Underground Entertainment

Tuesday's Underground Entertainment

By Tom Chandler 7/25/2006

I'm not normally a link-heavy kind of blogger, but found myself staring at a great collection of the things. Still, I'm tied up with other projects - and I'm working on another post for later today - so here we go, but in double-time...

Hitting the top of the really, really odd product category is the... fish parachute. This little gem comes to us courtesy Moldy Chum, who probably should have their head examined for even publishing it...

Then from MidCurrent comes a story about a rafter who was likely assaulted by an irate fly fisher and got a pierced lip to show for it.

Then Moldy Chum links to an article about an ocean fisherman speared by a marlin. With the news that he's safely in the hospital, I just wanted to add that it's good to see the fish get thier licks in now and again.

On a happier note, GetOutdoors publishes yet another cool list of Web cams designed to let you visit our National Parks without all the hassle of actually going there. My favorite? The Smoky Mountains National Park cam.

In a related vein, Ian Rutter has updated his Smokies fishing report (maybe we'll see him again here someday), so now you can view the Smokies Web cam while reading Ian's reports. You're avoiding the bugs and high gas prices, so it's clearly better than being there...

Finally, those wags at GetOutdoors.com posted an entry espousing a fly fishing starter kit, peripherally noting that the Trout Underground has not yet offered to teach them the sport. If you read their blog entries, the gang from GetOutdoors are snarky, sarcastic, and even a little mean at times. Naturally, I invited them up right away! Can you imagine a better fit?

More on this adventure if it happens. And if you're bored, don't hesitate to post a note of support for the Underground at their blog.
AuthorPicture

Tom Chandler

As the author of the decade leading fly fishing blog Trout Underground, Tom believes that fishing is not about measuring the experience but instead of about having fun. As a staunch environmentalist, he brings to the Yobi Community thought leadership on environmental and access issues facing us today.

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TC, I think your are right. I did see two guys out last Sunday morning with fly rods, but I think they were using intermidate sink lines, and I didn't notice a hookup, but lots of weed pulling. It seems as long as it sort of resembled a bug on the surface, that was good enough. The odd thing was the trude was definitely a large mouth magnet, though I have no idea why. Humpy's also caught bass (I forgot ... more how good those were). Royal Wulff's didn't work, nor did irresistibles. Not even for blue gill. The funny thing was they had to drain the lake last year to do repairs required by one of the enviromnental agencies, so the bass populations went down, and the blue gill went up. The blue gill got huge, and so did the bass, though the bass numbers are small, and the blue gill is really a huge population. This was a treat because a blue gill with an attitude is much more fun than a bass, at least to me. The bass just shake their head. The blue gill will either go up and down, or circle like crazy or leap. They take dry flies willingly. The takes are often spectacular, dives, swirls, "jaws" whirlpools, side ways, or the most popular "SLURP!". I think the lake will correct, has I saw big bass gulping blue gill in really shallow water. I was afraid of the airport security so I did not take a bamboo, but instead the Sage. I carried it without a problem. - rriver
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Welcome back! Wondered where you'd got to. Warmwater fishing is so overlooked in this country. I had some secret carp spots when I lived in the Bay Area, but also would hit the Crappie in spring on a local lake where I never once saw another fly fisher. It's big, big fun, and though the environment isn't as cold or pristine as a mountain stream, it's still fishing. Sounds like you had a great time ... more catching fish that may have never seen a fly.... 8-)
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I spent the last week at my Dad's in Ohio, on Willowdale Lake, dry fly fishing every day, except for one afternoon. I probably caught 100 fish or so per day, a mix of large mouth bass, and blue gill with just a few crappie. Crappie and perch will not seem to take a dry fly. The blue gill where huge, and actually towed the boat when hooked. (I'm not kidding). There were no mayflies or caddis on the ... more water, mostly midges and dragonflies, but I caught most of the bass on royal trudes and big caddis flies, (Elk Hair with black bodies), and the blue gill on Parachute Adams, and smaller elk hair caddis. My biggest Bass was maybe 5 lbs, no dinks. I would usually search fish until I caught one, and then I would catch one every cast for at least half an hour. When I told my Dad I only brought dry flies, he looked at me like I was nuts. It took one day to make him a believer. The lake has lily pads and all kinds of weeds 5 feet or so below the surface. I don't think you could get a fly through that. Plus, it was an absolute riot. I fished about 8 hours a day in 2 hour shots. The blue gill would normally be under a big tree shading the bank, or against a rock wall with the wind blowing into the wall. The bass would almost always come up from downed trees. Lilly pads would hold both, with the trick to bounce the fly off the pad. One day it rained real hard, and my brother took me to a raging creek below a dam. With black wooly buggers we caught large mouth almost every cast for almost 2 hours. We did this by casting upstream into the fastest water. If he would not have shown me this I would have no idea you could do this. Most were al least 3 lbs, and got smaller as we caught more and more. He lost one large fish that was pushing 10 lbs. When the rain stopped the normal flow of this creek was pretty slow. The fish pushed up from below, where it was so thick with brush you could not fish there. I tied a bunch of buggers for my Dad. He watched us, and I think he wants to give it a try in the next rain. It was more fun than I thought it would be. I don't fish warm lakes much, but now I think I will. - rriver
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