Sunday, December 24, 2017

Strange Bedfellows

FISHING FOR UKES
Fish Much ?
leaders for ukuleles ?
TENOR AND SOPRANO UKULELE
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.. There does exist a small subset of fly fishers that not only tie their own flies but also their own leaders. Formulae are legion and occasionally guarded as well as Area 51.
GOT PACKAGE ??
.. Some fly fishers even use braided horse hair. It can be obtained from the neighborhood nag or, bought by the bunch as violin bow bundles.
.. There are even a very few folks that incorporate dental floss in their  arsenal to fool and capture those pea brained denizens of the deep.
.. Most fly fishers, (affluent bunch that they are,) buy leaders and tippet supplies in little packages at the local feather merchant's store.
.. This provides an excuse to visit the highly knowledgeable and sage counter help and, avoid the myriad chores around the house and garage. A worthy excuse for sure.
GOT SPOOL  ??
.. The stuff of leaders is now, and almost always has been, great fodder for the pub or, club or, lodge or, dusty aisles. This is a great field for all manner of discourse and,  most certainly marketing hype.
.. Topics like diameter, strength, stretch, hardness, stiffness, brand, etc., are full of good fun and sadly lacking, (mostly,) in facts. Must be the temper of the times.
.. Some cagey folks have bothered to explore the various parameters of strength and diameter and material and such. [LINK-1]. If you are interested in the details check it out.
.. Some other folks have explored the specifics of the conversation about the manufacturing process = nylon, monofilament, cat gut, fluorocarbon, thermoplastic and such, [LINK-2]. Another excellent read for those so inclined.
EVEN MORE SPOOLS  !
.. For us the minutiae surrounding all these bits of arcane knowledge is, in fact, useful.
.. As it comes to pass, both the stuff used for fishing line and, ukulele strings and, classical guitar strings is exactly the same in many instances. And, (no big surprise here,) is made by only a very few manufacturers, (but that is another story.)
..  With not too much specialized information it is possible to use our hoard of spooled and crinkled stuff for both fishing and stringing. Who knew it? In fact many ukulele and guitar players have known it for some time.
DISGUISED
.. Chet Atkins occasionally used fishing line for his guitars.
.. Classical guitar maestro Andres Segovia started using fishing line from the DuPont company for some of his strings and encouraged guitar builders to pursue this new material.
.. The result was the development of a much more reliable and trouble free E, B and G strings for the concert classical guitar.
.. For those of you out there that play the ukulele, (or classical guitar,) there are a few very handy references for the use of the correct leader material for strings on your box of air, [LINK-3, LINK-4 , LINK-5].
.. Like anything, best is usually better. In both fishing and stringed instruments trial and error is a pretty standard approach. Depending on your arsenal of attack some bits and pieces work better than others.
.. Fiberglass, bamboo, graphite, boron, casting style, visibility, weight of fly, and many other factors come into play when selecting the stringy parts of the rig.
.. The same holds true for a ukulele: type of wood, sound and tone, construction details, size, strum style, scale length, and so on. {It is even propitious to use discarded instrument strings as part of our fishing ensemble.}
.. However, in both realms there are just a few brands that stand out.
..  DuPont invented nylon in 1939 and fisher folks figured it out very quickly, (stockings were shredded after WWII for fishing line and for flies.) Maxima is about as old as DuPont and started it's production of fishing lines in 1950. Seaguar is a fairly recent entrant into the line business; started in 1966 and has risen to the top with it's innovations in  Fluorocarbon and braided lines. There are a few others  --  of course!
.. Many "House Brands" contract with these companies for their own products. Ask the counter help at your favorite feather merchant if you are buying string over the counter. Right now, (subject to change at any moment,) Seaguar seems in the ascendancy in both the fishing world and the ukulele world.
..  We don't see many lazy gatherings streamside these days. Hardly time for a song or two and certainly not with a guitar.
.. In other parts of this nation and, the world at large, fishing can be found that is a bit more genteel and relaxed. Harmonicas, ukuleles, and even kazoos, can be found.
.. Serious fishing around here, (with very few exceptions,) demands immersion and it approaches a true vocation. Nothing wrong there -- strokes and folks.
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.. Time for a snack and a nap. Then time to restring a couple of instruments before going to a neighborhood gathering.
.. There will be food, fishing talk, hunting talk, children, and some singing. There are fiddles, guitars, ukuleles, and even an Irish harp. It happens around this time of year  --  every year.
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“Good night, good night! parting is such sweet sorrow,
That I shall say good night till it be morrow.” 
. . . the Bard
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WALLPAPER:    RESTING FOR THE MORROW

Good night, good night! Parting is such sweet sorrow, that I shall say good night till it be morrow.
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/william_shakespeare_155061