Spanish heritage and Boquerones

Just returned from a week trip to Spain with my girlfriend. Spain is for most people just sun and beach. Maybe a bit of Paella, but there is so much more to Spain. We made a little round trip to a couple of cities in the province of Andalusia. To be more specific to the cities Granada, Cordoba and Sevilla. Besides having some plain nice time and eating tasty Spanish food, we wanted to see a couple of the world famous Moorish temples like the Alhambra and Mezquita.

This Mezquita is one strange temple. It was built by the Moors as a Mosque in the 10th century, but the catholics built a catholic cathedral INSIDE the mosque three centuries later! The atmosphere in the temple is therefore quite confusing. These remains of the Moorish period are one of the most remarkable heritages of Spain.

Of course I looked around whether there were any fly fishing opportunities during our travel from one city to the other. The hills were filled with acres and acres of olive tree fields and the rivers running through them were nearly dried up. The few rivers which still had water running were very murky. Not really trout country. Well, I didn't expect anything else either...

We ended our trip on the beach of Torremolinos. Have a couple of Tapas: Boquerones (fried anchovies), fried squids and grilled prawns. Of course you won't forget the tasty Serrano ham! If you ever visit Cordoba, try this place called Bar Moriles (Antonio Maura 21-23, Cordoba). They serve the tastiest Serrano ham I've tasted so far. Adios!

24 inch iMac!

Apple launched today another update of the iMac. Now the biggest iMac is a whopping 24 inch version! I mean this is BIG! 1920x1200 wide screen real estate means you never need to move a window to make room for another application or window. This thing should be amazing for video editing, watching DVDs and making HUGE Excel spreadsheets. Who needs browser tabbing if you can browse 2 web pages next to each other now!

My G4 iMac is about 4 years now. It's still running great but with all the yummy features, the Intel CPU (Macs run the world's most advanced operating system OS X and yes, you CAN run Microsoft WIndows native on this Mac too), built-in iSight webcam, airport (= wifi), Bluetooth, Double Layer 8x SuperDrive and the huge speed increase I'm pretty sure I will be getting the new iMac early next year. I bet watching a DVD on this huge screen must be really something else! Can't wait to see the new 24 inch iMac in the Apple Stores.

Your FTFE?

How many days in a year do you fish? In other words: what's your FTFE (Full Time Fishing Equivalent)?

I know guys at our fly fishing club who fish almost every couple of days as well as the whole weekend. Don't ask me how he gets away with his wife & family! That must be at least 100-150 FTFE's a year? I think in the past 10 years my fishing days has decreased to about 20-25 FTFE's a year. This is made up of usually 2-3 long weekend trips during spring / fall and a week trip during the summer. Every other two years or so I'll treat myself with a two weeks trip to the USA /Canada. Such a year will be 30 FTFE.

Funny thing is I prefer to fish 3-4 days straight every once in a while rather than running around a full week chasing fish. After 3-4 days, my hunger to fish is satisfied and start feeling overfed. That's like going to a nice dinner with a full stomach. I'd rather wait for my 'fish hunger' after a fish-less period. One might say I prefer quality time rather than quantity days. By the way, looking at such nice pictures as the one on top really makes me hungry any day!

So, what is YOUR FTFE?

Silk lines

After reading many ravings about fishing a bamboo fly rod with a silk line, I decided to get one. These days silk lines are rarely if ever used on modern graphite rods. Surprisingly there are still a few manufacturers of silk lines. The best known is Phoenix, followed by Thebault. Terenzio is another Italian manufacturer of silk lines. Terenzio also makes artificial 'silk' lines which means they need a lot less maintenance. Very interesting. There are also a few Japanese manufacturers, Yano being the best known.

