a fly tying project

this book...

well don't try clicking the link it won't work

I'm gonna tie up several of every fly shown in the book

first four I can knock out in no time

quill gordon check pt check grhe check

baetis nimp

anyways it'll be some pretty good practice 

resulting in a very nice set of flies

plus it'll prolly take me all year to finish

(assuming I do)

I've long admired harrop as a fly designer

and I had read and given away his earlier book trout hunter

I find reading the above pictured book neary insufferable

though there are a metric shitload of lovely flies

back in the day

this book is a treasure assuming you can find a copy

there may be one at the library - the big one downtown

I could tell you a story (or two) about that building but won't

I wanna talk about bill valentine

bill valentine wrote a fishing column for the arizona republic and gazette

from 1962 - 1978

and this is a collection of those columns

he is witty and observant and man oh man does he like to fish

and he enjoys telling fish stories

of which it seems there are hundreds here

in the 630 pages of prose and packed w/ black and white fishing photos

from a bygone time...

plus - he was a pretty ding danged stylish dude...

valentine was also a skilled cartoonist/artist

following all the fish tales (full disclosure - some are rather similar)

are some maps he's drawn of the rocky point/cholla bay area he so loved

there are also several dozen nifty little illustrations for fishing derbies and the like

it sure seems a glorious time to be fishing the salt

apparently he had a love for mermaids as well

who doesn't?

love that he lists the species being 95 - 125 lb
she's a "merrymaid"

I guess that'd be a keeper

copyright info on this book merely lists

"Copyright C (circled) 1990 Jessie and Mike Valentine  All Rights Reserved"

the book appears to be self published by the family

"the skinny" - chapter one - making a short story long

so we start at the beginning

a (former) friend and I took a road trip to farmington, new mexico, of all places

to play a five star golf course, of all things, in a highly unlikely place

we enjoyed camping and rather than stay in a motel

we pitched a tent in cottonwood campground

in navajo dam

on the bank of "holy shit, it's the mighty san juan!" phildo exclaimed...

"we need to do this again w/ fly rods"

I shrugged my shoulders and thinking about more golf, "sure"

next time around 

I was armed w/ some spinning rods packed in with my golf clubs

we'd fish in the morning and golf in the afternoon

and eat like kings at night

(think ribs shrimp carnitas etc)

phildo started to show me some fly casting ropes

it was a struggle

I donned his father's old (read shitty) waders

ridiculous outsized rubberized nylon size thirteen boot foot models

you could have fit four of me inside these things

I knew mase and he was kinda big but not this damn big

I didn't bother w/ any socks (big mistake) and wondered how to piss...

I wandered around most clumsily and aimlessly

futilely thrashing the air w/ an awkward long pole

occasionally dropping a ridiculous fly on the water to no avail

usually resulting in a hopeless bird's nest

that I'd have to sit down on the bank and untangle or cut off

I didn't know shit

neither did phildo

I fell of course filled my waders and kept it right the fuck up

now cold and damp my feet being abraded in those stoo-pit oversized boots

I loved it despite being infinitely frustrated and as uncomfortable as I've ever been in warm weather

phildo let me borrow the rod

and religiously I practiced every day in the alley behind my house

until I could move some line

I could cast but I still sucked

nevertheless I was determined to improve

I bought a few books and studied my ass off

I'm a very good student but this shit remained mostly frustrating

I kept at it in the alley

ventured out on my own 

eventually even sticking a few fish

by no means would I call myself proficient

but I could deliver a fly to the water

and somehow or another occasionally stick a trout

it was time to head back to the san juan...
round two it's gonna get ugly

this time I arrived w/ heightened anticipation
I had seen those huge fucking rainbows cruising about
and my mind raced w/ visions of sticking them
them mind you not simply one
I was gonna eat a fat trout filet cooked over my own campfire

I'd come armed w/ a 9ft 3in 5wt orvis pole
I bought spinning gear too just in case
I had knowledge
a little experience I could move line a bit
I understood the concept of dragfree drift

phildo didn't have a clue
he was armed w/ a custom built (by al ellis for his father, mase) bamboo rod
cast beautifully
false casting and dropping his fly everywhere but where it should be
he had a bookcase full of his late father's flyfishing library
and hadn't cracked one of them
he knew nothing but threw a tight loop

I got skunked
and it gets worse...

fly tying tray project

I've had this idea in mind for years now

I want to decoupage a picture of a trout to my tying tray

pictured above are apache trout

cut out from old tomelleri calendars

while I have many many to choose from

the native apache trout just seems appropriate

(I'd prefer the gila but don't think I've got one)

or perhaps a more colorful species would be preferable?

I dunno...

cross post....

another thing I hate to do 

but my brother put this up the other day and I helped him make it sing...

and shit it's about me?  of all peoples

My brother ties flies

In his study

Out in Avondale

Surrounded by books

And records.

