Monthly Archives: June 2011

Flashback Friday: Wheatley Fly Boxes Starting at $4.50

Posted on June 28, 2011 by Quill Gordon

Some folks feel a reel is for nothing more than holding line, keeping it out of the way when it is not needed for the cast at hand. A simple gadget at a modest price is all they need. Others disagree and will spend as much as they can for all the prestige, societal standing and fancy finishes that money can buy.

Some folks feel a fly box is for nothing more than storing flies, keeping them handy even though we all know a large percentage of those flies will never touch water. Most any old box or container will do, as long as the price is close to zero. Others disagree, understanding things beyond our comprehension. Fortunately for them, this is fly fishing and manufacturers are more than happy to target those among us who don’t mind spending a little more.

That’s a Hardy De Luxe rod up there, priced at $67.50 (I’d like two, please), along with a monogrammed landing net ($4.50) and a nice collapsible canvas creel ($6.50). Throw in a six-compartment Wheatley fly box for less than five dollars and a fellow could be outfitted to hit the water for under a hundred bucks! Continue reading →

Categories: Flashback Fridays | Tags: , , , , , | 4 Comments

Vermont Hand Crafted Tenkara Flies

Posted on June 22, 2011 by Quill Gordon

My friend Eugene and his pal Purly decided last fall to see if they couldn’t make a couple of bucks taking advantage of the angling craze that is Tenkara, so I helped them introduce their own line of Hand Crafted Vermont Artisinal Tenkara Rods. We even went so far as to introduce a whole new system of angling, based on the art of “barking” squirrels, employing the principles of “concussive shock” to virtually guarantee fish (and lots of ’em!) nearly every time.

Initial responses were encouraging but it soon became apparent that the ranks of Tenkara practitioners had been infiltrated by one of the baser elements of society; a group that can take any activity, try to make it their own, and suck the fun for everyone right out of it. That’s right, I am referring to the purists. Continue reading →

Categories: Fly Fishing, Humor | Tags: , , , , , , , | 18 Comments

Diary of a Trout Bum

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Quill Gordon

JUNE XX, 20XX

4:07 a.m.: Fell asleep last night dreaming of fishing for trout. Every cast on the mark, every retrieve bringing another fish to net. Adoring throngs lined the shore, waving handkerchiefs and shouting, “Huzzah, Quill Gordon, huzzah! Working where others come to play, huzzah! Such fine fly fishing always so close at hand and fishing privileges to boot! Huzzah, Quill Gordon, Huzzah!”

My casts shot out true — back-hand, under-hand and behind my back — and each one hooked a trout. As I motored past the main dock (where twenty beautiful women wearing bikinis and waders went positively bonkers over my patented dipsy-doodle, backwards-between-the-legs triple haul) the cheers changed to whistles and I began to wake up.

The whistles in my dream were in reality the songs of birds, serenading the arrival of first light. Very few people get to experience a real dawn chorus of songbirds any more. Thrushes and warblers, finches and wrens, robins, cat birds, chats, flickers, phoebes and sparrows joining together with dozens and dozens of their neighbors to sing in the morning with what most people interpret as melodious joy. In reality, the songs of birds are more likely to be challenges and threats — territorial exclamations tossed into the dawn — and, when taken that way, it is more an early morning cacophony than lovely dawn chorus.

Stupid noisy birds. Continue reading →

Categories: +The Neverwas Nonesuch Angling Society, Fly Fishing, Humor | Tags: , , , , | 10 Comments

Sixty Seconds of Summer

Posted on June 21, 2011 by Quill Gordon

Categories: nature, Vermont | Tags: , , , | 2 Comments

Three Photos of a Mayfly

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Quill Gordon

 

Categories: nature | Tags: , , , | 4 Comments

Flashback Friday Double Haul: Who’s Your Daddy?

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Quill Gordon

A tree fell last week (see “If a Tree Falls …”) and I showed that I can still stick a saw with the best of them. Ken G (from Waterdog Journal) wondered what it is about men that makes them continue an action, even when they can clearly see it’s not a good idea.

Mike (from Mike’s Gone Fishin’ … Again) could relate and expressed his love of power equipment.

Paul Cowell (from Paul’s Angling Journal) reminded me to keep plenty of gas in the saw, in case of zombies, and my post began take on a rather masculine air — at least until a comment appeared from a girl.