I always thought silk fly lines were for the sentimental old fools who refuse to admit it's the space age rather than the Victorian period. One of the most interesting thing about fishing with silk lines is that since the silk is heavier than PVC, the silk lines are much thinner than PVC lines. So, silk lines cuts into the wind like a warm knife through butter. Quite an eye opener... Here's a nice article on how silk lines does has its advantages over modern PVC lines. Silk lines are more expensive than PVC lines. In fact I had to scratch my head before taking the plunge, but if taken well care of silk lines will last for lifetime. More info on silk lines can be found here.

I bought the Phoenix line because I heard it is fishable right out of the box, while other lines needed to be 'broken in' (the stiffness of the woven structure will soften over use). I think they mean that the line is very stiff and needed to be softened using the red Mucilin and cast some time before heading for the trouts. By the way, I needed a #4 line but bought a DT5 as people who fished with a DT4 from Phoenix said that it felt like a #3.5 rather than a #4. I haven't fished my Phoenix line yet. I'll keep it in the box until my Jennings rod arrives.


The myth of the DT line
The myth that one might cast more delicately with a DT line than with a WF line is just rubbish. The Double Taper is an heritage from the silk line as one can turn over the line to fish the fresh part when the front part is water logged and won't float anymore (usually after 3-4 hours). This way you can fish all day long. Both modern DT and WF lines (we are talking about models available in both DT and WF) have the same taper in the first 9 meters/30 feet. So, people telling you that a DT fishes more delicately better need to check their casting capabilities...

Maintenance of silk lines
Silk lines are always intermediate lines, meaning they will slowly sink when untreated. After treating the line with Mucilin it will float. The maintenance that comes with silk lines seems to be much exaggerated by most. I think it's a bit more work than a PVC line, but since I also clean & treat them with line dressing every evening after fishing I guess that's not much more work. Most important thing to do when fishing silk lines is that you need to DRY them completely in large loose coils after fishing. If not taken care of, silk lines can get tacky (sticky). Storing the line in the winter you'll need to keep it DRY and COOL and wrapped around in large coils. Using some of those moist wicking bags often found in medicine bottles is probably a good idea.


Update 2018:
Red Mucilin has been traditionally the recommended line treatment for silk lines. Recently a new line dressing called the Otter Butter was introduced by an online shop in the USA. Many fishermen prefer Otter Butter over Mucilin these days as the finish on the line feels less tacky and keeps the silk line float longer.

Sage's new Z-Axis (or what ever...)

Sage is replacing their XP rod series with a new series called Z-Axis. Since Orvis called their newest rods the Zero Gravity (replaced by Helios, dec 2009), the letter 'Z' seems to be the buzz-word. 

 Back to the Z-Axis. Talk about an UGLY color! It looks like an algae green and if the other recent rod series like the Fli and TXL are an example how Sage want their blanks to look like, it will also be an algae 'solid' green! Man, those guys at Sage need to re-hire the make-up artist they fired after the SP series! Those days the rods looked handsome: translucent racing green blanks with nice cosmetics like the swelled butt.

The new rod sounds like a new rocket the Nasa will launch next week to a near by galaxy: Generation 5 Technology, Utilize Aligned Fiber Technology, Proprietary Resin and Modulus Positioning System? One needs an engineering degree to understand what this means. I hope it's not another even faster rod like the Sage TCR. Winston (BIIx series) and Scott (G2 series) seems to make a small U-turn with their newest rod series incorporating slightly softer actioned rods. The ever faster rods of the last couple of years have turned casting into an olympic sport. Sure they cast a zillion miles, but are these rods fun to play a nice fish too?

Hmm... all's well, we'll report after casting a few of these new rods the coming months.

Update 20 dec 2021

After more than 15 years the Z-Axis 490 came home. My Romanian friend & rod builder George Minculete got one returned unused. I always thought it was one of the nicest Sage build by George. He shortened the grip to my preference length (6 inch), new rod bag and tube. A very brief cast with the rod and it feels a bit faster than I had in my memories. The Z-Axis was positioned by Sage as a fast action rod after all. It's probably a killer rod for fishing with a slightly heavier #4 line like the SA MPX.

