One hears a lot of talk about the local fly or bait and tackle shop versus the big megastores like Bass Pro Shops and Cabela’s. I generally try to support the local shops whenever I can, but I don’t avoid the big stores altogether. When we were in Destin, FL recently, I experienced something that speaks to the situation.

We had planned to do a little fishing, but I only decided at the last minute to buy a fly rod (I had debated on the drive and finally rationalized the purchase by telling myself I could use the rod on next year’s planned trip to the Keys). I hoped to buy the rod in a local shop, but I wasn’t aware of what was available in Destin, and I didn’t have my own vehicle. Still, we found a local tackle shop near our condo unit. Unfortunately it turned out to be rather short on fly gear, but they had a large selection of conventional tackle. I decided to support them anyway by purchasing a Tilley Hat and a pair of wading shorts. The other guys might have purchased a good bit of tackle (they were all using conventional gear) if not for one thing: the shop owner was blatantly rude to my brother when he asked for some advice on a good spot or two for fishing from shore. He didn’t make a nuisance of himself, just asked for a simple suggestion and what we could possibly expect to catch. I had already bought my stuff or I might have put it back. It was uncalled-for and really pretty puzzling. I don’t understand the concept of insulting your customers. I could have perhaps understood if we were asking a lot of questions and not buying anything. Read the rest of this entry »

Ah, the family/group vacation. For some it conjures images akin to the Griswolds on their hapless voyage across the continent. For others, like myself, the memories are mostly good ones. I mean, there was that time I nearly died in the Smokies of a migraine so severe it was suspected of being a brain tumor. And there was the time everyone on the deep sea fishing boat got sick. Oh, and yeah, there was that first manic roadtrip to Yellowstone when all my closest friends became my bitterest enemies at various points depending on our blood-caffeine levels and body odor. But, mostly, the memories are good ones. I went on such a trip last week, and indeed most of the memories are good ones. In time, I’ll forget the ridiculous heat, humidity and crowds and just remember that first fly-caught saltwater fish.

The plan was to spend a week with family and friends, thirteen of us in all, in Destin, FL. A few of us schemed that we could fit in a bit of fishing early in the mornings. We spent our first day gearing up. I bought a TFO Pro Series 9′ 8wt rod, a Lamson Konic reel, and a matching Scientific Anglers Saltwater fly line. I had long planned to buy such an outfit for a future trip to the Keys. All componenents worked beautifully. I was really impressed with the rod and line combination. For one with my poor casting skills, I certainly could work out some line, given enough backcasting room. I’ve used Lamson reels before, and I’ve liked every one I’ve tried. The next morning we were ready to hit the water.

Go ahead and laugh. I know this is perhaps the worst photo I've ever taken. I look bald and toothless. Still, it does document my first saltwater fly rod catch. Photo courtesy my brother's cell phone.

It was hot. Damned hot. And humid. We got up at dawn three straight mornings, and it was already hot. It was difficult to tell when the sun actually rose above the horizon. The days just oozed into being, with everything, the air, the water, your skin, moving through progressively cleaner pastels until suddenly you realized the sun was high in the sky, and you were experiencing dehydration and possible heat stroke.

The first two mornings found us fishing shallow flats and inlets that we could reach from shore. We spotted no redfish. Occasional schools of baitfish scattered chased by schools of bigger fish. On the second morning I caught two ladyfish on my fly rod, my first two saltwater fish on the fly. Later we discovered that ladyfish are generally considered “trash fish,” but at the time they sure were fun. In fact, I’d go so far as to say they are excellent and perhaps underappreciated fly rod quarry. But, then again, I don’t know jack about fly fishing saltwater. They aren’t supposed to be challenging, but they sure seemed picky to us. A couple casts over them, and they moved far out of range. Of course, my poor casting skills might have played a part there. Fortunately, the casting has improved to the “Hellaciously Sucky” level, so that I was able to net at least those two fish. I think that, maybe, I’ve come to terms with the fact that I’ll always be a sucky caster and fisherman in general. That’s not to say I’m happy that I have trouble catching the trash fish of the open seas. It’s just that I’ve come to accept it, and I’ll forge ahead, grimly, occasionally engaging in a bit of healthy self-deprecation. There was some satisfaction in that none of the other three guys caught anything at all, and they were using conventional casting gear. Read the rest of this entry »

