Jay Morr Photography

Found some awesome photography by Jay Morr.

Check it out - enjoy!

Damn humans always trying to get in my photos! Gonna have to Photoshop them out of this one too!

"Hey, can you email a copy of this pic when you get home?"

The M&M Flymph! FOTD

The Flymph has made it's first appearance on this website - mainly because it is beautifully photographed and a relatively easy tie. LuciV is no stranger to this blog - he/she has been on here with some beautiful Dun patterns.

The photography on these patterns is stunning - check them out:

Union Reservoir - Sunday, August 16, 2009

This was a WTF were we thinking trip - I mean, with so many cold water fisheries available to fish and having access to a boat to boot, we had our pick of any destination. Somehow I got tasked with putting this trip together and I royally screwed it up. I did manage to find two other guys to screw it up with - and to them I owe an apology. Please read the disclaimer - no fish over an inch and a half were harmed in the making of these photos - with the exception of some Old Chub's, which were drained and abused.

Scott and I met up at 5am in Morrison - that's early, especially since he has to wrassle up the boat and drive down 285 for about 20 miles to get there. I managed to slide into the Conoco at right on time. We met Steffan just after 6am at Union - would have been a few minutes earlier if Scott didn't have a disgusting, dirty gas station, plastic wrapped burrito urge that he couldn't say no too - and if we had paid attention to those big brown UNION RESERVOIR signs on the side of the road. Anyways, we made it - and we on the water in no time. We slowly set out for the shore and marked a few bait balls and fish, until we reached the eastern shore. There we started casting aimlessly at fish that didn't seem to be there.

The Chubs started cracking early - like 7:15am early - I needed to get a liquid breakfast in and what better way than with a little Scottish Ale! The boys were all business - well, just long enough to get in some serious pics:






Scott swore up and down that he couldn't drink the Chub because it made him feel bloated and irritable, but soon even he couldn't deny the charm of ice cold Chubs! Steffan and he started drinking them too - we killed off about 6 in the first 45 minutes. Then the action really started picking up - we trolled, and trolled and trolled, and trolled and found....nothing. The weather was decent - not too windy, just a steady breeze and the weather was about 75 degrees and no sign of bad weather yet. By noon we were about 5,000 casts into a skunking. We were again patrolling the east bank when it was obvious there was a lot of bait activity on the surface. Now, being the skilled fisherman that I am I can just sense when the bite is going to be on and my instincts told me to go with the brown and black Andrew's Slider carp fly. A strategically placed cast yielded our only catch of the day - but it was well worth the wait - although not my best fish, he was fairly hooked right in the mouth.



Now, he doesn't really look that big, but that is because I have really small hands and face and glasses, and I have him right up close to the camera. I don't think he broke the 1.5 foot mark or the 1.5 inch mark, but he was a keeper. We passed him around a couple of times for pics, but he was safely released into the wild.





We met up with MarkM later in the day and chatted with him while we ate some lunch. We did a lot more lounging than fishing in the afternoon, and did manage to spook 3 carp out of the deep weeds. We did manage to get stuck a couple of times in the deep cattails, but it was worth it.



Scott managed to scoop out a few baby catfish that were as black as coal and had long whiskers - there was a school of hundreds of them up in the cattails that Scott managed to get the boat beached in.



It ended up being a great day, the weather was good, the beer was cold, the conversation was good, and I didn't have to wear a shirt. We were out of there just after 4pm and home by 5:30. Not too shabby. I went to bed at 8:30 that night and don't remember anything until morning. 6 Chubs, a wicked sunburn on my gutt and my feet and three crab salad sandwichs did me in. Thanks guys for not letting me over do it!!

Best Fly Fishing Photographer FOUND!

This guy is by far the best outdoor/fly fishing photographer I have found. He has the amazing ability to turn items we see every day on the water into vibrant, colorful and unique photographs. Basically I want to reproduce Brett Colvin's entire website here - but obviously can't do that - his pictures are amazing, as he makes art out of everything from dogs to fly reels. Amazing, amazing, amazing stuff here. Here is just a sample of Brett's work - unique and colorful:





I added Brett's blog to my Blogs feed on the right hand side of the page - here's to hoping I see his at the top (meaning it gets updated frequently!!).

Greenland is Free (well almost)

Check out the photos on the The Big Picture of Greenland, which gained partial independence from the Danes. With only 57K permanent residents this place is one of the few untouched beauties.

