fishing and other bits of life
A Christmas Gift for You
Here are some lovely prayers I photographed at some churches in England. They express perfect holiday thoughts, and I offer them to you as a Christmas gift.
You still need to go fishing, though. 🙂
Merry Christmas to all…
John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2012. All rights are reserved.
Extraordinary Projects for Ordinary People- Do-It-Yourself Ideas from the People Who Actually Do Them, from Instructables.com. edited by Noah Weinstein, 465 pages, paperback, Skyhorse Publishing, $16.95
Extraordinary Projects for Ordinary People ignited some serious conversations around our dinner table. How does “ordinary” differ from “normal”? A lot of the projects in this book may be for people who are “ordinary” but they would definitely not be for people who are “normal”. Solar Powered Death Rays and Flame-Throwing Jack-o-Lanterns aren’t the kinds of things you find at your Aunt Loretta’s house.
In order to do many of the more than 150 projects in this book you will need a workshop, with table saw, drill press, electronics equipment, etc., and the knowledge to use it all. For example, the directions for the Star Map specifically state:
“Be warned, to build something like this is a big project. You should expect to know:
-basic woodworking skills
-how to handle a soldering iron
-how to design LED-based circuits
-how to deal safely with AC voltages”
If you have the tools and space many of the projects in this book are fantastic. Someone looking for a killer science fair project definitely needs to peruse these pages.
Besides the death-ray, flame-throwing jack-o-lantern, and star maps, some of the other projects that jumped out at me included:
-wood-fired ocean hot tub
-building a bass guitar
-making a hardwood floor from your own trees
-convert your Honda Accord to run on trash
-bacon roses, for those who like eating their projects.
Project categories in the book include Home Improvement, Tech, Rides, Robots, Clocks, Computers, Green, Science, Tools, Food, Furnishing, Crafts, Games, Fun, Sound, and more. The well thought out and written instructions include estimated costs, where to find materials, and links for more information.
My twenty-something year-old sons love this well-organized and illustrated book!
One of the funniest passages I have ever read was in the introduction to building the flame-throwing jack-o-lantern:
“A flame throwing jack-o’-lantern keeps the trick-or-treaters a safe distance from your house and is a fine addition to any anti-Halloween arsenal. At the first sign of any sugar-obsessed imp, simply press the trigger button and wirelessly shoot a one-second burst of flames out of the jack-o’-lantern’s mouth. This plume of hellfire will make even the most bold of people think twice about approaching your door. Very few people are willing to risk life and limb for the chance of a tiny box of milk duds.”
If you know someone who has a shop and loves to tinker, this book will make a superior Christmas gift, providing hours of entertainment for a long, long time.
This reader gives Extraordinary Projects two big, fat thumbs up.
John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2012. All rights are reserved.
A good book ought to make you think. A really good book ought to make you think hard.
If making you think was its only positive feature, Anything Worth Doing: A True Story of Adventure, Friendship, and Tragedy on the Last of the West’s Great Rivers (by Jo Deurbrouck, Sundog Book Publishing, 198 pages, $15.00) would have hit the bullseye. But this book goes way past that.
Clancy Reece helped pioneer whitewater recreation in Idaho in the early 1970s. Jon Barker was his protege. Together they have some tremendous adventures, the biggest of which was to successfully float Idaho’s Salmon River from source to sea. They used a small, handmade dory as their vessel. “Anything worth doing is worth overdoing.” It’s their motto.
“Wilderness raft guides of the 70s and 80s were often, like Clancy Reece, lovers of freedom with a healthy distrust of rules. They were less often looking for employment when they stumbled into guiding than a solution to what, for each, had been a lifelong problem: how to fit into or somehow hide out from the increasingly urban, increasingly fast-paced latter 20th century. Many felt like they should have been born into a time with more elbow-room, a time in which a man could build a good life from raw materials and honest sweat…”
So we a pair of have what society might call “river bums,” living life on their own terms, the closest of friends, poor in terms of dollars, wealthy in terms of experience. They cook up a hare-brained scheme- to run the Salmon River at peak flood, all the way across Idaho, in a single 24 hour period. The river, running at 96,000 CFS, finally flips the dory near the end of the trip. Reece, not wearing a wetsuit, succumbs to hypothermia. All stories followed long enough have death at the end.
