Boredom Begets Innovation

It's the middle of Whitetail season in PA. I didn't go out this year, but my father did, just as he does every year. This year he ended up with a buck and two doe, kind of like he does every year.

And just like every year, we kick around an idea, kind of smile and laugh when it's brought up, then go about the butchering as we have done time immortal. What's the question?

Good-buy, Mr. Scott

One of my favorite online retails, Scott's Fly Shop, has decided to hang up the sign for the last time.

I know, I know, you're supposed to support your local shops, and all that jazz. But I'm a poor young(ish) fisherman and some of those prices are a little too steep. So I use the wonders of the interweb to keep me in fish and the bill collectors at bay.

iPad Apps - A non-exclusive rundown.

Given a laundry list of unfortunate events (hurricanes, colds that don't seem to go away and wonderful bouts of pink eye) it's been a few weeks since I was able to get any water-time. So in the interim I've been messing with some fly fishing apps for my iPad. Here's the good, bad, and ugly.....

Well.....

I haven't fallen off the face of the earth. Nor did I experience a delayed rapture from this spring.

I would like to say that I was busy doing exciting stuff, an extended fishing expedition, or even that I broke both my arms wrestling a Bigfoot and couldn't type. I could say that, but none of it would be true.

Life was suddenly turned upside down and a lot of things had to be put on the back burner for a little while. Unfortunately this was one.

To put things in a nutshell, my contract expired at the college I worked and and due to budget constraints and such it couldn't be renewed. Then, after 5 years the girlfriend and I decided that we needed some time apart to sort some things out and she and the girls moved out.  Thank God I didn't have a dog; he would have been a goner.....

On the plus side I finished my last two classes for college. I'm not collegically graduamatated and am waiting for my fancy paper to prove such.

And then, after all this, we found ourselves in the middle of a heat wave where fishing was not going to happen. So instead of blogging about how much I hate the heat and wish that I could fish, I waited until the temps became more agreeable. They've been so for that past few weeks and I even got to get out a time or two (caught my fist smallie on the fly none-the-less), so I thought it would be time for my triumphant return.

And there it is.

Things are still kind of hectic, but not so that I can't get on here a time or two a week. Who knows, I might even get to fish once or twice before the year is out......

Tight lines!!

Happy 4th!!

Happy 4th of July. I hope everyone has a great holiday and stays safe. Let's not forget that this is the Greatest Nation on Earth, but if you need a reminder, here's one:

Take that Terror Bear!!!

Fly of the Week: the Foam Hopper

With the dog days of Summer nearly upon us, I thought that it's only fitting to do a FotW on that Summer fly favorite, the foam hopper.

I found this video on YouTube that shows a foam hopper that is not only easy to tie, but also uses this cool little tool called a "Beaver Tail Foam cutter" that makes cutting the foam bodies almost remedial.

And if your interested in getting the foam cutter, down there it is on Amazon.


Tight lines!

Angling Across America

I think that it's safe to say that many people in the fly fishing world know of one Mr. Owl Jones and his escapades in fly fishing domination. Love him or hate him, you've heard of the SOB at least a few times.

Recently he's been planning a trip to fish cross country he's calling Angling Across America, which he's tying in with another trip to Montana on TU's dime (lucky bastard.)

But he needs our help. Fishing across the country ain't cheap or easy, so he's made a call out to anyone and everyone that can help, to do so. And while I think it is appropriate to feel blinding jealousy and rage (I mean seriously, who wouldn't love to spend a few weeks loafing about and trout bumming it up??? WITH TU paying for the very last leg of it!!! ) we can also live vicariously through him, and in order to do that we probably should help the guy out so that he can at least get there and milk it from TU.

So if your interested in finding out what he all needs, contact him at owl@owljones.com. He's been working his tail off to get this ready so I'm not sure what all he needs, but even if it's a hollowed out log to crash in, I'm sure he'd be appreciative.

Natural Guides Fly Fishing App

I had such a good experience with the Freshwater Fly Fishing Tips from the Pros app that I wanted to see what other fly fishing apps are available for my iPad. I downloaded a bunch and will be reviewing them over the coming weeks. The first one that I wanted to review, mainly because it is such a small app is the Fly Fishing app by Natural Guides LLC.

As I had posted before, I won the FFFTP app in a contest by suggesting an app that would help to match the hatch. Well, the Fly Fishing app by Natural Guides stated that it shows the typical life cycle of the mostly widely known bugs (mayflys, caddis, stoneflies, etc) and says what flies would be a good imitation. That's almost spot on to what I had said. So I splurged the $0.99 and downloaded it.