Update 11 nov 2006

I held the Z-Axis 490 today in my hands. The color was much darker green than the picture here. Pretty much like the dark green of the XP, maybe a tad lighter. From the 'wiggle test' I didn't feel much difference from the XP series. The tip looked a bit more flexible. I could have taken the rod outside for a cast, but I didn't because I wanted to cast more sizes rather than the only 490 Z-Axis. 

Update 6 jan 2007

I've cast the 490 Z-Axis today. What can I say? This rod casts as smooth as a rod can be, both close and far. The rod doesn't feel stiff like the XP at all. Incredibly light and I just loved how the rod managed to lay out the line without a hick up. It's only a 4 weight, so LOOONG casts aren't really the trademark of these delicate rods, but I had no problem casting tight loops up to around 55 foot. Beyond that the rod started to collapse a bit.

The cosmetics I'm still not impressed. In fact I think it looks very dull. The color of the blank looks cheap, the printing of the word 'Z-Axis' is in my view too big making it look cheap and the hardware used are just basic (Struble?). I think Sage should have dressed up their top rod series.

Czech Republic in July

During the third week of July I went for a weeks fishing in the Czech Republic. To be more precise the Liberec Region, which is about 100 km north of Prague. Our destiny was Navarov, near the town of Zelezny Brod. Although it sounds a lot further, it's only a 9 hour drive. About the same distance to the Weisse Traun in Southern Germany. The pension Rusalka where we stayed is run by a Dutch(!) couple Bart & Borrie.

The summary of fishing in mid July is: hot and low waters. The hot and humid conditions made fishing during the day quite a tiring activity. The heat of the summer caused the main river, the Jizera, to run very low. In fact the fishing in the Jizera came to a grinding stop. We had to look for our fishing in the tributary, the Kamenice. The lower stretches of the Kamenice is a typical hillside stream with small riffles after every other bend. The upper stretches are more challenging turning the stream into a pocket water stream. The surrounding trees made the fishing a bit more bearable as well as keeping the water temperatures a lot cooler than the Jizera.

The fishing consisted of mainly browns and graylings with the occasional rainbow and even a brookie. The size of the fish were pretty small, averaging 8-10 inches with the 12-13 inch range for the 'big boss' hiding in a nice pool. We did see bigger fish, probably grayling, in the really deep and fast moving pools but typically they were not interested in our offerings.

Fishing almost 6 consecutive days on the Kemenice really tested our eagerness to fish, at least it did for me. After 3-4 days I found it becoming a bit repetitive. Good thing the company was great as well as the surroundings. The prices in the Czech Republic are dead cheap compared to other parts of Europe (but for how long?). Not surprisingly we ran into a lot of fellow dutch people taking a vacation in the Czech Republic.

For the best fishing with lots of nice sized graylings (my friends Jan and Martin were here last fall when the conditions were considerably better), the later part of the summer or fall (September) should be considered. July is just too hot causing the rivers run too low. However, the fishing pressure is low compared to the more common destinations as well as the overall pricing. That might make it a nice destination for people looking for solitude as well as on a tight budget.

Jan & Martin:
Thanks for a very nice week! We need to do this more often!

A word on the equipment used:
I used a 7.6ft #3 rod (Orvis Tippet) using a bead head with a small pheasant tail or Prince dropper. The fish here seems to be reluctant to look up for a dry fly. My buddy Martin who prefers to fish with dries had no luck pursuing the fish to sip his dries.

Warm weather footwear

Surely you have seen those sandals before on the street. Some called them 'Jesus Nikes' or Sport sandals. These sandals are great footwear during warm periods as well as when you are near / on water like walking along the beach or fly fishing!

Mine are made by Teva and I believe they are the original and still the best. Keen (Simms' sandals are made by Keen) also makes similar ones too. It's really amazing how comfortable these sandals are as well as durable. Did I mention light? I bought the ones with rubber inner soles since they will get wet often. The street versions have suede inner soles which are said to be more comfortable, but handle water badly since untreated leather will crack eventually.

