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Saturday February 13th 2010 (27 days ago)
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We're chained to our computers, thinking about fly fishing.
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On sale!

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Published: Saturday February 13th 2010 (27 days ago)
Updated: Monday February 15th 2010, 3:28PM
More about: Fly tying materials | by Martin Joergensen

Some things make no sense, but we do them anyway - like driving 3 hours out and 3 hours home to go shopping.

Yesterday I did a silly thing! I discussed it with my wife in the evening, and when she asked ”Does it really make sense? Is it rational?” I had to reply ”No! It doesn't”.

What doesn't make sense is to drive three guys in a car all the way across Denmark (small country, but still 3 hours each way), pay bridge toll (about 40 US$ each way), gas and whatnot to go to a sale in an outdoors shop!

No sense at all!

But we did so anyway.

We met at my place in the morning, saddled up and rode across Sjaelland, Fyn and half Jutland to go to the annual winter sale in the large shop Korsholm.

I won't call it a tradition, but we have done it before, and it's a nice trip. We have time to talk on the way, we eat a meal on the way and we shop for 2-3 hours in the largest hunting, fishing and outdoors shop in Denmark. This year we even planned to bust another shop on the way – Go Fishing midway on the island Fyn. Unfortunately we didn't make it, because they closed before we could make it.

There's enough to buy.


   

A couple of pictures from our last trip to Korsholm. A nice, large shop.





I filled a basket with some fly tying material that I needed anyway, found a magazine, leafed through some books and finally dumped a fly reel, which I have been looking at for a while on the pile. The reel was half price, so that alone earned me more than the cost of the trip.

Kasper and Lars, the guys I was with, each filled their basket, and we saved lots of money! More than enough to make up for the costs. On the other hand we probably spent more money on fly stuff on that single day than we do on an average three months. But that's what shopping is about, isn't it?

Rational, no!
Nice, yes!

By the way... we noticed an odd thing about feathers in the colors used in the pattern The Pink Pig (Pattegrisen), which has become a hype and a fad beyond anything sensible on the coasts of the Baltic. It seems like some people think it's the only fly in the world, which can catch sea trout. I personally never fish it and never tied it. It's too big for my taste, and I find it hard to believe that it should be able to draw more fish from the water than many other patterns. But it's in fashion right now.

Since it uses some fairly rare materials – mainly Whiting Spey Hackle in a very bright pink – there seems to be a shortage of this specific material. And shortage combined with demand means high prices. That's logic.
But this particular material breaks all logic. If you go to the rack with Spey Hackle you will see all colors including the pink one. Turn them around and check the price.

Blue: 35 dollars
White: 35 dollars
Gray: 35 dollars
Light pink... 130 dollars!
I have seen small, low quality necks of this particular color sold at almost 150 US$ here in Denmark.

What!?

It's the same material, same size, same packaging, same labeling. Only the price differs.

The light pink Spey neck in the middle left is worth its weight in gold.
It's about four times as expensive as all the other colors.


You can "save" money by buying a Pink Pig kit.
Pink materials for about 10-20 flies: 35 US$ or about the same as a whole neck... if it's not pink, of course!




It makes no sense.

Why does it cost four times as much as the other colors?
Simple answer: because some people are willing to pay that!

Market economy for you...


User comments
From: Pike · pike007·at·seznam.cz
Submitted February 22nd 2010

This late afternoon I had very interesting discussion with local dealer of Orvis tackle. According to his info Whitinng decided to stop producing and selling Spey hackles because only a small number of flyfishermen need this material. Probabbly the biggest seller of Whiting Spey hackle has been Go Fishing from Odense :-) So there is probabbly problems with Withing too. This company finds Spey hackels as a minor and not interesting product and it seems that only salmon pink colour is requested by flytyers. Honestly who needs different colours?

From: Vanuz · gvanuz·at·gmail.com
Submitted February 19th 2010

The pink-piggy-mania has overruled Denmark and the rest of the seatrout hunters owing to enormous marketing pressure... Articles, videos etc. have simply exaggerated dreamy power of this fly for some reason and the fly-fishing enclave has just fell for it :) It’s as simple as that.
To be honest, I have never tried one myself as I am too stubborn just to follow the crowd.
I stick to those flies I have had in my fly-box for years, partly because I found myself too lazy to spent hours tying this pattern (it is considerably more difficult pattern to tie than other conventional ones, isn’t it?) and I still have been catching fish.
No doubt the piggy may be a successful fly, however, which one wouldn’t be, if used by 90% of fly-fishers fishing the Danish coast? Do you remember when nearly everyone was tying a honey shrimp a couple of years ago? Does it sound similar?
I can bet “we” may invent another “catchy” fly this year. And again, it all comes to promotion I guess. Just like fashion…

From: Pike · pike007·at·seznam.cz
Submitted February 13th 2010

Nice article. I absolutly agree with you. I can see Pink pig has become very popular here in Czech republic for anglers who go fishing to Denmark. Everybody wants to tie Pink Pig, everybody trusts this fly and everybody must have this fly in his flybox. The main reason should be DVD series produced by Nils Vestergaard which is very popular in Czech republic. Word of mouth is important too. My first seatrou was caught on very simple orange fly and this fly is responsible for other fish.

