sorry...

but i just can't help myself. with a big move coming up, there has been no fishing to speak of. so i've been keeping myself busy surfing the tubes. i give you a word from mr. strang.

"Steve Strang, publisher of Charisma magazine, a Pentecostal publication, titled one of his recent weekly e-mails to readers, 'Life As We Know It Will End If Obama is Elected.'

Strang said gay rights and abortion rights would be strengthened in an Obama administration, taxes would rise and 'people who hate Christianity will be emboldened to attack our freedoms.'"

this is very illustrative. but first, i don't hate christianity at all, i just don't agree with it. however, when obama is elected it will not embolden those of us that don't agree to attack freedom of religion or any other freedoms that you have as a christian. it will, however, embolden us to stop the government from turning christian beliefs into law therefore imposing them on the rest of us and taking away our freedoms. i really hope those days are over.

again, my apologies. this is supposed to be a fishing blog, kind of.

impending cranial implosion

This election needs to happen already. Every corner of the internet's tubes are clogged with McBama. Ted Stevens is probably turning in his grave, errrr, I mean defendants chair (note: Stevens' movement may also be accounted for by the attempt to relieve pressure on his hemorrhoids, a terrible case of which he has, from being Big Oil's bitch for soooooooo long).

Happy 14 days to go!

steelies and chanties and coho, oh my!

Its been damned busy around headquarters lately...I'll let the photos speak for themselves.

well fuck me, it happened

Sometime ago, maybe 10 years or so, I heard that steelhead take dry flies. At the time I didn't really believe it. See, back then I barely believed that they would take a fly...only under strict and rare circumstances. But this is the common mind of a Great Lakes steelheader, especially one fishing North Shore Lake Superior tribs. For me the game was spawn bags, until a fateful day which saw my brother outfish me using a size 10 hare's ear nymph. I started playing around with it and realized that steelhead would move to the fly with some form of regularity. But even then, dry flies and steelhead were only a pair in the science fiction section of my mind. Then some years passed and I happened to move some great lakes fish to a streamer (prior to this day it was nymphs only for me), it was a big olive conehead muddler and I outfished a super fishy group with the fly by casting up and across, throwing a downstream mend and giving it some action...the steelhead hammered that fly. Dry flies and steelhead that day moved from sci-fi into fiction, a shift toward the believable.

A couple more years passed and I found myself living in Oregon, a friend from back in the midwest set me up with a two handed rod, gave me a casting lesson and a quick one-day course in swinging flies for steelhead. I asked him about steelhead and dry flies and there was no hesitation in the "fuck yeah, they take 'em" reply. Well that would be my mission then, get a steelhead on a dry. I spent some time my first and second summers fishing dries with limited confidence. Then, fishing the Deschutes with a wet fly, I watched a steelhead make a bonafide rise. The wet was planed out on the surface and a steelhead came out of the water for it and smashed it, he missed most of the fly on the first pass but sunk the fly in his boil. Then I saw his tail come out of the water and thrash around, simultaneously feeling the big tug. This was the first time I'd seen any part of a steelhead come out of the water for a fly, it was the first reality bender. On the same trip I had one fish take a riffle hitched muddler, but the fly was in the glare so I wasn't sure if it was on top or not, it was a grab and go but a confidence builder. More trips, more dries swung, one big toilet boil flush under the fly last summer, one head-tail rise in smooth water this summer, but still no fish hooked on the dry.

This past week that friend from the midwest called and asked if I could get out for the weekend. I could and did, there is a big camp on a big river this coming weekend and we wanted to get a headstart, get a program going before all the dudes show up...I think there will be 15 guys, all badass sticks, in the camp so a program going in is key. We went and found some new water, re-affirmed likes or dislikes of "old" water and found some new opposite bank access on known-to-produce runs. One run in particular doesn't get fished much and has a serious penchant for giving it up like a 5 dollar hooker. The first morning we went in the backside and being the generous dude, he let me go through first. When I got to the bucket a fish came up and plucked the dry hard, two casts later on the other side of the bucket another fish came up and missed. I was thinking that was it for the trip, I've fished this river several times in the past and I essentially get two shots per trip...tops. Needless to say I was in disbelief when, three casts after the second fish, I saw a dorsal and tail of a steelhead sharking my fly that was waking downstream. Time slowed way the fuck down, my window of reality was a 5 foot square around the fish and the fly. I'm an atheist or agnostic or whatever the fuck you are when you don't believe that praying works, but I'm pretty sure I was praying anyway when the fish and fly dissapeared and went under and stayed under and stayed under and stayed under. It was probably 2 or 3 true seconds, about 5 minutes in my head, until it came tight. According to the witness "I've never heard a grown man scream like that, it was sorta girly". The fish wasn't big, and I didn't get it in my hands, but got it up real close and the hook popped out. Given that it was most likely a native it's better that way, especially since, given my state of mind, I might have hugged the fish or something...and he thought the scream was girly.

