In an earlier post, I confessed my appreciation for the US military’s Boonie hat – the fly fisherman’s ideal warm-weather hat (at least for anyone willing to endure the icy glare of Fly Fishing’s Fashionistas).

I suggested more military surplus gear might find its way to the Budget Underground’s pages.

And why not?

Military “surplus” gear lacks panache (and any semblance of style), but it’s generally rugged and often attractively priced.

And if one thing’s become clear, it’s that the Undergrounders are a bunch of cheap bastards thrifty fly fishermen, and when our readers cry out for relief from pressing economic conditions, the Underground answers [strike heroic post].

Included in the descriptions below are links to a couple Cheap Gear Sources. Bear this in mind: I’m not suggesting these are the only places to get this stuff, and I’m also not benefiting in any way from the sale.

I’m just a giver, that’s all. A giver.

The Tube-Style Headwrap (The Buff)

You’ll find a lot of anglers wearing Buff headgear these days – especially those in sun-drenched saltwater environments.

They’re basically tubes of breathable fabric – a lightweight version of the venerable neck gaiter.

I was skeptical of the things – until I ran into a cloud of truly aggressive mosquitoes, and found only an empty bottle of repellent.

In desperation, I wore the Buff over my face and neck (my hat went on top), and while it was a little warm and fogged my glasses (eyeglass wearers know exactly what I mean), it was a hell of a lot better than a few dozen mosquito bites.

Speaking as someone who happily avoids the sun whenever possible, I’ve also pressed my tube headwear into a solar-avoidance role, and it worked – without wholly cooking me in the process.

Problem is, I lost my Buff.

And it turns out, they’re expensive ($20+). If you’re interested in one of their colorful patterns or anti-microbial/UV blocking tubes, then by all means buy the Buff.

If you can live with Olive Drab or Desert Tan, you can find a military-issue headwrap (Buff-style) product here – for $8.

They’re lightweight and basically disappear into the back pocket of a vest or chest pack, so you’ll do yourself the favor of always having one on hand when you really need it.

Like the affordable Boonie hat, I can’t see a reason you wouldn’t have a couple of these stashed in your gear.

They’ve become a staple on my small stream trips; they’ll protect you from sunburn (or more importantly, from more sunburn), keep you warm on cool days, and turn an irritating cloud of mosquitoes into background noise.

I risk ridicule, but not mosquito bites.

For $8.

At that “such a deal” price, buy a couple and squirrel them away (buy now, thank us later).

Identify Yourself

Ever leave a vest, bag, duffel or other piece of gear behind – without any ID attached?

(No, of course I haven’t – my mind is sharp as a #20 dry fly hook.)

However, it could conceivably happen to one of you, and when it does, you’ll be glad you’re a regular Underground reader.

We give you the US military dog tag.

They’re cheap, they’re durable, they’re custom – and with the included chains, they attach easily to a pack, vest, duffel, briefcase or other bag that can get left behind by aging, forgetful fly fishermen.

In simple terms, they offer a good Samaritan a chance to find the real owner.

And yes, if you’re struck by lightning or rendered unconscious by your own faulty backcast, wearing a dog tag might help folks find out who you are and how they can reach your family – especially if you’re like me and you often don’t carry your wallet into the wilderness.

Custom dog tags (complete with chain and rubber “silencers”) cost only $6/pair at The Command Post site, so for $12, you get four personalized tags – one to wear on a chain and three to scatter among your easily misplaced gear.

You may begin thanking me at any time.

Wader Aid

Small stream fishermen spend a lot of time hiding behind low-to-the-ground things, which means you either develop Lance Armstrong-level quads and squat, or you chew the crap out of your knees (and pinhole your expensive waders).

If you lean towards the latter, then you’ve no doubt ‘enjoyed’ that special moment when you find yourself hopping around on one knee while trying to dislodge the pointed rock from your kneecap.

It hurts, it’s not pretty, and there’s always the chance someone with a video camera will tape the event, landing you squarely on YouTube at one of your least photogenic moments.

The solution?

Silly, but effective (no pinholes)

I bought a pair of these last year – when it became clear I was spending a lot of time fishing from my knees, and they weren’t happy about it.

Decades ago, I carried a pair of sizable “drywall” knee pads on fishing trips in an effort to avoid all those wader pinhole leaks that irritated the hell out of me.

Those worked (to a point), but didn’t stay up while walking and took up a fair amount of space in a daypack.

When I lost them, I didn’t bother to replace them.

