Catching My Fair Share

www.frontsidefly.com

2012-01-29T06:40:00.000-07:00

I'm not sure if you guys read other blogs, but this one has popped up quite a few times this year on my Google Reader feed with new videos from a couple of kids who fish the Artic/Nordic (not sure of the difference). The cool thing about these kids is they aren't showing off, no swagger like the Felt Soul guys, no expensive equipment, just huge trout, unbelievable scenery and just having a good time.

Check it out when you get a chance.

www.frontsidefly.com

About to freak this - frontsidefly from Rolf Nylinder on Vimeo.

Colorado River - Dec 27, 2011

2011-12-29T09:56:00.002-07:00

Fished the Colorado River again in the same spot as last week with Steffan. Same result, just much smaller fish this time. Nothing really over 16 inches - and only 1 that big - all browns, but it was great to get out with Steffan.

Attached are some pics of the river and Steffan catching some fish. Steffan broke 2 tips to the ice - it was an expensive day for him.

Colorado River - December 18, 2011

2011-12-19T20:58:00.004-07:00

Werm, Kratt and I made plans to fish on Sunday - it ended up being a Werm Birthday/Secret Santa trip. Kratt and Werm showed up just before 5am and we were on the road. The ride up was pretty uneventful - made it up there (spot is omitted to protect the innocent fish) around 6:45 with no one in the parking lot.

Although the Secret Santa was a total bust this year, Kratt made the below fish for Werms - complete with Werm's 5 favorite beers and Old Chub. Somehow it was conveyed by me to Kratt the Werm loved Chub, so that is why it got prime real estate on the fish. Pretty fun now. But, that fish is frickin amazing - Kratt did a really good job and no lost finger (or close to it) this year!

Werm and Kratt cracked beers in the car, while I got out and walked around a bit - damn it was cold - like -6* cold. Finally the boys got out of the car and started dressing - the sun was just popping over the mtns and through the trees. We spotted a bald eagle right off - a good start to the morning.

We struggled to get dressed, struggled to tie on flies and struggled to actually get down and into the water - but we made it. I caught a small brown on my first cast, Werm had a fish on soon after and Kratt followed it up - all of us were off the skunk. It seemed like another hour or so before we caught any more fish. We had a couple hook ups and slow sets along the way, but eventually we started landing fish - it went in the same order, small browns, but at least we were catching. The water looked cool, with steam coming off and a strong sun coming over the mountains - the sun felt good, but the water was a long way from warming up.

We seriously were pounding beers (and Maker's for Kratt) - I think all day we drank beer instead of water - must have been about 18 or so. 7am and we were drinking. The morning seemed to go by quick, although expensively - Kratt snapped a tip on his rod no more than 10 casts in while chipping ice off and I lost numerous fly rigs on the bottom. Another funny thing happened - while Kratt was getting a new rod, a hunter crossed below us, with a young black lap in tow. He passed across the river from us and nodded, then no more than 2 minutes later we heard a loud pop gunshot and saw a few ducks flying down river - scared the PISS out of me! But it was pretty funny.

About 9am I hooked into a good sized fish, the rainbow below. The hardest part was I couldn't land these pigs myself because I had about 12 feel of line from my fly line to my bottom fly (bad planning on my part). The rainbow was nice and thick and took the midge - he was by estimate 18.5 to 19 inches and fat as anything - what a great fish. Soon after I hooked and landed a 17 or 18 inch cuttbow - not quite as thick. I think those were the only two bow/cuttbows of the day. The second bow took the an egg.

After about 10am the water started warming and the air seemed almost bearable. The fish started cooperating as well - Werms started going to town landing fish after fish as Kratt and I struggled to keep a fish on the end of the line. We eventually started hooking up and we all landed some nice browns - but then it died out again at 11am and we decided to hit up another spot to try our luck.

After a 25 minute ride - which felt awesome because we were finally warming up and getting feeling back in our feet - we landed.. At the parking lot there was a 10 foot shelf of ice out into the middle of the river to where the fast water was - there were tons of iceberg sized floaters going down river and we decided that this was not a good idea. We headed back to our original spot.

Around 12:45 or so we were back,, another beer, a quick dump for Kratt and we were on the water. However, there were two guys in our hole - so we fished down low and I made my way back to the hole to see if I could squeeze in between the two guys. The older guy left, and the other guy was just standing in our hole, on the bank, rod strung up, just looking at the water. When I got up to him I asked how the fishing was and he replied "caught one up there, just getting started" - I was thinking its gonna be a long wait - so I hit the split at the top of the pool, made 4 casts, looked back downriver and the guy was walking back to the car - my next cast flung into a birdsnest, so I started back to our spot. I was waving Kratt upriver the whole way back to the hole!

As I was re-tying my shit, Kratt proceeded to hammer the hole - catching 3 fish before I had even tied on a fly. He even got the token whitefish of our trip! Werm was soon up river again and we fished across river from each other for the rest of the day.

There was about an hour period there where we hammered them - with several doubles and a couple near triples. We didn't take much time to take pics because we didn't want to miss the window of opportunity. The weather was beautiful now - almost not glove weather, but not quite.

I managed 3 browns on 3 casts in the same spot - all fought so hard and didn't want to be netted. The fish below was my favorite - although not as colorful as most of the browns we caugt - he was the longest - I taped him out at 20 inches next to my rod. What a nice surprise in this hole! The good fishing continue - lots of browns with their golden bellies, blue and red spots and red tipped tail fins - amazingly colorful and a lot of fun. The damn browns also spin themselves to death when you get them in on a rig - they flip around in the net 25 times before you can grab them - throwing your rig into a rats nest and tangles. I released a couple fish only to find they weren't released because in their spinning hurry they hooked their asses on the fly below.

What a great day. At 3pm or so we decided to head out and get in line with the ski traffic, which didn't end up being too bad. It was a quick ride home. The flies that worked were basically eggs and small grey or black midges. Those seemed to pick up fish, but mostly as the water warmed up.

Thanks for the great trip boys - I wouldn't have done this on my own, but you guys talked me into it.

Colorado River - November 17, 2011

2011-11-20T09:24:00.002-07:00

Werm and I decided to do some fishing during the week to escape the crowds and before it got too cold. On a tip from a friend, we decided to hit the Colorado River (specific spot is intentially omitted for fear that it will be hotspotted). Werm was at my house at 4:30am and we hit the road. The ride was pretty uneventful, but it was beautiful to see the sun rise against the snow on the mtns backdrop. We were in the parking lot at 6:30 and suited up. The morning was about 15 degrees, but no wind and the flows were good at 573 cfs.

We jumped into the bridge pool, Werm was pre-rigged and ready to go, I set up the camera behind him and recorded his first few minutes. In the 10 minutes of filming him he caught 6 fish, and it didnt stop all day long. He caught those 6 fish before I even wet my line. I was struggling to get going. The hot fly all day was the chartruese egg. Werm kept slamming them throughout morning - getting about 20 before I even managed my first. We fished below and above the bridge and Werm torn it up.

The absolute funniest part of the morning was when Werm got a tangle and was undoing it, I jumped into his hole just in time to see a huge brown head surface between me and my indicator. My first reaction was that a huge carp was surfacing, but them I saw two eyes and a face and I screamed, pooped myself a little bit and started running and falling to get out of the water - I put my arm down to brace my fall and got soaked, but I avoided the huge beaver that just surfaced less than 3 feet from me. Problem is, I still had my rod in my hand and now the indicator was zooming to the middle of the run - I had a small dog sized beaver on my rod. Luckily within seconds he broke off, taking my entire rig and my indicator floated freely down river.

At about 11am I finally started catching fish. The first was a nice 18 inch fat rainbow - that looked like a stillwater pig. I then got a few more, including some large whities. Werm didnt stop all day, continually catching fish after fish. It was fun watching him catch fish - he must have had at least 40 - all on the chartruese egg. I caught 2 on a gray sparkle RS2 - both whities. The afternoon saw my start catching a few more, but after 12:30 or so we only caught dinks - all were under 13 inches.

What a great day to be out - great fishing, some good beer, the fish cooperated, even some big ones. We left about 1:30 and were back at my house at 4. I forgot to mention I did catch a fish in the morning. I snagged a stick that had a brown trout wrapped in monofilament dead on it - so technically I caught a fish. Dead fish are way harder to catch than alive fish - just sayin'.

Werm poked around under some rocks and found some huge stoneflies - they were easily 2 or 3 inches long.

Thanks for driving Werm - can't wait to do it again!!

Hogs Gone Wild?

2011-10-29T21:01:00.004-06:00

Holy @$%#&@, look at this picture - the dude has the fish by the scruff of the neck to hold it up. That fish looks like someone stuck a hose up his butt and filled him full of air. WTF!

Wow. BTW, I don't know who this guy is, but that is a pretty nice catch. It was on a streamer at a South Park lake.

Bear Creek Res - October 29, 2011

2011-10-29T18:47:00.000-06:00

Hef and I have been trying to make plans to hit BCR for a while - things finally panned out. We met up just before 1pm at the lot next to the Shell station on Morrison Road and I jumped in his truck, we were down the road and on BCR by 1:15.

Of course it was like glass when we got there, and about 30 minutes later...it wasn't. We fished the inlet from Bear Creek and tried stripping streamers - with no luck. We each had a hit, but not much else. I talked Hef into trying a pegged egg and within a few minutes he had on a fish - actually the fish had on him - as it hooked himself (Hef wasn't even holding the rod) and jumped about 4 feet in the air. The fish was a little acrobat - a nice little 13 or 14 inch rainbow.

Soon after he were into another fish - another little rainbow that jumped and popped off right next to the boat.

The wind kept blowing and it got colder. We eventually called it quits about 3:15 - I was home by 4. It was great to finally meet Hef.

Silverthorne Pond, October 10, 2011

2011-10-16T08:53:00.004-06:00

Due to Columbus Day on Monday, my son's daycare was closed and my daughter was also on fall break from school - so I took the day off and took the kids up into the mountains for some fun. We started out by hitting the stocked pond in Silverthorne near the school - we could see a few fish, but had no luck catching any. I fished for about an hour hoping to catch something and have the kids net it - but I was skunked.

It was almost lunchtime so we hit up McDonald's and then headed towards A-Basin and up over Loveland Pass. There wasn't a ton of snow up there, but enough to make everything white and have the kids play in about 3 or 4 inches of snow.

We had a 1:30pm departure time on the Georgetown Loop Railroad, so we headed down the Pass to Georgetown. The trip was fun, a 20 minute trip to Silver Plum, a 20 minute wait and then a 20 minute return trip to Georgetown.

We headed home around 3:30. It was a good day, and the kids had a blast. The fishing didn't go as planned - I was hoping to just get 1 fish and get the kids excited - I figured if they saw one fish it would make them more interested in fishing - but with no fish it was "boring" and may have turned them off to fishing. I guess we will see.

Oct 1, 2011 - Colorado and Blue Rivers

2011-10-02T15:13:00.001-06:00

Cabo and I had a chance to fish with Darren on Saturday - first time we've gotten to fish in over a month - and first time fishing together in 2 months. Started out early around 4:30am, hit the parking lot of Hot Sulphur Springs at just before 6:30 - made good time. It was still dark, so we decided to take our time stringing up. The light started coming up pretty quickly after that and we were soon on the water. The water was low, but the river had completely changed. All of the drop offs and holes were completely filled in. You had to find the fish in the deeper sections and nymph for them.

Darren and I fished the 1/4 mile stretch, picking up a few 12-13 inch browns and a few dinks. Darren picked up a nice rainbow by a downed tree. They were hitting a pink worm and a small jujubee. We decided to hit below the bridge before leaving, at the big pool where the hot springs dumps in - D caught a couple of fish, but besides them it wasn't on there. We were done with the stretch by about 10:30 and decided to head down and hit below Byers Canyon. I love this stretch, having basically learned to fly fish here back about 10 years ago.

We had a beer, ate some chips, then dropped down into the flooded bridge area and immediately started catching dinks. They were fun. We worked our way down to the picnic bend pool area - catching a few here and there, then worked our way back up to the highway bridge and worked the run right by the parking lot. Usually this run is waist deep and full of fish, but the river has changed and now it is mostly shin deep all the way across. We switched to dry dropper, floating nymphs and then 1 dry and caught dinks for about an hour.

The only pic I took all day.

At 1pm we decided to see what the crowd looked like at Parshall Hole. Every spot we had seen today was full with at least 3 cars (some had more). Parshall was no different - 7 cars, 10 anglers and no where to stand, so we just drove by. We decided to head for the kokes on the Blue above GMR. Unfortunately all those spots were taken too - with about 12 cars in one turnout and 5 in another. even Palmer Gulch had 10 cars, so we parked on the Palmer Gulch road in a spin off closer to the bridge - dropped down into a fishy hole and tried it there.

Palmer Gulch is beautiful, but it can be a tough place to fish. The holes there all look fishy and there can be some pigs in there. No kokes in sight yet. I ass hooked a big rainbow and was dragging him in when he popped off. We moved to a hole above us and D saw a fish in a roll hole. We both hooked up on back to back casts - he got a 16 inch rainbow and mine was a beautiful 17 inch cuttbow - what a pretty fish. There seemed to be threats of thunderstorms, but we never got a drop or saw any lightning. We decided to head up to Silverthorne and see what the Observation Bridge or Asbestos Alley was holding. The "O" was full but the I70 bridge was open. We decided to hop in there.

Unfortunately the river has changed here too - no "pools" rather just a long run now. No real depth to hold fish in an easy spot. We fish for maybe 15 minutes and got out of there.

The leaves are changing in the mountains and it is beautiful up there. I wish I had taken more pics, but I forgot the GoPro in the truck most of the day. The water was beautiful, the weather was even better. It was a great day to be out and we caught some fish. Winter is coming up in the high country, you can smell it, feel it and see it - the days are shorter, the air is crisper, and the leaves are falling. Get up there while the fall is here and before winter kicks in.

Thanks D for a great trip.

Boulder Creek - Sept 10, 2011

2011-09-10T20:37:00.000-06:00

I helped Steffan today put in his new radiators in his house. We got done a bit early so we decided to hit up Boulder Creek for a couple of hours to end the day. We did very well, about 10 fish between the 2 of us, the largest being a 10.5 inch brown. Lots of small fiesty browns. Steffan stuck to the dry fly and I nymphed. Great little creek to wet a line on.

South Park - 9/4-9/5/2011

2011-09-06T21:16:00.000-06:00

Had a weekend to fish this past week - decided to do some stillwater and some river fishing with my neighbor - give him a taste of both and I finally get to fish a river this year.

Left early Sunday morning - got to Spinney around 6:30am and it was chilly. Suited up, got the yak out, fished off the second lot. First cast we had a hit - then nothing. We fished until noon out by that second lot, then moved to the South boat ramp and fished that area. Bugs every where - midges, chiros, huge callis. The callis were a greyish white color with a hint of olive. Cool looking bugs. The fish were motorboating the surface with their mouths open - we could see them within 20 feet of us. Some would come right by the boat. We tried everything but dries, deep, shallow, weight, no weight, grey, black, hare's ears. Nothing. Water temp was 58 degrees to start and 60 when we left.

Right before we left Tom hooked and landed a 15 inch bow - we tried to get a pic, but he's not used to hooking, landing, fighting or taking pics of trout. Water temp was 61 degrees.

Left and went to Antero (on the way to the Ark). Fished for 2.5 hours - I managed a couple of pigs, but the fishing was still slow. One 18 inch bow and another 17 inch bow - good fighters.

We left around 5:30 and got into Hecla Junction, at the base of Brown's Canyon around 6:30 - found a camping spot and set up. This was the view from our spot.

We tried fishing the area just below the canyon, but the water was up and that damn river is slippery as hell. The light was also low and Tom had problems seeing the flies he was tying on. I didn't want to get him killed, so we retired early. We cooked dinner, made a fire, drank a bunch of beer and went to bed. Got up at 7am and made bacon and eggs for breakfast. Decided to hit hit just below Big Bend - the water looked great, but we couldn't find any fish. I managed one hook up, but he took my fly and was gone.

We decided to call it a trip and make the 3+ hour trip home in holiday traffic. We did great until Fairplay - minor slow down due to the light - then we hit Boxwood Gulch before Bailey and it was dead stop for about an hour. We finally got to CR64 and took that around to Bailey - as we were head up Bailey hill - on the other side we saw a truck with a flatbed trailer - but it wasn't a flat bed, it was a popup camper, but the popup parts were spread down the side of the highway for 150 yards. Imagine a popup camper full, yard saled down the highway. Not sure if it was hit, flipped or what happened - but it was a mess. The ride home after that was smooth.

Shitty fishing, glad to get out. Not a total waste of a trip.

GoPro Camera drops to $200!!

2011-09-01T11:23:00.001-06:00

On Ebay

Great little "extreme" camera - not great for your up close, low light, zoomed shots, but great for wide angle pics, extreme video, and waterproof everything.

Friday, Aug 19th, Colorado River

2011-08-21T08:30:00.002-06:00

My mom was in town from NC and I decided to take her on a surprise trip up into the mountains - do a little horseback riding, fly fish a little and then she'd end the day at the hot springs with a massage.

The morning started late for us fly fisherman, but early for a 62 year old woman. We left around 6:45, stopped in Silverthorne for some coffee and a donut, then at Cutthroat Anglers to get a day fishing license, then were in Kremmling at Rusty Spurr Ranch at 9am - we had a horseback riding trip at 10am - this ranch was located up Rt 9, about a mile or so from the Pumphouse entry - but you turn right instead. About 4.5 miles back there is a ranch with no electricity. The area is almost all scrub brush, but it borders on some aspen/pine forest and has some good riding areas.

Our trip ended around noon and we bee-lined it for the Parshall Hole. When we got there we saw 2 cars in the lot, and as we ate lunch one of them left - the old guys said they caught a few on Barr's Emergers in size 20. Umm, ok, not going to fish anything that small with my Mom. We were then attacked by mosquitos - pretty crazy. We sprayed down, dressed and headed for the river. It took us a while to get my Mom down that little hill, over fallen trees, through the muddy banks and out about 10 feet into the water. But we made it and we actually caught fish. It took about 20 minutes to figure out the right depth, but we caught 3 nice browns in about 30 minutes.

As you can see from behind my Mom, the weather was starting to turn and we got some showers as we stood there and fished. My Mom had to be in Hot Sulphur Springs by 2:30, so we headed out. I dropped her off at the resort and told her I'd be back at 4:30 after her massage. Werm had mentioned there are some smaller dumb fish in the Hot Sulphur Springs section just north of the bridge - so I figured I'd try it. He was right. I hooked a couple little guys.

I did end up hooking one nice brownie, I taped him just over 16" and he fought a lot better - I thought for sure he would go 19". He ran down the fast water and headed for a bush that was submerged because of the high water. I landed him after a fun fight - and he was a fattie. Great fish for this section.

