Angler Wannabe

I saw Mel Krieger at a Virginia fly fishing festival a few years back. He was giving a clinic on casting. I was blown away by how natural he made the activity of waving a stick in the air look. I bought a DVD of his a day after the festival. I still go back to it whenever I feel my casting motion straying.

Mel passed away last week from cancer. My thoughts are with his family . The fly fishing community has lost a great teacher. I’m glad he made videos and DVDs to pass on to future generations.

Filed under: Uncategorized on October 13th, 2008 | No Comments »

So, I’m off on another adventure. I’m moving back to Austin after being gone almost 20 years. I’m definitely ready to get as far away from still brown water which I’ve lived with for 2 years in Houston. There are some beautiful streams in the Austin Hill Country and the only Texas trout stream is less than an hour and a half away. I’m pretty excited about that!

Hopefully the posts will pick up as I start exploring the area.

Filed under: Misc on August 16th, 2008 | No Comments »

Well, as you can tell, posting slowed way down recently. I’m sorry to say that due to my current employment (or unemployment) status, it won’t be picking up any time soon.

Filed under: Uncategorized on July 21st, 2008 | No Comments »

I have a couple of interesting posts stored in my head that I haven’t been able to write up yet. One is a trip to the Truckee River in CA that I did last week and the other is about an absolutely beautifully made movie about the historic Hardy brand called “The Lost World of Mr Hardy“. I want to do it justice and spend some time on the review.

In the meantime, I asked Andy Heathcote, one of the filmmakers, a few questions:

How often do you fish? Where? Do you own any Hardy equipment now?

I used to fly fish all the time as a teenager, mostly for trout. I bought my 1st motorbike and then a car just so that I could go fishing more but after leaving Scotland I couldn’t fish so much. It’s picking it up again in the past few years but fishing in the South of England is very different from the Scottish lochs where I grew up. I’ve got much less time too but have recently discovered fly fishing for sea bass at a local beauty spot under the white chalk cliffs of the English Channel. It has been a real revelation. When the bass arrive next month I’ll be there a couple of nights a week through till autumn, when they’ll head off to look for deeper water.

Heike came round to fishing after trips to the Yorkshire chalkstreams of Northern England and the lochs of the Outer Herbridean Islands off the Atlantic coast of Scotland. She really loves to sight fish and also wants to learn to Spey cast this summer. When she took up fishing I looked for a spare rod for myself (as she kept borrowing mine) and I thought about trying bamboo as I always wanted one as a boy. I bought a second hand 1952 bamboo Hardy Perfection but naturally I wouldn’t dream of taking it near salt water. This rod was the inspiration for the film. When I bought it, I realised how much interest there still is in the old bamboo and in Hardy’s. I’ve no Hardy reels yet but do have my eye on several models once we have sold a few more DVDs.

- Where there any moments when you did not feel that all the time and effort you put into the film up to that point would pay off?

We loved filming but editing was the hard part. I’ve made more than 30 films, although none as long as this. In every film there is always a moment when you think, “this film just isn’t going to edit together”. This film had that feeling for months but eventually you see a light at the end of the tunnel and a great edit can suddenly come together in a day or two. It’s strange, story problems can stare you in the face for months but then one solution creates a domino effect and suddenly you see a way to make the whole film work. We went from months of despair to elation in a matter of hours.

- Are you working on any new projects? Or concepts?

We have a four potential new projects in mind, two angling related, one will hopefully expand on the collection of archive angling films we have access too. I love working with archive film, the sense of history and the past coming alive, it gives me a sense of connection. Heike meanwhile is off to Germany for the summer to film a documentary about two best friends, one a collaborator and one a dissident from the Stasi days (the Stasi were the East German secret police in the Cold War communist years). Most of our films do seem to have some history flavour about them, hopefully more will also involve angling and can bring the passion across to a wider public.

- Trufflepig?

Well our name comes from the pigs the French train to dig up truffles. Those truffles can be incredibly valuable and delicious treasures buried deep within the dark of the forests. Those rare little gems are the kind of stories we want to dig up too and then tell them to the world.

Filed under: Fishing Report, Fly fishing film, Uncategorized on May 12th, 2008 | No Comments »

There is some objectionable language in the video so if you are against that type of thing, don’t press play. Otherwise, get down….

