By

Harry P. Davis

The world of fly fishing mesmerizes me as blending of feathers

intricately knitted with fur strips, tinsel and ribbons quiver in the

early morning light. And I'm not just talking about our Orvis guide's outfit...there's more to it ...much more!

Fly fishing goes deep into the roots of man. Brings to the present, things of the past...links them together with a thread of silk and binds  anglers together with centuries of curious habits and rituals meant to bring good luck and happy hunting.

You may think it a little thing, to stick a dry fly in your cap on your way out to secret waters but what is really going on inside your psyche by this supposed innocent little act?

In the little village of Tungho in Taiwan, the Pinpu tribe has a ritual called, "HOWL AT THE SEA".

According to the education department of the OCAC (an arm of the Taiwan government) this ritual worships,"the ancestor's spirit of Mother Alid and theancestors that traveled across the sea and arrived at Taiwan."

I'm not sure about Mother Alid but my wife howls at the sea when I come in from the sea around 2 in the morning. Well, there was a late hatch! …of owl flies!

Back to the Thai story,"Eighteen separate rituals in all are involved, having to do with such things as floods, cattle sickness, war, fire and the enthronement of kings."..."a recitation of what must be done for

the hunt to be carried out properly, beginning with the Mwami's decision to assemble a hunting party and ending with the return of the hunters from the bush."

Here's one step to the planning of a hunt...it's kind of a poem and is memorized and handed down through generations…

here’s the

english rendition:

"When the king wants to go hunting

Divination about the hunt takes place.

Through divination one chooses among former kings,

Either Mibambwe or Kigere,

He to whom the divination points."

Each of these steps are planned and well thought out with constant

reference to the traditions and purity of the ritual so as to keep to

the honor of the tribe, strengthen the corporate identity ...and

maybe kill something to eat.

I knew I should have come up with a poem the other night but who

can rhyme at 2 am and my iambic pentameter is a bit limp from lack of use lately. Not that I needed it after my wife’s HOWL AT THE SEA!

Eighteen rituals just to plan a successful hunt so similar to our prefishing

ritual of incantations and guttural spells:

"Hey, What's up...?"

"You got it...dude!"

"They’re runnin’..."

"You're on...!

"Meet ya at the river...!"

"Gimme ten and I'm there...!"

"Cya...!"
"Bring Beer!"

Uncanny, although thousands of miles and centuries away from

others, each of our hunting and fishing cultures have traditions and

rituals as if we are all of the same tribe. But, then again, we don’t rely on fishing and hunting for our tribe’s very survival…if we did, maybe we would be a bit more intricate with our fishing rituals than just a feather in our river hat.

Why On The Fly

By

Harry P. Davis

At some point in life we have to step outside of our mortal lives and ask ourselves, “Why?

My friends, acquaintances and some total strangers try to convert me from fly fishing to some other perversion of angling like bait or spin casting.

It’s like a full time job for some of them to sow doubt in my fields of flying by constantly haranguing, “You can’t fly fish around here…nobody flyfishes around here…that’s for mountain streams you know. There’s no mountain streams around here…you gotta use bait around here!”

Sometimes when I get skunked , like most of the time lately (read MUD ON THE FLY)…I want to go steal some BIG zoo fish, stick a fly in its mouth, bring ‘em to my friends…and lie! Fish that are not from these waters…TIGER fish…MEKONG CATFISH!

Just drive up to my friend’s house, honk the horn while holding up a 90 pound BARRAMUNDI with a wooley bugger hanging from its eye and yell, “9 WEIGHT!” Grin real big and drive off into the night.

They don’t know what a 9 weight is of course so, what’s the use…“That’s no 9 weight! That fish is a HUNDRED POUNDS! You can’t catch hundred pound fish on a fly rod AROUND HERE!”

Even better…I want to come around from their backyard Oriental rock pond…knock on the back door, hold up my catch and yell, “COY ON A nymph!”

I know I’m obsessed with flinging a knot full of feathers and string back and forth all day but it’s a great obsession. It’s not fattening and you stay out oftrouble…. unless you count that early Montana blizzard and the Brazilian Women’s Roll Casters Club when…well…never mind.

