Whiskey Creek Fly Fishing

High Speed Internet, the latest browsers, searchable online document repositories, PDF files, and Google. Bent and sharpened steel, floss, chicken feathers, thread, copyright law, wasting time on a warm summer evening.

The new and the old are married with Google Books. That wonderful company that can afford to put everything online (and searchable).  Lots of old fly fishing and tying books are available online in Google Books.

Spend some time browsing the old flies and the stories behind them.  How did the Coachman get its name? What’s up with Cow Dung?

Mary Orvis Favorite Flies

Reading this new (to me) fly fishing blog gives me the urge to pour a glass of port. Of course, that makes me want to light a cigar. Then virtually enjoy our sport for a short while.

After a few glasses of port, I can start reading Portuguese. Understanding the blog makes the enjoyment even better. Or, was it the nifty translation feature? Some freaky looking fish down there.

Decolando, Fly fishing, Meio Ambiente e Sustentabilidade.

Thanks to a comment from Jim McCarthy, where he pointed to the WaterWatch web site, we have a cool video to watch where dams actually get blown up!  The Water Watch organization is working to eliminate four dams on the Rouge river, with the goal to have the Rouge flow un-impeded for 157 miles.

Check out this video from January:

The video shows the staging for removal of the Savage Rapids dam, the #1 fish killer in Oregon. Here is a shot from the WaterWatch web site of the dam now. Looks like it won’t be killing too many fish in the future!

Three down, one to go!

Congratulations WaterWatch.

This is the kind of competition we like. A bald eagle was released yesterday on the Henry’s Fork, near Rexburg. The eagle was nursed back to health at the Rocky Mountain Raptor Program, after a gunshot wound.

The guys at FFOTW created a Star Wars themed fly swap. Here is my entry, the TK-421.  TK-421 is the most famous of all the Stormtroopers.

Materials:
Hook: Size 14 Wet Fly (Mustad 9671)
Thread: White 6/0
Body: 4 white glass beads, size 11/0 (craft store)
Thorax: Sparkle Dubbing, polar bear color (from Blue Ribbon Flies)
Hackle: Partridge soft-hackle

Start with putting the beads on the hook.

Start the thread behind the beads and build a bump at the bend. (and trim the thread better than I did here)  After creating the bump, tie off the thread with a whip finish.

Add a drop of zap-a-gap to the thread bump, slide the beads backwards so they butt against the bump (and the rear bead gets a little zap-a-gap).  Then, restart the tread in front of the bead body.

Secure the hackle to the shank, then dub a shaggy thorax

After completing the dubbed thorax, wind the hackle 1.5 to 2 wraps.  Tie off and trim the hackle.

Complete the fly by sweeping the hackle backwards, form a head, whip finish, then cement.

A couple of news stories related to Columbia River Salmon.

The Obama administration is studying up on the Columbia River dam situation.  They participated in closed door meetings with local government and tribal leaders. Fishermen were not included.

Here is a story of scientists using 3-d sonar mapping technology to study how juvenile salmon navigate (or fail to) around dams.

What do you get with a digital camera with macro lens, a google account, and a passion for the creepy-crawlies of your neighborhood?  You get a great blog.

Walks with My Camera shares some outstanding photographs of creeping, crawling, buzzing, and flying creatures.

Last night, Hannity featured the running battle between the California Delta Smelt and the central valley farmers.  See the story here. This was an opinion piece, so temper your expectations of a fair and balanced presentation.

The story features a hot reporter (hot with a capital H), standing in a dry irrigation canal, and showed lines of jobless farmers. However, it was only focused on the recent decision to stop pumping water out of the delta.

Stopping the water pumps because of the Delta Smelt is the equivalent to convicting Al Capone on tax evasion. There is a lot more going on than a battle between a 2 inch minnow and central valley farmers. The water exports kill salmon, ruining commercial fishing in California, and killing those jobs.  The water system designed in 1968 for irrigation simply does not work now.  This is not just another environmentalists vs jobs story.

This is another indictment of the failed California government. A government that is totally focused on re-election and spending our money.  A government that has the highest state income tax and the highest sales tax (they literally take it coming and going), yet still needs to borrow from future lotto winnings.

Ah, but I digress. Even though it missed the larger picture, the Fox News story illuminated the very real human impact of the water consumers.

I ran into something interesting while at the Exploratorium in San Francisco, which illustrates the way white balance works in a digital camera. If you are asking your-self “what the hell is white balance?”, don’t worry about it.

In the optical section, there was a room illuminated in strong yellow lights. My daughter took a rest and I thought I’d experiment a bit with the white balance settings of my new camera. Here is the room:

With the strong yellow lights, I snapped a photo of my daughter in the chair under each of the white balance settings. Experimenting to see which setting would give the best correction. Then, I used the “white” board as a target to set a custom white balance setting. Snapped a photo:

Surprise, the image came out monochrome.  The custom white balance setting must subtract a color from the image, and subtracting something from itself equals 0.  The correction removed all color from the image.

Here is what the room looked like in white light (flash):

Another brownliner has joined the fly fishing blogging universe, The Urban Fly Fisher. Follow along as he adds stories and photos of the biggest fish in a little city.