He drinks imported

Beer after beer

Listens to Waylan Jennings

Dylan

The Stones and

The Old 97's.

He stays out of trouble

(for the most part)

And seeks perfection

In his own way.

If he ties the fly

Correctly

It might catch him a fish

Someday.

And that ain't even

The point.

mail order bride

She's got skin like Peking duck
Glazed in honey
She glows like the sun
Seen through amber
She wears bright nickel jewelry
Wrapped in colorful silk

She's thin and nubile and seven feet tall
And my touch can make her
Wiggle and flex and even fall to pieces

She never says no to a streamside ramble,
and her honey-do list is one word long
"Fish"
She casts out lines ending in tiny barbs
And her taste in men, impeccable

lines by fernando gomez

pic courtesy of the bench of mike shay

fundamentals

yes we have been studying the golf swing

again

native fish enthusiasm

superb photo essay

a rare glimpse into mexico's wild mountains emphasizing geography inhabitants and culture

highly recommended quest for wild native trout

we love it

J. Edson Leonard's Flies

for inspiration at the vise I'll often turn to old texts

in this case I came across this lovely plate of dries

note the consistency symmetry and linear (or is it spatial) pattern

old flies

found a few of these jewels stuck into a cork stopper on the bench

pink lady a classic catskill fly bulked up a bit for western troutwater

also I nod my head and tip my cap to mike valla for his exquisite book

tying catskill-style dry flies

dig it...

this too, is something I rarely do

  but the points are good and important, even vital 

it is well worth the fifteen minutes required to listen

take it to heart

it could even improve your life

it has mine

God I love to cook 

and feed people

it is a big part of what makes us human

oh yeah - you should buy and read his books too

sunday morning ramble

courtesy of gene ladassor...

"Art / Craftsmanship. I've wondered about those two words and thought that someday I might be one or the other. When I started in the trades I worked for in concrete and was amazed at the foundation man who could do 28 step downs and 16 corners on a hillside foundation and end up square and level. After I learned what it took to do that job I wasn't as amazed as I was humbled. "Well done" are the best words you can say to that man. When I learned to frame a house plumb and square, and stack it's roof not with trusses but stick frame, I found out the satisfaction of being the one who was told, "well done". When I first built my own cabinets and learned how to build stairs and do all the various types of trim that can go into a house, I would hear the words again "well done". When I started to build the whole house for people I heard those words again. But I think that great craftsmanship and maybe art is lost on people that have not raised their own hands to a project, have not struggled with learning to hold a pencil correctly, to balance their body just so that the hand plane, chisel or saw doesn't twist out of mark. I can pick up or look at a piece of work today and I can appreciate a fine line, I can forgive a flaw, it was made by a person who is fallible and who has struggled to finish that project. He knows the flaw is there and regrets it, after 20 or thirty years of doing it you won't find that flaw, they'll be there but you won't find them, he knows where they are though and regrets them. I like to think that in all the years I worked my trade, that I learned the art of craftsmanship. I know what goes into something made by hand. I know how much effort goes into teaching those hands to do that task.
I may not know and fully grasp the math of a fly rod. But I know what it takes to create one, I know what the mind and hands and heart have to do to reach the final point of handing one over for the final inspection by the client. Tolstoy said "There is one indubitable indication distinguishing real art from its counterfeit, namely, the infectiousness of it. If a man, without exercising effort and without altering his standpoint on reading, hearing, or seeing another man's work, experiences a mental condition which unites him with that man and with other people who also partake of that work of art, then the object evoking that condition is a work of art."
I can give all sorts of guff and prodding to people here on this board, but I can never take away the final words of "well done" to Glistas Salmon flies or Shays and GB's and Mike's rods, or the personal experience that at bottom line unites us all here in that moment when the line unrolls over our shoulder, lays down in slow motion on the water and that trout sips.
I think art is maybe something that is not a trick (thank you Ralph Waldo) But something that is however fragile or stout, is real. It's done with craftsmanship and touched with hands that make it real and useful for the subject it was meant for.
I want the Rod named Ren's Inheritance. Because someday when this vehicle I am riding around in has ceased to work, it will be hers, and she will be able to appreciate the work, art, craftsmanship because I taught her how to."

well done sir.

you've got mail

BINGO!

guru

listened to behnke

saturday it was good

he told fish stories

the dirty blonde bitch redux

big cigar grip w/ bellinger up locking reelseat - maple insert.   literary heads up - take note of the book on the table.

sloppy wraps 

my tech team advised me to remove this pic as it doesn't "reflect" well on me or the craft.  since I am a "warts and all" kinda guy it stays.  why?  because truth be told they all look like this at some point before they're tidied and polished up.   rest assured the wraps are purty on this rod and as the owner mentions, it's a fun rod.  I can't think of a better endorsement.

agate stripper