Filed under: Uncategorized on April 25th, 2008 | No Comments »

If you are a trout bum and literature fanatic like me, you know who Ernest Schwiebert was (Matching the Hatch, Trout, Nymphs, etc). He died in 2005 but I happened across his estate auction on Ebay this evening. There are some fantastic original artwork items on there and also much of his equipment which is to die for. I’m going to see if I can at least “win” something. Good bidding!

Filed under: Uncategorized on April 24th, 2008 | No Comments »

I’ve been waiting for this film to arrive at my home since I finished my 10th-ish viewing of Trout Bum Diaries Volume II: Kiwi Camo. I’m addicted to the action and adventure that these lucky SOBs experience.

This trip was a bit different than their last. They weren’t the obvious masters of their environment. It made me, Anglerwannabe, a very happy guy. Not that I don’t want them to catch fish that make us all sick, but it’s nice to know that fishing can be hard for everyone. Now, fishing the little pond/lake/puddle across the street from me aint easy so going to a foreign country and relying on people that don’t speak my language to provide transportation and yack hair is darn near unfathomable for me. I don’t think I’ll ever have the opportunity to try something like that.

The DVD had really nice landscape photography they are known for mixed in with close-ups of the catfish-head salmonid called Taimen. It had some typical hungover tent scenes. It had a few fish-on (or beast-on) sequences though noticeably less than previous films. That didn’t distract from my enjoyment though. The AEG boys are really getting good at making these types of flicks. I don’t want to go too much in to detail about it as the trailer for the film does a good job.

Filed under: Fly fishing film on April 21st, 2008 | No Comments »

I’m so excited.When I checked my mail today, I was greeted by a dvd mailer that had an AEG address on the outside. Either they were sending me a thank you package for my music suggestion for their next film (I Hear Sirens) or their third feature film had just arrived. It was the latter, but I’m still thrilled. Of all the DVDs I have, the AEG Media films are my favorites (though the Sporting Fly DVDs are a close second).I’ll post a review later.Woo hoo!

Filed under: Fly fishing film on April 4th, 2008 | No Comments »

I had one hell of a fly fishing day last Monday. I was on a business trip to Salt Lake City. The conference didn’t start until Tuesday so I saw a really nice opportunity to get in some fishing on my old home river. The Provo River is in such a beautiful setting that even if I didn’t catch any fish, I would be thrilled to just be in the midst of the grand snow covered mountains surrounding the Heber Valley.

I wanted to better my chances of catching trout so I hired a guide from Four Seasons Fly Fishers. His name is Craig Costa.

I met him at the store around 9:15am. The sky was clear and the ground was covered in snow. The temperature was in the teens but it didn’t feel that bad. I think the adrenalin warmed me up.

We went to an area outside of Midway to start. We trudged through the snow with pretty high hopes of catching some fish on a 2 fly rig with midge nymph dropper.

We tried a few locations before I finally caught a trout. It wasn’t a big fish, but it was still a cold water trout. Something I miss in Texas quite a bit.

I ended up catching 5 fish including one on accident when I wasn’t looking and a white fish which I had never caught one before. It had one hell of a set of kissers on it. It fought very differently from a trout but it was still fun.

I think I did about as good as anybody could on that could day. We saw a very small midge hatch and no BWO’s which were supposed to have started already.

Regardless, I thoroughly enjoyed the trip and Craig, my guide, was outstanding. He taught me a lot about rigging up the optimal set up for nymphing on the Provo and also on finding where the fish are. He was very easy to talk to. I had a great conversation with him. We even had some stuff in common.

After the fishing subsided, I was off to the AEG Media Fly Fishing Film tour in Salt Lake City. It was great to see the turnout (about 300 people) who were all there with the same interest. Much was said about the Pebble Mine issue in Alaska. I’m absolutely appalled by it and am telling everyone I know to get involved. It’s something that we do have a say in and should do the right thing and not be silent.

Back to the working world and warm water fishing.

Filed under: Fishing Report, trips on March 13th, 2008 | No Comments »

I’m fishing my old short-lived home waters of the Provo River in Heber City Utah tomorrow morning. I have a guide from Four Seasons Fly Fishers for the whole day. It’s going to be unbelievably cold for me like 19 in the morning and it may warm up to 38 in the afternoon. I’m not sure I’m ready for it, but I’m going to give it a shot anyway. I heard the BWO hatch is starting now and there may be some dry fly activity.

After hitting the river, I have to rush back down the mountain to get back in time for the AEG Fly Fishing Film Tour in SLC. You can’t beat that with a bamboo stick.

Filed under: Fishing Report, Trout, trips on March 2nd, 2008 | No Comments »