The Top Ten Pieces Of Outdoor Gear That Suck

Not exactly fishing related, but my buddy and I got to talking about this on a recent ski tour. I was ranting (as I am won't to do, especially when it comes to gear,) about stupid/useless features and whole pieces of gear and why they suck.
Finally, Jeff (the rantee at this point,) said "I would like to see you list all of these complaints."
Ask my dear friend and you shall receive.
Here we go in no particular order:

• Crazy Creek Chairs- I will begin with a unique format for this one, three questions I would ask myself if I was looking to buy one. If I am in a situation when I can bring a chair camping, why would I want my ass still in the dirt? Why would I fold my body into an easily tipped over taco? Why would I fork over five times more money than that buying the $6.00 fold-a-chair at wall mart?

• Push Buttons on Headlamps- Don't get me wrong, I love my current headlamp. It is durable; water resistant, compact, and bright(even with a low battery.) However, I am now buying AAA batteries at a blistering pace just so I can illuminate the top pocket of my pack. My best guess is that Duracell and Energizer are in cahoots with the headlamp manufacturing cartel.

• Adhesive strike indicators- Okay it's supposedly a strike indicator, but it is non adjustable, leaves sticky crap on my leader, and a size 22 rs-2 will sink it. At least it is sensitive, right? Nope it just fell off because I was afraid to pinch it on all of the way and ruin my leader.

• Freeze dried backpacking food (one brand in particular.) A light, easy to prepare meal with no dishes? Sign me up. You even get to choose from delicious meals like Lasagna, Jerk chicken, and  Southwest green chili and rice. What could possibly go wrong? Well, unless you are in a lab environment you will screw up the amount of water needed. Because of this you will always be dining on the above flavors in soup form, which is not that bad really (we are eating this in the woods after all.) So why do I hate this product so much? Read the nutrition facts on the back; each packet contains approx. 25,000 times your daily recommended allowance of fiber. After consuming the Green Chile with rice for dinner I woke the next morning to the pungent aroma of green chili and elk carcass marinating in my sleeping bag. The "Backpackers Revenge" had me soiling approx. four acres of pristine wilderness all of the next morning. A perfect cleanse, but an imperfect form of outdoor sustenance.

•  Neoprene Waders (especially the boot foot ones.) Personally, I think this must be some kind of joke. Okay they are supposed to be warmer, right? How are you supposed to stay warm when you are soaked? The only time you stay warm is in mid summer when you turn into a chest down sweat lodge.

• Collapsible Water cubes (you know the 2.5 or 5 gal models.) If you are very careful with the threads (think adding plutonium to a nuclear reactor,) you can actually fill the whole thing up and have it hold water for at least 15 minutes. Then, after you fill your water bottle and walk away, it will roll off the picnic table and puncture itself on a piece of gravel and leak all over the place. After 15 years of exhaustive research I have found the only durable water container available on the market- a six gallon diesel can (available at your local hardware store.)

• Crocs, Teva's Chacos, etc..... Get some real footwear you hippie! Lame soles, zero traction and zero protection. Use these where they are intended to be used, at the pool (unless you have Crocs, then you will still look like a dipshit.)

• Canister Gas for a backpacking stove- Higher cost than white gas, bulkier, and useless at any temperature where you actually want/need a hot drink or meal. 

• DRE Rowing Seats- The fine folks at DRE make some of the best rafting stuff on the market, with one notable exception: their over the cooler flip up rowing seat. Sure, they look great, are comfortable, and allow you to grab a cold one with ease. However, once you actually row on one you will realize that you are way too high up to get the proper angle for a stroke and your oars are now way too short. 

• Feathering your oars- The best for last. Sooo many of you raft and fishing guys will fight this one to the death, so I will now refute all of your pathetic arguments. First, please spare me the BS about a more powerful stroke. In the time it took you to set up and execute that beautiful blade swirling stroke I made five strokes. When that one stroke really counts, you blew the crux move because the last rock knocked your blade angle off. It's the real world out there, shit happens, why add another thing to go horribly wrong? And finally if you still don't believe me go and find an old school oarsman and ask him why he has to wear wrist braces to drink his coffee. Buy some Oar-rights!

So there it is, valuable consumer advise for anyone who spends time in the outdoors (plus now I feel better for having vented.)

