Interestingly, I’ve had several inquires about the Wet/Dry Fly, so I’ve put up a page showing the fly and discussing the tying. This is one of my “go-to” flies during heavy hatches when the fish are focusing on emergers and cripples. It’s extremely simple, but also extremely effective. Have a look.

Nancy and Jason and I started teaching fly fishing schools at the Vermejo Ranch in 1975. The next year, Bob Pelzl, from Albuquerque joined us. And then in 1977, Dick Blumershine and Jim Aubrey came on board. It was a great crew, and for 25 years we held forth at Vermejo, teaching both advanced and introductory schools. All of us got to be great friends, and of course we spent time together as couples. Dick’s wife Bert, like Nancy and Bob’s wife, Beverly, is a fly fisher and enjoyed many hours astream with Dick and the rest of us. Sadly, my long-time friend and excellent casting instructor, Dick, passed away Tuesday morning. I had seen him at the Denver Show, and he was hale and hearty. We had a great chat, even calling Nancy on the cell to chat with her a bit. Though he is gone, we have many fun memories to recall our happy times together. Good-bye, old friend.

Dick Blumershine casting on the Costilla Reservoir at the Vermejo Ranch during a school many years ago. The fishing was great that day, too.

Of all the  line pickups (did you catch that) (yes, puns intended) the “C” Pickup is perhaps my most favorite. It allows the angler to clean the line smoothly off the surface and dry a fly if needed, without the need for  a false cast.

Here’s a description of the “C” Pickup from our forthcoming book, Fishing the Film.

Lift the rod up to about 45 degrees above the horizontal and then very quickly flip the tip around in a half circle (the “C”) and immediately into a back cast. Start the tip movement at the top of the “C,” and at the bottom of the “C” lift the rod into the back cast. The “C” will rip down the line to the tip and pop the fly cleanly out of the water. One can make the “C” in either direction, to the left (a normal “C”) or to the right (a backward “C”). This is actually so efficient that I basically use it every time I cast, regardless of the tactic or fly being used. It’s superb when fishing up, across, or down.

Now for some qualifications. Not too many, but, one can make the “C” very large, very small, or very in-between. One can make the “C” very fast or very slow. At the end of the “C,” the line is lifted into a normal Back Cast. The “C” Pickup is certainly not new to fly fishing. Skues wrote about it in “Nymph Fishing for Chalk Stream Trout,” noting:

You move your rod-top briskly out to the right and then up and round in a rapid forward curve to the left. This picks the heaviest part of the line and, bellying it in a long single curve, lifts it into the air, leaving but the gut on the water, whence it should be picked off for the back cast before any part of the line has time to fall back to the water. This puts the minimum of strain on the rod, and in the forward cast, the nymph and the fine end of the gut are delivered with the least possible amount of drying, to the fish.

This is certainly a “C” Pickup, but Skues made it from bottom to top rather than from top to bottom. I make it top to bottom so that the rod is in a lower position at the end of the “C,” hence providing more room to lift the rod into a Back Cast.

Now note the following, his rapid movement with a soft cane rod would be considered slow with today’s graphite sticks. So, making a big, slow movement makes a big, slow “C” that can pickup a nymph without drying it. A real fast, small “C” will pop all the water right out of a dry fly; this makes a very good way to pick up a dry fly and recast without having to false cast to dry the fly. Practice large and slow, large and fast, small and slow, small and fast, “C’s,”and everything in between. This one is worth knowing.

The "C" Pickup. The solid line with arrow-heads represents the movement of the rod tip. The tip makes a "C" and then immediately goes into a standard back-cast

I received the following email from Marcelo Malventano with a link that shows the tying of his Palmer Stone. I pass it on to all those who want to see the steps in tying a realsitic fishing fly.

iT´S A PLEASURE FOR ME THAT I´LL PUBLISH AN ARTICLE ABOUT STONE PALMER IN FLYANGLERS  WEB PAGE: (www.flyanglersonline.com).
IT´S A REALISTIC FLY CREATED IN PATAGONIA. THERE YOU CAN ENJOY THE STEP BY STEP TO DO IT AND I EXPLAIN WHERE IT ÍS FROM I WISH YOU ENJOY IT!!

