Casting For Recovery

 

As we have traveled the fly fishing festival circuit over the past couple of years Shirley and I have made the acquaintance of a very nice lady named Lindsay Long.  Lindsay is the Eastern Tennessee Coordinator for the organization, Casting for Recovery. 

CFR is a national non-profit support and educational program for women who have or have had breast cancer.  They provide an opportunity for women whose lives have been profoundly affected by the disease to gather in a beautiful, natural setting and learn fly-fishing, "a sport for life."

During one of the recent shows Lindsay and I got to talking about the possibility of me doing some artwork for their organization and what you see illustrated here is the beginning of that project.

October is National Breast Cancer Awareness Month and I plan to have the piece finished for a meeting that they have scheduled then.  When I post the finished piece, don’t be alarmed by the color.  It’ll be a little more “pinkish” than any rainbow that you’ve ever seen.

Sometimes it all comes together...

Your humble correspondent, plying the waters of the Raven's Fork

This past weekend 55 disabled vets gathered for camaraderie, good times, good food and some unbelievable trout fishing. Joined by professional guides and numerous volunteers, this collection of heroes was the largest in the history of Project Healing Waters.

A special “THANK YOU” goes out to Rivers Edge Outfitters and Joe, Steve and Chris – the proprietors of that fine establishment in Cherokee, North Carolina - for the hospitality they offered us over the weekend. Their beautiful shop was the gathering point and supply center for the weekend and they were the best hosts that one could imagine. Each of them shares a passion in seeing that our vets are rewarded, honored...and put on fish!

The vets split up on Saturday morning and headed for the waters. I say “waters” because the Eastern Band of the Cherokee nation had made all of their waters available to us. Some fished the Oconaluftee, some fished the Raven's Fork (including the Trophy Section) and some fished the fantastic little stream right behind the shop. Every vet was teamed with a volunteer guide and everyone caught fish, including some very nice ones.

I was left to my own devices on this first morning so I teamed up with a few of our wheel-chair bound folks and we headed for “The Island.” In no time at all everyone was onto fish. Beautiful Rainbows and brookies were caught one after the other, including what might just have been the largest fish of the weekend. Nancy was positioned at a promising looking run when her line went tight about the time that the guides starting hooting and hollering those sought after words, “It’s a PIG!"  Her rainbow went every bit of thirty inches.

I headed a bit upstream to try my luck. The water was low and clear, but with the canopy of trees and the early morning sun angle, it was hard to see if any fish were there to greet me. I decided to go with my old standby...the Yellow Wooly, and soon was landing a brookie of 20 inches.

Shirley had bought me a new camera, one of those water and shock proof jobs that you can even use underwater. It had arrived the day before we left and I couldn’t wait to try it out. As the rainbow was catching his breath I fumbled through my vest to find it and by the time I got it out I was afraid to use it. These Smoky Mountain trout give their all in trying to evade capture and I just can’t stand the thought of one going belly up just for the sake of a picture. So I left the camera alone and went to work reviving the trout. I’ll have to quit fishing alone if I’m ever to get some good shots.

The run provided a few more good brooks and a rainbow or two before it was time to load up and head for the shop for lunch. All of us met up to swap fish stories as we enjoyed some delicious grilled burgers and dogs. I pretty much chilled out the rest of the day, watching some vets fish the run behind the shop, as Shirley and Billy Davis’ wife Brenda tried to take some more money from the tribe’s casino. (Their morning adventures there had proven effective, and ignoring my advice to quit while they were ahead...they went back.)

Saturday night we were treated to a banquet and auction at one of the town’s larger community centers. The festivities began with an inspiring presentation of the colors done by the local VFW, followed by the Pledge of Allegiance led by a group of young Cherokee children who followed that by singing the National Anthem in their native language. We had a Cherokee Indian story teller who entertained us with a bit of their history, including some very interesting stories about their ancient ways and legends.

The evening’s meal was provided by Lawrence Krump – an amputee that I had previously fished with on the upper French Broad. I had no idea that he was a barbeque master, widely known for some of the best BBQ in western North Carolina. Lawrence’s reputation is well deserved. The raffle, the silent auction and its live version went well, with a good number of our guest opening their wallets in support of the cause.

