Product Review

Fly Fishing for Striped Bass
Rich Murphy
Wild River Press, 2007
457pp

The claim that any book is “definitive” has always caused me to dismiss the reviewers glowing claims that inevitably follow – and I’ll not use the term in this review – but Fly Fishing for Striped Bass by Rich Murphy comes close to meeting this ideal. I’ve had the pleasure of chatting with Rich at the Somerset show in the past and marveling at his beautiful and innovative fly patterns. When I asked him if he’d ever caught a tautog on a fly (something I’ve tried to do for years, without any luck) he responded with a tone suggesting that it was downright easy.

Looking at his crab patterns, it doesn’t surprise me that ole Mr Tog would fall for ‘em. Anyway, this book, is simply put, a pleasure to read or just peruse. Replete with color photos on every page, it’s a coffee table book that reads just as well. In its 9 chapters, FFfSB starts with an intriguing chapter that follows the migration of “Sax,” a fictional, fifty pound cow bass on her migration up the coast.

Other chapters describe the various techniques for flats, rocks, bays, etc as well as Rich’s excellent flies and other gear. Murphy, a driven, rail thin runner and type A angler is highly intelligent and you can sense his intense focus on every page. The book can be difficult to read in a bit too many sections and sometimes it seems that Murphy tries a bit too hard by half to find a sophisticated voice, writing too many passages like this:

We know from Chapter 2 that a major physiological change happens in her eyes at sundown – the color receptors or cones on the surface of her eye’s retina retract and contrast detecting receptors, or rods are deployed in their place. This enhances her capacity to detect subtle changes in the contrast gradient of the water column around her caused by the movement of her prey or predators…My surface night patterns are configured to...

Those Penn's Creek Green Drakes are awesome. I was fishing a size 6 imitation and it was noticably smaller than the naturals. Thank-goodness the fish didn't mind...

Super-cool vid. Great UW action. My only disagreement is that I think you see a couple E. invaria in some shots- Sulphur nymphs- more yellow.
Thanks for posting.
edit: 1:10 = 2 Henricksons (bigger, multi color) and 1 Sulphur (smaller, all yellow).
I'm not an entimologist either, but that's my story.

Last fall I decided to retire my old vest. Not that new things are always better, but my approach to fly fishing had change since I purchased my old vest 20 years ago.

More recently I find myself hiking into many spots and need to be a little more nimble. I am not fooling myself, I do realize nimble and me parted ways many years ago. Damn carbs! It seemed I was overstuffing my vest with loads of fly boxes and too much extra gear. Quite frankly casting was a bother as I had eight - ten different boxes crammed in all over my vest. One big final new requirement was being able to bring my camera and reach it with relative ease.

Of course I did a lot of research on the Internet and ultimately made my way to over to a fly shop and get the touchy feely thing going. Stopped into TCO Flyshop while on one of my daughters college road shows (please pick PSU, please pick PSU) and got some help from Chris. He was a big help and I settled in on the William Joseph Confluence chest pack. Now this pack has been out for a couple of years, but I still get asked a lot about vests and chest packs.

Once I made the switch I really enjoyed using the chest pack this season. First I had to repack all my fly boxes and gear, which in itself was a good thing. (See blog post here.)

The front of the pack has plenty of room for all my essential small gear. The zippers are awesome. Nothing worse than trying to keep things contained and getting held up on stuck zipper. In the front zippered section I can load up plenty of spools of tippet, split shot, a small knife and sunglasses.

The main front compartment is designed for fly storage. William Joseph provides a foam fly holder, which I keep loaded with several of my go to flies, nymphs and streamers. About the only thing I didn't like with the...

One of my favorite fly-fishing books is back in print after several years. Trout Streams of Pennsylvania: An Angler's Guide, 3rd edition by Dwight Landis is must have book for anyone who spends any time fly-fishing in Pennsylvania. .

Landis provides an amazing amount of detail covering the most important streams across the state. Inspired by the streams and their surrounding landscapes, he wrote this 1st edition of this Pennsylvania fly-fishing guidebook in 1991 at a time when there were very few books of it's type.

His book was one of the inspirations for Paflyfish.com and I personally pack his book with me as I trek out on my fly-fishing jaunts.

The reprinted 3rd edition (no changes) can be found at many local fly shops and online Trout Streams of Pennsylvania: An Angler's Guide, Third Edition.

An interview with Dwight on Paflyfish can be found here.

Stenonema Vicarium (March Brown)

Spirit River Flies have been posting a few “getting started” videos for beginning fly tiers over the past month. These brief eight minute YouTube videos can be found on the Spirit River Flies Channel. They cover how to tie each fly from beginner kits they sell. Seems like a great way to provide new tiers the know-how to get started with easy to learn methods for some popular flies.

The Spirit River Flies channel can be found here.

I was looking through some pictures my friend LukeC had posted on Flickr. I really admire his photography as they are mostly beautiful pictures of bugs, fish and tying flies. All good things any angler would enjoy. He caught my attention when he posted a picture of a screen capture from an iPhone for an application called The Hatch V2.0. Anxious to learn more I download the application immediately.

