When I took over the “Gearhead” column, I wasn’t exactly sure what I’d be writing about. Fly fishing has evolved into a sport with such fuzzy boundaries that it’s hard to define what it is or isn’t. Ask a Californian Euro nymphing on the upper Sacramento, and you’ll likely get a different response than from a European fishing dries on a French chalk stream. What constitutes fly-fishing gear is subject to a lot of personal interpretation. And there are many anglers out there exploring new ways of fly fishing who are bound to add to the sport’s nebulosity.
Fortunately, this suits me just fine. I’ve never been particularly comfortable with boundaries. As an engineer once said to me in a somewhat frustrated tone, “Once in a while it would be nice if you thought inside the box.” So without further ado, here are some pieces of “fly-fishing gear” for you to consider.
Eyeball Enhancers
I used to tease friends whose eyesight was only average. Blessed with 20:10 vision, I had no difficulty tying on ridiculously small flies or seeing fish in low light. Then I hit 55, and my “X-ray” vision took a dive. Getting a wisp of tippet through the eye of a size 16 fly involved a lot of squinting and stabbing.
There was also a noticeable reduction in low-light acuity, which meant fishing very early or very late in the day became more challenging. I’m sure this situation is all too familiar to many readers. Reading glasses helped me deal with skinny tippets and malnourished flies, but seeing fish in low light continued to be a bother.
Apparently, once we hit 40, the photoreceptor cells in our retinas start to become less sensitive, and this process continues with age. I put on my reading glasses (following the obligatory five-minute search to find them) and dug into a bunch of research on vision. It didn’t take too long to come across an interesting paper from University College London that described how shining deep red light (with a wavelength of 670 nanometers) into your eyes for three minutes a day results in measurable improvements in vision for folks over 40. The improvement for color vision was particularly impressive, with color contrast increasing by an average of 20 percent and up to 47 percent in one individual. According to researchers, these improvements are due to enhancement of the mitochondria in retinal cells.
Mitochondria are tiny structures inside every cell that act like powerhouses, generating a molecule (ATP) that our cells use as fuel. It turns out this mitochondrial enhancement is due to something many fly fishers are quite familiar with — surface tension. That’s right, the thing that makes it difficult for nymphs to break through the surface film and become adult flies also affects the efficiency of our retinas.
Mitochondria produce ATP using an enzyme that spins at the dizzying rate of 9,000 revolutions per minute. To put that into perspective, 9,000 revs is just shy of an Indy car engine at full scream. According to some very cool research from the University of Ulm in Germany, deep red light reduces the surface tension of water inside the mitochondria, enabling the enzyme to spin more easily and thereby produce more ATP.
I have been using a deep red light therapy lamp on my eyes for about three months. While they say you can look directly into the light, I found this uncomfortable and simply shut my eyes for the three-minute sessions. According to the researchers, this is fine, because deep red light passes through the eyelids. While I don’t have the equipment to measure improvements in my vision, I have noticed a change in sensitivity to color in low light. Greens and yellows became a bit brighter, while shadows are a bit crisper. It’s similar to the effect of putting on polarizing sunglasses, though (in my case) not quite so profound.
While these devices are generally accepted as safe for home use, check with your doctor or ophthalmologist if you have any concerns or if you are on drugs such as Retin A, tetracycline, and others that can make skin sensitive to light.
There are a lot of red-light devices on the market, most of which are designed to promote wound healing and skin health. Many provide a matrix of LEDs that produce deep red light and near infrared light, both of which are safe if used in accordance with the manufacturer’s recommendations. You can pay top dollar for a full-body panel that treats your entire body or spend less than fifty bucks on a simple hand-held lamp. I have a Hooga HG 24 lamp that cost $38 and can be held by hand or screwed into a regular desk-top light stand.
One final note. I’d suggest you use the light in the morning. As I discovered the hard way, exposure to bright red light in the evening screws up your melatonin levels. It took me over two hours to get to sleep that night.
Cuts and Bites
Many fly fishers take trips to remote or far-off locations, either as an adventurous break from the routines of life or to check off an item on their bucket list. Most of the time, these trips go by without too much hassle. Lost luggage, broken rods, or minor digestive ailments are the most likely dilemmas. Cuts and insect bites are also par for the course.
More often than not, cuts and bites heal without trouble, especially if you make a conscious effort to keep them clean and dry. But fly fishing by its very nature involves contact with water, whether it’s from releasing fish, wet wading, or falling in. In hot weather, you can add sweat to the list. If the bite or cut gets wet, you may get an infection. I vividly recall a former coworker who developed a suppurating golf-ball-sized volcano on his leg from an infected spider bite.
There’s also a chance the water you are fishing contains high levels of bacteria, increasing the risk of infection. Even seemingly clean places can have high counts. As a lowly lab tech, I was paid to collect and analyze water samples from fresh, brackish, and marine environments up and down the central coast. Fecal coliform bacteria showed up in a lot of picturesque, natural places, and runoff from a rain event would frequently send the numbers soaring.