Deurbrouck writes with an almost-startling clarity. There are times during the read when you will almost find yourself clenching the gunwales. The book almost forces you to turn the next page, a hard to put down once you decide to open it. It ought to be required reading for all whitewater paddlers.
After reading it I found myself contemplating, “What’s the best way to live your life?” “What’s the best way to end it?” There are worse ways to die than with your boots on.
Anything Worth Doing is undoubtedly a true story of adventure and friendship. Whether it’s a tragedy as well is something the reader will have to decide for himself.
John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2012. All rights are reserved.
Guest Blog by David Caprera
The sport has long been called sight fishing but I have only recently come to understand its intentions. I had naively assumed that the term meant you cast to sighted fish with the intent to hook and capture them. But I have come to believe I have been guilty of “overthinking”, that the term means exactly what it says it means, nothing more nor less, and I am actually becoming damn good at it.
Tonight is our last night of our current trip to Florida, the primary purpose of which was to play bridge (some good, some bad), but I was able to spend several mornings kayaking in Mosquito Lagoon. I caught one redflish on fly but saw many.
How many, you ask? Well, enough to consider myself to be a successful sight fisherman. I made some very good sightings. Admittedly, when a three foot long bronze back projects itself out of six inches of water and shines in the morning sun like a brand new penny, I may not be alone in my ability to sight it. But sight it I did. Many times.
This idea of casting near, but not too near, the fish, hooking and landing it is vastly overrated. It totally overlooks the “banging the paddle on the kayak floor trick”, the “fly imbedded in your thumb trick”, or the “the amazing flying crab fly” where one casts the fly well over a mangrove limb and proceeds to lower the fly from overhead to the unsuspecting redfish who when confronted with a crab from the sky has not since been seen in Volusia County. Add to that the usual bad flies, bad casts, bad knots and hooking your hat, and you should begin to understand what I am talking about.
So a sight fisherman I remain.
Dave Caprera is a tax attorney and fly fisherman now splitting his time between New Smyrna Beach and Denver.
We postponed the fishing trip scheduled for yesterday. I went around the entire Mosquito Lagoon during Sunday’s On The Water Show and Tell and did not see a single fish. Thank goodness that’s a pretty rare event.
With the temperature dropping into the 40s, can this action be far off??
Here’s a link to a blog that found me. It’s not about fishing but it is honest. There’s lots of conservation in there, and nice photography- http://pejorativejinx.blogspot.com
I chose today to go vote. It was not a good day to go commando. I froze while waiting in line. I couldn’t believe how many people were there.
The emotional response I had to voting almost overwhelmed me. We are so very, very lucky to live here.
Please take the time to research the candidates and to vote. Democracy works best with an informed, responsible citizenry.
With our suddenly chilly weather, it seems like a good time to re-visit this article on my website- http://www.spottedtail.com/free-fishing-article-flats-fishing-after-a-cold-front/
As always, thanks for reading.
John Kumiski
http:www.spottedtail.com
Copyright © John A. Kumiski 2012. All rights reserved.
Election season rushes towards a roaring crescendo. Both the major parties spend hundreds of millions of dollars, clogging the airwaves and my mailbox, trying to persuade me to vote for their candidates. My Republican friends beg me to vote for Romney. My Democrat friends want me to vote for Obama.
There is no way I will vote for either.
My first experience voting was for George McGovern, when he ran against Richard Nixon. Nixon won. Many of us remember how that ended.
Both major parties have done nothing but piss me off ever since.
The last time I voted for a major party candidate, it was for Bill Clinton’s second term. Then came Monicagate. If he had just said, “Hell yes, we had sex. It was a mistake. I’m sorry. It won’t happen again”, I could have had some respect for the man. But no, he had to be a weasel. I so regretted voting for him.
Then the Democrats tried to Get Mr. Albert Gore elected, the Epitome of Hypocrite himself. That election offered a real great choice. I have voted for fringe parties ever since.
