Christopher Camuto -- A Fly Fisher's Blue Ridge

A Fly Fisherman's Blue Ridge by Christopher Camuto

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It's a very pleasing read, and not only because much of the book takes place on what I'm starting to think of as my home trout water. Camuto does a great job of mixing the scientific research with wilderness and historical narrative. Some of the research specifics might seem a little dated, given its focus on acid rain, but it's still a relevant topic and message (though I use that word a little hesitantly, as there's little of the polemic here).


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Harry Murray -- Virginia Blue-Ribbon Streams

Virginia Blue-Ribbon Streams: A Fly-Fishing Guide by Harry Murray

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This is good for one it is, a relatively detailed overview of some of the major streams in Virginia. It's got useful details and good artwork, but the problem is simply that there are several of these sorts of books, and at least one that's far more comprehensive. If you can pick this one up cheaply, it's probably worth it to fill out your research, but it's probably inessential.


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Kevin C Kelleher, Misako Ishimura -- Tenkara

Tenkara: Radically Simple, Ultralight Fly Fishing by Kevin C Kelleher

My rating: 4 of 5 stars

It does its job perfectly, introducing tenkara fishing in a way that's as simple as the sport warrants, yet still relatively comprehensive. Experienced anglers won't be bored, and new anglers won't be overwhelmed.

You could probably just about go from knowing nothing to catching a fish simply by using the book. That said, it works best in the context of other fishing instruction/literature (and, of course, nothing teaches like time on the water, ideally with an experienced person). There's plenty of more room for talk about reading the water, etc. My only other wish is that the knot illustrations had been clearer (or shown more steps).

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Rise Forms -- new fly fishing magazine

I'm excited to announce that Rise Forms has launched at:

http://riseforms.com

This is a journal I helped start that features literary fly fishing writing as well as a great collection of art. Please take a minute to visit, and if you have any feedback, I'd be glad to hear it.

Few Fish, Much Fun

My good friend John and I had lost touch after high school in the typical way you do without any reason. A year or so ago, after two of our parents ran into each other, we discovered we're now only living about two hours apart. We emailed a few times and saw each other at a reunion, but it wasn't until John wrote to ask me if I fly fished that we managed to get some firm plans down.

He described his skill level as being that of the guy with the coffee can of worms in A River Runs Through It. I wasn't sure what to expect, and didn't really care (but, for the record, he acquitted himself admirably).

We elected to hit a trout stream I'm somewhat familiar with for our first outing (although I planned to get into a new stretch of it). We rigged up, and on my second cast, I had a hit. Just as I realized there were a number of stockers in the pool, a spinfisher came around the bend. We got to chatting, and as I missed a series of strikes, I offered to share the pool with him. He declined, instead offering a suggestion on my angle of approach.

A few casts later and he was netting a nice brown for me (and I was discovering my camera was next to the front door at home -- I'd wish for it later). We looked up as I released it and saw John releasing one of his own. I thanked the man and left the hole to him so John and I could keep moving. We probably spent more of the morning hiking and talking than we did fishing.

The fishing wasn't stellar -- the only other fish being a native brookie that I dropped back into the stream before being able to show off its bright orange -- but we kept finding interesting things around us.

We got an close look at a garter snake, saw two salamanders (one a subdued brown and the other that neon blue sort of color that you'd swear fishing manufacturers had made up if you hadn't ever seen these things), and took a break at a waterfall.

On the way out, though was the real treat. John stopped me, and as I was just thinking how it sounded like cicadas, we saw the rattler moving from his sunny spot on the trail up into the brush. He didn't go far, and we had to cautiously make our way out around him. It was the first rattlesnake either of us had encountered, and later we laughed at how we made sure to bring it up in almost every conversation we had.

After that we had to get home. We didn't catch many fish, but I'll trade a high-fish day for the sort of day we did have.

Rough Day

I’ve rarely been in the outdoors and just felt ready to come home. There must be times I no longer remember, when I was frozen or wet or just worn down. There’s one hike gone bad, and there’s the time I dropped my rifle in the snow. That’s about it.

