First off, I am sorry I don’t update this page as much as I feel I ought, but were I to consider all the things I don’t do and feel I ought “Flyosophy” would probably not be mentioned till volume two of library three.

I have mentioned in passing that my dietary habits are something of a running joke.  Last week I had a doctor seriously consider the possibility that I might have scurvy.  I shouldn’t have to tell you I felt disappointed when it turned out I didn’t.  On top of that I’ve learned that potassium or vitamin K is rather important.  Without it you tend to have stroke-like seizures and feel something very much like a heart-attack.  Not fun.

Even less fun is having my precious Tundra recalled by Toyota.  Granted hard to complain when they gave me a brandy new one to use and are essentially rebuilding the “mature” one.  Yes, I do love my truck, and yes she does have a girl’s name, “Koiko.”  The simple truth of the matter is that I have had that truck longer than any other non-familial relationship – even longer than my birth-control hat – last year at this time I was living in it.  It is odd how easily I can get attached to inanimate objects.  Dr. Phil probably would say it’s because I have abandonment issues and I have to learn to love again.

My mom just thinks I’m retarded or possibly gay.  Yes, my mother, Nancy “All My Grandkids are Dogs” Murphy has essentially started to peer-pressure me to knock up someone.  “You know when you get out of work at midnight you should head to the I-Hop, that’s where all the drunk chicks are and who knows maybe you could get lucky and one of them will make a horrible mistake.”  And people wonder why I am immune to panic and don’t seem overly concerned that my blood has the consistency of Oobleck.

It just dawned on me I’m not sure why I’m telling you all this, but hey why not these articles can’t all be gems.

One other thing I have been doing while I wasn’t writing is writing.  I am trying to get a proposal together for a Flyosophy Book…just not sure how much if any “How-to” stuff it should contain.  I personally feel that an awful lot of the How-to stuff in books is bogus at best.  Fly fishing is simple.  In fact a book written which had literally everything you needed to know to get on the water and be successful would be so painfully obvious that most people wouldn’t be able to take it seriously.  The few that could enjoy it for what it was probably wouldn’t need it.

For instance I can tell you EVERYTHING you need to know about fly fishing for stripers in an anorexic paragraph.

Get a fly in front of the fish.  Use a strip-set to hook the fish when it takes the fly.  If you see or suspect the fish are refusing your presentation do something different.  Your basic set up is a 9 foot 9 weight rod with an intermediate line and a six foot 20 pound leader, a Clouser minnow works most of the time.

Naturally the first sentence could be expanded to a series of books, but all in all that’s the name of the game.  If the fish aren’t there you can’t catch them.  If you can’t get a fly to them you can’t catch them.  If you can do both of these things, well, more often than not you will get strikes.  On those days when the fish simply refuses to take a fly, there are some tactics you can try, but honestly they aren’t magic or really all that surprising.

The other alternative is to try my hand at story-telling or heaven forefend try to just write something funny.  Not really sure how this business works, but I did learn one thing – a remarkably successful fishing book would sell around 500 copies.  In any other genre that would be a flop.  Given the amount of work and time that goes into a book I’m guessing your favorite author gets paid about 3 cents an hour…

I’ve also been working on a fiction novel, which does have some fly fishing in it.  Granted it takes place in a fantasy version of the Iron Age. I felt I had to make it a fantasy setting because the reality of such a time would be all my characters dying a nasty diarrhea death.  Though I do plan on writing like a three page description of some chump trying to get a fire started…I mean seriously that must have sucked.  I was in Boy Scouts with the flint and steel and that fire by friction – yeah no thanks.  I mean think about it, getting breakfast was a high adventure.

See this is what happens when you grow up thinking Conan the Barbarian was a historical figure.  Actually it is kind of weird, as a kid my favorite book was this story book my dad gave me.  It had versions of Beowulf, Morte de Arthur, Siegfried, Icelandic Sagas, The Song of Roland, Gilgamesh, all with full color illustrations.  The language was geared for children (or sub-standard adults) but all the violence was in there.  My older sister loved it too and one year organized all the neighborhood kids to put on a play – of Dante’s Inferno. She may have been 9.  Luckily she grew up to be cool…me I can only be considered cool during a bout of hypothermia.

“Each leaf of oak, ash, and thorn, is a unique embodiment of the pattern, and for some, aye, this very year may be the embodiment, the first ever seen and recognized, though 0aks have but forth leaves for countless generations of men.”

J.R.R. Tolkien

If you have kids in your house, have books in the house.  If you want to be awesome, occasionally read to them.  Today I turned 36, I can still vividly remember my father reading the “Hobbit” to me.  Video games, I-pods, and a bazillion other technical devices are replacing imagination…I’m not okay with that.

