Just Reflections & Shadows Artsy Stuff 15Dec15

I'm taking a photography class at Bemis. Meh, the instructor is pretty scattered. I did some artsy stuff at the COS Fine Arts Museum. Here's a sample of only the shadows cast by exhibit pieces.

Blood Moon Monk 08Dec15

Mix of Black IPA and Quad Belgian ale - Baker's can brew - it's awesome. Love the color of a blood moon. ~70 IBUs and 8+% ABV. I'm here for $2 Tuesdays but had to pay $4 for this special concoction. New School here is still my fav IPA from Summit brewers - and it was $2/pint. Half price sirracha shrimp po boy on Baker's baguette was tasty too.

Coffin's Tailwater Flies 07Dec15

These are my six most productive Colorado tailwaters flies other than a "weight fly" or an RS2… three BWO mayflies and 3 midges. All of them are fished “wet” and intended to dead drift or dynamic drift at the level of feeding fish. These flies have taken the most and the largest fish from the Arkansas, So Platte, Blue, and Williams Fork rivers for me this year. These are all my custom designs, though all are variants of stuff tied by Colorado guides and tiers.

Awesome Midge
This unusual midge is made mostly from materials often tossed. Tied #22-26 this is my most prolific producer on the PT and is a variant of a tie I learned from Smethurst. It’s made from rusty brown thread, a body of stripped peacock herl coated with Hard As Nails, “wings” of pearl Krystal Flash and thorax of a blend of grizzly hackle duff and peacock herl fibers (dubbed on with Loon super tacky wax). The thorax is so natural and “swishy” in the water and peacock herl is perfectly grey-brown and segmented.
Blood Midge
This is not the classic bought in stores or online. Tied on the #18-22 TMC202R hook, my three key variants are a mirrored red XS glass bead, an underlayer of pearl mylar below the red D-Rib and gills of Medora thread protruding from the front of the bead. Whether an attractor or THE bug big fish are seeking, the translucent segmented red ribbing with underlying flash and front gills are irresistible.
Jimi’s Axe Midge
Renamed from Blessing’s Purple Haze due to my size and materials changes, I tie this in #20-#22 and use smaller ones as the season moves on. It’s really either a mayfly with flash tail or more likely a midge with trailing shuck. I use root bear midge Krystal Flash as shuck, purple & blue holographic mylar for body, a custom blend of purple & black UV ice dub for the thorax, and either black hen hackle tips or raven tips for the hackle-tied legs (material must be NOT stiff). Fish it in a bit faster water and light will sparkle off the purple and fish will inhale it.
Cheeseman Emerger Mayfly
Chris Ramos’s design for Cheeseman Canyon is a micro-mayfly for super-technical waters. It is a perfect, easily tied, fast-sinking fly for most tailwaters… a smidge better in spring when the BWOs are more olive-ish but paradoxically, it’s smaller than most BWOs hatching then. I tie #22-#24 with a black-nickel tungsten bead, olive thread body with pearl Krystal Flash tail and flashback, small white Antron wing and custom blend of olive superfine and peacock ice dubbing. Simple and perfect.
DRC’s Fly of Destiny (FOD) Mayfly
Tied initially by O’Grady of the Drift Fly Shop in Pueblo, this has quickly risen as a go-to BWO pattern for me alongside my mercury bead RS2 Medora emergers. I tie it almost exclusively in #22 though I will likely add larger versions for springtime. I tie it using gray-brown thread and a gun-metal blue XS glass bead; the tail is 8 pheasant tail fibers (which are carried forward and make the wing casing and legs/wings too). The body is simply thread with XS copper ultrawire ribbing. The thorax is callebetis (gray & lavender) UV ice dub. Not a crawler or emerger… or is it either, or both.
Silver Surfer Mayfly
This is an Kingrey-derived all-flash mayfly emerger. It is intended for days when the water is off-color and visibility is low. It has produced beyond my expectations in these conditions. I tie it #18-#22. I use grey wet hackle fibers for the tail and tips of same for the hackle/legs. The body is silver holographic mylar overwrapped with blue S ultrawire, and the thorax is silver ice dub. The colors don’t occur in nature so I am unsure why it works so well but I sure know it does.