Anyways, thanks to he who let me have first pass through the money bucket. The moment fulfilled a huge goal of mine and has certainly changed my fishing self, in the best of ways.

Dear The Drake,

I am astounded that you, once again, somehow trapped me into reading you cover to cover. I will say that compared to the first couple editions the trend is away from the little bank-eddy pockets and towards the main flow, a slight dissapointment, but if thats what it takes to keep you on the shelves than so be it. My favorite bit this time has got to be Jean Bie's letter to the Editor reprimanding Trask on his filthy language, a great touch, this is the stuff that makes The Drake, The Drake. For those of you that don't have a perscription, see your doctor at www.drakemag.com and get one. Oh yeah, The Drake, I do have one request...NO MORE CHEESE DICK UNDERARMOR ADS!!!

Thanks,

the leech

something you should know

From the Statesman Journal:

Following the report released by the National Marine Fisheries Service that identified 37 pesticides that pose risks to salmon and steelhead, Oregon state officials are moving ahead to set new safety benchmarks for seven pesticides of priority concern.

A team from the Oregon Water Quality Pesticide Management Program identified seven priority hazardous pesticides: azinphos-methyl, chlorpyrifos, dacthal, diazinon, endosulfan, simazine and ethoprop, based on water-quality monitoring in five Oregon watersheds, including the Pudding River near Salem, as well as the Clackamas, Yamhill, Hood and Walla Walla watersheds. Three pesticides, azinphos-methyl, diazinon and chlorpyrifos have been detected at concentrations that exceed federal aquatic criteria in the Clackamas River Basin (See report here: http://pubs.usgs.gov/sir/2008/5027/ ). Chlorpyrifos was detected at maximum levels more than twice the federal standard.

The National Marine Fisheries Service report on the ecological damage associated with pesticide use reveals “overwhelming evidence” to suggest that 37 pesticides, including these seven, increase the chance of extinction for protected salmon and steelhead. See this report at http://www.nmfs.noaa.gov/pr/pdfs/pesticide_biological_opinion_draft.pdf
The state is now turning to its own team of experts to set stringent benchmarks based on existing research on these chemicals of concern. Generally the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is charged with developing water quality standards as part of its registration process, however a significant time lag exists between the time the product goes on the market and the setting of final in-stream standards.

According to Kevin Masterson, the agency toxics coordinator with the State’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), a pesticide might be on the market for 20 or 30 years before the EPA’s water division finishes reviewing its effect. For example, the final in-stream standard for diazinon- one of the seven pesticides detected- was not set until it was already banned for household use because of risks to humans, birds and fish. Diazinon is still cleared for agricultural use but could still face restrictions.

“The EPA and the states around the country don’t have standards for the majority of current-use pesticides. More standards exist for drinking water, but there still are more pesticides without standards than those with them,” Mr. Masterson said. (that is fucked up. even better...nobody knows what effect, especially long-term, a majority of current-use pesticides have on people.)

Despite the time gap for water quality standards, states are encouraged to develop benchmarks from a list of pesticides of concern. Unlike EPA standards, benchmarks do not have the enforcement power or require public review. These benchmarks will be designed to help state agencies better understand and explain to the public and pesticide applicators when there is a problem with pesticide concentrations in surface and ground waters. An example of a benchmark can include: 10 parts per billion concentration [of named pesticide] in waters can lead to salmon decline or increase the risk of cancer.

