In The Vise

Another blog to check out

2006-06-16T13:54:00.000-04:00

My wife has caught the blogging bug and has published a very good blog detailing the day to day activities of our little guy. Check it out at http://dominic-leonardo.blogspot.com/

Long Time Gone

2006-06-16T13:21:00.000-04:00

I haven't posted in quite a while. My schedule since March 28th has been ridiculously packed with testing, retesting, classes, patient encounters, board studying, and finally the Step 1 of the medical licensing boards. Since I last posted, our little family has moved back to Upstate New York and bade a fond farewell to Maine. I did get a chance to catch a couple of the famous Maine brook trout on a very small stream (before the big floods of this spring) and I'm also happy to say I was able to do some successful striper fishing on the estuaries and river mouths of the coast of Southern Maine.

Dominic, our son, is doing very well. He's even got a few teeth sprouting up, which he is not happy about. His days now consist of visiting his grandparents, eating oatmeal and vegetable mush, and playing with his toys. We went for a swing in the hammock the other day and he was quite taken with it.

I took Step 1 on June 12th. Up until then, I was doing some very hardcore studying, putting in 12 to 14 hour days every day of the week to prepare. Looking back on the difficulty of the test, I really don't think I got much out of those study sessions. I did not feel very good about it after leaving the exam. The really crappy part of the deal is that we won't find out until late September/early October what our scores were. So for now, I'm just trying to forget about it.
And to facilitate forgetting about it, I've been doing some serious fishing - and it's been fantastic up here. We're having mild, sunny days, and cool nights, which makes for great fishing weather. The water is still ice cold, and I'm hoping it can stay that way into mid-summer. (Last year it was in the mid-70's by July - lethal temps for trout). I was able to bump into some solid caddis hatches over the past 2 nights on one of my favorite rivers, and the fishing was just phenomenal. I sure was glad for all of the Elk Hair Caddis I tied last winter. And I was also very pleased to see that my flies could stand up to being beaten up by more than a dozen fish before they had to be retired.
Tonight I may or may not fish - I'm going up to my in-laws for dinner. If I do fish, it will be on a small out-of-the-way creek which I'm sure will not see the Friday night crowds that can be found on the more popular streams. One of the best things about having the summer off is weekday nights fishing without worrying about fighting crowds.

Sprawling with Sprawl

2006-03-28T11:25:00.000-05:00

Click on the cartoon for a story detailing the fight against yet another Wal-Mart in Damariscotta, Maine.

Spinners, Spinners, and more Spinners

2006-03-26T22:37:00.000-05:00

I set a goal today to try and get through as many spinner patterns as possible (given all of the studying I needed to do) and I made it to a total of 30 flies tied, which is good for me. Luckily, I have some audio lectures of pathology board reviews that I can listen to on my iPod while I'm tying, so I can feel industrious and full of multi-tasking goodness. Path is a huge subject on Step 1 of the medical liscensing exam, so it pays to hit it hard in your prep.
The nice thing about spinners is that they all kind of look alike, so I was able to stick to a simple, straightforward pattern and just crank them out. I used two clumps of Microfibbets for the tails (splayed on each side of the body), some rust colored Superfine dubbing, and a Z-lon wing tied down. They look pretty nice.
Our little man is doing quite well. He has really packed on weight and he looks like a little football to me. He has started to 'talk' to us now...he has all sorts of gurgles and cooing he likes to do when we play with him or read him a story. Tonight he even sat with me and watched me tie a few flies!

Tough Night to Tie

2006-03-25T22:42:00.000-05:00

Some nights I tie a few flies and then just get wore out...and I think this has to do with April 1st creeping up. The season opens soon, and I'm getting to the point where I would much rather be fishing than indoors tying. It's so much easier to feel good about spending all day inside (studying or tying flies) when there is 3 feet of snow on the ground and a wind chill of -15. Anyway, I've been on spring break this past week, so I've spent the time studying for my upcoming board exams and stocking up my fly boxes. Tonight I cranked out a couple of Cream Variants, and 4 Anthopotamus Comparaduns. Those Comparaaduns are nice looking flies...I've never fished them before, but I like the way they turned out and hopefully I can tie some more. They're nice because its easy to adapt them to whatever patter you are tying. Plus, they are quick (no hackle to wind).

