Over the last month or so I’ve been gearing up for what I hope to be a big spring of fishing. In late April we’re tackling a 3 night Smokies backpacking trip. In preparation for that, I’ve dusted off the backpacking gear. I bought some new equipment over the winter in the hopes of greatly reducing my pack weight. Earlier in March, Jason Kelley and I took a quick overnight trip down in the Sipsey Wilderness to test out the new gear and make sure we had our system down. We’d hoped to catch some fish as well, but heavy rains during the week had the streams blown out. The Sipsey is the most popular backpacking area in Alabama, and it showed. We figured we’d be mostly alone considering the less than ideal weather, but we were greeted by about 25 vehicles at the trailhead. The wilderness is roughly 25,000 acres of pretty canyons and streams just south of Moulton. It’s worth a visit if you ever get a chance. Requisite photos:

Jason at Ship Rock during a break on the hike in.

Our campsite at a sharp horseshoe bend in the river. That's my new TarpTent Double Rainbow.

Jason casting fruitlessly in a pretty pool near camp.

One of the many waterfalls you'll find in the Sipsey Wilderness.

Since moving to the Huntsville area, I’ve been unable to locate many areas with good wading access. There is a tons of water in the area, but with a few exceptions, it’s best explored by boat. So a lot of water has been out of my reach as a boatless angler. I took the first step to remedying that problem last week. I saved up and bought a Native Manta Ray 11 kayak. It’s plenty small enough for me to handle on my own (I can carry the thing like it’s an 11′ suitcase) but still large enough to handle big water (supposedly even the open ocean) and carry enough gear for a camping trip. I’m pretty excited about the possibilities. Several creeks in the area too deep and with bottoms too muddy for wading are now fair game. It’s even got me contemplating a trip down to the Keys or Everglades, especially after reading about David Knapp’s spring break trip.

I’ve really neglected my fly tying duties over the winter, but I have recently tied several flies in preparation for the April trip. Since one of my goals for the year is to simplify things, I experimented with tying some of my old favorites with a foam body. This accomplishes a couple things for me: if they work, I can leave the floatant at home and I can avoid the inevitable cursing that comes when the parachute adams begins refusing to float. Here are a few of my efforts:

A selection of my newly tied foam-bodied flies. Apologies for poor photo quality. From left: yellow palmer, yellow neversink caddis, olive neversink caddis, foam hare's ear parachute, generic gray mayfly parachute, foam quill gordon parachute.

Last weekend I went on a bass and crappie fishing trip with my dad and brother. It’d been a long time since we’d all been out together. The fly rod stayed at home since I would have killed one of them with it in the small boat. We used conventional gear with artificials for bass and bait for crappie. The fishing wasn’t very good (we caught about a dozen bass), but it was nice to get out. As a bonus we spotted four golden eagles in the North Sauty area. They’re a pretty rare sight in these parts, so we felt it a privilege.

Hope you’re getting out there and catching some fish this spring. Take care,
Nathan

Just in case you haven’t checked his blog in awhile, my friend Reed Curry over at the Contemplative Angler is releasing a book this fall. The book is entitled The New Scientific Angling: Trout and Ultraviolet Vision. Reed posted a couple of articles on his blog awhile back that first explored this idea. Personally, I think it has the potential to really change the way people think about tying flies. In fact, I think it’s the coolest idea in fly tying that I’ve seen since taking up the sport. If nothing else it’ll provide me with just one more excuse on a tough day: “Well, I probably would have caught several nice trout, but I haven’t been able to locate those Bolivian scarlet titmouse feathers with the proper UV characteristics, either that or the weather’s got ‘em holed up somewhere.”

A new online fishing magazine was released recently which I’ve enjoyed: Fish Can’t Read. The folks over at Chiwulff and Singlebarbed have all been involved. I highly recommend you take a look. These online magazines with the flipbook format seem to really be catching on lately. There are two others that I’m aware of: Catch and This is Fly. Of the three, Fish Can’t Read and Catch are more along what I like. This is Fly is pretty cool, and I probably would have liked it if I’d been into fly fishing as a teenager, but the style is just a bit over the top for me now. I don’t know how long the flipbook format will persist, but something like this is likely the future of fly fishing periodicals. I’m surprised the paper magazines haven’t caught on. Also, this is just my opinion mind you, but I think making the magazines freely accessible is the way to go as well. People will probably cease paying for magazines whether online or not just due to the fact that so much information is out there freely available. I know I have. I’ve got a single straggling subscription left that I’m strongly considering doing away with. It’s really just a waste of money and a waste of storage space to store the old magazines (which I never can bring myself to throw away). If you publish good work, you can probably get enough revenue to support it through advertising.

