Swegman on the Snakehead . . .
Today I was quoted in Marc Santora’s article regarding the alleged appearance of the snakehead fish in Central Park’s lakes. While not directly related to tenkara, the story does affect one of my Manhattan fishing destinations. Plus the inclusion of my “expert opinion” in The New York Times is an appearance worth mentioning. Here is the link to the article, which can be found in the City Room section:
“In Central Park, the Snakehead Fish Intrudes”
— rPs 04 30 2013
Back in Hand . . .
My Ebisu back where he belongs. (photo taken 04 29 2013)
When a fishing tool is used hard, often, or both, some snafu has to be expected at some point. So it occured to me with my Tenkara USA Ebisu, although the problem did not involve wear or breakage – I somehow lost a segment and the handle screw cap in the field.
An email to Daniel Galhardo received a quick reply and a solution; send the rod to the repair center in Belgrade, MT. I found a Scotch mailing tube that fit the TUSA rod tube perfectly and mailed the package on April 19.
Today, ten (10!) days later – Ebisu is back in my grip! This has been, hands down, the best customer service I have yet experienced with any company.
Thank you, Daniel, John, and Tenkara USA!
– rPs 04 29 2013
My “One Only” Fly . . .
Three variations of my “one only” fly pattern: Deer Hair and White Thread; Deer Hair and Orange Floss; Deer Hair and Gray Wool. (photo taken 02 28 2013)
The pattern that has best served me well and best represents my tying philosophy is a simple hybrid of a soft hackle and micro streamer. I use a wet fly nymph hook in sizes 10 through 14, thread and floss or knitting wool for the body, and a sparse hackle of natural deer hair. These combinations carry the same silhouette: one short in the body and long in the wing. Very effective when twitched in still water, or hung in a stream’s current, I would choose this style as my “one only” tenkara fly if pressed to do so. The pattern has worked consistently in pond environments for panfish and has always helped me hook chubs, fallfish, and trout along coldwater freestone streams.
The General Recipe:
Hook: standard wet fly nymph, size 10-14
Thread: 6/0 thread
Body: 6/0 thread; floss; or baby ull knitting wool
Hackle: natural deer hair; or Hungarian partridge
– rPs 02 28 2013
Winter Light . . .
My art supplies assembled around the sitter; an Amano Kebari. (photo taken 01 29 2012)
The art studio replaces the trout stream and bass pond when the white skies of winter fill my Manhattan rooms with a pale light perfect for my drawing method. Today is such a day. I assemble my materials on the floor, assume the zazen position, and commence to document the fly pattern and the unique shape of its shadow during the given illustration session. The result, if I am successful, shall be a unique portrait. Today’s sitter: the Amano Kebari . . .
– rPs 01 29 2012
A Late Autumn Tenkara Trick . . .
Harlem Meer in November: The fish are there . . . but where? (photo taken 11 12 2012)
Fish do not disappear. They are always there, somewhere within the course of a flow or the confines of a stillwater. A pond fed by a spring, or a manmade impoundment unconnected to a river or stream, supports fish in a fixed area, but at various locations according to the season. Think of the water as a three-dimensional space akin to a house with multiple rooms, each of which becomes the kitchen at a different time of the day, or the year.
When the leaves are mostly down and the shoreline reeds go brown, bass and bluegill tend to bunch up near points and drop offs. This type of cover is static, unlike that afforded by the cyclical growth of vegetation. The plant matter does remain as litter on the bottom and stalks along the edges, which give fish something other than shelter. What earlier in the year provided shade or a hiding place for the predator has become a source of nutrition for the prey. The beneficiary is a major fish food source and subject for a subsequent set of fly patterns: the nymph.
Fallow vegetation along a point on the water’s edge attracts nymphs, and by extension, gamefish. (photo taken 11 12 2012)
Fished slowly along a pond’s leaf-littered bottom, the nymph may be the very best fly fishing (and tenkara) trick available to the autumn-season pond angler. One particular retrieve works very well with the long tenkara rod and level line. The tactic takes a tenkara limitation and transforms it into an asset. Since tenkara anglers cannot strip in a flyline, or inch in a flyline, through guides, the solution is a long, slow lift to simulate a nymph leaving the bottom. Pulses and other incremental retrieval motions are not necessary, and in fact would only interfere with the best presentation. What is needed is patience and resilient shoulder muscles. Once the cast is made, and time taken for the nymph to settle on or near the bottom, what follows is a very slow, very steady, vertical lift of the rod arm that takes into account the crawling pace of insect larvae. Reliable patterns include: Hare’s Ear, Pheasant Tail, Prince, Zug Bug, even the Copper John, in sizes 10 through 14.