The Tao of the indicator

Last summer a couple longtime clients stopped by the shop the day before they were going out on a full day wade trip. After the usual pleasantries we got down to brass tacks about their trip the next day. The guide that they were to fish with had been on a bit of a hot streak; big fish on long heavy triple fly nymph rigs. I told them what to expect the next day, alluding to the possibility of monster rainbows.
Then the wife dropped the bomb.
"I don't want to fish pom-pom's all day." she declared. 
Her husband stared intently at the floor, actually shrinking several inches (he later confessed that when she made her statement he thought that he was going to have to eat his sock the next day.)
"I know that is how you catch more and bigger fish, and I can do it. I would just rather not chuck pom-poms all day." she said.
A quick change in guides and they had a blast the next day with fishing dry/dry droppers.
Her feelings are shared by many in the fly fishing community, and with good reason. Most view indicator fishing as thuggery, drudgery and just not that exciting in general; I myself was in that camp for a long time.
However, something has changed for me, I realized that the reason I did not like indicator fishing was because I was not very good at it (Gasp!) Sure I caught more and bigger fish, but I always felt like I could have caught more.
Last fall my indicator weaknesses were all brought to light steelheading for my first time. The experienced steelheaders could roll cast about thirty feet longer than I could and had long drag free drifts with fancy aerial roll mends. As frustrating as it was I learned a lot and that has helped my trout fishing in a big way. Now I am constantly thinking about distance and mending. The former drudgery has been replaced by changes in weight, position of flies and any other factor I can tweak.
It is time to call out all of those dry fly purists; the reason you love dries is because you don't know how to fish nymphs well.
Let the tarring and feathering commence.

 

Spring Fever!

It's official, spring is here in the Colorado high country. I say this not because of the recent solstice, but due to the fact that we now have blacktop in our driveway as opposed to the skating rink I have been parking on for the past five months.
The weather in the Eagle Valley is going into the spring transition phase, which means one day it will be in the fifties and sunny and then the next morning you will wake up to six inches of snow on the deck. This kind of bi-polar weather can really get to some, but I love it.
When guiding I always say that fishing is all about transitions. Slow water to fast water, deep water to shallow water, nymph to dun,  and the list goes on. The weather is no exception. This time of year almost any type of weather is good for the fishing, be it warm sunny days or overcast snowy days and everything in between.
On the warm days I do a lot of walking the banks looking for the odd sipping trout (all you need is a size 24 Adams and a good cast to get 'em,) or an entire pod moving in the shallows. Sight fishing nymph and egg patterns without an indicator is one of my favorite tactics on these days.
When the weather is nasty and funky I will post up in faster deeper runs, focusing on long drag-free drifts. With absolutely no scientific fact to back this up beyond personal observations, some of my best days in the early spring  are when it is rather warm and puking huge wet snowflakes. The warm moist air before a big cold front triggers fish to feed while the water temps are still up, yet they know that the barometer is dropping and colder water is on the way.
A lot of people seem to put a bit too much faith in the thermometer this time of year. While water temps are very important for a number of reasons, please don't bail on a day of fishing because your thermometer is not reading above forty two degrees (or whatever your magic number is.) Think of the thermometer as a tool to help decide what type of  fly fishing you will be doing, not a tool to decide if you will fish or watch basketball all day.
Have fun out there and don't be afraid to suffer a little, hardship is often rewarded in spectacular fishing this time of year.

Free Sardines!

Mass fish kills are nothing new, and are becoming downright commonplace. Check this out, the video of the harbor is pretty wild. They also have another story about 2 million fish that died in the Chesapeake in Jan along with mass bird kills around the same time.

The end is nigh. The Mayan's were right.

Well, not really, but it makes you think. Any fisherman worth his split shot knows that we are doing irreparable damage to our fisheries on a daily basis. Fish are very susceptible to small changes in their environment (especially temperature,) and once you put one thing out of whack strange symptoms begin to appear. These occurrences should serve as a reminder that all of the world’s fisheries are close to a drastic tipping point.

At least my summer finances are looking better. I may be able to offset the $3.50 a gallon gas price with a drastic savings in sardine costs.

Well, it had to happen sometime

I used to think blogs and blogging, not to mention Facebook, Twitter and online forums were a gigantic waste of time. Now I think they are a colossal waste of time but nonetheless entertaining and (mostly when concerning fishing,) occasionally informative and helpful. Hopefully the one or two people that stumble upon this will find it occasionally informative and entertaining. When that happens I will get about 20 or 30 minutes of complete joy and satisfaction, then I will blog about it.