But yesterday was a rough one. When I saw the forecast for high winds and a cold front moving in, I probably should have stayed home (especially considering it had been a night of rocky, newborn-era sleep), but I was anxious to see if the smallmouth were active yet, and to test out the new bass taper fly line I’d just gotten. So as soon as I had the baby back to sleep, I grabbed my gear and was off.

The first problem became obvious quickly. The trail had suffered from the harsh winter, and what had once been an annoyingly brushy hike had now become one full of fallen trees, lost paths, and the like. Upon reaching the river, I discovered the second problem: the river was higher than I had anticipated (so much my ability to read USGS reports), just enough so that some of my wading routes would be cut off. It’s a tricky wade even in August, and as it would turn out, it would be especially problematic now.

The first stretch I wanted to fish requires a reasonably deep wade out to a sandbar. The bass hangout in the deeper area just beyond that. Yesterday I had to go in nearly to my sternum to get there. I had promised myself a wading staff this year, but haven’t gotten around to it. Once on the bar, I was alright, but then the wind picked up.

Mostly it was the kind of wind where you just direct your false cast a little offline, keep the flies away from your head, and work with it. At times, though, it was bad enough I had to just stand and wait for a gap to cast between. I did manage a couple bluegills (one being the first fish proudly caught on a self-tied popper) before deciding to head downstream.

I just couldn’t wade it. Unwilling to give up, I climbed the bank and started on what might have been a trail. At points it turned into a game trail, then disappeared. Through wood and then through water, I got to where I was going. And found a creepy gray spider in my hair. Shortly after the wind would blow enough that my hat wouldn’t stay on, so it went into my pocket, got drenched, and made the return trip that much more itch-inducing.

I did land my first smallie of the year, a feisty little guy who gave me one good jump and a couple short runs. I took a few more bream. On my way out, I encounted a four-foot watersnake (dark enough I briefly thought, “Cottonmouth?”) and watched a channel cat eat a carp that had died and bloated.

By now I was tired from fighting brush, wind, current and sleeplessness. I was daunted by the prospect of my return journey. The going back was no easier, as I had to work to find ways up and down the bank, and at one pointed wondered if I should hold rod and chest pack aloft and sidestroke for it (I didn’t dwell on the idea). Eventually I reached the sandbar. And couldn’t quite leave without catching one more ‘gill.

Walking out, I noticed some fish near shore, inaccessible to a fly cast without more work than I had left in me. I directed a father-and-son combo to head that way. Finally nearing my car, someone asked me where I’d been and how I’d done. Then he explained that they’re building a trail on the far side of the river that can get you most of the way to where I was going.

Now I know for next time.

The Early Season

It's a 70-degree day on mid-March, and I'm frustrated. It couldn't be nicer outside, but I'm too sick to go fishing, so I might as well use that as an excuse to catch up on this year so far.

Which hasn't been much. I've been out four times and managed just one fish. I'll give myself credit for some tough conditions, particularly since this winter has been extremely snowy (making much of the water around here either inaccessible or blown out). The first time I hit a local lake with fly rod looking for some early season 'gills. The lake was still partially iced over, and I wasn't expecting much -- I just wanted to get out on a nice day.

A week or so later I hit the George Washington Forest for some brookie action. It was sub-freezing when I started. I was missing one glove and discovered a leak in my waders. It was cold enough that when I climbed out of the river and walked to a new spot, the line on my reel froze up, locking up everything. I pushed through, rewarded with one native brookie four or five inches long. That was an "eh" day. I didn't know whether to expect anything at all.

I hit a nearby DH a few weeks ago. Thinking it had been stocked, I got there early (and was wise to do so -- when I left around lunchtime, there were 4 anglers fishing a 100-yard stretch of water) and dealt with the cold, the iced-up guides, etc. Nothing. The upstream portion had changed enough that I wasn't even able to find the weird fish I've only ever caught in this stream. I later found out an entirely different stretched had been stocked, which meant I'd spent the day fishing high, cold, heavily poached water. I'm not too disconcerted.