Got back from the beach late yesterday. We went to Destin, FL for a quick vacation with family and friends. Fishing wasn’t a major part of the trip, but I managed to catch my first two fish on a fly rod from the salt. Who cares if they’re commonly referred to as trash fish? I sure don’t. We had hoped to find some redfish or sea trout on a few flats we had sniffed out, but all we found were schools of unusually picky ladyfish. I caught a couple on a popper, and they displayed plenty of fight. We also did some fishing from the pier in Ft. Walton, but that wasn’t very productive either. I’ll provide more details later, but don’t expect many photos to go along with the story. I didn’t even get my camera out. Not sure why. Just didn’t feel like lugging it along. I bought a new rod and reel for the trip, and I’ll provide a brief report on those with my write-up. Although the fishing wasn’t very productive, we’ve already started planning a return trip to concentrate more on the fishing and less on the beach-lounging and dining out. It was a nice break from work. Take care,

Nathan

I’m too darned tired to do much on the site tonight, so I’ll just point you to a cool blog that I added to the blogroll this week: Cutthroat Stalker. It’s run by Scott Carles and focuses on fly fishing for native trout (mostly cutthroat, obviously) in Utah and the surrounding areas. Scott features some wonderful photography, and I particularly enjoyed his recent post entitled “Micro-Creek Fishing”. That little creek looks like something Insane and I would tackle. In fact, we have tackled something of that size before. The little creek Jacqulyn and I fished up in Maine was about that size, but the little brookies we caught weren’t quite the size of those cutts Scott and Dan brought to hand. Check out Cutthroat Stalker. I think you’ll enjoy it.

Speaking of the blogroll, I probably need to check all the links and whatnot. It’s gotten so long that there’s no way I can keep up with all the sites listed, especially with my web-browsing time being curtailed so much lately. Ah well, a fly fishing blogger’s work is never done, and like I said, I’m awfully tired tonight…

Here’s a site I heard about from a lady at work. It’s the Eagle Cam run by an organization called the Biodiversity Research Institute. It features 24 hour a day live video footage of a pair of nesting bald eagles on the coast of Maine. These eagle cams have been around awhile, but I’d never stumbled across one. There are several set up all around the US and Canada. The lady who told me about it has a friend who keeps one up on her desktop all day. I’m sure the IT folks at work would love me for that one…

Take care,
Nathan

The Problem of Pain: No this isn’t another article about whether or not fish feel pain…

For a long time, I’ve thought the so-called Problem of Pain was the most persuasive argument against the existence of God. It’s certainly not the most rigorously logical argument, but it’s the one that strikes most deeply at whether or not I feel that God exists. In case you’re not familiar with the problem, it basically states that, given the amount of needless pain and suffering in the world, it’s highly unlikely that God exists, or at the very least, that an all-powerful, all-good, etc god exists. If He did exist, He would not allow these types of things to happen. I have found that I’m not alone in the assessment. I have heard from many that they could not believe in God solely because of all the evil and pain they’ve witnessed and experienced.

There are philosophical arguments, some of them very good ones, that attempt to explain why pain is necessary even if God does exist, but to some extent all these arguments feel “cold.” When we feel pain, we don’t want to hear an abstract argument. We want answers. We want to be comforted. We want to know that there is a reason, a point to all this. The problem of pain is such a difficult dilemma that, did the available evidence not lead me personally to the inescapable conclusion that God does in fact exist, I would probably have never become a Christian on the basis of the problem of pain alone. As it is, I have been forced, both by argument and personal experience, to accept that God exists and that the problem of pain is just something I am not allowed to understand in this life.