Sunday found me on the trophy Section of the Raven’s Fork...on the same section that I had “judged” in last years Rumble in the Rhododendron. At that time I of course couldn’t fish, I just got to watch. Sunday was to be different. The stretch of water was gorgeous... perfectly suited to my preferred style of fishing. A long run with varying depths and structure, well shaded with just a bit of a ripple on it. Absolutely perfect for swinging wets and streamers.

What to use...what to use? Well, a Nub Worm of course! I tied on one with a green chenille body wrapped with black hackle trailing an orange tail. The upper end of the run gave me no action, but as I approached an overhanging Chestnut tree my hopes rose as I saw a small dimple up against the far bank.

My first cast brought a strike. The fish had grabbed just the tail, managing to avoid the hook’s barb. After a two minute wait, on the second cast he found it. I still hadn’t seen him but there was no doubt that he was big, and when he went into the backing on his first run there was no doubting it. Well into twenty inches, when he came within eyesight I saw a beautiful rainbow, and after a few more runs I held in my hands a wonder of Creation. A swimming silver bullet of muscle and guile.

The weekend was as perfect as one could be.

Big Sugar Creek

When talking to my buddy Jerry the other day, he directed me to his local (Rogers. AR) paper and a story they ran about one of our favorite streams from days gone by. Big Sugar Creek.

I’m not sure how we came to know of this beautiful little stream located in southwest Missouri, but for a number of years his family and mine spent many days enjoying its beauty and its fishing, and thanks to Jerry, the reading of the article filled my day with memories of the times we spent there.

A few years ago I learned that it had become a state park, and while that designation surely was deserved, I just know that a “someday” repeat of those quite days will not be possible due to the crowds that must be there now. In all of the times that Jerry and I fished it, I cannot recall ever seeing another angler. Sure, the creek had its share of picnickers on pretty days, and of course it had its share of canoeists when the water level was high enough, but the average weekend was just about as empty as the picture above. (And speaking of that picture...back in the day there were no digital cameras, so I could dig out no shots from the archives to show you. This one was copied from the article that Jerry directed me to.)

The guy is standing at the low water bridge near the community (if you can call it that) of Cyclone, and just upstream of where he is standing is a long glassy pool, whose “glassy-ness” is perfectly matched by the streams bottom. “Greasy” might be more descriptive. This spot was our starting off point for fishing the upper reaches of Big Sugar, and stepping off into the water in tennis shoes was a sure way to test ones coordination and balance. We had never heard of studded wading shoes at that time, so negotiating the algae covered, fifty yard long slab was the price we had to pay to get to the better water.

I’m not kidding...it was slick. So slick that more often than not I would be on my hands and knees at one point or the other, trying to get across it. But it was worth it. Whether we were outfitted with our fly rods or our ultra-light spinning gear, we always managed to catch fish. And some nice ones too. Four and five pound smallies were not unheard of, but Big Sugar’s bluegills and smaller bass were great fun on the light tackle as well.

On another front...
The evening skies have been reminding us daily of the coming winter weather. The past few days have shown us not the more familiar and recent summer-time skies of puffy cumulous clouds, but the stratus clouds so common in the winter months. Looking toward Mount Pisgah in the west (12 miles as the crow flies) we have seen some beautiful sunsets...each one reminding us that cooler weather and better fishing is right around the corner.

And speaking of seasonal changes...
I don’t want to hear any whining from the black bears this coming year. In recent years they have complained constantly about their lack of food...as if their dietary deficit gave them license to raid our trash cans and bird feeders. This year’s mast crop should keep them close to home (their home!)...content to gorge themselves on natures bounty instead of ours. Check out this photo taken right out of my office door. For the past week the acorns have been falling like rain! This shot, taken beneath one of the larger oaks on the property, was not staged. The entire ground beneath this huge trees canopy looks just the same.

The next PHW Cherokee Event!

