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Welcome To Dogtown
How the Dog Learned to Hunt
By Tom Keer

Lieutenant Anthony is an odd name for a Punonakanits Wanpanoag, don’t you think? In original times, a long while back, it would be fitting for a soldier, not an Indian. I don’t know that Lieutenant Anthony cared what he was called, for selling Tuttomnest to the Pilgrims was his focus. I wondered why those first settlers wanted the remote, wild region that connects the coves with the estuary and on to the ocean. The colonists already had the prime and protected harbor for their fishing fleet. Their dories provided access to the shallows for clams and oysters. They could row or sail into the saltwater estuary for striped bass, herring, flounder and seasonal sea ducks. Why they wanted the marsh was beyond me.

Some wishes come true, and when the deal was struck the Pilgrims renamed the area after the Wampanoags. Theirs was an English name of Indian Neck. Further exploration possibly revealed the reason for the deal, for the legions of mosquitos and greenheads along with the disease those flying leaches spread rendered the area uncivilized. That says something by today’s standards and explains why the only inhabitants to live down by the marsh were outlaws, thieves, and town’s people who didn’t amount to much. Only roughnecks resided in the shadows, and they were wild like their free-roaming dogs. The east end of the marsh became known as Dogtown, and that’s where I live. It’s my home, and I fit right in.

Rice devotes a lot of time to teachng fly fishing and fly tying to Gen Next. He’s frequently at consumer shows, is active with conservation groups, and is a Regal Vise Endorsed Fly Tier, and an American Museum of Fly Fishing Ambassador.

My fly-tying bench overlooks Lieutenant Anthony’s marsh. It’s a roll-top desk that sits next to a window giving me unparalleled views. Dreams and vivid imagination pour in freely, for one look at the water inspires me to no end. A look through the trees can be a distraction, for when I see a pod of blitzing bass or a knot of brant pitch in I’m likely to trade my work for pleasure and go. Inevitably I’ll return, usually with a story to tell, like this one.

This one started with a well-designed fly that looked good in my hand. It was tied by Mike Rice, a commercial tier on the mainland, and owner of Mud Dog Flies. His fly had the right proportions of bucktail, some flash and saddles, none of which spun around on the shank. The head was neatly and symmetrically finished and epoxied. It looked like a durable fly, but I wanted to see it swim. Fish eat streamers that swim properly in the water, and resemble the actual baitfish that belong there. Save for a ravenous bluefish or a dink schoolie with more brawn than brains, fish don’t eat flies with long, saddle-hackle wings wrapped around a bend. And you can’t catch ‘em if you’re fishing a flimsy hook with a point that breaks when it hits a quahog shell. Rice’s flies looked the part—they looked like the real deal. Since there’s no joy in wasting a cast on a cruising fish I grabbed my rod, twisted up a Bimini, and walked down the mean streets of Dogtown. Off to Lieutenant Anthony’s marsh I went.

Roped-off piping plover nesting areas are frequently near good fishing spots. While wardens do not welcome dogs, they usually allow The Dog to pass.

On my walk through the gnarly scrub oaks and tall white pines I thought about commercial fly tying. Back in the day it would be common to walk into a fly shop and buy domestically-tied flies. Once upon a time you could find original Carrie Stevens streamers, or later on Catskill dries tied by Art Flick, Harry Darbee and Walt Dette. Bins were full of them because tying flies was a cottage industry. Tiers in destination fisheries like my own backyard could earn a living, and nowadays their flies fetch a tidy sum. These days it’s as common as sunburn to find flies tied in faraway reaches like Kenya or Sri Lanka. Locally-tied patterns fill the void, but it’s more of a calling. You’d be nuts to think you could earn enough money to put four-dollar a-gallon gas into a 40-thousand dollar truck and buy a thousand-dollar fly rod. A commercial fly tier in this day and age makes as much sense as a full-time freelance writer. I figured this fly had to work.