I Can't Say Enough About This Schitt 07Dec15

I completed my live testing of the tiny Schitt DAC and Amps. As the blog post title implies, I am thrilled. I chose the Vali tube amp ($119) over their Magni 2 solid state amp ($99) but both were unexpectedly awesome. The Vali is paired with Schitt's Modi 2 DAC ($149 for Uber version - to get wall power vs USB power) and drives my AKG 702 cans wonderfully; .6w was plenty of power. The Vali made these faithful reproducers smoother. They sound better now mated with this Schitt than with my original outfit for them (Eddie Current SS amp + Cambridge Magic DAC) coupled to the Win7 media-server PC (and costing more). There's a mellow glow of the tiny tubes inside the amp giving the box a glow and warm touch. The only weird aspect of the set is that while they are of the same exact form factor, they are finished differently... the Modi 2 is brushed aluminum and the Vali is dimpled anodized, wtf. I also did A-B compares on optical vs USB cabling from my Mac to the Modi DAC. As expected, I couldn't tell a difference (heck they are both just delivering bit streams) but it was cool to discover the fact that a Mac outputs digital optical through a hidden dual-purpose mini-DIN jack. With comparisons completed I'll move the outfit to Summit. Test material was my own mp3 and flac library as well as Google Play's ~380Kbps service stream. I highly recommend the Schitt Modi 2 and either tiny mated amp. This Schitt is so cool. [And you all need to recognize the perfected depth of field in the image ;)]

Final Schitt installation spot in Silverthorne with Google Play streaming Vampire Weekend via USB bitstream. Recognize nothing more in this image other than composition as it was an ill-lighted, auto-driven iPhone shot.

All Small From The PT 03Dec15

It was a nice day but that made the Pueblo Tailwater pretty crowded. I went to Valco and fished several spots (but the big holes were occupied) and caught about two smallish fish per hour. Nothing of any size. All the bugs worked fine... rainbow warrior, red midge, DRC's FOD, RS2 and Jimi's Axe were all productive. I did catch one tiny brown on a dry during the BWO hatch. The crowds and mediocre catch have altered my plans - I doubt I'll go back for a while, at least not in good weather.

I used the new Patagonia boots today on the PT. Given low flows it was not a big challenge but the fit and function were excellent. As reported, grip on streambed and rocks, even yucky ones, was excellent. The grip on mossy logs was not however - I'll have to remember to step over, not onto, wet wood. I had to do a ton of walking today in search of open water and while the boots are a bit heavy they are not uncomfortable, despite the metal on the soles. All in, very favorable; good news.

Desktop Audio Reimagined 02Dec15

Once More Into The Audio (& Apple) Abyss... I sought an "entry level" desktop audio system for the Silverthorne study to accompany my Mac and standing desk. Oh yeah... who knew NorCal was reinventing audio as well as computing. I not only discovered that Mac has HD digital audio out via an optical TosLink connection hidden in the headphone connector but also that Schiit (yep, pronounced "shit") of NorCal has ultra-valued DACs and headphone amps built in America. I'll be comparing a sub-compact tube amp called the Vali against their solid state amp called the Magni 2, and I'll be driving them from the optical port of my MacBook Pro at 192KHz through a desktop DAC called the Modi 2 Ultra. All in, electronics and cabling will be <$300 and my transducers will be the venerable AKG K702s (~$270). My general rule in video/audiophile-ville is to pay the same for electronics as transducers as displays. Ultimately the two component stack will be only ~3"x4"x5". This won't rival my magneplaner Audeze headphones with the WooAudio WA7 tube amp/DAC driven from a dedicated Win 10 Surface (which I can listen to for many hours without fatigue) but it won't suck at all. I hope I prefer the "warmer" tube amp but output will be only ~.6w into my 60Ω headset vs 1w from the solid state. The stuff kindof matches the Mac and Thunderbolt display... America is so cool (I know, the headphones are Austrian).

Planning to Fish 01Dec15

Welcome to December. I recently acquired two excellent books as to fishing in Colorado. You may know Landon Mayer as a great guide out of COS, or as a tyer, or as an author, or as a guy always shown with huge fish. I just read his excellent 2011 book Colorado's Best Fly Fishing - I wish I'd had it sooner. He profiles most of the 170 miles of Gold Medal water (and other water) in the state and he describes well the hatches and which streams have the best of each. This is great for planning 2016 and a desire to diversify from the "local" streams only... more later on that. I am also reading Mike Kephart's book Colorado's Lost Lakes and Secret Places. This is a decent book on the high country around the state and was acquired again with an eye on planning fishing trips. I'd have to say the Landon's is a "must have" for CoWWs as it is highly relevant and informative. Given those books, and some others in my library I will be stopping at Blue Quill Angler this coming Saturday on my way to Summit - many of the authors will be there 11am-2pm and I'll meet them and have them sign my books (my gosh I have Gierach, Dorsey, Mayer, Engle and Kephart). FYI if you wanna join; Blue Quill is Dorsey's place. Too, I'm gonna hit the PT later this week.