Yeah, I know. Is this really necessary?

There is a SHITLOAD of info available in all sorts of media to get yourself educated on this sport/pastime/gay ass artsy activity. What ever you want to call it, it isn’t like its brand spankin’ new and if you’re at a loss to figure it out, there are ways to get a leg up on the clueless, get smart, and get the most from your next trip. Whatever the situation, a local stream or lake or a weekend excursion, there are no excuses for not knowing what to be prepared for. If you’re gonna do it, make the most of it for yourself and rely on your learned knowledge versus that of the person that took you to where you’re fishing for the day or weekend, or, if your lucky, the week. Chances are, that person that took you there wants to just go fishing just as bad as you and wants to do it without having to keep tabs on you. Sure, there are exceptions, first timers, etc… still… even the “noobs” should do thier homework. What are you going to do to prepare for that next outing?

Let’s start with the basics:

BOOKS and MAGAZINES.

What are you looking for? Its easy… Search for it. Find it. Buy it. Borrow it. Steal it. Just get it. Its that simple.

All it takes is a little forethought and a few pages before bedtime for a few weeks before you go that will help you get educated before that next trip. Are you gonna be an expert after a few books? Of course not. Don’t be an asshole and think that either. Trust me on that.

It should be no surprise that there are books that will cover just about every facet of this sport. Rivers, lakes, ponds, fresh water, salt water… Even if you have nothing planned, it never hurts to fill in the gaps between what you already know and what you would love to do in the future. Yeah reading about the basics, gear, rigging, etc… is pretty dry but at the very least you can go knowing what “tippet” is and how it is important that your leader has the balls to “turn over” your fly. Plus, the next time you are hanging around with your fishing pals that already know this shit you won’t be the guy or girl asking the dumb questions about what size tippet you should use with “X” fly in”Z” situation and/or if you should be fishing a floating, sinking, or intermediate line. Even if you already know the basics about rigging etc…  pick up a book about baitfish or entemology or one on what your target species is. Learning a bit about your quarry will pay off on the water as will knowledge on how to read the water your on. It will tell you a lot. You just have to know what you are looking for.

DVD/Video.

This option is better than it has ever been.  Even our library in Toledo, OH has videos and DVD’s on fly fishing (along with books). Sure, they’re not holding Hustle and Fish or any of the AEG films but they have DVD’s and videos you could learn from and they span a variety of water types (fresh or salt). If your library sucks and you need this form of media to learn then I would suggest you hit your local fly shop or Google.

The Interwebs…

Ahhh the Interwebs… Probably the best source of info you’ll ever find. Sorry print media but its true. I love print and I would never carry a laptop to the shitter. But you should know that while your reading this there are others watching You Tube vids on fly tying or fly casting and those folks will use what they learned to out fish you.

Probably the best gig on the interwebs is the USGS Real Time Water Data. Hands down the greatest cheat sheet for what your river is doing at the moment and the recent past. USGS gauges are the next best things to being there. The trick is to learn the patterns and log what you see at any given flow for clarity and fish-ability. For example, you were on such and such river and the visability was at just over a foot at 340cfs. You can usually find some info on fishing forums to help out with this too. Once you get this part down, you’ll be hard pressed to ever waste a drive to find that the river is blown or just still muddy from the last blown out. Super important tool for steelheading the Great Lakes. Its easy to figure out. Go to your state, click on the river you want to see and presto. You get the flow in cubic feet per second, the height (at the gauge), and sometimes temp and other neat stuff like amount of dissolved oxygen. Hardest part is finding the river you want because they aren’t labeled at first glance but if you put your mouse on one of the dots it should pop up the name of the river.

YOUTUBE:

Great source for casting tips, fly tying, fish porn… Obviously lots of stuff there.

Blogs:

Just like the one you are reading right now. There is a wide variety of them out there and most are not aimed at how too’s but if you took the time to comment and maybe ask a question you might actually learn something from these people. Just remember that the blogger’s home base is internationally anywhere so the knowledge base is huge. We like to get hits on our blogs so asking us a quick question is perfectly acceptable. We reserve the right to publicly “flame” you though if you ask something stupid.

I am usually the first one to bash  ‘big box store brand’ products.  Just too many bad experiences in the past.  But I also have to give praise where praise is due.  I went into just such a ‘big box’ outdoor store in search of a new pair of wading boots.  Where we live in northwest ohio there are no local fly/gear shops to support (at least not any that would have waders/boots) so options are limited.

My intentions going in was to buy a pair of Chota STL’s ($135), but when I tried to get them on and off…. I wasn’t very impressed.  They had gotten good reviews from a lot of publications, but for me, getting those damn things on in below freezing temps, with frozen waders, in December, in Ohio or Michigan, wasn’t going to work.  I’ve had Chota’s before, and like them, but I couldnt get over this issue.  So on with the search….