I’m still working on my Glacier photos. The truth is I’ve really struggled finding time to work on the website here or work on photography or go fishing or even take a walk in the woods. I can’t even put my finger on the problem. “Things” just seem busy lately. I know the job’s been more stressful. Heck, I don’t know. But I do know this: something’s got to give. It has become abundantly clear to everyone around me that I need to be in the outdoors. If I’m not, things get rather ugly rather quickly. Still, I have played around with my photos a bit. Lately I’ve become interested in black and white and “sort of” black and white photos. One thing I discovered about myself on the Glacier trip: I really enjoy working with photography. I still need lots of work to be anywhere close to good, but I do honestly enjoy it. Anyone who reads the site knows I’ve sort of been into photography for awhile, but usually I’m too involved in the fishing to concentrate on it. Glacier offered a chance to focus. I got up at daylight nearly every day of the trip for photos, and several evenings found me waiting for just the right light at some photogenic spot. I’ve GOT to start updating the photoblog more often. Here’s another of my better shots:

Swiftcurrent Lake and Many Glacier Valley in the early morning.

I recently read a wonderful little book of essays on fine art photography by Brooks Jensen entitled Letting Go of the Camera. Jensen publishes the magazine LensWork, one of the best out there. Check out the book if you’re the least interested in fine art photography or even just the life of a fine art photographer.

Take care,
Nathan

I promised a photo of my new tying desk, and here it is. Getting the desk has prompted me to reorganize my tying materials. It’s going to be a big job. The desk was a gift from Jacqulyn.

My new fly tying desk

New TVangler Classifieds Item!

Posting Date: July 18, 2009

Price: $100 + $5 Shipping

Description: This is a classically-styled fly reel by Bill Ballan. I’ve used the reel for two years now, and I really like it. It doesn’t have an adjustable drag, and it works equally well in either right or left-hand retrieve. It screams delightfully when a trout takes drag. I would put Bill Ballan’s reels somewhat below the upper end classic reels, but they’re great for someone who likes the classic look and still wants good performance. It looks great on a bamboo rod. The only thing wrong with this one is a scratch in the finish near one of the screws on the side plate. Looks like someone let a screwdriver slip when trying to remove the cover. The reel comes spooled with a good Cortland Peach DT5 line. This reel is being sold new for $225. The first person to email me can have this one for $100 plus $5 shipping. After two weeks, the price goes down to $75. Check out the TVangler Classifieds page for all the details.

Bill Ballan Heirloom Trout Reel

Side plate of the reel with the scratch visible.

Take care,
Nathan

and a smorgasbord of other stuff!

I taunt Insane with my first bass of the day! Yes, my friends, that is a tequila sunrise Culprit worm.

Yes, fishing in a muddy creek. That’s all the fishing I’ve gotten to do in the last couple weeks. Insane and I hit the little creek he features in his Lunchtime Angler series last Friday. I had stubbornly persisted in trying to fly fish this thing, but finally gave up. Bow and Arrow casting isn’t my specialty, and certainly not with gar flies and big bass poppers. That’s about all one has room for. The banks are heavily forested and steep. The creek is only about 15′ wide, and it’s full of downed brush. I pulled out the dusty spinning rod, found my stash of plastic worms, lizards and sinkers and rigged it up. It all came back to me surprisingly well. Fly fishing is my true love, but snaking a plastic worm through brush is still fun. And, on a hot day with a muddy creek in front of me, it felt, somehow, right.

I managed to catch four small bass and the hawg of the trip, a 7 lb bowfin. It was a handful on the light spinning rod. Sorry, no photos. The typical technique for actually getting your hands on a fish out of this creek is to “cane pole” the little beasts up to yourself. Not an option with a 7 lb bowfin. Insane manned the camera while I tried to ease the fish up the bank by pulling the line hand over hand. I somehow managed to wrap my right index finger in the line, nearly pinching it in two, and while trying to save that valuable appendage (read “while screaming and cursing at Insane to help”), the line finally broke. Too bad. I really wanted a photo of that fish, but I wanted the tip of my index finger even more.

