Brownlining: Ever hear "fore" on your backcast?

FlyfishMagazine.com hereby officially advises bicycle helmets and Epinephrine syringes as additions to your fishing kit.

Letter to the Editor
An Open Letter to the Citizens of Mason and Visitors, from the Board of Directors, Ft. Mason Golf Association...

2) Citizens and visitors to the area are using the irrigation pond on the golf course for family recreation, including fishing. The water in the pond is not potable and could very well be dangerous to the health of anyone who consumes it or the fish that they may catch in it. Additionally, it is in the middle of an active golf course, so the danger from being struck by flying golf balls is very real. We encourage people to use the park for family recreation, and the Llano River, San Saba River, or Brady Lake for fishing.

To date no golfers have been injured

Gear: Found in our mailbox today...

Survival Kit in a Sardine Can available from ThinkGeek.com for $12.99. We have to say that our inner Les Stroud got the better of us when we came across these on the web. We can't help but picture ourselves marooned on a river bank with only this kit and our video camera. While not at all designed for long term abandonment having one of these in your fishing vest might make a night lost in the woods a bit more palatable.

You could of course make your own custom version with an Altoids tin and a few items from around the house but then you wouldn't get the satisfaction of opening the sardine tin before stitching yourself up with the enclosed fishing line.

The kit includes one of each of the following items: non-aspirin pain reliever, adhesive bandage, alcohol prep pad, antibiotic ointment, book of matches, compass, chewing gum, sugar, salt, energy nugget, duct tape, fire starter cube, first aid instructions, fish hook & line, note paper, pencil, razor blade, safety pin, reflective signal surface, tea bag, waterproof bag, whistle, and wire clip.

My one disappointment is that it only comes with one tootsie roll-like "energy nugget." I can already see myself having to employ the razor blade or safety pin to fight off my fishing buddies should food rationing become necessary.

Imagine your surprise...

when after a great day of back country fishing far from the nearest road you take a nasty spill and break your leg. Night is falling quickly but you aren't worried because you have one of those new fangled Personal Locator Beacons. You activate your beacon and start to wait for the all too familiar sound of the rescue chopper. Think you are home free? Think again.

According to this article that we received from Doug Ritter the Chairman and Executive Director of the Equipped to Survive Foundation not every PLB is created equal. In fact some of them aren't even close.

The recently introduced “TracMe Personal Locator Beacon” is only $150 and weighs just 1.6 ounces. It is so small it could fit on your keychain. Because the manufacturer (TracMe Beacons Pty Ltd of Australia) is using the same PLB nomenclature, you might be tempted to believe it has similar capabilities to a real PLB, and given the lower price, weight and size, be tempted to purchase it as a distress beacon. Don’t!

A distress beacon that doesn’t notify someone you are in distress and provide location information is no distress beacon. TracMe is simply a homing beacon, nothing more.The TracMe operates on FRS (Family Radio Service) channel 1. Yes, the same FRS frequency as used by those ubiquitous inexpensive “walkie-talkies” you see at Wal-Mart, Cabela’s and elsewhere.

When activated it transmits a recorded message, a beep and then “Help…Emergency,” every 15 seconds. This analog transmission does not serve as a distress alert, unless someone quite close just happens to be monitoring or talking on Channel 1, unlikely in most cases.

Here is a link to Mr. Ritter's entire article. When considering the purchase of a personal locator beacon be sure that it actually sends a signal to rescuers via satellite and that the signal it sends includes your coordinates.

Photo credit: Equipped to Survive Foundation

Rods and Reels Don't Float

Nelson Sigelman of the Martha's Vineyard Times wonders why anglers will spend big bucks on rod, reel, and then skimp on the stuff that just might save their lives?

If you fall overboard...

"Would you rather be clutching an Orvis large arbor Battenkill fly reel, cost about $250, or wearing a Hodgman inflatable fly fishing vest, cost about $250?

Serious fishermen are serious about their tackle. Not as many are very serious when it comes to the purchase and use of equipment that could save their lives. And the unfortunate truth is that every year fishermen across the country lose their lives for less than the cost of a good fishing outfit"

The article is aimed at blue water anglers but the same tenets hold true for the tail race trout fisher. Check out this video of how well these PFD's work on the Mustang Survival website.

Friends of FlyfishMagazine.com who angle in some of the rougher parts of the world might be more comfortable in Mustang's Damage Tolerant Life Preserver.

"This life preserver can take a direct hit from a firearm or fragment and still inflate. The unique damage tolerant design makes this PFD well suited for use in high-risk tactical situations"

We have actually fished in a few places with our pals Paisley and Zugbug where these would have come in handy.

Say it ain't so Bear!

There is no doubt in our minds that the Man vs. Wild star, former British Special Forces solider, and guy who has been to the summit of Everest, Bear Grylls is one tough guy. You can tell that by the catch and release technique that he is using in this photo from his website, BearGrylls.com.

However, we must confess that we were a little disappointed to find out via Reuters that parts of his show were staged and that he is sometimes whisked away to a cozy hotel room when it appears he is sleeping under the stars.

