An introduction to the casual vacation shore fly fisher: Part 3, flies. Well, streamers, mostly.

Yes, there's weird shit in there. Never used 'em. A weeks
worth of snook fishing was done with the simple Clouser.

So, you've got a clue as to what to take on your trip, how about what to throw on your trip? Guess what. Its even easier to get bit straight. Frankly, I could make due with one pattern and feel well armed, although generally speaking my hired gun tends to suggest two patterns for subsurface, and everyone loves top water, so let's make it a total of three.

I know, I know, you look at books that have page after page of really awesome looking flies, but when it comes down to it, sometimes you just make shit needlessly complex for yourself. This is something that I continually rail against, even if I often skip my own advise. Rather than getting lost in the mess, just keep it simple and concentrate on a few simple patterns that work. Simple, effective streamers. Sure, sure, some times you'll want shrimp, crabs, or who the fuck cares what else. That's your problem to figure out. I'm just dealing with simple shit, and all fish eat baitfish.

So, three simple patterns. Beyond that, fuck it, you're just gonna vary size and colour. And weird shit you saw on the Innernets that you really, really want to try. That's cool. What the fuck, we're fly fishers and possibly tiers and dumb shit's what we do, just ask our spouses/children/non-fishing cohorts/stoner-kid-who-witnesses-us-flailing-at-surf-at-3am.

Anyways, three simple patterns, right? Right!

The Eurythmics: Whatever ever happened to the dude from that act?

HARRY FISHER, THE MORNING CALL / 8/28/11

...And so ends another hurricane, with only a little bit of trailing rain and wind left to swing through, but the worst is over.

Y'know, I expected much, much worse. I lose power in my house constantly, as we're a little part of Bedlam who's underground wiring was evidently completed with left over speakerwire from Radioshack. Imagine my surprise when I woke up in the morning to...power!

All that, and nothing ripped off my house. Even my shitty gutters stayed up!

No feeshing today, of course. Not that I expected shit, why should this weekend be any different than any other fucking day this summer?

All the local creeks are blown out, as suspected. Monocacy flooded the piss out of the Historic District again, should've pulled Johnson Dam out like TU's been riding you assholes to do.. pfft! I was also counting on massive rainfall to blow out the step dam in Illick's Mill, but with a mere 2000CFS at crest, it probably won't smash it out like Ivan or Bob or Mufasa or whatever the fuck that last big one was.

At least I can throw out the multiple old soda two liter bottles filled with water and frozen, now. In hindsight, it seems silly except, again, I always loose power. I needed ice, dig? What the fuck, did PPL actually fix this shit, finally? Fuck, I'm bored and my kids are monsters.

Today would be a good day to fly my kite. Yes, I'm aware of how fucking lame that sounds, but seriously, its fun. Fuck you.

Oh, and the lame saltwater posts will resume shortly. Like anyone cares. Hell, I don't even care.

An introduction to the casual vacation shore fly fisher: Part 2, stupid exercises in tackle excess.

Many failures, some successes.

I remember the year after I picked up spin fishing the surf, I decided I'd pick up a fly rod and give it a go. Shit, I was practically swimming in croaker, and the thought of blues or stripers was pretty intense. Furthermore, I'd chartered a guide for a four hour jaunt into the back bays of Cape May, and I wanted to go with my own gear.


So, I went to our local Cabela's, walked into the Fly Cave, or whatever the fuck its called, and said, "I'm gonna fly fish for stripers on the Jersey Shore."


They handed me a 10wt Cabela's branded broomstick called an XST and their big shiny XSS reel to go with. WTF did I know about this, all I knew is it was all on sale  and seemed like a no brainer. They also sold me on a mighty costly intermediate sinking striper taper line and out the door I went.


This was about as far from the moderate action 4wt and WFF lines I'd been used to. In fact, I had no fucking clue what I was doing. A good friend and awesome caster came down and helped me out a bit, and with practice I was able to consistently hit about 60'.


I went out, proud and prepared to do battle with the mighty striped bass of late August.


Those of you with my then-level of experience don't realize why everyone else is laughing at us.

Hi Honey, I'm home...An introduction to the casual vacation shore fly fisher.

