I am a fly fisherman and fly tier
(or, as the Library of Congress Subject Headings would have it, a "fly tyer." Did I mention I was a librarian, too?)
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Here are some of the things I've had to say to my friends on the Flyfishing Digest list (see the "FF@" homepage and searchable
archives), about how I tie flies, where I fish, and how I have managed not to catch fish in some of the finer waters of the United States. Eventually I may put in some of my first-hand thoughts, correct the many typographical errors, and render all in a cutting-edge markup language.
I also include a very minimal set of links to favorite sites on the web -- there's no point trying to make a comprehensive list when others have already done so.
My patterns. (Don't hold your breath waiting for more photos.)
- Winging it with tulle, a cheap, shape-holding, aerodynamically neutral material for dun and spinner wings.
- The Ninety-Degree Series of parachute dry flies. (See also the almost-original post, with ASCII illustration. The original, original description was in August 1992.)
- Ugly birds do good:
- Emu 'Chute Series of rather more conventional (well, as conventional as I ever admit to...) parachute dries
- Tambaetis -- a tiny blue-winged olive ... more fun and games with emu plumes, named for one of FF@'s more colorful contributors, Tammy DiGristine Wilson, who hates the critters.
- Fun with packing foam:
- Flagstaff Flying Ant. (this monsoon-season carpenter ant pattern was featured in Gene Trump's "Fly Wrap-Up" column in Flyfishing magazine -- a year after my 90-Degree Damsel -- though he didn't tie it with a sufficiently wasp-like waist. )
- Three Creeks Active Spinner. It imitates. It attracts. It slices, dices, and makes a lovely earring...
- Improved Celine. An imitative dry fly series for carp in urban environments.
- Tying in circles:
- Circle Bugger. My first foray into the use of circle hooks -- designed for a Las Vegas bass lake but effective for surf-dwelling species, too.
- Radford Redeyes. A pair of smallmouth patterns, one weighted, one a floater/diver.
Semifishlessness from California to Connecticut: my fishing logs reported to "FF@."
For the most part, these essays are the raw versions, as posted to Flyfishing Digest and retained in the archives of that list. Eventually I might clean them up, perhaps add links. I hope these prove useful for their how-to / where-to value, not simply as exercises of my vanity. Of course, I retain the copyright, in whatever format or forum.
Since I moved from Nevada to Virginia in spring 2001, I've been fishing so regularly (and with a good number of regular members of the FF@ list) that there's hasn't been as much incentive to write reports.
Old home waters: Utah, from Colorado Plateau streams to the Green River.
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Arizona: from small streams to the Colorado River.
New Mexico: the San Juan River.
Points east.
- May/June 1997 (mostly the Great Northeastern Semifishless Tour of Pennsylvania and the green parts of New York)
Other versions of 1997 Lake Placid Conclave:
- August 1997 (eastern Illinois)
- September 1997 (eastern Illinois)
- May/June 1998 (trout-chasing in New York and Pennsylvania in conjunction the FF@ "North East Conclave V" near Lake Placid):
- September 2000 (Delaware River)
- September 2001 (SW Virginia)
- June 2003 (SW Virginia)
- July 2003 (Spey casting for smallmouth bass in SW Virginia)
- August 2005 (South Holston tailwater, Tennessee)
- January 2006 (South Holston tailwater, Tennessee)
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Assorted surfside follies.
I do like to fly fish in the salt, even in the surf. Especially in the surf. There's nothing like running backward up a beach, stripping line in order to keep some control as the breakers suck at the toes.
Pacific
- June 2000
- June 2003 (There was a trip in July 2002, but I never got around to posting the report)
Atlantic
And while I'm from Philadelphia, was getting reeducated in Illinois when I began to put this page together,
and now work in southwestern Virginia, for a dozen years I tried to live and work and find something interesting to do in a famous desert.
So ... here's my own Guide to finding fly fishing within a few hours' drive of Metropolitan Gomorrah, including Utah, Northern Arizona, and even a slice of southern California ... [ http://mysite.verizon.net/bpencek/lv-ff-nfo.htm]
Better fly fishing sites than this, most associated somehow with "FF@."
- Len Gorney's Fishing Page an exhaustive set of links about where to fish anywhere in the world, from a fine angler and rod builder. [http://www.kings.edu/~lsgorney/fishing.htm/]
- Global Flyfisher presents a wealth of reviews, stories, patterns, and illustrated techniques for fishing and tying, drawing on experts in Europe and North America. [http://globalflyfisher.com/]
- Virtual Flybox is an elegant site for patterns, amply illustrated, with deep roots in the Flyfishing Digest listserv's community. [http://www.virtualflybox.com/] (Not to be confused with another
artful, informative site that began in part because of the list and then went Big Time under corporate media ownership: Virtual Fly Shop. [http://www.flyshop.com/])
- Troutflies.com/ offers marvelous photos of patterns and a gradually increasing set of marvelously illustrated tying tutorials. [http://www.troutflies.com/]
- "All fish, in all waters" -- the Federation of Fly Fishers. Because I've fished in too many places to want to be a trout snob or dry-fly purist. [http://www.fedflyfishers.org/]
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"[T]he man with an ordinary sense of reality resembles a fish that nibbles at the hook and does not see the line, while the man with the sense of possibility pulls a line through the water without any notion whether there is a bait on it or not. In him an extraordinary indifference to the life nibbling at the bait is in contrast with the probability that he will do utterly eccentric things."
-- Robert Musil,
The Man Without Qualities.
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http://mysite.verizon.net/bpencek/fishing.htm
last modified 2 Feb 2006
Copyright 1997-2006 Bruce Pencek
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