Obviously these sandals are great for wet wading (not the really tricky river situations though, just for rock hopping style of fishing) as well as wading in tropical saltwater fishing.

Check them out at your local outdoors or sports outlet.

World Cup 2006 (IV) - the verdict

Italy wins the World Cup 2006 after taking penalties.

So, what's my verdict of the World Cup? The commercial pressure is dominating football and that's not a good thing. Teams are formed with big names even though they aren't in their best shape. Again, the big bucks involved in these players seems to play a huge influence who plays or who doesn't. The long football season with all those matches, both league as well as the European Cup tournaments like the Champions League, have exhausted these players. They just can't rev up for another month for such an event as the World Cup.

I think these football associations need to rethink what football is all about. Now, it looks like football is on second plan behind the big bucks...


Now, let's talk about fly fishing again!

World Cup 2006 (III) - conclusions 1st round

So, the first round is wrapped up... Jeez, this tournament is a mixed bag indeed. The entertainment we expected hasn't been delivered. The gap between the 'smaller countries' (asian and african countries) and the european football is smaller again in terms of individual quality of the players. In terms of team play and tactics, there still is a considerable gap. Since many european countries showed poor play, the matches were hardly worth a mention in football history.

Big disappointments for me are: Sweden, France (big time!), Brazil, England, Holland (yep, tough but true...) and Croatia. Countries that surprised me are: Aussies with their huge mentality and, I hate to say this, Germany. I don't know if this Dutch manager Guus really has magic hands but he some how manages to get these very average players to play football. Their physical game and never ending mental power make the Aussies a tough team to play against. And Germany? Well, Germany seems to be made for tournament play. No matter how average the individual quality is, as a team they manage to improve their game along the way.

What about our Dutch team? The manager Marco van Basten always said that he wanted to play an attractive game with the typical Dutch wing attackers. During the qualification for the World Cup the Dutch team were never brilliant but picked up the points quite easily. Now at the World Cup, the intentions of the manager never really picked up. In fact, the Dutch team plays an 'unDutch' way: very defensive, slow and boring. Many key players seems to have problems with their physique and too many players are playing way below their usual level. Together with a very vulnerable midfield, it's looking like the Dutch team is having trouble to form a balanced team.

Our next match is against Portugal. The Portuguese team hasn't changed much since the last big tournament. This seems to result in a very well oiled team. We got our ass kicked at the last European Championship by Portugal, so we do have some revenge feelings. But with the condition of the current Dutch team, I'm not sure we will repay the debt...

World Cup 2006 (II)

Just back from the World Cup match Korea vs Togo. It was in a few words: hot, amazing atmosphere, hot and overwhelming enthusiasm. The match itself wasn't very good, barely average. But Korea won and that's what almost 60% of the crowds cheered for.

Rotterdam to Frankfurt is about a 4 hours drive. We ended up in a hotel in the city of Schwalbach am Taunus, just next to Frankfurt. How weird to find out that the hotel we booked via the internet turned out to be run by a Korean family. In fact, there seems to be a little Korean community in this area. It's funny to wake up in the middle of Germany and you hear people talking Korean outside. But we came here for a mission: the World Cup!

We decided to leave the cars at the hotel and travel to the football stadium using the underground. It sure was the fastest way, but boy a journey it was indeed! The underground was jam packed with fans heading for the stadium. Now I know how an anjovis feels when it's canned and gets ready for shipment! The security wasn't as strict as we thought. In fact, the tickets weren't checked on the correct names as we all were warned. Such an event is, besides a celebration of the game, especially a commercial event. The beverages we were carrying weren't allowed to pass the gates. Obviously the beverages and food bought inside the gates were the cash cows.

The Frankfurt stadium has a capacity of almost 50,000 attendants and it was filled to the roof. Outside the stadium the party was already going on. Both people from Togo and Korea were enjoying themself with cheering or making music. Let's start with the game!