“You can do all the monitoring in the world, but without benchmarks, it doesn’t mean much,” said Steve Riley, an Oregon Department of Agriculture water issues specialist and team member.
Once benchmarks are established, the team of officials will begin working with farmers, nursery growers and other pesticide users to reduce pesticide runoff starting with a pilot project in the Clackamas River Sub-Basin near Portland, Oregon. The program is also evaluating a list of seven relatively newer pesticides such as 2,4-D and glyphosate for possible inclusion in the list as part of an ongoing evaluation of pesticides. The state’s DEQ is also increasing the number of pesticides it tests for in Oregon waters and lowering the level at which they register to give an even clearer picture of what pesticides are showing up at potentially risky levels.

Beyond Pesticides has long criticized EPA’s flawed risk assessment process that does not consider all aspects of potential harm to human health and the environment and that allow dangerous pesticides to be registered without having met all of their data requirements.
Aimee Code with the Northwest Coalition for Alternatives to Pesticides applauds the team’s approach to educate pesticide users to reduce runoff rather than replacing one pesticide with another. “There have been wonderful collaborative efforts around the state to solve these problems,” she said. “It’s a wonderful step in the right direction.”

McStain

this is pretty good...nothing earth shattering, but pretty good.

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=GEtZlR3zp4c

Backlog

Steelie squared occured, and the world is still here. So, we're safe for now. It was barely a steelhead though, and when the first chrome winter hits the bank the total level of good will be much higher and therefore, who knows what will happen.


Went crabbing last week, only got 2 keepers but a dude on the dock had one and gave it to us, a definite bonus. Just cracked 'em and boiled 'em and ate 'em with butter...superb.

a trick

last night kari decided steelie should learn how to rollover....

paradoxical, man

steelie might meet his first steelie this weekend, so if the world implodes you'll know why...too much good in one place.

tall boys

spent my birthday proper this year.

proof.

a photo essay, of sorts

As promised.

this is a big ass hive under a bridge

glacier np

more glacier

just outside glacier

that was unintentional

A Memo

Hiya, just got back late last night from 12 days in big sky country. Unfortunately we didn't find as many big trout as normal, but we certainly found more. Steelie is a badass fishing dog. Saw a shitload of water including, but not limited to, Rock Creek, Blackfoot, Flathead (didn't fish it), Bitteroot (can you say, fuck yeah?), E. Fork Gallatin, lower W. Fork Gallatin, etc... Kari hooked the biggest fish of the trip and it may have been the biggest MT trout I've ever seen...huge, on a hopper. The fall is late, the hoppers weren't really working (despite the previous sentence) and they were all small, like 10's instead of 6's like I've seen in the past at the same time of year. Nymphing produced the most consitently along with a good ol' Adams in 14. And of course the beetuljula slayed. I was popping the beeteuljula much more than normal and drew loads of strikes doing this, especially popping it downstream, oddly enough. One of said strikes was the most unbelievable thing I've ever seen while trout fishing (disclaimer: there are large mouth bizass and pike in the lower bitteroot, but we were 30-40 miles upstream of there, no barriers but cold water), the cast was to the bank down and across and drew a really good boil but no take, the re-cast landed tight behind a big stump and got popped hard, the big foamer acted like a bass popper, and the take was an explosion, like a 15 pound pike in attack mode. I have to believe it was a trout, if it truly was it was a fucked up, 'roided out thing that I really wish I could have seen.

That was a sorta long memo, but you can deal. Pics to come...soon, maybe.

A Must See!

Ladies and Gentlenads!

you gotta go check out my niece throwin down the crazy charlies on Snake Guides aka "Brotha E's B-Log"... follow the link over
there ----------->

Missed one steelie today...

but landed another, my best ever......

meet the leech's partner in crime, presented here for the first time, i give you, Steelie.

A Note on Athletic Domination: Genetics Helps

Regardless of the sport, when an athlete shows total domination it's pretty badass to witness. Given the unprecedented asswhooping Phelps' has delivered thus far I've been wondering, whats the physical-mental breakdown...in other words, is he a genetic freak or is he just that confident in himself? In his bio I found a partial answer...

