I Need A New Knife

Well, I don't need a NEW new knife. I need a knife that can live semi-permanently on my belt as I'm out doing chores. I want to try keeping my pockets as empty as possible. so my long-time favorite blade, my Buck Vantage, will get left behind. Instead I'm looking for a light folding knife with a blade length longer than the Vantage. This new knife's job is simple cutting chores around the house, and while outdoors. My first thought was something that caught my eye on the Buck Custom Shop page - a nice 110 folder with G10 scales and nickel-silver bolsters. But before going that route, I decided to see what I already had in my collection. Maybe there's something I'm overlooking in one of my boxes of knives.

Sure enough, after rummaging around and evaluating candidates, I found a winner. A 2011 production Bucklite 426 - a Buck 110 but with an orange nylon handle. This is one of two 426's I picked up over a decade ago. I don't remember why, but I'm sure they were relatively cheap at the time, maybe less than $30 each. The other 426 has a black nylon handle. 

Captured on a recent fishing trip

I've got a number of  standard 110s in my collection, picked up here and there as they caught my eye, or were gifted to me. My oldest was purchased sometime in the early 80s, at the Fort Bragg PX. It's the least lovely one in my collection, showing years of hard use. But it is, hands down, the most sentimental. I carried it on my pistol belt across a 23 year career as a combat engineer, construction engineer and a topographer (map maker). It deserves to go back to Buck for a spa treatment.

My early-80's 110. Carried on my pistol belt for most of my 23 year Army career.
Heavily used, and abused

My 110 collection reflects a number of the slightly different 110 blade profiles that Buck has released down through the years. I'll be honest and say that most of the profiles from the 90's thru the 2000's were too aggressively upswept. This profile resulted in fragile blade tips, which explains why so many broken tip 110s get returned for warranty repair, or end up on eBay. This 426 has one of the better blade profiles - far less 'swoopy', resulting in what should be a sturdier tip.

Bucklites are built to a price point, and it shows on mine. The main blade grind is rough, but even. The edge grind. however, is uneven and downright sloppy. I doubt Buck's current QC would let something this bad out of the factory. It's going to take some time on the whetstone to even things up. But that's OK, it's worth the effort.

If you have any experience with the regular 110 model, when you pick up one of these 426's you are struck by just how light they are. There's a lot of weight in the standard 110 handle - all that brass, steel and faux wood handle material. The blade itself adds relatively little to the weight of the knife. My 426 has a very lightweight molded nylon handle. The knife balances very nicely around the first finger scallop in the handle. It's very comfortable in the hand.

This is not an heirloom knife, and with use it'll suffer the fate of all folding knives that get regular hard use - the pivot pin bushing will wear, the blade will loosen up in the handle and the knife will become unusable. Or the blade will break, or the handle will crack, or I'll lose it. I figure it's good for about 10 years of honest use. That's OK, because that'll give me time to hunt down another orange handled 426, or maybe Buck will re-introduce them. Hint, hint.

Stay sharp!

Spinning and Fly(ing)

This past Sunday, for the first time in months, I was able to get away for a few hours and get some fishing in. Didn't catch a thing, but that wasn't really the point. I wanted to check out a new spot for future fishing adventures. I didn't care if I caught anything, I just wanted to check it out.

I went to one of Georgia's wildlife management areas (WMA) that's about 40 minutes from my house. Named the Joe Kurz WMA, it's mainly a hunting location, with managed fields and habitat for deer, turkey, doves and quail. It also offers a primitive camping area,  a small lake, and boat ramp access to the Flint River. 

I was particularly interested in the primitive camping area and lake. I didn't know what to expect, so I tossed some spinning gear into the back of the truck and took off. There were a few other folks fishing when I got there, but nobody was catching anything. I tossed out a beetle spin (my go-to lure for bluegill and small bass), and I saw some small bass following it, but nothing was biting. I put it down to the heat - it was pushing 90 degrees that day. As I walked the bank of the pond with my spinning gear I noted that it's also a good location for fly fishing. Clear banks, plenty of area for long back-casts. 

So this observation introduces our topic for today - don't be a tackle snob.