That was about it, I had a good 2+ hours total on the water today, but it was worth it - then I fought the rain and stupid traffic on the way home over Berthoud. We did see a moose along the road side almost at the top of Berthoud. I was home and eating Chinese food at 7pm.

www.EasyCanvasPrints.com

2011-08-17T20:36:00.002-06:00

I don't usually do this, but I had the chance to sample the canvas prints at www.easycanvasprints.com, and I am pretty impressed with them. I just got it in the mail, and love the pic and really like the quality.

They are constantly having promotions and deals and you can't get a better show piece for your hunting pics, fish pics or in my case, my dog Cabo.

Give them a try!!

Easy Canvas Prints

RMNP August 7, 2011

2011-08-09T13:10:00.001-06:00

On Sunday, Steffan, my neighbor Tom and myself headed up to the Roaring River drainage in RMNP to do some fishing. I was at Steffan's house at 5:30am and we were in the parking lot of Lawn Lake Trailhead at 6:30 - lots of other cars in the lot - we assumed these were from overnight campers.

The hike in was pretty uneventful, it took a good 30 minutes, but wasn't too bad. I took a video of the entire hike up, but not a single picture the whole day. The water was rolling down the hill, fastest I have seen it in my few trips up there. We tied up and jumped in the water, leapfrogging each other. The soft/slow areas that are normally everywhere in this river were hard to find. We'd see fish, but where we had seen 5 or 6 of them in the past in the slow water, we could only see 1 now tucked up to the bank. We didn't catch fish for a while - it was tough going, so we kept moving up river - there is a flatter section further up where we started getting into fish - but not many. I think we got 9 fish total and by 12 noon we decided to head down the hill and head for the Fall River.

The Fall River right there by Lawn Lake Trailhead looks like a beautiful river, but it still had quite a bit of water in it. It was clear and we could see the fish, but they weren't any easier to catch. There are some great bend pools in this river - at lower levels I bet the fish just stack up in them. Steffan headed off with a dry fly and Tom and I stuck to nymphing. I managed a couple brown dinks and Steffan hooked a bunch on dries. We hiked up to the confluence of the Roaring and Fall to check it out and then headed for the truck. We left around 3pm and were home by 5:30.

Not much else to report. Beautiful day, not so great fishing.

Sylvan Lake Camping, Fri July 22 - Sun July 24, 2011

2011-07-25T21:17:00.003-06:00

So, we did a little camping this weekend up in the mountains at Sylvan Lake (15 miles south of Eagle). The place is great for kids - 15 miles away from any town - keeps the riff raff out. Just a bunch of families enjoying the lake, mountains and sun. Got up there Friday around 6pm, set up the camper, made some hot dogs, started a fire and had smores. The kids were pretty wired from being in the mountains and enjoyed running around the campground and "walking" Cabo. Hit the hay pretty early - probably 10pm or so.

I got up at 5:30 on Saturday morning and took the dog and kayak out on the lake. The wind was steady in your face from the far side of the lake - nothing too bad though, just had to dig in the paddles a little more. I like the inlet to the lake because the water seems to be moving a little and I have seen fish in that section. I set up shop about 60 yards from the inlet and dropped anchor.

I was surprised how cold the breeze was and the sun wasn't even visible on the far off peaks yet. I started getting hits right away - had a orange scud/grey chiro/peach pegged egg rig on. The first fish I had on was the best, I never landed it, but I could tell it was good sized as it started running horizontal at a very fast pace - no head shakes, not real tugs, just a 20 foot run to the side in about 2 seconds and he was off. I was excited to get a hit so quickly. The indicator kept bouncing, but I wasn't hooking into anything. Finally, I got a pretty little rainbow. He was maybe 11 inches, not much of a pull on the rod - but it was fun to be into fish.

Soon after that I had anohter hit, a fun little fight and landed this brookie (again, about 11 inches) on the chiro. My first brookie in a long long time.

I managed another rainbow, and tried drifting back with the wind to the boat ramp. But the wind stopped, the sun came out strong and the fishing turned off. I saw the family waving at me back at the ramp, so I paddled out.

We had a fun day of playing in the water, eating lunch, and hiking - the kids got grumpy and the wife wanted a nap - so they crashed in the camper around 3pm and I hit the water again. I trolled around a few spots - again, a bunch of plops on the indicator, but nothing I could hook up with. I caught one nice 11 inch rainbow, then hooked a tiny rainbow as I had just cast my rig - must have been falling through the water column. I paddled back down to the inlet and hooked this brookie - again, same size - this one on a green scud.

I was done by about 5:30 and paddles back to the boat ramp. Avi and Mom were awake, but Z and Emma were still sleeping. We woke them up and headed into Eagle for Diner food and bowling. We got back to camp around 9:30 and had a small fire and more smores (of course). Hit bed around 10 again. I was going to get up the next morning and fish, but Avi slept next to me and there was no way to sneak out without waking her - so I slept in.

Sunday we played some more in the water - found lots of mayflies, damsel flies, thousands of grey/green scuds and just had fun checking it out. Here are some more fun pics of the weekend:

Great weather all weekend, no rain, in the mid-80's. We tried some off roading on the roads up behind Sylvan - went about 10 miles deep trying to find the old resort beaver ponds, but couldn't find them. Took all the roads back there, but couldn't find them. We did find Lede Reservoir - which was infested with horseflies. Some rough road back there. I would guess we were almost all the way over to Ruedi, but we didn't see any signs for it. Very pretty country.

We hit some traffic coming home, so we stopped in Frisco at the brewery for some food and sitting on the deck - very relaxing. Got home around 4pm. A very nice trip with the family.

South Park lake fishing - July 12, 2011

2011-07-13T21:09:00.002-06:00

D and I hit up a lake in SP - first boat on the water at 6am - by over a half an hour. Morning was dead calm, and dead slow. The first thing I noticed in the morning was the noser - hundreds of fishing nosing up in the water really early in the morning. It was a sea of noses.

D picked up 4, missed at least a dozen others. I landed 2 - had another half dozen or so takes.

D's last fish of the morning was a sweet 20+inch fat bow caught on a red brassie chiro.

We could see a huge storm and thunder/lightning hitting just south of the dam - a couple of miles away. Since it was way off we weren't nervous. It was still partly sunny over our heads - we had missed the storm. Then a clap of thunder and lightning hit right over our heads, and we were reeled in and headed for shore in less than 30 secs. It started raining, so we docked the boat and sat in the truck and ate lunch around 1pm. 20 mins later it had stopped and the sun was out - we fished right off the parking lot and started hammering them. Of course the storm decided to come back over the mtns and just pounded us for the nmext hour - on and off. But we kept slamming the fish - catching about 15 or so in the next 1:45 mins.

During the rain storm! I wish I could explain how hard and wet it rained.

Flies: we caught a couple on chiros, but most everything on eggs.

Bugs: one huge damsel in army man green - a size 8 I'd say. Some size 12 yellow caddis - cool looking, but they crawl up your neck (weird). And tons of callibaetis - the dries were a size 10 or so and they were light tan/light grey/albino colored - they were everywhere. No sign of chiros - which was weird.

This is a pic of soaked D and his cool boat. We were headed out - the weather kicked our butt, but it was fun!

Home by 5:30 or so. Thanks for floating us D!

The Workhorse - FOTD

2011-06-21T21:06:00.002-06:00

The Workhorse by the Haddis Catch. Great looking fly (and even better photo - fly porn!). Check out his website for tons more great fishing stories and patterns.

Great job (again) Brian!

Delaney's Sat & Sun, June 11-12, 2011

2011-06-14T21:48:00.005-06:00

I hit up Delaney's on Saturday night - got the hall pass with my MIL in town - stayed through Sunday. Got up there around 6pm, South Lake had about 40 boaters/belly boaters/tubers/canoers in it (not kidding). Chatted with my buddy Mark over at North Lake for about an hour. Hit South Lake from about 7:30 until 9am. Hooked 4 fish, landed a 15 inch sucker and got a 16 or so inch rainbow right up to me before he popped off. Headed back to my buddies camper to hang out - when a nasty storm came in - literally 45 mph winds and driving rain. Lasted about 40 minutes then it was dead calm. I was going to fish, but by now it was 11pm, so I called it a night and slept in the truck. Killed about 1,000,000,000 chironomids that had snuck in the truck and attacked my dome light. Took about 30 minutes to kill them all.

Sunday morning was up at 6am, on the water by 7am on North Lake - fishing for some nice browns - paddled across the lake in the kayak. Fished in 9 feet of water with no luck. Paddled my ass back (into the wind) around 9am, and went to South Lake. Fished the South Lake until about 2pm, had a bunch of hits, landed NOTHING. I'm embarrassed I got skunked at the D's. Saw a few fish, perfect weather, medium breeze, warm, lots of chiros hatching - just couldn't figure it out. Long drive for no fish.

No callis or damsels hatching yet. Don't believe the North Park Anglers reports of the D's like the other 100 or so other campers that were up there. Literally the place was insane, no doubt all due to the rivers being blown out, no mosquitoes yet, and the NPA glamorous reports. Rumor has it that it isn't on fire yet - my buddy has fished it the last 4 weeks with limited success. It has not "turned on" just yet, but it will - I'm sure the callibaetis hatch will bring on a feeding frenzy.

If you go, good luck, I wish you the best.

South Platte River below Chatfield

2011-05-21T20:41:00.003-06:00

Today I hit up the South Platter River below Chatfield. This part of the river is so close to my house, but the reputation as a warm water trashy river completely turned me off to it. Not knowing if this reputation was deserved or not, I finally decided to give it a chance. Unfortunately the reputation is well deserved.

Yes, the flows below Chatfield are historically low right now (not sure why - I guess trying to fill up Chatty), but no matter how you view it, the place is just a nightmare. However, the parks department has put a parking area/ranger station/park office right behind Aspen Grove mall on Santa Fe in Littleton. I had no idea it was there and stumbled upon it. I went inside and talked to a nice guy about the area and he explained the river and the surrounding areas. Inside the office there is a greeting area with all kinds of stuff animals that are in this area - from snakes to foxes to hawks to weasels to coyotes to beavers. Pretty cool little exhibit.

I decided to grab my gear and hike in there right at Ken Caryl. As I was walking in I dropped down to the river and scared a cool colored lizard - he was a limey green color, but I only saw him for a second. The river is horrible colored with nasty algea growing on the bottom, and it was terribly off color - which makes no sense since the flows were so low. I kept moving up river towards Chatfield, hoping to find some fish moving. I did not even string up the rod - just hiked along the rivers edge. There are a couple nice runs, but the water is ugly, no way any trout are in there. I took the temp and it said 60 degrees, which is way too warm for that river in mid May.

There are some restored areas with riffles and waterfalls, but I saw nothing. I even threw in some rocks to see if I could see something scatter - nothing. I moved all the way up to first small pond - there on a fallen little tree I saw a black snake all stretched out on the branch - pretty cool position - he was just sunning himself. I saw tons and tons of different birds as well - flitting in and out of the brush and singing to each other. Of course the bike path follows the river - so lots of bikers, runners and walkers going down the path giving me dirty looks.

The little pond that connects to the river was full of shadowy figures sitting up on top of the water sunning themselves - huge carp, some I'd guess hit 30 lbs or so. I tried my best to cast to them with my carp flies, spooked a bunch of them, had a few laugh at my flies and ended up getting skunked. At least I know where they are now!!

I headed back to the truck - my 3 hour excursion was over - I was not disappointed with the adventure - I saw lots of different animals, tons of fox and raccoon footprints, listened to the birds and saw some fish. Not a bad afternoon only 4 miles from my house!

I know TU is thinking about fixing this section of the Platte, but until Denver Water promises consistent flows out of Chatty, this would be a waste of time. That section needs to be blown out for 6 months straight, and then consistent flows in the 1,000cfs range - which will never happen.

I'm just glad I got out.

Spinney, Fri & Sat, May 13-14, 2011

2011-05-15T20:32:00.003-06:00

I can't even come close to describing our fishing trip to you - lots of inside jokes, 2 cases of beer, tons of bullshitting and fish tales and of course a ton of fish. We got a reputation this weekend, when you see the big red boat with the loud asshole in the Red Sox hat on it - you follow it wherever it goes. We had boats within 100 feet of us all weekend, and one time I counted 5 within range. A couple boats came by to ask what we were using, when we said chironomids they didn't beleive us. We should have said powerbait. The fish were beautiful and we were lucky to have a good couple of days with warm sun and very little wind (for 2 half days at least).

Scott, Werm and myself camped at Chaparral General Store, got to check out the new camper and got the luxury of Scott's boat - thanks man!

Here is some fish porn, enjoy:

First beer of the morning - pwned by Scott!

It was a great trip, I think we cleared 75 fish total. It took us a while, but we kept moving and found the fish. Once we did we stayed on it and were rewarded. Thanks boys for the great trip. Thanks Scott for letting us use the camper and the boat.

I don't like to kiss and tell, but this is a very large lake and there isn't many secrets on this lake. Plus, the water was so low that our favorite spot could be completely different when the water starts coming into the lake (it was at least 7 feet low). You can't get to this spot on foot, and it would take an Olympic kick swimmer to get there by belly boat.

I will say that although Spinney is a flies and lures only lake and mostly a catch and release (you can keep a 20+ trout or any pike) we as anglers need to respect the regulations and fish in this lake. We did see too many people mishandling fish, horsing in fish on spin rods with 10 lb test and bad boating in general. I ask that if you are fishing with someone who decides to do any of these things that you point out that it is careless and only hurts the experience of others and future fishermen. Let's ensure the future of this (and all) fisheries.

I'm looking forward to a great fishing summer!

Spinney, Saturday, April 23, 2011

2011-04-24T20:04:00.004-06:00

Not much to report. My buddy Scott and I hit Spinney on Saturday. Day started nasty in Confier with heavy snow - couldn't see 20 feet in front of the truck, made it slow going. Took 2 hours to get there. Saw a Ford Focus with an elk in it's windshield just outside of Fairplay - scary and sad. The roads were a mess over Kenosha and all the way to Fairplay. Just outside of fairplay it cleared and the roads were dry.

Hiked in from the northwest lot - still a very long walk in - caught 1 fish each all day. Scott nabbed a 15 incher chunky rainbow and I caught a 19 inch solid rainbow. Only had one other hook up the whole day. It was a breezy day - not crazy wind, but still enough to be cold and painful. Blowing snow hit us on and off all day. Walked to the bluffs which were muddy and silty. Left around 1pm, roads were wet most of the way, dry on this side of Kenosha, not a drop of snow in Conifer, home in my house around 4pm.

Crappy day, but hey, at least I got out.

Before Fairplay

After Fairplay - big difference

The BHGRHE - FOTD

2011-04-19T17:22:00.003-06:00

The BHGRHE is the Tuesday tie from the Haddis Catch.

DAMN!! This thing looks buggy - and it looks like a decent tie. Although I can't tell exactly what the "tail" fibers are - but I suspect speckled hen like the "legs".

Well played Brian J! Well played!

Stillwater, Saturday, April 9, 2011

2011-04-09T15:51:00.003-06:00

Stillwater fishing, first trip of 2011 season. Sorry, I can't disclose my "secret" spots. Enjoy the fishporn.

The early early morning was calm, but after sunrise it got difficult, by 8am the wind was horrible, literally you could cast about 10 feet in front of you and 10 seconds later you'd have to recast - it was pretty miserable. We were blown off the lake, back to the truck and home and in the house at 2pm. These pics don't do the fish justice.

Stonefly Tie - FOTD

2011-04-05T19:35:00.002-06:00

A great stone fly pattern over at The Haddis Catch. I like this Copper Stone for the golden d-rib outlines by the silver wire - I have tried this and my result are not nearly as nice. The legs are an interesting addition - I like the way they add to the buginess of this fly.

Nice tie man! If you get the chance, check out the rest of his blog, he has some interesting stories and lots of fish pics.

The Fork, The Pan and the The Raddy, in a Weekend

2011-03-28T21:35:00.002-06:00

This is a mostly true story about two guys, a dog, a few fly rods, and a weekend to burn. Get your mind out of the gutter, we did nothing weird with the fly rods.

Day 1 - the Roaring Fork River - Friday, March 25, 2011....a day to remember.

I worked a half a day, got out of there at 12:15, hit home, grabbed the dog, and headed for the Morrison park-n-ride at I70. Made it around 1:15pm, and Steffan was waiting, he packed his gear in my truck and we were on our way. A quick stop at Subway in Idaho Springs and we were again on our way up the hill. We rolled into Glenwood around 3:45 and pulled into the Roaring Fork access right across from the Days Inn in Carbondale at around 4:15pm.

We got out, stretched a little, tinkled, and chatted up a couple guys who were just leaving. One was a guide from Taylor Creek Anglers who said he had been guiding this river for over 10 years. He said he had caught a 22 incher just up river on a size 22 purple baetis. He had caught a few others as well, including an 18 incher. They said good luck, jumped into their pick-up and were gone.

We looked at each other and debate the story - did he say he caught an 18 incher on a size 22 baetis, or a 22 incher on a size 18 baetis? We couldn't agree on what he had said, but we knew that the Fork didn't have any 22 inch fish, so the guy was fibbing a little bit - and he didn't even have a camera or a pic to prove it, so he was definitely bullshitting us.

We suited up, walked across the cement halfwall and then were ankle deep in the Fork. We made the gentleman's pack that the first fish caught the other guy bought beer for the weekend - of course Steffan's only comment before agreeing was "what kind of beer?".

We tied on our size 20 and 22 inch midges, and a purple crystal midge and hit the water. Within minutes Steffan hooked a fattie out of the first hole and had him right up to him when he popped off. That was when we realized, he didn't have a net. It's ok, I had two - I had the big boat aluminum ghost net in the truck - did we get it? Hell no - why would we need it on the Fork?

We moved up river, Steffan was ahead and Cabo and I following. The next 2 hours were a blur, filled with many obscenities. The river was pretty clear (surprisingly) and low. My first stretch was a deep hole about 10 feet out in the river where you could lean you knee on a rock and drift a fly through a 4 foot deep hole - it was maybe 15 feet long so you needed to get the fly down - so add some weight. I did that and on my second cast into the hole the line ripped forward 15 feet, where it got skinny and then shot straight to the middle of the river. I was first shocked, then laughed, then said "oh shit" as the fish tore out 30 feet of line. I gained line on him and he sat there, as I muscled him to me (on a size 22 midge and 4X) I saw him and he saw me...and I froze and then he took off. I started chasing, problem is, the Roaring Fork is one of the most slippery frickin rivers out there and nothing happens fast in felts.