Insane fishes the muddy creek in a photo I heavily altered just for the heck of it.

In other news, I heard from Andy Whitcomb last week. He got another article published on ESPN Outdoors. This time he talks about bait. So, I might have been reduced to plastic worm fishing, but at least I haven’t descended to the depths Andy has. Seriously though, Andy’s a good writer. In fact, I’d go so far as to say this particular article is, well, “cute.” Check out this one and his future articles on ESPN Outdoors.

I also recently heard from Matthew Crampton, our friend from Scotland who just loves taunting us with photos of huge brown trout. I found sadistic pleasure in Matthew’s latest note as it turns out he had a tough trip on his favorite island of South Uist. Just kidding, Matthew. If I can’t catch fish, I at least hope my friends can. Make sure to check out the book Matthew and his friends put together about their favorite fishing lodge on South Uist. I’m still reading the book, and it’s been great. (Note: I’ve been reading the book now for about two months, but as always my problem is that I have four or five books going at once and never seem to finish them…) You can pick up a copy of the book at www.muddlerbooks.com. Matthew sent the excellent photo below of the dog Bee who is apparently an excellent fishing companion – so long as you don’t miss any takes.

The fishing dog Bee on a recent South Uist fishing adventure.

David Knapp over at The Trout Zone has been posting articles about his adventures out West this summer. David’s blog is where you need to look if you want to read a fly fishing blog where people actually catch fish and, well, fly fish as opposed to dredging muddy creeks with plastic worms and whining about not getting to fish.

I finally got in my new tying desk! I’m trying to get the catastrophe that is my tying materials organized. As soon as that’s accomplished, I’ll post a photo. It’ll be the last time ever the desk will look that good.

I’m WAY behind the times here, but I finally saw the first Trout Bum Diaries DVD. Perhaps surprisingly, I actually enjoyed it. The narration was pretty cheesy, but a lot of the remainder was enjoyable. The filming was well done. If I was doing a similar movie, I’d do it a little differently, maybe with a little more structure, maybe toss in a few of the witty observances I’m famous for, etc. If you’d like to fund me in this effort, please email me right away. The DVD wasn’t bad at all. It made me really want to go to Patagonia.

I suppose that’s all I can ramble about. I apologize for neglecting the site so glaringly over the last month or so. Hopefully that’s about to change. Later in the week look for, finally, another TVangler classifieds item. 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. (more…)

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

Friday Footnotes: random, rambling reflections to round out the reek…er, I mean week

Things have been a little depressing around the TVangler this week. As you saw in Matt’s last article, we’ll be losing one of our own. It’s always sad when a friend moves away. I feel like Matt and I are leaving a lot of unfished water out there. One positive is that he’s moving to Melbourne, FL, which is smack-dab in the middle of one of the world’s best areas for trophy redfish. Insane and I have already told him to clear a spot in his back yard for us to pitch a tent. We’re not letting him go without throwing some sort of party. I made the initial preparations last night. We went to see the new Star Trek movie (grea flick, by the way), and I discovered that a new cigar and wine shop had moved in just down the sidewalk. 4 Rocky Patel Vintage 1992s, 2 Arturo Fuente Hemingways, and 2 Rocky Patel Sun Grown cigars are now in my possession just waiting for the right time. Now, I believe I’m supposed to be locating a good bourbon…anyone out there have a good suggestion for a fine bourbon that I might be able to locate here in North Alabama?

Justin's nice bass.

The most depressing thing though, no offense to Matt, is that we haven’t done much fishing, and to make matters worse, friends insist on sending me photos of their big catches. Insane’s brother Justin landed the nice bass at the right just down the road from my house. It’s like he’s spitting right in my eye and then laughing about it.

Next came Matthew Crampton with his monster brown, all four pounds of it. In case you’ve forgotten, Matthew is the fellow from across the pond who helped write the book on The Angler’s Retreat, a fishing lodge on the island of South Uist off the coast of Scotland. I can only take so much of this before I go nuts. Luckily I’ve got that backpacking trip to North Georgia coming up next weekend, and I do hope to get in a little fishing before then. Matthew never fails to mention his music choices for his fishing trip. This time it was “Ryan Adams, Gillian Welch and jazz pianist friend… called Dorian Ford.” I’m a Gillian Welch fan myself, but the other two have given me some new artists to explore. We here at TVangler aren’t entirely musically-deprived. Just about the whole staff attended a concert by country legend John Anderson last Sunday night. Who can resist such greats as “Wish I Could Have Been There,” “Seminole Wind,” “Straight Tequila Night,” “Wild and Blue,” and of course “Swingin’”? And one can’t forget “Chicken Truck.” Matthew got his big fish, his largest brown ever, on South Uist with Angler’s Retreat owner Billy at the oars.

