This is Friday’s Fish Fry, served a bit cold on a Sunday night. It still has all of its memory attached, though. The trout involved is cutthroat that I caught on the Yellowstone River (in the Park) back in 1977. That would make me seven years old in this shot, and I remember the fish in vivid detail. Why I remember it so well, I’m not 100-percent sure, but perhaps it had to do with the day, the light, my mood, and my love of the place and the trout found there. This fish sipped a Griffith’s Gnat in that way that only Yellowstone Cutthroat know how to do. If you’ve ever caught a Yellowstone cutthroat on a dry fly under a hot July sun, you likely know exactly what I’m talking about. Yellowstone cutties don’t typically run hard or do much in the way of jumping, but they are beautiful fish, and in my opinion are an American national treasure.

Those who love fiberglass will also note the color of my rod. By the time this photo was taken, I had Fenwick HMGs at my disposal (*the* classic 1970′s Fenwick), but I still often fished my trusty glass. Maybe it was the fact that I had grown up with it, maybe it as the fact that it was tough, and could endure my less-than-kind treatment. Regardless, that rod caught a lot of fish in its day, and I see it in lurking in childhood photos scattered all over my hard drive.

Fans of old-school film will also like to hear that this was shot on either Kodachrome 64 or Ektachrome 100. I don’t have the original here to check which it was, but those two film stocks (plus a 400-speed) saw our family through a rather vast number of fishing trips.

Some readers wonder what I’ve been up to the last few months. I’ll tell you one thing: KEEPING A SECRET! That’s what. Unbelievably hard to do, but now that it’s Mother’s Day, a big reveal seems appropriate.

Don’t know what Kel and I are getting yet, but it’s either a Bunyan Bug or a Parmachene Belle! When we saw the first ultrasound, the tech commented that we were getting a drama queen. I asked why, and he said, “Look—he/she is moving his/her hand up to his/her forehead like it’s just all too much.” To which I calmly replied “Drama queen? That’s no drama-queen move, THAT KID IS FLY CASTING!!!” To think, 11 weeks old and already working on a solid Foundation Casting Stroke. I almost passed out….

So, there will all sorts of interesting posts in the next six months (I will post another ultrasound pic when BB or PB starts tying flies in-utero). Stay tuned!

Drawing Fish & Flies 52 Steelhead Fly. Generic steelhead fly form, following whatever popped into my head as I drew.

Notes: After burning much of my 30 minutes on what I felt was garbage, I had to come up with *something* that was interesting. I ended up with a drawing that is part pencil sketch, part etching, part charcoal drawing, part watercolor (tea-color to be exact).

Process: With the clock ticking, I almost attacked the paper. My mechanical pencil was employed both with and without exposed lead. I just laid down tone and texture as I felt was right, and washed some tea over it. I scratched a signature on it, and my 30 was up. For me, despite the intense feelings of frustration that accompanied it, this fly is one of my personal favorites. Not a style for everyone, that’s for sure, but definitely a style for me.

Tech Info: Mechanical pencil, charcoal and tea on 140lb Arches watercolor paper.

Available? If it speaks to you, then yes. Contact me if you’re interested. The paper is approximately 6 x 12.5 inches, torn edges. SOLD.

JK’s Image: Check out Jeff’s cool steelie fly here. He’s going to have a killer tee collection when this is all done.

And in case you’re wondering, yes, I’m behind by one DF&F 52 image. Pike is on-deck for me next. In the meantime, you need to check out Jeff’s pike. He’s got a style that just won’t quit with his metallic images, and I think he could do book of nothing but his mechanized fish and flies. I’d buy it for sure.

I’m now officially on-board with the C.F. Burkheimer (CFB) Fly Rod Company, serving in an “Advisory Staff” role. Kerry (the “K” who is actually the “C” in C.F.) and I agreed at the end of last week to the particulars, and my mug is now up on CFB’s site.

For those of you who don’t know C.F. Burkheimer rods, well, there is no time like the present. Kerry has been rolling fiberglass and carbon cloth around steel mandrels for a long time, and was a protégé of the late Russ Peak. Don’t know who Russ Peak was? You should! I got my Russ Peak education when I lived in Southern California, and it’s safe to say that his name is secure in the halls of rod-designing legends.

CFB is a good fit for the likes of me, I think. They’re a small, fishing-focused brand that loves good design and artful execution. Walk into the shop in Washougal, Washington and you’ll find a hard-core crew cutting reel-seat blanks, shaping cork, rolling cloth, and wrapping guides. You’ll also find Kerry, designing fly rods with some “old school” flair: pencil, paper, and a sense of direction instilled from decades in the business.

As we go forward, I’ll be providing feedback and input on rod performance, as well as working with CFB on various media and education projects. In addition, my deal with CFB also includes a couple of special projects that will forthcoming. Stay tuned for more on that front.

Burkheimer is known for the tag-line, “one at a time, one of a kind,” and that is an apt description of the CFB rod-making process. But another tag-line that CFB uses, and the one that I think really says it all, goes like this:

C.F. Burkheimer — Hand-Rolled Soul

If you see me on the water this season and want to throw some soul, just wander over and say hello. And keep your eye on FF&W and the CFB site—we’ll both have announcements and new content related to rods, casting and fishing coming soon.

Update: If you’re on facebook, you can “like” CFB here.

Drawing Fish & Flies 52 Steelhead. Sort of “Son of Grungy Steel” and inspired by a certain North Umpqua image by Dan Callaghan.