We all experience pain in this life. Some much more than others. I have not personally been subject to an abundance of tragedy. I have been very blessed. When most people talk about the problem of pain, they speak of overwhelming examples such as the Holocaust or severely abused children or terrible natural disasters. But when I think about the problem of pain, I see my uncle. My mother and her brother were raised in exceedingly tough conditions. I will not go into details, but it was not a good life. From what I knew of my uncle, he was a good man. He became a Baptist preacher. He was always jovial and loud and kind. He was a big man. That’s one reason why I was so struck when he developed liver cancer. For two long years, the cancer tore at him until he was only a shell of a man. My grandmother and mother were broken right along side him, and neither has fully recovered. This happened many years ago, and I still recall much of it. Even then, as a child, I questioned God angrily. How could He let this happen to someone like my uncle? But He did let it happen. And one day, my uncle died, like so many others.

Before he died, he wanted to go fishing one last time. He had his youngest son take him down to the lake, and he fished for awhile during the late evening. Somehow, perhaps miraculously, my uncle hooked and landed a four pound largemouth on a plastic worm. We have a photograph of him holding the fish with this enormous grin stretched across his face, his son standing beside him. For two years my uncle was in unspeakable pain, and I rarely saw that jovial side I had known all my life. But in that photograph, there he was again.

I don’t have all the answers. Anyone who tells you they do is lying. I don’t know why the world has so much pain. I don’t know why God allows terrible, nightmarish things to happen to innocent children. But I can tell you that I believe there is a God, and I believe he was there with my uncle that day at the edge of the lake. I thank Him for giving me so many good times on the water with my family and friends. I have seen Him in their faces, in the morning sky, in the storm clouds, in the trees as the wind whispers through them, in the beautiful colors on a trout’s side. He has blessed me so much through fishing and the places fishing has led me. All fishermen can be thankful that, despite all the pain we feel and witness in this life, fishing can do a bit to ease the pain for a time. For that reason alone, we can be confident that this sport we love holds at least some intrinsic value.

There are moments when God has granted me peace and a certainty that there is a reason to it all. Even if I can’t see the reason, I can see Him. For whatever reason, a hefty number of these moments have occurred in the outdoors.

My uncle never lost his faith. In fact, his faith was so strong that it carried many of us through his illness.

Take care,
Nathan

I’m going to say something that I had hoped and even promised myself that I’d never say. At least not and actually mean it. My job has owned my life for the last couple weeks. I have worked long hours, and the hours have been long and stressful enough that I haven’t even felt much like fishing or tying flies or rod-building or doing any other activity that I truly value. It’s basically this: get up at 5:45, be at work by 6:30, eat breakfast while checking email, work until lunch, eat quickly so I can be back for a meeting, work until 5:00 or later, do just enough chores to keep the house from being condemned, vegetate in front of a television for awhile, collapse for the night, get up and do it all again. Something is seriously wrong with that, but there’s not much I can do about it right now other than complain. Anyway, enough whining. I have a few things for you to waste your time on this Friday.

Bass popper made from a chunk of sandal foam.

A few weeks ago, I tried making a bass popper out of foam from a cheap pair of sandals purchased at the local retail store. It turned out well. This is now by far my favorite technique for building a foam popper. I found a really good tutorial on a California striper and bass website. There’s a similar tutorial on the Alabama River Fishing site that has other good tips, although he doesn’t get his foam from sandals. As you can see from my photo, I designed mine with a flat face. I like flat-faced poppers even more than the concave ones because they seem a little more versatile. You can get all sorts of different sounds from them. The popper that I built can make a really loud pop or a muted gurgle. It floats better than a cork and casts like a bullet. I based its design on Tapp’s Bugs. I used the Delta Ceramcoat sealer and varnish to help finish the popper. I hope to try it for some Lake Guntersville largemouth soon. Read the rest of this entry »

This is my accounting of the backpacking and fly fishing trip I took on Memorial Day weekend. I wrote it in a different style than normal. Hope you enjoy!