Last weekend was bad, but I couldn't resist going out to the lake. I was hoping crappie might be in a little, but it was cold and raining, and the water was considerably off-color. I would like to have been in a boat -- retreiving into deeper water and away from the already problematic vegetation -- but I made do. No strikes at all, aside from one little chub in the outflow.

I found a protected cove and kept twitching a minnow lure over the grass. Finally I had a big bass hit. And come off within seconds. A few casts later, something big swirled at it and missed. That was the only excitement of the day (unless you count losing a lure in the brush).

I'm pretty sure that's more skunkings already this year than I had all last year (and maybe as many as the last two years combined). Normally I wouldn't mind too much -- conditions have been bad and everyone can have a bad streak -- but I know it's unlikely I'll get out anytime in the next few weeks. So for now, it's blogging, shopping for equipment online, and -- if the Vitamin C kicks in -- learning to tie my own poppers.

Wish me sanity.

Ed Shenk -- Ed Shenk's Fly Rod Trouting

Wow, two months? Really? I'll try to get back to more blogging...

Ed Shenk's Fly Rod Trouting by Elisabeth Sheldon

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

This one comes close. Shenk is clearly a talented angler and writer, and I'm sure anyone who's spent a day on the water with him had an enjoyable time. Unfortunately, the book's just boiled down too much. The early stories are almost journalistic in their I-used-a-hopper-and-caught-18-fish approach. The techniques are useful, and his writing on his love for the shorter rods is enlightening.

The real highlight here, and what makes the book worth the shelfspace, is the epic chase after Old George, easily one of the best fishing stories I've ever heard.

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Even the Stupid Days Are Fine

I had a few hours to get out on Sunday, so I thought I'd take my newish 5wt to a local park (more on this place in a future post) and spend the time catching some bluegill. The park isn't very productive, but there are a few holes that are reliable for panfish, with the occasional smallmouth thrown in, too. The real benefit to the place is that it's a very short drive, and there's a paved trail that runs next to the river for over a mile.

I got into the spot that I expected to be most productive -- actually the only spot on the river I'm truly optimistic about. I make a few casts, and the sky darkens, the wind picks up, and I hear thunder. "It's trucks on the highway," I tell myself. I try to convince myself, but I'm not buying it. The problem is that I'm heading off on a wade that has little in the way of extrication options, and if a storm's coming, I don't want to get caught in waist-high water far from an access point.

I climb out, and check out the sky one last time to convince myself, it's really, truly, a storm coming. I start walking back to the car. After about half a mile. The sun comes out, the wind dies down, and the thunder stops.

At this point, I have to choose between re-tracing my steps or just jumping in the river at the next good spot. Given that I'm only out for a relaxing day, I don't bother re-tracing my steps. Which means, of course, that I only manage to catch one bluegill all day. And fall directly onto my knees on some rocks.

I also manage to somehow foul up my dropper rig, leading me just to nip off one fly and stick with Bully's Bluegill Spider (more on this in a later post, too). At one point, I can't lift my line off the water to cast. Puzzled, I discover I've hooked a long length of monofilament. In my effort to pull it in, I discovered one end is tied to a beer bottle. I leave it. I usually pack out other people's trash, but I'm not sure what I can do with 30 feet of mono and a beer bottle, and I'm also not entirely convinced it isn't some sort of bait trap or something (and I have no idea how far the line extends in the other direction.

I'm about to head to the car, and I decide to take a few casts right by the parking lot. It looks like a bit of a dud, but sometimes you catch fish that other people pass up because they're too obvious. Nothing at all.

The high point of the day: some swimmers just down from this final spot call to me and point out some deer crossing the river upstream from me. They're both big, and the one in front is a buck with an impressive rack, probably 8 or 10 points (it's just a little too far to count).

I head back to the car. I run into a guy with a canoe, and it turns out he's a fly angler, too, and I enjoy our conversation. He recommends a new spot for me to try (actually, parking for a spot I'd been meaning to try), and I figure I'll hit it soon.

So, all in all, a pretty stupid day, but I still had fun.