Its cliche, so what? Fuck off.

Well, the yearly family vacation to the great wilds of South New Jersey has come and gone, again. Its a nice time, every year we rent some dude's house in Ocean City and relax for a week. The kids have grown up with it, and enjoy it, and I've begun to make an attempt to fish it every year.

Not very successfully, mind you, but whatever. Its the thought that counts or some sort of bullshit, right?

A few years back, right when I started to fly fish, I was sitting on the beach thinking about how fucking boring it is to sit on a beach and looking at the crashing surf. I decided next year, I'd buy one of those massive spinning rods and fish the family vacation away. It was mildly successful, if you're into little fish. I was awash in croaker like you couldn't believe and all I could think of was, "man, I bet these'd be a blast on a fly rod."

And that was the start of my surf fly fishing adventure.

Goddamned tricos.

Who cares if its pretty, I'm tired.

There are few things that make me get up at the asscrack of dawn, and one of them is tricos, the tricorythodes genus of mayfly. For what its worth, they're so annoyingly stupid, they only get me to do it about once or twice a year.

Oh, sure, its a big deal hatch 'round here, coz we got the blighted little fucks in spades. Shit, the Little Lehigh is well known for its big spinner falls of the things, and I am a big fan of ultralight rods and dry fly action, so you'd think that being able to have a legit use for a 1wt rod in the form of tossing size stupid fucking stupid (26?! Fuck. You!) flies to happily feeding trouts up top would be like a wet dream for me.

You're wrong. I loathe it. I don't know why, probably because it means I'm supposed to be up on stream at 7am and shit.

However, I'm willing to acknowledge its The Thing To Do in the Lehigh Valley, so, well, I do it. Once. Maybe twice. OK, definatly twice, but highly doubtful as to do it three times.

Gifts that aren't payola, The Summer of Shit becomes the Fall of For Fuck's Sake, and the Further Adventures of a Medalist Junky (ie, actual fishin' crap!)

See that video o'er there? That's the first thing I ever got for this nonsense I've been writing.

Well, sort of. It wasn't like in the payola sense (I'm looking your way, Thinkfish!), but, needless to say, it was sent to me and in a turn-about-is-fairplay way, I feel compelled to tell you about it.

You know, PAFlyFish.com does that spring get together, and this year, while observing the greybeards under the pavillion, I was next to a well bearded young lad. And he and I were talking, and it turns out he reads this nonsense, and went on to talk about Minor Threat (IIRC) because I made a random post about Ian Mackaye, and we started talking music. So, this gentle mannered, well bearded lad, he sez to me, "I'm in a band, if you want I'll send you some CDs" and I just sort of figured he was being nice, so I said, yeah and... that was that. He gets my address and then one day in the mail, bam! Free records! Not only that, but free good records! Fuckin' eh, I won't argue with that one bit. Turns out the soft spoken guy with the massive beard and an affection for slow rods and brookie fishing also happens to be the guitarist for a really tight metal hardcore metalcore (is that what the kids call it?) act. So you know what,  I'm gonna turn around and offer up the littlest thing I can, which is web traffic back to Hero Destroyed's FB page and Myspace page, respectively. Now, go buy Throes or the self-titled album. Or both. They'd like that, I bet.

Seriously, though. If you like the metal hardcore metalcore thing, try it out. Would I lie to you? No, the proof is in the damned video up there. Its hard, and incase that lingo no longer applies, that's good, not bad. Kind of like bad was good, or sick was even better than bad, I guess, and now, now the kids say "savvy." Which seems highly stupid when some teenager walks up to and says, "you're the savviest looking dude" (I think he said dude, who the fuck knows?) "I've seen." All because you're wearin' an eyepatch and smoking a pipe. No, seriously. Explain that shit. You can't! Just like you can't explain your sudden desire to listen to more Hero Destroyed. Go ahead, asshole, make with the click.

Now then, shall we continue to actual fishing things?  'Bout time, eh?

(I apologize for shitty photos ahead of time, i wanted to just actually make a post about the topic of note, and not my whining for once, not that I didn't whine like a bitch at the end, anyways.. its what I do)