stem my desires to load up girl, dog, rods & flies and point the truck south.
The talented Catherine Karnes-Munn looked after the framing for me & she did an awesome job.
NOTE: I'm trying out a new layout on this, via Blogger's Dynamic Views. I'd really appreciate your input on how it looks/acts/feels/etc.
Some of you who follow along on my Instagram & Twitter feeds (both '@mattrevors') or tumblr page (or even the dreaded Facebook) may have seen these pics already, but I thought I'd post a few here.
As I frequently make public, I'm an ardent anti-winter person. Hate cold, hate ice, wish to live in Florida with white pants pulled up to my armpits & fish all the time, and so on & so forth.
Needless to say, I was completely horrified a little apprehensive about coming within a degree or so of the Arctic Circle in mid-April.
Surprisingly, the project location wasn't all that nightmarish. I missed home (as usual) and its mild weather (as expected), but food was good, accommodations ok, and people onsite were extremely pleasant & friendly...unlike other jobs I've been on (*cough* Saskatchewan *cough*).
I'm hoping to get back in the summer at some point, with fly rods in tow. I fly through Yellowknife, which is situated on a decent-sized lake and apparently has some pike that need introducing to my Redington 10wt. And there are grayling, trout & char present in the vicinity of this project site.
Hopefully the company I'm contracted to doesn't mind me being seconded to the client as official fishing guide/gear-lender for VIP tours of the property. Conveniently, one of the helicopter pilots has just started fly fishing & tying, too. A few flies and casting & tying lessons might be bartered for flight time.
Here are some pics...
This thing is almost cool enough to make winter enjoyable
Ample fly tying materials available, should I run low
C-130 Hercules on landing strip if lake ice, unloading bulldozers at sunrise
Any fans of the show 'Ice Pilots' will recognize this bird
And Arctic foxes keep mocking me by not giving me an opportunity to take off my gloves, rummage through various pockets in my four layers of clothing to find my iPod or phone to snap an Instagram pic of them.
If one of them gets run over by the Hercules aircraft that keeps landing in the middle of the night on the ice runway, you better believe I'll do my best to give it a haircut for my tying supplies...
Good stuff found trolling around on the Costa website.
I know I have almost an entire fishing season at home to look forward to before I set off on this trip, but I'm already getting excited. Belize is gonna be friggin' awesome.
I've already gotten into tying some patterns for tarpon. I figure if I do 6-8 flies for tarpon, bones & permit per week between now & the trip, I'll have 'er beat & pretty much be set for life.
Tarpon Bunnies are the easiest pattern of life to tie, so I will have my quota of those tied up by next week before moving onto some Whistlers, Cockroaches, Seaducers, and whatever else people might recommend to me.
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Some technical updates: Instagram for Android came out! As such, my tumblr page, The Angler's Android & iPod, has now become shortened to The Angler's Android.
Lots of random pics of gear coming through the fly shop's doors, flies & other odds & ends are being posted to the tumblr page via Instagram, so check it out if you're so inclined.
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I haven't really put much thought into if/where I'll be fishing on opening day on April 15th. had thought I'd be away for work for most of April, including the first week or two of the season, but that hasn't happened yet.
Last year, the first two weeks were fairly unproductive, with rivers blown out due to spring runoff. This year: who knows? That stretch of insane 25°C temperatures for a week in mid-March took care of snowpack, and rivers are already subsiding from flood stage; by next Sunday, they could be quite clear & wadable.
Sea-run trout were being caught in the Nashwaak during the first week of the season of 2010 due to low runoff, perhaps we'll have a repeat of that.
Time/Date: 2235 AST, 16-Jan-12
Location: My tying bench
I decided to plunk my ass at my tying bench to give myself a crash course in spinning deer hair for bass bugs...and try out my new Peak Rotary Vise in the process.
My lovely gf gave me a gift card to the bookstore for Christmas so I ordered up Bass Bug Basics by John M. Likakis to help speed the self-taught crash course up a little bit. If you're interested in tying bass bugs, it's definitely a handy resource to have on hand.
For my first tie, I decided on trying my hand at Tap's Bug, which was declared the "best bass bug ever" in the Nov/Dec 2008 issue of Fly Rod & Reel magazine. You see step-by-step pics & instructions to tie the bug on Fy Rod & Reel Online here.
This is what the finished bug is supposed to look like (from the Fly Rod & Reel article):
And, after a few thread-snaps, a lot of trimming and minor cursing, this is what I ended up with:
I'm usually pretty critical of my tying...but realize bass aren't typically as critical & selective; if they're eating, they'll eat that. So I'm ok with this first effort. I'm not going to fish it; instead, I'm keeping it as a benchmark to measure up future bass bugs to. And yes, there will be many future bass bugs.
