My publisher has a fantastic fishing/history blog – Fishing for History. Every Friday he posts a Video of the Week. This week’s music video is so funny and so good I just have to share it here! It can be found on YouTube too.
Cheers!
Over the last few years I have produced a number of fly fishing related items out of personal interest. Surprisingly, I get a fair number of inquiries to purchase these items – including tenkara flies, several other fly patterns, ice fishing tip-ups, hand-made brass fishing reels, horsehair fishing lines, Walton’s Engines (aka twisting or furling engines), and custom rods – all by … Continue Reading
I pre-ordered Snow Leopard from Apple to have it delivered first thing on its release date – August 28th, 2009! Apple came through, the package arrived by 10am and was waiting for me when I got home from work. The package is a single DVD installer. Simply insert the disk and double click the installer, it does the rest (no rebooting from the DVD). It took about 55 minutes start-to-finish to install on my 3.06 GHz Core 2 Duo iMac with one automated reboot during the … Continue Reading
Well, I just finished my latest batch of Walton’s Twisting Engine and photographed them together. The one with the slender round handle is more traditional and the other with the big massive flat handle is more practical for actually furling lines and leaders.
It also looks like I’ll be writing an article for The Home Shop Machinist magazine on how to build these.
One of my customers asked for a handle that is easier to clamp to a workbench or furling stand. This is what I came up with:
It is massive! The weight balances the mechanism nicely though. It feels great in the hand and can be easily clamped or bolted through the two 1/4″ holes.
On Saturday morning, Nick and I met up with our friends Aaron and Ethan to head north to White Mountains of New Hampshire. On the way up, it was obvious that the rivers were swollen from all of the rain we had through July. I have never seen them this high, this late in the summer. We stopped at our favorite pancake house for breakfast before hitting the trail.
It was a short drive to the Lincoln Woods parking area and trailhead from there. We had a lot … Continue Reading
Several months ago, I blogged about my rediscovery of an old book that presented a different technique for making continuously tapered, knotless horse hair fly lines. I reproduced the technique and improved on it slightly. That was all covered in the original post.
Given the large response (believe it or not!) I had to that post, I decided to write an article for the Webzine Power Fibers covering the same topic with a lot more detail and full color photographs.
Power Fibers is published quarterly by Todd Talsma … Continue Reading
Last month I posted a recipe on tying the simple tenkara fly that I saw Dr. Ishigaki use at his presentation in the Catskills.
This morning I got an email from CM_Stewart (the fellow who introduced me to tenkara and told me about Dr. Ishigaki’s presentation). Here is what CM_Stewart had to say:
I thought about sending this when I first saw your description of Dr. Ishigaki’s flies, but decided it wasn’t important.
I still think it’s not important, but decided you might want to know. Your instructions for tying one of … Continue Reading
I love Dutch Oven cooking! My “specialty” is Dutch Oven Cobbler. I’ve been making it since I was a Boy Scout back in the “70s” and I make it now with my son’s Boy Scout troop. Here is my recipe.
Ingredients
Preparation
Some people line their Dutch Oven with aluminum foil to make cleanup easier, but I am a purist and prefer to cook directly in a well-seasoned oven.
Pour the cans of fruit into … Continue Reading
This falls in the “this eclecticguy is crazy” department! Or, maybe not! I’ve been furling fly fishing leaders for a number of years and have known about these twisting engines. Darrel Martin has photos of a reproduction engine and a woodcut of an old engine in his book “The Fly-Fisher’s Craft: The Art and History“. I did a little research and called Darrel to ask about his engine before designing this one. The trickiest part is the gearing. There are 3 smaller gears around a central gear that … Continue Reading
