Mike Cline
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Seafood,
There are really three kinds of over-pricing and you need only fear one.1) There’s overpricing to the point that no one buys your product because they can get comparable products somewhere else and your company goes broke. (Don’t buy this kind overpriced product)
2) There’s overpricing by companies gouging a captured, dependent customer base that can’t get a needed product anywhere else. (fear this one and expose it when you can)
3) There’s overpricing (perceived) because you just can’t afford what the market will bear for the product YOU WANT (Improve your financial position)Anecdotally, let me relate a long ago experience I had in this industry. In 1970, I was paying $0.31/gallon for gas in Great Falls, MT. When I travelled to Gardiner, MT to fish in YNP, gas was $0.39, nearly 30% higher. I could hardly pay to fill my tank and I thought I was being gouged. At the same time and place, Park’s Fly Shop was charging $25 for a full day float on the Yellowstone. A full day float was way overpriced for someone taking home only $100/month. In 2007, gas in Gardiner is probably $3.60/gallon and I could afford to fill up Hummer’s all day. A full day float trip with Parks is ~$350 + Tip. Is that overpriced? Not at all. In the next two weeks I’ll layout $395+tip four times for float trips in Montana. Additionally, I don’t care what the price of gas is either. I need it and I’ll pay for it. Why?–My financial position has improved considerably since 1970.
Good Rant Though!
If I tried to fit a fishing trip in amongst a schedule like Eric describes, I would be either sleeping in the garage or hiring Zach to help me through the divorce paperwork.
Seafood. You need a strategy. I wrote about it earlier this year.
http://www.itinerantangler.com/cgi-bin/yabb2/YaBB.pl?num=1169652877/0#0
I am an almost 60 year old strategic planning consultant. (2nd Career) retired from USAF after 28 years in 1996. I live in Slapout, Alabama and destination fishing is always the first thing on my to do list. Once I do it, it always goes back on the list at the top. Life is too short to waste one day thinking up reasons not to go fishing.
Mike Cline
I must agree with Cameron, that nothing beats a quality waxed hat for all weather fishing. I’ve had my Watership Haven going on 7 years now and there’s no sign of it losing its effectiveness. It replaced another wide-brimed, waxed hat I’d had for 15 years and inadvertantly left it on an airplane. Been dunked alot of times but really does the job.
I got mine at Noggin Tops: http://www.noggintops.com/page.cfm?p=65
Watership Trading Company: http://www.watership.com/index.php
Thank you, and may all your teams be thoroughly trounced by the Arkansas Razorbacks. 🙂
Zach
As a Troy State Alumni (’74, ’88) it looks like Arkansas is fixin to dominate the Southern Belt conference this year: Troy, N. Texas, Florida International. Throw in Chattanooga from the Southern Conference and that makes for a pretty impressive non-conference schedule. Lots of weekends better spent fishing.
Gentlemen,
I appreciate the help. I stopped by half price books after work yesterday and searched long and hard. They didn’t have a great selection, but I did find ‘Advanced Fly-Fishing Techniques’ by Lefty Kreh. I read about half of it last night and it seems like a great place to start, especially his simple approach to casting. Also, I’m left-handed, so maybe it’s destiny.
All of this leads me to another question – where is the best/cheapest place to find these books? Anyone found any obscure online resources? I’ve found most of them on Amazon – but I don’t want to spend an arm and a leg…although that may be unavoidable.
WesNo matter what the title, topic or country of publication, if you want an out-of-print book go to http://www.abebooks.com. They have an excellent search engine. They are only a broker so you are buying books directly from sellers all over the US and UK. You’ll be amazed at how many copies of some so-called rare titles are available. It’s also set up for online buying and I have found and bought dozens of books through them. Highly recommended.
Mike
Eric,
Your post didn’t say when you were headed out to Yellowstone, but if you have not fished these two places, you should.
Yellowstone River just south of Gardiner. It’s about a 1.5 mile easy hike to the river from the Rescue Creek trail head on the Mammoth Rd. Once you reach the canyon, it’s just game trails down to the river. In this section, you have about 1.5 miles of water up or down before you are canyon walled out. If you are an aggressive wader and can get to the island at the lower end, you get another ½ mile of river. This area is just loaded with Cutts, Bows and Browns. Great streamer water in the Fall and is an easy early morning to noon hike, fish and hike out. This is the place to beat the crowds. I’ve fished in here at least six times and never seen another fisherman on the water when I was.
These are late September 2006 pics.The other river everyone should try is the Gardner. You will cross it to reach the Yellowstone. The first 1.25 miles of the Gardner from the confluence to the Rescue creek bridge is super fun dry fly or upstream nymphing water just loaded with Cutts and Browns. The browns get super aggressive in the Fall as they move up this section from the Yellowstone to spawn.