From what I can tell, a politician from either major party has the same scale of interests:
1. Self Interest (selfish, not enlightened)
2. Special Interests
3. The Good of this Country, as it applies to Big Business
4. Other Country’s Business, as it applies to American Big Business
5. Other People’s Business, as it applies to lifestyle choices and other private matters the government has no business being involved in
Six and down- a bunch of other stupid stuff
Way at the bottom of the list are small businesses and non-wealthy individuals, not important at all in the Grand Scheme.
I don’t propose to know exactly what the Founding Fathers had in mind when they wrote the Constitution. I doubt if the present state of the United States government was it, though.
As long as my perception of major party politicians remains unchanged I will be voting fringe.
For a list of alternative political parties, visit this link: http://apatheticvoter.com/PoliticalParties.htm
And those are my views on politics.
Please remember to get out there and vote, regardless of your political views!
John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2012. All rights are reserved.
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Flies for the Mosquito Lagoon and Adjacent Waters
A selection of effective flies for fishing the east central Florida lagoons.
It occurred to me while working on my Goodnews River fly series that one needed to be done for the local Florida waters. This is it!
Which flies work best when fishing the Mosquito Lagoon? What day are we talking about? Accept the fact that the fish have moods. Some days they’ll eat anything. Other days they’ll eat nothing. You need to cover the water column, and you need to think about what your target species eats. For fishing in this lagoon, flies need to have weedguards or they will not work.
Redfish eat crabs, small fish (generally two inches or less) and shrimp. They have an inferior mouth, and prefer to feed down. Seatrout eat small fish, shrimp, and occasionally crabs. They have a superior mouth and prefer to feed up. They will take a much larger baitfish than reds typically do.
A small Merkin will take reds when nothing else will work. Black drum like it, too.
For reds I like flies on #4 and #2 hooks, lightly weighted, and equipped with weedguards. Patterns include Clouser Minnows, my version of Borski’s sliders, Merkins, bunny leeches, and similar types of flies. I always have some unweighted bendbacks (same sizes) for when the plop of a weighted fly landing spooks them.
Sliders work on many different species. This one uses synthetic “hackle”, but an actual hackle feather works well, too. Note the obvious two-pronged weed guard.
For seatrout I like minnow-type flies, similar to the popular Puglisi patterns, in sizes 2, 1, and 1/0. Small gurglers, poppers, or sliders are also good to carry. There’s quite a bit of crossover between the two species in terms of what flies they’ll take.
Big trout eat smaller fish. This one took a bendback. A minnow pattern is a necessity.
Colors are more important to fishermen that fish most of the time. That having been said, my redfish flies are typically black, brown, tan, gray, green, or purple. My trout flies imitate the natural coloration of small fish, or are hot pink and chartreuse.
Lastly, for days when blind casting is needed, I like the Dupre Spoonfly and the Rattle Rouser in addition to a few popping bugs.
If you carry a selection of the types of flies mentioned you’ll be ready for almost any situation you’re likely to encounter here.
Please feel free to comment and let all of us know what your favorites are. You might even consider writing a guest blog about it!
John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2012. All rights are reserved.
This silver salmon took a marabou streamer.
Within a certain set of parameters, silver salmon will eat ANYTHING.
OK, that requires a little explanation. Within any group of silvers (and probably any other species of fish) there is a range of aggressiveness. For example, if you find a school of 100 silvers, 10 will eat almost anything you throw at them (Please keep in mind I am making these numbers up, based on six seasons of observations. It could be more, or less.). Another five or so might eat if you show them your best fly, perfectly presented. The rest won’t eat anything, regardless of what you try. You need to find another group of fish once the bite stops. Yes, they are still there, but no, they won’t eat any more.
Most fly fishers love a surface bite. If you want to catch them on top you need to try a surface fly as soon as you find some fish. Get the aggressive ones before they all wise up!
Some folks like clipped deerhair flies, some like poppers. I think that for ease of tying combined with ease of casting you can’t beat a craft foam gurgler. Tie it on a #2 Mustad 36890 salmon fly hook or equivalent in pink or orange, with a cerise marabou tail and a cerise Estaz body. It’s a five minute tie that’s good for 15 or 20 fish before it’s torn apart.