The network issued a statement Monday in response to an investigation launched by British television network Channel 4, which carries the program under the title "Born Survivor: Bear Grylls." Channel 4 confirmed that host Bear Grylls had partaken of indoor accommodations on at least two occasions when his series had depicted him spending the night in the wild.

"Discovery Communications has learned that isolated elements of the 'Man vs. Wild' show in some episodes were not natural to the environment, and that for health and safety concerns the crew and host received some survival assistance while in the field," the network said in a statement.

We understand. After all we have never been ones to believe everything we see on television. We do however have it on good authority that while filming he only stays at hotels that do not provide room service and is not allowed to avail himself of the contents of the mini-bar.

***Update*** more info arrives via the comments section:

Link to Dailymail.co.UK story about pre-built rafts and folks in bear costumes.

Link to the BearWiki: A site devoted to pointing out bad survival advice from Grylls.

All the more reason we prefer Survivorman.

Fishing Gods Angered - Laws of Nature Suspended

The following comes from FlyFishMagazine.com Middle Tennessee Editor, Jay Moore. Jay ran into a strange phenomenon while fishing one of his favorite tail waters. The river began flowing in the opposite direction! Here is his report:

On Saturday my friend, let's call him Phil, and I attempted to fish the Caney Fork in a driving rainstorm. Things started out as usual but then got very weird. Things became very much like the Seinfeld episode where everything was backwards.(The Bizarro Jerry).

We had landed a few small fish on midges when we noticed that our flies were no longer drifting. Rather than drifting with the current, they were sitting still. I decided to change sides and made a cast to a good spot but the fly drifted upstream. I tried again with the same result, so I tied on a thin mint and hooked a 15-16" rainbow. Phil netted it and put it on his new stringer (Editor's note: We think this is first spot where Phil got on dicey grounds with the fishing Gods). His old one swam away last trip with a nice rainbow on it. He tied on a trout magnet and the Green Cork of Death (second and third black marks on his permanent record with the fishing deity). It also drifted upstream. Soon there were all sorts of debris moving upstream!

We decided that things were getting strange enough that we needed to get out of the river. By the time we got to the bank the water level was up about three feet. I was as concerned as I have ever been while wading in the river so we were looking for a quick way out if needed.

I would not have believed that the river could reverse course if I had not seen it with my own eyes. I think that either Phil angered the Fishing Gods with his continued use of The Green Cork of Death and by not releasing the only good fish caught that day or it could have been flooding downstream. Either way it was a strange day on the Caney Fork. Oh, the fish count. Jay 8 Phil 0.

As always when we find someone chucking hardware here at FlyFishMagazine.com, identities have been shielded to protect the guilty.

Tips for Safer Wading

This article in the Connecticut Post gives some good safety advice for anglers who wade. Reading it made us dig up this photo of one of our long time fishing buddies (identity shielded to protect the guilty and our friendship) taken shortly after his pontoon flipped and he took a dunk in the frigid waters of the Watauga River tail water. He has a long swim back to the bank and got completely soaked in the process. It was a cold day and we were lucky to have a spare jacket or two in our boat bags so we were able to avoid a serious case of the shivers.

From the text of the article:

"If you do take a swim, forget trying to save the rod or other gear. Save yourself first. If you are swept away in the current, do what our reef friend did, tighten the belt, pull up your knees, float and shout like crazy.

FYI - This angler's first words when we hastily paddled over to him were, "don't worry about me, catch my fly rod."

Outdoor Skills: Know your meth labs

There are lots of things in the wilderness that can hurt you. Outdoorsmen know to watch for things like snakes, deer ticks, and bears, but would you know what to do if you run into the strong smell of cat urine while fishing that blue line brookie stream? While there is a slight chance that you are being stalked by a cougar with a bladder control problem, it is more likely that you have stumbled upon a working meth lab. These labs (and their tweaked out owners) can be very dangerous. Authorites advise touching nothing and making a hasty retreat.

An article in Outdoor Life Magazine gives details on a growing problem for those who enjoy being in the wilderness.

"Twelve months earlier in Ashley County, Ark., deer hunters tipped sheriff’s investigators to the fact that methamphetamine manufacturers had taken over remote deer blinds and were using them as labs. Narcotics detectives ended up finding four cooking operations set up in Ashley County deer blinds. In Wright County, Minn., four years before, cookers decided to use ice- fishing shanties to manufacture meth on Waverly Lake."

The Boulder County Colorado website has a section devoted to identifying the signs of an active meth lab.

Life skills: 32 Handy Uses for Beer

We were pleased when we found this article on the Monroenews.com site that tells us there are at least 32 different uses for beer. One of them is of benefit to the fly tiers in the group:

"Mix beer, chimney soot, walnut leaves and a little powdered alum in a small pot. Bring to a boil, then chill. Dipping any natural materials you're using in this solution prior to tying is supposed to make a tighter, more attractive fly.I guess you could call this "tying one on.''

We were even more pleased when we found the above video. Now there is a skill no fly fisher worth his hops should ever be without.