Al Crise / Rods / a "FLY" / Learning inertia / Book survey

Walter & Group...

Dear Bruce and Gordy,

 

Your messages about the passing of Al have come through to me via Mark Roberts and I would ask that you pass on the condolences and best wishes to his family, from the members of GAIA over here in the UK.   Al is known to a great many of us through the co-operation and contacts we have established in recent times and we know he will be sadly missed.   That he is still teaching in the way he is, is a fitting tribute.

 

Very best wishes

 

Philip White

Chairman GAIA

 

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Philip .....

 

We will certainly do that.

 

Gordy

 

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                                                                 FLY RODS

 

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From Don Jackson :

 

Gordy

Since I make a lot of rods I would like to comment on a couple of points that our group might find of some interest. First, if you space the stripping guides no more then 10 inches apart ( the rod companies usually put them 12 to 15) it will minimize line slap especially if you limit the size of the first guide to 16mm which is as large as needed even on a 12 wt.

As for the weight of the REC snakes, they are 1/3 the weight of standard chrome guides. The 8 snake guides needed for a standard 8 wt rod weigh .003 oz. compared to .009 for regular snakes. As for being hard to wrap I will agree they are a pain unless you do some prep. I have found that grinding the foot to a point then attaching the guide to the blank with super glue (control gel) makes this task a breeze. If anyone would like more details I will be happy to discuss this with them on the phone since it could get drawn out and this is not the place for that.

Thanks again for all the great info.

Don Jackson

931-455-2457

931-273-9191

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From Aitor Coteron :

Hi all,

My name is Aitor Coterón and I am a CCI from Spain. I have been reading about this group on The Loop and recently asked Gordy for permission to join. Thanks Gordy.

I would like to make a comment about question #18 on this rod quiz regarding ?the 90º rule?.
IMO when talking about rod angles for fighting fish the line of reference you must use isn?t the fly line, but the imaginary line that goes from the hand of the angler to the fish. If we use instead the reference of the fly line relative to the rod, a 90º angle (that applies low pressure to the fish and maximizes the capabilities of the rod for shock absortion) would actually be a 45º angle (that puts more pressure on the fish by making the effective lever length shorter and putting in play a stiffer part of the rod). IMO that 90º angle (and any other for that matter) has to be measured between the rod butt and the imaginary line from the hand to the fish. 

 

 My best,

 

 Aitor

 

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Aitor :

 

Yes.... That is one way of looking at it.  Now lets cite an example:

 

The angler is fighting a large fish which has sounded directly down deep beneath his boat.  The butt section of his fly rod is parallel with the water.  The fly line is 90 degrees from that section of the rod. We also would have an angle of 90 degrees between the hand and the fish give or take a degree or two of difference depending on how deep the fish was.

 

 As the angler applies pressure to raise the fish and raises his rod so that there is less than 90 degrees of angle, then there is tremendous stress applied to the rod which may break.  Even with the rod at 90 degrees with respect to the taught fly line there is a great disadvantage since the stress on the fly rod is much greater than that on the fish.  

 

 Using the angle between the surface of the water and the butt section of the fly rod with the fish way out away from the angler on or near the water surface, as the angler raised the rod so that that angle decreases, the same thing happens.  The fly rod bends more and the actual pressure on the fish is less.

 

 So we really should say that it is not a good idea to have less than 90 degrees between the fly line and the butt section of the fly rod to avoid breakage. 

 

Gordy

 

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                                                 ON: "WHAT IS A FLY ?"

 

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From Kirk Eberhard :

 

Hi Gordy,

    Artificial fly definition from the Idaho Fish and Game fishing regulations.

    Any fly made entirely of rubber, wood, metal, glass, feather, fiber, or plastic by the method known as fly tying. ----Bait of any kind may not be used with artificial flies when fishing artificial flies and lures-only waters.

 

Artificial fly definition, Alaska

    Means a fly which is constructed by common methods known as fly tying, including a dry fly, wet fly, and nymph, which is free of bait as defined in 5 AAC 75.995. Materials and chemicals designed and produced primarily to cause flies to float or sink may be used on artificial flies.

 

Kirk

 

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Kirk,

 

I guess any definition for FLY should include the word ARTIFICIAL.   NOW:  We had a chap in our camp in Alaska on one trip who tied a salmon fly, then dipped it in goop made by crushing up fish eggs.  The rest of us took issue with that !

 

A few years ago, somebody marketed a bottle of stuff called, "Scent of a Thousand Squids" for spray or dip to be used on lures and flies.  To me that is also an anathema !

 

   G.

 

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                                                      LEARNING INERTIA

 

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Question from John Bilotta :

 

Over time most organizations or communities are subject to learning inertia. Besides this study group, which is a lifesaver, what would be some advice or examples to prevent this from happening  in our  teaching, and our interaction with students?

John Bilotta

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John.... My "short answer" :

The teachers need to have the capacity to INSPIRE !

"The essence of teaching is inspiration",  Mel Krieger.