I've been fishing since I was about four or five, starting when I fell off the boat dock at our vacation cabin on Lime Lake, in western New York. I was pissed at the sunfish for stealing my bait (small pieces of bread), and was leaning over to yell at them when I slipped and fell in. I still think my older brother Pat pushed me, but he continues to deny it😄. I can remember the fishing gear I had - an inexpensive little panfish outfit with an open face reel and a blue plastic rod handle. I loved it!

1960-ish. Lime Lake in western New York. My earlier spill from this dock triggered a mandatory life jacket policy 

Since that fateful day I've fished all across the US - from the ponds and small streams of South Jersey, to the lakes, rivers and ocean beaches of Georgia, Ohio, Michigan, New York, North Carolina, Virginia, Texas, Washington State and the Panama Canal Zone. Many of my favorite memories involve fishing.

Fishing the Maumee River in NW Ohio, renowned for its white bass and walleye runs.
Mid-1970s

Early 1980's. Somewhere on the North Carolina coast.
Me on the left. A good friend and Army buddy John Laughter is on the right. Can't remember the 
guy in the middle - another officer from our battalion on Fort Bragg.
We were cleaning fish until midnight

Life often gets in the way of things, and so it did with fishing. Raising kids, being sent hither and yon by Uncle Sam, other interests (some of which are discussed on this blog). I found myself wetting a line less and less. Then in 2007 I went to work at Hartsfield Airport in Atlanta, and developed a close friendship with one of the airport planners, a fellow retired Army officer, fellow New Jersey expat and dedicated fisherman named Bill. Bill absolutely loves fishing. Fly fishing, that is. I had only fly fished once or twice in my life, using borrowed gear, and didn't have much luck. Bill became not just a close friend, but my fly fishing coach and mentor. Under his tutelage, I got good at it. Not great, but good.

Bill, working the bank of a local stream. Thinking of trout, but willing to settle for a nice bass.

Along the way I discovered one of the unspoken secrets of fly fishing - it's OK to not give a damn about catching trout. Trout down here in the deep south are just dumb hatchery raised pellet-fed hogs. The real fun is taking a 2 or 3 weight fly rod and go looking for beds of aggressive bluegill, some crappie, or largemouth bass. In fact, I'll take a largemouth bass over a trout any day of the week. More fight, more fun. However, expressing that feeling at a Trout Unlimited meeting (which I did) is the equivalent of pissing in the punch bowl at your cousin's wedding. Kinda' kills the mood. Sorry (not really), but I find the pretentiousness of fly fishing, as practiced by the Orvis crowd, to be tiresome. Love the activity, hate the snobbery shown by a large number of the practitioners. And no, Bill is not one of those.

Me (on the left) and my son-in-law Shawn, getting ready to float fish on one of the stocked ponds
at Callaway Gardens in southwest Georgia. The trout were not cooperating, so I just puttered along the 
edges of the pond, tagging some really impressive bluegill.

Years ago Bill and I made a trip to fish the tailwater up on the Toccoa River in north Georgia. I was standing about five yards out, casting into the foam and not having any luck. I was also hearing an occasional splash behind me. I turned around to look, and was surprised to see trout rising to grab insects falling from a tree on the bank. One of the bugs floated by me, and it looked like a small spider. There must have been some sort of spider hatch going on in that tree, and the trout were having a field day. I spun around, grabbed my fly box, pulled out the smallest spider-y looking thing I had and tied it on. On the third cast... bam! On the fifth cast... bam! and so it went for about 15 minutes. As I'm standing there pulling in another trout a guide boat floats by. One of the dudes on board calls out, "How's it going?" I shout back, "Pretty good, four in the last 15 minutes!" Then comes the inevitable question, "What are you using?" I shout back that I've tied on a small foam spider. He shouts back, "You'll probably have better luck with a hopper and a dropper combo!" Really? He's giving me advice as I'm landing my fourth trout in 15 minutes... right in front of him? He and his buddy looked like they just stepped from the pages of the Orvis catalog. I'm standing there in waders from Cabela's, with a Bass Pro fly rod, some cheap fly line I picked up at Dick's, and a few crappy flies I tied up myself. I had a fish on, these guys didn't. But they looked snappy as they bobbed on by, smug in their knowledge that the rube in the river could do better if he just followed their advice.