WOW! 50 of our nation’s heroes are set to join us on the spectacular Cherokee Nation waters for an unforgettable two days of trout fishing. There will also be fly fishing clinics, a banquet, a raffle and a silent auction. The event takes place September 18th, 19th and 20th.


Thanks to Project Healing Waters and a lot of good folks who have donated their time, talent and finances, we’ll be showing our veterans that their sacrifices are not forgotten!

I CAN’T WAIT!

Soft Hackle

According to the late legend and member of the Fly Fishing Hall of Fame, Jack Gartside, the soft hackle wet fly "is quite simply, beautiful. In its bareness, in the liveliness of its soft hackle fibers it suggests all that seems necessary to tempt fish. Because of its simplicity it's also one of the easiest flies to tie—and often one of the deadliest."

WHEW! Finally finished all 40 flies for the upcoming book, Fly Fishing the MidAtlantic. Beau Beasley, the author, seems to be pleased with my efforts and I know that I am. Prior to this project I had sketched out a few of my favorite flies, primarily for my own enjoyment, but this was different. I had to illustrate flies that I’ve never used and probably never will, and flies that were nothing like the classics that I grew up fishing and admiring.

I had my favorites and my not so favorites, but topping the list of favorites were the two flies designed by my buddy Kevin Howell, of Davidson River Outfitters. Perhaps it’s the friendship that swayed me. Of perhaps it’s because his shop is just about 15 minutes from my front door. Then again, maybe it’s because these two flies catch fish! All of the above, for sure.
The one on the left is "Kevin's Stone" and that ugly thing below it is "Howell's Big Nasty."

Hope you like them!
(Prints ARE available...)

Cooler than the other side of the pillow

Heading up the mountain from Lenoir we watched the temperature drop at least one degree per mile, till it registered in the mid 70’s when we rolled into Blowing Rock.  Ahh...the mountains!  It was great to be back.

Shirley and I took the weekend off and headed for the High Country of North Carolina over the weekend.  Well actually, we were working...sort of.  Scott and Dottie Farfone, the owners of Foscoe Fishing Company, were hosting a special fly fishing event on Saturday at their beautiful log cabin shop in the Foscoe area, and they were kind enough to allow us to set up our display on their front porch.

Tim Cummings (see below), our fellow Project Healing Waters volunteer, heard we were coming their way and offered to share the house he and his wife Melinda were occupying just off the Blue Ridge Parkway, so with the promise of their hospitality, some cooler weather and the chance to meet some new trout art aficionados...we jumped on it. 

Scott and Dottie put on a great event and we had a great time meeting some of the local, and some of the not so local, folks.  (Seems we weren’t alone in our efforts to escape the heat.)  It threatened rain through most of the day but it held off till later that night.  Going to sleep to the sound of a billion little forest critters, then awakening to the sound of rain pounding on the window panes sure was more restful than the constant hum of our air-conditioning at home.

We made some sales; we ate some great meals and managed to spend some time strolling the streets of Blowing Rock, revisiting many of the shops that we knew from years ago.  The Cummings’ hospitality was more than we deserved and the ride home on Sunday was without incident.  Except for one little thing.  One little helmeted and goggled thing that passed us on the highway.

There on the back of a fully decked out Harley sat the coolest dog you’ll ever see.  With his master in the front and his American flags fluttering behind him, this guy was the epitome of cool.  As he passed us he glanced our way with a “Don’t you wish you were me!” look, and sped off to parts unknown.

We were still laughing as he pulled in front of us, turned around, and graced us with one more “Ain’t I cool” look. 

The LETORT HOPPER

Another fly for the book, Fly Fishing the Mid Atlantic, the Letort Hopper originated in Pennsylvania where it was designed by flyfishing legend Ed Shenk in the late 50's.  As realistic as the new foam body hoppers look, they loose their effectiveness when underwater.  Not so with this bug, which can be fished with three different techniques on each cast.  Starting off with a dead drift on top, you might give it a twitch or two.  Then allow it to sink on the swing to represent a drowned hopper, and finally strip it back for the next cast.

At last...

Finally finished up the C&R Brown for Chris.  What a fun project.  22 inches is a good sized trout and if you don’t think so, just try drawing one at actual size!  A gazillion dots of stippling and a dozen layers of color later, here it is.

