Oh Nuts

So I found a lump near one of my testicles last winter. I can assure you, that's a tough pill to swallow for a dude. And since it's breast cancer awareness month and my story might help a girl or a guy find a lump before it's too late, I'm going to tell you all about it.

When you find a lump, a million things race through your mind. The first three are four-letter-words that start with F. You automatically assume the worst. At first you're afraid to tell anyone. Maybe if you don't acknowledge it, it really isn't there. You tell your wife and see the fear in her eyes. Despite the fact that you're just as scared as she is, you look deep into her gorgeous eyes, smile, and tell her everything is going to be okay.

You are sure that when the doctor is finally able to fit you into his busy schedule (you'd think that when you tell them you found a lump, they would fit you right in) he is going to tell you that you didn't catch it soon enough, and at best, you have like three months to live. I had almost three weeks to think about my imminent death before finally getting in to see the doctor.

When you're sure you're about to die, three weeks is a very long time to wait. You start thinking about all of the things in life you did and didn't do. All of the things you're going to try and accomplish before you're gone.

When I first found the lump, I was a few pages into a new-to-me book The Rise by Paul Schullery. As funny as it sounds, one of the things that panicked me the most wasn't some bucket list of dream vacations or extreme adventures I wouldn't be able to experience, it was the possibility that I wouldn't get to utilize some of the things I was reading about. That led to a deep fear that I wouldn't have enough time to read all the books on my amazon wish list, or the 24 or so recently added to my bookshelf. I was prepping for a reading marathon of epic proportions. Three months to live, and all I wanted to do was read old flyfishing books....

Since it was January when I found my lump, I started thinking about the first places I was going to fish when spring came. When you haven't experienced a spring on your northern Michigan homewaters in over five years, and you're sure you're about to die, this is a really really tough decision. Do I go to that stretch I've been staring at from New York on Google Earth for the past three years? Or, do I go back to that bend with the beaver dam I've fished 100 times?

As the date of that doctor appointment approached, I'd accepted whatever the outcome might be. If it was cancer, I was going to kick its ass.

If you ever find a lump, when you finally make it to that day at the doctor's office, the nurse won't look at you funny when you tell her with a straight face that you’ve got an extra ball down there. The doctor will do a thorough examination, but he isn't going to handle your balls any more than he has to.

If you're as lucky as I am, he is going to smile, tell you it isn't cancer, make an alternate diagnosis that's really no big deal at all, and send you on your way. If you're as lucky as I am, you'll get to tell your wife that everything is going to be okay, and you'll get to take your time reading all of those books. You’ll get to fish the beaver dam and the new spot.

If that little lump was cancer, it could have killed me. Fortunately, it wasn’t. I found it while it was still very small, so had it really been cancer, I'd like to think my chances of kicking its ass would have been fairly decent. Whether you're a man or a woman, I can't urge you enough to perform occasional self-examinations of your parts (see links below). Hopefully you won't find anything. If you do, hopefully it's as it was with me, and no big deal. If you do find something out of the ordinary, it's probably going to be pretty scary. But with the help and support of your loved ones, you will make it to and through that first doctor appointment.

For the guys, Everything you ever wanted to know about a self testicular exam.
For the ladies, Everything you ever wanted to know about a self breast exam.

Ghostbusters

It's October and that means three things: incredible fishing, purdy colors, and the veil between the world of the living and the dead is at its thinnest.

Some people who believe in ghosts have a theory for the presence of the paranormal. They call it "Recordings of Past Events." According to this theory, ghosts are basically recordings of past events in certain surroundings-- energy that is trapped somewhere in the space-time continuum and allowed to replay emotionally charged events again and again and again.

I really don't know if I believe in ghosts. But if I did, I'd have to ask a question. Who says that these recordings can only be of dead people? I've had some pretty emotionally charged experiences in my life. Maybe somewhere, right now, I'm haunting someone?

Boo!

What if we leave a little energy behind here and there?

If I've left some energy anywhere, it would be a sharp bend on the South Branch of the Au Sable. Ever since the first time I fished this spot, I've had a strong emotional connection to it. I don't know how many times I've fished this stretch of water until the wee hours of the night during the drake hatches of summer, or during the mousing season. Almost every time, I've been creeped out by a strange sound in the bushes, disembodied splashes of water, or just an eerie feeling in general.
What if those sounds or splashes were me, haunting myself?

I wonder if its possible to purposely leave a little energy behind in certain places? That'd be a hell of a great way to keep people from fishing your favorite spots.

What if when you're daydreaming about a spot from the comfort of your tying desk, or from work, or wherever, you are actually transferring a little bit of emotionally charged energy to that location?

Sometimes, during my daydreams, it feels like I'm there.

What if I really am?

Profile: Pat Cohen

Pat Cohen, giving a tattoo at his booth in The Twisted Ink tattoo parlor in Cobleskill, NY

“The night time brings a lot of the stranger folks into the shop,” said Pat Cohen, in between tattoo appointments at the Twisted Ink tattoo parlor in Cobleskill, NY. 
“A lot of people-- when they walk into a tattoo shop-- leave all of their inhibitions at the door. They take on this whole other persona from who they really are.  Maybe it's who they wish they could be, or who they think we think they should be.  Often the guys act tougher, the girls act a little sleazier.”
Cohen, who is an avid warmwater fly fisherman by day, and tattoo artist by night, started fly fishing in 2008 and taught himself how to tie his own flies a year later.  Since that time, he has been creating a loud buzz in the fly tying world for his innovative warmwater fly patterns and a savant-like ability to sculpt deer hair bass bugs.  Like most of us, fly fishing and fly tying has become a welcome way for Cohen to unwind from the daily stress of his day job.