Still, I recently went looking for a replacement, and discovered that a lot of US Special Forces troops wear knee protection in the form of “tactical” knee pads.

The newer, slimmer “tactical” knee pads stay on your knees better than the old geezers, and while they’re not exactly comfortable (you won’t wear them when you don’t need them), they’re good enough to carry along in the car.

For example, on my last small stream trip, I didn’t wear the things on the freestone part of the trip, but unlimbered them for the meadow portion, where you pretty much have to fish from your knees if you’d like to accomplish more than spooking trout.

Several different brands are available, but these are pretty cheap ($15), seem to work well, and are even available in camo colors.

It’s hard to imagine whipping these out on the Upper Sacramento River, but easy to see the benefits on a smaller venue, especially if you’re wet wading, and your knees are wholly unprotected.

Your knees will thank us…

See you at the surplus store, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: buff headgear, dog tags, fly fishing gear, gear review, knee pads, tube headwear

• What every wading boot eventually will have: Power Laces (Simms & Orvis, are you watching?) http://ow.ly/27FxX #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Technorati Tags: fishing, Fly Fishing

Catch Magazine’s twelfth issue has just hit the Intertubes, and while it’s always pretty, I’m especially impressed with their essay on… clouds.

I freely admit to loving clouds, and to spending way more time than is sensible appreciating the fluffy white (or ominously purple-dark) friends in the heavens. Give it a look (click the image to start the journey):

The Bigger Picture

I haven’t hyped the online fly fishing mags much.

One of the reasons has been the largely one-way nature of the relationship; everyone wants a link from one of the bigger blogs (for both traffic and search engine reasons), but after repeatedly bolstering the readership of magazines – most of whom are selling advertising, and are in one sense competitors – I have begun to wonder exactly what’s in it for the Underground.

Unless you’re willing to run about 50% Gear Whore posts or just enjoy free gear, blogs in the fly fishing genre are tough to monetize – yet done correctly, they’re an amazing amount of work.

At some point – after getting alternately chewed for posting a link and then harangued because you haven’t written a post to benefit one of the dozen new business/product/commercial online ventures emailing you every week – you start to wonder exactly why you’re doing this in the first place.

I’ll admit the answer is a lot less clear than it used to be, but at least Brian O’Keefe – the brains behind Catch – agrees that the sites supporting his magazine probably deserve something in return, and for that, he gets a great big link from the Underground.

See you online, Tom Chandler.

• Big fish, tiny people: RT @whitefishpress: Bad Postcards go fishing again: http://tinyurl.com/28d5o26 #

Powered by Twitter Tools

Technorati Tags: fishing, Fly Fishing

Ted Leeson remains one of fly fishing’s best-known lyrical essayists, and for good reason; his remarkable “The Habit of Rivers” finds its way into almost every conversation about the alltime great fly fishing books.

Inventing Monana by Ted Leeson

Leeson imbues his essays with a deep sense of place and a keen sense of observation, and the only complaint I could previously muster revolved around his tendency to write too much about too little, wrapping his words into Gordian sentences that required a bit more work than was truly necessary.

Inventing Montana largely escapes that trap, and in fact, I found it one of Leeson’s most accessible efforts.

Using an annual summer trip to the same rural cabin in Montana for a foundation, Leeson neatly wraps two decades worth of visits around an intriguing theme; his annual vacations provide only a brief glimpse of a place, and his larger “reality” is mostly a product of imagination instead of experience.

His theme plays out throughout the book, but because I’m a merciful god, I’ve stolen several disconnected passages that nicely illustrate:

Montana is not a place. It is merely the name of a place, a convenience of language, ambiguously significant. Montana does not even comprise a distinct physiographic region; it specifies only an arbitrary geopolitical construct of the type always betrayed by straight borders on a map, drawn by diplomacy or war.

…

What is called “Montana” arises in part from our exchanges with this living space, one organism to another. Without such transactions, there is geography, but not a place.

…

This book contains, in a sense, my own Montana, which began taking shape over two decades ago when I spent a brief few days here. They came also as an afterthought, at the end of a weeks’-long pilgrimage to the trout-fishing shrines of the West, the kind of expedition most fly anglers make at least once in their lives, partly because it gives on fishing identity a certain credibility, and partly because it would be a shame to die without having a look at some of the loveliest rivers on the continent.

Leeson fills Inventing Montana with keen observation, crafting a rich landscape and populating it with interesting people (including his own party).

Simply put, Inventing Montana is far more than a collection of essays about fly fishing a particular spot on the planet, and like most of Leeson’s work, it’s filled with insightful – and often hilarious – gems like:

“the region is to fly fishing what the Golden Crescent is to opium production, and does a similarly brisk business.”