Girls who like chainsaws are okay by me, especially when they also fish and can write like Erin Block does on her blog Mysteries Internal. She has a way with words I … I … well, you know. After you’re done with this you really ought to go read her piece “The Dancing Cast“.

I am not surprised when I see a woman with a chainsaw but there was a time when such a thing was unheard of.

Homelite started marketing their saws to sportsmen, back in the days when clearing campsites and building log shelters were still acceptable practices. Even at only 19 pounds, I can’t imagine wanting to lug a chainsaw along on a camping trip, unless I was heading into zombie habitat, and I’m not so sure that anyone — man or woman — would actually look forward to running the thing.

That was more than half a century ago. Women didn’t run chainsaws. That was work for a man. An outdoors man. The kind of man girls really go for.

Continue reading →

Categories: Flashback Fridays | Tags: , , , , , , , | 5 Comments

If a Tree Falls …

Posted on June 12, 2011 by Quill Gordon

(I like to make a little list each morning, of things I would like to accomplish over the course of the day. Sometimes those lists don’t last very long.)

If a tree falls in the forest — certain parts of the forest, anyway — I don’t know if it makes a sound or not but it’s a pretty good bet I’m going to be cleaning it up. The sky over Fish in a Barrel Pond turned ominous on Thursday afternoon, unleashing heavy rain, hail, and damaging winds.

Nothing at all like the destructive weather experienced in other places recently, this storm none the less left its mark.

Continue reading →

Categories: nature, Rural Life, Vermont | Tags: , , , , , | 4 Comments

Of Mayflies and Trout

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Quill Gordon

It’s not often I am the only person on the pond.

When someone complains about the fishing and I say, “You should have been here on Tuesday!” they think I’m kidding or don’t believe me. Hatches of mayflies can come off as a mere trickle of bugs being chased by a couple of trout or the water can erupt with fish as a blizzard of faeries fills the air. Then, as if someone flipped a switch, the hatch will end and an angler passing by five minutes later won’t know it even happened.

This evening, I was right on time. Continue reading →

Categories: Fly Fishing, nature | Tags: , , , , | 11 Comments

Blurry Photos, Blurry Memories

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Quill Gordon

I usually let opportunities to join in on internet fun sail right on by, kind of like a selective trout that will only rise to certain flies at certain times and only under the most exacting conditions. Consumate angler that he is, Owl Jones has hooked me with his ’80s week prompt (you should follow that link if only to see how a mullet is properly rocked).

While looking for appropriate material from those hazy days so long ago, I realized a couple of things. First of all, I am in posession of an awful lot of crap that should have been thrown out long ago. That said, here is a photo, taken on a fishing trip in 1986, of one of my favorite rocks:


And here is a picture of one of my favorite fishing streams, as seen from the top of that rock:

Yes, the 1980s. Back when I could evidently support my own weight using only my butt muscles. Strange days, indeed.

Me in the middle

 

Categories: Humor | Tags: , , , | 5 Comments

A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to Flashback Friday

Posted on June 6, 2011 by Quill Gordon

(Knowing which day of the week it is has a different significance to me than it does to most other working stiffs. I must keep track, somewhere in the back of my tiny mind, but other than to check which camps need to be made ready by 4:00 p.m. I don’t really need to know. As far as most members of the Neverwas Nonesuch Angling Society are concerned, my work week begins the moment of their arrival, no matter the day, so I labor while they recreate and what everyone else knows as Friday has become just another day of making beds.) 

Five light fixtures, a rake, a broom, a 5-foot chunk of 4x4, some rope, some stove wood, trash and laundry.

That is just my way of saying that, with the season underway at Fish in a Barrel Pond, Flashbacks can occur at any time.)

I must point out, now and then, that the Neverwas Nonesuch Angling Society and Fish in a Barrel Pond are figments of Quill Gordon’s imagination. I should further point out that Quill Gordon is also a figment. In other words, with the exception of gear reviews and nature writing, most of what appears in this blog is (mostly) fiction. The thing about fiction is that it must be believable and, with the good folks I associate with as an ever-flowing source of material and inspiration, if I were to share the stories of what I really see and hear you would think I was just making stuff up.

There are elements to certain stories we all can relate to. True or not, tales of young boys and large fish are near universal.

Even the goofiest anglers among us get lucky sometimes.

Continue reading →

Categories: Flashback Fridays | Tags: , , , , , | 5 Comments

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