Sickening

2006-02-28T10:29:00.000-05:00

Dear Conservationist - a letter from Joan Wulf f

"If a developer has his way, the Catskill Mountains may never be the same. Crossroads Ventures, Ltd., wants to put two eighteen-hole golf courses on a mountaintop in the central Catskills."

This makes me furious. I try not to be over-dramatic with what I post here, but the situation in Upstate New York and the influence of powerful downstate developers is getting outrageous. I've watched far too many rivers become ditches running through housing developments for Manhattan socialites. Enough is enough. I'm in on this fight.

Some time on the water - finally

2006-02-24T23:29:00.000-05:00

We're back in my hometown in Upstate NY for my son's baptism this Sunday. I took advantage of the day off from school to head out to one of the few open rivers for fishing year round. It was heaven to be back on the water after too long cooped up inside studying for exams and tying flies. Today was blustery and cold, with air temps around 30 (not counting the wind chill, which was fierce) and a water temp of 34. Ice in my guides was, as always, a huge pain, but what gave me the most trouble was my reel getting iced up and freezing on the spindle. I had to keep dunking it into the river to free it up. I was using my five piece 5wt today with a Ross Flywater reel. The clicker that engages the gear in the inside of the frame seems to be made of a composite material, not metal, and think this may have had something to do with how easily it froze up.

Not much to report fish-wise. I figured that they would be pretty sullen and sluggish with the weather so cold, and I didn't see much activity at all. I started off throwing a #8 black Kaufmann's Stone, to no avail. I switched over to a #8 Olive Wooly Bugger and tried fishing that low and slow through some pools, but that wouldn't produce either. I really did not set out today to catch a mess of fish - I just needed the time alone and with the water. Someone, I'm not exactly sure who, said that "Catching fish is as incidental to fishing as making babies is to having sex." I love that quote...and I've repeated it many to friends and relatives who cannot understand why I would stand in 33 degree rushing water in late February, chilled to the bone, not even catching any fish, and still come home looking like the happiest guy on earth. It's just what makes me tick, I guess.

Green Drakes and Snowshoe Hare Feet

2006-02-20T23:17:00.000-05:00

I found a pattern for a fantastic looking Green Drake Emerger on Hipwader.com, and I knew I had to tie a few up for this summer. I ended up tying the emerger and the nymph, and both came out quite well by may standards. The emergers actually looked like something you would see in the fly bins at the local fly-fishing store. This was my first experience tying with snowshoe hare foot, and as a material, I think it is phenomenal. It has a translucence and shimmer to it that seem very well suited for tying emergers. The nymphs I tied looked good as well, and I'm hoping both of these patterns will serve me well in the coming months.