Leeson’s prose deftly carries us along on trips gone wrong (and right), and richly describes encounters (including repeated visits from a twitchy landowner trying to deprive his party of legal access to a stream) that paint a compelling – and wholly engrossing – picture.

While the book constructs a fascinating image of a place, Leeson’s insights aren’t always of the dreamy variety; this McGuane-esque passage hits hard and strikes a resonant chord:

Aside from the fish, who undoubtedly have their own opinion on the matter, and regardless of whatever it may have been in the more distant past, fishing is now at heart a form of play. I have always assumed this much to be obvious, but judging from the current trajectory of the sport, evidently it is not. Modern angling is uncomfortable with the idea and prefers to regard itself more along the lines of modern medicine, as an acutely specialized body of knowledge dispensed by a priesthood of experts. It tends to operate in the oxygen-depleted atmosphere of high gravitas or, more recently, in the overstimulated public displays of cultivated fanaticism. Those deficient in the requisite intensity – who fail to mount a sufficiently strategic angling campaign, do not whoop in ecstatic wargasm as the battle rages or pump the air with a victory fist at the climactic moment of conquest – are left to marinate in the unpleasant secretions of their own inadequacy.”

At the very least, Inventing Montana is a pleasant summer read; a series of stories (masterfully told) about one man’s repeated visits to a place many of us have seen and fished.

Few will be able to resist the temptation to measure their own perceptions against Leeson’s, but on a more compelling level, Inventing Montana attempts to understand the nature of fly fishing’s hold over us.

No one could ever truly plumb the breadth (or perhaps the depths) of the fly fishing addiction, but Leeson – using one small place as a representative piece of a larger puzzle – crafts a narrative so interesting, I don’t care if any questions are ultimately answered.

Inventing Montana a great ride – one you won’t want to end.

Addendum: The Cutthroat Stalker posted his own review of Inventing Montana here.

Technorati Tags: fly fishing literature, inventing montana, ted leeson

Haddock have been the second most-caught species after cod, with most of them being taken on bait but with some mondo specimens like Linsel Clarke’s 10-pounder on Saturday succumbing to the jig. Some pollock have been around as well, not as many as there were in June but instead the more standard summer sprinkling on each trip with fish ranging from mediums to 20-plus-pound jammers. Some cusk, wolffish (released, of course), and a few white hake round out the take on what have been a very good couple of days of summertime fishing. Dogfish appear to have moved further inshore and haven’t been too much of an issue on the all-day boats–fingers crossed. Despite the steamy summertime weather, there’s still plenty of life out on the grounds, with birds, whales and tuna joining schools of groundfish in a collective assault on various baitfish, mainly spike mackerel and herring. We can only hope that the fishing stays as consistent as it’s been recently. (Photos courtesy of galley-man extraordinaire, Jay Benjamin)

Though it happened years ago, the whole mess remains fresh in my mind: Two weeks after I rolled the L&T’s Toyota Forerunner in an Idaho wheat field (twice), a recall notice – warning of a “potentially dangerous” loss of traction due to something wonky in the rear suspension – arrived.

Timing, it seems, is everything.

Given my sensitivity to just-not-in-time product recalls, you can understand why I’m immediately posting this news release from Simms about a flaw in their wading staff:

BOZEMAN, Mont. (For immediate release) – Simms Fishing Products is voluntarily
recalling certain models of Simms 2010 Wading Staffs. The affected wading staffs
have a detent button that may not engage or can become dislodged making the staff
inoperable.

These staffs, offered in two sizes (52″ & 56″), are sterling silver in color and are
identified by Simms item numbers AWS101152 or AWS101156 (UPC numbers 94264-
10102 or 94264-10103). Affected Wading Staffs are visibly identifiable by a silver cable
connector (see photo).

The staffs were sold through authorized Simms dealers from March 1, 2010 through
June 17, 2010. About 2,000 affected products were sent to retailers. Simms estimates
about 1,000 have been purchased by consumers.

The issue was identified through company testing and customer use of the wading
staff. No injuries have been reported in conjunction with the defective wading staffs.
Wading Staffs meeting the above criteria should be returned for replacement or refund
by contacting Simms directly at 877-789-6555, by contacting an Authorized Simms
Retail or by email at recall@simmsfishing.com.

See you in the orthopedic ward, Tom Chandler.

Technorati Tags: Simms, simms wading staff recall, wading staff