I had to get the fish out of the current, although now he was 40 feet down from me in skinny shallow water and I could see him going all dead man's float on me like a sideways 2X4 not interested in fighting. I splashed near him and he took off. I turn him back into the slack water, this fish was in 6 inches of water and half of it's body was OUT of the water! The fish has to wiggle to move on the gravel. And them it happens. I can't say it, but you know what happens when you are within 5 feet of your all time best fish, rod pointing completely the other way with a net so frickin small you don't know whether to scoop at the fishes head or just beat it in the head with it - or throw it at it. Yes, well it happened. The sad part is the fish just sat there, clueless it was free, and the thought crossed my mind to throw myself on it like it was a hot grenade. But I just fell to my knees and said some things I promised I would never say again. That fish was easily 22 inches long and was the fatest fish I would see all day (not the longest). I would guess 5 lbs - but only a guess.

I made my way back to the hole - the fish of a lifelime gone, I looked at my flies, no bent hooks and threw another cast in. To make the story short, I'd hook two more fish, both I would get within 10 feet of, both over 20 inches, both popped off. The last fish I had in the skinny water laying sideways (none of the fish had much in them after the second run, they point their noses into the water and just make it impossible to muscle the fish), I get right to the fish with my aquarium net and POP.......and I swear on my kids this is what I did.....I dove on top of the fish with the net, pinning it's hand sized tail under the net, and for a brief half second I could see into it's eye and it looked scared, and then in another half second it shook itself free and was gone. This fish was the biggest fish I saw the whole weekend - easily 24 inches long, but not as heavy as the first fish - all three rainbows were silver muted in color.

I won't tell you how I felt, I won't tell you what was going through my mind, and I won't tell you that I felt really good about the weekend so far. We are talking about being on the river 45 minutes and I have had the worst fly fishing luck of my life. I didn't swear after this fish, didn't say anything, looked at my flies (which were still intact and not bent) and put the bottom one in the loop of the rod and started walking up to see what Steffan was doing. Steffan was now 100 yards away from me, so it took a while for Cabo and I to cross the waterfall and get to him. Having just explained what happened to me, all Steffan could say was "me too". Wow - we sucked.

Luckily our luck would turn. The channel side of the river inside the jetty was narrow but deep and Steffan was having luck with the fish in these holes. We kept fishing, I think we caught a couple small ones, but nothing fancy. About 6:30 or so I hooked a tank, and this fish was big. He wasn't much interested in coming to the net either - I waved Steffan down and he came to help. This fish twice tried to go under the boulder we were standing on and dislodge the fly, then he started running - down the channel (which looks like a skinny drainage ditch when you get further down river). He'd stop in a hole, and try to run under the far bank, rubbing on anything he could. Steffan takes the dip net and heads down the channel, the fish thinks it is me, so the fish keeps going down channel ahead of him. Finally Steffan gets past the fish and gets into the water up to his knees - now the fish starts running up river at me - but when he gets within 7 feet he turns back around and flops in 6 inch water next to the bank - his tail actually hits the dry bank. The fish tries to bury it's head straight into the bank, three times! Finally he starts going belly up and Steffan fumbles three times and nets it's head.

We were all exhausted. I sat on a rock and popped out the midge hook. The fish was not fat, but it was long, or colorful. 23 inches to be exact. After reviving her, we were pretty pumped. We fished some more in the hole, picking up a couple more fish, Steffan got a nice 17 incher that was pretty fat. Then I hooked another monster - this one took off down the channel again and popped of. I wasn't too upset, but bummed that I missed another. In total between the 2 of us, we had 8 pigs on and only landed 1. It was almost dark now - about 7:30 or so and we were a 1/4 mile away from the truck - the dog was freezing and we were beat. We stumbled, literally, back to the truck. Threw our shit in, drove up the road, over the bridge into the parking lot of Days Inn. We undressed out of waders and boots as the snow started falling hard, big flakes. We needed to check in, get our room, then empty the truck. Cabo was soaked, shivering. We still needed to eat dinner.

average sized bow

We got the room, moved the truck, grabbed a bunch of shit threw it in the room, grabbed the dog and went to a steak place that was highly recommended.Got some beer, hit dinner and then were back in the room at 9:30 or so. Tomorrow would be fun too.

Day 2 - the Frying Pan River and the Roaring Fork River - Saturday, March 26, 2011
How do you top a day like we just day? Sleep in and get a nice greasy breakfast, that's how. The morning was very cold and icy and a fresh 3 inches or so of snow coated everything. The road was sheer ice, and we weren't in any hurry to get our asses out of bed. So we hit the Breakfast in America place in El Jebel on the way to the Pan just before 8am.

We made our way to the Toilet Bowl at 8:45, 1 car in the lot, but three guys holed up (only one fishing) with a propane space heater and like 9 rigged rods in the Toilet Bowl. Steffan and I took a look at the pigs spinning around in the pool after the bowl and then rigged up. We had our first beer of the morning - and damn were they good.

We then jumped in the riffle just after the Toilet Bowl stretch. This time of year there is so much green algae and weeds in the river it is impossible to keep your flies clean. I did manage to ass hook on pretty rainbow - he was maybe 16 inches long - nothing special for that hole, but still nice to get the skunk off.

We moved down - to the stretch above the Bend Pool where it is very flat, very wide and very shallow water. Moving down we hit some slow water just before the Bend Pool and the fish were stacked in the slack water - I mean about 30 fish. 1 fish, that you can see in this pic at center but just behind the fish in the fish in the very center, looked like it was an alligator, it's mouth looked like a a clown wearing white lipstick - it was easily 30 inches long - I know because I threw everything at it, and 1 time it was within 8 feet of me - you could see it very clearly. I didn't hook it, or any other fish that were laughing at the both of us in this stretch. So, we decided to move down river.

Cabo enjoyed the snow - but we couldn't find any tennis balls in the truck, so she was a bit pissed off at me.

You might recognize this rock, it is one of my favorite places to fish, lots of small fish and the occasional 20 incher if lucky.

Just your average rainbow out of this hole. The fish here are not huge, but the browns are super colorful. They aren't easy to catch either. I think I got 3 fish out of this hole, Steffan landed about 8 or so - a nice stop over. Steffan even managed a few out of the rock pool on a dry fly. The fish never seem to come easy - they were still super picky and only hitting size 22 midges.

Cabo perched on a rock for an hour or so - I think she liked this spot.

We moved down river again, a couple good spots were taken, but we did find a nice corner riffle on a nice bend. We drank some more beers and watched a few large fish play in the riffles below us. Steffan tried fishing to them, but we couldn't figure out what the hell they were eating - dry flies didn't even bring them up. I waded to the middle of the riffle and casted to the far side in the soft stuff - a size 22 killer midge brought a few dinks to hand, but nothing too exciting.

We decided that we were done with the Pan. The Fork had been good to us and we wanted to explore some more. It was already mid-afternoon and we knew where the big fish were. We headed to Basalt, and followed the road that follows the Fork. We tracked the private and public water on the fishing map and stopped at the Tree Farm access site just up river from Catherine's Store access. Although it was beautiful, we had no luck in this spot - so we moved on again. We stopped at Catherine's Store access, but decided we wanted to hit the river by the Days Inn again - and it was already 5:30 or so.

We pulled into our spot by the bridge, and headed for our spot. The water was up higher than the previous day (flows showed an additional 75 cfs or so) and much more off color - but still good visibility. I stopped at the first hole I hooked the tanks and tied on a Pat's Rubberlegs, a charisse pigsticker and a chartreuse egg. The second cast into the hole and my reel was singing!! I landed a fat 17 inch rainbow shortly after - no dramatics on a size 8 rubberlegs - that was firmly in this fishes jaw. It was a great start.

I could see Steffan fighting fish further down at the end in the first hole. I picked up another rainbow at the start of the channel and found a huge hog sitting in a pool about half way up. I managed to spook him though. I moved up to just before the pool Steffan was in and started slaying them, two dinks on the egg, two 17 or 18 inchers on the pigsticker wire worm, and one nice rainbow to end it on the rubber legs. The wind was howling, the dog was shaking, and we were about out of daylight - so we called it a day. We didn't have to stumble back to the truck, we could see where we were walking tonight.

I hooked this rainbow sometime during the day - here is Cabo getting a look.

Back at the hotel we both got hot showers, Cabo got a nice blow dry so she wouldn't be soaked all night and we headed to the diner across the street. We ate everything in site, soup, 2 salads, bread, fried seafood plate, chicken fried chicken, pork chops, 3 servings of mashed potatoes, three servings of broccoli and a few beers, and then we headed back across the street to the hotel. We were lights out by 10pm.

Day 3 - the Colorado River @ Pumphouse - Sunday, March 27, 2011....the journey home.

Sunday started much like the rest of the weekend – slow, cold and wet. We were slow to get out of bed, it was cold again, and it had snowed about an inch on the ground. This time it wasn’t cold enough to freeze on the ground and the roads were wet, but not slick. We headed back over to the Diner for breakfast, then back to the hotel. We saw a couple of drift boats in the parking lot and chatted with a few guys who were on their way home – they had floated the lower Roaring Fork below Carbondale for four days straight and had decent success – but hadn’t caught any huge fish.

With that knowledge we decided to get the hell out of Carbondale and hit some new water to Steffan, I suggested Pumphouse for it’s desolation away from the crowds, and the chance to catch decent amounts of fish – and if that didn’t work we could hit the Blue on the way home. We left Carbondale around 9:30, the ride was relatively uneventful, but the back way from Wolcott to State Bridge to Pumphouse is pretty nice – the Colorado looked really nice too. We hit the Pumphouse parking lot at 11:15 or so and the sun was starting to pop out behind clouds. The snow kept falling and blowing sideways from all the wind. The temp was just under 40 degrees and the wind was a pain in the ass. We suited up, chatted with a couple of rafters who were already in the water – one guy said that the fish were slamming Pat’s Rubberlegs in size 4 and 6’s – way bigger than what we had. But we were excited to hear the fish were slamming the bigger flies – so we tied on an egg/worm/rubberlegs rig and started fishing.

grey as hell outside

Cabo bored as hell

The water had about 12 inches of visibility, and it was higher than what I had seen in the past. There were huge ice chunks about 5 feet up on the bank that looked like they had been pushed up there by high water – but the water would have to have been astronomically higher than the current flows of 650 CFS – I’d say probably 2,000 or 3,000 more flows to get the water that high up on the bank – not even sure if that is possible there.

We had no luck at all early on, so we moved up river to the bend pool. The water was still off color and high, but there were plenty of spots where there should have been fish - still nothing. So we walked back to the parking lot, and headed down river. We stopped just after the lower boat ramp and threw our rigs for a while - we both broke off everything - mine on the bottom and Steffan's on a fish - so finally we saw life in the water. We still didn't catch anything and moved down river again. Steffan hooked up a nice fish, but he popped off after a short fight. He was pretty bummed, but hell, I hadn't even seen a fish yet!

Down a little more (is this vague enough for you??)I waded to the middle to fish the far side and hooked a small 14 inch brown - Cabo helped me get the fly out of the fish.

We moved down and pitched some more eggs/worms/rubberlegs - I managed a tank of a white fish (below), a small rainbow and another average sized whitie. Nothing special.

We fished our way back to the truck, hitting a couple of holes - I managed a couple small whities, Steffan didn't get a hit. So we decided to head home. It was 4:30 and we had a 2 hour ride ahead of us. The ride home was uneventful without any traffic - nice ride home. I was home by 6:30 pm.

That was our trip in a nutshell. I'd like to thank Steffan for putting up with me and helping me net the biggest river fish of my life. It was a great time and we did it to the max.

Fisher Poets Share Tall Tales, Drink for Good Cause

2011-01-26T19:26:00.001-07:00

AUTHOR BILL CARTER TO SPEAK AT CLEMENTE'S RESTAURANT DURING ASTORIA’S ANNUAL FISHER POETS GATHERINGSustainable Salmon Activist Reads from His Acclaimed Memoir, Shines Spotlight on the Proposed Pebble Mine

Astoria, Ore. (Jan. 26, 2011) – For fourteen years, salty sea dogs have descended upon the tiny town of Astoria, Oregon for the annual Fisher Poets Gathering, set in a town most commonly known as the backdrop for Steven Spielberg’s film, “The Goonies”.

The Fisher Poets Gathering is an Astoria tradition, bringing men and women tied to the fishing industry together in celebration of the lifestyle and its people. Participants and visitors come from faraway places including Bristol Bay, Alaska, Nova Scotia, Canada and even Tampa Bay, Florida for their chance to celebrate the world’s oldest profession through poetry, stories and sea shanties.

This year, the author and award-winning director of “Miss Sarajevo”, Bill Carter will appear as an honored guest at Clemente’s Restaurant to read from his acclaimed memoir Red Summer, which describes his four seasons spent as a commercial fisherman in Alaska's Bristol Bay.

The evening will shine the spotlight on a proposed mining development of national concern – Pebble Mine.

If built, Pebble Mine will become one of the largest open-pit mines in the world. Its location, near the spawning grounds for two major rivers, and possible impact on both the food supply and 11,000 jobs, is causing major concern and uniting fishermen, conservationists, jewelers, grocery stores and various other groups in opposition.

“I’m not against mining at all,” says Carter. “There are just some places that make more sense to build mines than others. Because of the potentially negative impact on Bristol Bay’s sustainable $120 million per year fishing industry, Pebble Mine makes absolutely no sense.”

The Clemente's event occurs in Astoria, Oregon on Friday, February 25th from 6:30 p.m. to 10:30 p.m. at Clemente’s Restaurant (1198 Commercial Street). Owner Lisa Clement, hailing from a fourth generation Astoria salmon fishing family, has created two themed cocktails, with proceeds benefiting Trout Unlimited’s efforts to fight Pebble Mine. For more information about Trout Unlimited visit: www.savebristolbay.org

Also speaking is Steve Schoonmaker from Kasilof, Alaska - an Alaskan fisherman, dynamite poet and articulate opponent of the mine.

Specialty Cocktails.
Red Summer: Dry Fly Washington Dry Gin, Clemente's Oregon Bing cherry liqueur, St. Germaine, splash of tonic served on the rocks, cherry garnish - $10

Madame X: Dry Fly Washington Wheat Vodka, fresh lime juice, dry vermouth, fresh thyme and rosemary, cucumber garnish - $10

To interview Bill Carter or to learn more information about Red Summer, please contact Michael Phillips at: michael@watershedcom.com
** Dry Fly Distilling is a craft distillery in Spokane, Washington making craft-distilled vodka, gin and whiskey using only locally grown grains and botanicals. Their still is a Christian Carl pot still with multiple rectification columns. It has a 450-liter capacity and an annual output of approximately 3,500 cases of 12/750 mL bottles.

Antero Ice Fishing - Jan 19, 2011

2011-01-19T20:51:00.004-07:00

I'm pretty sure I can't hotspot ice fishing at Antero - so I will actually mention the name of the stillwater I fished this time.

Darren and I decided to try our hand at ice fishing. We left D's house around 5am and headed for Antero. The ride was pretty uneventful for me, but Darren got pretty excited about breakfast pizza at the store in Fairplay, so we had to stop. After waiting 10 minutes for the pizza we left and were at Antero a little after 7am.

The weather really wasn't that bad, some slight wind, but it wasn't that cold - maybe 30 degrees. We (over) dressed, grabbed the sled, loaded it up and started hiking out onto the water from just east of the North Boat Ramp. We walked out a couple hundred yards and started drilling holes. My new ice auger worked surprisingly well - slicing through the ice like butter. The ice was approximately 12 inches thick and was about 60 percent covered by a small layer of snow.

We set up shop and got our gear in the water and were treated to a nice sunrise.

We rigged two rods each - one with flies and the other with mealworms. Since we were both ice fishing rookies, we wanted to try as many things as possible. Darren actaully tipped some tube jigs with the wax worms and I tipped a pigsticker hook with mealworms. Something was bound to work. And it did - within a few minutes Darren had a couple hits, both times yanking the hooks out of the fishes mouths.

It wasn't long before Darren was hooked up again, dropping his flies down the hole after switching to an all mealworm rig he had a fish slam his flies and it was fish on. About 1 second later his other rod, only a couple of feet away, went under as well - he had a double! He quickly landed the first fish - a nice 16 inch rainbow, and then I handed him his second rod - and he landed a sweet dark colored 18 inch cuttbow that had a sweet gash under it's throat.

I'd love to tell you that we were hooking fish all day, but we really weren't. We literally went an hour between fish. I did manage to hook a fish around 11 or so - a dink 15 inch rainbow. I caught it on my daughters pink Rainbow Shakespeare rod - and I'm proud of it.

This is a pic of Darren enjoying one of my nice cold beers - I only had 6, we split them and they were gone by 11am. Note to self, bring more beer.

Darren and I traded fish the rest of the day - but again, one every hour. I landed a fish around 1:30 - a 16 inch dink rainbow again, then at about 2:30 I had another slightly larger rainbow right up to the hole but he popped off before I could get him on the ice. Darren hooked a nice rainbow as well.

You can see the bad weather creeping in from the west, it looked like that all day. Then eventually it hit us, but only for about an hour or so, then it blew over.

We decided to pack up our gear and head home around 3pm. After a stop at Subway, and some bad weather starting at Conifer, we were home by about 5:45. The weather was actually nice and dry all the way until Conifer, then it all of a sudden got really ugly - white out conditions and blowing snow. Kind of a crappy ride home.

Thanks again for going with me today D - it was a good time and a great learning experience.

Introducing Petter Gustavson

2011-01-09T19:35:00.005-07:00

Seems like the only way to get noticed in fly fishing or fly tying these days is to be an old, grizzled veteran, who only fishes dry flies and writes books about it - or you need to be one of those Xtreme Fly Fishermen who go to Mongolia to catch teimen, have long dirty hair, a beard and film it all for the big screen to help pay for your fly fishing "habit". Being a young clean guy, living on the other side of the world, and enjoying fishing in your home country will hardly get you noticed.

That is of course unless you tie some beautiful flies, take some amazing photographs and live in Norway! Meet Petter Gustavson, who happens to be all of those and a great fisherman to boot - and yes, I dare any of you to point out Norway on a map. You may have recognized some of Petter's work from the Fly Tying Forum, where he has been posting his ties for a while. He has given me the opportunity to take a peek into his life and let you all share in his story as well. I hope you enjoy it as much as I do!

Petter, thanks for answering a few questions about yourself, I appreciate you taking the time sharing your fly tying, photography and fly fishing passion/obsessions with us.

