Tim Geist's CCG Deceiver

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.

Check it out here. You will not be disappointed.

More randomness

It's been a while since I wrote an essay of complete random bullshit, and, since I haven't posted here on ten or so days, now's as good as time as any.

1) Niger
Yes, Niger (not Nigeria. Two different places).

I'm going to Niger tomorrow for three weeks or so (and possibly again in January).

Hopefully I won't land what Bjorn called a grand slam of dysentery, malaria and getting kidnapped.

I will have internet access but have no idea of the workload as of yet, so posts may be sporadic. Well, more sporadic than usual...

There's no fishing there, which really doesn't help me write content for Traveling Angler Tuesdays.

Which brings us to...

2) Traveling Angler Tuesdays
Traveling Angler Tuesdays might be placed on hold for a little while.

I have no fishing trips planned or schemed (but some are dreamed). I am working on a few subjects for upcoming posts (doing liveaboard/mothership trips, using booking agents, etc.) and I was hoping for a few guest posts from other Traveling Anglers I was in touch with, but for now, this Traveling Angler isn't doing too much angling.

If anyone would like to contribute a guest post with how-to's or other fine points of being a Traveling Angler, by all means, get in touch, but I'm not chasing people down.

Trying to track down fishing addicts to write something is like herding cats, for f** all.

Not that I blame them. I'd rather be fishing, too. I'll always be a fisherman that writes, not a writer that fishes.

3) Pic of me with the best Key Lime pie ever

I'd shoot someone for a piece of that Key Lime pie right about now.

And that, folks, is why gun laws are tight in Canada. We'd shoot people over pie.

But not dog shit. Never dog shit. That's just irrational.

4) International Fly Tying Symposium
Last weekend I was in Somerset, New Jersey for the tying symposium; my first 'official duty' as Clear Cure Goo's writer-not-in-residence. I had a blast meeting a lot of folks that I had only spoke with via Twitter/Facebook/Instagram/Skype up until that point.

I understand turnout was a little down this year; a lot of that had to do with people dealing with the aftereffects of Hurricane Sandy.

Thanks to Brian of CCG for letting me tag along and to everyone for stopping by the CCG booth to say hi. It was great meeting y'all.

Note: I'll probably write a little more about the IFTS on the Clear Cure Blog soon, so keep your eyes peeled for it over there. 

5) Being sick sucks hole.
Honestly, I've been having my ass kicked by a cold/flu since the tying symposium in NJ, so I haven't been posting too much here, there, or anywhere else for that matter.

I've been combining various elixirs and concoctions for the last few days. The congestion remains...but I seemed to have made a new friend that appears after certain medications have been mixed together:

As I'm 28 hours away from boarding multiple tin-pigeons (with their healthy recycled air) for the better part of a day and a half, I'm hoping adding some Buckley's flu medication into the mix finally knocks this bastard down the basement stairs for good.

I'd like to take the elephant with me to Niger, though...

6) Being sick isn't the only excuse, though...
As I wrote many weeks back, I've been using my side project, The Saltwater Fly Journal, to share a lot of content that previously would have been posted here. Stuff like this. And this. And this, too. So sign up for email/RSS updates (right hand sidebar, underneath the Redington banner) so you don't miss anything awesome on The Saltwater Fly Journal.

Because someday, there will be awesome stuff there. Trust me.

7) The following people/blogs need to keep doing what they're doing...
...because it's damn good:

• Warmwater Chronicles
• Smallmouth Fly Box
• Pine Island Angler
• Stream2Stream
• Chi Wulff
• Salt 396
• and many, many more...

8) Some people just don't get it.

"Kramer goes to a Fantasy camp? His whole life is a fantasy camp! People should plunk down $2,000 to live like him for a week." George Costanza

Someone recently referenced that quote while talking to me about my life. Some days I think it it's bang-on.

But that particular day I just purchased this to keep strapped to my body 24/7 in Niger.

Fantasy camp, my ass...

9) I love this website.
I like to mix it up once in a while here: fly fishing and lifestyle.

That lifestyle probably doesn't jive for the majority (go back to 1) and 8) on this list) but I'm sure two or three of you are interested in it a little bit.

Oh, that link might be classified as NSFW and/or the kids. There's a lot of swears in there.

My apartment is in a state of flux right now. I call it controlled chaos. The clutter and squalor quotients are kept to a minimum, at least. The kayak, fishing gear and all the fly tying materials in the living lend a certain loveable ambience to the place.

UFYH gives a much-needed dose of reality to the realm of cleaning & organizing: cleaning sucks, but it needs to be done (for advanced level reality, give this guy a read...if you can handle it)

It's a good site to read when things get out of control.

10) The new James Bond...
...was ok. It was no Avengers, by any stretch, but it was good.

11) Music for your playlist
A few tracks I've been listening to recently, give 'em a listen:

(Can't see the videos above? Click here to view the full post)

Who's in?

(click image to go to the Tying Symposium's website)

I'll be the at the symposium this weekend, hanging around the Clear Cure Goo booth (trying to be helpful, a.k.a., not a nuisance).

Stop by to say hi to Brian & I if you're in the neighbourhood!

SADness

Yes, I'm alive.

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...

*          *          *

One thing that isn't 154 days away that I'm looking forward to is going to the International Fly Tying Symposium!

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!

*          *          *

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:

• Hook: TMC 8089 #10
• Thread: black 6/0
• Tail: rabbit strip w/ Krystal flash above (long) & below (short)
• Body: Cactus chenille (black & copper shown above)
• Eyes: Medium dumbbell eyes
• Silli-legs

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:

1. 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.
2. 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!

*          *          *

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...

But still an awesome hook.

Things of Three VI

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.

web: southerncultureonthefly.com

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.

web: harpoonistaxemurderer.com

The Clear Cure Charlie

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
• Wing: clump of white calf tail
• Head: Fire Orange thread