Evaluation day came when I met my coworker Jesse Valentin on a sunny November Monday off from the fly shop. We were lucky to enjoy a free day at Harlem Meer during one of the last periods of jacket and sweatshirt weather. The sun was gold, the sky pale blue, the surrounding trees brown, holding just a scattered few leaves that resembled little flags rippling in the damp breeze. He chose to work the edges with a spinning rod and jig pattern. I knotted on a size 14 Olive Hare’s Ear. Each of us worked our lure slowly, methodically. The Hare’s Ear scored first with the bluegill.
This bluegill pounced on an Olive Hare’s Ear nymph during the middle of November and in the middle of Manhattan. (photo taken 11 12 2012)
Jesse connected with a small largemouth shortly thereafter. We were both now on the board and eager to keep moving, working the banks. He pulled ahead, as I was putting my tenkara slow nymphing trick to a serious test. I scored a passing grade of sorts when my own rod bent to the strong dives of a largemouth bass.
Largemouth bass like the slow nymph, too! (photo taken 11 12 2012)
While I cannot yet submit this tactic for inclusion into the tenkara canon, I do stand by late-autumn nymphing for stillwater bass and bluegill, and believe the tenkara rod to be the best vehicle. The only drawback to this type of slow fishing is the ironic quickness of a day’s passage at this time of year. Jesse and I had barely moved beyond the initial euphoria of our back-to-back bass when the sun dropped behind the trees, the wind increased, and the cold came out to tell us to head for home.
– rPs 11 28 2012
Olympic Summer . . .
My friend, Stephen, photographed me with the Hamma Hamma River in the background. (photo taken 07 14 2012)
My wife and I visited the Olympic Peninsula of Washington for the first time this summer. We planned to visit two good friends, Mara and Stephen, who had moved to the region from Arizona last year. There was also the possibility we could explore the angling within this storied trout, salmon, and steelhead destination. When in an email our hosts made mention of the fact they had taken up the sport of fly fishing, I thought: What a happy coincidence!
The first morning of our stay in Port Orchard, Washington, revealed we had landed in a new landscape. As we sat with new friends around the dining table of our bed and breakfast, the Cedar Cove Inn, I paused at one point during the meal to absorb a view I could never see in Manhattan. The snow-capped peaks of the Olympic Range emerged through a cool fog dissipating on a July morning. I excused myself and walked outside. The Cedar Cove has a lovely wraparound porch, and the building and grounds are situated on a point overlooking the town harbor and the gunmetal gray ships moored along the Naval Base Kitsap across the Sinclair Inlet. The weather felt like early October in New York, but the view was fully Pacific Northwest summer.
The Kitsap Peninsula where Port Orchard is located resembles an arrowhead on the map. To the east is Puget Sound and Seattle. To the west lay the Hood Canal and Olympic Peninsula. The western slope draining into the Pacific is the land of the famous temperate rain forest and steelhead rivers such as the Hoh and Elwha. The eastern slope, which is somewhat drier, though just as forested, supports a number of other rivers that are better known for coastal cutthroat trout. Several of these, the Skokomish, Duckabush, Dosewallips, and Hamma Hamma, were within just an hour’s drive of our friend’s home beside the Sinclair Inlet.
The Hamma Hamma name I had encountered before through my love of oysters. The Hama Hama oysters found on restaurant menus, (note the slight discrepancy in spelling), originate from the delta of this river. For that reason I suggested we explore the main run during the two days we had set aside for fly fishing.
My Ebisu was ready to try this new and adventurous angling environment. I had successfully fished with the rod both in Manhattan’s ponds and the Pennsylvania trout streams near my in-laws home in southeastern Pennsylvania. What I did do new is add to my fly box. I selected a few steelhead flies from the bins at The Urban Angler. I had prepared for the trip in part by reading The Color of Winter by Doug Rose, and this book with its color plates of classic steelhead patterns inspired me to select both the white and purple Bead Head Woolly Bugger, the Jock Scott, and the Rusty Rat. I knew that our chances of encountering a steelhead in July were slim, so I invested in smaller size 8 and 10 patterns to perhaps lure two species neither of us had ever encountered: the Dolly Varden and the coastal cutthroat trout.