I wanted to see this fly swim, so I cast short against the bank of the mosquito ditch. Those trenches were dug out back in the ‘60s so they’d drain of water and the flying vampire’s spawn would dry and die. DDT did a better job when it was sprayed, but it killed just about everything else, too, so that was stopped. Now Lieutenant Anthony’s marsh is healthy, full of dark green eelgrass, bubbly bladderwort, and enough salt hay to feed a decent sized head of cattle. I pitched Rice’s fly parallel to the bank and stripped it back. I didn’t get to see it swim for a legal bass married the fly. It peeled out from somewhere, probably from under the bank, and I watched my line spring up from the cord grass and head out to sea. Far be it from me to judge if the fly worked. I let the fish decide.

To become a commercial fly tier Rice went around his elbow to kiss his thumb. He grew up on a farm of registered Hereford steers in Maine, so when he wasn’t mending fences, bucking hay, or harvesting silage corn he was outside. When he wasn’t working he spin-fished for wild brookies, landlocked salmon, and togue, the Indian name for lake trout. His was a quiet and rural life, perfect for a kid, but there was a hitch. Simplicity is best served to the young and the mature. During his adolescence and young adult life, Rice craved some action.

Quality is important to Rice. His proportions are consistent, and he uses the best hooks and materials assembled with specific techniques. It’s why his flies swim well, don’t twist and are durable.

He found some juice in the outdoors, with whitewater kayaking and ice climbing as his two main outlets. Offshore sailing became a third rush, and those Maine to Bermuda runs taught Rice about the sea. He learned about lunar phases, tidal changes, and interaction of wind and water, all of which created a love affair that continues today. But the real step towards becoming a commercial tier occurred in Burlington, Vermont, and it was a game changer. Rice became a cop.

He worked the streets, studied, and soon was promoted to detective. He chose undercover narcotics work, notably identifying, infiltrating, and busting drug rings. Remote, Northern New England towns don’t get the same media attention as hot spots like Miami or LA, but there’s a lot more going on than a midnight cow tipping party. The idle mind is the Devil’s Workshop, and there is plenty of down time up north. You don’t read about it much, but distributing heroin, running guns and growing weed is there.

After seven years of shutting down drug labs deep in the woods, Rice wondered what the hell he was doing with his life. Surely he provided a service, his duty to the force was unwavering, but was there more? He found out one extended winter weekend when he and his buddy Judd Thurston, a firefighter, spent four days climbing 60-degree ice faces on Mount Washington’s Huntington Ravine. They slept outside in below zero weather, and though there was time to think, Rice arrived at no answers. Then he heard a feint cry for help.

It came from a distance, a woman’s cry high up by the tree line. Rice and Thurston stopped setting up their camp, grabbed lines, picks, and packs, and began an ascent. When he neared the top Rice heard a sobbing woman and a barking dog. There also was that smell, the one he encountered many times in the line of duty. It was the smell of death.

A woman performed CPR on her boyfriend who’d already passed, the result of a backcountry ski accident with their friend and their dog. The decedent was a successful businessman who scrapped his career to follow his passion for skiing. He gave first lessons to kids, perfected techniques with adults, and spent time downhilling with his family and friends. Rice acknowledged that dying doing what one loved to do with whom they loved was the answer. His transition out of narcotics began upon his return to the force. And it was quick.

Rice started fishing with his childhood friend, Scott Howard. They hammered cow stripers on live-lined mackerel, but one day they saw a giant pod of dinks blitzing on the surface. Howard pitched a fly to the bass and immediately hooked up. Rice did, too, and he was hooked. He was 33 years old.

While he’s enjoyed a number of different careers, Rice is most at home on the water.

When he got back on shore, Rice did Rice. He bought some gear, practiced every day, and before long he mastered the cast. He already knew how to read beaches, tide, pressure patterns, and current, and any rag tag sailor excels at tying knots. Rice and Howard went out every chance they got. They put a beat down on bass,. When the season ended and the fish migrated, so did they. First down to Florida, and then down to the Bahamas. No bone or ‘poon was safe, but Rice still wasn’t happy.