Tying these remnded me of the first time I encountered a White Fly hatch (which was also the first time I had experienced any kind of hatch at all). These events are unforgettable. It was a late August evening on a fairly large freestone river in Upstate New York. I had been fishing the pocket water around boulders without much luck and my parents, who had driven me there and we sitting in lawn chairs on the bank, we getting anxious to leave for the 40 minute drive home. As the sun sank below the tall pines lining the bank, I happened to look up into the twilight. I honestly thought it was snowing - the fat, wet flakes that clump together. The air above me had suddenly filled with an unimaginable number of zooming and hovering ghostly white mayflies, which were now descending from the higher altitude and landing on my head, my arms, the tip of my rod, anywhere the could find room. I stood there slack-jawed at this marvel, and suddenly, everything I had read about fly fishing started to make sense. It was as if the proverbial lightbulb in my head went off, and suddenly, I had found exactly what made me tick.
While I was standing there lost in my own contemplation, the trout in the river went mad with glee. The water seemed to boil with rises, as even the biggest of the resident browns came up to slurp up the bounty - these are huge flies, #8's and #10's. I furiously cast into the pool, but I had no fly that even came close to approximating the white flies, and I might have well been casting a cigarette but for all the attention my offering received. I did manage to hook one fish with a #12 Zug Bug (hooked? probably just foul-hooked him on a due to their activity) but immediately lost him. I left there having been skunked, but for the entire winter, I dreamt of that mega-hatch and how I would fish it in the coming years. I received a fly tying kit for Christmas, and the first fly I tied was a #10 Cream Variant, with thoughts of that blizzard of mayflies. As the months wore on, things changed, and teenage pressures and hormones took precedence, but in the back of my mind, I always could revisit that hatch to ground me in what mattered most. Years later, when I was deployed to some God-awful corners of the world as a soldier, I kept that memory with me to carry me through dark days. I'm so delighted that now, as an adult with a child of my own, I can put those memories and lessons to use and finally connect with that mythical hatch again.

Fishing's Lure Lost on Young - Los Angeles Times

2006-02-14T23:34:00.000-05:00

Fishing's Lure Lost on Young - Los Angeles Times

Here is an interesting article about the graying and declining numbers of the fly fishing crowd. The authors claim that with all of the distractions available to today's teens, fishing just does not hold the appeal it once did. I'm not sure I believe it, though. In the past 10 or so years I have watched fly fishing explode in popularity and numbers. Streams that I had all to myself back when I was a teenager are now choked with anglers from several surrounding states. I picked up fly fishing when I was 16, of my own volition and instruction. It didn't seem so trendy then, and it offered me the solitude which is so vital to fishermen like myself. Nowadays, it's getting harder and harder to find that solitude, and I often think fondly of days past when I had the river to myself.
The simple fact is that fly fishing is an incredibly popular trend right now, and I'll freely admit that I don't like the additional attention. I've had the unfortunate experience of witnessing some incredibly boorish and ignorant behavior by fellow fishermen, and the 'code of ethics' that used to be an unspoken covenant between fly fishermen seems to be lost on many of our new colleagues. (I've had people on kickboats float 30 feet in front of me and have the audacity to cast on either side of me without even saying hello). Maybe it is time for us, as fly fishers, to become a little more introspective and really consider just how much growth this sport can sustain.

The Sparkle Pheasant Tail

2006-02-12T22:54:00.000-05:00

Sometimes as I'm browsing fly-fishing websites I come across patterns that simply look too good not to tie. The Sparkle Pheasant Tail was one of them (I swear, I must have tied 10 gazillion flies involving pheastant tail bodies this winter). The full tying instructions can be found at Hipwader.com, which is a great Canadian fly-fishing site. I'm going to respectfully include one of their photos in this post.

In other news, I have a ridiculous number of tests this week, about which I am less than enthused. Our darling infant has developed the endearing habit of being a complete angel during the day, only to pull a Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde transformation aroung 9:30 each night, whereby he proceeds to scream inconsolably until 3:00 AM, at which time he retires for the evening. Who knew parenting could be such fun......

Northern Casemaker

2006-02-06T23:29:00.000-05:00

I'm getting to the end of the caddis patterns that I want to tie for the 2006 season, and tonight's fly was a representation of the Northern Casemaker pupa. These caddis spend their larval stage encased in sticks and debris, and hatch to become large, pumpkin-colored caddisflies that thump against my office window on fall nights and delight our cats. My reference book calls for sizes #10-18, but the adults I captured this fall all seemed to be around size 12, so I tied a few more of them. The pattern is simple...

Hook: Dai-Riki 270, #10-18
Body: Ginger "Caddis Life Cycle" dubbing
Rib: Brown tying thread
Hackle: Brown hen hackle, tied soft-hackle style
Head: Brown dubbing

You can get much fancier by adding wing buds, antennae, etc., but I don't think it is necessary.