There are realistic flies and then there are realistic flies. Marcelo Malventano makes the realistic, realistic version. You need to see these flies! Go his site La esencia del Atado for a real eye opening experience.

A rather realistic stonefly, wouldn't you say? Tied by Marcelo Malventano

How does one know when a leader needs to be changed. In the lion pack, it’s when the old boy can no longer defend himself. In humans it’s usually when the company is failing or the party in power changes. But in fly fishing, it’s when the mono looses it elasticity. Mono has a bit of elasticity—the anount depends upon the stiffness of the material. Stiffer mono has less elasticity than very soft monos.

To begin the angling day, most fly fishers straighten the leader. Being a plastic, the mono “remembers” that it was wound on the reel, and so remains coiled when it’s pulled off the reel. Straighten the leader by stretching it and holding it in a stretched position for several seconds so that the plastic “remembers” that it’s supposed to be straight. If it won’t straighten by stretching, it has lost its elasticity and needs to be replaced.

Tying the Nailess Nail Knot every time one needs or wants to change a leader is a real pain in the back side. In addition it requires that the line be trimmed back an inch or two with each change, This is good for line manufacturers because one would need to buy new lines on a weekly basis. It’s not good for our fishing however, because retying the knot so often chews up valuable fishing time, and buying so many lines means we have nothing left to buy gas to go on our fishing trips. Perhaps it’s all just a plot by an elitist group of fly fishers to keep people away from the the streams. Or perhaps not!

Line manufacturers have responded to this need by adding loops at the end of their lines, so the angler may simply loop leaders on and off as necessary. The scheme is not without merit, but the line loop adds extra weight right at the line tip, causing the line to kick over more abruptly. This might be OK when fishing a riffle or rapids, when deep nymphing, or heaving one of the long flies, but it less than ideal when fishing delicate imitations to spooky trout. Furthermore, the loop can and does hang up in the guides (especially snake guides) at the most awkward of moments—like landing the biggest fish of a lifetime.

The answer in the past, and the answer now, is the connector system. The connector is just a piece of leader butt about 12 to 15 inches long permanently attached to the end of the fly line with a Needle Knot and having a perfection look at the other end. For “standard”-sized trout rods (4-6) I use a piece of .020″ brown Maxima Chameleon (MC). For the little boys (3 and under) I use .018″ MC, and for the bigger boys (7-9) I use .022″ MC. For the biggest boys (10-12), I use .024″ MC.

The connector provides a very smooth transition that won’t hang up in the guides and allows swift changing of leaders. The perfection loop at the terminal end of the connector and the butt end of the leader should be about 5/8 inches long (about the width of your thumbnail). Too long and they separate and don’t make a solid connection. Too short and they won’t lock together correctly.

Here’s the way to tie the perfection loop—straight out of my book Presentation. (Illustrations by Jason Borger).

(Left) The first step of the Perfection Loop is very important: Be sure that the short end goes behind the long end. (Right) The Perfection Loop: The second loop is pulled through the first loop. The size of the final loop can be adjusted by carefully pushing the loop back into the knot and gently pulling the short and long ends of the mono to draw the excess material out of the knot.

The adult caddis hold its wings tent-like over its back. Imitations of the adult mimic this distinctive feature. Art by Jason Borger

At the Edmonton Seminar that I conducted with Mike Lawson, I was asked several questions about tying the adult caddis imitations that I use. I tied the Poly Caddis, but there was not time to tie the Devil Bug. This is a modification of the Tom Thumb fly of Canada. The modification comes in the way the body is formed that adds extra flotation. In addition, I trim the head a bit shorter than that on the Tom Thumb so the fly always rides correctly on the water as I skate it. In addition, I use it for a diving caddis. The head is the correct size to allow the fly to dive and suck an air bubble with it. So, here it is, straight out of my book, Designing Trout Flies. (Art by Jason Borger.)