The first group matches have been played and it's not really clear how the teams should be judged. Which teams are playing at their best and which teams will disappoint? The real battles have yet to start. Some really interesting few weeks are waiting!

FIFA World Cup 2006

The FIFA World Cup football championship has started. So, far the big countries didn't impress me. In fact, Germany and England played pretty disappointing during their first match. I mean Costa Rica and Paraguay aren't really what they call 'angstgegners'.

We all agree that the Brazilian team is the team to beat. I think they have a great team with big names, but as with big teams they tend to shine when all goes right. If things aren't working out, the machine tends to stumble since most big names aren't used to work for their money when things go wrong. The current Real Madrid team is a fine example of a team with all big names, but not playing as a team. But, there is a long way to go so teams might pick up the mood and improve their game.

Today our Dutch team will play their first match. We have a new manager who has some refreshing ideas about the game and the players he selected. But I dunno, the fresh approach was never really tested nor did was his idea really shown by the team. We'll see this afternoon when the Dutch team plays against Serbia Montenegro. Let's hope Marco doesn't make a similar big mistake Dick made in Portugal!

My guess is that the Dutch team might go through to the semi finals, but for the top score we lack the real quality in the defense. Especially our central defense isn't top notch. Our midfield is pretty good as are our attackers.

We will be attending the match South Korea against Togo in Frankfurt Germany on 13 June, so that should be fun! We will leave tomorrow for Frankfurt. The weather looks fine: sunny & warm. Stay tuned for some nice impressions of this big event!

The Adams Family travels (II)

Early April Bill Taylor and I were talking about the new fishing season (see posting of 4 April 2006). This resulted in having a little trip for the Adams family. Today Bill sent me some pictures of the Family taking a swim in the Clark's Creek in the Catskill region. Looks like Bill had a nice outing with his dad. That quad rod looks mighty nice indeed.

My next trip to the trouts will be a trip to the Czech Republic (formerly part of Czechoslovakia) during the last week of July. I've never been to the Czech Republic, so I'm really curious. There seems to be some nice streams filled with graylings. So, keep posted!

Thanks for the nice pictures Bill!

Knots: make sure you know them!

Sure we know how to tie a fly on our tippet. But do you know how to tie a streamer or a nymph which wiggles freely on a 3x (or thicker) tippet? I'm sure many of us know a knot or two but specialty knots are probably unknown to most of us.

Martin Joergensens' site Global FlyFisher is an excellent site with tons of information on fly fishing and tying. Martin's illustrations of the knots seems to be stolen so often that it's probably in the 'stolen without permission section' of the Guinness book of world records and Martin hates that! So I'll just put a link here to his site where the knot section is and you can have a look there. Thanks Martin!

Why do we love fly fishing?

Last weekend my buddy Rolf and I headed for the Weisse Traun in southern Germany. It was our first trip of the year and it turned out to be a very interesting trip indeed. The warm and sunny weather of the past couple of weeks was about to end. Of the three days of fishing we had one day of rain. But all together still a very enjoyable trip.

The gin clear water of the Weisse Traun still blows my mind away. Especially when the sun shines you can see how clear the water is. This also makes a bit hard to sneak up on the fish. Still we managed to catch some very nice sized fish. The second day turned out to be a very wet day. As long as it doesn't rain too hard, the stream stays reasonably clear.

We decided to fish a different stretch on the third day. Since we never really tried the Rote Traun, a tributary of the Weisse & Deutsche Traun, we gave it a shot. Especially since a new much longer upper stretch (4 km) of the stream was added (license wise) to the existing lower stretch (1 km). The lower and upper stretch is divided by a man made dam making interaction between both stretches impossible.

The difference between both stretches are pretty big we found out. While the lower stretch is well known for the nice sized fish, the new stretch appeared to be pretty much yet to be inhabited by the fish, at least any sizable fish. The Rote Traun is also a smaller stream than the Weisse Traun. A short (<7.5 foot) rod makes casting much easier. We were hoping to see some graylings in the Rote Traun, but as in the Weisse Traun we only caught rainbows and browns (= caught in the Weisse Traun BTW). Well, the change of scenery was nice.

