Muskie-on-the-Fly Madness in the Badger State

Wisconsin may not have Brett Favre anymore, but they certainly seem to be growing some big muskies in those chilly lakes and rivers, and fly-rodders are snapping up some monsters.

A few years ago, Yellowstone Lake  gave up a 57-inch monster, along with a Field & Stream story that gave us this great quote: “Lou’s knees were shaking too, so bad he would have easily broken Suzanne Somer’s ThighMaster.”

This week came word that fly-rodder Brad Bohen’s 51.25-inch gator was certified as a world record for a released fish on 36-pound tippet. He took the fish on the Chippewa River near Lake Holcombe, according to the Associated Press. That’s the third world record for muskies on a fly-rod in Wisconsin in 2008.

Quite a performance from the Badger State and something to think about when you go for that mid-summer dip in the lake.

That pic of Bohen, who’s clearly on to something, comes from the Pierce County Herald. The other fish was 45 minutes and caught almost simultaneously with the lunker. The Herald has some nice details on Bohen and the other record-setters for ‘08.

Watch out baby ducks!

Gierach on the Horizon

A great treat for the new fishing season is on the horizon. John Gierach has written a new book. From the effusive Amazon.com review:

Fishermen everywhere will understand Gierach’s quest to discover and explore new waters (and then not to divulge the best locations to anyone), the unlikely appeal of winter fly-fishing (“the ice fishing shanty served the dual purpose of group therapy and the neighborhood tavern”), how impossible it is to predict the best fishing (“Everything that happens is entirely familiar, but I don’t always see it coming”), or even the absurdity of the entire exercise (“day after day, you’re casting a fly that doesn’t look like anything to fish that aren’t hungry and may not even be there”).

One of his earlier books, “Trout Bum,” changed things for a lot of anglers. [That said, I hope Mr. Gierach is getting royalties for the rod makers and others who have taken the Trout Bum moniker and, well, commodified it.]

I know as a teenager, his writing was a lot more accessibly and made much more sense than much of the admirable, but notably stuffy writing of fly fishing’s past.

The Cobbler’s Fly Box

It’s the classic case of the cobbler’s children going without shoes. You tie up a bunch of flies and pass them out to your non-tying (but hopefully grateful) friends, and when a hatch comes off or trout cosmically tune into that one particular fly, you realize that you shouldn’t have been handing them out like candy the week before because there are none in your box.

John Berry, outdoor columnist for the Baxter Bulletin in Arkansas, relays his own version of the cobbler in a caddis hatch:

I pulled out my fly box and discovered to my horror that I did not have any green butts in my box. What hurt so much was that I had been tying them during Sowbug and had given away around 80 of them.

Berry offers this lesson to fellow tyers and anglers:

First if you know that the major hatch of the year is about to come off, prepare for it. Finally, if you are going to give away 80 flies, keep a couple for your self.

Giving Poppers a Shot – Part I

I tied up some poppers last week for the first time in my 15+ years of fly-tying. I was never particularly motivated to take a stab at them until recently, although I can’t say why. Probably the thought of sanding, gluing, painting and then tying a fly was the big turn-off, as I imagine that’s the case with most who haven’t gone there. After all that effort in crafting the bug, losing the fly in an unforgiving limb or lily pad had just been unfathomable.

I’m not sure why I suddenly overcame those fears, but as the holiday season trickled in, so did an urge to tie some bass and panfish patterns. Maybe it was the gaudy lights and decorations that crop up every December in the name of holiday cheer, or shoppers clad in flowing scarves, bobbing hats, and bright shopping bags that reminded me of overdressed poppers.

I did some Internet research on what kind of paint to use — some swore by vinyl jig paint, others said they prefer acrylic. There’s even a branded popper paint, which I plan on trying down the road but seemed a little too professional for my rookie ties. I ordered some vinyl jig paint for no other reason than I like the way it looks on jigs. I got jars in black and white (to make eyes and because I like black poppers), green and yellow (for frogs), along with a jar of thinner. After I placed the order, I thought I should’ve ordered some red, but I figured there were enough colors to keep me busy.

For hooks I took the easy route and ordered the pre-formed hooks that come with closed-cell foam heads in various sizes. Sure, shaping and sanding down heads from a piece of buoyant wood is probably the purist route, but I didn’t need to make things more complicated. I feared frustration would lead me to give up, and I wanted this to stick.

So after all the parts arrived, I sat down on a cold Saturday afternoon and dutifully glued the popper heads to the special curved hooks with one of those adhesives that makes your fingers stick together if you’re not careful. After letting them dry for a few hours, I jammed a sewing needle in a wine cork and heated up the needle to poke holes through the foam bodies for rubber legs. This was a little tricky, but I only ruined one popper out of five or six so I consider it a victory.

After painstakingly poking the rubber legs through the tiny holes (by far, the most painful part of the entire process), I popped open a jar of yellow paint, opened the window after nearly passing out from the fumes, and started painting.

The vinyl paint coated the foam heads extremely well and dried with a nice, glossy finish in all the colors. I had some trouble forming eyes — they looked more like amoebas than eyeballs — but for the first go-’round, I was happy.

I knew tying poppers involved a few steps, but I was struck by the amount of work that went into each fly, even before a bobbin became involved.

Here are a few pics from stage 1: