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MAKING YOUR OWN -- Jim Matthews outdoor column 27may03
From lures, to calls, to decoys, outdoorsmen have always made their own
Friends of mine make their own fishing lures, build their own fly rods, tie their own flies, carve their own decoys, and reload ammunition for a wildcat cartridge they designed. The sporting community has a long tradition in this regard.
I have been lucky enough to met and call some of these innovators my friends over the years. Some took to the creative calling because they perceived a need for something a little different than a product that was on the market. For others it was a way to be involved with their beloved sports even when they couldn't be participating. You can't be duck hunting in April or flyfishing in Idaho all 12 months of the year, but you can carve decoys or tie flies in the garage, dreaming about those sports while the rest of the family is watching television inside.
For example, Allan Cole, who became a long-time friend after I first did a story about his fishing "club," The Brownbaggers, some 20-odd years ago, falls into the "need" category. He came up with his A.C. Plug to make a more imitative lure for trophy striped bass fishing. He liked the soft wobbling action of the J-Plug, but thought that by making it longer, adding a hidden joint to make it undulate like the big, jointed Rapalas, and painting it to look like a rainbow trout, he might have a more imitative representation. It did all that and more, and the A.C. Plug has more-or-less revolutionized the use of huge baits for largemouths and stripers. Allan still makes his own in the garage.
The dozens of fly tyers I've known over the years almost all had their pet patterns they'd created themselves. It's a mandate in this crowd to use fly patterns that imitate food sources. Most of the tyers I've known made minor changes to existing patterns to make them better for certain situations, but some were truly innovative. Bill Blackstone, a well-known fly tyer with the Orange County Flyfishers, made stonefly nymph patterns that you swore were going to crawl down off his vice and start scurrying for the nearest moving water. They were so beautiful most ended up in shadow boxes on mantles instead of drifting through deep runs on the Madison River. They were pieces of art.
Mike Mascetti, a San Bernardino County Sheriff and long-time Little League baseball coach who I've shared a few teams with in San Bernardino, is an avid bird hunter. A man's man, he's not the guy most people would expect to spend long evenings with carving tools and delicate paint brushes creating exquisite exhibition waterfowl decoys where each detail of each feather is perfect. The funny part? Mike's mostly a fly-fisherman and upland bird hunter.
For a long time, I didn't understand the appeal custom-wrapped rods had to the saltwater crowd, especially after you could buy triple wrapped and multi-sealed factory rods, where guides didn't come loose or corrode. Then my buddy Chuck Bethurum, who used to own Mr. C.B.'s Custom Tackle in San Bernardino, showed me a special wrap he was doing for a friend. It matched a plaid shirt -- the guy's lucky fishing shirt. Well, I had a lucky fishing shirt, a Pendelton wool tartan, and it was only a couple of months after that that Chuck had the fly rod finished to match the shirt. That fly rod still gets used on big water, but the Pendleton is now two sizes too small and my sons think its itchy.
My buddy Mike Mathiot, if he hadn't been raised by good parents, would have been a con man. So he took to hunting and fishing, conning all manner of wildlife into his freezer. By his own admission, he was the single best game caller you'd ever meet, the best field shotgun shooter, and the best crappie fisherman. His creativity, however, ended at sticking a two-inch piece of roughly shaped 2x4 lumber to the buttstock of his Model 870 so it would fit his hulking frame. But it was Mike who introduced me to Iverson quail calls and spring quail calling, as he said, "just for shits and giggles." Wearing camouflage, like it was serious hunting, we'd sneak into an area where a mountain quail or valley quail was cow calling and give him a dominance-challenging call. It's the same principal as spring turkey hunting, but seeing a an eight-inch tall valley quail come running up to you with the full intention of kicking your butt is awfully entertaining. It's what hunters do in the off season.
Like a lot of us, Mike would have liked to have owned custom shotguns with $3,000 pieces of walnut custom fitted to his long arms and decoy sets made of hand-carved cork blocks and hardwood bases and keels. Mike never had a lot of money and would argue that such extravagances weren't necessary for real hunters, and when he died of a massive coronary in a sporting goods store, some of us decided that it was brought on by looking at the price tag on a sweet little graphite crappie rod that cost $300. But I knew that his aversion to nice equipment was a front because of the Iverson quail call. It was made of sleek walnut and cost more than any quail call on the market, probably $15 back then, but it was lovely and simple.
Quail calls that sound as good as the Iverson can be made with a wooden close-pin, black electrician's tape, and a rubber band from a newspaper. But the Iverson was like a Parker double or an Abel fly reel, functional beauties. After Mike died, I started making my own calls from pieces of wood I'd scrounge in the field -- from a burned piece of creosote where I nearly shot a limit of mountain quail, from oak brush I trimmed away from a pet guzzler, and -- someday -- from a piece of poison oak I'll give to a hunting buddy as a joke. (He'll wonder why his lips itch and blister each time he hunts quail.)
Today, I have six to 12 of my home-made quail calls in my gear at any given time, and there are a couple dozen or more in the works on the bench. They are tuned to make different sounds and pitches, and I use them all. Some can sound like chukar, and some can be altered so they function as mouse squeakers for coyote and fox calling. Only a couple are finished, most still being refined or altered when I get restless around the house in the evening. Mostly I dream about birds and hunting buddies while I'm sanding a notch a little deeper to get a different pitch.
That personal connection to our outdoor gear is why I think I've gotten along so well with so many true outdoorsmen. We understand the satisfaction gleaned from creating and using hand-tied flies, our own reloads, and calls that have been tweaked to sound just right. They might not really be better, but we like them better because they were made with our own hands or a friend's hands and that makes them a lot better. It's part of the glue that binds the outdoor sports like no other.