We are trying to figure out how to add a video stream to this blog. We filmed some action on the Rote Traun with Rolf's video camera. Fishing with a video camera is really something different than with a (digital) camera since it's such a heavy load. Eventhough the current generation of video camera's came a long way from the huge VHS based trucks, my guess is that in the near future we will see much smaller video camera's. Especially video camera's based on small harddisks will probably make a big difference in weight and size. I won't be surprised if future mobile phones are capable of making really decent video shots. Well, we'll see.

As promised we tried the new yellow colored polarized sunglasses (see posting below) during the low light situations. And boy do they work! The additional contrast and just plain bright view during low light conditions has been a huge help. Just don't forget to take along your regular sunglasses because as soon as the sun starts shining, you're bound to have a very tired eyesight or even a head ache.

This trip showed us again why we love fly fishing. For me it's all about enjoying the friendship, enjoying the solitude and generally having a good laugh.

Polarized sunglasses for low light conditions

During low light conditions like falling dusk, the regular sunglasses are generally too dark. I've never tried photochromatic sunglasses (this feature only works with glass lenses I'm told), but as soon as evening approaches I have to take off my sunglasses to see where my fly is. Obviously this isn't recommended since sunglasses are also a protection for your eyes.

Couple of months ago I was browsing in one of those car accessory shops (for our Dutch vistors: Halfords). There was a shelve with sunglasses and the bright yellow ones caught my attention. Surprisingly these were polarized as well! These 'driving glasses' are supposed to give drivers a better view on the road by taking care of glare as well as giving additional contrast during low light situations. Well, whadayaknow?...

Today I bought one of those yellow polarized sunglasses. They are pretty cheap (about 15 euros / approx. 20 dollars). The quality of the frame is barely adequate. I had to rebend one of the legs since it was off position. But again I will use them only during a couple of hours at the end of the day. These yellow glasses REALLY does add a lot of contrast! Wearing them during sunny conditions will surely give you a banging head ache. But for low light conditions, they probably work great. Keep posted for feed back on this!


*** Update 10 June 2006 ***
I bought sunglasses which are both photochromatic AND made of lightweight polycarbonate glasses. I'll report on these after my trip to the Czech Republic late July.

My 'go-to' flies

Generally I'll fish with some kind of nymph during 80% of the time. Fish feeds for more than 90% under water so that makes sense. Most streams and rivers I fish contain some species of mayflies and caddis. Some streams also inhabits smaller stoneflies like the yellow sally. And of course insects that crawl around the banks and branches that hangs over the banks like hoppers, beetles and ants.

Over the years I trimmed down the numbers of patterns in my fly box to just a several patterns. Even the numbers of sizes are trimmed down to one or two sizes. Since most of the streams I fish in Europe are some kind of freestone type streams, fish don't have the time to observe whether the fly that swims down is the correct size.

My favorite nymph patterns over the years have been pretty consistent, both in European as US/Canadian destinations. Obviously, local patterns won't be neglected. Although I like to keep my fly boxes to a minimum I'll always have enough of these patterns:

* Bead head caddis pupa in some shade of olive.
* Pheasant tail type of nymph (I got rid of the wing-case to save tying time). I prefer darker shades for these nymphs.
* To imitate smaller type stoneflies as well as a general 'attractor nymph' a Prince nymph (with and without bead head).

Another variant on the general may fly nymph is a rubber legged version. I have used many rubber leg nymph patterns over the years and I found them to be very productive, especially when the regular nymphs aren't producing. My guess is that the fish are fed up with the same dish served by fly fishermen and are looking for a nice juicy cheeseburger.

I'll give the nymph a twitch every couple of seconds during a dead drift. This pattern is based on a general may fly type nymph. Basically any nymph pattern can be adapted to a rubber legged version just by adding some strands of rubber around the thorax area. Sizes 10 and up work great as stonefly nymphs.