My camp on the river that shall not be named.

It is Memorial Day weekend, and the lower stretches of the watershed along the paved road are glutted with tourists and local families and teenagers and fishermen. Once I turn off the main roadway and onto the gravel Forest Service road, I enter a different atmosphere. For the first three miles I see no one else at all. I roll down the windows to feel the air cool as I climb higher into the mountains. I turn off the radio which had been blaring the latest Brad Paisley country song. I love the sound of a gravel road under the tires of my truck and the deep silence of the ancient mountains beyond, broken only here and there by a lonely song bird. I’m always surprised at the silence of the deep woods. There are many more songbirds in my tiny backyard. A large pileated woodpecker flushes and leads me down a hollow toward the river for a good half mile. To the chorus of the tires and the gravel and the birdsong is added the melody of flowing water, my favorite music.

I don’t see the well-concealed trailhead the first time I pass and end up on an impossibly narrow dirt road, trying to squeeze by another truck whose driver appears unhappy to see me and my big Dodge. I finally find a spot wide enough to turn back toward the river and park at a bridge. I find the trailhead on the right side of the bridge and there meet a golden retriever attended by two humans, a father and son out for a short hike. They will be two of only five people I will see during my three days on the river. Not bad for a holiday weekend, one traditionally viewed as the beginning of summer in these parts.

My pack feels lighter than in the past. I use an old Kelty Trekker external frame pack, both for its efficient load handling and its versatility in strapping on gear. I worked hard this time to eliminate extraneous gear, and I’ve just bought a pair of waist-high waders which weigh about half as much as my old chest-highs. The work is paying off, although I already miss my pipe and my journal. I don’t plan to go far, maybe a mile or two. It’s getting late, I’m not familiar with this trail, and I don’t trust the pack to feel light for long. Read the rest of this entry »

I was supposed to post the report from my backpacking trip today, but I’m having trouble retrieving some of my photos, so in its place I’ve got a couple quick notes. I hope to have the report ready for Wednesday.

We had a big crawfish boil this weekend, which is sort of an annual event for us assuming we can hit it right. If you live in North Alabama and know when and where to look, you can catch crawfish by the truck load. It’s a messy affair and nothing short of hard work, but the reward is delicious. Plus there’s something in my self-reliant nature that’s attracted to the idea of food that’s out there available for anyone willing to put in the work to get it. I’m not giving away our secret location for gathering these tasty little critters, but I have included some photos. We worked for about two hours with cast net and rakes. I’d guess we caught somewhere around 30 lbs worth. We boiled them up with plenty of strong spices. We used Old Bay seasoning and lots of it, a good handful of red pepper flakes and some lemon and lime juice. Most excellent…

This is a filthy Hawgdaddy after wrestling crawfish for a couple hours.

The fruit of our labor. I'd estimate this to be about 15 lbs of crawfish, and we had two coolers with this many.

This is the beginning of the purging process. You place the crawfish in salt water for a time to purge them of impurities.

Tying desk (well that's what I'm using it for) found at a bargain furniture store.

We’ve been looking for a sofa for our living room. With that in mind, we visited a few furniture stores this weekend. We didn’t find a sofa, but we did have some interesting experiences. The most eventful event was shaking hands with an honest-to-goodness real-live monkey at one furniture shop. But the second coolest thing was Jacqulyn buying me a new tying desk! We found a great deal on the desk pictured to the right. I have no idea why we bought it. We must have been overcome by shopper’s frenzy. I was perfectly content with my $20 converted retail store children’s computer desk as my tying station. Of course I have been known to lust after those really nice desks built specifically for fly tiers, but we could never afford one of those. The price on the desk pictured was just about too good to pass up. I decided not to buy it, but Jacqulyn said, “Well, if you’re not buying it, then I will.” And so she did. Even though we probably shouldn’t have spent the money, I’m absolutely thrilled to have it. Plus it’s giving me the motivation I need to clean up my tying materials and workspace. The desk is designed for a computer, but it looks to be ideal for tying flies. Really never thought I’d have something like this, and I plan to cherish it for the rest of my life.