BTW: Go fishing is excellent shop with good stock of flyfishing tackles. If I am right they moved from old house next to Odense river to another location.

Another one!

Blog: Permalink | Comment | This day | Archive |
Published: Saturday February 6th 2010 (34 days ago)
Updated: Monday February 15th 2010, 10:31AM
More about: Books | by Martin Joergensen

Innocent fly anglers can also be lured into spending money on odd and probably worthless causes and products.

Below the somewhat longish page meant to entice you to buy this fantastic book.

If you thought that online scams only were executed by Nigerians and always included millions of dollars and a widowed queen from an almost unknown African nation, think again. Innocent fly anglers can also be lured into spending money on odd and probably worthless causes and products.

Loyal longtime readers of GFF will remember this blog entry from early 2006 where I found a site touting a book titled “Some Guys Catch All the Fish: What Other Angling Experts Won't Tell You!”. I managed to get my hands on the book, which was a far cry from the nice, hardbound book depicted on the website, but looked more like one of my early school projects, photo copied and spiral bound, with very few B/W photos in lousy quality. I will not get more into the quality of the text, but let the fact that I never reviewed it suffice as a measure.

I just stumbled over another web site like the one mentioned back then. The traps laid out to lead me here were really intricate, and sure tells me that the people behind are not doing this for the sake of my blue eyes, nor to make my fishing better.

I was browsing YouTube for videos for our new video channel, and noticed this odd video.
The video is called Fly Fishing Book, but it's not a book (duh!). It's not even a video. The “video” consists of 6-8 slides of text telling the viewer how to get a fish that runs towards you under control. “Stand on your toes and raise your rod over your head as high as you can”, “Quickly strip the line to pull up any slack”, “Be ready to palm the reel of the rod when the slack is entirely gone”. OK there you have some secrets revealed in this stirring video! Pick up line!? Whoa! I had never thought of that! Palm the reel? Brillant! Except my reel has a brake and no palming options...

Well, never mind this bland and obvious advice. It's not there to educate you. It's there to lure you.
It's pure bait put out to get people like me and you to go to a web page called Fly Fishing Book Review. I won't link, because linking will just aide these guys in spreading the message and raise their positions in the search engines, and they don't deserve that.

You can copy and paste the URL (flyfishingbookreview.com) into your browser to see the page. It's almost totally empty, doesn't have a single book review in spite of the title. It is text only, has about 10 pages, all have titles like
Easy Fly Fishing Instructions
How To Fly Fish
Fly Fishing How To
Fly Fishing Report
Fly Fishing For Beginners
and so on. I sometimes work with search engine optimization and can recognize a bait page when I see one, and this is as good (or as bad) as they come.
This page has absolutely no valuable content, but has one purpose: to appear in search engines and link and lead on to another site called Fly Fishing Secrets located on an address called fly-fishing-skills.com (no link again, copy and paste). The individual pages contain no specific advice on any of the very common and broad subjects, but contain lots of text, which is there for the sake of Google – not you. Each page has one link leading on to the target page. The one, which sells the book.

That page starts like this:
“How I Accidentally Stumbled Onto The 'Deadly Tactic' That Consistently Sends Trout, Bass or Salmon Lunging For My Line Every Time I Go Fly Fishing!”
So there! The tone is set. Using this secret tactic you can win every time.
It goes on:
“The story will shock and delight you! It’s an amazingly simple ‘fly fishing’ revelation that consistently triggers the most shocking and powerful strikes you'll ever experience...and if you're like most people the results will leave you stunned, breathless and smiling so hard your cheeks will hurt the very next time you go fly fishing! Impossible? Not if you believe the rave reviews from top fly fishermen and hot new comers...”
Smiling so hard your cheeks will hurt! Mighty tempting indeed!