The remaining 20% of the time, I'll try a dry fly (or a streamer) of some sort to play a different game. Especially spots with nice undercut banks, overhanging brushes and trees are potential areas to switch. Caddis patterns like the Elk hair caddis, CDC & Elk or even a small hopper pattern will work. Parachute style dry flies, both regular style as well as emerger / Klinkhamer styles, will do. The white parachute posts one usually sees in these patterns aren't visible as well as they should. So I changed my posts to a 'hot orange' color. This color is visible both during light and low light conditions. It's even visible when it rides a heavy current.

I just love the big strikes when fishing with hoppers. Last summer I changed my favorite hopper pattern. The Alien Bug is my hopper pattern to go. It's easy to tie, it floats and it's durable. I haven't tried it in Europe since I got back from my US / Canada trip, but I'm sure it will get its share of playing time.

The Humpy is a very versatile dry fly. It's a searching attractor pattern, it can be used as a beetle imitation as well as a general heavy current dry fly since it floats so well. Just have some in your fly box!

I must admit I've never given the good old ant pattern a try so far. Probably because they are so hard to see! There is no doubt that ants are available as a food almost year round. Probably the most common land insect of all. So, I tied a few dozen ants in sizes 18 to 22 this winter. We'll see what happens.

About streamers, I'll come back in a later posting. We have to wait for about a week before heading to southern Germany. Can't wait!

So which are YOUR favourite patterns?

Fly fishing season has started!

At last! The weather is finally warming up as more days have increasing sunny periods. We planned our first trip to the trout streams in southern Germany for the second weekend of May. Can't wait to go after those hungry trouts!

We'll get our appetite going by getting our fly boxes ready for the season. We'll post some pictures of the flies we use as well some new experimental flies we want to try out (at least for the European trouts).

Keep posted for more news on our preparation for our first fishing trip of this year!

The Adams Family travels (I)

I've always loved giving (experimental) flies away to friends who try them out on their favorite streams. After all that's what flies are made for. It's also an easy way to try out new (or altered) patterns in spite of not having a nice trout stream running in my back yard.

One of the nice memories is how my humpies fooled some nice kiwi browns and rainbows by a New Zealand guide. The idea of traveling to the other side of the world and fooling a trout almost makes up for not being there my self.

Well, for the mean time... Unfortunately those days were before the digital camera's. I must have some pictures of those trouts stashed away somewhere in my house.

Bill Taylor, maker of fine bamboo rods (Bill's quad rods seems to be really something else), told me that he was going to fish the Catskill area this spring. Since the Adams is one of the most well known Catskill flies we agreed to do a little all-expenses paid trip for the Adams Family.

The idea is to get these flies on the Catskill streams and do what they do best: fool fish. I tied half a dozen Adams in size 14 and 16 this week. They are now ready for shipment to Bill in a film container.

To be continued....






Update 8 April 2006:
The Adams Family has been shipped!

Update 22 April 2006:
The Adams Family has (finally) arrived at their destination! Pictures to follow.

Classic reels

Large arbor reels are the buzz these days. The advantages of these reels makes sense and they look great on graphite rods. On classic graphite rods and bamboo rods, there's arguably no discussion that classic reels are the ones to match. Classic reels have this distinctive look which no modern (large arbor) reel comes close. For my fishing with bamboo rods I use an Orvis CFO III or a Hardy Perfect 3 1/8 inch RHW (Right Hand Wind). The vintage look of these reels just look right on a nice bamboo fly rod. I use the CFO for lines up to 4 weight. The Perfect will be used for 5 & 6 weight rods.

Orvis started selling the CFO since 1971. A design by Stanley Bogdan, the CFO has been linked to Orvis as the Big Ben is to London. The original CFO's were made by Hardy for Orvis. During the 1990's another british reel company called BRF (famous for the Dragonfly reel series) took over the manufacturing. This year the CFO's design has been changed (oh no!) and manufacturing has been shifted over to the far east.