Matthew's big brown. We'll try not to hate him...

The reason we haven’t done much fishing is mostly due to rod-building and fly tying, both for the upcoming backpacking trip and for a mid-June trip to the beach for redfish and whatever else will bite. I’m also tying up some flies for a charity auction – luckily they didn’t seem to care how poor my fly tying skills happen to be. So I guess we haven’t completely neglected our favorite sport. Maybe we’ll post some photos over the weekend of the flies we’ve been working on. I tied my first bass popper from a foam sandal, and it turned out pretty nice. For the auction, I’m tying up a couple dozen of a fly called Sam’s One Bug. It was invented by a gentlemen who lived here in Huntsville, and it’s a great bluegill and bass fly. Most importantly, it’s easy to tie. Maybe someone will buy a few.

Oh, I nearly forgot. We did fish Pond X last Friday, but the water was so high we couldn’t fish where we wanted to. Our efforts were restricted to a small corner of the pond, now really a sizable lake after all the rain. I used the time to test some of my new flies, and Insane landed a bluegill or two. Jason Kelley joined us there along with a friend from Texas. The friend showed us all up by landing a 2 lb bass, but it wasn’t on a fly rod, so I’m not entirely sure we can count it I tried out one of the bass flies James Marsh sent me called the Swimming Frog. I was thrilled with this fly! It floats exceedingly well and dives when stripped just like the jerk baits I used to cast with conventional gear. I believe it’ll be a killer out on Lake Guntersville once the milfoil grows up close to the surface. I said, “I love the way this fly works!” to which Jason replied, “I haven’t seen it work yet,” referring to my not catching a fish. The low-down, no good, smart alec, hog-calling…

I’m skipping the naturalist tutorial for today. It’s midnight, and I’m too tired to type anything else. Take care,
Nathan

We’ve had so much rain lately that all those small local streams I’ve been itching to explore are currently big, muddy torrents. So, I’ve spent a lot of time tying flies. My problem, other than not being a very good tyer, is that I’m not a very patient or disciplined one. I have trouble making myself sit down to tie several dozen of the same pattern. Predictably, this results in me never having well-stocked fly boxes. “Real” fly fishermen would be ashamed of my trout boxes. I never go with all the bases covered, as they say. Most times it doesn’t hurt me because the truth is, trout will almost always hit a parachute Adams or St. Vrain caddis or hare’s ear in one size or another. But then there are the times, like on the Gibbon River last summer, when the fish lock in on something specific, and I almost never have it. Being a real sucker for a new pattern, especially one that’s easy to tie, I waste far too much of my tying time with experimentation.

Texas Bullfrog tied with a makeshift foam cylinder.

Anyway, I’ve sort of wandered off topic here, but I’ll get around to it. The other night, I was working on some foam poppers for bass fishing. I began to get distracted, as often happens when I’ve been tying for an hour or so. The Alabama River Fishing Forum beckoned from the computer room. There are several excellent tiers on the forum, and I’ve got some great ideas from them. While browsing a few of the threads and trying to avoid getting back in front of the vise, I came across a topic on bass bugs. One of the patterns caught my eye. It’s called a Texas Bullfrog, and it looked very easy to tie. On top of that, it just had that fishy appearance. I began to suspect that I couldn’t catch a bass without it. So, I set out to tie one, quickly and heartbreakingly discovering that I had none of the requisite foam cylinders.

Luckily, I’m a cheap son of a gun, and I came up with a way to make my own without having to order any. This won’t work well for all patterns that use foam cylinders because it doesn’t make a perfect cylinder, but it works great for the Texas Bullfrog. I had recently purchased a pack of the adhesive-backed craft foam sheets from the local retail store. I cut a strip off the chartreuse sheet, removed the adhesive, and rolled it tightly into a cylinder. When I neared the end, I dabbed on a couple drops of superglue and finished rolling it up. The superglue is stronger than the foam adhesive, so it ensures the cylinder won’t come unrolled. You’ll have to hold the roll tight for about 15 seconds for the superglue to set up. It goes without saying that you don’t want to get the glue on your fingers. Then you can tie your Texas Bullfrog just like on FAOL. I added a thin strip of foam as an underbody on mine to give it a slight bit more flotation toward the rear of the hook. Maybe you’ll find a use for this tip some day. As an added bonus, these foam cylinders are a fraction of the cost of pre-made foam cylinders. Also, this method allows you to easily make the cylinder any size you want.