If you get to Gardiner, MT and want fish these rivers, check in with Walter Wiese at Park’s Fly Shop, he’s a great guide and will know what’s going on with these streams. http://parksflyshop.com/
Eric,
The Firehole is one of my favorite streams. It holds so many surprises. Your pic if I am guessing right is just immediately above the Iron Bridge at the upper end of the old Fountain Flats road?? I first fished the Firehole in 1970 when that road was still open to traffic. Here’s my favorite pic of the Firehole taken during a trip mid September 2005. I’ll be there again this year in October for 4 days. I understand the Itch!
Neal,
Not sure what robot thing you are talking about. This desk doubles as a rod building desk, so there are some rod turners underneath. There’s also a heater tucked in that corner as well.
This desk was built by an Uncle about 15 years ago based on the TV Tyer line of desks. My uncle was a great amateur furniture builder and put this thing togther for me from a couple of photos. The current line the TV Tyer desks can be seen at: http://www.flytyingfurniture.com/Catalog.html
What I really like about this desk is that all the drawers are made of aromatic red cedar which really keeps the the feathers and fur bug free.
Mike Cline
If anyone else has pictures or ideas on how to better organize materials or how to make use of ordinary items for fly tying or a fishing room please post.
Don’t Do it my way!!! :-[
Although I have found the plastic shoebox containers to be very useful.
Mike Cline
I hate to see those big sharks killed.
Occasionally the sharks win! – http://www.fishingkites.co.nz/sharks/greatwhitesharkattack.html
I’ve been wearing a pair of Action Optics with Polar Brown lens for about 5 years. They are great on any type of water—river or lake with a light bottom, regardless of light conditions. Last year when fishing the Firehole river, which in general is a very dark bottomed river, in late September, I found the Polar Brown just wasn’t working well. Once the light got off the water, the dark bottom became almost invisible and wading in low-light was a problem. On two of my local rivers here in Alabama, the bedrock ledges and gravel bottoms are almost black. Once the sun is off the water, the Brown lens become useless.
So I recently picked up another pair of Action Optics with Polar Yellow lens. Hugh difference on the dark bottoms in low light. I now switch to the Yellow lens as the light leaves the water and I can wade safely with the sunglasses on until dark.
In the early 1960’s, I was a student at John Marshall Jr. High in Pasadena, CA and was living in the upper Hastings Ranch area close to the mountains. Although I’d fished off the beach piers with my dad and caught a few cheese ball trout at Puddingstone I had never thought about Fly Fishing. The Pasadena Casting Club, a local fly fishing club, was sponsoring a weekend Fly Tying Class at the Pasadena Civic Center. I signed up knowing absolutely nothing about Fly Tying or Fishing. I learned how to tie a grey hackle yellow wet fly and dry fly. I was hooked.
Although it started slowly, I eventually acquired a 7′.6″Wright McGill Spin/Fly Rod and Medalist reel at a local hobby shop and began accumulating Fly Tying stuff. The old timers at the PCC clubhouse and pool taught me how to cast it and encouraged me with those tales of Montana trips and 5# Madison River rainbows. In those days, most of my trout fishing was in the San Gabriel Mt canyons behind the Water Company fences–small but fiesty rainbows.
In 1968, I joined the Air Force and only got back to the PCC a few times during the 1970’s. Since my parents moved away from S. Calif in the early 80’s I haven’t even been back to Pasadena in a long time. But, everytime I see the Rose Bowl on TV, it reminds me of the PCC just down the Arroyo. However, the Air Force gave me 28 years of wonderful Fly Fishing opportunities in Washington, Montana, Alabama, Texas, Virginia, Maryland, England, Ireland, Austria, Germany and Turkey. Since retiring in 1996, moving to Alabama and living on a Lake, Fly Fishing has been a mainstay.
To this day, I tie my own flies, build my own rods and thoroughly enjoy fly fishing year round for just about anything that swims–coldwater, warmwater, saltwater. And, I owe it to the great old timers at the PCC for their encouragement and instruction in the 1960’s. I am glad the Club is still up and running. The Club gave me the inspiration for 50 years of fly fishing fun.
http://www.pasadenacastingclub.org/
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Mike Cline
Slapout, AlabamaHard to believe the perch can out compete the shellcracker. They are aggressive and breed like rabbits don’t they? You would think the water would get too warm for perch.
This particular reservoir (Yates) on the Tallapoosa is only 7 miles long and a direct tailwater of Lake Martin (a depth of 155′ at the dam).
There’s nothing glamous about Yellow Perch or Red-Eared Sunfish (Shellcracker), but some idiiot illegally planted Yellow Perch in Yates Reservoir on the Tallapoosa River
Tim,
I always love a challenge.
Give this URL a try: http://www.chichesterinc.com/Opossum-Australian.htm
Mike