Jock Scott on Hamma Hamma River rocks. (photo taken 07 13 2012)
We drove to the Hamma Hamma River on an overcast Friday the 13th. We skirted the rim of the Hood Canal and passed through the Skokomish Indian Reservation. It took nearly all of my fishing excitement to prevent a detour into the parking area of the tiny log cabin casino there on the tribal land; a casino not much larger than a family restaurant, which, I’m sure, would have provided an interesting if not lucrative experience. I was feeling Lucky 13, and literary as well, knowing I was near Port Angeles and the legacy of Raymond Carver, one of my favorite fiction writers, who was also a passionate fisherman. Part of me wanted to pull out a notebook and just write all of this into something new right there, yet I knew fishing, and tenkara, would be the basis of the day’s real story.
We eventually followed a logging road that snaked through thick forest. A small sign pulled us toward the parking area of a small wooded camping area adjacent to the Hamma Hamma. We hiked a narrow trail surrounded by a canopy containing an infinite variety of green punctuated by bright orange salmonberries and pale yellow banana slugs, some nearly a foot in length. The water’s steady call drew us easily to its banks.
A thin row of alders separated a cobblestone bar from the river. The water was clear and cold, so cold that a mist hovered over the glacial melt. I could see the reason for the temperatures at work when I looked up and saw snow fields on the high slopes of the steep valley through which the Hamma Hamma runs.
Distant thunder could be heard and a spattering of rain that had followed us on our drive came and went. I have rarely been so excited to fish. Tenkara made setting up so much easier despite the emotional distractions inherent in enthusiasm. The telescoping rod, the lillian, the level line, a slip knot, and a size 10 Rusty Rat were assembled, tethered, and tied in seconds rather than minutes.
The gentleman in me handed the Ebisu to Maryann. I said I would rig up the 5-weight while she warmed up with the gentle casting action of the light tenkara rod. She asked if I was sure. Her smile and green eyes made a “Yes!” as easy as breathing.
Of course the first tapered leader I removed from the convenient 3-pack recombined into a bird’s nest after I had looped it onto the end of my pale green floating fly line. Maryann and Stephen were knee-high in the creek and casting when I turned to survey their progress. Both looked comfortably situated, throwing their patterns well upstream.
Maryann and Stephen fly fishing within the Hamma Hamma River’s mist. (photo taken 07 13 2012)
The second leader slipped on smoothly and I added a Jock Scott to its tip. I gathered up, zipped up, walked toward Maryann’s position. I paused beside the water to watch her. She raised the limber rod, made a cast, and followed the fly downstream. She lifted the line off the water again; I turned away to look at an especially pretty stone. That’s when I heard her say: “Am I snagged?”
There was a deep bend in the Ebisu, that’s for sure. I followed the line’s trajectory into the water with one swift look to the left. “No, you have a trout!” I exclaimed. Above the jade and milky quartz collage of the stream bed, resisting both the rod and the stiff conflicting currents of the cold Hamma Hamma, maneuvered a living band of silver and white. She brought the fish to her side and used her new net before my own boots had graced stream gravel. Held within the damp black mesh was a steelhead parr. The rosy band, leopard spots, and vertical namesake marks of this strong native were more vivid than any eastern brown trout or stocked rainbow I have ever seen, more pastel than the earth-toned brookie. We photographed the fish for posterity and then twisted the little steelhead fly from the top of its jaw. The fish slipped away and Maryann, smiling, breathing heavily with excitement, held out the tenkara rod to me.
I shook my head. “Keep the line in the water.” And with that said I realized I had another kind of line. The ending that, as it so often happens, became another magical moment of conception.
Maryann Amici with her first tenkara-caught salmonid: a Hamma Hamma River steelhead parr. (photo taken 07 13 2012)
– rPs 08 31 2012
Tenkara in the Dark . . .
A Crappie Photo: This blurry view simultaneously reveals the author’s tenkara angling skill and flash photography limitations. (photo taken 06 28 2012)
Summer has arrived and with the season comes heat, humidity, and an angler’s need to modify both the technique and time of the fishing in order to optimize the sport’s chief objective: outdoor action.
I usually fish alone, and during the day, but my most recent tenkara trip was an after-work group outing of urban anglers. Tony, Edwin, Jesse, and I, as well as a couple of other friends in the observer role, spread out around the west side of Harlem Meer at dusk in search of a refreshing breeze interspersed with bluegills, largemouth bass, and black crappies.