The Hatch for the iPhone and iPod Touch was recently released by Cory Pratt. The application provides hatch charts for you to carry with you while on the stream and includes some photographs of insects. With the recent update there are now 33 states and 300 rivers. Six of Pennsylvania’s more popular streams have now been added including: Fishing Creek, Letort Spring, Little Lehigh, Penns Creek, Slate Run and Spruce Creek.

The application provides a very straightforward way of selecting your month, state and river to access a very thorough hatch list.

The Hatch works off line so it will function if you are using an iPod Touch too. The hatch information is relatively brief and concise. If you have Internet access, there are additional suggested imitations via a link that takes you to Flyrecipes.com.

There are still more insect photographs and streams to be added, but Cory admittedly is asking for comments and feedback at his website which can be found at here. Found at the iTunes store for the price of $0.99 your can take The Hatch with you on the stream. There is a free "lite" version to try out too!

Some of LukeC’s pictures are used in The Hatch application and more of his wonderful fly-fishing photography can be found here on Flickr.

What an intriguing concept…Biodegradable Tippet material!!! I was actually very excited to try this Bioline tippet. It will break down within 5 years in the environment as opposed to around 600 years for mono…now, think of how many times you lost tippet and leader on snags. And think about how many fish broke the tippet at the leader knot due to a poorly tied knot. Multiply that by how many people you see on the streams doing the same thing. That is a lot of line for nature to get tangled in.

I tested the 5X line. I initially put it through some unscientific knot strength tests. I was impressed…It held up as well or ever better than the Orvis and Frog Hair that I normally use. It was a little greater in diameter, though. The Bioline tippet measures .008” in the 5X compared to .006” in the Orvis SuperStrong and Frog Hair…a difference that is even visible to the naked eye. But how would that affect the fishing?

I put the tippet through the paces in a variety of situations trying to test the limits of the tippet. I started by casting big deer hair poppers and bulky deceivers for bass on Keystone Power Dam with a 7 wt rod. I was amazed at how well it turned over the big flies. Where I normally would have fished a 2X or larger, the 5X showed no sign of being under gunned.

I fished it with dries on the Yough. It handled appropriately sized flies very well. The flies turned over easily. The tippet performed as it should all the way through the drift, as well as when executing reach casts, curve casts, and even slack line casts.

The Yough, being known for some good fishing with micro caddis and midges gave me a good opportunity to fish over some picky risers with a #20 black caddis. Obviously not a situation where you would normally use 5X, but in the name of research, I was willing to try for those fish with the Bioline. I was able to land 1 nice brownie, but the thicker diameter tippet had an obvious affect on the drift. In the past...

I usually travel within an hour and a half to fish. But again, I'm surrounded by so many great trout streams.

I didn't count possible trips to Canada, or any other vacations in the works.

On a recent multi day trip I had a chance to see the Boat Buckle Rod Bunk Deluxe in action. This is a great way to transport up to seven rod and reel combinations in your SUV or long bed truck.

There is nothing more important and annoying than taking your rod and reel apart moving from stream to stream during a trip. The Rod Bunk Deluxe was an easy way for use to leave our gear intact and move around on our three-day trip.

It can be quickly set up and taken down as it attaches to your vehicles coat hangers. We ended up using some plastic ties on the coat hangers to secure the snap hooks. The adjustable strap fits into most all trucks and secures your gear down with Velcro straps.

Quick, easy and just darn convenient!

We found ours at Cabela’s for about $30.00.

With the family in tow, I was already behind on my schedule to get to the grannom hatch on the Little J. When I finally arrived, there were bugs everywhere…every fly fisherman’s dream scenario. The girls were hanging out the sunroof trying to catch as many grannoms as they could. As I got in my waders and went to grab my wading boots, I realized that my felts were no longer attached to my boots and nowhere to be found!!! Even with bugs flying all around, I was not about to wade the wide, strong “J” with a smooth hard plastic sole. So off we went to Spruce Creek Outfitters for a new pair of boots.

With the mental image of all the rising trout I should already be casting to, I made a quick decision to go with the Chota's STL Plus boots. They were expensive, but time was wasting. Back to the stream, on with the boots, and up the trail…

The first thing I realized was that these were very comfortable boots. There was a little WOW! factor when I first put them on. They were very cushy hiking up the path at Barree, but still gave very good support.

The second thing I realized was that these felts seemed to grip better than felts I’ve had in the past. Having arrived at the stream so late, I mentally debated time vs. traction (cleats come unattached and must be screwed into the “Pivot Holes”). In lieu of the added safety, I decided to forgo the addition of the cleats to get on the water quicker – wouldn’t you? The polypropylene felts more than kept me upright…even in heavy water. My only precarious situations came from me tripping over rocks rather than sliding off them. Traction will only improve with the addition of the cleats.

As the rain began to move in and the day drew to an end, I got out of the river to start the hike back to the car. Even wet, the boots were lightweight and did not retain much water. That cushioning kept the long walk comfortable...