Take care,
Nathan

Flint River smallmouth bass and South Bend bamboo.

Things have been busy around TVangler World Headquarters the last week or so. My job is suddenly feeling like a real job, and maintenance tasks around the house have demanded attention. I promise to bring more consistent content in the coming weeks. As I recall, I had promised a photo of the smallmouth I caught during Matt’s going-away party. You can see the little devil to the right. I missed two more. It’s not as big as the one Matt posted about in the comments, but he was nonetheless pretty tough to handle on my South Bend bamboo. I nailed him with a fly called the Fox Tail Grub.

This week I tied up a dozen Sam’s One Bugs for a charity auction at work. They were raising money for soldiers as part of the AER campaign. I wanted to make a good presentation of it, so I printed business cards and stuck each fly in a little ziplock bag. Drake joined in and tied up several Clouser minnows. I haven’t heard how many sold, but I do know that at least some of them did. I’m not much of a fly tier, so I hope whoever purchased them has good luck and overlooks the lack of skill. Sam’s One Bug is such a good pattern, I don’t think they’ll have any trouble catching a few big bluegills with them.

Flies I tied up for a charity auction.

Anyone ever use cat hair for dubbing?

The economy has hit TVangler pretty hard these days, making the procurement of fly tying materials rather difficult. I found a solution in the form of the neighbor’s cat. The darn thing practically lives at our house and occasionally feels the need to take dainty little dumps right by the front door. I figured I might as well get something out of the deal, so I held the beast down, shaved a chunk of fur off and plan to use it as wet fly dubbing. Now, now, before you call PETA, I’m just kidding. I have no idea what happened to it. We walked out one day, and it was missing a huge chunk of hide. I wonder if there’s another down-and-out fly tier in the neighborhood?

Finally, I was cruising through the grocery store a while back and something caught my eye. I’m not much of a wine drinker, but I couldn’t pass up this red from the Mendoza region of Argentina. Our friend Eduardo lives and fishes in Mendoza, so I just had to give it a try if for no other reason than sentiment. Last night, I put on a beef pot roast in the slow cooker and figured it’d be a good time to pop it open. My wine knowledge is rather paltry, but I do seem to recall reds going well with beef. This particular one was a Gascon Malbec. The label said “full-bodied.” I’d assign that label to almost every red wine I’ve ever tasted, but this one seemed even more potent, and it did indeed go pretty well with my even more potent roast. Eduardo, I raised a glass to you and hope you’re doing well down there in trout paradise.

Malbec wine from Mendoza, Argentina.

I hope to have the report from my backpacking trip for you on Monday. Until then, may your lines be tight and your life good.

Take care,
Nathan

I’m back from my solo backpacking trip. I apparently survived, and it didn’t even rain very much. Due to all the rain in the forecast (much of which never materialized) I changed plans. I only stayed two nights and went to an East Tennessee stream which I had fished before and which I knew wasn’t prone to flash flooding. The change in plans worked out well. I caught some nice wild rainbows and fished in almost complete solitude on a sizable Appalachian trout stream, even though it was a holiday weekend. I expected company, but after hitting the backcountry I only saw three other people, only one of which was fishing, and I saw him on the trail, not in the stream. This will definitely be an area I hit again soon. Stay tuned for the full story and photos.

More is due in the next week. We had Matt’s going-away party which involved a few Flint River smallmouth bass and sunfish, fine cigars and a good bourbon. I’ve got the next item for our classified section that I think you’ll like, and there are rod-building and fly tying updates to post. I hope everyone else had a great holiday weekend and remembered the reason for it. Take care,

Nathan