roughfisher.com

• Drowning the Beaver. Another AMFF/Cheneyesque type controversy? The boys over at Buster's discover that Donny Beaver's Spring Ridge Club was selected by an independent panel of judges as a finalist in the Investing in Nature program in the Ecotourism category from The Nature Conservancy. In another move of brilliance, Cathy Beck pimps some chrome on their newsletter, then gets thrown under the bus.


• More bullshit news from the home front: The Obama administration Tuesday opposed Michigan and other states that want to close shipping locks near Chicago to prevent ravenous Asian carp from invading the Great Lakes.

"In a host of ways, the federal government has demonstrated its commitment to protecting the Great Lakes from the expansion of Asian carp," she said in a written memo. "Nothing in federal law warrants second-guessing its expert judgment that the best information available today does not yet justify the dramatic steps Michigan demands."

Except for the fact that you've dropped the ball with your head up your ass for the last decade, preventing the spread of these fish from downstream. Different regime in the White House, same bullshit policies. It's obvious that the Feds and the State of Illinois both don't care about the devastation of the Great Lakes' native fish populations and the region's $7 billion fishing and tourism industries.


• More anti-coal sentiment hits the blogosphere over at The FlyFish Journal. Good to see my brothers in arms not afraid to speak their minds on the ravages of coal generated electricity. Thanks for joining the fight. It's apparent the "clean" coal lobby won't rest until we and our children and our children's children are all dead from the ingestion of toxins and heavy metals and lung disease.


• Major flooding possible in the Red River Valley this spring, AGAIN. The most recent forecast issued by the National Weather Service gives the Fargo/Moorhead area of the Red River of the North a 49 percent chance of major flooding and an 80 percent chance of moderate flooding, with near-certainty of minor flooding. I think the solutions to this problem are more ditches, more dams, more tiling and wetland draining, unsustainable development and new construction in a floodplain, and a massive pork barrel proposal to construct a huge non-eco friendly river diversion complex to bypass the cities of Fargo and Moorhead. Oh wait, that's what they've already been doing, and you can see how well that's been treating them the past few years. #FAIL

If the fish are gone, burn the country.

• Singlebarbed's fume fueled DIY tutorial on dying your own tying materials. A must read for any hardcore tying enthusiast.


• The Winona Fly Factory is tying some impressive Starling soft hackled midge patterns in preparation for the winter catch and release trout season in Southeast Minnesota. WFF kicks off the cobwebs and icicles and lands a few fish on a frigid New Year's day. Looks like a mid winter trip to points SE is in order.


• Fat of the Land relishes his Christmas Contraband from his Holiday visit to Cheeseheadland. Frankly, I want a sample of his homemade sausage.


• SwittersB reminds us how to properly store and manage self harvested and purchased fly tying materials.

The trip back home from visiting relatives over the Holiday break involved a couple of pit stops along the way. First stop: Cabelas. Some people consider Cabelas the holy grail of all things outdoors, as the retailer proclaims themselves the "World's Foremost Outfitter". Hardly. Their retail locations look more like a clothier than a sporting goods store, and their fly fishing sections seem to shrink with every visit.



I realize that people probably do more window shopping than actually buy hard goods and that soft goods are where the real money's at, but still, stock some shit on your shelves that we want to buy. Nonetheless, I usually manage to find a bargain or two at the store during a visit. This trip: Ultrawire spools in Fluorescent Orange and Yellow marked down from $2.25 to $0.80. I cleaned out everything they had on the shelf. I threw in a dubbing loop tool for $2.49 (not a bargain) to work on creating some buggy ass looking nymph bodies. The saving grace? They had several roughfish species representing their aquarium. Greater Redhorse, Silver Redhorse, Bowfin, and carp swam the waters alongside sturgeon, muskie, walleye and pike.

On to the next stop, Craft's Direct. I knew this place held much promise. I had the opportunity to shop here once a few years back, unfortunately, I was under a strict timeline as my family waited for me in the truck outside. Hard to find bargains on an "in and out" trip. Lucky for me Mrs. Roughfisher wanted to shop too, so I had the opportunity to inspect each and every aisle. Talk about a jackpot. Not only did they have more variety and a higher inventory of items, they were cheaper than the typical retail craft store.




I don't know much about tapestry wool. I do know that the virgin yarn contains antimite so it should provide my nymphs moth protection. It was marked down to $0.50, came in a cool caddis green color, and had some nice textural properties that would blend up well. I also picked up a few more skeins of the Needloft craft cord, priced at $0.50 a skien. To my surprise they had a bunch of wacky colors like chartreuse, bright green, tangerine, and burgundy. These colors should help round out my current collection, and provide a fine compliment to my custom dubbing blends. I'm gonna experiment with pom-poms and use them as body segments and thoraces on nymph patterns. I might experiment with using the larger sized ones for clam patterns. If a carp will eat, I'll tie it up.

The craft warehouse had a significant stash of gift shred. There were more colors and they even stocked the fine metallic shred. I had been interested in this material, but didn't want to pay for shipping on a two dollar item. The brown, copper, burgundy, and pearl shred were looking might tasty and found their way into my cart. This stuff would make nice streamer bodies, but it is fine enough for adding to dubbing. Same with the next score, more silver tinsel. This stuff is holographic and crinkle cut; I've never seen a cut like this before. Best of all, it was marked down from $2.99 to $1. Looks like the grinder will be plenty busy this winter.





The score of the century: Angel Hair, aka Krystal Flash. Marked down from $9.99 to $3.99 for silver and gold, and $2.50 for the pearl. 15 gram containers, that equates to just over half an ounce and way more than the tiny hank you'll find at the fly shop. Considering that I can buy krystal flash at wholesale for $22 bucks per two ounce skein, this was a solid find.


Looks like I better get busy tying.