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Useful Remedies for Your Horses

Most of our kit of remedies are based on veterinary advice we have received over the years. Consult your own veterinarian, but here is what works for us and our horses: If a large ring snaffle doesn't work, try a D-ring snaffle. Need more stop, then try a rubber pelham bit. All horses will go well in one or the other. If they don't is probably a teeth issue and not a bit issue. Get your horses teeth floated annually. For polo we start with a large ring gag, then a rubber pelham on most that don't stop well, adding increasingly longer shanks, but if you need the horse to be more straight, then add draw reins. Shapley's Original M-T-G for rain rot, skin infections in the spring, rub on affected areas with your hand and leave in. Bluelite or Morton's lite table salt on game and hunt days for electrolytes. Feed Equine Senior for steady horse feed that won't make them hot, but if you want to add weight then go to Purina Ultrium. Spray Absorbine on sore backs and legs after hosing the area down, if you have issues with soreness. Roach polo pony manes and whiskers, together with trimming the sides of tails monthly. Get a Oster Volt cordless clipper, those are the best, but pricy at $350. Use a 10 wide blade for body clipping. Use Dove dishwashing liquid detergent to clean sheaths (this needs to be done annually on geldings) and just use Dove liquid soap in place of all of your expensive horsey shampoos and conditions. This was recommended by our vet. Use triple antibiotic ointment on small cuts and Scarlet Oil spray on large cuts and scrapes. Bute

By |May 21st, 2019|Categories: polo, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Useful Remedies for Your Horses

Simple Flies, Tactical Fishing

I always like the way that the fly fishing industry markets with buzzwords. The latest one being "tactical", having been preceded by many others over the past three decades. I started before the days of Roger Hill's classic little book on Fly Fishing the South Platte River: An Angler's Guide. Having fished with Roger, and after becoming good friends with his son, Jeff Hill, who was also a former commercial tyer, I was intrigued by the dozen or so rather impressionistic flies that Roger listed in the book, many of which were popular renditions available at that time from local fly shops, not necessarily anything he claimed to be his own inventions. Roger is a rocket scientist by trade and no dummy at the fly tying bench, yet the South Platte Classic flies that he mentioned in the book were filled with very simple images and dressings such as this one: Others included the Brassie, which was brass wire with a black thread head. Or the Buckskin, which was a little buckskin wrapped as the body with a thorax of a couple turns of peacock. Or, the Black Beauty, black tying thread, ribbed with brass wire, and a little dubbing for the thorax. Other flies came out of this simple South Platte Style, including the Miracle Midge (same as the Black Beauty, only white or cream thread, and later with the addition of a glass Mercury bead head). You might say they are more of semblances of insects rather than exact imitations, as Rim Chung often says of his famous RS2 (which, by the way, is not a super easy fly to tie, at least not in the segmented way that Rim ties it, not

By |May 1st, 2019|Categories: Fishing, Fly Tying, Rim Chung, RS2, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Simple Flies, Tactical Fishing

Sawyer Nymphs

FRANK SAWYER’S COLLECTION By Magnus Angus Sawyer Nymphs Ltd was run by the Sawyer family so they were the only source of authentic Sawyer nymphs and they used to offer a set of Sawyer flies, tied to the original patterns, in a fly box finished with a portrait of Sawyer. The set seems to me to capture the nature of Sawyer’s thinking, i.e., just a few materials combined into dressings which represent natural insects by simplifying or reducing the representation to a few key features and an overall shape. Others have commented that the flies are all geared to fish where trout or grayling expect to find the types of prey these represent. So the lightly weighted Nymphs sink but the weighting is delicate. Cast into a modest current they move with the water rather than plummeting to the bottom. The dries have enough hackle to spread the tiny weight of the fly on the water surface. With a touch of floatant, these fish initially on the surface, and slightly deeper in the surface film as they become waterlogged. Price: £10 (For the boxed set of 12 flies: 2 each Sawyer Pheasant tails, Swedish, Grey Goose, Killer Bug, Bow Tie Buzzer and Chalk Stream dries.)From: www.sawyernymphs.com Too bad they are no longer available from Nick's www.sawyernymphs.com and the site is down but meanwhile, you can visit these articles by Nick Sawyer About Nick Sawyer Nick Sawyer is the grandson of the late Frank Sawyer MBE, inventor of the Pheasant Tail Nymph and famous river keeper of the Hampshire Avon chalk stream. Nick runs a small hobby business (Sawyer Nymphs Ltd) dedicated to selling traditional nymphs and flies ties to the orignal patterns of Frank Sawyer. Sawyer

By |April 29th, 2019|Categories: Uncategorized|Comments Off on Sawyer Nymphs

How to Cut the Cheese

It is amazing how many Americans don't know how to cut the cheese. Well, not at the table anyway. Please don't just hack off a piece here and there on a cheese board. Here is how you properly do it:

By |April 29th, 2019|Categories: Uncategorized|Comments Off on How to Cut the Cheese