This is an excerpt from Chapter Seven of our forthcoming book, Reading Waters. Chapter Seven is entitled “Reading Rapids.” The excerpt below is about one of the least understood aspects of reading rapids, “The Secret River.” This is just a very small sampling of the mass of information that we have built into the book.

Rapids are tough places to put a fly down and expect it to float with any sort of decent dead drift. But there are some tricks to it. First comes reading waters, then comes the fishing. In all rapids, there is a secret river. It may be quite narrow, and then again it may be fairly wide. It’s the easy water, the place one can toss a fly without much need to do more than use a Harvey-Style leader to get a good float. During the Salmon Fly hatch, the fishing can be fast and furious in the secret river, and it’s the first place I hit. It’s the water right against the bank. You know, that stuff you wade through to get out there in the real river. But think about it for a moment. Where’s the best place for Mr. or Mrs. Energy Conservation to park himself/herself and get food in the easiest fashion? That’s right. In the slow water next to shore where the stoneflies are hanging on every bush like overly ripe fruit, ready to drop to the surface at the blast of a vagrant wind roaring up the canyon (and believe me there are plenty of them).

So, lesson number one in reading rapids is very simple—find the secret river on either side of the rapids, and fish the liver out of it. Some of it will be deep, some of it will be shallow, so expect to find a mixture of Prime Lies and Feeding Lies. Some of it may have undercut banks, sometimes there are great boulders blocking your wading; too deep on the outside to go around and to tall to clamber over. One has to haul out and walk around. But when you do, watch it! The hydraulic cushion right in front of that boulder may be holding a boulder-sized brown waiting for a chance to have some stonefly cutlets for lunch. Don’t race through the secret river.

Jason and I had gone to fish this stretch between Hebgen and Quake lake during the Salmon Fly emergence and egg-lying period. The bugs were there, and we were confident that we’d find the fish. There are a couple of places that one can cross from the dirt track that borders the west side, if you know exactly where they are, and if one is a bold wader. Being with another person is a good idea. We linked arms and marched across like we knew exactly where we were going—which we did. On the other side, Jason went down to fish back up, and I went up to fish even further up.

I hopped into the secret river, and almost immediately began taking fish. They were in tight, most places, because the secret river, that in-shore strip of water that offers food and slow currents, is narrow in much of this section. I knew that, and fished the fly up with a Puddle Mend, sometimes literally a few inches from the shoreline. Fish would occasionally come out of the deeper water, a foot or two out, and pick off the imitation in a few inches of water only a few inches from shore. It was one of those days that sticks in the memory banks for a lifetime.

As I fished up, a couple of other anglers showed up and watched me land one, cast and hook another. They dove in the river and waded out as far as possible and cast as far a possible. I don’t have to tell you the total number of fish they caught. I just kept picking them off, and that only got the other guys pounding harder. But fishing fishless water is never successful, no matter how hard one applies every trick in the book. I felt bad for them, but there wasn’t really anything I could do at that point in time, except catch more fish, so I did.

This photo of New Zealand's Hunter River clearly shows the "Secret River."

I literally just completed the first draft of our second book in the “Fly Fishing” series, entitled “Reading Waters.” Like the first book, “Fishing the Film,” it is loaded with practical information illustrated with stories from our angling lives. Now, Mr. Senior Editor gets to have his way with it–right Jason? Here are the chapter titles. Watch for more info on this book and others in the series.

CH-1 Reading Waters
CH-2 Living in the Lie
CH-3 The Song of the Little Stream
CH-4 Dances with Riffles
CH-5 Pool Parts
CH-6 Fishing Pools
CH-7 Reading rapids
CH-8 Studying Runs and Flats, Sloughs and Backwaters
CH-9 Big Rivers
CH-10 Lakes and Ocean Flats
CH-11 Seeing and Hooking Fish
CH-12 Fighting and Landing Fish