Notes: Wanted a sense of flow and turn in the drawing, so just let the pen move however it felt right on the paper. Did it twice, with the lower image seeming to be the best to my eye. Mostly an exercise in expressing the form of a swimming steelhead.

Process: A pad of yellow paper scratched on with a black ball-point pen. Photographed with my phone and post-processed using Snapseed. Imported into Photoshop for the final re-size and sharpen.

Available? No.

JK’s Image: Check out Jeff’s awesome steelie here. Tee shirt? I hope so!

“Twelve-Weight Bowl”

This is on its way to me now. Turned burl, rubbed finished, Alaskan salmon teeth inlay. Flat-out beautiful. People ask me where my art background comes from. That’s an easy answer: my mother, Nancy. Yeah, this is one of hers. She is a woodturner by artistic trade, but also does some carving and metal-spinning (typically integrated with her turning). She makes seriously nice pieces, and almost no one outside of a small group of dedicated woodturners and locals knows about her work. I think that’s a shame, and I think she deserves a wider audience, specially since she does work like this that is fly-fishing focused. Want a burl bowl with salmon teeth (or something entirely different) to grace your tying room, living room, or any room? Go to my mother’s site and send her a note.

Update: Steelhead is the next DF&F52 on tap for the weekend.

Drawing Fish & Flies 52 Permit. In honor of Jose Wejebe.

Notes: Wanted something simple, yet evocative for this piece. Nothing more than a flagging tail, a reflection, and the hint of a waterline. This piece deliberately has no edges or visual constraints other than the white space of this blog post. This is also the first finished image that I created in the new Photoshop CS6 beta. Took only a few minutes to get it right to my mind’s eye.

Process: Nothing more than a 13 pixel, soft round brush in Photoshop. Drawn using my trusty, if well-worn, Wacom tablet. Slight adjustment of lightness on the reflection of the tail.

Available? No. Just pixels.

JK’s Image: Check out Jeff’s permit here. Jeff’s eyedropper technique scores him yet another beautiful piece.

A shot taken at Vermejo Ranch in northern New Mexico. This brown was cruising a weed-choked lake shoreline, looking for damsels, snails, or whatever else might have seemed tasty. Vernejo is a place were you can find fish like this all day long, but especially in the morning hours of warm summer days.  I have caught fish like this brown so close to shore that their fins stuck out as they poked along. If you ever wanted a place to use Bow-and-Arrow (a.k.a. Catapult) casting to the maximum, Vermejo may be it. It is a type of up-close-and-personal fishing that runs through my head seemingly every single day of my life.

This Saturday’s DF&F 52 image will be in honor of Jose Wejebe, who, as many of you likely know by now, was killed while piloting his airplane last Friday. Considering Jose’s saltwater background, Jeff and I will be doing a permit, a fish that many anglers view as the ultimate flats prize.

Spent some time looking for carp in Portland recently, and I do mean in Portland. As it turned out, no carp, but no matter. It was a warm spring morning, with the smell of grass, trees and water, and the sounds of birds…and F-15s from the PDX airbase. Despite the urban closeness and the thunder of afterburners, it takes only a moment for the surroundings to change the mood of time and place. A familiar scent and the sight of sun-dappled water turns even a bit of rod-less recon into an angling morning. I would prefer a fish or two next time, sure, but I’m also not disappointed to have spent a sliver of my life looking for them here….

A view upstream, with just the hint of light off the water.

And a view downstream, with a beaver's handy-work draped over the flow.

Long Flies is officially on its way from the printer. I’m supposed to have a few books myself come Wednesday or Thursday. In the meantime, GB has posted the Table of Contents over at his blog. If you have an interest in seeing what the book contains, point your web browser here.

And for those looking ahead, the edit of The Anger as Predator is underway, with the cover, the title/copyright pages, the dedication, the acknowledgements, the upcoming book list and the bio sections done and ready to go. Hope to have the preface done this week, and then all the supporting sections will be in place. Chapter One is already edited, too, and the others will be falling into place as I can get to them.

GB sent me a wad of photos to look through, so hopefully image selection should go faster than with previous books in the series (I’ll also be doing illustrations, but I am building a library of my own vector art that I can re-arrange more quickly versus trying to re-draw everything by hand again).

Drawing Fish & Flies 52 Flashback Hare’s Ear. Went fly-only again this week with another classic pattern (that has a slightly modern update with the “flash” part).

Notes: Wanted something to act as a nymph match for last week’s dry Adams, so went for a simple, clean profile in liquid charcoal. This was painted even faster than the Adams. I also used a much smaller brush which allowed me to go drier in application and force the charcoal onto the paper. That produced more random effects and more “hare’s hair.” Added a touch of blue to pop the piece up a bit and give the flashback portion some due.

Process: Liquid charcoal and a splash of watercolor on 4″x 6″ Canson 140lb paper

Available? Yes. Contact me if you’re interested. SOLD.

JK’s Image: Check out Jeff’s FBHE here. You are killing it with that technique, Jeff!  Some of the coolest fly art that I’ve ever seen the last two weeks (but you already know that I really dig that type of graphical style)!

Steelhead, red marabou, and overkill with digital filters. I still like it in its own way, though. Has an almost phantasmagorical sense to it.

Kelley sent this to me last month, and I finally got around to putting the trailer up here at FF&W. Narrated and executive produced by a familiar voice….

More about Watershed here.