"At first glance, Phelps might look like a typical swimmer. But several of his physical characteristics seem genetically tailored for swimming. His 6-foot-7-inch wingspan is three inches longer than his height, providing him with unusual reach. His torso is long compared to his legs, enabling him to ride high on the water. And his flexible ankles, combined with size-14 feet, allow for a powerful kick. Add to that more than a decade of high-intensity training, and you get one of the fastest swimmers in history."

Freak it is!

My apologies...

political again. dunno whats got into me.

from the AP:

"The Bush administration wants federal agencies to decide for themselves whether highways, dams, mines and other construction projects might harm endangered animals and plants."

this just sounds like a really good idea doesn't it? revamp the endagered species act, good, make it weaker, especially since the US is abound with flora and fauna. who cares if we lose the polar bears or columbia river chinook salmon, there are tons of other fish and bears all over!

how the administration gets this shit past all the other branches of government is wayyyyy beyond me. i remember, back in 9th grade civics class, learning about "the system of checks and balances". did we, like, switch to a new system since then or something? i'm confused.

Backyard tenants

For the past month or two we've had some subletters in the backyard. They were exceptionally lax this morning, so some photos were in order. I also have a video of some triplets playing tag just up the road, it's of poor quality but still pretty cool to see.

In the canyon...

As aforementioned we recently had ourselves a 4 day float trip down the D. It was my first overnighter with the boat and my first big water rowing experience...badass and badasser. I am going to mostly let the photos speak, but have a couple observations:

1) Jet boats are pretty lame, but not quite as bad as I suspected.

2) When you set up a camp, and a floatilla of 3 rafts lands at your site, you should run down and defend it. I didn't and when we got back to camp we had two tents within 20 feet of ours in either direction, and a radio blaring shitty fuckin music and several drippy douches acting like 4th graders...Seriously, we pulled the stakes on our tent to move down a couple hundred feet and as we were walking away one of them said "See ya, wouldn't wanna be ya!", fuckin circa 1993 and shit. Prolly shoulda punched him.

3) I fuckin love the tightline summer steelhead grab and go, it almost can't be beat.

4) 25 inch steelhead have heart too. I got my ass handed to me, literally almost had to break her off due to a shortage of backing, she went wayyyyyy deep into the reel (a reel not built for a 6/7/8 windcutter). She hooked herself, jumped once, hit the water and took off on the most incredible reel blisterer I've ever witnessed from any species, and didn't stop til it was almost all gone.

5) Bring more beer.

On to the eye candy!

A Partial Digestion

So I've wrote nary a word on the North Umpqua trip and I figure I should probably at least get something started. I didn't have a camera, so no eye candy...though in terms of fish very, very little eye candy was available...for me anyways.

Overall the trip was a success, much more for some than others, or I should say, much more for one than the rest of us. See, one guy that was in camp is a bit of a yoda on that river. He knows it, well. And it was clearer to me than ever how far river knowledge can get you. But certainly that was only part of the massive gap in contact with steelhead. 9 out of 10 of yoda's casts were perfect, good loops, no tails, and the fly snapped straight out at the end, landed and was fishing instantly...about 1 in 5 of my casts could make the same claim. Prior to this trip I was very pleased to be in the "pretty casts don't matter" camp, but now I've learned that "pretty casts" are also "fishy casts"...especially in the summer and especially on that river, with clear smooth water and a lot of fishing pressure. Likewise, every cast that fails is one less cast to catch a fish with in a day. I paid attention to this and realized I was wasting on the order of 30 minutes minimum every day in bullshit casts, this was an extremely frustrating epiphany. When fishing is tough and one fish every two days is really good and that one cast that might have caught a fish lands in a big pile...well you get the picture. You never really know if it's real (a failed cast causing a missed fish) but you can't help wondering.

By day 3 I was thinking it ought to happen. Yoda had already landed 4 fish and brought one or two more to the fly, the rest of us (3) were fishless. Just after noon I was fishing over a suspected steelhead, he had risen once to a dry in the morning and grabbed a wet a half hour or so before I went through. After 4 or so attempts I finally got a cast to mostly straighten out over the lie, there was a big belly in the line and it was dragging through the juice pretty quick. Then it stopped, I swept the rod low and slow proper but there was a lot of slack and all I got was about 3 or 4 slack line head shakes. I couldn't decide if I should be elated for finally touching a fish or pissed cause I farmed the one chance I had...see with all that slack, low and slow wasn't proper, I shoulda wailed on that fucker.

