The Cornell Lab of Ornithology has posted a gallery of beautiful renderings of birds by Catherine Hamilton. I really love the style she uses. Her watercolor technique is really lovely. I think my favorite is the chickadee below, but please click here to view the entire gallery. She has a handwritten blog that you can view here and a regular blog here. Great stuff!
Black-capped Chickadee, watercolor on paper, 8 x 8 inches (Catherine Hamilton)
Checkout these tweeters:
More folks to follow:
Straying off topic for a moment, but I imagine there are a few people out there who might be interested in this. I came across a new free iTunes application made by Gibson called Gibson Learn & Master Guitar Application. It is cool for those who play guitar and has some great features. My favorite is the guitar tuner that listens as you play the strings and guides you in your tuning efforts. You can choose from many popular tunings as well. Also there is a metronome with a few timings for keeping rhythm. There is a chord map that shows you most of the chords you would need to play just about any song. There is also a conduit into Gibson’s premium lessons, which I haven’t really clicked around too much. Some features that are missing which would be cool to have would be to add a way to strum the chord that is in the map as well as a way to play the same chord at different locations on the fretboard. The user interface is really nice and fairly easy to pick right up and use. All in all this is a cool app and you can’t beat the price, check it out!
Here is my entry for the week. I realized just after kicking off the drawing that my kids had misplaced my white pencil so I had to improvise. I was able to quickly find a white out correction pen, which I used for the highlights on the hook and head, and part of the wing tip, but then it ran out of fluid. I was forced to raid the crayon box and finished it with a white crayola. So this is a colored pencil (and some other stuff) on matte board drawing. Also unfortunate is the fact that my scanner made the image look streaky, so ignore that part.
Week 10 McGinty - colored pencil on matte board
Kate decided to give this week’s fly a go and again another cute bug from her.
Week 10: McGinty Crayon on craft paper
Here are Jeff’s and Jason’s drawings for this week. Stellar as always!
I have been inspired by this beautiful spring time weather of the past few days to share one of my most successful spring time patterns. I don’t really know what it is called, but I know it catches fish. I first learned this pattern from a guy in the fly shop I used to frequent when I was a kid. I have come to call it the compar-a-merger. I guess because it is a little like a compar-a-dun but the wing is tied back and the body is a little fatter. I have had trips on the San Juan River in NM, as well as the Green and Provo Rivers in Utah where this little fly caught fish after fish. I tend to fish it, like most emerger patterns near the surface, but have also had success fishing it deeper, particularly when the only fish that are up are the little guys. Getting it down 18-24″ under the surface can really get you to the bigger fish.
Compar-a-merger baetis
The compar-a-merger, like most of my flies, is a fairly simple pattern. I start with a basic nymph style hook in sizes 16-20. The recipe is as follows:
Brown trout enjoying the taste of the compar-a-merger
The dubbing, thread, tail colors and hook size can all be adjusted for various mayfly species and I have tied these in mahogany and sulphur as well. The fish to the right fell victim to this fly and you can see it in the corner of his mouth (another shot). Give this fly a shot and you won’t be sorry.
Ever seen this pattern before? Know it by a different name? Share your thoughts below.
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Good looking poster for the 12th annual Great Salt Lake Bird Festival (Great Salt Lake Bird Festival)
Registration for the Great Salt Lake Bird Festival begins today (March 4). This is an awesome opportunity to view the MANY species of birds that use Utah as a resting spot on their long journeys North and South. If you haven’t been out to the bird refuge before you really should. The poster for this year’s festival is also really nice looking and my be reason enough to get up there.
Check out the details from the Deseret News:
Great Salt Lake Bird Festival registration begins Thursday
Opening day Armageddon (photo via troutunderground.com)
One only need look at the image from this troutunderground.com blog post to appreciate the beauty of a year round fishing season. That photo makes me sick to even look at. How can that possibly be fun or fulfilling? Thankfully in Utah most of our waters are governed by a 365-day fishing season and we can avoid scenes such as this. I remember as a kid opening day fishing, but I don’t know if it was ever this bad. Thanks Utah DWR.
Another great thing that we have in Utah: 365-day licenses. My license is good for 365-days after I purchase it, not from January 1 to December 31. I tell you if other states did this I would be more apt to by a year round non-resident license as I am more likely to make a return trip within 365 days than I am to get back before the end of the year. Take note other states (cough – Wyoming, Idaho, and Colorado – cough).
Another Sign of the Fishing Apocalypse: Opening Day (or, The Asylum – Outdoors) – via troutunderground.com
I doubt that any Utah Senators actually read this blog, but others who live in Utah do and you need to mobilize and let your State Senators know that they MUST oppose HB141 (find your state senator here).
This bill represents the taking of rights away from the public. Proponents of HB 141 argue that public access to streams takes something away from land owners, but this is faulty logic. Land owners NEVER owned the stream, but rather the stream bed. How much value would there be in a stream bed without a stream? Flowing waters are a trust of the pubic and private landowners are aiming to usurp them. The Utah State Supreme Court ruled that public citizens in Utah have right to a reasonable easement to navigate the corridor of a stream in Utah. HB141 is aimed to strip this right away from the citizens and give quasi ownership of the stream to landowners. That is wrong.
Follow the link below to read a much better written opinion piece on the subject from Duke Edwards as published by the Salt Lake Tribune.
Google Books is considered a fairly controversial project in some circles, but from where I stand the bounty has been plentiful. In the last 6 months Google digitized the autobiography of my great-great-grandfather, James S. Brown. This is a book that is out of print and very difficult to come by and expensive if you do.
Fishing with the Fly, by Charles F Orvis
Fly fishermen can enjoy access to a treasure-trove of classic texts and I will aim to highlight one each Tuesday (we’ll see how long this lasts). The first book I am reviewing is Fishing with the Fly by Charles F Orvis and A. Nelson Cheney published in 1886. This is an interesting read from one of the most historically influential fly anglers of all time. This book contains some great full color plate illustrations of early fly patterns and some classic quotes like this one about brook trout:
It is well known that the salmo fontinalis gives no care or thought to its offspring; and evinces no love or affection for it after it passes the embryotic or ova-otic stage ; and that daring that stage their parental fondness is akin to that of the cannibal for the conventional “fat missionary.”
I think one of my favorite parts is the chapter called Fly Fishing in the Yosemite. This is an entertaining story of a trip to the Yosemite. There are a lot of gems in this book and I encourage you to check it out and it is definitely at least worth a scan.
