Clouser Minnow no longer challenging doping allegations

The Clouser Minnow during happier times

August 25, 2012: (Culvert Press) – In a statement released today by its agent, the Clouser Minnow states that it “will no longer challenge allegations of inappropriate use of performance-enhancing drugs”. Officials, who have long maintained that “no fly could be so successful based on nothing but weighted eyes, bucktail and flash without the aid of doping”, were quick to state, on record, that they have long maintained that the originator of the fly, Bob Clouser, was never charged or even suspected of impropriety. “We believe, and have always believed, that the Clouser Minnow has acted alone, and is solely responsible for the inappropriate behavior.”

For decades, the Clouser Minnow – which many have said is the greatest fly ever designed, and probably responsible for the capture of more fish than any other - has denied any and all doping allegations, but in the statement released today, the fly said that “I’m tired of it, and frankly, I don’t give a shit anymore.” Minnow has said that this in no way is meant to imply an admission of guilt: “I catch fish.  Period. I don’t need anybody’s stamp of approval to keep doing this.” 

Officials and laymen alike have marveled at the fish catching abilities of the Clouser Minnow.  Fly fishing celebrity Lefty Kreh is reputed to have said that if he could only fish one fly for the rest of his life, it would be a white and chartreuse Clouser Minnow. (Kreh could not be reached for comment.) Suspicions of doping emerged early in Minnow’s career when it was revealed that even poorly-tied Clouser Minnows would, according to one angler who wished to remain anonymous, “catch the shit out of fish.” The angler reported that the first fly he ever tied was a Clouser Minnow and, despite entirely too much bucktail and thread wraps that resembled a crumbling house, it was still a wildly productive fly.

Fly shops are abuzz with speculation as to what fly will now claim “best fly ever”. When asked what is next for the Clouser Minnow, the former fly replied “Nothing will change for me.  I’ll continue to catch fish.  Only now, I’ll just do it as a jig.”

An Actual August Striped Bass

Here's one from Friday night, caught by Todd Kuhrt in Rhode Island and Providence Plantations. Given the fact that (a) it is August, which is a tough month to catch anything from shore but snapper blues, and (b) Todd is suffering from Beaver Fever, the fishing was pretty good. Meaning we actually caught some fish and I did not witness my friend vomit or poop himself.

It's hard to reconcile that Todd actually turned 57 this year.

I carefully placed my spinning rod to the rear so you wouldn't see it.

Good evening.

-- Jonny

On The Painted Stream

I received this today from Colin McDougal, my oldest fishing chum. He fishes the Tweed often, as we had done since we were early teens, and recently had the pleasure of being led down the famous Dish in just the manner described below.

By
Bill Currie 

The Gateheugh stream lies at the top of Bemersyde on Tweed beside a dramatic cliffy northern bank where oaks jut horizontally out from the precipice. On the south side on Ravenswood a sweet alluvial haugh lies green between riverside trees and a rising bank of hardwoods. In November, when I fished it, both banks showed swathes of golden, yellow and brown foliage. The Gateheugh is probably the most painted stretch of water in Scotland, perhaps in the entire salmon world, having been painted as well as fished for the past fifty years or more by Lord Haig, the laird. Being on canvas is not the only distinction of this two-hundred yard stretch of purling stream. It is one of these memorable Tweed salmon reaches which promises excellent fly fishing if you can overcome certain difficulties. Let me explain. When I first fished the Gateheugh in the seventies, the tradition was to wade the stream and cast a long line towards the Ravenswood bank, searching out pockets and lies in the fast water. To hang the fly well over the lies, you have to get well out and it is a treacherous, waist deep, fast wade, liable to give you a ducking without much warning. The temptation to wade to the limit on Gateheugh is heightened, because there is a set of lies called the Dish where boulders and ledges shape superb salmon lies under glassy windows in the fast water. Below that a long stream runs past the Copper Beech, finally losing itself in the shingle above a grassy island. You can be very isolated, wading well out into the stream while swinging your fly on a long line over the Dish. I have hooked autumn salmon here in the past and in the fight they have run full circles round me before I could get back to the shallow water under the Bemersyde cliff and manage to net them. Lord Haig says that a medal should be struck for all those who wade the Gateheugh and land a fish without falling in. 