...Except When It Isn't (pt 2)

A few weeks after the outing described in my last post, I headed back to the same stream. I had had a very hard hit in a pool the farthest upstream I had ever traveled. My plan was to hike up to that pool, start there and work upstream, covering entirely new water.

I couldn't resist a quick stop at the place where I had missed the two stockers on the previous outing. Almost immediately I saw my line hesitate, so I set the hook and landed a...rosyside dace. Well, at least the skunk was off.

I headed up to the pool I wanted to start at, holding myself to only a few casts here and there. I couldn't get anything to hit in that pool, although it looks good. I worked my way up to the next spot, and still nothing. I couldn't see anything that looked good, so I made my way back to the trail to make an easier way.

I hadn't gone 50 yards when I came to an SNP trail marker, letting me know that there were falls just ahead. I was unsure which way the main trail went, but I took a few steps and saw some pretty magnificent falls.

There's not point sidestepping something like that, so I took the little footpath and crawled my way up toward the top of the falls (and here's how you can tell I've matured -- I actually planned my exit strategy on the way in, which wasn't easy with a rod in hand; in the old days that would have been a potential disaster). About halfway up I stopped, ate a protein bar and drank some water, and admired the view.

I made it to the top, more or less, and got over to the water. It was a beautiful sight, but I did want to get back to fishing. I slid my way back to the main trail, crossed the stream and continued on. I didn't see any obvious fishing, figured I'd probably used up about as much time as I wanted to, and turned around.

On my way out, I ran into a pair of anglers on their way in, who asked if I'd fished upstream from the falls, explaining that it was much better than downstream, which is the only water I'd fished (and which I had already decided not to hit again too often because I was suspicious of its quality, despite taking three native brookies my first time through there).

I was feeling a little silly about things, but I was pleased to have learned a little about the water. I went down to the parking lot and headed for a nearby pool. Some hikers were going by, which meant the odds of me hooking my own ear or something were doubled. Instead, I saw the end of the fly line move a little oddly downsream and I set the hook, eventually bringing a nice stocker of about 9 inches to hand.

I worked my way on down. I snagged my nymph, retrieved it and then came the closest I've ever come to stepping on a snake, which was making its way downstream barely visible just in the water. I yelled, splashed, and did a general snake-avoidance dance before getting out of its way. I was so surprised that it had neither spooked nor bit me over all this that I went back to make sure it wasn't a stick. It was a snake, just going about its business.

Needless to say, that pool wasn't so fishable anymore.

I went home, and it wasn't until the next day that I realized how stupidly I had failed to execute my plan, which, I had learned, would have put me into better fishing water. I was frustrated for a second, and then realized I didn't care. I'd had a great day: a wonderful hike to a cool waterfall, learned something about a river, had a funny snake experience, and, incidentally, caught a trout.

So while I haven't reached that point (and kinda hope I never do) where catching fish never matters, there are definitely great ways to enjoy fishing without fish. Hopefully I'll get around soon to some further explanation on why I think this is.

It's All About the Fish... (pt 1)

It's taken me a while to get to this post because I've been trying to figure out how to get the pics up from an old camera. Anyway:

A month or so ago, I headed out to an SNP stream that's stocked below and has native brookies up above. I planned to fish both sections, and of course was more optimistic than was reasonable.

Just a few casts into my outing, I hooked into a trout. I thought it was a small one, and even though I got it on the reel, I worked it in like it was a minnow. When I got him to my feet, I was shocked at how big he was (not huge, maybe 9 inches) and he was shocked that some human was reaching his hand in the water to pick him up. I'd left my net at home -- not a necessity in this area -- and it possibly cost me a fish, because once he saw he was in real danger, he took off downstream, over a little piece of rapids (if you can call it that) and the hook popped free.

I fished hard the rest of the day, with only a little luck, a tiny native brookie that I dropped before I could get a pic (and I have a friend who would say the camera was my whole problem -- I was certainly thinking about snapping on of that first fish while I was bringing him in).