From lures, to calls, to decoys, outdoorsmen have always made their own
Friends of mine make their own fishing lures, build their own fly rods, tie their own flies, carve their own decoys, and reload ammunition for a wildcat cartridge they designed. The sporting community has a long tradition in this regard.
I have been lucky enough to met and call some of these innovators my friends over the years. Some took to the creative calling because they perceived a need for something a little different than a product that was on the market. For others it was a way to be involved with their beloved sports even when they couldn't be participating. You can't be duck hunting in April or flyfishing in Idaho all 12 months of the year, but you can carve decoys or tie flies in the garage, dreaming about those sports while the rest of the family is watching television inside.
For example, Allan Cole, who became a long-time friend after I first did a story about his fishing "club," The Brownbaggers, some 20-odd years ago, falls into the "need" category. He came up with his A.C. Plug to make a more imitative lure for trophy striped bass fishing. He liked the soft wobbling action of the J-Plug, but thought that by making it longer, adding a hidden joint to make it undulate like the big, jointed Rapalas, and painting it to look like a rainbow trout, he might have a more imitative representation. It did all that and more, and the A.C. Plug has more-or-less revolutionized the use of huge baits for largemouths and stripers. Allan still makes his own in the garage.
The dozens of fly tyers I've known over the years almost all had their pet patterns they'd created themselves. It's a mandate in this crowd to use fly patterns that imitate food sources. Most of the tyers I've known made minor changes to existing patterns to make them better for certain situations, but some were truly innovative. Bill Blackstone, a well-known fly tyer with the Orange County Flyfishers, made stonefly nymph patterns that you swore were going to crawl down off his vice and start scurrying for the nearest moving water. They were so beautiful most ended up in shadow boxes on mantles instead of drifting through deep runs on the Madison River. They were pieces of art.
Mike Mascetti, a San Bernardino County Sheriff and long-time Little League baseball coach who I've shared a few teams with in San Bernardino, is an avid bird hunter. A man's man, he's not the guy most people would expect to spend long evenings with carving tools and delicate paint brushes creating exquisite exhibition waterfowl decoys where each detail of each feather is perfect. The funny part? Mike's mostly a fly-fisherman and upland bird hunter.
For a long time, I didn't understand the appeal custom-wrapped rods had to the saltwater crowd, especially after you could buy triple wrapped and multi-sealed factory rods, where guides didn't come loose or corrode. Then my buddy Chuck Bethurum, who used to own Mr. C.B.'s Custom Tackle in San Bernardino, showed me a special wrap he was doing for a friend. It matched a plaid shirt -- the guy's lucky fishing shirt. Well, I had a lucky fishing shirt, a Pendelton wool tartan, and it was only a couple of months after that that Chuck had the fly rod finished to match the shirt. That fly rod still gets used on big water, but the Pendleton is now two sizes too small and my sons think its itchy.
My buddy Mike Mathiot, if he hadn't been raised by good parents, would have been a con man. So he took to hunting and fishing, conning all manner of wildlife into his freezer. By his own admission, he was the single best game caller you'd ever meet, the best field shotgun shooter, and the best crappie fisherman. His creativity, however, ended at sticking a two-inch piece of roughly shaped 2x4 lumber to the buttstock of his Model 870 so it would fit his hulking frame. But it was Mike who introduced me to Iverson quail calls and spring quail calling, as he said, "just for shits and giggles." Wearing camouflage, like it was serious hunting, we'd sneak into an area where a mountain quail or valley quail was cow calling and give him a dominance-challenging call. It's the same principal as spring turkey hunting, but seeing a an eight-inch tall valley quail come running up to you with the full intention of kicking your butt is awfully entertaining. It's what hunters do in the off season.
Like a lot of us, Mike would have liked to have owned custom shotguns with $3,000 pieces of walnut custom fitted to his long arms and decoy sets made of hand-carved cork blocks and hardwood bases and keels. Mike never had a lot of money and would argue that such extravagances weren't necessary for real hunters, and when he died of a massive coronary in a sporting goods store, some of us decided that it was brought on by looking at the price tag on a sweet little graphite crappie rod that cost $300. But I knew that his aversion to nice equipment was a front because of the Iverson quail call. It was made of sleek walnut and cost more than any quail call on the market, probably $15 back then, but it was lovely and simple.
Quail calls that sound as good as the Iverson can be made with a wooden close-pin, black electrician's tape, and a rubber band from a newspaper. But the Iverson was like a Parker double or an Abel fly reel, functional beauties. After Mike died, I started making my own calls from pieces of wood I'd scrounge in the field -- from a burned piece of creosote where I nearly shot a limit of mountain quail, from oak brush I trimmed away from a pet guzzler, and -- someday -- from a piece of poison oak I'll give to a hunting buddy as a joke. (He'll wonder why his lips itch and blister each time he hunts quail.)
Today, I have six to 12 of my home-made quail calls in my gear at any given time, and there are a couple dozen or more in the works on the bench. They are tuned to make different sounds and pitches, and I use them all. Some can sound like chukar, and some can be altered so they function as mouse squeakers for coyote and fox calling. Only a couple are finished, most still being refined or altered when I get restless around the house in the evening. Mostly I dream about birds and hunting buddies while I'm sanding a notch a little deeper to get a different pitch.
That personal connection to our outdoor gear is why I think I've gotten along so well with so many true outdoorsmen. We understand the satisfaction gleaned from creating and using hand-tied flies, our own reloads, and calls that have been tweaked to sound just right. They might not really be better, but we like them better because they were made with our own hands or a friend's hands and that makes them a lot better. It's part of the glue that binds the outdoor sports like no other.
