SHOP NOTES | C.J. BOVA RODS

Over 15 years ago I started tying a lot of quill patterns from white Chinese Rooster hackles, stripped, bleached, and dyed. I began dying all of my own quills to get the exact colors I wanted, the suppliers color palettes just looked wrong to me and were prone to cracking because they were over bleached. Quills prove to be a great asset with midge patterns, they are buoyant and when wrapped correctly they provide beautiful segmentation.  When I was in my mid-thirties I developed a midge pattern that is similar to “The Renegade” after spending a few months in the Cascades in Oregon. The Renegade was too loud and “fancy” for many of the spring creeks that I typically fish on. For Rainbows and Cuts it was a great general pattern but I needed something that could be used in very slow and shallow water where weary Browns could be hopefully fooled. After a few seasons of great success in the North East with what appeared to be a quilled fore and aft fly I settled on a simple and ...

Feeder Spring~Mad River For many September 26 marks the official end of the fishing season. I typically stop my trout fishing by mid-November and go through my ritual of cleaning all of my equipment, most importantly my rods. I pull my rods out one by one and wipe them down with a warm soapy mixture of water and Dove Soap. Wipe the rod dry and make sure the guides are clean. You can use a little bit of mineral spirits on a Q-Tip to get any additional residue off of the guides. Make sure you clean both the female and male parts of the ferrule. Again you can use a small amount of denatured alcohol or mineral spirits to clean them out using a Q-Tip. Many hang their rods in their given bags up in a cool dry closet, this is a good ritual. I just keep them in their given cases, take the cap off, and place them upright in my rod racks. I typically am very diligent about keeping a journal so I record the amount of use I put on any one particular rod, its kind of like kee...

“I have never found a companion that was so companionable as solitude.” ― Henry David Thoreau , Walden                                                                                                                       Hope everyone has a relaxing and memorable fishing experience this Fall 2014, so far it has been outstanding! ~Clint  Joseph Bova

Midges are out with the earliest Stonefly and Mayfly hatches, often the fishes are ONLY hitting midges. Why is this? Well its the old “pounds per meat law” trout zero in on the most plentiful morsel in the water in order to save energy. When the water is still very cold this is often the case. A very productive pattern I have found over the years is something I call an “early spring midge” that consists of a few special materials but is quite simple to tie. Hook: TMC 111 #14-18 Thread: Veevus 14/0 Black, Gray, or Rust Abdomen and Thorax: Beaver Belly Wire: Extra fine French silver wire Legs: Tightly knotted Pheasant tail Wing and Head Post: Light gray Tiemco Aero Wing Hackle: Black This pattern can be floated on the surface or just under the surface film with great success. The Aero Wing head post and wing makes it easy to spot in contrasty early season water. The nature of Aero Wing material is a hollow fibre that is very buoyant yet is gossamer enough for q...

I get a lot of requests for light, medium, or dark figured spacers. The three spacers above show this variability even after being stabilized . All three of these spacers came from the same piece of lumber that I brought back from Hawaii three years ago while visiting my family. By cutting the wood while paying attention to the cross-grain you can get this variability from a single piece of Koa especially if it is slightly spalted. Figuring refers to the appearance of wood, as seen on a longitudinal surfaces. The side-grain of "figured wood" is not plain but has a curly sheen. The figuring on a particular piece of wood may be due to the cut, or to innate properties of the wood. Some tropical hardwoods, like Rosewood, maple, and Koa can have quite spectacular figuring. Colloquially speaking "figure" is often referred to as "grain." Nomenclature describing figuring include bear scratches, bird's eye, blister, burl, curl, dimple, fiddleback, flame, gh...

    Above: my bench with a view Lawe i ka ma'alea a ku'ono'ono. “Acquire skill and make it deep”    New Year wishes to all ~Clint Joseph Bova