Hardy started making the Perfect in 1891. Until the last Perfect in the 1980's, the original design hardly changed and stood the test of time. Another reel I like is the 3 inch version of Hardy's St. George. And of course, the ever beautiful Lightweight series made by Hardy. These reels have been made by Hardy since the 1951 and have been a big hit ever since.

Update 9 june 2007:
Here's a nice overview of the history of the CFO reels.

Update Dec 2009:
Hardy has reintroduced their classic reels, Perfect and the St. George. These reels are just gorgeous! Especially the 2 7/8 inch and 3 1/8 inch Perfects and the 3 inch St George are perfect for trout fishing. Get one while they last. You won't be disappointed.

No Fly Fair this spring

The Fly Fair (the original!) which was supposed to be held this spring (May 6 & 7) in The Netherlands has been cancelled. The first Fly Fair was held in 1985 in a tiny town called Hattem and since then the idea has been copied many times by other fairs all over the world.

It seems that there is a serious lack of commercial interest from the (Dutch) shops who attend the fair and pay a big part of the bill. The reason behind this boycott is still not spoken out loud, but it is suggested that one (or more) of the initiators of the Fly Fair has mixed commercial interests.

Well, it's just all too bad for all the people who were looking forward to some good old fashion fly fishing fun. We'll see what happens next year.

Dahlberg divers

It must have been sometime in the late 1980’s. I watched this badly copied VHS video called ‘Fly Fishing for Pike with Larry Dahlberg' about fly fishing for pike using floating bugs. Although the image quality was awful what I saw really caught my attention. This fly nowadays known as the Dahlberg diver (the original pattern and name Larry used for his diving bug is Mega Diver and was tied with a long haribou and flashabou tail rather than hackles used these days which mimics frogs) was making those pikes go nuts. By strip retrieving, the bug dived like a plug and came up if you stopped the retrieve. This action was achieved by the unique way the head of the bassbug was shaped.

Many years later I found the article called Super Fly! in Fly Fisherman magazine (September 1983 issue) where Dave Whitlock writes about Larry Dahlberg introducing the Dahlberg Diver to him on a fishing trip on the St Croix river in Wisconsin.

During the early 1990's I watched another video called Tying Bass Flies with Jimmy Nix. Jimmy Nix is a well known fly fisherman and tier of largemouth bass and saltwater species. I’ve watched this video endlessly. Another video I can recommend is Fly Tying Bass Flies with Dave Whitlock.

During the early 90's I also met Chris Helm. Chris is, besides being a very nice guy, a master with deer hair. His tying video's are world famous. Chris also runs a business selling quality deer hair. He sent me patches of deer hair I couldn't get here in The Netherlands. I started experimenting with muddlers, hoppers and humpies. Bassbugs was just a logical step.

So, what's so great about this bug? It's just plain fun to tie these colorful critters. Using different colors of hair you can make very colorful creations, only limited by your imagination. Especially using the stacking technique, very realistic (or wild, depending on colors used) color patterns can be made. Using a good pair of sharp scissors (I love those ice tempered scissors) and razor blades you can shape the ball of hair to any shape you want.


Here are some essential tools I use when tying my bass bugs:

• A pair (a curved version as a second is nice) of ice tempered scissors (I use Thompson scissors which are no longer available. Anvil makes good scissors too).
• A long nose bobbin (I prefer the Materelli bobbin).
• Tying thread I prefer Danville's Flymaster Plus (a good alternative is Uni-thread's Big Fly, which is a bit thicker than Flymaster Plus). Some prefer gel GSP thread.
• A large hair stacker.
• Double sided razor blades.

Here is an excellent article by Chris Helm about selecting deer hair for various purposes.


Update May 2012:
Here are two of the Dahlberg Divers shown above now framed together with a little deer hair mouse I tied for Rudi Heger. The framed box hangs on the wall of the fly shop.








Update Nov 2, 2018:
Larry Dahlberg himself approved the diver