Gear Review: The Redington Link with Rise reel

The Redington Link

For a guy who lives on the edge of the Rockies here in eastern Idaho, I've become something of a saltwater junkie. When I leave for the Bahamas in three weeks, it will mark my fourth salty destination over the course of the last year.

I've subjected myself to a crash-course in saltwater angling, and while I clearly have a lot to learn, I've come to the realization that nothing--and I mean nothing--beats good equipment when you're chasing fish that, with a bit of effort, can run the average angler into the backing... several times. When that first salty critter hammers a Clouser, you immediately know that you're not chasing brookies in some backcountry haunt.

This is big boy fishing.

Now's the time...

Comment and help save Bristol Bay.

The EPA has released its updated watershed assessment for the Bristol Bay watershed, and it says exactly what you might think it says: Pebble Mine would endanger the drainages irreplaceable salmon runs, and put 14,000 commercial fishing jobs at risk in the process.

Now's the time to comment on the assessment and let the EPA know that American sportsmen and women aren't about to stand idly by and watch one the world's greatest treasures be trashed forever.

Pebble Mine, you'll recall, would be the largest open-pit mine in the world, and the multi-national conglomerate of corporations that wants to construct it would dig it in the headwaters of Bristol Bay, the world's most economically vital salmon system.

Common sense says this is the wrong mine in the wrong place. Greed and the desire for short-term gain says the gold and other heavy metals buried beneath the permafrost more than excuse the mine's construction. I suppose if you're sitting in a high-backed leather chair in London or Johannesburg counting the profits before the mine is even approved, the latter might make sense, especially if you've never gripped a fly rod, or dreamt of casting to the massive rainbow trout that depend on the millions of sockeye salmon that migrate up the watershed every summer.

The Bristol Bay drainage is an American icon. The lands and waters of this amazing place are truly wild, and most of them belong to all of us, as a birthright.

Don't stand by and let our resources be turned under for short-term gain. This place deserves better.

Tell the EPA to put a stop to this nonsense once and for all.

Sunburn...Unburn...

You know when it's happening, but if you're busy gazing into the emerald green waters just off the beach of the East Cape of the Baja for roosters and jacks, you don't really care.

I got cooked on the beach during my recent trip to the Baja. I got cocky. I got careless. I might have gotten melanoma--only time will tell, I suppose.

But there's a modestly happy ending. Purely serendipitously, I got an e-mail from Rachel Wepler, who reps for the product Unburn. The timing was ideal--I knew the Sea of Cortez sun would eventually get the best of me, and I figured having a bit of sunburn tonic couldn't hurt. I hit Rachel up for a bottle of the product and it arrived just in time to make it into the travel bag.

And I'm glad it did. While some sunburns are too far gone to really treat with topical ointments like Unburn (the blistered mass of goop that was once my right foot became evidence of that), the ointment--which is 25 percent lidocane--did the trick to take some of the pain away from a burned face and scorched arms and legs. It helped cool the skin and I know it helped make sleeping easier for the first couple of nights after incurring the careless injury.

So, thanks Rachel, for shipping me the bottle of Unburn--I'll buy my next bottle with no regrets.

Promises...

Mike with the first of several triggerfish.

For me, the good thing about making vows about fishing is that I can qualify them. You know... "If I catch a roosterfish, I'm stripping down and running into the surf."

If...

Now, for clarity, I think I'm a fairly solid fly fisher, all the requirements that come with casting to saltwater critters aside. Put me on a trout stream, and I'm in my element. Put me on the beach, and my now-serviceable double-haul will stretch a fly line adequately. Put me in the bow of a boat, and I'll put a fly generally where I want to put it, within reason.

But I'm not going light your hair on fire--just because I'm passionate about something doesn't mean I'm some kind of tournament pro.

So, deep down, I knew that my chances--on my first shot at them--of actually catching a roosterfish were slim. Hence, the naked dive into the Sea of Cortez was likely not going to happen. And, trust me, that's to the great relief of all those within eyeshot.

Trust me.

Variety...

The nice thing about fishing is that you never know really what's going to be thrown your way when it comes to the weather.

As I stepped from the shade of the mini-super just outside the little village of Buena Vista with a case of Pacifico, a bottle of blanco tequila and two bottles of juice--one orange, the other pineapple--I was preparing to tie on a little varietal mind-melt. The wind, coming from the north for two days straight had encouraged me to move on to Plan B.

As in, if the fishing is going to suck--and it generally does on the East Cape when the wind comes from del norte--the drinking is going to be epic.

Sadly, my traveling buddy Mike was running behind schedule thanks to weather and a host of other challenges that come with traveling across the hemisphere on a jet plane. I'd have to start Plan B solo--and with a hammock stretched between two palms just out the back door of the villa, I knew just where to start. I know... drinking alone is a warning sign. But then, so is not drinking at all when there's a hammock strung up between two palms right out the... ah, hell. You get the idea.

