Fly Fishing: Ennis Fly Fishing Festival

I don't usually attend fly fishing events but when Gale told me our friend Tom Harman was going to be there tying George Grant style woven hair flies changed my mind. Tom, by the way, did not learn the art of weaving hair hackle from Grant but rather sat down one day and taught himself...As you will see in the attached photos he done hisself real proud...

Briefly he begins by preparing the body, (some patterns call for a "color back" others are "feather back") then stretches a doubled length of thread taught between two pins to hold the hair, then after selecting the appropriate hair, typically elk mane, badger, etc., which he stacks in a hair stacker he selects 5-7 hairs (depending on type) slips them between the thread strands, knots the hairs in place and repeats the process (some patterns require as many as 40 bunches) until he has sufficient length to wind as a hackle on the previously prepared body.

This is a feather back, sage hen feather in case you are interested, with a badger hair hackle complete except for building the thread head and whip finishing...it takes about an hour on average to complete the task.

The dry flies are even more tedious to tie or as Tom says..."If I charged 50 bucks for a nymph I'd need 100 for the dry." These two nymphs are color backs, the pattern derived from original Grant print outs which I believe Tom said were given to him by one of Grant's daughters after learning he was carrying on her father's traditions.

A Castin' and A Blastin'...Not necessarily in that order...

Off track sort of is this update of an earlier post dealing with the whacky fisher folk better known as "noodlers"...shouldn't surprise to find the activity alive and well in Okie country, eh?

http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2011/09/04/magazine/LOOKcatfish.html?ref=magazine

Gale reminded me today how remiss of late my rantings and ravings so...My excuse being free at last (sort of) from the trials and tribulations of the guide wars we taken advantage to instead kick start the bird season and of course get a little castin' in too. Admittedly the castin' has taken a backseat to the blastin' but hey, been quite a lull in the action for both us and the dogs so like what do you expect. Anyways here are a few shots should serve as proof we ain't exactly been settin' around twiddlin' our you know whats...

Kate might be blind as a proverbial bat but don't think for a moment her nose don't still work...Notice the lead Gale used to get her in the ballpark of this Hun covey...pretty damn nifty I say...

Annie I think approves of sharin' the bird findin' with sister but just to make sure no one gets the wrong idea she is quick to take credit if given the slightest opening...sort of a dog thing, eh?

Annie and your reporter cooling their heels on a really too hot afternoon for chasing Huns...actually we decided enough already upon running into a rattler whilst chasing Huns...nuff said on that nasty subject...

On yet another track there seems to be more "nice" (no this is not a trophy size muley, not by a long shot) bucks (whitetails especially) around than usual so in the interest of honest photojournalism been trying to capture a few as proof...alas most mornings while no problem to see bucks the majority are far beyond range but I'll keep trying and you never know might even get lucky...

Bird Hunting: Opening Day...

...As mentioned yesterday our opening day tradition is to hunt our "secret spot" for blue grouse and Huns up high in the No Name Mountains. Instead, for reasons still not entirely clear, we headed to another Nameless Range and...Uncovered a veritable spruce grouse bonanza. Annie hunted good, pointed a bunch and...Well given we ARE talking the most foolish of fool hens, a point does not necessarily result in a flush, at least not the sort I care to shoot at...So we flushed a bunch and finally got a couple to fly off in somewhat true grouse fashion, i.e. NOT flutter to the nearest limb and...Well while I would not care to make a habit of gunning down the most foolish of fool hens...It twas fun, especially watching Annie in action. Best thing though even ol' blind-as-a-bat Kate managed to get in on the action despite being on lead the entire time...For us the high point of the operation, by the way...Our hope all along has been as long as she is able to get around to get her nose full a bird scent as often as possible...Come to think on it can't hardly beat "most foolish fool hens" in that regard...Go get 'em Katie girl...

Grouse goodies, such as these currant berries, were everywhere...

...and so were the spruce grouse, aka Franklin's grouse, aka fool hen...Albeit many were youngsters we did manage to flight a couple mature birds...

...such as this pair...The main ingredient to what should be a fine game dinner some evening soon...A little red wine, perhaps candlelight...OK maybe we'll skip the candles this time around but you do get my drift...Of course you do...