Oh, one more thing....I'm currently reading The Compleat Angler by Izaak Walton. A fantastic book, and great reading for anyone interested in the origins of out sport.

Dark Blue Sedge tied on a cold, dark night

2006-01-25T23:05:00.000-05:00

I whipped up half a dozen of these Dark Blue Sedge emergers tonight. Today was a long day, with an exam first thing in the morning, then class all day, and then over to the clinic to see 4 standardized patients. I was beat by 8:30 and in no mood to study. So I tied a few flies and now it's time to hit the sack.

Oh, and if anyone has any tips on photographing flies in a vise, I'd love to hear them.

Glass Bead Caddis

2006-01-23T22:32:00.000-05:00

This is an extremely easy-to-tie pattern that does a good job of imitating a caddis larva of the Hydropsyche and Rhyacophila genera. The bead head and the glass beads which make up the body help to get it deep in the current without adding weight to the leader (which I despise). I found the green glass beads at the local craft store in a jar of about 10 billion. They slip over a curved caddis hook pretty easily, and I secure them on with some head cement into each crevice and a bundle of olive thread in the rear. I tie these mostly in #12 and #14, using a Dai-Riki 135 hook. I think it looks just as good as flies tied with "Larva Lace", only a lot cheaper.

I haven't posted much lately because the baby has decided that screaming is a very productive way to whittle away the night hours, and I also have a couple of tests coming up. Hopefully I can keep things in balance over the next few months.

EKG's, Anesthesia, and Rainbow Trout

2006-01-17T22:01:00.000-05:00

Today was a early morning for me. (Early by medical student standards...most of my classmates study till 2 or 3 AM and then get up around noon). I was up and out of the house before the sun, while Mama was feeding the little guy. After a long, cold drive, I arrived at a small community hospital where I was scheduled to spend the morning shadowing an anesthesiologist during a surgical case. We sat through a total knee replacement, which involves drilling and chiseling away the bone from the end of the femur and the top of the tibia, and then fitting in a stainless steel artificial joint. At least, that's what the surgeon did during the case. I sat with the anesthesiologist and talked about drugs and their effects. Much of what you do in anesthesia is sitting and monitoring the patient's reaction to the drugs. Lots of anesthesiologists do crossword puzzles during the case. I left there quite confident that anesthesia was not my calling.

After class this afternoon, I did some more studying of EKG's. They're actually fascinating to me, and the amount of cardiac pathology that can be diagnosed by them is astonishing. There is a massive amount of information hidden in the pattern of the squiggles traced onto the EKG paper, and I am immensely enjoying applying the knowledge to real patients and real EKG strips.

This brings up a good point about medical school and higher education in general. Aside from fly-fishing, there is nothing that satisfies me more than learning. I'm fortunate to be in what is probably the most lush and abundant learning environment that exists in our society, and I only wish I had the capability to absorb more than I can now. I'm certainly not the smartest person among my peers, nor am I the dullest. I'm simply someone who gets excited about learning new things.

And finally, I included the pic of a very pretty rainbow trout I caught last fall. He fell for a #14 Partridge & Green, fished in the traditional wet fly style on a downstream swing. It's a nice photo for a cold January night.

Some nights it just doesn't work

2006-01-15T23:15:00.000-05:00

I'm waiting on a shipment of scud hooks to come in so that I can continue with my caddis collection. If you don't know, scud hooks are simply another form of fly tying hooks that have an arched shank to better imitate a pupal caddis. Since the hooks were not here, and won't be until Tuesday at the earliest, I decided to tie a few Little Yellow Stonefly nymphs. Have you ever had one of those tying sessions where things just aren't working? The first fly I tied looked like crap, and it only got worse from there. So...I decided to take a hint and I walked away from it for the evening. On nights like these, an X-Acto knife is your best friend. It makes salvaging a hook from a sloppily tied fly very easy. I just start at the bend of the hook and saw the wrapped materials off towards the eye. A few seconds later, I'm left with a clean hook and my sanity intact.