Now I did look at the ratings and saw that people either loved it or hated it. The only written review is that it needed more flies. The app page stated that it only has 17 flies in the app so I already knew this.

When I opened it, the content opened in a screen that was the size of an iPhone. But you do have an option to make it larger for the iPad screen. A little annoying that it doesn't detect what I'm using, but OK.

Then I looked through the flies. With those 17 flies, you can theoretically fish almost every trout water in the country, just vary color and size. I also figured that it would give some generic suggestions for imitations, such as an elk hair caddis for an adult caddis, an Adam's for a mayfly adult, etc.

Yeah, not so much. I clicked on the Caddis fly (larva) tab. It opened to a window that tells me what kind of waters it is found in, (slow to fast moving) It describes the protective casing around the larva and that fish only feed on it when the casing comes off (interesting....) Suggests fishing after heavy rains and colors rang from white to green. (OK, good idea.) States that this fly can be fished all year long.

Now the clincher. What to use to match the hatch. "...match with a nymph patter."

A nymph pattern. A nymph pattern? Really, would never have guessed it...... And every other fly in this app is like that. Looking at an adult... match with a dry. And, to top it off, all of the pictures are illustrations. No nice clean pic of the caddis larva to help match it, you get a watercolor rendition of it. Same with the "suggested fly."

I can't even begin to describe the mixture of disappointment and humorous ridiculousness of it all.

I then decided to check a little deeper. The app was last update is June 15 2009. Kinda old in my opinion.

So what was my walk away? The app is cheap at $0.99, and if you have less than a year of fly fishing under your belt this might be a good resource for you in determining what flies to keep in your box, where to look and where to fish them. And it does come with a couple nuggets of gold that may make the price a minimal investment for even an semi-experienced angler.

But what really kills this for me is the lack or real life visuals of the bugs and the flies. Or hell, even actually naming a fly to go with. If I have to look up the name of an appropriate fly to fish a mayfly larva, I can look up all the other bits of info that this app presents just as easily.

So to call it, I say this app is a bust. Which is a shame because it has a lot of potential, the idea is good, it was just developed in a half ass way. Like I said, if your a noob then the $0.99 might be worth it to you, but once you can convincingly lie about how much you know about fly fishing, you've already moved past it.

Must be Fly Friday

Got home today and lo and behold there was a small package waiting for me. I tear into it wondering what I bought now that I don't remember buying, and there is a nifty little box with some flies in it. I look at the return address and shake my head.....

And then it hit's me! I won flies a while back from OBN and hear they are in the flesh...er, dubbing. It's a dozen+ flies from Montana Fly Co as well as a nice little Plano case.

There are some princes, some stones, some stimulators and two friggin sweet hopper patterns that I'm almost afraid to use they look so nice. And then there are some I'm really not sure what they are. Some types of emergers, a dry and what looks th be a G Gnat but has rubbery do-dads instead of hackle.

All are great quality and look like outstand (and creative) ties. I've never had a MFC fly in hand, but these are nice enough that I may be tempted to buy a few, which I never buy flies anymore. (Did I mention those hoppers are SWEET?)

The Plano case is nice, light, and small enough to fit in a back pocket. They sent 17 flies, but you could probably fit in two dozen before it starts getting cramped.

Between these flies and the one's from Brian Davis, I'm real tempted to through responsibility yo the wind and hit some water tonight. Hmmmm.......







- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

Fly of the Week and some Epic Failure

I have to apologize for being late with the fly of the week, but this week I wanted to try something different. I received a couple dozen flies from Brian Davis and thought that they were so stellar I would post them up as a fly of the week. I can't give out the recipes, but Brian said that if anyone is interested in buying some, they can contact him at davis.audio@verizon.net and he'd hook them up. 

The flies are wonderfully tied and he gave a ton of color combo's. These look to me to have bass and panfish written all over them. 

Thanks again to Brian for the awesome flies. I'm already looking forward to giving them the old college try next week (sooner if I'm lucky.) If you haven't checked out his blog yet, you should. He has some great stories and a lot of fish porn over there. 

And here's the epic failure part..... I took a bunch of pics and thought that I'd put them in a nice little slideshow, using Flash. Well, apparently Blogger doesn't allow Flash files to be uploaded and to host it elsewhere slows down the whole process, so I'm just going to have to post a very boring series of pics. 

Wordpress is looking better and better......

Here you go. The flies are a lot better than my crappy pics suggest. I really need to break down and get a better camera. Or maybe clean my lens. Someday....