The slanted evening light spilled over the towers and tree tops alike as I worked a Deer Hair and White soft hackle along the pond’s weed edges. A few bluegills fell for the fly, enough to keep me busy. When I did pause to look up and around me, I was surprised to see another angler, not of my party, also fishing with a long rod. As our trajectories brought us closer and closer together, I took notice of an interesting detail. Something was missing . . . his reel! Yes, I encountered my first tenkara stranger outside of cyberspace. He carried two rods with him so, after introducing ourselves, we took a few minutes to speak the praises of the streamlined simplicity tenkara has given to our city fishing.
Meanwhile, the sun set and conditions changed: the bass remained elusive; the bluegills vanished for the most part. My three compadres had by this time clustered along a favorite strip of shoreline near the southwestern end of the Meer; a spot known for large nighttime bass. Their presence soaked up a majority of the spot’s bank space, so I walked farther east to where a small island forms a channel about thirty feet in width. I was now out of sight, without a light. Night was falling quickly, so before I lost all of the available light, I tied on a small (size 12) Brown Woolly Bugger with a bead head.
A black-crowned night heron and a foraging raccoon joined me by the water as I began to cast into the darkened depths of the Meer. By this time only anglers remained. The joggers and dog walkers had gone back to their air-conditioned indoors.
The pattern’s bead head changed everything. On my first cast I felt a light jiggling take that soon revealed the full extent of the Ebisu model’s flexible 5:5 action. I raised the rod perpendicular to the pond, which coaxed the fish to the surface. The headshaking commenced as well as an impressive spiraling dance. The limber tip registered all of its variations. This back and forth ballet lasted for over a minute before I had control enough to lift a silvery foot-long black crappie onto the bank.
The real challenge (as opposed to the reel challenge) occurred when I attempted to photograph the fish. The most daunting aspect of night fishing, for me, falls under the documentation department. I have a fairly good eye for composition, but my mastery of lighting remains to be seen in the exact sense of the word. The absence of sun, the resulting use of flash, left me with a well-composed, yet blurry, portrait of a big crappie resting parallel to the Ebisu on the damp grass. At least the scale of the fish was documented.
This trip was a group effort, as I mentioned, and that comradery soon proved its worth. Tony was the first to stop by to see why I had disappeared behind the island. The blurry image of the crappie, and another solid jiggling hit right before his eyes, answered him better than any loquacious verbal explanation. He switched to a bead head as well. Soon all four of us were back together, sometimes pulling in a quartet of crappies simultaneously. The action was so good that each one of us was satisfied to pause occasionally to take a snapshot or two . . .
Not as big a black crappie, but a much better picture. (photo taken by Tony Panasiti on 06 28 2012)
. . . Thanks, Tony!
– rPs 07 02 2012
More Than Catching . . .
The Mianus River in southwest Connecticut. (photo taken 06 24 2012)
A Tenkara Road Trip
After a busy month engrossed in a new day job (as an associate at a fly shop), I at last got away at the beginning of summer to fish just outside the limits of New York City. I stayed with a fishing buddy who lives in Stamford, Connecticut, and together we fished both the salt and a stream, for both striped bass and the trout. The latter allowed me to take tenkara equipment and technique into its most suited environment – a forested trout stream.
The Mianus River is, for most of its length, a freestone creek just twenty or so feet in width. The winding flow is somewhat shallow with a cobbled bottom and a scattering of smooth granite boulders that project out into the current, creating many inviting pools and pockets. The Mianus chapter of Trout Unlimited has done a lot of good work here, and because the river flows through three separate parks, there is plenty of tree shade to keep the water cool and plenty of public water to fish.
Tenkara technique is well-suited for upstream presentation in close quarters. (photo taken 06 24 2012)
The trout residing here proved to be very wary, sipping my fly patterns sparingly and so lightly as to leave barely a dimple on the surface film. The fish appeared educated, too. If a size 16 Blue Wing Olive invoked a rise once, it would not do so twice. Only a generic size 18 Tan Deer Hair Caddis lured more than one half-hearted look from a Salmo trutta. Of the five rises I enjoyed during my morning outing, only one managed to connect with the hook long enough to be felt on my limber twelve-foot Ebisu.
I learned much about tenkara during this road trip. I found that hiking, stopping, fishing, and then moving on to do it all again, was much easier without a reel. The telescoping nature of the rod and the simple slipknot attachment of the level line to the braided lilian permitted quick set up and take down in the narrow spaces between the tangled branches along the stream bank. Casting the longer rod sideways, over the water, allowed me to present patterns upstream much more easily than with a conventional fly rod and reel. Many potential midstream snags and hookups with tree fish were averted as a result.