I was invited back to fish Bemersyde for a late November day and, for the first time I found I did not need to wade the painted stream. I was floated down it. Ian Farr, the Bemersyde keeper, tackles the difficulty of the Gateheugh in a bizarre way. He has a light aluminium, oarless boat in which he seats the angler, bow downstream, and, wading deeply Ian clings to the stern and holds the boat, moving it down strategically to cover the superb lies of he Dish and the Copper Beech run. Have you ever fished from a boat where the boatman was overboard, up to his chest in fast flowing water? The Tweed was high and at one or two places, Ian calmly announced that we would drift the boat over deeper water until his feet could touch bottom again. So, he tip-toed and floated, clamped to the boat with his elbows over the stern board. Then his feet would find bottom again, and the boat would stop and I would shorten line and cover a new arc of salmon lies, then progressively lengthening it I would let my tube fly tour slowly through the likely places and dangle between the underwater boulders. It is gripping fly fishing; you expect a pull from a salmon every yard of the way. Fishing down the Gateheugh like this is one of the most unusual examples of close co-operation between boatman and fisher. It can also be highly productive. It is a particular tactic of this stream and it is full of the special atmosphere of fishing this lovely reach of middle Tweed. I know of nothing quite like this elsewhere on the river, nor indeed, anywhere else in Scotland.

It is only half a joke when the Bemersyde boatmen tells his rods not to hook fish over fifteen pounds on the Gateheugh. As if you could select takes! We floated down and the fly searched the water. I began to think the day was against us, because the Dish, with its lovely ridges, columns of sand and shingle and seductive glassy areas produced nothing for the first half hour. We talked however as I fished. We talked about the high, cliffy Bemersyde bank. I was once fishing there, years ago, in February when two massive red rocks suddenly detached themselves and roared down the slope through the trees and raised a huge plume of water as they fell into the river. Ian told the hair-raising story of rescuing a German tourist after a long search. The German had tried to glissade down the cliff, had fallen a long way and was found after many hours of searching in the dark lying unconscious on the branches of a tree. They took him down to the Gateheugh where Ian, fully clad, waded and floated him in the boat through the whole Gateheugh to the Ravenswood side where a helicopter took him off to the hospital. Ian was given a public commendation for that rescue. We were silent for a while after that story. I watched the spey cast rolling out and the copper tube plopping into the water. The fly swung perfectly over the lies. We both said at once that it was incredible that, in these perfect conditions we had not had a pull from a salmon. 

As if on cue, it happened. The pull came and the reel spoke and for a minute or two the fish was quiet. We said, sagely, This is a good fish, maybe fourteen pounds. Then in a slash, a big tail came up. We had a momentary glimpse of a high silvery back. Sixteen pounds at least, I said. Ten minutes passed, punctuated by two or three longish runs and some heavy tugging. I couldn't do much with the fish at all, except hang on. What a grip of the Tweed this fish had ! It seemed to be able to use the whole weight of the Gateheugh stream to run down and across at will. The salmon would come half way towards the boat then would tear off and take up a dour lie behind a big sunk stone. It might be bigger than we think, one of us said. The time went on. Twenty minutes passed and we hadn't really seen the fish clearly. Then we had our first real sight of the salmon as it arched over near the boat,- a very deep fish, a small head and a big tail, bright from the North Sea. In November that is magic. Ian said that he had not had a fish like this on the end of anybodys line for over a fortnight. So there we were, well out in the middle of the fast stream, toiling, with a heavy fish pulling the fishers arms off and the gillie holding the little boat hard by the stern.