After almost 300 years under Danish rule, the island of Greenland has just taken a big step toward sovereignty. Greenland passed a referendum last year requesting more powers from Copenhagen, and it was granted, taking effect on June 21st, 2009. Denmark still retains control of finances, foreign affairs, and defense, but will phase out an annual subsidy, and give over control of most of the islands natural resources. Additionally, Greenlandic is now the sole official language, and Greenlanders are now treated as a separate people under international law. Although the island is massive - with an area of over 2 million square kilometers (825,000 sq mi), its population is small, with just over 57,000 residents, 88% of Inuit descent and and 12% of European descent. Collected here are some recent photographs from all around Greenland.

Bass Fishing - Chatfield - Sunday, August 2, 2009

Chatfield - Sunday, August 2, 2009
Water in the lake is high - around 5,432 ft - whcih is 2 feet higher than "normal", and the water clarity was not so good. The wind was also a factor - as it gust from 6am to noontime.

I hooked up with a buddy of mine from the RMF board - Scott - who was a pro Chatfield fisherman. He's been out on this lake a lot and wanted to get me into some small mouth bass on a fly rod. Since I have never been fishing for smallies on a fly rod, and had technically never caught a thing at Chatfield, I was eager to get a shot at some real fish.

We met up at 6am, I literally left my house at 10 of 6 and still made it on time - how sweet is it to live that close to a great fishery! We had the boat ramp open so we dumped in and headed out. Everything went smoothly and we were running along the dam even before the sun cressed the top. The wind was up - more than normal - and never really died off - it was always blowing.



I tied on one of Scott's secret weapon shad patterns and started casting towards the dam and retrieving. The dam has a road that runs parralel to it and it goes from about 10 feet to 15 or 20 feet pretty quickly. The fish sit right on this ridge and attach the bait fish. There are tons of bait fish in Chatfield - as witnessed by the fish finder and later on we could see them in the shallows. The Shallows of the lake on the far west side allow for much warmer water and the water gets pretty skinny & shallow - the bait fish hang out in these areas, but start to cruise in schools once they get a bit larger. We saw plenty of fish jumping out of the water, including some enormous carp, some trout and some unknown fish (probably bass, although bass don't usually jump out of the water like that).



After an hour or so I managed to hook my first fish, it was more by accident than anything else, I hooked him on a slow mis-strip that I kind of let the fly drop a little more than normal. The fish here love the bottom and hang ups on rocks are inevitable, so you need to keep moving or strip like crazy or you will (and I did) lose tons of flies. The fish was a cute little bass, maybe 9 inches long - and he basically swallowed the fly whole - somehow he got a size 6 hook, with barbel eye in his mouth. It just goes to show how these fish slam and devour anything. I'd love to show you a picture, but that fish was only bait worthy.

I lost that shad pattern a few casts later. I tied on my crawfish pattern next and hooked up a good sized fish, only to lose him at the surface before I got a decent look at him. Soon after that I lost that fly as well. We went another couple hours of trying different flies, fighting the wind, shooting the sh!t but no fish. I changed back and forth - finally settleing on another crawdad pattern I had tied - and I hooked up again. But again the fish was very small - about 9 inches again. Not exactly picture worthy.



Hang ups were happening for me a lot - and I got one final hang up that cost me a rod. I broke my rod just below the first eye - and I was barely cranking on it. I wasn't bummed nearly as much as Scott was for me - but it was a backup rod, and it has a stiffer action than I am used to - so I wasn't too broken up it (that and a 25 year guarantee from Orvis!). We decided to try and chase some carp. I rigged up the 2 piece rod with a floating line and we headed for the banks. Chatfield is so flooded that most of the brush on the shore is under water - carp love this water - although we never saw any. About 10:30 we headed all the way across Chatfield to the far west bays and scouted it out. We saw some movements, but never saw any carp. I showed Scott my secret bays and we cruised them. We werein less than a foot and a half of water and Scott's boat and trolling motor still held up. We trolled the whole thing with no problems at all.

11:30 came and we decided to get off the lake. The water skiers and crowds were too much and we headed back across the lake. The boat ramp was packed (as usual) and after a few minutes we had the boat on the trailer and we were out of there.

It was great meeting another board member - and he opened up a whole new world of fishing to me. Although I had tried belly boating in the exact same spots as we were - I had never known "how" to fish for the smallies. Thanks Scott for showing me how it was done.

Oh, and I dropped the rod off at Orvis today, and bought some barbel eyes and some Frosty Fish Fiber material to tie some of those shad flies. I owe Scott 3 or them!

Some Duns - FOTD

Check out these great dun patterns by LuciV over at Fly Tying Forum. Some great dries and some great pics.