3 full days later and about 3 casts away from calling it a night it finally happened. A little hatchery rat slammed the fly right above the lip of a small rapid in a nice tailout. For a cookie cutter degenerate it put on a good show, clearing the water 5 times in the first 10 seconds or so, but afterwards played the doggy hatchery fish game. Nonetheless at 6 days in I would have taken a tailess, finless pile of puke over continued nothingness. And it ate damn well grilled up over the camp fire, so I can't complain. I rose a fish to a waker the next morning. It didn't stick but it didn't really matter at that point. The fly was only about 25 feet away from me and I got to see the head come out of water, grab the fly and go down in a boil. I waited with maximum patience but nothing happened, the fly just popped back up a couple seconds later. Just seeing a fucking steelhead eat a dry is about the most badass thing in the world for a dude who cut his steelhead teeth on great lakes fish with lead and spawn bags. I need to see it again.

So like I said, all in all a success. It was steelheading at its finest, at day 4 I wasn't going fishing anymore, I was going casting. And like I said a couple weeks back, it's not all about the fish. Somehow, for about 6 or 7 nanoseconds during the trip I actually believed it and that was a fucked up feeling, but one I wouldn't mind finding again. Although if said feeling's attainment didn't include 6 fishless days I would be quite alright with it.

Thanks to those of you who've stuck around through this boring ass stretch of the pictureless Leech. But it is now officially over, Kari and I floated the Deschutes saturday-tuesday and got a new digi prior to departure. The next post will have pics and maybe even some fish, if yer lucky.

The Bad Hair Day

So, yesterday I was checking out my brother's blogs. Whilst reading about E's trip to northern sconny with bacon and the legendary 17th Allman Brother, D-Pin, E mentioned something about seeing some badass patterns, some of which having a future place in his fly box. So I asked, bad hair day? And not because E is prone to frizzing. No, I knew what pattern struck his fancy before he even said it. So when I talked to him on the phone last night I was curious to hear what he had to say.....to sum:

"When you make a cast and a smally immediately attacks the fly, you strike at it, but miss and then a carp starts tracking the fly, so you give it a few strips, you know to get the carp interested, and right then a pike comes and slams the fly right in front of the carp, your either fishing in the fucking Chicago aquarium or you've got yourself a kick ass fly."

Some of you may have seen it before, but you ought to see it again.

Bacon - if you still read this madness...hope you don't mind I robbed the pic from the VB archives.

Breaking News: Karma Works!

Alaska's worst enemy is finally getting his. Better think of a new name for the airport.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080729/ap_on_go_co/stevens_indictment

In the good spirit of things, here is an excerpt from his famous "Series of Tubes" speech given in a senate committee meeting.

"...Ten movies streaming across that, that Internet, and what happens to your own personal Internet? I just the other day got... an Internet was sent by my staff at 10 o'clock in the morning on Friday, I got it yesterday [Tuesday]. Why? Because it got tangled up with all these things going on the Internet commercially.
[...] They want to deliver vast amounts of information over the Internet. And again, the Internet is not something that you just dump something on. It's not a big truck. It's a series of tubes. And if you don't understand, those tubes can be filled and if they are filled, when you put your message in, it gets in line and it's going to be delayed by anyone that puts into that tube enormous amounts of material, enormous amounts of material..."

Well Ted, I hope your series of tubes are ready for "enormous amounts of material" while locked up in Federal Pound You in the Ass Prison. Sayonara douchepump.