An Achilles’ Heel
Many, but not all, snags. I did learn that tenkara has an Achilles’ heel, and snag removal is it. When one gets caught under a rock or onto a green branch, a snag can often be released with conventional gear, first by winding in the line until the fly meets the rod tip, followed by a gentle tug or two. Tenkara does not allow for this option so, if a snag occurs, one must wade out to the offending stone, or climb the tree. If that proves to be physically impossible, fly and some tippet will be usually lost.
One specific weakness does not overwhelm the general strengths tenkara offers in the realms of mobility and ease of use in wilderness environments. And while I did not land a trout on this quick trip, I did glean another insight from the tenkara way; its inherent ability, through simplicity, to reveal that fishing is more than catching. The sport is also a window onto experiencing, and living, outdoor life in full, in the moment.
Tired, but happy, after a tenkara road trip full of trees. (photo taken by Walt Neary on 06 24 2012)
– rPs 06 25 2012
PROSPECTing . . .
Welcome to Brooklyn . . . really! (photo taken 05 15 2012)
The exploration of a pond can be a lot of fun when the body of water has a shoreline full of narrows and declivities where fish can cruise, hide, and challenge one’s casting. I like to approach this kind of deconstructed angling with a variation of prospecting as described by its most eloquent contemporary proponent, John Gierach. He devotes an entire chapter to “Prospecting” in his first published angling book, Fly Fishing the High Country; a minor classic that I seem to read at least once a year. While Gierach refers more broadly to the search for and exploration of new wilderness waters, his process can be applied, using maps and the soles of one’s shoes, to the microcosm of a single pond’s perimeter.
One of the best, perhaps the best, of New York City’s warm water destinations is the lake situated near the southern end of Prospect Park. Designed by Olmsted and Vaux, the same team who created Central Park, Prospect’s lake appears rougher around the edges, shaded by mature trees, with ample waterfowl and fishing opportunities for those willing to drag their gear onto the subway.
One of the potential drawbacks of urban angling is the logistics of carrying fishing equipment to and from the water. Tenkara has, for me, eliminated this concern. Before I left my West Village home to catch the Q train to Brooklyn, I first grabbed a reclosable sandwich bag and filled it with my assembled gear: fly box, spool of level line and tippet, and my two personal extra essentials, forceps for more humane hook release and a microtrash container.
PROSPECTing tenkara gear. (photo taken 05 15 2012)
Weighed down with almost a half pound of fishing gear, I ventured out into a gray morning. The rush hour commute was made easy and even more importantly, unobtrusive, by the single little bag of gear nestled in the right front pocket of my cargo shorts. No stares or questions from the other commuters. I was just another man on the train. Dressed down, yes, but just a man. And I even had a free hand to hold a to-go cup of coffee.
The morning mist had turned heavier and steadier in the outer borough. The scene inside the park, still in view of Parkside and Ocean Avenues, consisted of a giant rinsed salad. There was a steady breeze to give it all rustle and the jade surface of the lake a little ripple. Best of all for me, given my purpose, was no one else in sight. The real advantage of city fishing during inclement weather is the removal of the unwanted wildcard: individuals and crowds who use the park for purposes other than angling. When the lakeside is devoid of children playing, mothers calling, and old duffers drinking, the fish are much less spooked and casting is far less stressful. I don’t have to watch my back for “stick ’em up!” or potentially litigious passersby who could get hooked by a backcast.
I kneeled on a lush hummock, knotted on a size 10 Black Woolly Bugger, which was to be my one and only tenkara code streamer for the day. The pattern’s size and silhouette fit my estimation of what would look best from a fish’s point of view, considering the overcast white sky. A largemouth bass concurred after a few casts. Tiny, yet feisty, my first Brooklyn fish caught on tenkara took its cue from my most recent book; it was a small fry.
That’s one small fry for a tenkara angler. (photo taken 05 15 2012)
The fishing, and catching, continued from that encounter. The prospecting approach had me probing little coves, casting along the edges of cattails, and bending below overhanging branches. Tenkara, specifically the level line, allowed me to achieve these feats of fishing with much more accuracy and gentility than a 5-weight matched with floating fly line could.