Over the weekend I went to a seminar where Tom Ames (the author of the fantastic hatch guide I wrote about earlier) gave a discussion of aquatic entomology and fishing strategies. It was a great session, and I hope it pays off this spring in terms of my success. I'm learning and retaining an incredible amount of knowledge by focusing on his book and correlating it to the flies I'm tying.

What a day....

2006-01-12T21:59:00.000-05:00

The weather here has been glorious today. A warm front moved in last night and spawned some thunder and lightning around midnight (which was entertaining to me as I tried in vain to rock the baby to sleep). This morning it was sunny and around 50 degrees all day. After spending the morning studying EKG's (fascinating, by the way), I decided to get out my Trek bike and go for a ride. Cycling is the only exercise I've been able to find which does not bore me to death (elliptical machines), or cause me to feel like I'm about to die from overexertion (running). I rode about 8.5 miles, in moderate to heavy traffic. On my way home I came down Main St. of the town we live in, and rode by at least 40 or 50 idling vehicles parked on the side of the street. The fumes really got to me, so by the time I pulled into our driveway I was nauseated and short of breath. So much for a refreshing ride...I would have gone fishing today, but I had studying to do, and a commitment in the evening. Maybe tomorrow.
Speaking of that commitment, today I was fortunate(?) enough to perform my first digital rectal exam. The one procedure that is every male's worst nightmare...and I had to be the one performing it. It's not really that bad, and its definitely a necessary evil. Things like prostate cancer, occult bleeding, rectal masses, and anal cancers are too serious and too preventable to miss because of embarassment. Sure, its awkward and uncomfortable, and I certainly don't enjoy doing them, but nonetheless, we need to learn how to do them. Patients deserve it. By the way, if you are ever unfortunate enough to suffer some kind of abdominal trauma (gunshot wound, motor vehicle accident, etc) then you will probably get a rectal then also, to rule out bleeding from torn or injured intestines.
Quite a change from fly tying discussions. I think I'll get back to that tomorrow. :-)

Need a new vise?

2006-01-11T21:42:00.000-05:00

As I devoted more time to tieing flies (as much as I could reconcile with being a medical student) I started to really notice the limitations of the vise I was using. It was the original Thompson style vise that had come with the "Fly Tying Kit for Beginners" I had recieved as a Christmas gift back in 1995. It served me quite well while I was making a mockery out of a proper Catskill dry fly, but as my abilities became more refined, I started to look for an upgrade. I researched several vises in the $100 - $200 price range, and found a great review of several vises at flyfisherman.com. I finally settled on the Peak Vise from Peak Fishing, and I couldn't be happier with it. What a fine piece of craftmanship...the rotary function is smooth and balanced, the jaws hold my hooks like a vise should, and it comes with a clamp or pedastel and a bobbin rest. And it's American made, which is important to me. It really is amazing the productivity increase that I've seen since switching over to a rotary vise. My flies look more professional, my arms are less tired, and I can burn through 2 dozen flies in a sitting. If anyone is looking to upgrade their vise, I'd give this one 5 stars.

Also, a tip of the hat to M.A. Louise, who was kind enough to leave me my first comment in this blog. Surf over to www.flyfishingflytying.blogspot.com and check his own blog out.

Diabetes and Its Awful Toll Quietly Emerge as a Crisis - New York Times

2006-01-09T23:11:00.000-05:00

Diabetes and Its Awful Toll Quietly Emerge as a Crisis - New York Times
This is an exceptionally weel written article in the New York Times. It is the first of a three part series on the impact of diabetes on the poor. For those who are not current with medical news, I can tell you that this is huge. Diabetes is shaping up to be the scourge of the 21st century in the U.S.. I don't like to come off as over dramatic, but really is reaching epidemic proportions. This may well be the final blow that does in the American health care system as we know it today.