After some conversation with the salesman, and the Hatchless Admin, I decided to roll the dice and try the store brand.  Cabela’s Guidewear Pro Boots. On the surface, they look VERY simialr to the Chotas.  Closer inspection of the soles, and stud system, really makes me think they may be made by the same manufacturer (but I’ve been wrong before).  The large opening makes them, by far, the easiest ‘on-off’ boots I’ve ever worn.  After 5 or 6 events, they are comfortable, provide good traction (these are felt soles—I know, shame on me), and seem to be defect free.  Did I mention they really go on easy???  Looking forward to trying out the removable studs for steelhead season, but I haven’t done it yet as the floor of the Hyde wouldn’t like it. 

Overall…. good boots, good price.  The real test for me?  How will they hold up to the abuse.  I’ll do a follow-up……..

Firstly, finding a 14′ jon boat for a resonable price wasn’t as easy as we thought. It seems that everyone wants to get rid of their 10′ or 12′ but not the 14′s. We did find what we were looking for eventually and luckily it was only a few miles from my house. Let me just say that picking up (literally lifting the damn thing) a 14′ aluminum boat in the middle of the winter when its full of ice and leaves and stuffing it in the back of an S-10 sucked. It was cold as hell and that boat must have weighed and extra 100 pounds with all that crap in it. I never imagined it could be that heavy but then again, I’m about 6′-1″ and 160 lbs WITH waders on and guy that I bought it from was even punier than I am. Believe it or not, at my size, I have been called a “puss” before.  Never the less, on my way home I hit the DIY carwash tipped the thing half out of the bed of the truck so it would drain and powerwashed most of the ice and leaves out then called a buddy to help load the thing into my garage when I got home. The next day I walked out to discover that the powerwash job, while effective in removing all that shit from the visible parts of the boat’s interior, had released one of the most “interesting” smells I have ever been exposed to. It was as if the seats had been acting as the freezers for a cryogenics experiment gone horribly wrong. I sort of felt like I had just single handedly destroyed someone’s life long science experiment that was hidden away under the seats of this vessel. It was pretty nasty but at the same time, in the dead of winter when nothing outside has a smell other than the smell of cold, there was something kind of comforting about it. It smelled like years upon years of decaying earth and animal matter but it was concentrated in my little 20×20 garage. Kind of like when you fart in a cup and then cap it with your hand to pass it to your buddy. I have never done that by the way… only a victim.

Since the boat was closest to me, I went to pick it up and I was trusted to make the right decision. (Did I mention that this project was a partnership deal? You see, this is what you do when you can’t afford your own boat. Find a willing partner and split everything. Just make sure its one of your favorite people to fish with so you never have to argue about who takes it where and when.) Anyway, as sweet as it was, that stench made me wonder if I had made the right decision. After getting together with my new co-owner and getting all excited about our possibilities with this thing my worries went away in a hurry. Here’s what we came up with for our blank canvas.

She’s a real beauty eh? 14′ Ouchita jon boat circa 1972. 48″ beam and 36″ bottom. The beam and bottom dimensions are important. They played a major factor in altering our original plan to deck almost the entire boat. It would seem that 36″ bottoms and a raised center of gravity aren’t a marriage made in heaven. Here is a little picture story of how this boat evolved.

“Holy shit. If this thing is tippy now, wait until we go up another 6 inches with the decks!”

So we were on to a plan B. Rear seat removal to maximize interior space.

Since we removed the seat that contained half of the flotation for the boat, we replaced it with pink foam and then a sheet of 1/4 ply.

Then it was off to the metal shop to get the anchor system fabbed up.

And then on to the paint shop and presto…

$700 drift boat and trailer.  That’s the grand total minus the beers. You really can’t beat it… or so we thought. There is a whole other side to this story that involves a few more boats… deals to good to be true, boat theft and so on… I’ll pick that up later but for now here’s the rest on this one.

You can see the anchor set up in the pic below. Lead to the rower’s side.  Also, if you look to the back of the boat (which is actually the front if your floating downstream) you can see the leaning brace we came up with. Basically what we did was bend galvanized steel tubing  in a few directions and came up with a bracket that they will slide in and out of easily for transport. There are leaning braces at both ends so you have two angler capability in addition to a rower.

The funny and sad part of this whole story is that the two of us that own it have only fished from it once so far. Like I said, there are now a few more boats. One of which is for sale by the way. Shoot us an email and we’ll tell you all about it.

Here we are up on the Au Sable for the ASBWPA Fall Clean Up in Mio, MI. We played garbage barge for the Trophy Water stretch between the Mio boat launch and Comin’s Flats. I think we had a grand total of 13 bags betwen what we collected on our own and bags we picked up from other crew members doing foot duty. The pontoon on the right is the second installment to the armada and part of the “deals to good to be true story”. Its also the one for sale. Best part of the clean up story beyond all the trash we collected? The jon boat got its name while the owners were spotting the truck. It was dubbed, very non-politically correctly but very fitting, THE SHORTBUS.