HAPPY THANKSGIVING

The Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade is on in the background, the turkey is slow smoking on the Traeger, and I have a few minutes to say Happy Thanksgiving.  As always, it's a day filled with gratitude. 

For over sixteen years, I've been writing The Fiberglass Manifesto, and as surprising as that is, thank you can't be said enough.  There are a long list of friendships, partnerships, places, and opportunities that likely never would have happened without this little piece of the internet. 

Thanks for following along, sending emails with questions, leaving comments on social media, checking in daily, and being part of this ever growing #glassisnotdead community.

I hope you are having a stellar day with family and friends.

Still Crazy After All These Years

Do Your Homework NOW for CICADA MADNESS!!!

This post is from author Dave Zielinski, who is a boat builder, angler, fly tier, musician, and likely a long list of other titles.  A search on T.F.M. will reveal a list of fun previous posts to sort through.  He's also a nerd when it comes to bugs that crawl out of the ground every few years and CICADA MADNESS was released early this year as the the ultimate primer on everything cicada.  With his book being on significant Black Friday sale on Amazon , I figured it would be a good time to share a few tips to get you excited for next summer and you can likely sneak this book into the cart while you're online shopping over the holiday.

The year 2024 brought us the co-emergence of two periodical cicadas across 17 States in the lower 48.  Hopefully, you were able to experience "Cicada Madness" during May and June.  For those of you that planned accordingly, did the work and hit the water, I hope you had an epic experience.  Hopefully the words “Epic”, “Incredible”, “Ridiculous” and “Weird” fit in the vocabulary as words to describe the fishing.

Guess what?  YOU GET TO DO IT AGAIN NEXT YEAR!

And, for those of you that didn’t get to experience the 2024 emergence, here are a few tips to enable you success with the upcoming Brood XIV 17-year periodical cicadas.  This brood, known as the “Greater Eastern Brood” will emerge across parts of Tennessee, Kentucky, Georgia, Ohio, Indiana, Pennsylvania, and West Virginia. 

So you wanna fish this coming summer Brood XIV periodical cicada emergence? Get to planning!

STEP 1 - THE BUG IS THE DRUG
You've got to learn the bug.  Build your understanding of the life cycle of the periodical cicada, when it emerges, the conditions it needs to emerge and its mating cycle.  The key to finding significant numbers of the terrestrial relies on the mating phase of the bug.  Males sing to attract suitable mates, and both males and females fly from tree to tree to commence the process.  When huge numbers of bugs begin to fly, a portion of them find their way accidentally in the water.  You know what happens next.

STEP 2 - FIGURE OUT THE WHEN AND WHERE
Cicadas will not come to you.  You have to go find them.  If you wait, and hope they will arrive to your favorite creek, you might be disappointed.  Get the distribution map out for Brood XIV.  Scientists have compiled these for a couple centuries at this point.  Some of the historic ranges are extinct and some modern maps have updated some areas but are absent of others.  This is always evolving.  Take the brood map and compare it to Google Earth.  Look for those areas with lots of trees near water. 

STEP 3 - SCOUT IT OUT
If you can, scout around before the predicted emergence.  In Southern states, this could be early to mid-May and in northern states, the end of May into the first week of June.  You are looking for signs that a few bugs have emerged.  Holes in the ground, cases on tree trunks, or a bug or two hanging around leaves.  I can guarantee you if you find a few bugs, come back in a week, and check again.  The numbers will build.  There are thousands under your feet.  Ask locals who were around seventeen years before.  Ask weird questions about bugs.

STEP 4 - ASSEMBLE THE CREW 
Once you’ve prepared your list of spots to check, put your crew together.  You are going to need a crew that can take the ups and downs.  Long drives, flying by night, hyped up on the chase that can deal with the defeat of showing up to a lake with no bugs.  No time to sulk, get rollin’ and hit the next one.  You are going to live with these folks for a couple weeks, so choose wisely.  Oh, and it is imperative if everyone can back up a trailer and row a boat.  “You don’t row, you don’t go.”  I'm laughing but it's true. 

STEP 5 - LET'S FRIGGIN GO!!!
A lot of the cicada chasing we do is on unknown lakes and rivers to us.  We do our planning and mapping ahead of the emergence and rank our spots.  When it is “Go-Time” we are often behind the windshield under the cover of darkness to show up at a boat ramp with the bass tournament anglers.  These guys typically fish a lot and see a lot.  We start asking questions about cicadas and…usually carp.  After the weird looks, we often get valuable intel.  (Like those giant grassers at Bird Island.) 

Bottom line:  Windshield time, being mobile and agile will lead you to success.  Hope ain’t a plan. If you aren’t willing to search it out, you will have limited success.



STEP 6 - BUGGIN' OUT
Take lots of rods.  I like to chase oversize carp- commons and grassers, and nothing fights those fish like modern fiberglass rods.  Nothing lifts like glass.  I have fished everything from Blue Halo Retroflex rods, Iconoglass, Fenwicks and Orvis Superfine Glass, but my recent favorite is the Steffen Brothers 8’8” 7-weight SWARM.

I collaborated with Steffen Brothers on this stick ahead of the 2024 Brood XIX and XIII emergence. Steffen Brothers and Shane Gray put several of these rods in our quiver to beat up.  Every person that fished it loved it.  Pair it with a 7-weight Scientific Anglers Mastery Bass Bug fly line, tie a three-section leader tapered to 15# Maxima and let’s go!

STEP 7 - FILL THE FLY BOX THIS WINTER
Tie some black and orange cicada patterns in sizes 8,6,4.  My obvious choice is my own “17-Year-Itch Cicada” which the recipe can be found in my book, “CICADA MADNESS” from Stackpole Books. 