Loses something in the interpretation. Just tell Jose I was only teaching Maria how to hold a spey rod.

It’s not that I totally hate other styles of fishing – I know how to do them- I just can’t see wasting a perfectly good day on the water fishing any otherway.

My hands can hold a spinning outfit just fine and I’ve threaded my share of juicy night crawlers onto bass hooks…BIG DEAL! Still, there’s something deeper, darker yes, more serious surrounding the fellowship ofthe fly.

I think it has something to do with mindset and heart-set rather than just a choice of angling tools.

Heart-set goes deep and as deep calls to deep so some hearts call to the depths of fly angling and it calls back.

This explains why some children see an old man fly casting on the bank of a river and fall into an irredeemable love affair with plastic coated backing fastened to a hideous curved weapon fastened with twine, herl and glue; pretending to be a cute little June bug.…strange love affair.

Strange yes, but love nevertheless. What else explains the obsession of knowing everything about who, what, when, where and why on the fly, if not love?

The who, what when and where are important but aren’t they more names, facts and places rather than soul. Each has its place and builds upon and enhances

the why and of course the art and craft of the fly would be shallow and lifeless without knowing others who share our passion. We need to know how to operate the equipment. Researching dates of discovery and accomplishments allow us to touch base with the roots of our sport and flesh out who we are and what we are a part of.

The “why” is untouchable…more essence than substance.

We may take our romance with fly fishing all the way to water itself but not too far down that road as to belittle our attraction into mere chemicals searching for liquid atmosphere to mix with.

Why goes deeper than just the fly or even the fishing and much deeper than just DNA or some gene pool experimentation…even to the depths of our wallets. Why else would we spend several hundred bucks on a metal cylinder that simply winds up string on a pole?

I think it has to do with poetry.

Poetry and the arts are things unseen as far as the initial spark goes right? No one can hold the inspiration of a poem or a painting and say, “Here’s thesource of that poem!” No, not really.

We can say the poet saw something in the little crag in the wall and it inspired him or “there once was a common lady with a sullen smile who just had to be painted and then hundreds of years later that same portrait of Mona Lisa sold for millions. But, does this really capture “WHY” the poet/painter HAD to capture that moment in time with the tools of his/her creative trade? Not really.

Beauty gestures, adventure beckons and fly angling captures more than just fish.

STORIES

Some night, when your 9 weight lights up in a ghoulish flame

spreading fingers of green lightning from stem to stern of your

flats boat…RELAX...it's just St Elmo saying, "Hi".

(Public Domain) Photo From NOAA Historical files

Special thanks to The Weather Doctor

James Copeland

Southern Land Pirate

By

Harry P. Davis

Did the infamous Southern Land Pirate James Copeland use our 5

Rivers delta system to hide out after some of his looting sprees?

Born on January 18, 1823, in Jackson County, Mississippi, James

Copeland started his life of crime when he began attending school at

the age of ten or eleven. Copeland was driven to hang out with “bad

influences” who educated him in a different school system of fraud,

cheating and theft.

Copeland boasted once of his first great theft, at the age of twelve, as

being an expensive pocket knife belonging to a neighbor, after he

tricked him out of it. He had been steeling before this and his next

great theft was stealing fifteen hogs with his brother Whinn in Mobile

and selling them for thirty dollars. Copeland was arrested by the

Jackson County Sherriff in Mississippi after he went back to the same

farmhouse and steal some more hogs. He was charged with larceny

but got away with the crime after he set fire to the courthouse and the

records were burned and there were no copies. James went free to

enjoy his life of crime along with his arson accomplice Gale H.

Wages.

It is known Wages took Copeland to what is described as a wigwam

in Mobil and issued an oath to join him to a secret society. Copeland

agreed to the oath as follows: ""You solemnly swear upon the Holy

Evangelist of Almighty God, that you will never divulge, and always

conceal and never reveal any of the signs or passwords of our order;

that you will not invent any sign, token or device by which the secret

mysteries of our order may be known; that you will not in any way

betray or cause to be betrayed any member of this order - the whole

under pain of having your head severed form your body - so help

you God."

A secret code reflecting the alphabet was known only to the clan and

this is the means they used to leave messages with each other, to

carve directions to hidden loot and general passing of secrets.

