LED lights

It's past 8 PM and the hatch is really intense. The dusk is making it difficult to see the fly. Ever tried to tie a fly in the dark while fish are rising between your legs? By the way, where did I put the damn flash light?

Fishing during dusk and/or night has always been an awkward operation. I hate to fish at night because I want to see what I'm doing, be it tying a tippet or a fly. And when I'm done fishing I want to see where I'm walking. A nice twig in my nose isn't funny. So carry a flash light!? The usual flash lights are inefficient in terms of energy consumption (full lighting for just a half an hour and gradually lower light intensity), vulnerable (these bulbs always die when I need them) and just plain heavy. We fly fishermen tend to travel light, but a lightweight flash light also means small batteries and guess what? These little critters are dead faster than the you can say mother-in-law...

The recent years the so called LED (Light Emitting Diode) technology has made great improvements in lighting devices. These LEDs have come a long way since they were used in calculators and digital watches in the 1970's. Nowadays traffic lights, rear end lights of cars and acres of video displays in big cities use LEDs. In the future you'll probably see more LED applications in your home as well.

What's so great about LEDs? They are:

* extremely durable in life-span (10+ years) as well as being plain tough;
* compared to regular bulbs LEDs have extreme low energy consumption as well as energy loss through heat;
* produce very bright light;
* produce very focused light without the need of mirrored hoods.

This all means that LED lights can be very small, light and easy to operate.


Take a look at a LED light I found a couple of years ago at my local outdoors shop. This little critter is the diameter of a golf ball, since it uses button cell batteries it's as light as a pen. Since LEDs are so energy efficient, they easily keep emitting bright light for a dozen or more hours. I haven't tried them extensively for more than a dozen of times for several minutes. But on my recent trip to Canada I used them for about 3 hours non stop during a nightly fishing on the Bow river (damn mosquitos!) in the city of Calgary and they are still going strong. I do keep spare batteries in my vest.

This LED called Ear-Lite is worn on your ear, pretty much like those Bluetooth headphones for cellular phones making hands free operation a breeze. It fits comfortably on your ear, but too abrupt head movements can shake it off your ear, so you need to remember that. But since it's attached to your head, it lights up the spot you look at. The angle of the lighting can be adjusted so everything from just under your nose to several meters / yards in front of you can be lit. And I'm telling ya, this critter produces some hefty bright light!

Besides for fly fishing, this LED Lite is also quite handy for reading without disturbing anyone next to you like in the car, train or airplane. There are many other equally small LED lights available these days. From key holders to one that you can clip on the visor of your hat. For heavy duty applications (both in amount of light as well as lighting time) there are more (most head mounted) LEDs to be found at your local outdoors shops. Petzl seems to be the leading brand in head mounted LED lights.

Never without drinking water

Have you ever been without water hours away from your car? Imagine the idea of hours walking back to your car in the hot sun. The fishing was great, but you could really appreciate a nice cold drink...

I always carry a bottle of water with me (in a bottle holder attached to my wader belt), but it's usually not enough to last a whole days worth of fishing. My worst story so far was that I 'buried' several cans of pop (Coke, 7 Up, etc.) in a stream with a couple of rocks to keep them cold. After a hot day of fishing we came back for a nice cold drink, but the cans were gone. My best guess is that they came loose due to the flow of the water and are probably still floating in the pacific ocean now.

There are several options to assure yourself of having enough water to drink. Carrying several bottles of water is a lot of weight you have to haul. Other option is a hydration system like Camelbak or water reservoirs which you can put in a backpack or the back pocket of your vest. I've tried them too but again, you will have to cope with a lot of extra load in your back. The thing I don't like is that the water tastes bad out of these rubber reservoirs. Because you're carrying it in your back, the water warms up. Finally these reservoirs are hard to clean, so after a while I'm not really looking forward to drink water out of a fuzzy looking reservoir. Platypus also makes hydration systems. Their reservoir doesn't have the bad rubbery taste, but their reservoir is also very difficult to clean.

It's funny that this cold and clear water you're fishing in looks like drinkable water from the tap. But with exception of very clear and clean springs, it is advised not to drink. Contamination like Giardia, sediments and other nasty little debris can make you real sick.

On my recent trip to the US my buddy Doug had this empty bottle with a (replaceable) filter. Although I had my usual bottle filled with bottled water, half way through the day it was empty. I watched Doug fill up his bottle with cold water from the Coeur d'Alene river and drink it with a big smile. I was a bit reserved on drinking water from the stream, but Doug assured that the filter takes care of 99.9% of the bad stuff in the water. Instant cold and clean water!

Doug sent me a new bottle with a filter as a gift (thanks Doug!). I was surprised that the bottle is the same bottle I already own, except for the removable filter. This company Aquamira makes a lot of outdoors equipment, so I guess they know what they are making. The filter works up to 200 refills, so that should easily make 75 - 100 days worth of fishing. For me that's probably at least 4 years. A replacement costs about 20 Euro's (or 20 US Dollars), so that's pretty good value. Check out your local outdoors shop for similar products.