Given the above, covering a bite or cut with a regular bandage may not be the best solution. Thankfully, most supermarkets and pharmacies sell waterproof bandages, which can help ensure you don’t get a bad case of cooties on that trip of a lifetime. Even better than regular waterproof bandages are those that have a wetness indicator. These let you know if water has gotten past the waterproof barrier, which enables you to quickly clean, dry, and redress the site before bacteria can start an infection.
I got a small pack of waterproof bandages from Dry See that feature an indicator that turns blue when it gets wet. Originally designed for postsurgical wound care, these dressings are now available to the public. I placed one on my upper arm to see how it handled the abuse of actual fishing. The bandage remained secure and dry despite six hours of hard fishing in the surf and a hot shower. According to the manufacturer, these bandages can be worn for up to three days, as long as the wound stays dry. At $40 for a pack of 25 bandages, they aren’t exactly cheap, but that’s peanuts when you consider how much it costs to go on a bucket list trip and the likely discomfort and cost of getting treatment if you do get an infection.
Air-Conditioned Waders
Waders made from breathable fabrics such as Gore-Tex have made fishing a lot more pleasurable, especially on hot days when we are sweating. These fabrics allow water vapor to move from the inside of the waders to the outside via a passive process called diffusion. In most normal fishing situations, this works great. But as with everything else in the real world, there are limits. If you are perspiring heavily or the air outside is particularly humid, the fabric may not be able to move enough water vapor to keep you from getting rather sticky. In such circumstances, the obvious solution is to get out of the waders and do some good ol’ wet wading. But what if the circumstances make you reluctant to remove your waders? Consider the poor angler sitting in a float tube. The day started cool, but has turned warm and muggy. As luck would have it, the fishing has picked up, and trout are rising all over the place. The angler knows it’s going to take almost an hour to paddle back to shore, get out of the waders, and paddle back out again. There’s a risk the bite might shut down while the angler is disrobing. Paddling uncomfortably around in a bag of sweat seems like a better option than missing the bite.
Folding the wader top down so that your thorax perspires directly into the atmosphere is a good first step. If you are lucky, that may be enough. But sometimes it isn’t. During an uncomfortable session last year, I decided it was time to do some thinking. Is there a way to force fresh air past the wader belt and create a pressure gradient that will displace and exhaust the accumulated moist air? In other words, can you provide your wader-swaddled bum and legs with an air-conditioning system?
A quick flip through a fishing catalog provided the answer. Marine Metals produces a lightweight aquarium aerator called Baby Bubbles that is smaller than a pack of cards and runs quietly on two AA batteries. At under eight bucks, it’s cheaper than four Woolly Buggers or a new leader. Clip the bubbler to your waders or hang it on a cord around your neck, whichever is more convenient. You aerate your lower half by sliding the aerator tube (minus the bubbler stone) down past your wader belt. This is easier to do when you are getting into the waders, before you settle down into the float tube. The unit doesn’t produce a lot of air, so don’t expect things to feel like your car AC on the max setting. The gentle stream of fresh air helps to keep you feeling less “tropical” downstairs. I find it’s best to turn the unit on as soon as you start to get warm. You can get portable aerators with a higher output, though they require heavier D-cell batteries and make a bit more noise. Another option is to use two Baby Bubbles units, with the tubes running down the top of each leg.
Cheap Jewelry
Lots of folks swear by tippet rings. Strong, but weighing next to nothing, these tiny steel donuts make changing tippets quick and easy. They’re also great at extending the life of leaders. With no need to sacrifice a few inches with every tippet change, a leader can easily last a couple of seasons.
But as I found out last fall, not all tippet rings are created equal. For some reason, the Ziploc baggie that contained my stash of rings went missing. I naturally assumed poltergeist activity. My wife suggested it was more likely to be hidden in one of the woodrat nests of gear that add so much charm to our home. With a lake fishing trip just 10 days away, I decided to buy a pack of 2-millimeter rings online. Unfortunately, I didn’t pay much attention to the manufacturer. Once they arrived, I set about knotting one onto a leader. The first knot failed, which, let’s be honest, happens sometimes. The second knot also failed. Perhaps the leader was to blame? I grabbed a spool of fresh tippet and carefully knotted it onto the ring. Just like before, the knot parted long before it was fully cinched. Something was clearly wrong, and it wasn’t my knot-tying skills or the monofilament.
I placed the ring under a 100-power microscope. With some careful positioning, the problem became glaringly obvious. Instead of being smooth and curved, the inside surface resembled a metal-working file. No wonder the knots had failed so quickly. From what I understand, tippet rings are a product of the jewelry trade. It’s possible that a smooth internal surface may not be super important, especially in the budget jewelry market. I don’t know if this is a common problem, but it probably makes sense to buy tippet rings from reputable companies such as Scientific Anglers, Orvis, or RIO.
I have no doubt fly fishing will continue to evolve, presenting new challenges for those of us who prefer to throw flies. In the future, who knows what California anglers will be using on the Sac or French anglers on the Risle? One thing seems certain. “Fly fishing” will likely be the same and quite different.