So you are in Norway - where the hell is that? Us Americans can barely pick out Europe on a map - but we can tell you where New Zealand, Christmas Island and Kamchatka are - how big is Norway?
You should know about Norway, there was a Norwegian who discovered America – Leif Erickson is believed to have discovered America around 960 AD, and there are remains of Viking settlements in America dated to this period. Norway is situated up north in Europe, and is facing the Atlantic to the west and Sweden on the east. It shares border with Sweden, Finland and Russia. Norway is a small country about the size of the State of New Mexico and is one of the most sparsely populated countries in Europe with only 4.8 million inhabitants. The Norwegian capital Oslo is on the same longitude as Anchorage, but the gulf stream makes the climate to be pretty warm. The summers are hot and the winters are cold, making the fly fishing season relatively short stretching from May to October.

Are you a fly fisherman? What do you fish for?
I am absolutely a fly fisherman, fly fishing is my passion and I do it as much as I can. I mainly fish for Trout with dry flies to match the hatch. There is something special about a rising trout fooled by a self made imitation. When not pursuing trout with my dry fly I also fish for the trout’s cousin the Arctic Char. The Arctic Char is a beautiful fish that also like to rise for dry flies. Fishing for Grayling is also great in Norway as well.

A new trend in Norway is fly fishing in the sea for Halibut. I haven’t tried it yet, but it looks awesome to fight a 100lbs halibut on a fly rod.

Are there trout in Norway? Are there any fish species in Norway not in the US?
There are absolutely trout in Norway; we have Lake Trout, Sea Trout, Brown Trout, and Brook Trout. The Brown trout is the most popular one. I don’t believe we have species not found in the US.

Where is the coolest place you have ever been and fished?
The coolest place I have ever fished is in the Northern part of Norway – it is a place almost like the surface of the moon with almost no vegetation, and the area we fished looked untouched. Not a trace of other people being there. There where lakes and rivers everywhere and the average brown trout where 2lbs!

What type of gear do you use? Typical gear in the US is a 5wt, 9 ft rod - is it similar?
My gear is usually a 5wt 9ft rod. This set up and a 4wt is the typical trout gear here in Norway as well. Guess it’s the global idea of a Trout rod.

Who is your favorite fishing partner? Or would you rather fish alone?
I really enjoy fishing with friends and alone, both have their good sides. My favorite fishing partner is one who is as passionate and eager to be out in the wild fishing for rising trout. My main man is a guy who drops everything in his hands when I say that the mayflies are hatching in the home pool, or will go on a three week expedition away from the civilization just to catch untouched, wild brown trout.

Any pets? Take them fishing with you?
Well, I don’t have any pets yet, as I am living in Oslo in a small apartment. I will defiantly get a dog when I move out of the city. I’m a real dog person and enjoy the company of dogs.

Being from the Rocky Mountain region we are spoiled with amazing scenery, mountains, canyons, bald eagles, elk, bears and sometimes lots of people - can you explain what your favorite fishing spot looks like?
My favorite fishing spot is probably just like the Rocky Mountains, but there are rarely people around in the fishing season. There are as many lakes and small rivers in this area as there are stars on the sky, and the fish have probably never seen an artificial fly. In the summer the sun never goes down and you can fish as much as you can handle without getting interrupted by the sun going down. The nature up north in Norway is amazing and the wildlife is amazing.

Have you ever fished in the United States? How does it compare to Norway?
I have yet to fish in the US, and I’m planning to go as soon as my wallet approves. I have always had a dream to go fishing in the United States, and there are numerous places I would like to go! I’d like to fish the Henry’s Fork in Idaho and of course Blackfoot and Gallatin in Montana. I think I’ll need a month or more if I get the opportunity to fish in the United States. I’d have to finish it off with a grand slam at the Florida Key’s – that question really got me dreaming!

Do you use size 22 midges in Norway?
Well sometimes, but I personally don’t fish flies sized 20 or smaller.

Obviously you are a great fly tier, but what else do you like to do in your free time?
As you might know, the winters are long in Norway, so fly tying is a big part of the fly fishing passion of mine. I have a big passion for basketball, and beer as well. Quite a mix. Actually American lagers are my favorite beers.

How long have you been tying?
I’ve been tying since I was 10, so I have been fly tying for about 18 years now. The reason why I’m tying is to use them to fish with. It’s like a hobby within the hobby if you understand what I mean.

Do you sell your flies? Do you do demos? Are you sponsored by any fly shops?
I don’t sell my flies, but my fly fishing pals usually get loads as I tend to tie more than I can use. I’m not sponsored by any fly shops. Norway is a small country and there are not that many fly shops around. I would love to be sponsored and do demos ;)

I’ve sold some flies, but I don’t appreciate fly tying if it’s a task. I never plan what to tie until I’m at my fly tying bench.

Do you or have you ever worked for a fly shop or gear manufacturer?
I have never worked for anyone in the fly fishing industry, I would love to get a job within the industry, but there are few opportunities to get in the industry here in Norway as the people are holding on to their jobs. And I really understand why!

Ok, so you don’t tie commercially, you don’t work at a fly shop, so what do you do for a real job?
Right now I don’t have a real job to be honest. I’ve just graduated from a University in England, and I’m applying jobs at the moment (lots of time to do some fly tying). In my spare time I volunteer working on a cultivation project in my home river, helping the trout population to reproduce.

What is your favorite rod, reel, fly line? and why?
My favorite rod is a Loop Yellow Line 9’3 ft #5. The reason why I really enjoy this rod is that it’s not for people in a hurry, it’s a rod that you can enjoy with every cast and it presents even the smallest dry fly in a delicate matter. The reel that is usually on that rod is an old Loop Original Dry Fly (now called a Danielsson) - it’s a simple but lovely reel. It’s my favorite reel because I always wanted one when I was a young kid looking in the shops.

The fly line I’m using is a Guideline Highwater. It’s a great line for nice presentation, and it’s perfect for my rod and reel combo!

What is the most time you have ever taken to tie one fly?
To be honest I’m not sure, maybe when I first tried to tie the Mohican Mayfly by Oliver Edwards. I spent about an hour tying the first one. But after I got a hang of it, I found out that it’s not as hard to tie, you just need to take your time and be thorough.

Is there a pattern you can't tie? Something you just can't get it to look right, or just won't try because you know you won't be able to do it?
This is kind of embarrassing, but I just can’t get the Lafontaine's Sparkle Pupae Emerger. I just can’t get the antron to look right, so I don’t tie that fly and it’s a shame because I know it’s a killer fly for those caddis hatches!!

Mohican Mayfly

What is your favorite fly tying hook, material, hackle?
My favorite fly tying hook is the Tiemco 102y. I love the light black finish and the wide gape. It hooks trout perfectly almost every time.

My favorite hackle is a Whiting hackle, and the color is coachman brown. Love that color.

My favorite materials at the moment are snowshoe, CDC and deer hair. I like to tie my flies with a mix of natural ingredients and modern synthetics.

Do you use any material different than its intended use? Like maybe computer foam for wings, or something crazy?
Well, it’s not my idea but a Norwegian fly tier named Staffan Linström who came up with a material called VAG. It’s the pollen filter for Volkwagen Passats 90 model. I used as a caddis wing, and it floats all day and looks pretty realistic.

Dark Olive Dun

Your house is burning down, you have 5 seconds to save something,....save the dog, the cat or your fly tying stuff?
Definitely not the cat, and I don’t have a dog so it has to be my fly tying stuff. If I had a dog I would go for the dog. I could always get new fly tying stuff.

Caddis Trio

Weirdest material used in a fly? And don't say belly button lint - that isn't so weird!
Not that I know of, but those danish people are crazy. Check out www.pussyflies.com. That’s weird!! (yikes Petter, this is a kids show! j/k, but that is pretty damn weird!!)

VAG Caddis

Obviously you are quite a talented fly tier - your flies are all over the internet - but your photography is stunning - great close-ups of well tied flies, great lighting and contrast with deep colors. What do you love more, tying the fly or photographing it?
Thanks! I will definitely say fly tying. The photo’s are just so I can share my passion with other fly fishermen/women.

Organza Ribbon Caddis

Do you have an online gallery we can link to? Is it in development?
I have a web page coming up soon, but I’m not sure when it will be ready. The site is www.arcticflyfish.com.

Caddis

Your photography is amazing - do you take photos of more than flies?
Well, I usually take photos of nature and fishing stuff, but I’m all about fishing and tying. Photography is just an extra thing to it all.

Streaking Caddis

Any tips for us fly photographers who can't seem to figure out how to take a decent pic?
There’s one thing that is really important and that is light, you can never get to much light. And don’t use yellow light, white bright light is the best you can add to photos! I use a lot of tin foil to remove as much shadow as possible.

Caddis Pupae

Explain your camera set up for photographing flies?
Well, a lot of people don’t believe me when I say this. But I only use a mounted Olympus compact camera that I bought several years ago. Its macro settings are fairly good, and as I mentioned before, light is very important.

Biot Mayfly Emergers

Do you share tips with other fly photographers?
No, not really, there are many, many photographers better than me!

Vulgata

What other fly tiers inspire you? Who do you look to for ideas?
Well one of my biggest inspirations is Oliver Edwards, he has created lots of fantastic looking, fishable flies that I love. There is also lot’s of great Norwegian fly tiers that has inspired me over the years. Pål Krogvold, Staffan Lindström, Terje Refsahl (aka DryFlyPurist), Rune Stokkebekk, Andre Brun to mention some of the great fly tyers.

PG CDC & Foam

What fly fishing forums/boards do you frequent?
I’m usually on Norwegian fly tying forums, and one of the greatest is www.fluefiskesiden.no. It’s great, and a lot of inspiration and information on fly tying and fishing. I also frequent flytyingforum.com. A lot of great ties on this forum, and a lot of great American fly tiers who have given me a lot of inspiration!

Claret Dun

Family? Kids? Wife?
No kids or wife, but I have a girlfriend. She’s not really into fly fishing, but she understands my needs and is really patient when it comes to me fishing 24/7.

Big Caddis

-------------

If you'd like to reach Petter, you can check out his site at www.arcticflyfish.com, or you can contact him on www.FlyTyingForum.com under the name PetterG.

All photos were taken by Petter Gustavson.

Thank you again Petter, I hope that I have somehow showcased your work (to my 6 readers - hi Mom!) to a larger fly tying/fishing audience here in the US. If you are ever in the US, look us up so we can take you to a beautiful place in the rockies and have one of those American Lager's!

Thick Wing Caddis - FOTD

2011-01-05T06:24:00.004-07:00

Just saw this Thick Wing Caddis from PetterG as well on Fly Tying Forums. The wing looks very similar to Hooper Juan's foam in his Golden Foam Stone. The photography on these flies is amazing as well - great detail. I also like the use of CDC, I wish I could get my CDC to look this good - and it matches color perfectly with the wings.

Thanks again PetterG - we love your flies!

Caddis Pupae - FOTD

2011-01-05T06:17:00.003-07:00

Some more amazing flies by Petter Gustavson - this is the caddis pupae as seen on the Fly Tying Forums. The detail on this fly is amazing - looks very similar to a pattern Chad Gauerke ties. Looks like the perfect Arkansas River fly to me!

Thsi is the second (of 3) Fly of the Day patterns that Petter has. I think I will need to get him to do a little interview for the blog.

Biot Mayfly Emerger - FOTD

2011-01-04T21:06:00.002-07:00

PetterG has some nice biot mayfly emergers posted over on the Fly Tying Forums. Great detail on these flies and great photos!

FryingPan and Crystal River - Dec 28-29, 2010

2010-12-30T09:02:00.003-07:00

Tuesday, December 27, 2010
Fish On!

Cabo, very interested in the fishes.

Maylon with a nice Rainbow.

Fatty McFatterson.

A nice Bow, I think that's D.

This was a beautiful Cutthroat, not big but beautiful colors.

Holy crap was it cold! And I'm complaining and Darren was there over an hour before I even showed up!! D got there around 5:15am, and I showed at 6:30am. He was the first car at the Toilet Bowl, I was the third. Sad part was car #2 was right in front of me - so D had the Bowl all to himself for over an hour. The bank in Carbondale said 12 degrees, I'm sure it was much colder in the canyon.

I got out and chatted with D for a few minutes and then went back to the truck for a nap. Seriously, who the hell fishes that early in the AM in the pitch black? Not me. Cabo and I slept until 7:30, by then it was light and we were ready to fish. D was holding his spot on the Bowl and hooking a lot of fish, most were dinks, with the occassional pig.

The pics above are in no particular order - I was too lazy to order them.

I fished for a while and was skunked. Then I saw a huge pig feeding a bit further down and tried for him. After snapping off 6x and more flies I decided I needed to warm up again. The dog was freezing too and my left foot was a block of ice - my boot was too tight. I napped a little in the car - warming up the dog and my foot. Then around 9:30 we hit the Bowl again. This time we got into fish - I hooked about 8 and landed 5 or so - all were small but fiesty. Darren did hook and land a pig - see above - and that was a great fish. After about 11:20, I lost my rig and called it a day. D was going to stay a few more hours. I hope he did well - he'll have to post his update.

It was a fun day, although cold as hell. I hate the cold weather when you try and fish in it. I spent an hour at the Glenwwod Hot Springs to warm up!!

Wednesday, December 28, 2010
I did manage to get out for a couple hours and fish the Crystal River right here on Avalanche Creek Road next to Avalanche Ranch (where we are staying). The Crystal is known to be blown out after any kind of rain or snow melt, but in December it is very very low. If I had to guess I would say it was flowing around 400 or 500 cfs. The river is relatively narrow - about 20 feet across in most sections, but it gets wider in some areas. The river is heavily silted - lots of the soft stuff around the edges that you sink into. It reminds me a bit of the Ark - off colored too.

With no real time to explore I just hit up a spot I scoped out the past couple of days, a nice stepped up water fall area that dumped into a nice deep riffle stretch. The weather was blowing snow, 20 mph winds and probably about 25 degrees. It was cold, but not nearly as cold as the Pan the day before.

On my first cast I had a take, lost it, on my 4th cast I caught this little guy.

It was a 13 inch whitie - kind of a weird golden color. Never seen one so golden. Maybe I misidentified it, but I don't think so. He took a zebra balck midge size 20.

I went about 20 minutes without hooking up - working faster water and then I finally hooked and landed a small (10 inch) rainbow. He was pretty colorless, but still nice to see something besides a whitie.

I moved down again to a little hole that had a swift section along a rock. I saw a good sized fish come up and nudge my indicator. He looked about 16 inches and I thought it was a brown. I hooked him a few casts later, but he got off. I moved on, fishing down river to some beautiful holes, but no fish to be found. It was almost 4pm - time to head back to the cabin. SO I walked back up to the hole with the big fish in it - I tied on an electric yellow hot wire stone and drifted it through the pool. On my 4th cast I had the bastard on.

I landed this beauty - a 15 inch whitie - and again, he was a golden color.

That is probably the last time I will get out on this trip. I need to hang with the family more. I'm glad I got out during nap time - even though it was cold and snowy.

Tomorrow I have to drive up to Glenwood Springs to the tOyota dealer because Jen's truck won't go into 4X4 - we got the tires replaced last weekend and for the first time tried to throw it into 4X4 and it won't work. Hopefully it is an easy fix. I hope to go to SUnlight Mtn snowboarding tomorrow. We'll see if we make it.

Paul's Choice

2010-12-21T21:33:00.006-07:00

"We sold the store."

That was the brief FB message I had gotten from my old boss tonight. Not much to it, hell I knew it would happen some day, so I shouldn't have been surprised by it. But I was, actually I am heart broken, I feel like a part of me is lost forever, a part of my childhood I will never get to visit again. The truth is, it has been over 12 years since I have been back to Keene, NH and it never really effected me, until now.

I don't think any of my readers know that I'm originally from New England - born in Medford, MA (a suburb of Boston) in 1973 I moved to Keene, New Hampshire when I was 7 years old and in the 2nd grade. We lived in an old house on Taylor Street behind the junior high school. When I say old, I mean that it was built around 1860. So even when I moved there in 1980 it was already 120 years old. We lived in that house, next to an ancient cemetery, until 1987 when we moved to Tanglewood Estates, a trailer park in North Keene, just off Court Street. Being a bit of a baseball card fanatic, I needed a job to make cash - that hobby would soon turn to beer and girls. I found my way to one of the few local stores in the area - a new butcher/market in the neighborhood called Paul's Choice.

Paul's was new to this part of town, but it was easy to tell that it would be a success. People in New England are old fashion, love quality, and are extremely loyal. Paul's was a collection of misfits who had tried their hands at prior butcher shops, restaurants, grocery stores and other blue-collar, hands dirty type jobs, only to screw them up and be out of a job. Paul and Ronda Stewart brought the expertise and they surrounded themselves with some of the most loyal delinquents around. I say delinquents because these guys (and a couple of ladies throughout the years) were no angels. However, to a 15 year old kid (and freshman in high school) they were every bit role models.

I don't remember the exact date I rolled into the shop and asked for an application. Having made pizzas since I was 11 years old, mowed lawns, raked leaves and other odd jobs hardly qualified me to work at a butcher shop. But Ronda, after meeting my mom, gave me a chance. Little did we know that it would be quite a ride.

I worked about 24 hours a week during school and nearly 40 hours a week on summer breaks. Being from a divorced home I spent every other weekend with my father in central Massachusetts. Paul's was always accommodating. I worked there my entire high school career, learned to drive, learned about girls, sex, weed, Jack Daniels, condoms, pain killers, money, golf balling, and how to be a man. That was a lot of learning for a HS kid.

The store consisted of some strange characters, each of which shaped and changed my life a little. Randy was the tall, rail thin, Toyota Supra driving, aspiring butcher who would marry and divorce the boss' daughter. He was a natural at cutting meat and customer service, he'd been the successor to the thrown since the day he started - and he knew it. He was 6 years older than me, he could drink a case of beer a night and out run the cops after it. He was no stranger to the law, and was a bit of a hot head. I looked up to him like an older brother and he taught me more than I will ever admit. He was dedicated to the store and to me, he knew I looked up to him.

Alan was the serial killer of the bunch, at least he looked like he was. Until you met his wife and little girls - who made him seem a lot more human. Alan had a full beard, crazy laugh, jittery eyes, always twirling a knife in his hands, quiet, observant, crazy, calming. Sure he was quiet, at least until 7pm when we closed, and then he would loosen up - music blaring, singing. I never knew if he liked me or not, but I knew he respected how hard I worked and I never took advantage of him. Alan was always family, but he was that older brother you never had anything in common with because he was much older than you.

Paul was the owner, and although our relationship was always on a boss/employee level I knew he cared about me, and was proud of me. He was more like the Uncle of mine that gives you the job as a favor, but ends up keeping you because he's proud of you.

Ronda was the talkative co-owner married to Paul. She could make, bake or cook anything. She was very creative, very organized, and you couldn't argue with her. But she was spot on and rarely wrong. She was also very short and I remember she had to stand on a crate to reach the counters or the benches in the back. She wasn't really a mom type, she was way too young, but she was the only woman voice in the whole store and you respected it.