So, my hydration system is: a bottle filled with bottled water and the seperate filter in a zip-lock bag to use when my bottle is empty. This way, I will never be without water and still 'travel light'!

Subway in the low lands!

Subways finally landed on the low lands! I knew there was one in The Hague, but I wanted one in Rotterdam. And it's there now! Today during a quick shopping for some new stuff for my wardrobe I stopped for a steak & cheese sandwich at Subway. Tastes as good as I remember from my recent US & Canada trip.

The Rotterdam restaurant is housed in what was once the internet cafe called EasyInternet from the Greek entrepreneur Stelios. He is also known for his air carrier EasyJet. During the mid 90's fast internet connections weren't common as these days. The slow and tedious dial-in connections at home of those days were a pain in the ass. A visit to EasyInternet showed us how nice surfing the web could be with a fast connection. We were able to download mp3's within minutes rather than half an hour or more. I remember my buddy Eric-jan downloading some top 40 songs to please his then (now his wife) new girl friend! :)

Fly tying + Essentials = Travel light

For my tying I use a Dyna-king Professional. The Dyna-king is as robust as a vice can be without being (and looking) bulky. It holds a hook as firm as one would like for bass or saltwater hooks yet still you can adjust the holding power for midge hooks without damaging them. I always hated the all-or-nothing holding of the Regal-style vice. There is simply no way to adjust the holding power of these vices. Unlike many other vices, the adjustable Dyna-king jaws still 'locks' down rather than 'tighten' (knop, lever) the jaws. My humble opinion is that the lock down system is superior over tightening.

The Dyna-king allows you to rotate the head to check out all the sides of a fly. It's not a true on-axis rotary vice like the Renzetti or Lawrence Waldron vice. Some folks like them, but I don't like the limited working space behind the head of these vices. For a review of many of the current vices on the market, check out this article at Fly Fisherman (it's an old article by now, so there are some layout issues when you try to access the article). Do keep in mind that the authors have their own preferences, so check out the vices yourself (if possible) to make your own decision which vice suits you best.

Eventually I also used to carry around my Dyna-king and the heavy pedestal while traveling. Obviously this wasn't working, especially when traveling overseas. I needed a true travel vice! There aren't many travel vices which I would consider being a TRAVEL vice: easy to carry, light and still versatile. I checked out the vice that comes along with the Marco Polo tying kit from C&F. This wasn't what I was looking for....

First, I don't need all the tools that comes along. Second, with all the tools and the carrying case (very neat though!) it's still as heavy and bulky as carrying the Dyna-king. Third, the vice looks too vulnerable to me. The tiny head with it's tiny knobs are too flimsy. Finally, the price tag is huge!

Then I ran into this peculiar pocket knife-like looking vice. This vice called the Travelmaster folds into a size of a swiss pocket knife, while unfolded the vice would let you adjust the angle in various positions. The German engineering ensures a bomb-proof quality. It's what a travel vice should be: it's small, light (well, lighter than the pedestal) and it's robust. Too bad the vice comes with a very spartan leather bag with a string. So, I bought a small camera bag to store the vice.

I used to lug around this huge fly tying bag from JW Outfitters (now out of production) where I would stash every tying material I had. I could barely close the bag! Sure I had everything with me (okay, I also had a seperate duffel full of hair when I was really into tying bassbugs). This is of course a traveling nightmare. I needed to scale down this habit of carrying everything with me.

The past couple of years I carry a small bag from Eagle Creek (called cubes) as my tying kit. It's basically a small sized clothing bag with only a zipper. No seperate compartments, no handy see through mesh bags or specially molded coffee cup holder. Just a nice little bag to store my essential tying stuff. And boy, this helps when you are traveling by air!

To keep the different tying materials organized, I use these zip-locked bags with the neat little zippers on top. Regular zip-lock bags would be fines I guess, but the zippered ones I can count on that they won't open up without notice. I only stash the the bare essentials. One bag is filled with tools and hooks (in type and sizes for only flies I fish with) while others are filled with some hair, synthetic stuff for wings and bodies, special dubbing and feathers (hackles, etc.).

Talking about neatly organizing: check out this little container with these neat little compartments (15 on each side, 30 compartments in total) which I filled with my most used dubbings. I saw this box many years ago when Partridge came out with their SLF Davy Wotton Masterclass dubbing.

Well, I hope you picked up some tips here. My motto when traveling, whether within Europe or going intercontinental: travel light!

Any questions? Please feel free to leave a comment with your e-mail address and I'll get in touch with you.

Update 2012:
The Travelmaster is no longer made...

Update 2012:
After many years of duty my Eagle Creek cube died. Eventually I was about to get a new one, but then I thought why not check out the toilet bag from Eagle Creek? Besides being small enough, it also has several compartments (both zippered and just pockets). Now this neat little bag is my tying bag.