Friday, February 22, 2013

Presidents' Day Weekend


A thousand hills. Flying birds vanish.
Ten thousand paths. Human traces erased.
One rod, bark cape – an old man
alone, angling in the cold river. Snow.

               - Adapted from Liu Zongyuan










Sometimes forget how day-saving streamers can be.  In a word, it's pretty easy fishing.


Skiing the pools at the bottom of a Driftless River.


Water comes from the rock.  There was an active snapping turtle in this spring pool.  February. 




Aggressive sledding.  Powder on ice.  Steep slope.

Monday, February 11, 2013

The FYI


[TSR Dungeon Purple Worm Version]

Hook: Colored bait hook from Eagle Claw with a really big gap
Thread: red 6/0 to match chenille
Tail: braided chenille, in this case purple and a fancy red fat ball of muck from a hobby shop
Body: purple chenille
Head: DB eyes or I-Balz, these courtesy of River City Fly Shop

Easiest fly in the world. Way back around year 2000 I fished something very similar for SMB in the Boundary Waters. Worked well.  Perusing this article brought me back to that pattern. Burning a bit over that concept and the known response that carp offer to SJW and similar patterns...   I dusted off the "yarn worm," restyled a bit and turned out a dozen or so...   the result being my contribution to the most dominant carp swap out there, at Fly Carpin.  In the context of the participants there, I would be a lowly dog.  Lowest, saddest dog.  Depressed, never happy, always-worrying mutt fly tier and aggravated fisherman.  So thanks McTage for the invite.

FYI stands for Yarn Invasion, with a prefixed modifier of your choice. It is thus conducive to loud and confirming exclamations at the point of carp taking this fly.  You can chose to use the abbreviation: FYI you sow biatch!  Or you can spell it all out clearly as line peels off your reel: ****** Yarn Invasion you ****** ****** sow piggy *****!


Wednesday, February 06, 2013

THANATOPSIS


To him who in the love of Nature holds
Communion with her visible forms, she speaks
A various language; for his gayer hours
She has a voice of gladness, and a smile
And eloquence of beauty, and she glides
Into his darker musings, with a mild
And healing sympathy, that steals away
Their sharpness, ere he is aware. When thoughts
Of the last bitter hour come like a blight
Over thy spirit, and sad images
Of the stern agony, and shroud, and pall,
And breathless darkness, and the narrow house,
Make thee to shudder and grow sick at heart;--
Go forth, under the open sky, and list
To Nature's teachings, while from all around--
Earth and her waters, and the depths of air--
Comes a still voice--Yet a few days, and thee
The all-beholding sun shall see no more
In all his course; nor yet in the cold ground,
Where thy pale form was laid with many tears,
Nor in the embrace of ocean, shall exist
Thy image. Earth, that nourish'd thee, shall claim
Thy growth, to be resolved to earth again,
And, lost each human trace, surrendering up
Thine individual being, shalt thou go
To mix for ever with the elements,
To be a brother to the insensible rock,
And to the sluggish clod, which the rude swain
Turns with his share, and treads upon. The oak
Shall send his roots abroad, and pierce thy mould.
Yet not to thine eternal resting-place
Shalt thou retire alone, nor couldst thou wish
Couch more magnificent. Thou shalt lie down
With patriarchs of the infant world--with kings,
The powerful of the earth--the wise, the good,
Fair forms, and hoary seers of ages past,
All in one mighty sepulchre. The hills
Rock-ribb'd and ancient as the sun,--the vales
Stretching in pensive quietness between;
The venerable woods; rivers that move
In majesty, and the complaining brooks
That make the meadows green; and, pour'd round all,
Old Ocean's grey and melancholy waste,--
Are but the solemn decorations all
Of the great tomb of man. The golden sun,
The planets, all the infinite host of heaven,
Are shining on the sad abodes of death,
Through the still lapse of ages. All that tread
The globe are but a handful to the tribes
That slumber in its bosom.--Take the wings
Of morning, pierce the Barcan wilderness,
Or lose thyself in the continuous woods
Where rolls the Oregon and hears no sound
Save his own dashings--yet the dead are there:
And millions in those solitudes, since first
The flight of years began, have laid them down
In their last sleep--the dead reign there alone.
So shalt thou rest: and what if thou withdraw
In silence from the living, and no friend
Take note of thy departure? All that breathe
Will share thy destiny. The gay will laugh
When thou art gone, the solemn brood of care
Plod on, and each one as before will chase
His favourite phantom; yet all these shall leave
Their mirth and their employments, and shall come
And make their bed with thee. As the long train
Of ages glides away, the sons of men,
The youth in life's green spring, and he who goes
In the full strength of years, matron and maid,
The speechless babe, and the gray-headed man--
Shall one by one be gathered to thy side
By those who in their turn shall follow them.

So live, that when thy summons comes to join
The innumerable caravan which moves
To that mysterious realm where each shall take
His chamber in the silent halls of death,
Thou go not, like the quarry-slave at night,
Scourged by his dungeon; but, sustain'd and soothed
By an unfaltering trust, approach thy grave,
Like one who wraps the drapery of his couch
About him, and lies down to pleasant dreams.

            -William Cullen Bryant (1794-1878)