Gary Dewey Flies

Having mentors is important in life, and especially in fishing. Wonder what ever happened to my old fishing buddy, Gary Dewey? Gary was an iron worker who tied some great flies. He became a fishing friend of mine and tied some memorable flies, which had a George Grant woven fly look to them. He had stoneflies with jungle cock, and DewDads, crawfish patterns, both of which I learned to tie from him, among many other innovative patterns. George F. Grant began an innovative style of fly tying in the early 1930s, and patented a unique method in 1939 (U.S. Patent No. 2,178.031). Grant's method for weaving hackles is similar to but distinct from that of Francis Potts. Grant was one of the first anglers to realize that large trout fed primarily beneath the surface on nymphs, and that one needed to imitate and learn to fish this insect-stage if one wanted to consistently catch large trout. Grant's nymphs imitated primarily large stoneflies such as the giant salmonfly (Pteronarcys californicus), which grows up to two inches in length. In 1973, the Federation of Fly Fishers awarded Grant the Buz Buszek Memorial Award-an award plaque presented annually to that person who has made significant contributions to the arts of fly tying. Grant wrote two books on his style of woven Montana flies, which remain largely obscure. Grant liked to use jungle cock for the back of the stonefly, which is also what Gary Dewey did on his stoneflies. George Grant flies Dew Dad by Gary DeweyDownload Gary Dewey Stone Nymph.Tying Instructions.Download Dewey's flies are somewhat similar to the woven stoneflies of George Grant

By |April 23rd, 2019|Categories: Uncategorized|Comments Off on Gary Dewey Flies

One Fly, Two Flies

If you look back in time, you’ll find a few legendary anglers who filled extraordinary bags with just one fly, maybe two. Frank Sawyer and his pheasant tail nymph and grey goose come to mind (although he actually had 5 flies in all, including for lakes). Rim Chung and his RS2. Magical flies or perfect technique, a mere mortal would question? Truth is that it is a little of both. By doing 90% of all things perfectly you cannot catch 90% of the fish in a river. Only by doing 100% perfectly will you achieve that kind of success. Sawyer could average 20 trout an hour on just two flies, one in brown, the other in grey, in a variety of sizes, or even more on grayling for that matter on his Killer Bug. I have seen Rim have these banner days as well on public stretches with wild trout here in the West. The wonderful part of many of these flies are that they are very simple to tie, just some pheasant tail and wire, or yarn and wire, or sewing thread on a hook, in the case of a Yong Special. So how can such a simple fly be so effective? So what’s the secret? Perfection of a single technique and fly, in the hands of experts in presentation. Light lines, small flies, tied well and fished without drag, over finicky trout. Flies that are more a semblance of a midge or mayfly nymph with good segmentation. Simple but translucent bodies. Thin, elegant tapering of the fly bodies. Putting the fly where the fish are at, without drag. Exceeding concentration and strike detection. Excellent control of the fish once the hook is set,

By |April 21st, 2019|Categories: Uncategorized|Comments Off on One Fly, Two Flies

What’s a choil on a knife used for?

"What is the purpose of the choil?" Many knives have a small choil. A choil is the cut away area, or notch, between the heel of the blade edge and the ricasso of a pocket knife blade and between the edge and the guard of a fixed blade knife. For many knives, the reason for a choil simply ad to do with the ability to sharpen the full length of the blade edge. In some instances a choil is not necessary because the blade is wider than the ricasso making it possible to sharpen the edge cleanly all the way to the heel. While a choil often adds to the visual appeal of a blade, that is not the reason for one to be used. A blade that does not require a choil. However, some makes have chosen to exaggerate the choil for use as a line cutter or bird wing cutter like in the knife below.

By |April 12th, 2019|Categories: Uncategorized|Comments Off on What’s a choil on a knife used for?

Clay Pottery for Cooking

From Ferenc Recommendations on non-micaceous clay pots: I think Roemertopf ( Römertopf ) pots are the most flexible.  They used to be made in Mexico, but are now made in Germany ( again ).  The newer pots have a glazed bottom, so cleaning them after cooking is easier now. There's an out of print cookbook, which has lots of very good recipes for it: By the Editors of Consumer Guide Clay Cookery Some of our favorite recipes from it: Wedding Chicken From Crete, Gingered Roast Chicken with Nectarines, Ratatouille.  The latter is our all time favorite.  This pot is for the oven only. Though not made of micaceous clay, the Emile Henry pots can take a lot of heat.  Some can be used on stove tops. You can even use soap to clean them.  I use this one mostly for cooking chicken: Emile Henry Made In France Flame Oval Stewpot Dutch Oven, 6.3 quart, Charcoal Micaceous clay: Chamba You'd like the Chamba Cookware https://www.mytoque.com/pages/about-la-chamba-cookware ) soup pots for stews and soups.  The Chamba pots are made from black clay.  I use them on the stove top, but would work in the oven too. They're functional and beautiful. Güveç It's a Turkish clay pot.  ( See for example: https://drojkent.wordpress.com/2013/02/12/istanbul-pots-and-cooking-guvec/   I make Turkish moussaka in it.  Got that pot here: https://www.tulumba.com/products/3438-earthenware-non-coated-pot-medium/ But they don't always have it available. When I use clay pots on the stove top, I always use a flame diffuser, which I brought from Hungary.  You can get similar stuff here too, of course ( see for example: http://www.bramcookware.com/index.php ). I soak and them scrub with baking soda--never use soap on my clay pots. Because of the different pots I have, I put

By |April 8th, 2019|Categories: Cuisine, Uncategorized|Comments Off on Clay Pottery for Cooking