Before you tag Rice as Mister Grouchy Pants, know this; the man appreciates quality and isn’t afraid of spending time or resources to get it. “I got tired of flies that I bought from shops,” he said. “A lot didn’t swim right, others were generic and didn’t resemble the baitfish in my water, and then there were those that fell apart. So I guess my first focus was to learn to tie flies that didn’t fall apart. Then, I could test them out to see if their coloration, proportions and materials all contributed to their fish catchability. To get there I had to study the natural environment, so I pulled out a mask and snorkel and dived in.”

As he did with fly fishing so too did Rice go with tying. “I bought a vise, some tools and materials, read a few books, and taught myself to tie,” he said. “My first efforts were junk, but soon enough I had some decent patterns. I gave them to my buddy Scott to fish and they worked. I kept tying and tying, and before long other guides wanted some.”

Things gelled on a trip to Andros. “I bought some standard flies and then studied pictures of shrimp and crabs indigenous to Andros,” he said. “I twisted up some of my own patterns and found I caught more bones, ‘cuda and snapper on the flies I had tied than on the ones I bought. I decided then and there that when I got home I’d give commercial tying a shot. The table full of empty Kalik bottles and conch fritters might have had something to do with that too, I don’t know.”

Rice tied some samples and headed to local shops to see if he could sell them. “The first shop I got my flies into was Capt. David Bitters’ Baymen Outfitters in Duxbury. I then went into Bob Benson’s Fishing the Cape on Cape Cod, and then Alec Stansell’s The Fly Shop in Portland, Maine. It went from there. It took me three years to get Scott Wessels at the Bears Den to carry my flies. I’d go in with a box of stuff, he’d go through them and say ‘this needs a little more work, less of this, more of that, wtf is this?’ Honestly, that was the best thing that could have happened because on the day he said, ‘yeah dude, I’ll take those,’ I knew I was finally getting it not only from the water side, but also on the retail side.”

Casual tiers often have cluttered benches. But when it comes to commercial production work, a well-lit, well-organized desk helps Rice be more efficient and streamlined.

Now, Rice needed a name for his company, and inspiration came while he was fishing his home waters with his black Lab. “I was on a mud flat with Jack,” he said. “I was trying to come up with a cool name for the business but nothing made sense. Late in the day, Jack was covered in river mud and he ran up and shook the mud all over me. Mud Dog kinda stuck. These days, most people just call me Dog, not Mike.”

These days, Rice ties over 10,000 flies per year. “Production tying requires a set up,” he said. “It’s obviously easier to tie 10 dozen of the same fly because I can take a day, prep the materials for each fly, and then grind. I tie some patterns in a few minutes while others take a quarter of an hour. Getting properly set up is the key, because then I can focus on the application at hand. That prep helps me focus on tying durable flies that cast well, swim right, and appeal to fish. In the winter I might tie for hours, but during fishing season I’ll spend a few hours tying and then hit the water. The idea that a “living” can be made by tying flies is just not realistic. Over the past 22 years I regularly donate to charities, conservation groups, and to tournaments. In some years I’ve given away as much as I’ve sold. Mine isn’t the best business plan, but it makes me happy.”

To make ends meet, Rice will work other jobs as necessary. He writes , but these days he’s working with his partner, Jill Mason, to develop her art business (Jill Mason Art) “Jill and I had been taking photos for years all along the coast,” he said. “We print our photos on canvas and then apply them to a solid wood back. The image is then glazed, and we frame it in distressed wood. We work together in our barn which allows me to be able to jump on the vise for an extra hour when necessary. We’ll also take an hour or two in the middle of the day to walk down to the beach or check out what’s happening on the North or the South River. She’ll take some images and I’ll test some flies. It’s a wonderful life, and we both love being connected to the tide.”

Rice is a Regal Vise Endorsed Fly Tier, an American Museum of Fly Fishing Ambassador and a member of the Outdoor Writers Association of America. “One type of inspiration comes from people who have been buying flies from me for 20 plus years,” he said. “Some fish all the time, others hit it on the weekends. A bunch fish all over the world. Now that so much time has passed their kids are buying my flies. Whenever I need a rush I think of them making a cast to a fish and I perk right up. They’re the ones who inspire me, just like the fish and the sea.”

Tom Keer
Tom Keer is a writer, fly rodder and hunter who lives on Cape Cod, Massachusetts. www.tomkeer.com