A flock of salmon gurglers awaiting use.
The fish will eventually refuse to rise. Switch to a streamer.
My favorite is what I call the silver salmon Clouser Minnow. Tie it on the same hook as above, or on a Mustad 3407. Use a 1/30th ounce lead eye. Use wig hair (or bucktail) for the wing, and tie in a Puff-like head around the lead eyes with Estaz. Effective colors include cerise, hot pink, orange, purple, blue, black, chartreuse, and various combinations of these colors.
Silver salmon Clouser Minnows- effective and easy to tie.
Yes, the salmon will take a fly tied with synthetics.
The short list includes one more pattern, the marabou (or bunny strip) tail fly. Same hooks, same lead eye. Tie in a tail of marabou (or bunny strip) in one of the above mentioned colors. Tie in a piece of Estaz and wrap it around the shank to the lead eye. If you want to get fancy, add sili-legs. Again, it’s a five minute tie that will catch a lot of fish before they tear it apart.
When getting a bite gets more difficult, sili-legs often do the trick.
Of course, the cerise bunny leech that was described in the blog about king salmon flies is always in good taste, too.
You could go crazy tying articulated flies that take 30 or 40 minutes each. These fish ain’t that fussy. The above flies will cover almost every situation you find yourself in when fishing for silvers. Try this short list of Flies for Goodnews River Silver Salmon when fishing for silver salmon anywhere.
John Kumiski
http://www.spottedtail.com
All content in this blog, including writing and photos, copyright John Kumiski 2012. All rights are reserved.
TO: Outdoor Writers and Columnists
FR: Izaak Walton League of America, National Wildlife Federation, Trout Unlimited
DATE: June 13, 2012
RE: U.S. Congress Aims at Clean Water Act and Pulls Both Barrels
Over the past 2 weeks, both chambers of Congress have taken aim at the Clean Water Act with a flurry of amendments that undermine hunting, angling and outdoor recreation traditions along with the economic activity driven by these sports. Sportsmen and women across the country depend on clean streams and healthy wetland habitat, and it is important that they and all Americans understand what’s taking place – and what’s at stake.
Congress Launches Blistering Attacks
Since just the beginning of June, the Clean Water Act has been attacked on numerous fronts:
Senator Paul’s amendment would gut the Act’s wetland conservation objectives. It would limit the law only to waters that are navigable by boat or are permanent or continuously flowing and connected to navigable waters. The amendment specifically excludes certain waters from coverage, including “wetlands without a continuous surface connection to bodies of water” that are covered.
The implications of Senator Paul’s amendment are sweeping. Under this language, wetlands separated from a navigable river by the bank of that river would not be protected because they do not have a “continuous surface connection” to the river. Millions of acres of wetlands provide shallow sub-surface or periodic surface flows to navigable rivers and lakes. These wetlands are crucial to the health of navigable waters, yet could lose Clean Water Act protections if this amendment became law. Prairie pothole wetlands, the breeding grounds for at least 50 percent of all waterfowl in North America, would almost certainly be excluded because they are not navigable by boat, permanent or continuously flowing, or because they lack a “continuous surface connection” to navigable waters. If this amendment became law, wetland conservation as we’ve known it for 40 years would be swept away.
Wetland Gains Reversed
The erosion of clean water protections under the Supreme Court’s SWANCC and Rapanos decisions and the previous administration’s guidance are taking a toll on wetlands. The most recent report (“Status and Trends of Wetlands in the Conterminous United States 2004 to 2009,”www.fws.gov/wetlands/statusandtrends2009) from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) demonstrates that the national trend toward reduced wetland losses – and even small gains in wetland conservation in the early part of the past decade – have been reversed. Between 2004 and 2009, FWS found net wetland acres dropped by 62,300 nationwide, which is a 140-percent increase in the rate of wetland loss compared with the 1998-2004 time frame. FWS also reports that forested wetlands declined by 633,000 acres, representing the “largest losses since the 1974 to 1985 time period.” The full extent of the country’s natural wetland loss is masked by growth of man-made retention and other ponds that are of more limited value for fish and wildlife, which FWS found increased by some 336,000 acres.