Copper Johns

2006-01-08T22:12:00.000-05:00

This is a phenomenal fly that has really worked well for me this past year. I tied a few at the beginning of last season, and I wanted to build up a supply for this year that would see me through October of 2006. They have great fish attraction, and they also sink like an anchor.

As an aside, if you look in the top left, you can see three hideous looking flies that I keep in my main fly box out of nostalgia. They were among the first flies I ever bought way back in 1994 when I began to fly fish. I had gone to Sears (yeah, they sold sporting goods back then) and bought a package of "flies" that I assumed would work on any fish. Needless to say, I did not have much success. I was lucky enough to meet a very experienced fisherman one night out who helped me out. When he got done laughing at those flies, he pointed me in the right direction in regards to insect imitation and stream ecology. Wherever that guy is today, I owe him a beer. :-)

Betting the farm

2006-01-08T12:52:00.000-05:00

Betting the farm
An outstanding article in today's Portland Press Herald regarding the serious threat to New England posed by urban sprawl and unchecked development. This invasion of farmland by big box stores is a immense issue that we must be proactive about.

Winter

2006-01-07T22:27:00.000-05:00

I don't mind the winter months - not like some people, who dread the coming of the snow and the short days. I think I would be lost without the cadence of seasons to mark the flow of time. For a flyfisher, the winter can be a time of renewal, both physically and mentally. For me, it's a time to restock my fly boxes with the fruits of my vise. It's also a time to reflect on the fish that were caught, those that were not, and those that probably laughed at my sloppy skills. I do fish occasionally in the winter, but I strongly desire some sort of demarcation to mark the end of one season and the beginning of the next. In years past, before there were year-round open fishing areas on the more popular rivers, fishing ended September 30th and didn't begin again until April 1st. Now, we can enjoy our sport year round (which I appreciate - the summer glory is all to brief), but part of me still likes to be able to set one season in the past and look forward to the next.
I've found a great website that produces podcasts of flyfishing discussions. They are called Fly Fish Radio, and they produce some great sessions. They are mainly focused on Western angling, but it's still good stuff. For those unfamiliar with podcasts, it is essentially a downloadable radio program that you can listen to at your convenience. I've found it to be great background listening for my fly tying sessions. Give them a try.

Tying flies while the baby sleeps

2006-01-06T22:24:00.000-05:00

Newborn babies sleep a lot. They also scream a lot, and they alternate between these two states roughly every two hours. His Mama has been feeding him the "old-fashioned" way, so I just hold him when he's sleeping and admire him from afar. Since we have relatives staying with us, they cooked dinner and I went into my office to tie a few flies. I'm waiting on a shipment of caddis/scud hooks to come in, so I'm tying mainly generic attractor patterns until they get here. Tonight I did up about 8 Flashback Pheasant Tail nymphs. These are an easy pattern to tie and they really look good.

Hook: 12-18 nymph
Thread: camel brown 8/0
Tail: pheasant tail fibers
Rib: 24 gauge copper wire
Abdomen: pheasant tail fibers of the tail wound forward
Flashback: #10 pearl mylar ribbon
Thorax: peacock herl
Legs: pheasant tail fibers, split around the thorax

I'm including a very poor photo...I'm still working on my closeup pics.

My new fishing buddy!

2006-01-06T15:52:00.000-05:00

On Wednesday, January 4th at 4:30 in the afternoon, I finally got to meet my new fishing buddy! Dominic Leonardo Mittiga was born weighing 7lbs. 4oz., 21" long, and with a head of light brown hair. Mom and I are so excited and proud to have him with us after a long pregancy, and I can't wait to see him out on the river with a fly rod in hand.

Caddis

2006-01-03T22:27:00.000-05:00

Tonight I worked on expanding my caddis fly selection. I'm following a hatch guide written by Tom Ames that is an excellent resource for New England fishermen. My strategy has been to follow the narration of the book, tying each insect imitation as I go. The idea is to have a complete arsenal by spring to allow me to cover all of the major hatches.

First Post

2006-01-03T18:32:00.000-05:00

Just a test!