Friday Footnotes: June 5, 2009
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.
I wanted to highlight once again the Chi Wulff site for those interested in the fishing around Yellowstone. If you haven’t signed up for their Good Chi Newsletter you should definitely do so, and not least because they occasionally mention my favorite Tennessee Valley fishing blog. I’ve said it many times, and I repeat it again, there is no better place for information on current fishing conditions in the Yellowstone area.
A few final notes: I’ll be heading down to the Destin, FL area in about a week, and I plan to do some fly fishing for saltwater species while we’re down there. Drake and Jacqulyn will be joining me. None of us have ever fly fished the salt, so it should be interesting if nothing else. You can expect photos and a story once we get back. I’m almost finished with a 9wt bass/saltwater rod that’s the least traditional fly rod I’ve ever built, as far as components go. I had hoped to finish it for our beach trip, but it’s just not going to happen. I’ve been watching Wayne Cattanach’s DVDs on making bamboo fly rods which I ordered off eBay. They’re a steal for $20, and you’re buying them from the man himself. They aren’t what you’d call “professional quality video”, but they cover everything you need to know, and for someone like myself without woodworking experience, they clear up some things that I didn’t quite understand from the books and websites I’ve looked at. I still don’t have the equipment to make bamboo rods, but I plan to within the year.
Naturalist Fridays:
Tree of the Day: Sycamore
You see sycamores a lot when you’re trout fishing in the mountains, especially at the lower elevations. There is a most excellent old sycamore at the campsite where I stayed a couple weekends ago. Someone had placed a flat rock across two of the big roots, and the trunk was recessed there, providing a seat almost as comfortable as any at home. Most sycamores you see along streams won’t have visible bark that looks like that in the wikipedia article. They will be darker and almost totally covered with moss. You can sometimes see their reddish roots reaching down into the stream itself.
Bird of the Day: Pileated Woodpecker
I’m going with the pileated woodpecker as our bird of the day in honor of the big one that led me down to the river on my backpacking trip. There must have been several around because theirs was one of the very few bird calls I heard while I was in the woods. I can’t help but think of Woody Woodpecker when I see one. I have often found their calls to be somewhat sinister, almost as if they are laughing about an evil that they somehow know is about to befall me.
Tags: chiwulff, Fly Tying, largemouth bass, naturalist fridays, popper, sandal foam, work, Yellowstone