Gordy

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 Belated comment from Bob Tabbert on climbing loops :

Gordy, thanks for your feedback, yes I remeber we did have a long string on all the various reasons why an asymmetrical loop of an unrolling  fly line was not an airfoil, as I remember one feature against the airfoil concept was that the fly line was under tension through the fly line back to the rod.....not unlike an aiirfoil kite wing which is under tension through the kite string back to the holder on the ground. It is puzzling to me  that this thin,  unrolling asymmetrical loop in a fly line which  is subjected to a variety of  physical parameters, gravity,friction, air resistenace, drag, lift, moisture in the air, wind... but that it could not act as an airfoil. Pound away on me....the consensus of all the experts is that no, an asymmetrical unrolling loop in a fly line could not act as an airfoil and create lift...I'm also willing to bet that the consensus of the experts hanging around at the dock when Columbus set sail thought that the world was flat. Airfoil or no airfoil I have had some casts take off and sail on like some 'thing' was lifting and carring the line way beyond my casting abilities? Perhaps it was wind or temp inversion? Bob 
 
Robert L. Tabbert

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Bob....

Well ... Phil Gay and others pointed out that the loop doesn't posess the physical design parameters of an airfoil in the first place.  They didn't deny the fact that some loops do climb ....only that the airfoil principle didn't pertain. Some loops do climb in ways that we have yet to fully explain.

I can imagine a loop climbing, for example, on a very windy day with an updraft.  Several times in the past I've made a cast when a thunderstorm is near and had the fly line loop hover a surprising length of time and even climb a bit.  One such dramatic event occurred when we had T-storms about and when I made a cast there was an electrical crackling about the rod tip.   Scary !

Catherine Gati-Bono avoided discussions of such phenomena in her paper on form drag.

Gordy

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                                      BOOK SURVEY

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I placed Tom Juracek's survey results in an attachment.    G.

 

 

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Tom...    Well done.  Quite an undertaking !

Gordy

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

From: Tom Juracek [thomas579@xxxxxxxxxxx]
Sent: Monday, February 22, 2010 9:19 AM
To: 'Blue Ribbon Flies'; 'mark ozog'; Ken Takata; 'Booboys'; 'Steven B. Schweitzer'; 'booboys'; hillshead@xxxxxxxxxxx; 'Nick Chiovitti'; 'Wayne Luallen'; 'Paul Schullery'; 'John Juracek'; 'Charles Vestal'; mike@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: Book survey results

I know many of you have been interested in the results of the book survey question I posed.  Before digging a bit into the actual balloting, let me begin with a preface as to the how/why I chose the question.

 

I had been looking around for books to add to my collection.  I found the chapters in Ernest Schwiebert’s TROUT to be especially helpful in identifying older books that had some significance in our sport.  He has chapters on both foreign and American works.  However, I noted that the publication date of his work was around 1981 and wondered if there were any sources that might provide an updated guide to what were considered significant work during the past 25 or so years.  Not really finding anything in print that I was familiar with, I decided to ask around to see what other folks thought.  Thus the genesis for the survey.

 

In evaluating the voting, it seems to me that there are two ways to handle the vote count.  One would be a simple majority, or even most often mentioned, gets to make the list.  On the other hand, I asked for the ‘most important American Trout fishing books.’  To me, if they are going to be ‘important’, ‘significant’ or another adjective, then I think the balloting should reflect a bit more like ‘hall of fame’ ballots.  That would mean that for a work to truly be considered important, it ought to appear on 75% of the ballots.  So that’s what I decided to go with.

 

I did select the 25 year period with some thought.  I wanted to get recent books, but wanted to make sure that works like ‘Trout’, ‘Selective Trout’ and others were clearly exluded.  I knew ‘Caddisflies’ by LaFontaine would be on the border of inclusion (although technically I think it might be a bit too old as publication date may have been 1981).  The other reason for the 25 year period was that, going as far back as 1900, there did not appear to me to be a period of time that did not include and ‘significant’ contributions to the literature of trout fishing in America.  I won’t recount times and books here, but Gill, LaBranche, Hewitt, Leisenring, Marinaro, Schwiebert, Brooks, Swisher and Richards are enough to get you from 1900 through 1970 as a very short list.  I did receive a number of comments about the period selecting, with folks noting that simply backing up a year or two would allow for inclusion on the list works they felt were important.

 

One last observation.  In order to try and gauge the competition I contacted a couple of folks in the publishing industry.  There appears to be principally three houses that publish about a dozen books each year.  There are some smaller houses, and of course some books are privately published.  Assuming 45 books per year over the course of 25 years, that is approximately 1,125 books published during the timeframe.  Not all of these are going to deal with trout fishing, but for example, let’s assume that 33% are trout related, making 371 books published over the time span.

 

And so, the results.

 

By way of Hall of Fame balloting – None.  Not a single book was mentioned the requisite 75% of the time.

 

By way of popular balloting – None.  On a technicality, we could include Caddisflies.  As I mentioned above, it predates the survey, but what the heck.  Something has to be included.

 

Only a few other books even  managed multiple mentions.  The Fly by Andrew Herd,  Trout and Salmon by Behnke, Mayflies by Macafferty, and some of Kustich’s work.

 

The number of ballots that mentioned books predating the selection criteria was almost 100%.  Not wanting to sound too harsh on folks who have published during the period mentioned, I had a number of responses that pointed out that ‘nothing of any significance’ was published during the time period selected.

 

I find it fascinating (and a telling commentary on our sport over the past 25 years) that as a sport we had roughly 4 to 6 magazines in publication of the timeframe publishing on average 6 issues per year.  We had almost 400 books published during the same time frame. Yet by consensus voting nothing of significance was written.

 

I am happy to share anything else I might have learned during the survey with anyone.  I really appreciate your assistance and input.

 

Tom Juracek