There were several other cutters, counter help and checkers that I remember, but no one else was constant. We were the core group for the first 4 years I was there. I worked there through high school and returned every Thanksgiving and Christmas/New Years weeks while on breaks from college - Northeastern University in Boston, MA. I would go home to visit mom, give her a kiss and off I would go to Paul's. We would work crazy hours - sometimes 36 to 48 hours straight getting roasts and turkeys and shrimp orders ready for the holidays. We'd sleep in the back room on crates and boxes, trying to get in a few hours sleep from 4 to 7 am before we'd have to go back at it to meet the holiday rush. I'd work until 7pm on XMas or New Year's Eve and go home exhausted. My mom would just shake her head, feed me, tell me to go to bed and wake me up early. My fingers were cut and sore, my bones ached from the cold in the coolers and I constantly smelled like meat - even after two hot showers and 10 hours of sleep. But I'd be lying if I said it wasn't the best times of my life. Paul and Ronda had me back every year from 1991 to 1995 - I'd work a week and then disappear, spend the holiday with the family, then back to Boston.

The Stories
I wouldn't do Paul's justice if I didn't talk about the crazy times/memories I had there as well.
- In my first year I remember cleaning the slicer when I slid my hand under the blade (it was off) and sliced my middle finger knuckle on my right hand all the way to the bone. Alan saw the whole thing and saw the look on my face and grabbed me. He told me not to look at it, run it under water and he would bandage it up. He asked me 5 times if I was going to pass out - I did not. However, that cut took almost 4 months to heal - I never went to the doctor and had to lance the thing open 2 times to clean out the puss from infection. I still have the scar to this day.

- Our first year we got frozen uncooked shrimp with the shell on it. We would defrost 12 lb boxes of these things in trays of hot water, cook them up in pots, then peel and de-vein them. Luckily we didn't get a whole lot of orders that first year, maybe a ten thousand pounds or so, but then you realize how many boxes of shrimp that was and the work that went into it and how many pounds of shrimp you peeled and it brings back nightmares. We would peel all night long, do contests, have split fingers, shells under your finger nails, cuts like no ones business. I will never peel an uncut shrimp again. I like them pre-cooked and pre-cleaned now!

- I remember being friends with the kid who worked at the convenience store next door and him leaving out beer and wine coolers (come on - they were for the girls!) in the snow bank out back. Made for some fun weekends.

- I remember golf balling down the Ashuelot River that ran next to the Bretwood golf course behind the store. Taking Randy's canoe, a cooler, a case of beer and goggles and paddling and swimming the entire 6 miles of river in search of golf balls. We'd fill that cooler with balls and empty it of beers on that entire trip. We'd sell the golf balls back to the golf course and barely break even on our beer fund. We'd brave hail storms, beavers and snakes - all for a few golf balls.

- I remember frozen hands, stomping in the card board dumpster, power washing coolers, brine barrels full of corned beef, making thousands of pounds of sausage and hamburger, trying Jack Daniels for the first time, talking about girls, and having so much fun. I remember paychecks and bonuses, I remember my mom always getting a huge discount, and being treated like a queen there.

- I remember the one time I was sent home from work - the only non-sick day I ever had at Paul's. I had a huge Jack Daniels bender the night before, had stumbled into the house and passed out in front of mom and dad. My mom ended up hosing me off in the shower to wake me up - it was that bad. The next day I had to be at work - and my mom made me go. I got there and was green and ill. I was sent home with a stern warning never to do that again. I didn't. I was ashamed of myself for letting my boss down.

- I remember DUIs (not mine), I remember pregnancies (not mine), I remember marriages (not mine), I remember fights (not mine), I remember pinkies (not mine) and I remember being shielded from a lot more. I was lucky to be the shielded one.

In my 4+ full time years there I was a straight A student in HS, I played baseball and some football and had a girlfriend my senior year. I was shielded from a lot of the stuff because I think they (my Paul's family) wanted to not get me caught up in the things that would keep a guy in Keene, NH. They wanted more for me and they didn't want any distractions. They actually pushed me out of Keene, and for that I thank them. The work ethic I learned at Paul's would be the foundation for the rest of my life. All my life I have kept the same energy and loyalty since the day I set foot in there. Paul helped me save money for college and taught me what a wage meant and how to earn it. I owe a lot to Paul's Choice.

So, on this day that I find out the "store is sold" I am saddened. Not because my friends are moving from the working world to retirement, they greatly deserve it, but rather because a piece of my childhood is lost - and is unrecoverable. Every story has a "The End", and this one is no different, I just never thought I would read the last page. Page 1 started in 1987, followed by a great story, and it will end this holiday season 2010 - so many stories, so many pages, so many lives touched. It was a great ride, and I hope retirement is the happily ever after.

Best wishes Paul and Ronda, enjoy retirement and we hope to see you out here in Colorado soon!

Fresh Pimps - FOTD

2010-12-20T10:03:00.004-07:00

Roughfisher has put up some beaut-s on his website again this morning. The Fresh Pimp is a cross between a prince nymph and some other dirty fly - I like the frizziness and the purple flash - makes the fly very pimp(ish). Total bad-assery.

Ok, I have no clue what I am talking about - I just like the colors and the photography.

As always, nice ties JPL!

Dark Olive & Claret Duns - FOTD

2010-12-14T20:22:00.005-07:00

Wow - just wow! Check these out - I love the photographs, excellent lighting, great flies, great tie.

The Claret Dun and the Dark Olive Dun by Peter Gusttavson.

Thanks Petter for posting these over at Fly Tying forums, I had to borrow the photos for my blog! I hope this will give more people exposure to your beautiful ties.

"I mean Ft. Smith hot, not Victoria Secret hot."

2010-12-10T23:22:00.013-07:00

Hell, I'll admit it, I've thought about quitting my job, leaving the wife and kids behind and getting paid to fish! I could get rich! Except I'm too damn stubborn, am a horrible teacher and my knots suck. Plus, if someone else is paying ME I probably can't be fishing at the same time. So it is not for everyone. But it is for one of my buddies.

He's David Palmer, and I interviewed him a couple years back after his first year of guiding on the Bighorn - you can check out the interview titled Cow Patties, the "Lean", and Swedish Supermodels - That's Living the Guiding Life .

Well, I was lucky enough to get a second shot at David and finding out if he's still all in, or if he's found another way of life. Luckily (for me), he hasn't, and he's willing to share his experiences with us again and give us a taste of the grizzled vet fishing guide life. He probably hasn't changed, just is a little more recognizeable now - giving presentations, fly tying demos, tying up some flies, but his love is still on the water and teaching people to chase their dreams, mend their lines and keep their flies in the water in the hopes of catching the big one.

He's still guiding on the Bighorn River in Ft. Smith, MT - but he's two years more experienced and over 200+ trips wiser. So what has he learned? Here's our interview, enjoy!

Three full seasons under your belt, you are a grizzled veteran. Do you feel like one?
Relatively speaking, I’m still the rookie, but yes I’m starting to feel grizzled and more importantly, to smell like one. In July and August, I did 25 days each month with a 17 day stretch in July and a 20 day stretch in August. About 10-11 days into those, you definitely start to feel grizzled.

Do you look/feel better/worse than you thought you would 3 years in? What was the picture in your head of a 3 year vet?
Actually, both better and worse. Once the hot weather hits and you’ve had a lot of days in a row, there’s no social hour anymore. It’s eat a meal and go to bed. At the same time, I have more upper body muscle mass than I’ve ever had. I’m the lightly tanned, non-steroid version of the Incredible Hulk. The picture that I had of anyone beyond the first year is someone who knows where all the fish are and all the right flies to use. The reality is, just act like you know.

A nice fish, even being held by huge hands!

You aren't a young buck anymore like some of the guys out there - is guiding starting to catch up with you? Any lingering injuries that don't seem to go away?
Both last year and this year, there have been moments where I realized I can’t guide forever, at least not Bighorn style. Two years in a row I’ve ended the season with tendinitis in one shoulder and it takes most of the winter to get rid of it, but mostly because I spend the whole winter streamer fishing.

How many trips have you got under your belt (because I know you keep track of that sort of stuff)?
I did 108 trips my first year, 98 the second year (which turned out to be really good for how bad the economy was) and 115 this year. 120 trips a year would be reasonable if I could spread them out over seven months and never have wind or horrible floating moss.

How is guiding different after the first year? What have you done differently after Year 1? What have you left the same?
One thing that is different is a lot of the veteran guides realize you are probably going to stick around and some of the stuff that happens to rookies stops happening. The other thing that was different was the huge confidence boost I got at the beginning of the second year. In year one, the river was so busy and also, when I started I knew absolutely nothing about guiding. In year two, business was down so much that my first two days on the river, I was the only guide I saw all day, so there were no training wheels so to speak.

The river also opened up a lot the second year by people floating different sections. I just got to spend a lot more time away from the crowds and catching fish that you couldn’t get clients into the first year and again, that was a huge confidence booster. One thing I learned in year one is show up on time, be reliable and work hard. I’ve learned since then and still continue to learn is just how to work with people. One of my friends unintentionally gave me some of the best advice at the beginning of the second season, which is don’t let your frustrations show. People pick up on that and the day can head south fast. If you stay positive, you get through rough patches and have a great time all day.

Last time we chatted, you were squashing the rumors of all guides being homeless, long haired, unshaven and dog lovin' hooligans - do you care to rebuff any of those theories? (short hair still? clean shaven still? wife still with you?).
What do you call a guide without a wife or girlfriend? Homeless.

I still think most are transients and every guide is a dog lover. Ft. Smith empties out in winter. Even the full-time residents are gone part of the winter. I still have the same wife and she’s still very supportive of the whole thing, but there have been a couple marriage casualties and every guide that has a girlfriend introduces me to a new girlfriend the next time around, or so it seems.

You can also tell when there is a new hot waitress at Polly’s. Every single guide eats there for a week straight hitting on her. I mean Ft Smith hot, not Victoria Secret hot.

I hear you’re a poodle guy. Be honest, the biggest brown you've ever seen on the Horn - would it take one of those poodles as bait?

The biggest brown I’ve netted was a stout 22 inch male. I’ve had clients land a lot of 21-22 browns but this thing was a beast but still only 22 inches. I have a friend who landed a 27 inch male on a day off. I’ve yet to see anything that would take one of my poodles, but the geese babies get thinned out pretty quickly in the spring and it makes you wonder....

Have you guided anyone famous?
I still have yet to guide anyone famous but I get to talk to the people that do. I’ve met Fuzzy Zoeller twice now. One of my friends guided John Elway. My roommate guided one of the actors from Baywatch. Another friend guided Richard Childress of NASCAR fame. So far, I’ve guided the son of a famous mayor, the father of an actor on 30 Rock, a doctor who worked with John Wooden at UCLA and someone who was on the PGA tour (but not at the Tiger Woods-Phil Mickelson level). I also guided the photographer who took the photo of the snow leopard for Apple’s packaging.

What’s the craziest thing you’ve seen someone do? Craziest thing you've seen in the
river?
The craziest (or dumbest) thing I’ve seen someone do on the river is try to stop a boat in high water by leaning over the front and try to grab tree branches. The guy tried to jump out of the boat so he could grab branches and hold the boat, slips and falls overboard but has both hands on the bow of the boat and is hanging there. He continues to try grabbing a branch while the boat is just pounding him into the bushes. How he didn’t end up without a major injury is a miracle.

One of the craziest things I’ve seen in my boat was a friend, not a client. We dropped a rod in the river and couldn’t find it wading around. We pulled the boat back up and floated by where we thought it was. He spotted it and basically dove in and grabbed it. He was hanging onto the boat with one hand and his feet were in the boat but the rest of him is in the water reaching for the rod.

What’s the funniest thing that’s happened to you?
I had a husband and wife and we are floating along fishing hoppers. The husband is in the back of the boat and hooks a really big brown right on the bank just up from the Drive In. For those that don’t know the Drive In, it’s the car bodies lined along the bank. The water upstream is fairly slow and placid and at the cars, it really picks up speed and has about a 90 degree bend halfway through it and then gets really funky. We are still in the placid stretch and I’m digging in with the oars because the brown is really putting the screws to us. The brown makes a huge run and I hear a “thunk” and the husband says something. I turn around and he’s got his rod and line but his reel is sitting on the bottom of boat.

The Drive In Hole

I’m trying to row with one hand and pick up the reel with the other and not get sucked downstream. I managed to pick up the reel, stop rowing and get it back on his rod but we get sucked into the fast water so I start rowing and he’s making ground on the fish. We get around the corner and the fish is finally about 20 feet away and then runs and rolls the hook out of its mouth. I thought for sure once we had the reel on and the fish was still there, we’d land it but it was on too long and out-maneuvered us.

What’s the biggest fish a client has caught?
So far, a 23 inch rainbow that weighed about 5 lbs. I had a client that had a rainbow on that was bigger, but for some reason, he reached out and grabbed the leader and tried to hoist it in the boat. That was one moment where I was briefly negative....maybe not so brief. He took it in good stride though.

Has a client ever wanted to keep a fish? Did you try to change their mind? What did they do?
Every so often you get someone who wants to keep a fish. Basically, I flat out lie and say it’s a catch and release river. If they know the regulations, sometimes they call me on it and then I say (and it’s true) that it’s the practice of the outfitters and I’m just abiding by their wishes.

One day I had a guy who just whined and whined about it. He just wanted to keep one. “That’s all I want, just one!” Seriously, he rivaled most little kids on the whine factor...literally, stomping his feet and whining. Finally I broke down and we kept a 14-15 inch brown. I wouldn’t let him keep anything bigger. About ten minutes later, he was whining even harder about keeping another one. I just stopped talking to him after that. I will never keep a fish for a client ever again. Most people are understanding of the practice and accept it or pretend to but this guy was so overboard and I had to learn my lesson the hard way.

You must have lots of repeat customers - who is your #1 client - the client you've done the most trips with?
The point of being a guide is to ultimately build up a lot of repeat clients. I have a few but what amazes me is when I get a request and it’s a friend of someone I guided. That almost means more.

Ted is my #1 client. I got him by sheer fluke my first year because his regular guide was having some health problems. He comes four days each year. Ted is not only great because he’s a three-peat, but he’s a great fisherman who lets you guide him. He doesn’t have to catch a million fish and he takes the time to just stop and enjoy the moment.

Tough questions now - Let's say I'm a client of yours, I've had a good day, caught some fish, even some big ones, I learned how to cast better, mend better, you netted a bunch of my fish and I drank some of your beer - how much tip should I leave you?
My friend that gave me the advice about not showing your frustration also told me that if you are working for tips, you are working for the wrong reason. He’s married to a doctor so it’s easier for him to say that.

Personally, I think anyone in any service industry should be treated fairly and tipped fairly but in accordance to the service they provide. Naomi Campbell said she doesn’t get out of bed for less than $10k a day. I will get out of bed for considerably less.

Is there an "insult" tip amount?
There is. As a client, you know it because your guide stops talking to you and turns down your request the next time.

Sometimes an insult tip is meant to be just that. A lot of times, people just don’t know better. But I know of (former) clients that can’t get guide trips anymore because of their tipping reputation.

What is the largest/smallest tip you've ever gotten? Ever turn down a tip?
I have never turned down a tip. There’s been a couple where I thought about it, but ultimately you don’t because while you personally probably won’t get that client back, you want the outfitter to get that client back.

The largest tip I’ve ever received left me speechless. I’m grateful and appreciative for just about any tip, but twice I’ve been tipped the same amount and it left me beyond words both times that someone was that generous.

What is the hardest part of your day?
It depends on the time of the year. On a windy day in the spring, it’s when I wake up. About the end of August when you’ve just eaten your 85th roast beef sandwich, it’s lunchtime. After 15 days in a row, it’s calling my wife and telling her I just booked five more days.

Ever thought about quitting guiding?
I have yet to have the “I just can’t take it one more day” day, but not being a young pup, I know that my time is limited whether I snap and call it quits or just decide that it’s time....and then go all Brett Favre about retirement.

Over the past 2+ years the water has been crazy high on the Bighorn, how is fishing in high water?
People find it hard to believe, but the fishing is spectacular in high water once it stabilizes. The river stays clear (except on days where they bump the flow), the temperature goes up, more food gets kicked up and the fish just have to eat more. Once you figure out the structure that the fish are holding to, you are netting fish all day long. It’s the perfect time for beginners and novices.

Do you have any tips for those days where the water just isn't right - too high, off color, too weedy, too low, or the lake is turning over?
The solution to most of these problems is more lead. If the river is high, more lead to get to the bottom (and a longer leader). If it’s off color, more lead to get your flies down (and flies with more color). If it’s weedy, more lead to punch it through the weeds and get to the bottom. In low water, less lead of course and a lot of swearing as the shallow riffles grind off the bottom of your boat.

Describe your most epic day out there on the Horn?
Ballpark estimate was 75 fish one day this spring. I made a comment to one of the clients about how we were going to try a wade fish spot and the water was cold so the fishing might start off slow. It took all of two casts to get the first fish and I don’t think three minutes went by without one of the clients hooking a fish.

We had lunch and moved downstream hoping for some risers. We found a huge pod on baetis. After three more hours of stupendously solid fishing, we finally decided we had to get downstream. I looked at the bottom of the river and noticed our footprints. We only moved three to four feet in three hours. You never get three hours in the same spot behind a pod of rising fish and yet, it happened.

In our first interview you said that you would be more "proactive" in Year 2 - have you become more proactive and how have you?
It’s probably the most important thing I’ve learned in guiding. If someone is doing something wrong, correct it right away. They catch fish sooner, make fewer mistakes and spend a lot less time frustrated. One thing people do wrong is trying to cast with too much slack.

My first year, I’d tell them after the tangle. Now, I remind them to take all the slack out of their line before they cast. If I see them thinking about trying it, I say something so they don’t attempt it. It doesn’t really matter the skill level either because most people want to learn or want a refresher. If I see someone about to do something wrong, I stop them as soon as I can, explain and/or demonstrate it and that reinforcement seems to be a better tool than the frustration of having to stop and untangle.

Conservation is a huge issue on the Horn - with water flows seeming to be all over the place, catch and release, guiding fees, etc - are you a conservationist and what is your soapbox issue?
I’ve become a lot more low key about the river. The BuRec is going to run it how they run it and no force in the universe is going to change that. All I can do is show up and adjust to the conditions. One thing they’ve done is flushed the river really well and brought back a lot of good hatches and some people seem to overlook that. But it has killed business in June even though the fishing is spectacular.

The one issue that I’m starting to get more vocal about is making the Bighorn a barbless river, at least the upper 13 miles. The fish population holds up really well to the fishing pressure, but after a while, you find too many fish that are really scarred or injured because of barbed hooks.

