A week in Montana

So, there's a lot of rubbish videos on Youtube. And there are some jewels on Vimeo.

Here's a fantastic video, albeit shot with a professional quality DSLR. Check out the usage of sliders (also shown in the video itself) making the footages really pop out. Also notice the length of the video.

Hmm... I miss Montana.

New Patagonia Lightweight wading boot = Chota Caney Fork?

I was just watching a video on the new 2013 wading boots from Patagonia. I especially like their new Lightweight wading boot. It looks a lot more sturdy than their previous boots.

The Simms Freestone boots I have been using since they came out in the early 1990's (they were called Firehole boots back then) are true bomb proof boots. I still have a pair with felt soles almost gone but the boot itself is still going strong.

I haven't tried any wading boots from Patagonia yet, but I often read they are very lightweight (great when traveling by air), comfortable yet not very durable. Most of the problems came down to stitching coming loose. I hope these new boots are a lot more durable.

After watching the video I thought they have this look that looks a bit like Chota boots, in fact they look very similar to the Chota Caney Fork boot! Well, my guess is that Patagonia buy their boots from Chota.

Here's a good picture of the new Lightweight wading boot from Patagonia.

What do you think?

Fly fishing videos on Youtube are horrible...

Boring...

I just tried to watch some Youtube videos on New Zealand fly fishing action. You know: trying to get some relaxation after dinner.

I selected a dozen of the most recent videos, but there wasn't one that was really watchable. Then I started randomly selecting videos as suggested by Youtube.

My conclusion is that the majority of uploaded videos on Youtube are basically terrible.

What is wrong with most fly fishing videos on Youtube:

• Low resolution. These days I won't watch anything less than 720p. Those blocky 360p videos look prehistoric.

• Shaky video. It's a major head ache watching earthquake registrations. 

• Horrendous background(?) music. Bon Jovi as background music?...

• Too much boring action(?). Who wants to watch a bent rod for 3-4 minutes? C'mon, cut out the boring parts!

• Zooming in-and-out. Zooming (unless ultra smooth) makes a video look very amateurish. Stop behaving like tourists!

• Constant panning. Unless done ultra steady and slowly or using a slider of some sort, panning is asking for an asperine.

• Too long footage. Any footage (= shot without a stop) longer than 8-10 seconds looses its momentum.

• Monotonous setting. Video with only one (background) setting is very boring.

• Too short video. That's it?!

• Too long video. Video's longer than 5-6 minutes is too much.

• Raw material. Watching unedited raw video is not exciting.

There are zillions of fly fishing videos on Youtube and Vimeo. Not all videos are rubbish. There are a few very nice, even professional (looking) videos.

Some of the absolute best are from Todd Moen. One of my favorite video by Todd is Heads or Tails. The storyline, the suspense, the slow motion and the action. Simply amazing!

Obviously Todd is a professional cameraman so we can't compare his work with folks who upload their videos on Youtube, but there has to be said something about the quality of videos that are uploaded.

Discovery from yesterdays...

It's end of december and it's that time of the year. Long dark winter evenings which are made for reading. This evening I picked out a bunch of older issues (1982/1983) of Fly Fisherman magazine.

It's nice to see what innovations we've seen since the early 1980's. Take for instance the graphite rods. The early rods were much more nimble and slower actioned rods that resembled the best fiberglass and bamboo rods that were common. Brands like Powell, Fisher and LC (Loomis Composites) were the companies that brought the best new fly rods. All three rod companies are now defunct.

Other huge improvements have been in waders and (foul weather) clothing. Most waders back then were made of rubber. Very effective but also very heavy and uncomfortable. Neoprene waders were just entering the market. Same goes for wading jackets. In fact the rain jackets we now know as wading jackets didn't exist back then. Rain jackets back then was everything that kept you dry. The wading jackets as we now know was 'invented' in 1989 by Patagonia with their SST jacket.

I like to check out the ads in the magazines. Some were on the verge of getting really big. Like the now defunct Kaufmann's Streamborn with their famous catalogs and mail order business. While others, like Leonard's bamboo fly rods, were on their way out as demand for the products diminished.

Simms, back then located in Jackson Hole Wyoming (sounds better than Bozeman Montana to me!), wasn't the big wader company we know now but they started selling fishing accessories. Sage started their journey to the current dominance in high performance fly rods.

And Orvis was big back then as it is now, maybe even bigger. Here's a nice 'discovery' I did while wandering through the magazines.

It's known that Orvis issues other companies to put an Orvis label on their product to be sold as an Orvis product. The Orvis Featherweight SSS reel is the lightweight version of their famous SSS saltwater reels, which probably didn't stay long in the catalogs.

I ran into an ad from a company called Crystal Mark who made a reel called the Stutz Estuary Reel. So it seems that this company made the Featherweight SSS reels for Orvis.

Even more interesting is that it seems that both the original Stutz Estuary Reel and the Orvis Featherweight SSS reel were sold during the same period. Here is the announcement of the Orvis Featherweight SSS in the Jan/Feb 1982 issue of Fly Fisherman magazine, while the Stutz ad was found in the December 1982 issue.

Update:
The company that made the Estuary reel asked the then unknown machinist called Steve Abel to make the Estuary reels. We all know what became of Steve Abel. Here is where I got the information.

Little (european) joke