One evening, Pat was in the middle of giving a tattoo when a young lady walked in, a student at SUNY Cobleskill in her early twenties.  “She comes over to my booth and says she's looking to get her nipples pierced- a standard piercing in most shops and not that big of a deal. I tell her the piercer will be with her momentarily, as he was in middle of another procedure. She nodded and I got back to my tattoo. I looked up a minute or two later to see her standing in the middle of the shop, topless and pinching her nipples.  I asked her what the heck she was doing in the middle of the shop’s front windows.”  The young co-ed told Cohen that she was trying to get them hard to see if the guys at the shop thought they should be pierced or not.  “I asked her to please put her clothing back on and wait for the piercer to call her in.”  Cohen added, “Those are huge windows, and we’re a family shop…”

Cohen won Rookie of the Year honors at FlyTyingForum.com’s annual Fly Tier of the Year contest in 2010, and has already joined the ranks among the fly tying elite at Chuck Furmiskey’s 2010 International Fly Tying Symposium, as well as a spot at the The Fly Fishing Show in Somerset, NJ, in 2011.  “When I met Chuck, he said he would love to have me tie at his shows, but needed to discuss it with his son first. He went on chuckling, that I needed to take my earrings out and shave my goatee first. I laughed and said I would as soon as he shaved off his handle bars. He laughed and introduced me to his son, Ben.”

“My family always busts my balls about it,” laughed Cohen, who had fished with bait and spinning gear with family members for as long as he can remember before getting bitten by the fly fishing bug.  “Before I started fly fishing, I was probably the worst fisherman in my family.  Now the running joke is that all of these great opportunities are happening to the guy in the family who couldn’t catch a fish.”

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The first time I fly fished, I just wet waded out into the middle of the river.”  Up until that time, Pat had always restricted himself to fishing from the bank.  “But for some reason, with that Eagle Claw fly/spin combo rod, I felt like I had to be in the water.”  Cohen said to himself, “I’m gonna stand in the stream and whip this thing around like they do on TV.”

Things started to click for Cohen as he began engulfing any information he could on fly fishing via books, the internet, and his local fly shop.  “When you’re imitating nature, you need to learn how to actually imitate it,” said Cohen. 

“In my opinion, fly fishing takes a lot more skill and knowledge than spin fishing.  It's not that spin fishing doesn't take that, but a lot of the lures do the work for you.  We give our flies life, we make them move and act like what we are imitating.” 

A few months after taking up fly tying, Cohen purchased a $6 bass bug from his local big box, mega outdoor chain and watched it fall apart after only a few fish.  Shortly after, he was teaching himself how to spin deer hair.   “It seemed like the fish held onto deer hair poppers longer than balsa or cork ones,” said Cohen. 

Before getting into the tattoo business, Cohen received a Bachelor’s Degree in Studio Art, with a concentration in sculpture.  He also did a lot of realistic figure drawing in his free time.  This background has served him well, as shaping bass bugs with a double edged razor blade has become a form of sculpture for him. 

“I really enjoy coming up with my own techniques to solve a problem,” Cohen said. “Every fly I have designed started with a scenario on the water that the flies I had before it couldn’t handle.”   Cohen says he usually knows what the finished pattern will look like before he attempts to tie it; it’s the getting there part that presents the biggest challenge. 

“A lot of people will ask me what the link is between tattooing and fly tying.  The link is that art is a problem, a problem you need to solve visually.  Like tattooing, I enjoy the creative process and coming up with new patterns or techniques to solve a problem from a day on the water with a new fly pattern at the vise.” 

“…and then I fill up my bath tub and make sure it works.”

Blazing Saddles

Birds of a feather pulse together

The bluish gray saddle feathers from a blue-eared pheasant are conspicuously different than those of a tweedy rooster cape.  Wanting nothing to do with the stiff, floating world of hatch matching, they’re a dry-fly hackle’s nemesis.  That probably has a lot to do with where they come from.  Instead of growing up at some slow-moving chicken farm, blue-eared pheasants are native to the Himalayas and mountain forests of northern China.  Before the Internet, you had to know a guy who knew a guy who knew a Yeti in order to get your hands on one.  Today it isn’t too hard to find a decent skin, but you probably won’t see them hanging on the pegboard at your local fly shop. 

Blue-eared pheasants don’t have much in common with roosters or their famous fear of getting wet, but they do have a lot in common with the men who tie and fish with their feathers.  The unity between blue-eared plumage and spey fishermen starts with the way they’re viewed amongst their peers.  Typically calm, and non-flighty birds, they’re not as glitzy as tragopan, germain’s, or peacock pheasants.  Indeed, you could say that blue-eareds are the dirtbags of the pheasant family. 

Like steelheaders of the Northwest and Great Lakes, they’re extremely hardy.  Not only do they prefer snow and violent weather, they thrive in it.  The same can be said of their feathers.  Once wet, those long, wispy barbs freely pulse and undulate in the current.  The jungle cock, bronze mallard, seal fur, and shiny tinsel might grab the attention of other fishermen, but it’s those grooving barbs that will seal the deal on a fresh, ocean-run steelhead.