design a fly, a cast, a stalk, fly line , a reel

 Words fall from the page ... midges fall to the surface and a trout rises above my heart. 

I need to know more.... about everything.... 

fishing with my son Bryan

  Bryan home from Iraq...  our first fishing trip in a long time....   no words can express my thoughts or feelings. the only thing that would have made it better is to have my other son Barry with us. 

John Voelker

   

 This is the invitation to the 50 th anniversary  of the publication  of John Voekers  " Anatomy of a Murder.  It features the portrait of John  I was commissioned to paint for the State of Michigan by the Voelker Foundation.  

Deep Woods Press

Deep Wood Press..... my kind of books ... scroll through some of the titles

Giants

  I've dreamed of a giant brown trout that feeds fussy and steady in Deer Creek...  a fish that lives in a alien world ...   where  imaginary giants cast rods as tall as a giant oak to a rise as large as  the front lawn.   Check out this land of Giants and imagination...  a marionette or more? 

I want this guy to design flyfishing stuff

  I wonder what Da Vinci would have come up with if he had been a fly fisherman?....  Theo might know.....  

Theo Jansen.... can you imagine?   I'd love to fish with a fly rod and reel designed by this guy.  His website has even more information on his creations.

True Films

Gotham Fish Tales ....    stories about how and where New Yorkers fish....    

Trout Grass  is a documentary about making and fishing bamboo ....  the best part of this is the filming on location in China. Seeing how the tonkin cane is gathered and prepared opens up new revelation for every bamboo rod you touch. 

Rivers and Tides  ,  a documentary about Andy Goldsworthy is  art about art. Ephemeral and provocative,  Goldsworthys work is timeless.  Much of his work is created near , in or of water.  I never tire of the mystery found in waters and this DVD will open your eyes to more of the invisible but eternal beauty that surrounds us yet eludes us. 

    Paul Mclean exlpains to his brother Norman in "The River runs Through It" the essence of this notion... " First you see something noticeable, then you see something less noticeable and finally you see something invisible." 

The Fine Art of Angling, Ten Modern Masters

   If you haven't seen this book on my website,  I hope you'll check it out. DiLes Pubishing and Diane Inman   created a beautiful book.  I'm one of the artist featured and the paintings they chose for the book are some of my favorites... some photos of the collector edition here... Fly Fishing Journal. 

     I have some copies available and would be glad to personalize them for you if you want one. You can contact me at Rod Crossman.

Music for the Road and the Fishing Trip...

    Roll down the window and turn up the Allman Brothers.   In Memory of Elizabeth Reed   helps those hours on the road seem shorter. Most of our fishing around here means a road trip.  Jimbo and I always listened to Gordon Lightfoot when we were on our way to a fishing destination.  Habit or superstition ,  it seemed to bring us good luck.  Here's some other music to tick away the miles. 

  Jeffery Foucault is moody and little dark but perfect for hours on the road before dawn.  Miles From Lightning  keeps the sun out of your eyes.  

David Wilcox .... one of my favorite singer song writers....   his music and poetry are right on in  Perfect Storm   

    Pierce Pettis is another great singer songwriter... Alabama 1959  and  Love Will Find You Again are so beautifully written and played. 

    Peter Mayer sings my favorite version of my favorite song.....  you need  itunes to go here   Moon River

  The Silent Fool  by Eric Mongrain is instrumental genius like rain in the river.... art that takes you where you haven't been before

 

Handmade books and" Listening to the River"

 

   Stone Street Press is where Malachi  McCormick crafts handmade books.   I just ordered " Listening to the River"  from him , sounds like a book I needed. A family memoir about a young boy and a Father with a passion for dry fly fishing and for words. 

More on Nets

   When I was a kid, our fishing net was aluminum with a moss green cotton bag, the kind you buy from the local Hardware. We landed a lot of fish from Otter Lake with that thing. It was a reliable companion,  full of memories and always willing to go fishing no matter the weather.

     The bag on the net bellow is injection molded  PVC ,  there is some thinking that the rubber type bags are easier on fish. I don't know for sure but they seem practical  and easy to use.  Wachter nets use beautiful woods and the latest technology in their design. 

        Fishnat produce a line of nets with all rubber  bags that look good.  They claim that it is a better bag for catch and release. 

Landing Net Art

 Hand crafted wooden landing nets are a visual delight, check out Sams workmanship on  Nets that Honor Fish. 