We thought the time had come to try to net the fish . In a well rehearsed move, Ian turned the boat and anchored it from the bow with a great twenty eight pound weight, which no doubt had once measured out stones of potatoes on the farm. He took up a position below the boat, waist deep, waiting with the net. But twenty minutes or not, we were too soon. I brought the fish in possibly ten times and each time the fish turned scoffing at the pressure and, using the great weigh of the Tweed took line and ran back to the main stream again making the reel sing.

This would not do. We had to take the boat in. This Ian did and once in under the trees, the boat was anchored again. Now the fish was drawn in to gentler water and at the third attempt, with high anxiety prevailing, I managed to get the fish in behind the boat in shallow clear water where the trees shaded the stream and let us see better what we were doing. Every minute that elapsed raised our anxiety. There, in the shallow water, where trees shaded the Tweed, we were able to see for the first time just what I had hooked. It was a magnificent, heavy fish, shining silver, and very deep in the flank. It filled the net. No wonder we had had to work hard with it for half an hour. It wasn't a record or anything like that; it was twenty one pounds, really magnificent, the essence of power, with an impressive head and a massive tail. 

It was the only fish of the day off Bemersyde and it was a remarkable sample of what the Tweed can produce in November, when almost every other river in Scotland is closed. The remarkable late Tweed run contains some magnificent fish, and in the circumstances in which we landed this one, we felt that we had shared in that legend. The Gateheugh, with its lovely Dish and its alluring Copper Beech run had shown its quality and its difficulty at the same time. A memorable joint effort. I was glad, however, not to have to carry the fish along the difficult path to the boathouse. Ian did that. I was doubly glad that I did not have to carry it up the steep path, Coronary Brae, from the Boat Pool to Bemersyde itself. It was dark when we got to the house, but one window to the back was lit. Looking up at that lit window, as if on a cinema screen we saw Lord Haig in his studio high above us, standing in front of an easel, painting. Was he painting another study of the spectacular Gateheugh ? I had a deep sense of completeness just thinking that this was the case, a warm and rounded thought. I left my salmon for the artist. What I carried away was less tangible, the experience of a battle with a considerable fish, - a picture, as it were, from the other side of the canvas of that memorable painted stream.

Local angler calls on bigger fish to bite

More like this.

Aug. 13 (Culvert Press) - A local angler, frustrated by the size of the fish he's been catching lately, says he is "calling on" larger fish to bite his flies. "I am calling on more, and larger, smallmouth bass to bite my flies," said T.J. Brayshaw, a local smallmouth bass fly angler.  According to sources, Brayshaw cites various politicians as inspiration.  "I seen a politician recently say he was 'calling on' all Americans to do this or that thing.  I can't remember what he was 'calling on' them to do, but it sounded good to me," says Brayshaw.  When asked what, exactly, it means when he or a politician 'calls on' somebody to do something, Brayshaw replied "I think it's like a demand, except you don't have to really back it up.  Like if you 'demand' somebody do something, then you gotta do something to them if they don't do it.  But if you 'call on' them to do it, they know you're serious about it, but you ain't really going to follow up if they ignore you."

When asked how this might apply to fly fishing, Brayshaw said "I don't know!  You tell me.  Maybe I call on you to kiss my ass!" No fish could be reached for comment.

Where to fish and/or do other things

To: English.Jonny@TheCulvert

From: T.J.Brayshaw@TheCulvert

Sent: Wednesday, 25 July 2012

Subject: Where to fish and/or do other things

Dear Jonny,

Did some more scouting around over the last few days. This first stream “runs” through a local park that listed fishing as among the activities one can do there.

The pond is on the gardens of campus. It’s marked “No Fishing”. It does have fish though.

Now we’re getting somewhere. 

I found this small stream not far from home, and I'm told it has smallmouth and, perhaps more importantly, many, many carp.  It's low now, of course, but we're in a drought.  At least it has water.

Today, I found out that in about 9 minutes and 22 seconds, I can walk from my office to a very nice set of riffles and pools on the big river. I was told the fishing is pretty good here.