But go on down the page, and you will find some of the hallmarks of pages selling the ordinary as a miracle cure:
Testimonials
Check lists (many!)
Lots of bold and underlined text
Precise numbers (27 most deadly fly patterns, not 20, not 30, but 27!)
Promise of secrets revealed
Words like free, 100%, risk free and guaranteed mentioned numerous times
Stamps and seals (100% guaranteed)
A signature (In blue ink... online? A signature? It's like Readers Digest marketing material)
Credit card logos and PayPal link, but no price (buy now and no price!?)

In the very bottom it says: “You must hurry, there are only a limit number ‘insiders’ allowed (Jeff can pull this offer at anytime without warning) and I’m taking all the risk here.”
Since the copyright notice on the page reads 2008, it has been on there for at least two years, so the rush seems to be limited.
There is no price of course, but I can tell you that it's £25.00GBP.

Well, apart from all these telltale signs, how can I be sure that this is some kind of moneymaking scam?

I did a little searching, and lo and behold! The company and name behind these hitherto untold secrets of fly fishing is Stonetree Ltd. personified by Andrew Barker, located in Reading in the UK. And Andrew and Stonetreee can also supply similar secrets within areas such as job interviews, selling, golf swings, kung fu and probably much else. Andrew Barker has at least 70 domains registered with fantastic names such as:
power-of-my-mind.com,
the-corporate-escalator.com,
mma-training-secrets.com,
powerofthedragon.com,
golf-secret-skills.com,
killersalestips.com,
ninja-training-secrets.com
and perhaps the best one
buildasellingmoneymachine.com

Build a selling money machine!

So right! My guess is that if you order this top secret book of fly fishing, you will most likely get a cheap, spiral bound photocopied pamphlet containing very ordinary tips presented in the usual manner of “tell them what you are going to tell them, tell them and then tell them what you told them”. These days I guess you might not even get a physical copy, but the right to download a PDF. Why bother mailing atoms to folks, when you can let the download bits?


More from Stonetree Ltd. Golf? Sales training? Job seeking tips? Trouble with the landlord? Wanna be a Ninja? We can help! Notice how the same guy has a testimony in several of the setups. Why bother getting new stock images? He looks trustworthy, dosn't he?




The whole idea of this type of scam is form over substance. Since there is very little substance in any of the material you try to sell, you are forced to package it in the most glorious promises. Wind your audience up so much, that no one dare say bah!

The emperor's new clothes.
Simple as that.
He has nothing on!





User comments
From: Tomas · t.p.filtras·at·gmail.com
Submitted February 8th 2010

Nearly true. Brilliant Article! Thanks From flyfishingbookreview.com

Part of the blog chain "15,000 trout"

Gotta try carp

Blog: Permalink | Comment | This day | Archive |
Published: Friday January 29th 2010 (42 days ago)
Updated: Friday January 29th 2010, 7:45PM
More about: Carp | by Martin Joergensen

Carp fishing with a fly has been suggested to me several times, but I never tried it.

I have always connected carp fishing with warm days, oily water and tonnes of gear: feeders, bite alarms, chairs, and a gazillion other things, which I don't know the neither the name nor the function of.

A good friend, Nils, who used to be a hard core carp fisher, did mention going for carp with a fly, and I have seen enough and heard enough about carp fishing to know that it could be thrilling. Carp are often referred to as "poor man's bonefish" due to the sight fishing you do to catch them and due to their strength and long runs.

Carp fishing is also surfacing in our new video channel, and a Korean carp video is the most watched video on there - twice as popular as number two - and for a good reason! It's a beautiful video and the fishing does look very exciting. Other videos with carp fishing have been added, and they all make carp fishing look both interesting and exciting.

One thing, which I find nice about carp fishing, is that it seems to take place when it's hot - in the middle of the summer. Most fishing is dead here in the middle of the summer unless you fish at night, and having something to patch the gap between spring and autumn would be nice.

I have very little experience with carps, and the only places I have seen carps is in ponds in people's gardens and in lakes and channels in certain parks here in Copenhagen. And I'm sure that tossing a fly into one of these waters would stir more than the carp. I know of lakes that have carp, and some draining channels too, but haven't really pursued it any further.

Perhaps this summer? I might give it a go. Any GFF readers who have carp experience are welcome to mail me with tips and patterns, and we might see a carp on the fly article here sometime later this year.


User comments
From: Frans Middelman · g.middelman·at·kpnplanet.nl
Submitted February 27th 2010

Try a Bivisable on a # 8 or 6 hook, consisting of three hackles, one sap green and two whites, or the reverse. The one hackle allways in the middle. I catch them this way in a 10 meter broad and 1-2 meter deep ditched channel before my front door on somer mornings or evenings. I fish them in the surface. Let it float in the wind or don't move it at all. Big fun!!



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