A few things to point out if you're going to start tying deer hair bass bugs:
make sure your tying scissors are sharp;
pick up some old-timey, flexible razor blades for trimming the deer hair. I found a package of Wilkinson Sword Classics at Shoppers Drug Mart. Ten double-sided blades = 20 razor blades for sculpting bass bugs; just snip 'em in half with a Leatherman or similar;
get a strong thread. I'm using UNI BigFly thread...and snapped it a few times while tying my first bug
be patient! I ended up cutting off my second bug of the night to start over due to trying to rush. Take your time & follow the steps;
be prepared to make a mess. I don't think I have ever done a recreational activity that makes a mess like this. If you're married, do NOT do this at the dining room table if your better half is within a three hours' drive radius of your home. Bass bugs are that perfect excuse to set up a personal tying area, far from any potential marital disputes.
In addition to the razor blades, other items that are handy to have are: rounded-tip tweezers (for pushing thread/knots along the hook shank) and a fine-toothed comb (for cleaning underfur from deer hair).
If you want to put on those rattling, googly doll eyes, you can pick up packages of 300 for cheap at craft shops. A drop of ZapAGap or similar cyanoacrylate adhesive will keep them on the bug through most battles with bronzebacks...or bucketmouths...
Once I improve spinning/packing/sculpting these bad boys, I'll post a few more.
Seeing this is the first post of 2012, happy New Year, everyone! I hope all had a enjoyable & relaxing holiday season with friends & loved ones.
I'll be continuing with some posts from last month's adventure in Guatemala soon enough (like, tomorrow or the next day).
As a solid form of procrastination from doing anything overly productive (such as cleaning & organizing my tying bench), I tied up a few bass flies using some craft foam. Foam is a material I'll be diving into more over the course of winter for tying smallmouth patterns; it's quite versatile, comes in a wide variety of colours, and it's CHEAP!
This Sneaky Duck fly recipe, by Roger Duckworth, was in Fly Tyer magazine a few months back. It's a pretty quick & easy fly to tie.
Unfortunately you'll have to wait at least 104 days until I can give them a solid run-through on the water.
My field season is done, and my beautiful girlfriend & I are going to a friend's wedding down south for a week.
It's been a long (LONG!) field season, but its provided me with a lot of opportunities to travel & fish (and make a little bit of money). But now I'm on the shelf until after New Years', so I'm looking forward to being around home for two months.
(Not including the trip tomorrow and that trip to Guatemala for sailfish in December)
But yeah. Excited to be at home for a bit!
(BTW, not taking my laptop on this trip)
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I did some tying for the trip, because this won't be a week-long, lay on the beach trip for me. I've never done an all-inclusive when I was in my booze-swilling prime (that ended in 2010) and I'm not a lay on the beach person (I get fidgety after 20 minutes), so there might be some fly rod wanderings taking place.
Gotchas!
I'll be back in 9-10 days...hopefully with some additions to my Species Journal to share.
This project has been a little busier than normal for me. You see, I'm not sitting a drill rig this time; I've made it to the big-time: I'm the Site Senior Supervisor on this project. So hours are a little longer & more erratic.
But, there's always a positive, and that is a month or so (at least) off after this one is done.
A month to hang with my girl, my friends & my dog.
A month to work on (more) fun projects (at home).
And, of course, a month to fish.
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Speaking of fishing, a few of the client's crew took me out fishing the other night. They figured, since I was wearing my Redington Logo t-shirt, that I would appreciate something like that whole 'going fishing' thing.
(Note #1: add Saskatchewan to Ontario, British Columbia, Nova Scotia and, of course, New Brunswick to the list of provinces I've fished in so far in 2011. That's kinda cool.)
(Note #2: remind me to never, ever leave home without a fly rod ever again)
So off we went.
And I hooked a pike on my first cast (not picture-worthy, however). And then I caught another one (also not picture-worthy).
The third pike I caught was picture worthy.
I was using borrowed spin gear & lures with a treble hook. I wanted to pinch the barbs but I didn't think the owner would've appreciated it too much upon its return.
It took me so long to unhook the pike from the treble hook (it felt like forever to me. Maybe 90 seconds, but far too long for my liking) that I couldn't bring myself to put the fish through a photo session. I rushed it back to the water, it gave a tail-wag, and it was gone.
Really cool aspect of it though: I was wearing my Costas I won from Joe at SoCal Salty's contest in the spring, and I had a clear view of the pike shooting from cover like a lightning bolt to strike the lure. The fish covered the 7 or so feet in a split-second and cranked the lure, total ambush-style. Awesomeness.
(Note #3: I would normally link to Joe's site. You'll see why I didn't in the next section)
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Speaking of Joe of SoCal Salty, he of the epic Costa Sunglasses contest: he and Jon from iFished are running a contest in cahoots with Panamax Sailfishing for a trip to Guatemala for...you guessed it, sailfish.
I've been entering everyday.
It has already paid off, as I won the first weekly draw: a shirt from Red Tuna shirts.
I'm not giving you the link for the contest entry form. I really want to win this thing, so you gotta earn it. If you enter, it's one more competitor for me. But....
...you can visit either Jon's or Joe's sites for details.
Use your brains to get there. Or at least google.
