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Photo of a Colorado Greenback Cutthroat caught this summer in the Roaring River in the Rocky Mountain National Park. Wally Courtney

Powerbait and similar baits and the 2008 proposed regulations.

Tim Wilhelm

If you wish to comment via internet on either of these, please click on this link:

http://ncpaws.org/regulationswebform/ContentPages/RegulationSelection.aspx

If you have been following the powerbait issue here in NC, I have an update.

The NC Wildlife Resources Commission met yesterday and unanimously voted to send the following to Public Hearing in Jan/Feb 2008:

"For the purposes of this rule, artificial lure is defined as a fishing lure that neither contains, nor has received application of, any substance that attracts fish by the sense of taste or smell. Natural bait is defined as any living or dead organism (plant or animal), or parts there of, or prepared substances designed to attract fish by the sense of taste or smell."

The existing regulations state that on wild trout water you must use artificial lures having 1 hook. The delayed harvest regs also require an artificial lure and that no natural bait may be possessed; ergo, no powerbait.

There is one last hurdle and that is that the commissioners will vote at their March 2008 meeting to either approve or reject this regulation change based on what they hear at the hearings.

Now I'm going to use some strong words. Those of you in NC that complained about Powerbait usage, well now is the time for you to fish or cut bait. If you don't get off your butt and go to the hearings and just simply state that you are infavor of the regulation change, then it will not pass. It is strictly a numbers game and if you aren't going to make the effort to be counted then those oppossed to the change will win. They will have people there. This is the third time definitions have been proposed by the staff (one died on the vine and other was unsupportable) and I have been told that are tired of having their noses bloodied and that there will not be a fourth time.

I'll post a reminder and I'll save you a seat at the hearings.

NCWRC 2008 Proposed regulations published
This year's proposed regulation changes have been published and can be downloaded at
http://www.ncwildlife.org/news_stori...hearings08.htm

They are in PDF and can be downloaded by selecting the link in the box on the right of the page. There is also information about submitting comments online. Although I would encourage you to attend a hearing in person. Normally the majority of people that go are there to comment about hunting regulations. I suspect that they may be inclined to comment against the definitions of artificial/natural bait.

In summary, here are the proposals that affect trout:

F1 - the definition of both artificial and natural baits including where they are used.

F3 - allows only youth to fish the DH water for the first half of the day when it switches to hatchery supported.

F4 & F5 - Adds 3.3 miles of water to DH regulations. (2.3 miles of it is the N. Toe through Spruce Pine.)

F6 & F7 - Adds 2 streams as Catch and Release/Artificial lure.

F8, F9 & F10 - Reclassifies 3 streams from Hatchery supported to Wild Trout/Natural Bait (These streams support a wild population and I would really like to see if these streams are changed by this. In other words I think it is a good thing.)

F11 - Reclassifies one Hatchery stream to Wild Trout

F12-F18 are basically house cleaning type regulations.

It is my opinion that all of the proposed regulation changes for Trout should be supported.

I have been seriously into fly fishing for 7 to 8 years. In that time I have grown in the sport in a lot of different ways. Each way seems to deepen my understanding of fish and seems to cost me more gear. Well, I had drawn the line at rod making. I said, “I don’t want to build rods” giving every excuse from cost to time. I felt pretty good about my determination. I had put my foot down and I meant it. I held my ground on not rod building for several years.

Well this year seemed to be my transition year. I lost several of my stream buddies to jobs and schools. I found myself alone a lot on the water. Time alone lead me to reflect on the whole of my fly fishing. If your eyes are open when you reflect you see stuff. So I revisited the whole issue of rod making.

As many before me have started, I bought a rod building kit and followed the instructions. I made a pretty nice 4 wt. rod. It didn’t cost as much as a finished rod and it wasn’t much harder than tying a size #20 Sulfur Midge. It fished well.

I now could say that I had made a rod and move onto the next goal my reflection time on the water had given me. I have a major weakness for periodicals about fly fishing. It seems that there is a lot of fly fishers using them “Old School” bamboo rods.

Bamboo as a rod is just plain pretty. It rings of craftsmanship and the gentle roots of the sport that I have seem to have avoided. I guess that there is rebelliousness about my style of fly fishing. Or at least I want there to be. Bamboo rods are classy and beautiful. They are also pricey. Their cost gave me a reason to stay away as I couldn’t afford to ante up. But nothing lasts including this reason.

