THE GOOD OLE DAYS AND WERE THEY REALLY?

[DAVID L EITUTIS]

 SEEMS to me if I remember correctly I read somewere that fly lines used to be maid of braided horse hair. Guess it's true and can you imagine trying to cast a tight loop with that stuff!

  HOW FAR HAVE WE COME AND HOW DEPENDENT ARE WE ON TECHNOLOGY?

FAR as I'm concerned we owe a great deal to the tackle pioneers of yesteryear.

Imagine for a minute the days before level wind bait casting reels. I believe Dr. Marhoff or Mr. Marhoff, one or the other, worked for Bill Shakespeare and one night was sitting on his bed side looking at the endless pattern on his Argyle socks and got the insperation for the level winding mechanism from that simple observation.
  Fly lines and the new coatings and longevity of them: The old fly lines you could use for a couple years and simply throw away because there weren't any really good line preservers at the time. Now you can simply dress the line each time after a use and it's good for the next trip out . I know I have some lines here that are at least 10 years old and still going strong, but I dress em everytime I use em, NO EXCEPTIONS. 
   LEADERS AND TIPPETS FOR FLY LINE: IN THE GOOD OLE DAYS you simply tied a couple of blood knots to make a tapered leader out of two different test lines and whalla , you were ready to go . ANY ONE EVER TRIED TO TIE A BLOOD KNOT IN THE WIND WHILE THE MOSQUITOS ARE BITTING?!!!!!! LOL !!!!! I CAN'T TIE ONE OF THOSE WHILE IN MY BASEMENT SHOP WITH THE RADIO OFF AND NO WIND OR MOSQUITOS TO BITE YOU!!!!

     I just for the sake of sanity just tie on a  new leader because I cuss to much trying to do it the right way.

     Now if you don't believe me about the new fly lines and the beauty of them try this at home kids: instead of using a $3-4 knot less tapered leader use a piece of line off one of your spinning reels. Don't tell me it doesn't work because I know it does, I DO IT ALL THE TIME WHEN I NEED A NEW LEADER AND FORGOT THE GOOD ONES AT HOME.

   NOW ARE YOU GOING TO CAST LIKE LEFTY KREH, LEE WULFF, JIM TEENY , of course not , but you can get by in a pinch and save the good stuff for Trout or whatever.

    I could go on for days and one thing I know for sure is aside from the advances in technology , no one has improved on the innocence of a childs smile when they get a big one on , NO MATTER WHAT SIZE IT IS!!!!! NO TECHNO WIZARD CAN EVEN APPROACH THAT ONE .
    YEP I MISS THE OLD DAYS AND FRIENDS THAT ARE NOW GONE, but the memories are there etched in granite and hope they will be till the end.
     DIck no matter what or were your fly tying takes you or how you cast that new fly rod rest assured that the experts won't be looking over your shoulder to see how tight your loop is or if you have a wind knot or two.

    The fly journey isn't about casting , tying bugs, or anything else. It's about enjoying the time we have left and the memories that the fishing experience teaches us. It's ABOUT US AND THE FISH and it's that simple.

[Jacob Hill]

Awesome stuff David, it really got me thinking (mostly about how lucky we are with technology now). My dad and I are venturing up to the Driftless Area Wisconsin this Saturday till Tuesday for some trout fly-fishing. Speaking of that my dad has about a 25% chance of getting a blood knot good on the first try. I have about the same but it takes me 10 minutes...

[DAVID L EITUTIS]

HEY THERE JACOB , I'VE NEVER TIED A BLOOD KNOT IN MY LIFE!!!!! I tried but was a lunatic after about the first 5 minutes and gave up. FFFFFFFFFRUSTRATING! WHAT'S a driftless area mean in Wisconsin? Good luck on the trout and did you know the difference between trout and gills? Gills respond to a bait but trout rrrrrrrrrrreally inspect it first and I believe trout are capable of doing Algebra.  WHEN I used to fish for trout it was in gin clear streams in Wisconsin and the shadow of the floating leader would spook em and away they'd go and then their alert system left em vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvery leary of my meager offers floating by em.

  I used to fish the WEST FORK OF THE KICKAPOO up at a little town calles WESTBY , west central part of the state . Also the Blue and a couple others . Always wanted to try the BLACK EARTH by Madison but never made it.

[Jacob Hill]

westby is precisely where we're going, but the kickapoo really isnt the best bet for catching fish in our experience. we have a really good spot for brook trout in pierce county up by red wing minnesota. you could probably catch 50 in a day if you really hit it well. the key is emergers. i would stay away from black earth seeing as it's somewhat combat fishing, the last thing you want on a trout stream. i can name some good streams just west of madison, whenever you tell me u wanna go. (they're semi-secret) driftless just means unglaciated so really hilly

[DAVID L EITUTIS]

THANKS JACOB AND THE SECRET IS WELL KEPT WITH ME! WEST OF MADISON ANY WERE . IT WAS about 12 years ago when I was fishing the kickapoo and don't know what it's like now but had good success there on bead head nymphs and Royal coachman drys in the 14-16 size. I suppose the black earth does get alot of people seeing as how it's been written up so many times. We caught mainly browns on the kickapoo.

  Thanks and don't know if I'll make it up there this year or not but will try.

[Leo Nguyen]

Don't know about you Tooty, but I've done the blood knot, dead in the night, and hovered above me, less than 6" were hundreds of skeeters. Luckily I had the facial net. Can't say for my fingers, since three of them were exposed. The sound of the myriad humming wings were enough to drive any one crazy. Yet, blood knot was always my goal to get the mono and flouro lines to max out the strength at the knot point. Fly line, well, a tad different approach now. Nail knot for the leader. Love it now. Trying to master it using just my fingers without a small little hollow ink pen plastic tube is a killer..I used paper clip and straws before, but too bulky. Ink pen plastic tube is the best.

 

Truly agree with technology nowadays. It gotten way out of hand. The reel technology is great, but they need to keep it simplified. Good smooth reel but minus the massive bells and whistles. Fishing is about knowing the fish, knowing the human's intuition and skills. We need to fully refine the skills before technology could provide us the additional advantage. Jim and Jen are excellent at keeping it simple. You are in your own untouchable world Tooty: simplicity and vintage. How many of us can claim that we can just take the basic of gears, use no live baits, and still land massive amount of fish? I'm still trying to find my niche between modern world and mastery of simplicity.

[DAVID L EITUTIS]

NO LEO NO BLOOD KNOTS HERE!!!!!!!!AS TO REELS you hit it right on the head again. I use all new reels and no regrets there. The vintage ones are ok but they lack the immediate stop of the bail because in the old days reels sometimes rolled back a 1/4-1/2 turn and would always throw a loop in the line.  I do keep em on the mid range price level though and use mostly Shimano Sedona's and not a lick of trouble with em. Also I use a needless knot for tying on leader material now when going direct to the fly line and use a surgens knot for attaching tippet material.
   Yep Leo I am in my own little world here but not untouchable. Lots of folks on this site have accomplished much more than old Tooty and good for them Leo.

  By the way Leo I count you as one of the masters here because of your tenacity and let nothing stop you attitude. Massive amounts of fish! LLLLLLLLLLLLLOL LEO YOU ARE KILLING ME HERE. I used to catch llllllllllots of fish but now don't do it anymore. Simple reasoning really, I JUST WON'T CLEAN 100-200 FISH ANYMORE AT ONE TIME. My back won't take it and I"ve decided to leave the main quantity of fish for the kids trying to catch a big un. Hope they do .............