First things first. Ice. Procured at the swim-up bar at the Hotel Buena Vista Beach Resort. The sink becomes the beer cooler. A little glass from the hotel room becomes a tumbler. One part Brendain Blanco, one part OJ, one part pineapple... delicious.

Epic. 

The North Wind

El viento del norte no es bueno.

A pompano comes calling on a windy day.

It's a theme with me, unfortunately. If the weather can suck, it will. Here on the East Cape, if the wind blows from the north, the fishing is pretty much a non-starter. The north wind pushes big breakers from the Sea of Cortez up against the abrupt edge of the coast, churning the lime-green waters into a froth and generally making a mess of things.

And so, for the better part of two days, the wind blew from the north. It blew so hard that the fishing guides at the Hotel Buena Vista Beach Resort simply gave me sympathetic looks as I wandered down the beach at the crack of dawn on Thursday, hoping against hope that I'd be able to convince a fishy denizen to hit my fly before the wind got out of hand. The looks were telling. That poor bastard... all the way from Idaho, and then ... this.

The Salt

Make no mistake about it--my feet are firmly rooted in the black soil of eastern Idaho, within sight, on a clear day, of the Tetons to the east and the Lost River Range far across the Big Desert to the west.

But now and again, the ocean beckons.

Possess the slightly twisted desire to stand barefoot in the surf line and watch as the ocean tries to claim me, slowly but deliberately, from the comforts of dry land. Many times I've stood in wet sand and slowly sunk up to my ankles, wondering just how long it would take for the sea to bury me whole.

Weird, I know.

I'm headed to the famed East Cape of the Baja California Sur this week--the fishy denizens of the Sea of Cortez have taunted me since my first brief visit a handful of years ago. This week, I will cast to them in earnest. I'll battle the southern wind, spot for roosters and jacks in the surf and happily take what comes, even if it's nothing much.

And I'll get my feet wet.

20 Questions: Jay Zimmerman

Jay Zimmerman

I've only shared time with Jay Zimmerman once--we tipped a few beers in Denver during a gathering of writers and bloggers a few months back. But Jay is one of those guys who's simply hard to miss in this incestuous little community we've chosen. He's outspoken. He can be a little crass. But he's thoughtful and I think he's really smart.

One minute you're thinking, "Dude, do you kiss your mother with that mouth?" and the next you're wishing aloud, "Damn, I'd love to be able to enunciate my thoughts that profoundly ... at least once."

A lot of you may know Jay as the significant other who's attached to Erin Block, the fine young writer who's recently penned a book and whose work appears regularly in TROUT Magazine. But Jay's carved a niche in the fly fishing world all his own--he's a hell fly tyer, and he's not a bad writer in his own right. He has his own following (and his own book on the market), and rightly so.

I feel fortunate that I got to spend some time with Jay and Erin in Denver a few months ago, and I look forward to the opportunity to share a drink with them again sometime soon.

On with the questions:

No expectations...

Obviously, Charles Dickens was not a fly fisher. His epic tale of love, greed and manipulation was written through a completely different prism than it would have had it been penned by this wandering angler, even if the outcome is, unfortunately, somewhat familiar.

Beautiful, but no fish.

I was just telling a friend at lunch today that most of my "big" fly fishing trips tend to be impacted in one fashion or another by elements beyond my control. And I tend spend the days and weeks leading up to "epic" trips counting my catch before a single fish comes to hand. 

Some "for instances":

Last March, I was invited to attend a writer's week at a lodge in the Bahamas. It's a far-flung place that not only requires you to get to Nassau, but then to a tiny little airstrip on at Dead Man's Cay in Long Island. The fishing was supposed to be simply outrageous. The lodge was great. The island was beautiful. But the wind blew and it rained, damn near the whole time. How many bonefish did I catch? Uh, never mind.

Pressure

The Rio Grande del Norte. Image by Josh Duplechian.

Sometimes, to get around the quagmire of politics, you have to be political. Such is the case these days with the U.S. Congress and the ideologues that can't seem to see the forest for the trees.

Thankfully, the American people still have a say, and in five locations across the country, they're getting their way. On Monday, President Obama will use his executive power to designate five new national monuments--the Rio Grande del Norte in New Mexico; the San Juan Islands in Washington; the First State National Monument in Deleware; the Charles Young Buffalo Soldiers National Monument in Ohio; and the Harriet Tubman Underground Railway National Monument in Maryland.

In fall five cases, local citizens had to rise up and make the ask--Congress and its politics made protecting these special places and their intrinsic values through the legislative branch of government virtually impossible. There are more lawmakers in Congress more interested in adhering to their steadfast ideology than they are to the will of the people.