     

Skipping Stones

   I take a break to skip stones every now and then while I'm fishing.... it's a way to connect all the days, months and years of my life together.  My all time record number of skips?.... I think it's somewhere around 19.  It was my dad who taught me how to skip a rock.  I remember the awe and the magic I felt when he danced that rock on the waters surface. It was another of those gifts he left with me that only after all these years I'm beginning to understand. Skipping stones has helped me find a collection of unique rocks or fossils that I store on shelves along side my favorite books.  Each one attached to a memory of  the river.  

      

Classic Angling Magazine with my painting on the cover.

 

 Classic Angling Magazine featured my painting " Wish upon a Star"  on the cover of the most recent issue. Published in the U.K and a great read...  it also has an article on fishing in Mongolia which has always been a dream of mine. 

What I see ...not what I think I see....

   This is a painting I finished awhile back...  it is already sold.  I'm interested in that moment of vision , memory and imagination that collide when you see something beautiful. What a miracle water is.  It's another of those things I'm trying to understand. It's really what this painting is about.  

  

The Art of Fly Reel Design

Fly Reels that are innovative, beautiful, and functional with an emphasis on new ideas and technology.  

Dormisch - Absi R2

Astrid   

   Ari T Hart design , I keep bidding for his reels on ebay .... never won an auction yet. 

 

Swiss Tackle....   

  Aesthetics and Function....    

   Psaros Reel..

   Technology meets Art and Design.....

     

Marco Reel.... form and function create fly reel design that is beautiful....

A perfect reel for fishing the trico hatch 

Trico Take

  One of my latest trout paintings...   it's already sold but I thought you might like to see it. I love fishing during the trico hatch.  One of the most tiny and ephemeral of all mayflies.. hatching, molting, mating , laying eggs and dying in just a couple of hours.  A summer time hatch that can  turn a trip to the stream into a one of those perfect moments we are all in search of. 

Gates of Paradise

  This photo is the first of four sculptured panels I've created for the doors in a fly fishing cabinet I'm working on.  they are cold cast bronze but can also be cast in resin.  I have been in awe of "Lorenzo Ghiberti's  Doors" also known as the "Gates of Paradise" for  a long, long  time.  I guess these are my idea of the fisherman's version.  I'm expecting a lot of trout streams and dry fly fishing in Heaven. 

      G.E.M Skues wrote about his idea of " Fishing in the Hereafter"  in a short story that will captivate you.... you can find it in the Armchair Angler. A anthology of provocative  fishing short stories. 

Three Good Books

    Read the water, read the rise, read the wind, and then read these books..... 

   "Rivers Course through my dreams, rivers cold and fast. rivers known and rivers nameless, rivers that seem like ribbons of blue water twisting through wide valleys, narrow rivers folded in layers of darkening shadow, rivers that eroded down deep in a mountain belly, sculpted the land, peeled back the planet's history exposing the texture of time itself."  - Harry Middleton  ,  Rivers of Memory 

 " The Earth is Enough "  by Harry Middleton  

" Under Cottonwoods"   by Stephen Grace  

"The Run to Gitche Gumee"  by  Robert F. Jones 

  

 

Fly Fishing Lamp

   Photos of the Fly fishing Lamp I designed.....

  

  close-up
 close up, the base is hickory and river rocks....  
   the trout are all Brookies ,  the plexiglass is 1/4 inch thick and i used a dremmel tool to deeply carve  the image so it has a three dimensional look.  

 ....  I designed and etched the pexiglass by hand ...  The furniture company I work with , Old Hickory, designed the base for it... The first photo shows two Old Hickory chairs and end table... the chairs have images my paintings applied to  the leather backs.   

A Smile

  What's in a smile? .... I love Tony Bennett's version of " Smile ."  I'm trying to smile more, even when I don't feel like it...   One thing about my friendship with Paul( photo below)... he could always make me smile... something only really good friends can do , what a gift ...  A smile, it's such a simple thing, yet simple things are not easy to understand. Mother Teresa put it this way, " Peace begins with a smile." 

    A Charlie Chaplin youtube video on the subject. 

   When I can , I still like to wet wade. It makes me smile. Paul  drove down from Michigan last week and we fished old school style, in shorts and sneakers. It was a perfect day for it. Warm and Sunny, cicada's singing,  the fish biting and smiles from old friends. 

A Reason to Wet Wade

   When I was younger I always waded streams wearing old cutoffs and tennis shoes, no fancy waders.  Wet wading a river helps create a reverence and understanding for the water and the creatures that live there. This is one of my flyfishing buddies Paul Steinway with a Kentucky smallmouth. Immersed in memories and water.....