Some Badassness

It is really quite impossible to put words to the collective amount of mojo and trilobal we're going to smear all over the fabled waters of the North Umpqua. I can only describe it now in terms of whats been done and whats been felt, not what will be. For one, I have trilobal under my toenails, really, the shit is everywhere, I think there is even a piece lodged in my choad and I swear I tie clothed. The trimmed deer hair of muddler heads and other assorted spun wakers is much more manageable, but still, everywhere I go, it goes...static is a bitch. My fly boxes have likely never looked this nice, at least not from my doing. I have even started to put the bullshit into my flies that I personally don't think matters, like a piece of wood duck, or some pretty pheasant or a couple polar bear hairs, all done just in case. Just in case the fish really are as snooty as they are in my mind, like they are finning down there behind a rock and a fly comes into their window and they think, "ha, who is this amateur? he subbed schlappen for rhea? no fucking jungle cock? cheap saddle hackle tips? rookie." Really, this is what my mind has done with these fish, it's pretty fucked up since I'm the kind of guy who strips deer hair mice on the middle of a lake during a hex hatch, just cause, or fishes a big ass foam, rubber legged terrestrial through a hatch of sz. 18 BWOs...why, because it works. I am sure the same type of shit applies to the steelhead on the NU as to the trout of sconny, the fish usually don't really care if its ugly as long as its edible...usually. And that is the reason I'm spending 15 minutes a fly instead of 5. It's been this "just in case" reasoning. I'll look at a fly and think, 'I don't need to add the pheasant', then think, 'just in case' and I tie it in. Just in case the fish are thinkers. Weird shit man.

Above and beyond all that is the fact that I will be spending 7 days straight on the river, sunday to sunday. It won't really matter how many fish I move or hook or land. It'll kinda matter though, as much as I tell myself otherwise. The goal is to define the trip in another way, not by numbers of fish but by gained knowledge and the experience. Given the crew I will be spending the days with I can guarantee there will be knowledge to be had, and I'm gonna get me some. And on that river the experience is likewise guaranteed, my casting will improve as will my ability to read and wade that fucked up ledgerocky river. And that, ladys and stains, is the purpose of the post. To remind myself that it's not all about the fish. It's not all about the fish. It's not all about the fish. Though, I should say, my 25 year old mind has a severe issue with those sentences, it says, "then why the fuck do you have trilobal in your choad?" And I have no answer, except that it seems to me almost all the rickety old guys of fishing say or write that very thing...it's not all about the fish...and I have this feeling that there is a whole new dimension of fishing reality if you can get your mind to that place. So, I will try.

Disclaimer: If a steelhead eats my dry fly, the "it's not about the fish" shit will be a lost cause! Check back in a couple weeks for my reflection. peace out fools.

Couldn't make it up if I tried: part deuhhh?

I don't think I have put any Bushisms up on the blog yet, but this shit is just too good. Apparently after lifting the executive ban on offshore drilling, Bush got drilled by reporters on whether or not that was really the best way to achieve the desired result...less dependence on foreign oil, lower gas prices. I am putting up a couple choice excerpts from a Yahoo!news arcticle I read today...Bush needs to start writing childrens books...or something, he is a fuckin entertainer!

Speaking of the American Consumer:

"They're smart enough to figure out whether they're going to drive less or not. I mean, you know, it's interesting what the price of gasoline has done," Bush said at a news conference in the White House press room, "is it caused people to drive less. That's why they want smaller cars: They want to conserve. But the consumer's plenty bright. The marketplace works."

"You noticed my statement yesterday, I talked about good conservation and — you know, people can figure out whether they need to drive more or less," he said. "They can balance their own checkbooks." (balance their own checkbooks!!!)

This part is my favorite:

“It seems like it makes sense to me to say to the world at we’re going to use, you know, new technologies to explore for oil and gas in the United States … to send a clear message that the supplies of oil will increase,” he said.

“The president doesn’t have a magic wand,” the president added. “You can’t just say: ‘Low gas!’"

Well, there you have it. The president does not, I repeat, does not, have a magic wand. DAMN!

hey! it's a jpeg!

this blog is useless without pics! someday, lads, i will jump back into society with a splash, start working again and buy a gotdam digital camera, but this day shall not be that day. in the meantime i have a really nice brother who took a pic of the carp fly i spoke about a couple weeks ago. i should, however, issue a statement of partial retraction on the whole "its the fly that matters" thing with the carp. I was back to the spot a week ago and didn't hook a fish. a friend was with and he hooked two, one on a little san juan worm and one on a small rubber legged squirrel nymph. the fly that slayed em the week before got only a few follows and one take. so it apparently isn't as magical as first thought. it is still a damn good fly though so here it is!

there are two small differences between this fly and the one i used...1) on my fly the larva lace is brown and 2) i used rusty orange rabbit for the wing instead of what appears to be hackle fibers.