Fly fishing dominated my fishing life for at least a decade. I love it. But there were certain situations where it was clear fly tackle was not the best solution. Windy days, times I knew I needed to get deep with the fly to get to where the fish were holding, heavy weeds, no space for back-casts, things like that. I didn't want to give up on the 'purity' of casting a fly. so I just didn't fish those situations. 

About eight years ago our young granddaughter Helen was staying with us for a few days. Roberta asked, "Why don't you take her fishing?" A great idea! Helen was excited at the prospect, too. But it struck me - I didn't have any tackle she could use. No way was this kid going to be able to use fly fishing gear. Off we go to Wal-Mart, and while I'm sure she really wanted the Disney character spincast outfit, I upgraded her to something a little better. We grabbed some split shot, small hooks, bobbers and a loaf of Wonder bread, and headed to the lake. The bluegill were hanging around the dock pilings, just waiting. I tied on a hook, added a split shot, snapped on a bobber, and baited the hook with a small piece of bread kneaded to a dough-like consistency. Helen was fascinated - bread for bait? She dropped her hook into the water and was watching the smaller bluegill peck at the bread when a large female charged out of the depths and grabbed the hook. This was Helen's first real fish, and it was stripping line off the reel faster than she could crank it back in. We got things under control and she landed a nice fat momma bluegill. She was excited, but concerned that we get momma back in the lake as soon as possible. We dropped the big 'gill back in the water and she hung near the surface for a few moments getting her bearings, then darted back to the deeper water. Helen watched it all and just kept saying "Wow, that's neat!" To this day she swears that Wonder Bread is the best bait ever for bluegill, in the whole wide world.

That got me thinking. Am I missing something by turning my nose up at spinning gear and other conventional tackle? Helen didn't care what she was using. She was just excited to catch a fish. Am I as snobbish as those dudes on the Toccoa River? I remembered something written by Lefty Kreh, the late dean of American fly fishing. It goes like this - don't be so snobbish about tackle that you miss good fishing opportunities. He recommended taking spinning tackle along on trips for precisely the reasons I list above - windy conditions, the need to get deep in the water column, heavy bank brush, etc. You go fishing to catch fish, not to show off your latest rod purchase from Orvis. 

It was about this time I lost my father. Dad was an avid fisherman who loved to fish along the Jersey shore, or along the banks of the Maumee River in Ohio, or out on Lake Erie from his sailboat. My siblings had no interest in his old tackle, so I inherited it all. I got it all back to Georgia and started to go through it. Dad was very type A, and kept everything 'just so'; When I opened up his collection of spinning reels I was surprised to find the insides spotlessly clean and freshly lubed with grease - ready for the next fishing adventure that never came.

Dad, on his sailboat on Lake Erie with one of his late 1960's vintage Penn Spinfisher reels.

It's as though Dad was telling me... get back out there and start fishing with whatever you've got.

I went into my garage and dug out my old ultralight spinning setup. Nothing fancy, just something I had purchased at the Fort Bragg PX oh-so many years ago. The combo had served me well when wet-wading the Little River in North Carolina, looking for largemouth bass and chain pickerel hiding in the snags and overhangs. Some new monofilament line and a package of beetle spins, and I was back out on a nearby lake, enticing a surprising number of crappie out of the deeper pools. I didn't intend to step away from fly fishing, I just needed to convince myself that spin fishing was still fun and productive. It was, and is.

About a year later Roberta and I were camping down at West Point Lake on the Georgia/Alabama line. Our spot offered easy access to the lake. One lazy afternoon, while Roberta was napping in the hammock, I grabbed my spinning gear, walked into the lake about knee deep and started tossing out a little Mepps spinner. Almost every other cast earned me a nice bluegill or small bass. It was an amazing experience. I was a kid again, standing on the bank of a small tannin-stained creek on the edge of the New Jersey Pine Barrens, tossing a spinner into the dark water and hoping to hook a bass or sunfish.

Since then, I've changed my outlook. I no longer try to make the fishing situation match my fishing gear; I make my fishing gear match the fishing situation. Today I take it all out with me. My gear load-out normally includes both fly fishing gear and spinning tackle, even for short trips to local lakes. 

As Lefty Kreh (and my Dad) said, don't be a tackle snob. The goal of fishing is to catch fish, right?

Not mighty, but mighty fun!

Stay sharp!