Laying here before me on paper, it looks huge...maybe even larger than it seemed to Chris the day he pulled it from the Missouri River.  Gosh, I wish I could have been there to see it.  As Chris gets this framed and hung on his office wall, I hope that every time he sees it he travels back to that day.

A little color

Here is the latest version of Chris' Brown Trout.  I have added a couple of layers of color, but before this guy starts to look as it should, I'll have to add at least half a dozen more.  So far, so good.

On another front, I have now completed twenty new fly illustrations for Beau Beasley's new book, Fly Fishing the Mid Atlantic.  Here are two of the latest ones.  I only have another twenty to do.

This first one is Cowen's Baitfish...a pattern that presents a realistic baitfish pattern when in the water.  It probably wouldn't do the trick with our local trout, but the sea going variety would gobble it up for sure.

And here we have Chocklet's Gummy Minnow...a pattern that even our locals would appreciate.

The names have been changed to protect the innocent...

There is a creature, lumbricus terrestris, that is found in or near virtually every trout stream. A trout dietician’s dream food, this tasty morsel and its imitations have probably caught more fish than any other Latin named fare. Yet few of us, until quite recently, would have admitted to using them...especially the “natural”, but also its many imitations.

Deep in the hidden away pockets of your fly vest, you probably have such imitations, and when the fish are not cooperating you have been known to use them. Lumbricus terrestris is an earthworm. Of course there are more popular variations which include Paleacrita vernata, otherwise known as the Inchworm, and perhaps the most famous of all to trout fishers, members of the phylum Annelida and the class Oligochaeta, the San Juan Worm.

For those of you relatively new to the fly fishing game, in days of old no self respecting fly fisherman would have considered using these imitations...we fished with FLIES! Nor would we have attached split shot to a leader. We would have used wire weighted nymphs, but the thought of using split shot was as unthinkable as adding tap water to a fine single malt Scotch.

Years ago I would cuss the guys catching all of the trout using little pink rubber worms with their spinning gear. Imagine the horrors!  Some were drifting these weighted worms to the dark depths of the stream with little bobbers firmly attached to their line! What they were doing was unfair, un-sporting and downright redneck to the core!

Sound familiar?

We’ve come a long ways, but we still have our biases. We use “strike indicators”...just a fancy name for bobbers, and the angler without a full assortment of split shot sizes is severely limited in the number of trout he will catch. In other words, “Trout Flies” have come to mean many things. Some are made of plastic; some are made of beads; some are made from anything the imaginative angler finds at the local crafts store. And we...unlike the trout...are all the better for it.

A Better View...

My apologies for the previous images.  My local printer was having installed a new scanner that could handle the 22 inches of Chris' trout, and I guess before posting anything I should have waited for the final installation.  Anyway, I couldn't wait to get some images up as I completed them.  I know that Chris wanted to see them, but I guess I should have waited.  The above image is from the new scanner and it will show - especially if you click on it - the details I've written about in the previous posting.

Next Steps

OK...just about ready for color. NO, as I slap myself, it IS ready for color! At this point with every piece I could go on and on with the detail. If this were to remain a pen & ink drawing I would spend a few more hours – maybe days - getting everything just right, but since it will be colored I had better stop. After adding the color I can always go back with the pens to touch it up here and there.

Comparing these views to the previous ones you can see that I’ve added a couple of thousand more dots to it. My stippling technique is a little hard to explain. I’ll work on the piece in segments...going back and forth from one section to the other, all the time trying to keep everything in balance regarding density and strength. I’ll work a section with the .25 pen, keeping everything pretty consistent and orderly...meaning dot placement and strength, and then with the same pen I’ll get a little crazy. I call it “planned randomness.” I’ll grab the pen at an angle (as opposed to my first work with the pen pretty much upright) and go at it in a more haphazard and heavy handed manner. Angling the pen slightly will make the marks a little irregular, and I’ll place the marks when looking at the piece from my peripheral vision. At this stage I do not want to consciously place the marks with any sort of precision. I want them to be random. In the deeper or more shadowed areas I’ll then have a go with the .35 and .50 pens to give the drawing even more strength.