I also fished this pool pretty thoroughly (and if you know the stream, you know where this is):



It's tricky to fish, because it's on a stream crossing, and unless you're the first person there, it's likely someone's fished it, splashed in it, or is currently swimming in it. I'm sure there are fish there, so I always take a few casts. This morning, like others, nothing happened. Then I had a perfect drift on my final cast and started bringing in my line. Suddenly a monster brookie rose up and hit a ... stick.

Really? My perfect cast and drift and proper fly and nothing. But a stick?

Eventually I went back to the stocked section where I had hooked the first trout, and this guy was in my way:



Even though it's just a garter snake (I'm relatively sure), I gave him some room and fished downstream a little. I quickly had a hit, set the hook and turned the fish, a typical-sized brookie. I got a look at him, but he immediately came loose. I was amazed at how this fish just materialized.

All in all, not a wasted day: I'd hooked three trout and landed one, and I'd seen a snake, and, at the very least, I'd spent a nice day outdoors, doing something I love in place that looks like this:




So why was I so bummed?

Well, sometimes it's all about the fish. I'd wanted to catch something that day, and felt like I hadn't. Any fishing writer worth his salt talks about how it isn't really about catching fish, but, for me, some days it is. Not all days, but sometimes the other stuff just isn't completely fulfilling.

Of course, in my defense, the other days can be pretty nice to... (to be continued)

Howell Raines -- Fly Fishing Through the Midlife Crisis

Fly Fishing Through The Midlife Crisis by Howell Raines

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

This turned out much better than I expected. Raines knows, importantly, what not to talk about, and he avoids heavy musings on the sorts of questions you associate with midlife crises, yet he's revealing at the same time.

In what I expected to be clunky insertions, he includes sections on famous anglers he's spent time with (such as Ray Scott and Bob Clouser) and presidents who fished. These chapters serve to further explorations about some of his key themes, and rather than being simple biographical snapshots, they're fascinating looks into the psyches, fishing habits, and the relationships between the two.

This is a fine read, worth it for fishing stories and historical overviews, but also for the autobiographical slant.

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Help a Vet

Through the joys of Freecycle, I met an interesting guy recently. "Big John" Miska, as it turns out, seems to be generally up to some interesting stuff, as a quick Google will show you.

What's relevant here is that John is gathering up fly fishing donations to use to take wounded veterans out on outings. John is affiliated with Project Healing Waters, but this project isn't (though it's not dissimilar in theory). Basically, he wants to start doing a little more for some of the vets in the area, and needs some gear to make it happen (and maybe eventually start a PHW group closer to this area).

In particular, he's interested in old bamboo fly rods, as he knows a guy who can fix them up at a reasonable price.

If you're interested in learning more about the project or in donating, you can reach John at bigjohn@cstone.net.

Lefty Kreh's Longer Fly Casting

Lefty Kreh's Longer Fly Casting, New and Revised: The Compact, Practical Handbook That Will Add Ten Feet--Or More--To Your Cast by Lefty Kreh

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars

This one's fine. It's a not-too-detailed look at how to improve your fly casting. It's mostly straightforward, but it's very brief, with drawings that are usually clear and useful. If you wanted to learn to (or improve) your fly casting, you'd want to go somewhere else.

Kreh teaches a different style of casting than I've seen elsewhere. I saw him demonstrate it at an outdoor show in Denver (where I couldn't hear him that well), so the sections on basic casting in this book made sense to me. However, I'm not sure how clear they'd be to someone who hadn't seen it in practice, especially since it goes against much of what we're typically taught.

There's not enough "why" in this book -- even if you learn the technique, I think it's always good to have a fuller understanding of why something works.


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Mel Krieger -- The Essence of Flycasting

The Essence of Flycasting by Mel Krieger

My review

rating: 4 of 5 stars

I'm reading one of Lefty Kreh's books on casting now, so it'll be interesting to compare. What I like so much about Krieger's is that he doesn't focus on precise mechanics (I feel like it's out of style now, but you still see writing that gets into the precise measurements, specific arm angles, etc.), but covers the "essence" (hence the title) of how a flycast works, primarily how the rod loads, what your loops need to do, etc.

The pictures are pretty useful here, b&w but very clear depictions of what Krieger's talking about.