Outdoor Recreation Economy at Risk
Clean water and healthy wetlands support the nation’s outdoor recreation economy. Consider the following:
These activities and the economic growth they support at the local, regional, and national levels all depend on healthy waters and wetlands to produce quality outdoor experiences. Clean streams and abundant wetlands are essential for fish and wildlife and the hunting, angling, and outdoor traditions tens of millions of Americans enjoy every year. These traditions and the economic activity they create are in real jeopardy today.
The current range of attacks by Congress on the Clean Water Act is unprecedented in recent memory. Members on both sides of the aisle in both chambers are lining up to take their shots. Not one, but a growing number of threats are rapidly converging on the water resources and fish and wildlife that matter most to sportsmen. We hope you can highlight this issue for your readers.
If you have questions, please feel free to contact us.
Scott Kovarovics, Izaak Walton League, (301) 548-0150 ext. 223, skovarovics@iwla.org
Jan Goldman-Carter, National Wildlife Federation, (202) 797-6894, goldmancarterj@nwf.org
Steve Moyer, Trout Unlimited, (703) 284-9406, smoyer@tu.org
Jaclyn McDougal – Regional Communications Manager – Southeast
Phone: 678-436-5072 | Cell: 404-683-8934 | Fax: 404-892-1744 | mcdougalj@nwf.org
730 Peachtree Street NE, Suite 1000
Atlanta, GA 30308-1241
www.nwf.org
NWF is America’s largest conservation organization, celebrating 75 years of inspiring Americans to protect wildlife for our children’s future
Knowing Bass- The Scientific Approach to Catching More Fish by Keith Jones, Ph.D.; hardcover, 298 pages, Lyons Press, 2002 (released as a paperback in 2005).
Knowing Bass has been sitting on my bookshelf for years. Desperation for something to read made me finally crack it. I was a moron to not read it sooner. This book is wonderful.
Dr. Jones, whose research brought you Power Bait and Gulp, studies fish with religious zealotry. Every page explodes with his passion for the subject. If you have any background in the sciences and you have any interest in fish and fishing, you will find this book lively and readable, hard to put down, even.
Disclaimer- If you have a science phobia you’ll hate it.
Bass are pretty far down the list of my interests in fishing. In spite of that this book fascinated me. For example, I always knew fish were capable of learning. It never occurred to me that anyone had measured the speed at which different species learn. According to the study cited in the book, largemouth bass are pretty dumb compared to striped bass and carp.
Dr. Jones goes into great detail about the sensory system of the bass and how the fish uses that system to find food and avoid danger. Adult bass are hard-wired to prefer minnow prey of three to four inches long- darker on the back, lighter on the bottom. They can learn to prefer other things and are always opportunistic, but they come “out-of-the-box” with a preference for small fish.
In spite of the fact they are primarily sight feeders, bass have smells and tastes they like a great deal, and others they dislike tremendously. They can detect minute vibrations in the water. Some attract them, other scare them badly.
Anyone who fishes much knows the water temperature is very important to whatever species you’re targeting. The pH of the water, something most fishermen never even consider, is almost as important as the temperature to a bass.
Do fish feel pain? I’ve written a blog about my feelings on this. Dr. Jones pretty much validates everything I had to say about the topic and then some.
The book goes on in this same vein. It is very thorough.
This book is not an instructional tome on how to fish for bass. Beginning fishermen (or those with science phobias) may not get much out of it. It won’t tell you which lures to use in what circumstances. If that’s what you want, look elsewhere. There are plenty of instructional bass fishing books.
But, if you want to understand how the environment affects the individual fish, if you want to better understand how the fish responds to various stimuli, if you want to get a better feel for what the fish might be doing in any given situation, then this is a great book. Regardless of what kind of fish are your favorites, the book offers great insights into how they work. It’s going into my reference library- I’m sure I’ll be reading it again.
John Kumiski
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