And finally I’ll go back with the finer pen to fill in any spots that need touching up. This last step is very precise. It’s amazing what one little dot in the right spot can do.

So now comes the color...the hardest part for me. Being colorblind doesn’t help...and having no training complicates things even further. There. My excuses are made. Time to break out the pencils.

Beginning stages

OK...Here we go. As promised I am going to be posting some “in progress” images of Chris’ beautiful brown trout. You may recall that Chris was the winner of the drawing last month for the free Catch and Release artwork.Most of what follows may be pretty boring to those uninterested in how I do these illustrations, so my apologies. With the workload that I currently have, it may be a few weeks before there are any fishing reports or recollections seen here. I am still working on the fly illustrations for Beau Beasley’s upcoming book and I have to get started on his double truck painting also. That, and finishing up Chris’ brown is going to keep me pretty occupied in the studio.

What you see here today is the beginning stages of the artwork. I began by drawing the fishes outline and a few other details in pencil. I decided, with Chris’ OK, to do the illustration at actual size...22 inches from head to tail, and quite frankly, that is a challenge in itself. Most of my work is quite a bit smaller so takes up less space on my drawing table. The smaller pieces are easy to turn sideways and upside down as I work on various sections of the fish. That aint easy to do when working at this size.

Once I am satisfied with the general shape and size of the fish I begin work with the pens. Starting with .25 size tips I draw over the pencil work and then begin the stippling process. So what is stippling, you ask?  Anyone that has ever seen an edition of The Wall Street Journal has seen stippling in one of its forms. The Journal has long had a practice of avoiding photographs...instead they rely upon the work of Randy Glass.  All of the “portraits” you see in their paper are done by him.

His technique in these portraits is more akin to medical illustration. Very precise. My technique is a little different...for sure! So stippling is the application of dots of ink to show contour, depth and detail. Rather than drawing lines (such as cross-hatching) stippling uses tiny dots. It’s that simple.

So, at this point in the process I have spent four evenings working on the image, and there is a long ways to go.  So far the only thing finished in the shot below is the can of beer.

Ancient River Smallies

Although I live very near the banks of the French Broad River, known for its excellent smallmouth, musky ...and in its upper reaches, trout fishing...until Saturday I had not wet a line in the lower sections of this ancient river. I say ancient because it truly is. Only the Nile and another North Carolina river, the New, predate it.

The section near my home is narrow, fast, deep and filled with snags so wading it would be suicidal. It’s very near the famous Musky Mile and if I can ever con a buddy with a boat into testing it, I’ll find out if those toothy monsters are in residence there. In the meantime...

Saturday’s smallmouth adventure was exploratory. I drove up north of Asheville to the area known as The Ledges. The French Broad meanders through our foothills passing mile upon mile of fertile farm land, meaning that even the briefest shower can turn it to chocolate milk in a hurry. Knowing that we hadn’t had any rain lately, and knowing that the water was low and clear I figured that it was the perfect time to try out the smallmouth fishing.

I rigged my 5 weight with a bright yellow Clouser and stepped from the bank into surprisingly warm water that was very different from the more familiar Ozark smallmouth streams. The shoals, the mini-rapids and eddies reminded me a lot of the Flint River down in Georgia, but on a much larger scale.

I love the way a Clouser negotiates pocket water. Dipping and diving, darting and dashing from one current to the next...and to my good fortune, two smallies thought the same thing. Both were about a foot in length and in the fast water they put a good bend in the TFO.

As I’ve mentioned before, rock hoping and deep wading in fast water is best left to the young, so as I feared before arriving, my fishing options were quite limited. I watched a couple of agile spin fishermen further out in the river as they negotiated the shoals with ease, and if I was not alone I might have tried some of their less adventurous techniques. Probably not.

I spent more time walking the trails along the stream looking for better access than I did in actual fishing. If I can ever break the habit of wondering what’s around the next bend, and just stay where I am and FISH... I’ll probably catch a lot more. But old habits are hard to break, and besides, I just know that the next hole will be better.