This book is the single resource on the topic of cicadas and fly fishing.  Available right now as an Amazon Black Friday Deal!  Enjoy the adventure that is CICADA MADNESS!

Follow Dave on Instagram and be sure to check out his Down Home Boatworks website, too. 

FISHPOND - New Stormshadow Packs & Luggage

Jim Klug of Yellow Dog Flyfishing and Ben Kurtz of Fishpond dive deep into the new Stormshadow lineup of packs and luggage in these two videos. 

I'm always impressed with the gear from Fishpond and hope to get a couple of pieces to demo and review soon on T.F.M. in preparation for 2025 trips.





Check out the Stormshadow series and more on the Fishpond website and click subscribe on the Yellow Dog Flyfishing YouTube channel, too.

P.S. For an extra credit listen, Jim recently interviewed Ben on the Waypoints Podcast.  They discuss the history of Fishpond, how Ben and his brother got involved, and what drives them to innovate gear for the traveling angler.

Jim Bartschi on the Scott Fly Rod Company 50th Anniversary F703/4

With the exciting announcement of the 50th Anniversary Rods from the Scott Fly Rod Company that was made last week (If you missed the news release, read this T.F.M. post) I emailed a handful of questions to Jim Bartschi that he graciously answered in the short Q&A below. 

Though there are five fly rods in the 50th Anniversary collection and the F703/4 is a pull for me since the first "premium" glass fly rod that I purchased over twenty years ago was the black glass Fibertouch 703/3.  It was my second fiberglass fly rod and if I remember correctly, I stumbled across it on a Colorado fly shop website.  It arrived a few days later and I was immediately obsessed with it.  It furthered my sudden take to fiberglass which continues to today and was the start of a small collection of fly rods from the Scott Fly Rod Company which includes a few light line weight glass fly rods and the weird but wonderful Fiberhammer.   

Jim, thank you for taking the time to answer these questions and congratulations on this milestone anniversary.  I hope everyone enjoys this insightful interview on this special F model offering.

What was the first fiberglass fly rod you remember when you started with the Scott Fly Rod Company?  What were your thoughts on it and how has your focus on fiberglass changed over the years?

There were a lot of glass rods from the '70s and '80's around the shop when I started. Some production models, some prototypes, and the control rods Harry and Larry used to check production runs. I recall they mostly sat around gathering dust. That was at a time when glass was considered old or obsolete and everyone was hyper focused on the graphite wars that dominated rod maker and angler attention in the early 90's.

Glass hadn't quite hit the revival phase back then. Today, I see glass as an essential rod building material, and as relevant to anglers as ever.

How has the F703 changed through the many generations of the fiberglass?

We've never offered a four piece model since it was introduced in the original F series, pre-graphite. We have made 7' 3-weights and fly rods close to 7 feet, but never actually offered the exact 703/4 model that we are with the 50th Anniversary model. Probably the two closest are the Fibertouch 703/3 which was a 3-piece rod, and the current production FS72/4, at 7' 2" and 4-pieces.

As you chose the lineup for the 50th Anniversary fly rods, what pointed you towards creating the F703/4 instead of another F series model?

The F703 was arguably the most iconic of the original Scott glass rods. It hit all the sweet spots for the material and application. It also showcased the hallmark smoothness of Scott glass in multi piece rods and the benefits of the Scott hollow internal ferrules. Since we've never offered this specific model in four pieces, it was the clear choice for commemorating this milestone.

In designing this 50th Anniversary F703/4, what were you working most to achieve?

First and foremost, staying true to Harry Wilson's design. I consider myself just the caretaker of this rod from a design standpoint. We left our subtle marks on the rod in the construction and component choices. Our latest epoxy resin system is used in the blank along with our latest iteration of the Scott hollow internal ferrule. We also used today's best-in-class components like titanium stripping guides with Zirconia inserts, Snake Brand snake guides, and precision milled aluminum reel seat. None of those components were available when this rod was introduced in the mid '70s. Some have become available only in the last couple of years. Other than being noticeably lighter, the anniversary blank maps very true to the control blank Harry chose in the 70's to benchmark this model.

Do you have any particular memories of fishing the F703 over years that you'd like to share?

I wish I had. This was a model that routinely sold out during the years it was made. I've owned and fished the 2-piece version, but never got the original F703 out on the water.  My original 2-piece F703 met a sad fate when a friend I loaned it to absentmindedly left it on top of his truck at the end of the fishing day and drove off into the sunset.

Any last thoughts on this that you'd like to share?

The F703/4 is recognizable as a vintage Scott yellow glass rod from the '70's but clearly modernized. Both are built from E-Glass on the same tapers but the latest epoxy resin is used in place of first gen resin. The Scott hollow internal ferrules are our latest version so they are lighter than the original version.

This has been a very meaningful project to everyone at Scott. We offer these as a tribute and heartfelt thank you to anglers who fish our rods. We could never have made it 50 years, with the singular mission of handcrafting high performance fly rods, without their support.

Learn more about the 50th Anniversary F703/4 on the Scott Fly Rod Company website.  To order your own limited edition F703/4, reach out to a dealer.  This will be a special one for your collection.

SOUTHERN CULTURE ON THE FLY - Issue 53

A new issue of Southern Culture on the Fly has arrived and it'll be the perfect Thanksgiving escape when you need a few minutes of alone time.  And, the SCOF Store is loaded up with goodies, too.

CHECK IT.

THE CATCH OF A LIFETIME

This is a fun one from filmmaker Will Phelps.  DIY Giant Trevally is no easy task.  I can't help but think that they would be so damn fun to catch on a fiberglass fly rod.



Jump down a Phelps on the Fly rabbit hole on his YouTube channel.