Working a Woolly Bugger in the rain. (photo taken 05 15 2012)
There was also much to hear and see on the sidelines. Red-winged blackbirds sounded their rusty gate calls. Mallard ducks mumbled around me. One large swan visited when I paused to tie on a fresh tippet. The bird dipped its head below the waterline as it foraged, and then flashed me a look after it had finished; a look as if to say: “There are some fish down there.” I targeted the edge of some nearby abandoned bluegill beds and was in fact rewarded with a largemouth bass that made an athletic corkscrew leap above the lake.
Prospecting, swan style. (photo taken 05 15 2012)
Brooklyn Largemouth Bass. (photo taken 05 15 2012)
Another highlight I found along the bank was clusters of yellow flag, Iris pseudacorus: the wild iris that Henry David Thoreau admired so well in Walden. The middle of May marks the peak blooming period of this flower in the New York region and, on a day as overcast as this one was, the brilliant petals glowed, containing, it seemed, all of the bright light energy of the sun.
Yellow Flag, Iris pseudacorus. (photo taken 05 15 2012)
Once the rain turned up a notch after the noon hour, the bite declined, eventually ending. Sustained shivers started to shimmy up and down my back. Even the birds silenced. The only sound was the sizzle of the rain impacting on the lake and my mind’s voice encouraging departure. The afternoon was young, but seven fish caught and numerous near misses had given my first tenkara adventure in Brooklyn a solid B . . .
. . . for Bluegill.
(photo taken 05 15 2012)
– rPs 05 15 2012
A Tenkara Fly Code . . .
A tenkara fly code selection, including, row one: Light Cahill, Elk Hair Caddis; Deer Hair and White, Grey Wool and White; Amano Kebari, Royal Coachman; row two: E-Z Pheasant Tail Nymph, Pheasant and Orange; Muddler Minnow, Silver Tinsel Bucktail. (photo taken 04 30 2012)
One of the most influential artificial fly theorists of the last century was Vincent Marinaro. He was born, raised, and fly fished in the same western and central Pennsylvania region where I lived the first forty years of my own life. Limestone spring creeks and their rich insect hatches fascinated him and his approach, which he documented in two major works: A Modern Dry Fly Code (1950) and In the Ring of the Rise (1976).
Marinaro’s theory of the fly as related in his Code centered on two premises: the first was that small patterns were more effective; the second was the wing was the thing, the part of the fly that really mattered given the upward perspective of a feeding trout. What has risen from his opinion, as well as those of Halford and Skues, Flick and Meck, and a long line of others, is a cornucopia of patterns that imitate a world of fish food items that live somewhere within the water column and the calendar year.
Tenkara has come in recent years to the forward perspective of some western anglers, carrying with it a more simplified overall approach. This philosophy applies as well to the fly pattern. Imitation in the tenkara code goes only as far as tying a fly that matches the general silhouette of “insect” or, even more generically, “forage’ . . . The rest of the game is the fishing process, placing and manipulating a pattern to provide it life-giving allure. Thus, it is not surprising to find a tenkara angler who carries just one pattern in the box. Different sizes of the fly, perhaps or for sure, but still only one pattern.
I have contemplated the western match-the-hatch tradition and the tenkara one-fly philosophy and have settled on my personal compromise: A Tenkara Fly Code.
The basics are simple: a fly pattern that imitates an insect can be large or small, floating or sinking, light or dark. That stated, my fly box will hold eight (8) flies to imitate insects plus an additional two (2), a large and a small streamer, to imitate minnows and crayfish. Here is the breakdown:
2 light floating (one large, size 12; one small, size 16)
2 light sinking (one large, size 12; one small, size 16)
2 dark floating (one large, size 12; one small, size 16)
2 dark sinking (one large, size 12; one small, size 16)
2 streamers (one large, size 8; one small, size 12)
This approach assembles a manageable assortment of ten (10) flies total, which can be realized in a single large and small example of five basic patterns, or ten separate patterns, each individual fitting into one of the ten specific slots in the size department. This second approach offers a little more variety, thus flexibility, especially in the streamer category, which has a wider range of organisms to cover. A trip to a freestone stream could include a large Muddler Minnow to imitate sculpin and crayfish; a small tinsel bucktail to imitate shiners and other silvery minnows. A trip to a pond might require a Black Woolly Bugger to represent a leech; a Gray Ghost to simulate a smelt.
That’s a whip finish for me, for now. The fun part, applied fly pattern theory practiced along a stream or around a pond, comes next.
– rPs 04 30 2012
ron P. swegman is an angler, artist, and author whose writing focuses on those times and places when and where nature and the city intersect.
Tenkara Takes Manhattan 