There's a very small section on specialty casts. Nothing tricky here -- just stuff you'll actually need on the water (like the wiggle cast, etc.). This section's useful, but so brief that it feels a little tacked on. I'm not sure how I'd expand it, though, without getting into other entire areas.


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Iced

The morning started in a bad way (as future stories usually do). I had to scrape the ice of my car in the dark in order to drive to the river. I'd never done that before. I should have known.

But the night before was when I might have taken events as signs. I was just clumsy all night, from tying ugly flies to having a hard time tying the knots for my dropper rigs. I capped it all off my dropping my once-used Super Days Worth fly box on the cement basement floor and breaking part of it.

But I was off.

My fingers were in pain before I had finished rigging up, even with the neoprene gloves on. After getting set up, I had to take a break and put my hands inside my waders. I wasn't sure how I was going to fish.

As soon as my hands were marginally okay, I started casting. After only 6 casts or so, I saw the indicator pause and set the hook. A flash of silver told me I had a decent rainbow on and, after steering him clear of some brush, I landed an 11-incher. So already I had broken the two-outing skunk streak, and I was in a good mood.

I quickly moved into some riffles and started catching chubs. I worked my way upstream, and continued to catch fish almost constantly, but no trout. Instead, I got into tons of a fish I'd never seen before, and neither friends, family, nor members of two fly fishing forums could identify it from my description (this is when a camera would be really nice).

It was a little fish, typically about 5 inches or so. It was silver, with three dark vertical markings on its side. The tips of the tail and fins were all bright red. Someone suggested it might be a river redhorse, but it didn't have that kind of mouth. If anyone has any suggestions, please let me know. I suggest it's a regional variant of something.

The big challenge of the day was keeping my guides ice-free. I'd never encountered this problem, and the first time I tried to cast and shot the line out the middle of the line was a strange experience. By lunchtime, the air had warmed up enough that the freezing water in my guides wasn't a problem, but it was an odd way to spend a Virginia morning.

Anyhow, I caught quite a few fish that day (beyond counting, which always equals good, regardless of species). I hiked back to where I started and talked to some other anglers, at which point at felt foolish. They told me the Delayed Harvest area extends downstream from where I started, but I'd been fishing upstream. I suspect they're right, as the water is certainly better that direction (which I proved by fishing for a while without a bite), but I've checked several guidebooks, all of which list it upstream.

Oh, well, I had a good day, took fish in some painful conditions, and don't really care if I fished the "right" stretch or not.

Dave Hughes -- Trout Rigs and Methods

Trout Rigs & Methods: What You Need to Know to Construct Rigs that Work for All Types of Trout Flies & the Most Effective Fishing Methods for Catching More & Larger Trout by Dave Hughes

My review

rating: 5 of 5 stars

It's not exactly the kind of book you read straight through (though I did), but it's an amazing resource. Hughes provides tactics to cover pretty much every trout fishing situation you could come across, and explains it from rig to presentation.

Throw in the quick overviews on knots, gear, casting, etc., and you could just about use this book to guide your entire fishing. It's the kind of book that makes me wish I had this much knowledge about anything. I'm sure I'll be referencing it repeatedly.

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The Double Skunk

I did something two weeks ago that I haven't done in years, if ever. I got skunked on two consecutive days.

The first day I worked hard. I was trying out a new stream in the SNP, heading into Whiteoak Canyon. I tried various flies and tactics, all with no luck. I might have had two hits all day, and didn't spot any fish. The stream was pretty low and it was still early in the year so I'm not taking too much offense.

The end of the hike was worth it, though. I knew there were a couple falls, but I was unprepared for just how magnificent they were. I hiked up about even with the top of the upper falls, finally shedding the clothes that the 40-degree start the morning necessitated. I sat up top for a while, decided that was a good cap to the day and that I'd hike out without stopping to fish.

I didn't make it, of course. I had to stop at this one pool that looks so perfect. One little bump on a nymph (maybe). Then someone's dogs waded into my pool. It had still been a splendid day.