See now I’m thinking there is a market that hasn’t been exploited.  Erotic Fly Fishing Fantasy Literature.  Picture the cover art of Fabio wearing just a chest pack between his nipples while some buxom wench clings to his non-casting arm.  Titles like:  The Ghillie’s Saucy Wife, The Bamboo Switch, When Teddy Gordon’s Away the Lassies will Play…

Enjoy a sample:

Feathery Delight

Kim Kardashian had come to learn what should have been painfully obvious to everyone in the Universe.  Her ex Reggie Bush was a running back, and no running back was man enough to ever satisfy her the way an ex-linebacker from a Division Three school could.

“Oh my God Sean that was…well let’s just say you made me feel like a virgin again.”

Sean Juan was starting to fall asleep the full 2.9 seconds of exertion had left him glistening in a Crisco-like layer of sweat.

“Well, Kim, don’t want to brag but they don’t call me ‘Big Guy’ simply because I’m morbidly obese.”

“No I meant that it was over before I knew what was going on and I’m still not sure what happened. Take me again…”

“Sorry babe no can do, you know there is a little thing called meiosis that needs to happen…I’d explain it to you but we all know girls are no good with the maths.”

Sean Juan got up and scratched his manly ass, as hairy as a boar’s and thrice as large.  He had a tide in two hours and still needed to tie a few patterns for the trip.  Still he couldn’t help but look at Kim’s big fat ass, damn if the fish were half that size the trip would be epic.

“Oh Sean please come back to bed I get so lonely without your massively jacked arms.”

“Ya, about that, probably better if you didn’t look in my computer, just saying.  Why don’t you cook something, don’t go losing weight and force me to dump you like I did to Megan Fox.”

“But the guys on TMZ said I looked fat.”

“Those guys are fags.  Listen you are built for comfort with an ass that when I slap it – it slaps me back.  Kudos to you.”

So Sean went down to his basement liar, and started to tie flies that certainly wouldn’t be detailed here. Maybe someday in a book titled, “Flyosophy: Hold the Salt” – or something even wittier.  But Kim grew bored and restless and found that Sean’s TV had both the Oxygen and Life-time Movie Network blocked out, his DVR contained nothing but episodes of Robot Chicken and WWE programming.  So Kim tiptoed down to where Sean was working.

Sean gazed intently at his vise and didn’t take note of her.  So she dangled her leg over his shoulder.

“You are in my light.”

Then she blew in his ear.

“Yes I think that is a wonderful idea.”

“But I didn’t say anything.” Kim pouted.

“Sorry, Knee-jerk.”  What were the odds that she wouldn’t have said something…should have bought a lottery ticket.

So Kim called her bestie, Gisele, and asked her what she did to get Tom Brady in the mood.  Gisele told her she would put on tight silver pants and bend over in front of Tom while he called out random numbers and colors.  Kim didn’t think that would work.  She remembered how Sean drooled over the Victoria Secrets Ad that pictured Gisele with her feather bra.  Kim only hoped they made one in her size, since she was a real woman and thus had boobs.

Attired with her new bra she crept up on Sean – still fixated on his vise – and stroked the back of his neck with her feather-clad boobies.  Finally Sean turned to face her and gazed lovingly at her chest.

“Oh Kim, you know what daddy wants.”

Kim shimmied at the encouragement.

“You know what daddy NEEDS.”

Kim ran her hands through her thick, dark and silky hair.  Sean reached for her breasts, found a perfect feather with a soft quill for palmering and plucked it with a quick thank you, turning back to the vise to tie in his prize.

Ya, that’s never going to work.  Probably should leave the fantasy genre to the experts, of course none greater than J.R.R. Tolkien who wrote “The Lord of the Rings.”  Which brings us to this articles segue see the Ring of Doom could turn you invisible, and I have found that for fishing spooky fish on clear flats nothing beats an invisible fly.

That was weak even by my low standards.

The Invisible Fly is something I have been tinkering with for a few years.  Like most “patterns” it can easily be modified for color and size.  The proto-fly was called the Cyborg, and is an excellent fly in clear water.  Like the Cyborg the Invisible Fly uses yak hair with a mixture of synthetics.  The pictured flies have a few strands of Mega-mushy flash and a topping of Deadly Dazzle.

The fly really is more or less invisible.  If one was dropped at your feet in the sands of a flat, you could not easily see it.  Like a natural baitfish the best way to spot one is to look for the shadow.

As for effectiveness, like all flies it’s hard to judge.  Fished next to a Whitey there are days where it is clearly less effective, however when the sun is high and the fish are spooky on the flats, there have been times where the invisible fly was the only fly in several fishermen’s boxes to work.  I suspect that it will work wherever there are clear waters and picky fish…be they stripers, trout, or what have you.