Take care,
Nathan

One more note: If you look closely at tredixie’s pattern on the ARF, it appears that his bullfrog might be built with rolled up foam as well. I didn’t notice that until I checked the link tonight. No doubt there are lots of folks out there who’ve thought of doing the same thing. – Nathan

Early Spring at Monte Sano State Park.

It’s Friday again, which means it’s time for sweet content from TVangler to help you make it until the weekend really begins! You can count on us! I know it’s difficult to believe, but there are other sites out there with sweet content, and we’ll point out a couple of those, too. I’ll start out with some eye candy. Last Friday I was off work, and I headed up to Monte Sano State Park for some hiking and photography. I wanted to be outside, and all the local streams were blown out, so fishing wasn’t much of an option. Thursday night featured flooding rains and severe storms, and, being the observant fellow I am, I thought there might be some nice waterfalls just itching to be photographed in their spring-time glory. I did manage to grab a couple of decent waterfall photos. You can see one in the photoblog now, and I’ll post the next one in a week or so. The photo I’m highlighting today features a section of forest with blooming redbuds and dogwoods. I was walking along, and something caught my eye. There were trees blooming all over the mountain, but something here just seemed right. I tried to take a traditional shot, but there was just too much underbrush for a clear view. I nearly gave up, but then the thought occurred that what really drew my eye was the arrangement of colors: pinks, greens, and whites in a pleasing almost-triangle shape; the dark tree trunks backing it up; the blues of the cloudy morning sky. So I decided to try moving the camera during the exposure in an attempt at one of those cool impressionist photos that seem to be so popular these days. I ended up concentrating on the technique for awhile, taking over 100 RAW images. This is the only one out of the lot that I really like. Luminous Landscape has a nice essay on the technique. I’d like to use it for fishing shots, and I have a few ideas working in that arena. Click here for the photoblog entry, and remember to keep your eyes on the photoblog for weekly updates.

If you’re looking for Friday reading material of the non-TVangler variety (perish the thought!), I highly suggest the excerpts of Tales from the Angler’s Retreat at Muddler Books. I was contacted last week by one of the authors, Matthew Crampton. The book is a collection of stories about a beloved fishing lodge on an island off the coast of Scotland written by fishermen who’ve been visiting the place for years. The owners are nearing retirement, and it is expected that the guesthouse will close for good. The group of fishermen love the place so much that they wanted to preserve its stories, hoping that even if they can no longer visit, at least they can relive their adventures. I know how Matthew and his chums feel. I’ve lost my own beloved fishing places, although it wasn’t so much a place as a time. I wish I’d kept a journal of all the fishing trips of my childhood and adolescence. So many lost friends and lost times that can never be recovered. Check out their site. I think you’ll enjoy the stories. If you like the excerpts, they provide links where you can order the book from either the US or UK Amazon sites. As an added note, Matthew has excellent taste in music and can provide interesting insights into Scottish culture. Anyone who can provide a single story with an old Scottish lady singing Patsy Cline songs, remote hamlets, bagpipes, traditional dances and weeping townsfolk all in less than three sentences has my endorsement.

Finally, I want to highlight a website that I’m adding to our blogroll. It’s Fly Art Studio, a blog by Neal Osborn. The site focuses on macro photography of flies and fly tying, but instead of just showing you some cool photos, Mr. Osborn graciously shares many of his techniques with us. I was so psyched about some of his tutorials that I had planned to run out this very weekend and buy pvc pipe for building my own macro fly studio, but alas, I have no idea where I’d put it. My fly tying and rod-building projects take up half the house as it is. Still, I’m so psyched about the idea, that I plan to clean out some space specifically for it. I wonder if Jacqulyn would notice if I took over her computer desk? Her laptop would look great in the floor of the guest bedroom… If you’re at all interested in taking better photos of your flies, check out Fly Art Studio. You won’t be disappointed, and you certainly don’t need an expensive camera to benefit. Mr. Osborn specifically demonstrates the use of point and shoot cameras.

Take care,
Nathan