Carp on the fly

In Search of the Perfect Moment

    I've been chasing the idea of " the perfect moment. "  Subtle and ephemeral, they are easy to miss.  Like so many other wonderful things, I  need to  remember again what I have forgotten. The battle between the eternal and temporal,  the corruptible and incorruptible clouds my vision and understanding. I'm afraid I'll miss it or not see it. So the search goes on....  

     Eugene O'Kelly  in "Chasing Daylight"  talks about the perfect moment being a moment with others when time stands still,  a time fully in the present, where the past and future are set aside.   

     All opposites help describe and explain each other in some way...  there is no darkness without light, red is most red placed next to it's compliment green... so is it possible to have perfection without the help of imperfection? Maybe it is the scar, impervious flaw, or broken heart that ushers in the possibility of a perfect moment. 

  

     

New Smallmouth painting

This is a new painting of a smallmouth , taking a big mayfly off the surface.  I am always amazed how perfectly their markings and colors blend with whatever environ they live in....  I have released them and watched them melt away into the bottom of stream, like they were never real , just an apparition.... and your left wondering if  you just touched a piece of eternity..... 

Fly Fishing Reel Addiction!!.. I don't want help

 My next reel?  Logan Reel

 My new Airflo Balance Reel posing with a trout.... the fly rod is a  TFO , these guys support Project Healing Waters   a  great idea!!  

This fly reel addiction has hit me hard...  Yeah, I'm obsessive compulsive about a few things.   I already have way to many fly reels ...  but this might be where my next one comes from , Logan Reel .....  I still don't have as many fly reels or rods as my buddy Jimbo...  

Artist Eric Reaves

Eric with the last fish of the day..... 

   I love Eric's art work.... you have got to check out his website...  Welcome to Eric’s easel 

Make sure you check out his fly fishing toons..... 

  Here is E ( Eric)  with an average sized carp from the river.... I think these are the toughest fish in the stream...  you have to put a serious sneak on to get within casting distance. Most of the time you have just one shot...  any wayward cast and they are gone...  A accurate double haul is almost a must...  

     But what I love more.... Eric has five kids and he's teaching them to flyfish ....  definition of a great dad..... 

Smallmouth daze .... and days ....

July 25, partly cloudy, air temp 85 degrees,  water temp 80 degrees, 2- 6 pm ,  water clarity/ medium ....  somewhere in Indiana   

   This little guy came from the same place as big one in the next photo ...  both were fooled by the same fly. 

                                  

                                   .... the hat is salmon colored, not pink.... 

 I caught this guy while fishing with Eric ,  it is even more special when a buddy is there to witness it. Something had taken a chunk out of it's tail, more proof of how tough it is to survive and how important it is to put these fish back.  I've seen some people who fish take stringers of these fish out of the river and it always disappoints me.  A fish this size is at least eight years old, and every one is a miracle of survival.  Why end it? 

                                                                             .......

      There has been a mist in the air above the stream lately , helping create a feeling of anticipation and mystery. I fish for these reasons more than any other. The awe, wonder and memories ....  

One Eyed Fish or Lack of Vision

I went fishing today.... these two photos show one of the smallmouth I caught.  It's right eye was completely blind and glazed over.... something had happened when it was younger, a hook in the eye, a heron attack , who knows...  whatever it was, this fish kept on living and thriving. 
  It was easily a  twenty inches , probably 8- 10 years old. An extraordinary feat in itself, but this survivor was blind in one eye. It's tough enough to make a living in this stream with two eyes.  I don't keep fish anymore.  If I did keep fish I still would have released this one. As it swam away it's colors gradually merged with the river colors until it disappeared from sight.... but not memory.  You know how there are some people you meet who affect you in such profound ways you are changed forever?.....  well this fish did that to me today.... persistent reflections.... 

    There is so much that conspires to defeat and destroy us physically, emotionally and spiritually. The stuff that keeps us from being what we could be or should be. Is there a way when there seems to be no way?   The now... the moment in front of us... can so easily disappear without our participation when we are stuck in the past or future.  It's one of the things I love about fly fishing, everything is reduced to the moment that exist only right now.   

Indiana Journey

...the  places I love to travel...
This is the mystery for me... how  catching fish  holds so tightly to my heart.... why?     Most of the time it doesn't make sense but every now it becomes clear for just a moment and then it disappears  beneath the surface of time. 

This is a typical Indiana smallmouth stream....  in the mist and sounds I rediscover the me I hope to be.... 
  Old barns stand sentinel over the land and streams,  landmarks that reveal recent history of  places I fish.

  These little rivulets are all over Northern Indiana,  draining farm fields,  forests. If they are clear the rivers are usually fishable.   I love the reflection of the sky they trace upon the land. 
.....a bridge to my past or my future...  what lies beneath?