mick mccorcle
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Another place you might never consider a streamer river, but where I’ve had good success with them, is the San Juan in New Mexico. I had a TU meeting in Durango in mid May of 2007 and had hoped to fish some mountain streams, but they were all blown out with runoff. In fact, my meeting was in a hotel whose property ran alongside the Animas, and on breaks we’d all stand and stare out the windows, wishing the water was fishable.
Anyway, the only place I could find to fish that wasn’t blown out was the San Juan’s Quality Water. It had “flushing flows” of about 2000 cfs, so wading wasn’t an option. I hired a guide and a drift boat for two days to bookend my meeting. On the first day, we started with double nymph rigs under indicators, and cleaned up with size 20 red annelids.
At lunch, the guide asked if I’d brought any heavy artillery and if I’d like to try something different. (While he’d guided on the Juan for years, he was a pike fisher at heart.) He slipped a big lead conehead on my leader, tied on the biggest, ugliest streamer I had in my box, and we pounded the banks all afternoon, harassing many browns and rainbows.
After our meeting, I brought a buddy along and we stripped streamers all day long. In fact, we started calling him Hoover for the way he seemed to suck fish right out of the river with his big bunny leech pattern. And it gave us immense pleasure to be coasting along slamming the banks as we watched the flotilla of nymphers following each other slowly through the slower water.
I have a McKenzie Vise Light that attaches to the post of my vice for use when I travel, a folding Ott lamp like Neal suggests for tying away from my tying desk, and an Ott Lite brand “Crane Desk/Clamp Lamp” for my tying table.
http://www.ottlite.com/p-68-crane-deskclamp-lamp.aspx
I use the clamp version, so it is solidly attached and takes up less desk space.
When I started shooting, I did a lot of action sports (of our kids and their school sports teams) that evolved into a quasi-business.
It will have it’s own chapter in the Vandals Handbook entitled “If You Want to Commit a Crime, Watch Out for the Guy in Camo with a Camera in His Hand.”
Just like you don’t put all your eggs in one basket, you should never put all your nymphs in one fly box.
Fly tying guru AK Best has a book called Dyeing and Bleaching Natural Fly-Tying Materials that has a full chapter on how to do deer and elk body hair.
I’m a big fan of the D70. I got my start in digital on that camera and still rely on it as my carry-around camera (or did, see below). It’s very solid, uses battery power sparingly, and takes great photos. I’ve used it on everything from the standard 18-70 kit lens to a Nikon 300/2.8 AF-S lens with no problems and good results.
On a sad note, my teenager is now taking photojournalism in high school and has “borrowed” my D70 to use for his class. He now loves it, too, so I may not get it back. :-[
I’m sure you’ll get a more complete answer from Scott or David, but here’s a short one in the meantime.
This link shows an example of an off camera flash hot shoe cord, from Nikon:
http://www.nikonusa.com/Find-Your-Nikon/ProductDetail.page?pid=4765
The advantage is that it gives you a lot more flexibility with lighting your subject for a good photo. In particular, it’s very helpful to move the flash away from the camera when photographing people, so you don’t end up with “red eye” or with harsh shadows on a wall behind your subject.
For me, it was not a particular vision, but a series of choices made over time as space and materials required. For the most part, I’ve tried to organize my materials into groups of similar materials in one general area, with the stuff I use most (hooks, flash, thread, peacock herl, marabou, chenille, tools) on or near my tying table.
In other cases, if I have a favorite fly that I seem to tie often (e.g., Dave’s Fox Squirrel Hair Nymph), I’ll throw all those materials in a big zip lock bag and label it.
I don’t do tying demonstrations or travel a lot with my tying stuff anymore, so I don’t need to keep a tying bag packed, but that’s another option if you do.
The river is fishing well this winter, with lots of holdovers, plenty of newly stocked trout, and very wadeable flows.
I’ll be fishing for trophy trout on the Guadalupe River in South Texas this coming weekend, where the temps are expected to top out near 80.