I would have stayed for more pictures, but I believe I interrupted a fellow pleasuring himself by the river. From a distance, I thought he was holding a fishing pole so I started to approach him to ask him if he was having any luck (with fishing). But as I got closer, it appeared as if he was holding his iPhone in one hand, and something else in the other. I politely made some noise and when I got to where he was, he’d remounted his John Deere garden tractor. He said he was a student here at the University and sometimes likes to come down to the river before work starts. I guess he works at the university garden. I suppose you can’t fault a guy who likes do jerk off while looking at the river, particularly if he does it on company time and drives there with a company vehicle.

Anyway, I’ll probably just go down there to fish.

Yours,

Brayshaw

                                                                      ****

To: T.J.Brayshaw@TheCulvert

From: English.Jonny@TheCulvert 

Sent: Wednesday, 25 July 2012

Subject: Re: Where to fish and/or do other things

Dear T.J.,

I just revisited the picture and I see the tractor. Are you sure he was doing himself by the stream? What was on his iPhone? - A Perfect Fish, I'll bet.

The river looks great, incidentally.

Yours,

Jonny

                                                                      ****

To: English.Jonny@TheCulvert

From: T.J.Brayshaw@TheCulvert

Sent: Wednesday, 25 July 2012

Subject: Re: Re: Where to fish and/or do other things

Dear Jonny,

I can't say for certain what he was doing.  What I know includes the following:  

He was standing by the river.  As I approached, it appeared that he held some sort of smart phone in his right hand.  His left hand appeared to be putting something (a penis?) back into the front of his athletic shorts (I emphasize this to point out that he was not putting something back into a side pocket, or zipping up.  These were athletic shorts of the type that, as far as I know, do not have a front zipper).  No fishing pole was to be seen.  He then got onto the seat of the tractor (technically, I believe it is what is called a John Deere Gator, but I think that's irrelevant to the case at hand).  When I approached closely enough to speak to him, he was sitting slightly hunched over.  This could be his normal posture, he could have had a stomach ache, etc.  It's hard to say.  It is, however, the position I would have adopted had I been trying to hide an erection.  But again, that's only one of many possible explanations.  I said "Hi", and asked him a few questions about access to the river, about how he got the tractor there, etc.  To me, he seemed either a bit reluctant to talk, perhaps a little nervous, or both. I'd have probably been reluctant to speak if I suspected somebody had seen me jerking off by the river.  But as I said before, he was also down by the river on a company vehicle and perhaps also on company time, which is probably prohibited.  And furthermore, it was the first time we'd met, so I don't really know if this is just his general personality.  We spoke a bit, then I walked further along the trail and I never looked back to see if he resumed whatever he might have been doing.

Now, I think in his defense a couple points are worth making.  First, I never actually saw a penis.  Second, even if he had been holding his iPhone in one hand and his penis in his left hand, it's plausible that he was urinating while checking his email.  As you are well aware, some people do that sort of thing. I think his case (assuming he would try to make the case that he was not masturbating stream side) would be strengthened if he could show that he is right handed because I think it's reasonable to argue that were he masturbating stream side, he'd have used his dominant hand and held the iPhone in the other; that is to say the left.  I realize this isn't an air-tight defense, but it would certainly be enough to sow the seeds of doubt.  I'd also argue that while the river is very attractive, it's not that attractive.  Of course, he was looking at his phone, not at the river.

Needless to say, I'll be back (to fish).  So perhaps we'll eventually settle this once and for all.

Yours,

Brayshaw

                                                                     ****

To: T.J.Brayshaw@TheCulvert

From: English.Jonny@TheCulvert 

Sent: Wednesday, 25 July 2012

Subject: Re: Re: Re: Where to fish and/or do other things

Dear T.J.,

I should imagine it might be easier to have laid the iPhone on the tractor wheel or other convenient surface, while enjoying the comfort of a seat? 

This is the curious part to me. Standing up just isn't practical.  Let’s just hope he wasn’t pissing in your river.

Do you recall the size of that white hackle you sent me for the carp flies?  I need to get some more.

Yours,

Jonny