I need only three words to describe the Bighorn?
Flows mostly north

Ok, poop was a central theme in the first interview - give me your best poop story from year 2 or 3?
I wish I had one. The incident the first year was so traumatic, I avoid poop at all costs. Actually, I’m glad I don’t have one. That day had enough cow poop to last me a while.

Complete this sentence, "a great day on the Horn is when..."
...you end the day at the boat ramp with the same number of people you started the day with.

What kind of questions do you get asked by your clients?
There are about 6-7 standard questions you get asked regularly and then a mix of others. The most common question is, “Is this your boat?”. Every guide gets asked that. My answer has shifted to, “Sort of, I have a 99 year lease.”

The question that’s always perplexing to me why people ask is, “How deep is the river?”. They always seem to ask as the riffle is grinding the bottom off the boat, so obviously fairly shallow in spots, but also obviously deeper in spots. I try to explain that in a meaningful way but when I have the right client, my answer is, “I’m not sure, but it’s deep enough to go all the way to the bottom.”

The weirdest question I’ve been asked is, “Is this the Provo River?”. The question I’d love to give the most sarcastic answer to is “What do you do in the winter?” to which I want to reply, “Mind my own business.” but I just can’t get myself to say it, even when I’ve got clients that would find that funny.

The historical questions get much more thorough and boring answers.

Wind sucks, but Montana/Wyoming and wind go hand in hand - you got any crazy wind
stories?
I *hate* wind, but it’s a part of the job. The wind was blowing so hard one day, we got to the Grey Cliffs and couldn’t get downstream (sound familiar?). There was a guy about half way down that was pinned against the cliff by the wind. He got knocked out of the boat somehow and couldn’t get back in because he was being hit so hard by the boat and had no place to stand because of the drop off there. I rowed into the wind as hard as I could and it still took us about 15 minutes to reach him (covering about 200 yards). Luckily, he was able to get back in the boat before we got there.

There’s been similar days but without the excitement of a water rescue. The wind can be brutal some days.

Best fly pattern on the Horn - still the Ray Charles?
You’d be a fool to not have a Ray Charles on. It’s the one fly that will catch fish every day of the year. During high water, I run two Ray Charles boat ramp to boat ramp. One grey and one pink. Some days I get crazy and run one pink and one grey.

The Downy Wonder Nymph is a great fly too. It’s a great baetis emerger, but doubles as a really good black caddis emerger too.

Have you noticed that fish are taking different bugs than 2 years ago? Are they getting smart to certain fly patterns?
The fun part about the last two years is a lot of hatches have come back so now you can fish PMD nymphs, trico nymphs and yellow sally nymphs (well duh, and the dries too!). The times I think fish catch on to a pattern is when one starts to work really good and then in a few days, everyone is using it. You’ll get a short stretch where it isn’t working as well because fish have seen it a few thousand times. People stop using it as much, the fish forget and go back to eating it. The trick is, don’t tell people what your hot fly is and the word won’t get around as quickly.

Have you named your boat yet?
Still nameless, but does have a couple custom fish stickers on it now.

So you guide - do you work in a fly shop? Do any presentations? Do tying demos? Sell your flies? Where can people find your work?
I cannot stand retail. I’m just not made for it. I do tying demos for the local TU club, fly shops and sport shows. I’ve done a casting seminar each year at the sport show but don’t draw much of a crowd because they schedule me on Friday afternoon when no one is around.

I’ve just done my first big presentation and have done a couple smaller ones in the past. I don’t sell my flies because I’ve learned I just can’t tie that much. I fill my own boxes but there’s no way I could do 10,000 flies in a winter. I’m not a fly innovator so it’s not like my designs are going to end up in Umpqua or IdleWylde.

Thanks to some heavy handed hooksets, people found some of my work in fish lips this year, especially my secret black caddis pupa. Okay, so I invented one fly. The work I’d like to get noticed is my photography. I’ve tried hard to get some good and different photos but I’ve really got no idea how to make any meaningful income off them.

Favorite rod maker? Why?
My favorite rod is Echo. It’s a great rod for a great price with great customer service and they have a really wide selection now.

Favorite reel maker? Why?
I really like Lamson. They are an awesome reel and use the same drag in every model where others really cut back on the drag system when they cut the price.

Best fly line? Why?
I’ve used SA, Rio and Wulff. They are all good but I like the Wulff Triangle Taper because it roll casts really well and it’s white. You can see it in all light conditions.

Why isn't there a David Palmer buff, or David Palmer lip balm or David Palmer toilet paper out there yet? When you going to accept a sponsorship? Maybe an Orvis tattoo? Or how about selling space on the side of your boat for an advertisement? Everyone has a price Dave - what's yours?
I won the carp tournament in 2008, finished 2nd in 2010 and won the biggest lips prize in 2010. I’m really not understanding why some of the larger marketing agencies haven’t been calling. My tournament partner and I have a book in the works though....Glistening Lips. My price is a case of Moose Drool or Sierra Nevada Pale Ale. FIRM.

Another repeat question from Year 1- want to make sure nothing has changed - Guiding - harder/easier than a real world job? Any (new) advice for wanna-be fly fishing guides just getting into the sport?
Harder than what I used to do, probably not as hard as being a surgeon. In guiding, you are trying to go 100% all day. There’s no downtime to run an errand, check the internet for scores, etc. It’s being upbeat all day long and putting that effort out all day. I’ve never had a job before where it took 100% all day.

So many people have a really romanticized notion about guiding. It is a physical, grinding, emotionally taxing job. Don’t be disillusioned with how hard you have to work. Also, the same advice I got, don’t show your frustrations and don’t be critical. It serves no good purpose.

Give me a "wow, that never happened before, and I doubt it ever will again" moment from year 2 or 3?
The hopper fishing of 2009. 30-50 fish a day throwing hoppers to the middle of the river all day long for over two months. That will never happen again. The defining moment of how “Wow!” it was is I had a client whose skill level was very low. I was coaching him on getting the hopper just far enough away from the boat. He makes one really bad cast and gets a nasty tailing loop. I’m yelling at him to stop casting so it doesn’t become a jumbled mess. It’s all out on the water and his hopper is sitting on his line. I tell him to strip everything in slowly so it doesn’t get worse when a brown hammers his hopper and we end up landing it. An 18 inch brown ate a hopper off a fly line that looked like a plate of spaghetti...and we land it. Never again.

When you grow up, what do you want to be?
Either a hand model or financial advisor for professional athletes.

How much longer you going to do this?
I thought 3 years and realized it’s just getting started so 7 to 10 years if my shoulder can take it, or the hand model agencies really start calling.

You realize you are famous now right (being on my blog!)?
Yes, although not Oprah Book Club famous, but I appreciate all the support you give me!

-------

If you are interested in hiring David (Montana guide #12456) as your guide on the Bighorn, you can contact the outfitters he works for at:

Jeremy Gilbertson, Gilbertson Outdoors
Billings, MT
Montana Outfitter 8836
(406)690-4752

The Bighorn Trout Shop, Steve Hilbers
Ft Smith, MT
Montana Outfitter 504
(406)666-2375

Also check out www.bighornflyfishing.com for more information on the Bighorn.

If you want to see David's blog check out Oar Whore - a well named blog for a guy who rows more miles a year than I walk or run in a year!

Thanks again David for being a great sport, a good friend and allowing us to find out your deepest, darkest secrets! I'm hoping to get up there this spring and hang out with you - I'll buy the Moose Drool!

All pictures were taken by David Palmer.

CDOW response to the sighting of the Ermine

2010-11-23T11:12:00.001-07:00

From: "Jones, Therese"
To: Brandon
Sent: Tue, November 23, 2010 9:57:35 AM
Subject: RE: Division of Wildlife FAQ question submitted from website

Hello Brandon,

Thanks for sharing those pictures, you are very lucky to have taken those. The animal does in fact look like an ermine also known as the short-tailed weasel. In the winter their coat turns white like in your pictures, and in the summer turns a reddish brown. We do not keep track of sightings for them. They are not endangered or threatened in Colorado, however they are elusive and are rarely seen, so count yourself lucky. The link below will take you to our information page on weasels if you are interested in some more information. Thank you for sharing with us.

http://wildlife.state.co.us/WildlifeSpecies/Profiles/Mammals/Weasel.htm

Therese Jones
Colorado Division of Wildlife

White Mink Sighting!

2010-11-15T21:56:00.005-07:00

FALSE ALARM - not a white mink, just a white ermine, but still a coll little animal!

Warning - not that I don't want to hotspot, but I don't want to give away the location of this little furry guy.

D and I went fishing today - fresh off fly tying last night. I woke up at 5am with the wicked taste of Tecate in my mouth. Brushed my teeth, dressed, grabbed some advil and was at D's at 5:30 - on the road and by Evergreen it was snowing. Scary roads, but D is the man when it comes to driving. Saw 2 packs of deer on the way - one had a nice 4 pointer leading 4 females, and the other had a big 5 pointer male leading the way. Good looking animals - just surprised they were hanging out near the road.

Hit the parking lot around 7:30am. We were the first to make tracks in the lot and not a sole around.

It was about 27*, but no wind and a chance we might see sun soon. We dressed quickly and were in the water soon after. To say Darren was into fish quickly would be an under statement - he had the first 10 fish of the morning in the first 20 minutes we were there. Including a Colorado slam (whitie, sucker, brown and rainbow). The dude is amazing. Below is a pic of the huge sucker (like 16 inches) that he caught - you can see just how thick it is.

Soon D let me have his spot and I was onto the fish just as quickly - I slammed 6 in a row - mostly small browns. We moved up and down this stretch for a couple of hours - sometimes the fish would be on, sometimes we'd go 20 minutes with nothing. We pulled quite a few out of the hole - the prettiest was a slab of a fish that Darren had right next to him and popped off - it was a 19"+ brown that would have been beautiful to get a pic of. However, that would be the story for the day - we lost just as many fish as we landed, some we wished we'd seen, others we were happy to LDR in the ice cold water!

We basically traded holes all day - working our way down river we seemed to pick up 3 or 4 fish in every hole. Some holes were better than others, some produced more but smaller fish - other holes produced world class whities. The fish were hitting the orange egg and the pink or orange pig stickers. Many many fish were ass hooked lots and lots of small browns, many large whities and a few slab brownies. All fish were fun to catch. All were stacked on the bottom and required lots of weight and patience. Most fish were in pods, so if you caught 1 out of a hole, you were likely to catch 3 more in the same spot.

Here are a few fish from the middle of the day:

Darren had a headstart on me - hitting some holes up ahead. I snapped off another fly and decided I'd make my way down to Darren and see how he was doing. As you might imagine, walking on cobbled slippery rocks is a killer normally, but today it was covered with snow and was even trickier - so I walked up on the bank. When I came around the corner I saw this tree and this little face looking out at me.

As you can see it is a small white mink. He kept running around in this hollow tree, popping his head out of 4 different sections checking me out. I was a little shocked to see him - he looked exactly like a ferrett, but was completely white except his black nose. I was trying to be quiet and get the camera out to take a pic, but honestly he could care less. The little bugger was brave as hell - I bent down at the base of the tree to take a picture at eye level and he literally came out of the tree and almost came right up to me. I actually stood up quickly - a little freaked out like he was going to attack, but he didn't care - he was just curious as hell. This thing was gorgeous. Maybe 10 inches long in total and skinny as hell. The crazy thing is that at the base of this tree is a tennis ball - just sitting there. No clue if the mink brought it there or someone left it for him, but it just did not fit into the picture. I have looked everywhere online and can't find anything about white mink in Colorado. I sent an email to the CDOW asking them if they were rare and if they wanted pics. I'm a little hesitant to tell them where I saw it though.

Anyways, I thought this was a very cool sight, and it made my day. I headed back down to D to check out the next hole. We continued catching fish - nothing too fancy, just picking them up here and there. I managed three in one hole - probably the best fish of the day for me - a 16" brown, an 18" brown and a nice whitie that fought better than most browns.

We kept moving down and ended the day at the confluence of where the river had split around an island. We finally saw some sun and it felt nice. We would look for the long slow water that was about 6 ft deep - and we seemed to find it. These couple of fish were pulled out by D - you can't tell but it was some nice big browns. I pulled out a huge whitie out of this hole as well - he had to be pushing 19". D collected some major pigs in this hole - including 3 on 3 casts back to back to back. At about 3:30 we called it a day.

After a mile hike back to the car we pack up and we were on our way. Great trip - thanks for driving D!

Untamed Angling - New Blog on the Blogroll!

2010-11-12T09:30:00.002-07:00

UNTAMED ANGLING

I just saw this on This Is Fly, a very cool travel/lodge blog with some great pictures. These are all the places we dream about fly fishing - so remote and out there we could escape the real world. Unfortunately we'd have to have endless cash as well - but it is good to dream! Tierra del Fuego, Bolivia, Patagonia, golden durados, striped cats, salmon.....at the end of the earth!

Juan's Golden Stones - FOTD

2010-10-27T08:58:00.000-06:00

Hopper Juan's Golden Foam Stones

I really like these stone flies for a number of reasons - they use foam as the wings (a cheap and recycled material), their color is amazing, and they seem like something that I can tie and will catch fish with. Not to mention they are tied by a local tier Hopper Juan.

Juan uses his caddis cutter to cut out the computer foam for the wings and adds some brown marker to color them. The result is some very cool looking and realistic wings. I do think that the foam may cause the fly to want to float (which is the opposite of what a stone should do) but I am guessing that is why we should add weight to the fly.

Juan also does an amazing job in photographing these flies (see his website for all the pics), I only show a couple here.

Thanks Juan! Can't wait to try and tie a few of these.

Check out Juan's website for his other patterns.

North Park - Oct 21-23, 2010

2010-10-24T21:54:00.002-06:00

The North Park Fall Fling almost didn't even happen. With bad weather imminent, we had to make a decision to tow a camper (with no brakes) over the two passes, find a hotel or cancel. Basically with the weather deteriorating quickly, dragging the camper up there was out (which in hindsight turned out to be the best decision of the trip). I started calling around to the Walden hotels on Wednesday night, only to find NP Inn to have only one room with a single bed, another hotel out of business, another to be completely booked and finally Antlers Inn to have a luxury room for Thur, but only a tiny room for Fri and Sat - we took it.

As the weather report got worse we started losing attendees - Scott decided he wasn't hunting in freezing weather, so the dog was out. Then Scotty (a teenager with a texting problem and a girlfriend) was talked into staying home (second smartest move of the weekend). Then Cory decided Friday night was going to be too messy to drag the camper over the pass, and Kyner bailed due to the uncertainty of the weather as well. Steffan wasn't coming anyways, because he's @#$@#&^%@#%*& and has his priorities messed up (work and wife). So basically it was Werms, Scotty and I and hopefully we'd see Mark.

Thursday
Werms was headed up early on Thursday, fishing with Darren on the Colorado River during the day, and then he'd head up to Walden in the afternoon and get the hotel and meet us at the lake. Scott was working a full day, but he was going to leave on time. I on the other hand found out at 2pm that I was expected to be on a conference call from 3 to 5pm - no leaving early for me. The call ended up lasting until 5:20 and Scott graciously waited for me in Evergreen so we could ride up together. We met at El Rancho PnR at 6:15 and loaded up my gear in his pickup and were on our way.

The ride was pretty uneventful (except the Check Engine light coming on 5 miles outside of Evergreen), and we actually hit Walden at 9pm, meeting John at the road in Walden that heads to the lake. We were geared up by 9:45 and had the boat in the water. Problem was, we forgot the plug and before even leaving the dock we had to pull the boat out again, drain it and start all over. The one thing Scott always told me not to do was "don't sink it" and that is the first thing he does. To be fair, it was late, we were tired, but we knew we had to fish. The almost full moon was out and the Lake was calm. All three of us in the boat is crowded, so we needed to take it easy. We hit the inlets and fished streamers for a while. Scott managed one big brown in the first 3 hours, and that was it. The fish hit hard, but was hooked on the side of his head.

I'm gonna be honest with you, I have no clue if this is the first fish Scott caught or not, all the brown's look the same.

We decided to head over to the dam area and along the way we would troll streamers along the west bank. The night was very bright, but we used head lamps to see indicators or tie flies and land fish. We got about 3/4's of the way there and Scott almost got yanked out of the boat. The rainbow was long, like 24"+ long and he wasn't in any hurry to be landed. It was however the only fish to actually get a fly in it's mouth of the night. The fish was huge and it got us pumped up.

We kept trolling towards the dam and anchored up just west of the dam in the inlet. We were bombing the banks and occasionally a fish would skyrocket straight out of the water and splash back in. These fish were fairly good sized and they'd jump right next to the boat (think flying carp - but not as many). We could see that they were everywhere. We hooked a bunch, I think I got 2 and Scott hooked 3 more. Fun fish - all browns - all about 19-20 inches and all hooked on various parts of their body - mine hooked on the top of the dorsal fin (I would have never believed that you could land a fish hooked there).

We were pretty pumped, but when I looked at my watch I realized it was 3am. It was not cold, but we were over dressed, and we were surprised at how bright it was even though the moon had cloud cover now. Werms had literally fallen asleep twice sitting up and only awoke to net a fish (not kidding). So we decided that since we had this fancy hotel room we might as well use it. Honestly, Scott and I could have fished for another couple of hours and crashed in the truck for a snooze in the AM. And we probably should have - we would have gotten more sleep. We hit the boat ramp, loaded the boat, headed to Walden. Once there we parked on the street, locked everything down, threw a tarp over the load in the back of the truck, grabbed our stuff and headed upstairs to the hotel. The room was amazing. We literally dropped our crap and hit the hay.

Friday
Unfortunately Walden is a one road town and a redneck town and everyone owns a diesel or a 1980's shithole pickup truck and they like to ride up and down, up and down, up and down, the main street until all hours. Well, Scott and I didn't sleep a wink. Next thing we knew it was 8am and we wanted to get on it. I received an email from Mark (Zackdog) saying he was on his way (at 7am), so I emailed him back saying we would be up there - but not for an hour or so. We hit the restaurant for breakfast on Werms. The food was damn good too. We were back on the lake by 10am.

The boys fished in the boat and I blew up the yak. They were nice enough to give me a tow across the lake to the inlets again.

As you can see the day was cloud covered, but it wasn't too windy (yet) but we could see it was only going to get worse (and it did). The north inlets were completely full of wading fishermen by 10am and you could learn all of the good spots by where they were standing! We didn't really see anyone hooking up, but we split up and tried our luck. The only person catching was Werms. He landed a good half dozen fish and Scott and I pulled out the skunks. Werms first fish of the day was his best - a hog of a cuttbow that stretched 23+" and was fat as hell.

Werms got another brown as well that was a fun fish.