Known also as the Copeland Gang the members became quite a

criminal force operating much like a renegade military outfit.

I had found the code published in an article a long time ago and used

to carry it in my wallet. Once I found the code carved in an old oak

near Mobile Bay but have since lost the symbols I jotted down.

My brother and I also found an 8 foot deep log cache bin way in a

swamp not far from the code…empty of course as luck would have

it.

Copeland had 30,000 dollars worth of gold at one time just to himself after

Wages and McGrath were both killed in a gunfight. I can’t find any account

of his saying what happened to the gold before he was hanged

What’s worse than finding an empty treasure hold is to know someone else

struck Copeland pay-dirt in another swamp near Pascagoula Mississippi.

According to a blogger called Okie Treasure Hunter, a group of treasure

hunters found a whisky barrel containing $22,000 of gold coins attributed to

the Copeland Gang! The gold was said to have been found in 1980 and we

had hit the empty cache in 1976 or 77…so, it was in Pascagoula and several

years later but, a treasure hunter always takes things personally and shrinks

distances and time. I knew we should have dug a few feet west…well,

maybe quite a few miles west!

Each log was fitted perfectly to make a rectangular box, bin or

holding area and the sections went down at least 8 feet into the

stinking swamp mud.

We were hoping for gold! We got several days of aerobic workout

and a free mudpack skin treatment.

Legend is rife with bands of land pirates using secret codes to

identify directions for hide-outs, get-a-ways and buried loot!

Jesse James and his gang also had a secret code. James is said to have

studied code making from Albert Pike who is said to have founded

the Knights of the Golden Circle KGC, a secret organization intent

upon raising the south again from the ashes of defeat. The KGC is a

story unto itself and has fueled many a treasure hunter to leave house

and home to look for some their many hidden vaults containing gold

bullion and treasures plus triggers and hidden snares that will set off

gunpowder and dynamite.

Many outlaws, were also in contact with this organization and would make

their own codes, since they could not trust others with their own loot.

Copeland and the gang were said to have picked up three whiskey barrels in

New Orleans and filled them with gold. They travelled to Perlington

Mississippi and buried them near the Catahoula Creek so the Pascagoula

trove is thought to have been from another robbery.

The gang was notorious for robbing from Florida to Texas so there could be

caches in the ground in your back yard, ya never know. They say gold is

where you find it and the same with buried treasure…the Gulf Coast has

seen its share of pirates, wars and treasure laden ships over the years, many

vanishing without a trace from storms, disease or they just got turned

around, leaving their booty for you and I to dream about.

Another quick story about James Copeland ties him to the 5 Rivers area. I

am trying to locate information on this one since it has been a few years

since I came across the information but, I heard Copeland set fire to the west

side of Mobile and while the businessmen all responded with water brigades,

fire wagons, shovels, wet blankets and whatever they could muster; the gang

and he looted the east side and loaded their sleek sail boats and slipped

away.

Not long after this incident, Copeland and his boys set fire to the east side of

Mobile and looted the west side while the brave citizens fought the

flames…ingenious idea, in a sort of demented way, when you think of it!

Both times the pyromaniacal pirates vanished quickly into the bay. Even

when pursued by faster boats, Copeland seemed to disappear when he hit the

water which leads me to think he could have ducked up one of the five rivers

and lost any pursuer in the marshes and swampy areas, especially if he had

blinds built to hide the boats, cache sites dug to dump the loot and horses

ready to flee overland to secret hide outs. After the heat cooled, so to speak,

the gang could retrieve the loot at their own timing disguised as duck hunters

or fishermen.

In the West bandits hid their booty in the badlands, mountains and deserts.

Anyplace that was dangerous or not easily accessible to the common person

was favorable to the land pirate!

The 5 Rivers area was prime ground for hide-outs and treasure caches as was

the entire Gulf of Mexico with countless islands, creeks, rivers, bayous

marshes, hidden springs and swamps. I just think the proximity of our delta

system to Mobile City makes a prime area for any looter to quickly

disappear, with his prize, into history.

Understanding Nymphing

Most folk who would be fly fishers have a picture in their minds

of a lazy stream with a golden ribbon of fly line looping slowly

over the head of a pipe smoking angler who gently places a

light floating fly upon the surface of the water.