The next day was less intense. It was 80 degrees and I had an hour or two free so I zipped out to the lake hoping to find some pre-spawn crappie, or maybe some gill. Nothing at all. The boat launch area was absolutely covered in bank fisherman, so I drove around to the other side, to where I'd caught fish pretty much all season long.

Not so much as a hit today. I'd have liked to have fished some bait this time of year, preferably hung under a bobber, but I didn't have time to go get any and was just outside to be outside.

I can't say I enjoyed getting double-skunked, but neither day was that bad. What it really means is that I *have* to catch fish this weekend, and I'm heading to a spot I'm not sure about how optimistic I should be. We'll see...

John Roberts -- Collins Illustrated Dictionary of Trout Flies

Over the next week or so, I'm going to be posting my thoughts on a handful of fly tying books. Here's the first, on one that I bought out of a bargain book newspaper catalog I used to get until maybe 2000 or so:

Collins Illustrated Dictionary of Trout Flies by John Roberts

My review

rating: 2 of 5 stars
This is one I just don't connect with. It's a great collection of recipes, with maybe 1000 patterns, and includes work by some great tiers. Just in the "W" section we get Whitlock, Wotton, and Wulff (and then throw in LaFontaine, Ruane, etc.).

So it's a great compendium, but that's it. There's not much instruction here, or instruction on how to fish the patterns. So I'm sort of criticizing it for being something it didn't mean to be, I admit.

It's also a bit British for my purposes, whether it's the certain terminology or certain patterns that just seem culturally off to me.

One oddity about using the book (though this is wise in terms of price and) is that the pictures of patterns are separate from the recipes, with a set of full-color plates in the middle of the book. It takes some flipping to see exactly what you're looking at and how to make it. But this is a reference volume, not an instructional manual. It's just not one that really does it for me.

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A Tail of Two Fishies (or, Best-Titled Story Ever)

So a while back I mentioned the big brookie and the carp I caught by hand. They're connected by similar mysterious behavior.

The brookie was more dramatic. I was fishing my favorite trout stream, and trying to work some pocket water that I was always sure held trout but could never find any in. Something big hit my nymph and took off. I set myself for a tough fight, especially given the tricky footing and quick water. Very soon after the hookset, though, I saw my line angle toward a small boulder and then go tight under it. I could still feel the fish throbbing on my line, so I kept slack out and waded to the boulder.

I've caught fish before (usually bass) where I've had to free the line from tangles or wait for the fish to back out of weeds (sometimes you can induce this, at least on spinning gear, by plucking your line like a guitar string). This fish, though, had just cannonballed right under a boulder and stopped. When I reached it, I reached down and grabbed it near the tail and pulled it out. To my surprise, it was a gorgeous brookie about 15 inches long. Somehow it had wedged its head under the boulder and seemed unsure how to get out. I turned it loose and it seemed fine. I'm not sure how bright it was (especially given that it managed to get itself caught by me), but I'm not sure why else it would end up in such a predicament.

The carp was a little stranger, and I feel like I probably did something wrong. I was smallmouth fishing in my home county, working a stretch of water with Dad that, while productive, was more notable for the climb involved in exiting the river. I was upstream from him a ways when I caught site of a carp with its head in some weeds. I couldn't figure out how to make a cast, given that it's head was in the weeds.

I crept closer, and it didn't move. It was wiggling a little bit, or I'd have thought it was dead. I got close enough to poke it with my rod tip, but it didn't respond. I clambered up on a rock next to it and couldn't figure it out. It looked stuck. As far as I could tell, it wasn't spawning or anything. It just had managed to get its head (and gills, if I remember right) stuck on some weeds. I grabbed it by the tail and under the belly and lifted it up and back out of the weeds. I helped it revive, and watched it swim off. Then it struck me that I had perhaps intervened in some natural event I shouldn't have, but I'm not sure what that could have been (other than imminent death).

I'd be happy to hear any thoughts on this situation.

There it is. Two fish that managed to get their heads stuck. One a big brook trout in a cold, fast stream while hooked; the other an average-sized carp in a slow, warm river, apparently on its own. I still think both were a little weird.