Check out the new 'Salmo Saxtilis' fly rods designed by Ken Abrames in the stripermoon store.
© Mark & Carol Archambault.
The images in this gallery are used with the permission of Mark and Carol Archambault. All rights reserved. No portion whatsoever may be reproduced without express written permission from Mark Archambault and Carol Archambault.
Twenty years ago I captured nine small bluegills in a net and brought them home. It was winter and I had cabin fever. I put them in an aquarium in my cellar and took care of them. I had a very deep cellar and it was a dark place with some ambient light from a few small windows. The bluegills were tiny, about the size of quarters, but were very pretty. They were silver and blue with vertical barring. They were like jewels.
One day I went down into my cellar and did not turn on the light. I glanced at my fish tank and saw fish that I had never seen before. The light in the cellar was natural and very subdued, and the fish in the tank did not look at all as I had always seen them when I had an electric light on. I moved the tank into the center of the room, and everything I had believed about how baitfish look underwater was transformed in an instant. I moved around the tank to see them from different angles and was transfixed by what I saw. There was a copper sunfish, a chartreuse one; one was almost transparent with his spine and gut standing out in sharp contrast as opaque black. As they turned and swam in the tank they would change hue and shift in appearance depending on their angle to me. I turned on the light and they became the jewels I had always seen in my tank, little sunfish silver and blue and very shiny.
I have been giving lectures off and on for many years and have been telling other fishermen about what I had seen, without much more response than a polite nod and smile. This past year I went on the road with pictures, a slide show showing underwater baitfish in natural light and shared what I have seen with several thousand fly fishermen with pictures, not words. It has been a revelation to many. The old saying that a picture is worth a thousand words is true.