I went a month with the bamboo goal in its proper place as a nice dream to reflect on until more cash was available. Then I saw them laying in a bin at a junk sale. There were all sorts of parts and pieces of ancient cane and bamboo rods. A cane rod is a stalk of bamboo cane with guides. A bamboo rod is spilt cane that is glued with proper care and respect into a rod. I walked away from the bin after looking through it. But I found myself being drawn back to the bin after going through the rest of the sale. I went through the pieces more carefully and matched them together the best I could. There were not many complete sets, just a lot of parts. Then I matched together a 9 foot rod with three sections. The cork had turned black from dirt and sweat. The guides were a wreck, rusted beyond hope. I laid it down and walked away again. “This rod has had it”, I thought. It would probably wind up on some theme restaurant wall as a piece of antique junk. I could see that happening in my mind. It sort of made me feel sick. As I put it into my Jeep I felt like I had at least saved it from restaurant decor indignity.

Now I had a bamboo fly rod. Not a beautiful magazine picture perfect rod, but a very elderly and worn rod. Nevertheless I was on my way to the experience of the “boo”. It had seemed easy and straight forward when I bought the rod, but on the way home I realized something about my treasure. I knew nothing about restoring a speculated fifty years old bamboo fly rod.

After a week of other distractions I began to formulate a strategy. I am a member of several online groups known as forums. I announced my plan and asked for advice. Several kind souls came forward with suggestions and offers of help.

This “Old Boo”, as the rod was beginning to be known in the house, had many needs. First of all, the black crude on the grips had to go. I had sanded the inside of a grip but never the outside. I started off slowly and quickly enough some pretty passable cork appeared.

The ferrules were aluminum. I asked those who were well versed in restoring and making bamboo rods what cleaning solution I should use. “Start with window cleaner” was the reply. This quickly removed a lot of the funk from the ferrules and let them slip together again.

The guides, on the other hand, were going to be a bit more of a challenge. The years had corroded them almost completely away. I wanted to fish with this rod so I ordered snake guides and a ceramic stripping guide. The rod had all snake guides. I was going to bring the rod some into the present by adding a stripping guide. That was what I told myself. Even after I had decided this it still lingered in the back of my mind.

Still torn between the old and new I began to remove the guides from each of the three sections. The thread, now brown with age, was probably red when the original craftsman made the wraps. Removing the guides, I began to wonder about the rod maker. The only maker’s mark on the rod was an illegible cursive name in silver paint. Was the rod crafted for personal use, a customer, or perhaps a close friend or relative? How would he feel if he knew that, after all this time, I was going to try and fish with it again? My mind always seems to go through questions like these about old stuff.

After removing the guides and waxing philosophical about the rod maker, I still needed to decide what shade of red the thread was originally. I found out there are a lot of shades of rod wrapping thread available online. I also discovered that I have a hard time distinguishing different shades. I had to defer to my wife on what shade to get. She found it slightly funny and pretty dang odd that getting the closest shade to the original mattered so much to me. By this point I wanted some nameless, probably dead, person to be happy with my restoration of his rod. I put it away for several days until my online order arrived.

My order of the thread and guides finally came. There was the shiny black strip guide I was going to add to the mix to modernize the rod. I counted the guides and came out to one too many. There was an extra big snake guide. Go figure. Well, I wasn’t going to need it because “Old Boo” was going to have a strip guide. I knew this to be a fact. I started at the tip prepping and replacing the guides. Several evenings went by and I only had two sections done. The next evening available it was late when I started. I was probably too tired to be working on it and don’t remember much of what I did that evening. When I quit for the night, all I really knew was that the guides were ready for coating. I noticed something in the box from the online order as I was finishing up. It was the ceramic stripping guide. I’m still not sure how it happened, but “Old Boo” has all snake guides just like the guy had made it. Draw your own conclusions on that one.

I have fished with “Old Boo” several times. I have caught some really nice trout. It casts like a champ with what I have learned is an action dynamic common to the bamboo. Bamboo action compared to graphite is a whole other story for later. I can get at best 70 feet with a 5 wt. line. I still have a pretty nice ceramic stripping guide sitting over my work bench for some future rod.