We stopped for a bit and met with Mark (Zackdog) and chatted and had a beer - it was great seeing him and the inlet he was fishing had some beautiful browns pushing up into the creek that was trickling in. We decided to fish the area around the inlet. The weather started turning and it was windy and sprinkling - but we kept to it and Werms was into more fish and I finally stuck a little brown - that fish was beautifully colored - but no larger than 16 inches. This fish just after Mark left and told me to use a green egg - I had just switched and on my second cast landed this fish. Nothing fancy, but skunk off!!

The weather got progressively worse. Cold, wind, rain, snow, mist, rain, cold. We trolled a bit, then decided it was time to set up a camp on the west bank and have lunch (at about 3pm). We set up the canopy, started a fire, ate some lunch, drank some beer, shot the shit and dried off a little. But it was raining sideways, was getting colder and didn't look to be letting up. We fished a little - the boys trolling in the boat and I was on shore. It was also getting darker quicker and before we knew it, we needed get camp packed up, and get the boat of the water. By now it was full rain and snow mix and everything was soaked through our layers. We headed for the boat ramp, loaded the boat in the dark, threw our shit in the pickup and headed to Walden. The trip took a little longer than normal, since it was a full on blizzard. Hitting Walden and trying to parallel park the boat was fun. We locked everything up on the boat, tried our best to "cover" the crap in the truck, grabbed our gear and headed for the hotel.

We had a new room, but the hotel hadn't moved our stuff from our old room - so we had to do that too. It was only about 8pm, but we were flat exhausted, soaked and weighing about 400 lbs with wet clothes and gear. The room was still amazing, but smaller this time. We unloaded all of our wet gear into a back hallway and put a fan on blowing into the hallway to dry our stuff (it worked believe it or not). All unchanged and exhausted we soon lost DirecTV to the snow storm and Werms talked us into going drinking. We decided to hit the Stockman Bar across the street. Clue #1 you are in a locals bar and don't fit in? They had a dog laying in the middle of the bar. Clue #2 was the place had a fog of smoke in it. Clue #3 was the bartender hadn't heard of Killian's or Molson (both Coors products I might add). Clue #4, they didn't take credit cards. A shot of Tequila, Makers Mark and a pitcher of Bud Light and we were out of there.

We hit the Antlers Inn bar for some Newcastle's and Onion Rings and shot the shit in a more tourist "friendly" site. We were back upstairs at 10pm and Werms decided to give us an egg and juju tying show. I learned how to tie an egg that came out perfectly, but I made it half way through the juju and had to pass out. I woke up an hour later to the boys going through my closet screaming about something - while they had tshirts with the words "HAVE YOU EVER FISHED THE FRASER?" on the back. Wiseasses the who bunch. Thanks Darren for making an appearance - I hate you too. Honestly though? I was barely conscious.

Saturday
I was in no hurry to wake up. Finally at 8:30 or so I got out of bed. Werms and Scott followed - moaning about something, pissy we had to get up. We got up, showered, shit, packed our gear and headed down for another killer breakfast. Scott and I had the Chicken Fried Steak and it was awesome - you know it was featured in National Geographic (surprised you didn't know that).

We geared up, got waders, boots, vests on and back out to the truck for our trip to South D's this time. It was cold, about 2 inches of snow on the ground, cold and windy too. The boat had a nice 3 inches of slush in the bottom. Here is a nice pic of the morning as we gassed up.

We were at the lake around 10am again. We were just going to make this a fast day, fish until 2 or 3 and then head home - we cancelled our last night at the hotel - not looking forward to a wet cold day and huddling at the hotel. We all started right at the parking lot by the bluffs, and not 5 minutes in Werms had a fish. It again was a beauty a 20+" cuttbow to start the day off right. Werms and Scott traded fish and I was skunked. So I headed over to the willow trees. This is one of our favorite spots and we know it holds fish. Werms soonm joined me and immediately I was hooked up. I landed the beautiful pink sided rainbow that had a hook jaw and was close to 20"s. The fish fought hard and was caught on an apricot egg that I had tied the night before with Werms tutelage.

I continued to slay them, catching a few more hogs, some decent rainbows and cuttbows. One was super fat, but not very long - maybe 18"s.

After a half dozen fish I decided to give my spot up to Werm's. He immediately had a hit and hook set his rig into the tree behind him. He reset and was soon into a fish. He hooked and landed a couple of fish while we set there and chatted. I was helping him land a fish when my bobber, no more than a couple of feet from us went down and started heading to deeper water. It was fun getting my skunk off on a bunch of fish, some of which were good size. I missed a bunch too, but by about 3pm I was just content. Werms with a nice action shot.

Werms decided to hit the road, but not before we both sat on the bluff, drank a beer and threw rocks at Scott while he caught a couple of dinks.

As you can see the wind completely stopped for about 30 minutes, the weather was almost tolerable, and it was a pretty scene. Werms hit the road, I broke down my rods and packed the truck as best I could. Scott walked over to the willows to see if he could get a fish of some size, but about 30 minutes later he was done. He stripped out of his gear, we packed the rest of it in the truck and were on the road by about 5pm.

The ride home was wet and slushy over Willow Creek Pass, dry through Fraser/Tabernash/WP, and wet, slick and foggy over Berthoud. The ride from Empire home was uneventful and I got my truck in Evergreen and was home before 8pm to see the kiddos go to bed. It was a great trip with the boys, and thanks Scott for driving!

The best fly of the trip? The bottom one. No kidding, you could throw a cigarette butt on there and slay them - but it had to be on the bottom. We killed them on pigstickers, eggs and jumbo juju's - all colors - didn't matter.

Thanks boys for the fun trip.

Saturday, Oct 2, 2010 - Clear Creek

2010-10-02T20:13:00.000-06:00

Fished Clear Creek today with my neighbor Tom. Fished under the bridge by Kermits from about 8:30 to 12:30. Nothing fancy, just big nymphs/midges. Caught about a half dozen each, all were browns, the smallest being 5 inches, and the largest about 12 inches. The fish were a little more picky than I remember. We could see a lot in the bridge pool, but couldn't hook them - we caught a couple, but not like every other cast.

The river scares me, truck tires, rebar, hub caps, rubber tires, deer carcasses, garbage. Yes, I said garbage. This is the same exact spot that Avi and I cleaned up last week and there was at least a garbage bag full of new trash just laying around. Sad. Depressing.

I forgot my camera, so no pics.

South Park River Fishing - Sept 21, 2010

2010-09-21T21:22:00.001-06:00

Darren and I decided late on Monday that we were going fishing today. D met me at 4:35am and we were on the road, hit Sonic in Woodland Park around 6am and were in the parking lot at 6:30 am or so. The weather wasn't that bad, although it was 34 degrees, there was some breeze, but otherwise pleasant. We jumped in the bend pool and fished some small flies. Darren hooked up right away with a small cutthroat, then lost a couple, then landed a couple more. The first two fish Darren landed had hooks/flies in their mouths and had tippet/line hanging out their asses. D clipped the lines and pulled the hooks the best he could. We would notice at least a half dozen fish today with the same problem - flies and fly line still in them. Sad to see.

This was a pretty bow that Darren caught:

The sun popped over the canyon and warmed us nicely. Darren continue to pop fish left and right but I could not even get a hit. I went the first 4 hours of the morning fishless. I was a little nervous I had forgotten how to river fish - it had been quite a while. The day continued to be picture perfect - in fact, kind of hot - probably low 70's and a few small puffy clouds in the sky.

This was a funny action scene of a fish that just wanted out! D couldn't even hold onto him.

I was amazing at how many boot lickers there were there - and big fish too - close to 16 inchers that would come right up to you and there would be a dozen or so within a 25 foot span down the river perpendicular to me. Crazy.

Around lunch time I finally hooked a boot licker and landed a pretty cutthroat. Then a BWO hatch started coming off and the fish started going nuts. Large fish were popping in the back side of the bend pool behind the logjam. I switched to a size 24 griffin's gnat kind of fly and landed two sweet cutts of about 15 and 16 inches. These fish were gorgeous, when you see them in the water they look red on top and golden on their bellies and they have beautiful bright orange red gashes on their throats.

We had still not seen a soul come into the parking lot and we had the bend pool completely to ourselves. We did however want to catch some more fish so we stopped at the car, had a beer, peeled off some layers and then headed back down below the bend.

Darren got ahead of me and we fished separately for about an hour - we met back up further down river - D had seen a ton of other people, so he was headed back my way. I managed a few fish in the shallow wide section of river - including this thick (but short) brown that was beautifully colored and had bright white tipped fins.

Darren and I fished the rock pool at the end of the long run. We saw tons of fish and caught a few also. At the big pool at the end D managed to catch some pigs - 3 or 4 of them, including a nice brown and a bright colored rainbow. I tried streamer fishing, but lost it and basically reeled in and called it quits. I acted as a guide for Darren back towards the parking lot - pointing out all the fish I had fished to on the way down. Here is D hooking up next to a log - he lost this one, but this is a cool action shot.

Then we saw a lunker - probably the biggest fish of the day. I spotted him and D got in position for a good cast. 3 casts and she was on. This is her when we landed her and this is her spilling her eggs. Weird for a bow to have eggs this time of year. Pretty fish and the best (largest) of the day.

Not the best day as for numbers of fish for me. I just couldn't get in the groove and was getting a bit frustrated. We hit the road about 2:30 and were home by 4:30. Thanks for driving D and thanks for taking me.

Saturday, Sept 25 - TU Clear Creek Cleanup

2010-09-13T09:37:00.000-06:00

TU Annual River Clean Up

I think I will be taking my daughter Avelyn and heading up to Idaho Springs on that Saturday. Might not be there right at 9am, but will be there. I think she will really enjoy helping out and I want to be sure she knows that fly fishing isn't just about the fish, but rather about river/sport conservation for everyone.

I might even take the fly rod and see if we can catch a fish or two.

I did this for 3 or 4 years in a row - the last time out I met a couple of nice guys from other TU units. I also spotted a couple of nice holes where the fish are at - so it was good to learn a little something about Clear Creek.

I hope you all can join me in helping out.

Sunday, Sept 12, 2010 - RMNP

2010-09-13T09:23:00.006-06:00

I have been dying to get up to RMNP for some fishing for quite a while, and when my co-worker told me his fly fishing brother from LA would be in town I used it as an excuse to get a hall pass and head up to RMNP. My neighbor Tom was added at the last second, so he met me outside my house at 5:30am, we headed over to Englewood to pick up Oliver and we were on I25 by 6am. Going through Estes we saw a huge herd of elk next to the lake - they almost looked like statues - always cool to see them there. We pulled into the parking area right before 8am. My buddy Steffan was waiting for us. We dressed quickly and started the hike in. Oliver and Tom got their butts kicked due to the quick altitude increase - Steffan and I made several stops to let them catch up and catch their breaths. We did manage to make it up the hill though. This time of year the water is super low, the question was how low would it be now. I wasn't really sure what the fishing would be like in September (I've fished it in July when there was still some late stage runoff happening).

I don't have to explain to anyone how beautiful RMNP is. It was especially beautiful today. Highs of about 70 degrees, lots of sunshine, a few clouds - just beautiful. A slight breeze, but it wasn't cold. The water however was ice cold, and it stung to put my hand in for the first time. Steffan and Oliver dropped off the ledge and found nice fishing holes. Tom and I made our way to the bridge to start. This was Tom's first time ever fly fsihing so I wanted to show him all the basics, set up, tying knots, flies, etc. We took a few minutes and I showed him. A guy on a horse came running through - right through the water we were going to fish. No big deal really since this water is full of little dumb fish who go right back to doing what they were doing 5 seconds before the interuption.

I am not a good teacher at all - so I knew I would get frustrated quickly - I was hoping for the best. Surprisingly, Tom was a pretty quick learned. His casting was a mess, but let's be honest - there isn't any room up there to cast. We spotted a fish right next to the bridge and I pointed the fish out. Tom couldn't see it - I literally almost poked the fish with the rod tip before he finally saw it. We had a dry/dropper on first and tried working that. Tom casted pretty well and had the fly right over the fish pretty easily. The fly went past the fish one time and stopped - I told him to set the hook, then after what seemed like a 2 second delay he set it and we had fish on. First fish in less than 5 minutes of fishing.

Hey, you can't teach a guy to pose with his first fish caught on a fly rod!

We hole hopped after that and Tom basically went out on his own the rest of the day. Since the water was so low you had to hole hop, looking for water that was wide and slow enough to hold a fish. I would find a nice hole, catch a fish then have to move - the pool would be too spooked. We met up off an on during the day. I saw Tom and he told me he caught 2 more on his own - and he was hooked. Oliver caught a few as well and got a photo of a beauty for his "wall of species". He was very impressed with the coloration on these fish.

Steffan finally appeared, fished with us a litle, then told us he had to go. I had no idea what time he left, mainly because my watch was dead. At 3pm Oliver asked if we were ready to leave, I looked down and said it was only 1pm (that is what my watch said) - he showed me it was 3pm - so we packed up and headed out. We hiked out and were home by 6pm. We did notice the huge plume of smoke behind us when we hit I25 in Longmont - that fire in Loveland looked scary. Here are some more pics - sorry, not a bunch of scenery pics.

I took a bunch of underwater videos with the new GoPro Hero Cam. I would find a deeper hole with lots of fish, fish to them, spook the pool enough and then put the camera in it - let it settle, then come back and get the camera after getting some footage. I was surprised to see just how fast the fish would go right back to their normal routine. Here is a stillshot of a fish that came right up to the camera - not camera shy at all.

Here is a great video of me catching a little guy - just dumb luck I would get one on my second cast.

RMNP Roaring River from Brandon Harnois on Vimeo.

A very good day of fishing the Park. It was relatively quiet - only saw 4 other fishermen and only for a brief few minuts until they moved on.

Sept 4-5, 2010 - Camping & some fishing

2010-09-05T21:29:00.001-06:00

Avi and I decided to hit Guanella Pass to do some camping with a neighbor and his young daughter. His daughter and Avi are a year apart and are best friends, so this was going to be a fun time with just the Dad's. We left HR around 9, got to Scott's around 10 to pick up the camper and then found that it had a flat, did a quick pit stop tire change and decided to hit Big O tire to get the flat fixed. Luckily it was only the valve stem and was fixed in less than 10 minutes for free. Big O is a great place.

We hit Grant and took a right and headed up Guanella Pass. There were a lot of people at all the low altitude camp sites, but it started thinning out pretty quickly. I was a little nervous because everyone had told me that it would be very crowded and all the good spots would be taken on a holiday weekend (especially leaving Saturday morning) - this was (thankfully) not true. We drove by a few spots that had people in them but went deep into the woods and had no one in the deepest parts, the third place we drove into was right at the base of the winding paved road that heads up to Guanella Pass. We drove into a big meadow and found a very nice spot, large enough for about a group of 10 tents/campers - but I didn't want to take up this huge area, so we found a spot right next to the road, but right on the creek. It was perfect.

We set up camp and then took a ride up to the pass and walked down to the lake.

You can see Mt Bierstadt (14,060 ft) here in the picture (top right peak).

It was a beautiful day, a little windy, but about 60 degrees - even up there.

We hiked around our campsite a bit, checking out the creek that went through it. I tried to take an underwater video of an undercut bank that held a couple of tiny fish, but the water was took dark and nothing came out (too bad). We did play in the water and did see quite a few small fish.

That night we played an hour long game of Uno that wouldn't end. Then Avi decided to do something extremely stupid and put her finger on the lantern glass and burned her fingers. She screamed for over 40 minutes, saying she wanted to go home and wanted her mommie. It was a bit embarrassing and out of control - I think neighboring campers over 100 yards away thought something terribly wrong happened. I iced the finger and tried my hardest to calm her down, but she was over tired, hadn't napped and was just hysterical. Fun time. She passed out around 9:30 and I slept with her on one side of the camper - along with a passed out mutt at my feet. To say the least I did not get much sleep.

Avi and I got up at 7, made a fire and started some pancakes. Miraculously the finger felt fine - just the normal bubble on the fingertip from a burn. My neighbor woke up, ate breakfast, then we went to try to get some of thise fish on a fly rod. I cast a caddis to a few fish, had one really good look, but no bite. We did see some beautiful fish including one 12 inch brookie that was green on top with a bright orange belly. Beautiful fish. The water was very very low - which I assuem is normal this time of year. We packed up cam and were home by 1:15pm today. I cleaned the camper and restocked it the rest of the afternoon.

This is the girls showing me their muscles.

August 29, 2010 - Sunday - Stillwater Fishing

2010-08-31T09:58:00.003-06:00

I'll be honest, I didn't sleep at all - sure I closed my eyes, but I woke up at least a dozen times to glance at the clock, each time it inched closer to when the alarm was set for. But I never made it, I never do - my eyes popped open at 4:15am and I decided that was close enough - turned off the alarm clock and got dressed in the dark. Pretty standard rituals for us guys who want to hit the waters not so close to home. Some of us do this every day just to get to work - I don't know how you do it Darren!

I pulled out of the driveway at 4:35am, the truck already fully packed the night before. Now it was time for the 2 hour journey to South Park. I hate making these trips alone - I usually need a second mate to blame the trip on (you know - "I went because Werms wanted to go"). I tried for about the first hour (almost all the way to Kenosha Pass) to talk myself into turning around, calling Scott and telling him I wasn't going to make it, then crawl back into bed with the wife. I tried, but no success. After Kenosha Pass I had decided that I was past the half way point, and it was going to be dawn soon - so the trip would get easier. It really didn't. Sure, I was awake, awake with anticipation of a good day - but in the back of my mind I was always thinking - what happens if I get skunked? It could happen.

I pulled into the North Boat Ramp at Spin at 6:35 - no sign of Scott and Scotty. Maybe they ain't coming. I'll kill'em. I call Scott's phone, and he answers - finally - bastard didn't pick up all Saturday when I wanted to know how the fishing was with Werm (yeah - where the hell is the report and pics??). He's right behind me - and we are pushing off from South Ramp - so I peel out and head to South. We pull into the lot together. Exchange handshakes and a couple quick barbs at Jr and before I know it we are on the water. It isn't cold, but it isn't warm. Wind is already up a little, not a good sign for the rest of the day.

We head straight to the other side of the lake - into a nice little cove area in the NW corner. Scotty starts dragging a big Club Sandwich trying to imitate a big ugly caddis skittering along the water. He manages one huge hit - but land nothing. We decide to hole up right next to a weed bed. It was quiet for a long time - Scott had two on, but lost them, Scotty had two on but lost them - I managed the only fish of the morning a nice 20 inch rainbow.

