It’s obvious that we’ve failed miserably at controlling the influx of illegal workers from other countries.

It seems that whatever agency we have (and we have a lot of them) to control the borders of our country just aren’t up to the job.

But don’t think for a minute that you can just “have your way” with us.

Even the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is doing their part to control the borders and doing a very effective job of stemming the flow of foreign-tied fishing flies into this country.

For example, they recently required Warren Duncan (a skilled fly-tier from St. John, NB) to document the origin of every ingredient in his recipes for fishing flies being sent to the U.S. Duncan has been shipping his hand-tied trout and salmon flies across the border for 30 years or so -

Puleeeeeze!

To research that would be a pretty time consuming activity for just a few flies to fill a custom order, but think of the extra work and delay created for an order to a large American retailer!

Since fishing flies are made mostly with the hair and feathers of animals, he now has to research and list the country of origin of every little bit of turkey, rooster, caribou, and cow that ends up as an ingredient in every trout and salmon fly in a shipment.

You Canadians keep tieing flies. Chinese, you keep producing fabric for the world. We’ll buy cars from Japan and Korea, and computer parts from Taiwan.

But nobody creates red tape better than the U.S. government. We’ve got a lock on that!

I wonder if there’s any market for red tape. Maybe we could export it.

For more about Warren Duncan, visit Where the Rivers Meet.

At least that’s what Carl Burnett, Jr of the Lancaster (OH) Eagle-Gazette thinks.

Granted, he probably took his queue from the fact that the National Wild Turkey Federation billed the event he was reporting as the “Women in the Outdoors Primitive Event” - but you’d think an outdoors writer would know better.

The event was organized to introduce women to traditional outdoors skills, and I think it’s great that women would take an interest in fly fishing, blacksmithing and forging, and even tomahawk throwing. These are all things I enjoy, and my wife participates in a few of the activities presented at the event. Maybe she thinks camping and cooking over an open fire is strange, and does it just to humor me, but I don’t think that even she considers it primitive.

Anyway, it sounds like it was an interesting event and was well received.

Fly fishing and tomahawk throwing: Women learn about primitive sports

Besides learning to tie my own flies, my winter will probably be spent reading Jerry Kustich’s new book, “A Wisp in the Wind”. The book takes readers behind the scenes in a bamboo rod-making shop - specifically, the shop at R.L Winston.

Jerry Kustich was one of four craftsmen working together to build bamboo rods at R.L. Winston, all of whom have quit the company over differences with management.

From everything I’ve read, the bamboo shop was a real laid back place to work. The four of them supposedly worked their own schedule, and played hooky when the fishing was good.

Kustich (a 21-year veteran of R.L. Winston), Glenn Brackett (once a co-owner of the company), Jeff Walker, and Wayne Maca became a very close-knit group over years of working together as a team, and the book focuses on their day to day interactions.

“A Wisp in the Wind” talks about the days they spent debating politics, and discussing their passion for fly fishing and conservation of trout streams. And, of course, their pride and passion for hand-crafting bamboo fly rods.

According to an Associated Press report, the four craftsmen who build bamboo fly fishing rods for R.L. Winston Rod Co. are quitting the company.

Winston has moved two rod builders from their graphite shop, but with the four bamboo craftsmen scheduled to leave by the end of January, can they really expect to produce as good a rod with only two months training.

Apparently, there has been descension within the bamboo shop since Winston decided last year to begin having some of its lower-end rods made in China, but it seems like there have been a number of other conflicts between management concerns for profitability and volume sales versus the craftsmanship required to produce a quality bamboo rod.

As reported in the Helena (MT) Independent Record
Airline Fly Fishing Case

Sometimes, all that’s lacking is confidence in your own abilities to make your fly fishing trips more successful.

It will keep you from getting flustered and making bad decisions, so you’ll do a better job of picking the right pattern for the conditions and just the right hole to cast into. Confidence will help you cast more accurately, kiss the surface of the water with your presentation, and detect the strikes. Confidence will help you develop consistency and that, in turn, leads to even more confidence.

If nothing else, approaching your day on the stream with a confident attitude can help you be more persistent.

How Confidence in Fly Fishing leads to more success on the stream…