Truth is, this only one form of fly fishing and the least

productive in western mountain streams. Most outdoorsmen

who know the feeding habits of trout are aware of the

misunderstood wet flie, commonly known as nymphs.

Nymphers are the ones who are seen with, “tight lines” when

most dry flyers are scratching their heads, waiting for the,

“hatch”! The hatch is the sudden emergence of flying bugs

resulting from the maturing of insects floating to the surface

and flying away to mate, lay eggs and reproduce their species.

The art of nymphing is not a mystery, but does take a bit of skill

and cunning to get to some of the best places where hungry

fish feed. Dark places behind rocks and near cutbacks are

some of the best hunting grounds, sought by the nymphers.

These are places where big fish lay, feeding upon fresh worms

and insect larvae washed out by the natural current of fast

waters. The bigger the fish, the more protein it takes to

maintain it’s metabolism and weight.

An insect’s life-cycle starts at the egg stage, then to larvae and

as it matures will grow into a nymph and then become what is

called and emerger (emerging from the egg sack or casing)

much like a butterfly emerges from a cocoon. Flyfishers imitate

these various stages by tying nymphs resembling shapes, sizes

and colors of the nymphs in specific bodies of water.

Sometimes the color varies because of minerals or plants

present in the water.

Some popular western nymph patterns are gnats, mosquito

larvae, brassies, pheasant tails and the worms such as, San

Juan worms and blood worms. Worms work almost everywhere

and can be tied easily using chenille and other synthetic

material found at hobby shops and fabric departments. One of

the easiest worm patterns is tied by simply attaching the

chenille piece to the hook with one tight wrapping about a half

inch behind the head and the other the same length from the

tail. A trick to keep the wrappings from slipping on the slick

steel is to pre-wrap the hook tightly with thread thus keeping

the chenille in place during the presentation. Very simple and

very deadly!

Most western fly shops have classes where anyone, from

beginner to expert can learn local patterns that are easy and

effective on specific rivers and streams. Anglers can also learn

to tie “trailer” rigs, which are used to offer more than one flie to

feeding fish. Trailers are most productive in faster waters

because the first larger flie, called, “the attractor” will grab the

hungry trout’s attention and while the swift current washes it

past, the second flie comes in view of the alerted fish and

“WHAM…FISH ON!”

Nymphing can be done with no fly line at all. In high water, such

as floods and spring run-off, many wet-fly fishers use straight

monofilament (the clear fishing line used on most spinning

reels). This cuts the resistance of the current and allows the

weighted nymph to go deeper and look more natural as it flows

downstream with other food souces. If the flyfisher has silently

entered the area and presented the specific nymph correctly,

then hungry trout will not hesitate to gulp down a would be,

easy meal.

The fish need protein and feed 90% of the time under water,

where it is safe. When the angler thinks like a fish, then the

formulae for success gels.

Thinking Like a Nympher

If we take the principles of western nymphing and apply these

to where we are then we can see more productive days.

Everything living in and around the water have stages of growth

from beginning to adult be it insects, fish or invertebrate.

These stages can signal turning on or off of fish feeding and if

we imitate these stages we can toss our offering into the fray

and fool a lot more fish than if we cast a totally different pattern

than they are used to eating at that certain time or

season….makes sense …even to me.

I recently read an article about some fly fishermen who

contacted a marine biologist in their area and wanted to know

what was “hatching” at a certain time of the year when there

was always great schools of game fish thrashing about.

They found out about a shy little worm that hatched in the dark

depths and at night during certain tide and cloud conditions.

The interesting thing is the fishermen had lived there all their

lives and never heard of this little worm or of the mysterious

hatching taking place. Everyone just took for granted this time

of the year was the time when game fish came in.

More interesting is the ACTION the guys got when they studied

the worm and tied imitations of these hatches!

The moral of this story is STUDY YOUR AREA AND FIND OUT

WHAT’S HATCHING! Once we find out what’s out there, feeding

our target game, we can imitate the stages of growth and use

our wet or dry flies according to the actions of that “hatch”.

I know worms and other hatchlings are not true “nymphs” but

I’m calling them that only for illustration and not as being

technically correct.