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Fishpond's Road Trip tying kit
I brought my tying kit with me, but I've yet to unpack it. This will hopefully change really soon.
One little piece of gear recommendation: Fishpond's Road Trip fly tying travel bag. It's fairly compact, but I have everything I need jammed in there. With some room (& pockets/pouches) to spare.
And here's another little tying nugget:
An unexpected benefit to my beautiful girlfriend studying to be an esthetician: abundant leftover nail polish for foam & cork bass poppers. Plus advice in the form of "this base coat will make the polish stick better, and this topcoat helps waterproof it & make it resistant to chipping." Brilliant.
So hopefully a few pictures of glossy bass poppers will be gracing this website fairly soon.
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I'm saving a few other short, random things to post in the future, in case I find myself with a spare 15 minutes or so between looking at rocks or drill rigs or spreadsheets.
Enjoy some music (shout out to Matt for reminding me of these guys).
Time/Date: 0825 PST, 22-Jul-11
Location: Smithers...en route to Vancouver
17 days in the field, a day of fly fishing + 36 hours of (semi-) civilized fun in Vancouver.
It equals a lot of stuff: waders, fly rods & misc fishing gear; field gear/safety equipment, clothes for work & play...plus a sleeping bag liner & a fly tying kit and books...
This is honestly the most I've packed for any trip anywhere...except moving to & from Vancouver, but even that was close to this.
Time/Date: 1525 AST, 25-Jun-11
Location: A rain & lightning-filled Fredericton
Heavy rain and intermittent thunder & lightning for the past 6 hours has scuttled any plans for getting a quick hour of fishing in before departing for Northern Ontario tomorrow, but I was able to reallocate my time to organizing my still-evolving collection of flies for smallmouth bass
A few of the Clousers I tied for my saltwater misadventures have migrated their way into this box, in size 1 & 2; however, I've been having the most luck on a size 8 black Clouser on a freshwater streamer hook.
Last night I tied up a few more of the #8 black Clousers using bear hair. It should have a little more seductive action in the water than bucktail. I'll keep you posted on that.
The big coloured deer hair poppers & divers were tied up by the fly shop's resident whiz kid, James (Twitter: @JRWishart). Behind his back, I call him the Phenom...but I don't want him to be getting all egotistical and such, so don't tell him.
James tied up the orange & chartreuse poppers in a solid colour, then I added the eyes & stripes myself. I'm keeping two of them unaltered, i.e., a control group or something like that...
James gave the orange & white diver to me on a trade. It's sick looking & I can't wait to toss that out there to see what's hungry and/or angry.
The Phenom's creations
This should be my last post for a few days. I'm still trying to determine if I should bring a fly rod to Ontario with me, but I might go light this trip, seeing it's only for four days.
I'm making the transition to night shifts for my last few days onsite here. The new drill hole is taking some time to get started due to technical difficulties. I say technical difficulties as I don't want to dive into any more details than that for fear of losing my readers to boredom.
So there's a whole bunch of hurry up & wait going on in my life. All I want is to hurry up & get home, but that's coming soon enough.
Of course, there are a couple pluses to this: time at the tying vise as well as playing around with new apps for my iPod.
First new addition is DropBox. It's kinda cool, if you're interested in that whole 'cloud computing' thing. I have it installed on both my laptop and iPod. A free account nets you 2GB of online storage, with paid subscriptions available for many more gigabytes if you need them.
You should check it out, and, if you use this link to sign up, both you & I will receive an extra 256mb of storage for free as part of their referral program. Lifehacker has a few more methods to increase free storage amounts here.
Next up is Instagram, which is a photo sharing app. It shoots pics, modifies them with different finishing effects, and posts them to various social media accounts a person might have. I shot a couple pics this evening & I like what I see of the app so far.
Here's a screenshot of what it looks like when someone clicks the link:
Here are the two pics I snapped using Instagram (conveniently transferred from my iPod to my laptop via DropBox):
As for fly tying, the top pic is a black & white Clouser, aka a "Bow River Cop Car Clouser." Nothing fancy, but apparently it works. It brings the official count of Clousers tied here to 15.
The monstrosity below it is a chartreuse & white yak hair streamer, with striping on the chartreuse hair artistically done up with a black sharpie. It will (hopefully) feed a muskie on an upcoming adventure...if I can cast the bastard.
This will be my first time muskie fishing, and I'm fairly certain there aren't a lot of guys in New Brunswick chasing them with a fly rod. The muskie fishery in New Brunswick is relatively new, but it's catching on quick. I know I'm looking forward to giving it a shot!
This will also be my first time fishing with my new Redington CPX 10-weight, though I hope to get some casting practice in beforehand.
(If you have noticed an increase in mentions of Redington (Twitter: @RedingtonGear) lately, well, it's because I received their guide deal through my association with Fredericton Outfitters. And also because they make awesome stuff. Hence me choosing Redington over any other brand carried at FOA.)
Here's some music:
(I have really been pushing the Canadian content lately, huh?)