We decided to move south along the shoreline, not much to tell for the next couple of hours - lots of misses, no fish in the net. It appeared the fish were not in the shallows and we could see them on the fish finder when we moved from spot to spot in the deeper water. So we decided to hit a huge weed bed out on the middle. We anchored down and Scott hooked up right away - a nice fight, but soon the fish broke him off. It was not a good sign for the day - in fact I could see Scotty and I's day about to head for the shitter if Scott didn't land one of these big hits soon.

The phone rings....Werms! Dude - we got nothing - 1 fish and Scott is pissy, I gotta go. A few minutes later Scott's phone rings - it's the wife, she'd meeting us and is almost there, come pick her......wait, I have a fish, I have to go. Then bang - another fish pops off. We decide to go get Kelly at the dock. A quick trip in and a quick return right to the same spot. We need to get Scott into a fish or we might all die.

About 2 minutes later Scott is hooked up, and as I'm getting the camera ready to film Scott landing the fish I feel a tug and next think I know we have a double. These fish were twins (not technically, Scott's was a 1/2 inch bigger and a lot fatter) - and it was a nice break from losing fish. Maybe we were onto something.

I'm a big fan of harassing Jr, I mean the poor kid better get used to it. The problem is when the kid slams back to back 22 inchers in a matter of 15 minutes it makes it a lot tougher to pick on him. Don't feel too bad for him, the kid can dish out the shit too. Like father, like son.

Although we had some luck, we weren't exactly lighting it up, we spent about an hour and a half in the hole with not a ton more success after the initial few fish - so we decided to move to the bluffs. We never actually made it to the bluffs - Scott was watching the fish finder when we did about 100 mph over a ton of fish, so we scooted back to a nice shelf that looked promising. I don't have a whole lot more to say then WOW. We didn't "kill them" here, but we caught some of the biggest fish we have ever caught in here. Between the 3 of us we fished from about 12:30 to 3:30 and landed about 10 pigs. The largest being a 23 inch almost 5 lber by Scott and I had 23 incher that was slightly skinnier, here are some of the pics:

We lost a ton of good fish - I had on a nice looking colorful pink rainbow that I lost at the net. I missed a pig of Scott's when I hooked the top fly in the net on him (sorry bud). Scott also had a fish sink him - straight into the weeds. It stopped fighting and Scott was still hung up on the bottom - just waiting - he had to break it off. So strange. Lots of other unbuttons, but that is pretty typical day.

Oh, and our last fish of the day - by the pike slayer:

Not a knock'em dead day, but it was pretty damn good. The morning SUCKED! But the afternoon more than made up for it. About 15 fish boated - only 4 were smaller than 18 inches, 5 were at least 22 inches. Unreal.

Flies of the day were size 14 orange scuds and a size 14 damsel. I had some on chiro's but not consistently. Water temp was 62 in the AM and 65 when we left. Lots of big clouds, but partly sunny temps were about 72-75 degrees.

Thanks for the great trip Scott and Scotty and thanks for putting up with all of us Kelly!

FOTD - Roughfisher Scuds

2010-08-31T08:01:00.002-06:00

Roughfisher has some nice looking scud on his site this AM. Great colors and great ties. These look like they would work great rolling on the bottom of the river.

Wish my scuds came out looking that nice (not to mention the photography!). Great ties Ruf!

Caddis for Spinney

2010-08-26T21:44:00.001-06:00

So I finally tied up some nice bugs - good enough to eat. I can't wait for Spinney on Sunday. I tied up a couple of emergers too - because if the trout are slamming the dries they will be cruising for emergers too! Let me know what you think.

GoPro Helmet Camera

2010-08-17T14:02:00.001-06:00

For those of you who are interested in getting an "EXTREME" HD video/still camera, this is highly recommended. I got it about a month ago and love it - it takes amazing video and stills. Underwater it is just as good. I have taken it surfing, fishing, camping, to the pool, on my daughter's bike helmet, my inline hockey games, basically everywhere. Things works great.

GoPro Helmet HD Camera

My buddy here at work just bought one and took the below video of his drive into work on his motorcycle - this looks cool! Great video taken at 60 fps in 720p. Battery lasts 2.5 hours.

2009 Suzuki V-Strom DL1000 from Tim K. on Vimeo.

August 11, 2010 - Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island

2010-08-17T13:44:00.002-06:00

Sorry it has taken me so long to post. I haven't exactly been tearing it up fishing, been busy with work, family stuff, and camping.

Anyways. The family and I did the every other year family get together trip to Narragansett, RI last week. The trip was awesome. Got there Friday around 6. The cottage we stayed at was super nice - just redone - way over done considering it is a cottage and college kids live there from Sept-May. But it was nice to have everything redone in the last month or so.

Saturday we decided to do some clamming at low tide. If anyone hasn't been clamming it is quite an experience - you go out to the mud flats and walk barefoot in the water and feel for "rocks" - those rocks are usually quohoags. You can sometimes use a rake to feel for these "rocks" - about 14 of us went out and got about 6 dozen clams over a couple of hours. I got a sweet sunburn on my ass from bending over so much.

On the way back, we decided to get some crabs for lunch - so we stopped at the boats that are docked in Narragansett Harbor - they were good, but not great.

Sunday Jen had friends down from college (and all their rug rats) - we decided we had already waited too long for lobster - so I splurged and bought 16 lobsters and Jen's Uncle Tony bought the big one - a 6.5 lber. We ate well.

Monday and Tuesday were mostly beach days, including one night at around 7:30 when all the old guys (me included) went out and body surfed the larger waves at high tide. Fun stuff. There was a tropical storm off the coast that caused some higher than normal waves.

Wednesday we did a little fishing before heading up to Boston for the afternoon to see my grandfather. We caught 5 flounder, all small, and a couple of seagulls. No, seriously, my sister in law caught the same seagull twice. She had very little weight on her line so when she cast the bait would take a few seconds to sink and the seagull would grab it - get the hook stuck in its beak and then start flying away - to no avail. After a minute or so the bird flipped the hook out. Funny though.

On the way to Boston we stopped off at the Bass Pro Shop in Foxborough next to the Patriots Stadium - had to get some Seagaur tippet. Got a cool photo of me and the kids with the Captn Hook bear chasing us (the bear was missing a few fingers on it's left paw!).

We hit Boston that night and I stopped and got my Poppy a nice lobster roll at Kelly's. Had a sweet fish sandwich and a scallop plate as well - worth every frickin' penny.

Thursday was again a beach day - just hung out and relaxed. Luckily we did steamers on Thursday night as an appetizer - these were ok as well (not great). This pile was not nearly enough to satisfy me.

Friday we had friends visit again, basically spent all day at the beach.

Saturday we were out of there at 10am and had a 5pm flight - home by 11:30pm.

That was the trip - not a lot of fishing, but still a good time. I dragged the 7wt down there and a bunch of Clouser's but never really had a chance to use them - used the rod on the flounder which was kind of fun.

We have a block party this weekend, then who knows what is up the following weekend - Spinney maybe?

Taylor River and Taylor Res 7/24 & 7/25

2010-07-25T13:52:00.000-06:00

I don't have a lot to report - except a double skunk-itude.

Scott and I (and our families) camped at the Taylor this weekend (he is still there until Wednesday) and we got a chance to fish on the boat and the tailwater. Saturday night we headed over to the tailwater for some night fishing around 10:30pm until 12:30am. I saw a few, we heard a few jump, but neither of us hooked up. There was a lot of people over there - which was kind of surprising.

On Sunday Scott took us out on the boat - I tried my hand with the fly rod for trout - but no luck. His son (Scotty) however hooked this pretty 19 inch pike that Scott showed to my daughter Avelyn.

That was about it. It was nice to get out on the boat and have the kids experience it for the first time. They really enjoyed it and that was all Avi talked about the next day!

Big T - July 10, 2010

2010-07-10T13:54:00.000-06:00

We went camping this weekend with Scott and family. Stayed at Elk Meadows RV Park - don't ever waste your time going there - it is a joke. We did however have a great time - even if there were 25 other campers within a 30 foot radius.

We had planned to fish the Roaring River in RMNP, but Z decided to wake up about 5:15am (15 minutes before we were scheduled to leave) and he was not going to let us sneak out without giving Jen a really hard time. So basically everyone got up at 5:30am and started the day a little earlier than expected. Trying not to piss off my wife the day before her birthday I decided to hang close until nap time for Z. Basically the RR was out and we'd have to fish closer to camp.

There are some pics of our campsites with my new GoPro Helmet cam - set at taking pics every 10 secs. These are some pretty cool pics for a video camera - and I actually like the warped edges of the wide angle lens. And yes, I got a lot of shit from Scott and family, but it was worth it - I got some great video too.

At around 9am when Z went down for a nap we headed to the Big T below the dam. The water was flowing perfectly at 143 cfs. We hit Steffan's (not so) secret spot (sorry dude). The spot was perfect - no one in it and we dressed quickly and got on the river. The pics below are from the helmet cam - set up to shoot every 10 seconds. Yes, I had about 140 pics I deleted - with random triplicate shots of the same fishing hole. But these are some of the best ones. You can really see the curvature of the bridge taken by the wide angle lense.

And of course - my favorite picture ever:

The bad news is that none of us caught anything - which is pretty embarrassing to say the least - considering how dumb the fish are in the Big T. I hooked 4 or 5, but couldn't land a damn thing. We could see lots and lots of fish as well - but I could not figure out what they were eating.

We hit another spot, but had no luck either and were back at the camp site at 12:30pm. Not much more than that to report.

I will try and post a video from the camera after I cut it up and get it up on Vimeo.

Updated to add video:

New GoPro Camera - Big T Fishing from Brandon Harnois on Vimeo.

Berkley Lake - July 5, 2010

2010-07-05T13:56:00.001-06:00

I'm going to make this short and sweet - and get to the pics as soon as possible. Fry, Werm and myself hit Berkeley Lake on Monday - started early by meeting at 4:30am in Conifer. We were on the water around 6:30am. It was a bit cool with some wind, but we started out near the bluffs. We caught a whole bunch of nothing early on - the wind would kick, then die, then kick, then die - a very weird day of wind. We did see one cloud make an appearance all day. We moved around and then around 8:30am Werm and I get a double - completely random. We basically landed the exact same sized fish over near the bluffs. Scott gets a heavy wack soon after - but can't set the hook. A little while later he hooks and lands a rainbow. Then, nothing. I think we changed spots a couple more times.

As the day warmed up and the wind changed (again) we were hooking fish - nothing fantastic, but we were into one every 5 or 10 mins or so. Then it would get windy and ... nothing. Then it would stop and we'd get lots of hits - some on the strip, some just hanging there. We were looking for bugs and they only came off 2 or 3 times - big callibaetis, some bigger caddis, some chiro's (but not a lot) and am orange colored flying ant. Basically no top water action to speak of.

We had a period of about an hour or so in the late morning/early afternoon where we were doing very well - everyone was into fish. Most fish were mid-size, the smaller the fish the better the fight. Some pigs were caught and landed - and a few got away. The flies of the day seem to be my grey juju in size 16, and Werm's callibaetis in a size 14. Nothing else was really the ticket.

We moved a ton - from Scott Secret Spot #119, to Darren's Secret Spot #39, to Scott's Secret Spot #357...nothing was on fire. It was pretty sporadic with long periods of being between fish. The fish seemed to be deep - close to the bottom.

At around 2pm we decided to fish close to the boat ramp, Werm slammed a pretty brown, then we headed out of there around 3:30. We hit some traffic on the way home - I grabbed my camper at Scott's house - then was home by 6:30.

Werm's last fish of the day - the only brown - he was big and fiesty - great ending to a fun day.

Another pic of the brownie.

Werm fumbling a bow.

This was my third pig of the day - it was a very big fish - hooked him accidentally in 10 feet of water with 15 feet of line out. He had a f*cked up red blood shot eye. Looked like Scott after a hard night of drinking.

It might be short, but it sure is skinny!

Scott was constantly hooked up.

My fattest fish of the day - this one had like two stomachs, wide as hell - not very long.

...help...

Scott with a beauty rainbow.

My biggest pig of the day - didn't fight as nicely as some of the smaller fish - but he was pretty long - maybe 19 or so.

Old Chub, 8:15am - and I was the last to start drinking! Thanks for the Chub McFry! Oh, and the ice....

Book Review - Red Summer - by Bill Carter

2010-06-29T08:56:00.004-06:00

Red Summer by Bill Carter

This is a newer book out on the shelf that I happened to pick up at the library and started reading. It is 230 pages of easy reading. I literally read the entire book in a week - which is unheard of since I am barely literate at all. Most books take me the full 2X renewal period the library allows to read.

Obviously I am a big fan of fly fishing, and although this is not a fly fishing book, it is about Alaska and salmon and fishing for them. Bill spends 4 summers (only about 6 weeks a year) in Egegik, Alaska netting salmon with a few locals. He tells his stories of being a greenhorn in year 1, the pain he feels in his body and the lifes of the Natives. Through all the drinking, cigarettes, swearing and work he tells a great story of just how hard these natives work and just how much they appreciate the Alaskan way of life. Outsiders, like himself, take a long time to "fit in", but the Natives have been welcome as long as they seem to "add" to society and work hard.

There are a few of chapters about other causes as well - the grizzly bear, the Pebble Mine, conservation and the Alaska Fish and Game that add nicely to Bill's story. He seems to be a great story teller and he captures the feel of living in Egegik, Alaska.

Another cool thing to do is to search on Facebook for people living in Egegik, AK - you will find quite a few, including the people listed in the book - I thought that was pretty cool that you could actually see that these real people exist. Pictures of Egegik make this place even seem more real.

Overall I highly recommend this book - it isn't about fly fishing, but it is about "fishing" and about a place we all dream about - Alaska. Happy reading.

North Park - June 21-22, 2010

2010-06-26T06:48:00.001-06:00

This will forever be known as Destination Deet Throat - and if you have ever been to North Park in the summer you know why. We were fair warned, Darren set out early early morning on Monday and got up there around 5:30am - later in the morning he sent us an email saying "if you forget anything, don't forget the bug spray". So we packed a can each, and it was barely enough. Werm and I met at my house around 3pm and hit the road, after a quick McD's and a cigarette break we were pulling into South at 6:15pm or so. We stopped at south to get our bearings and give Darren a call - and suddenly a swarm of bugs were inside the truck - like pirahna's after flesh. To say the least, I am still swatting imaginary bugs away as I can still feel them buzzing next to my eyes and ears.

BUGS!

I should probably get to the fishing reports.... we met Darren at the North, but he was having no luck and we headed back over to South at the Willows - we blew up the kayak and were floating in minutes. The wind was just high enough to give us some reprieve from the bugs and add a little chop to the water. We all caught fish - mostly small ones, but we each caught about 4 during the daylight hours. Werm had a stretch where he had about 8 LDRs in a row - it can be frustrating when they unhook themselves like that. The darkness was creeping in, but the moon was over 3/4 full, so it provided enough light to make a headlamp a nice to have instead of a necessity. We loaded up the yak into the truck/car and were going to streamer fish into the night.

random fish

We headed back over to the fence on North and fished there for about an hour. Darren hooked up with a nice brown, but Werm and I got the skunk. So we headed back to South - by the outhouse and the beach and we lined up along the flats and pulled streamers through the beach area. We had really good success as well, I landed a nice little rainbow, Darren caught 2 huge pigs, and Werm landed a few nice bows as well. All seemed to hammer the streamer under the moonlight.

At around 12:15am we called it a night - and headed to Walden for the hotel. Werm and Darren wanted to borrow my underwater camera so they could compare their callibaetis' in the shower and see how they looked wet - but I said no, and they finally settled down and we crashed just after 1am. Before I knew it the light was on, the blinds were opened, and they were bustling around the room ready to go. I fought it for a while, but these guys would have just left me and gone to fish. We were back on the D's at 6:30am.

We started out on the South lake on the lot right at the left of the entrance - a nice little bay with some stinky ass mud. We paddled over to the spillway and started fishing. It was slow going, and we moved again. It was great - no bugs, and not a breath of wind.

like glass

Unfortunately no wind = no movement = no fish. We moved again, continuing towards the willows. Then I started hooking into fish - my first 4 fish were beauties, 3 of which ran in the 18 to 19 inch range and were brightly colored females. The 4th fish of the day was 18 or so inches and was bright pink - when I couldn't get the hook out I had to hold her tight and she shot over 400 eggs all over me and the kayak - it was a mess, and I felt pretty shitty. I hate when the females do that and you know those eggs aren't going to make it.

lots and lots of eggs

piggie piggie

The boys soon started hooking up as well - most of the fish the rest of the day were the 14-16 inch stockers that would run you all over the water. The smaller the fish the better the fight - it was a lot of fun not knowing what you had on until it got to the boat. Like clockwork, at 9am the bugs started attacking us. We slathered on the deet and sprayed each other with bug spray. And like more clockwork, the wind came, and came and came, and came.

Darren in his yak.

We did have an epic 45 minute stretch between 10am and 10:45am where we couldn't get the fish off our lines - all three of us landed a total of about 15 fish in that span and we have a couple doubles as well. Horsing those fish in on 4X and a 10 foot leader is no easy task in the yak - no ones arms were long enough and the dip net helped, but some you still couldn't reach. Not to mention the fish are net shy - they see your net and RUN! The water temp seemed perfect at around 59*.

Werm with a nice fish.

We literally got blown off the water around lunch time. We parked the yaks next to shore and just shore fished for an hour or so - Darren was the only one who landed a fish, I had 3 strikes in a row, and all three broke off flies. One fish I had on felt like the largest of the day - he pulled me straight into the weeds where I broke off.

We tried a couple more spots - including the outhouse hole and then back at the willows with little luck. By 3pm we were worn out from the wind and we packed everything up and hit the road. We were worn out. The trip home was uneventful and we were at my house by 6:15pm. It was a great trip, with amazing weather (it was in the high 60's or low 70's the entire time), almost no clouds and great fishing.

The pattern of the trip was the jumbo grey juju tied on a 2302 hook in size 16. I hooked almost all my fish on that pattern or a very similar pattern (same color) to it. Werm had some luck on some callibaetis late morning on Tuesday, and Darren had some luck on a caddis green tubing nymph, but they too had as much luck on grey juju's.

There were a lot of other campers/fishers out but it was by no means crowded. It was of course quiet and we had the occassional coyotes crying at night.

Pair of hawks that were building a nest in the willows.

Great trip boys - thanks for hanging with me! I hope to do it again soon!

Almost famous and some Carpin' at Chatfield

2010-06-19T21:28:00.004-06:00

This morning I headed over to the local discount fly shop and bought myself a rubber basket boat net for my D's trip on Tuesday. While I was there the guy at the counter said - "hey, do you have a blog?", I said yes. He said - "yeah, it's called Catching My Fair Share - right?" I again said yes. I told him, "wow, I'm famous, I get recognized anywhere now", to which he comment, "nah, I recognized your little girl".

SON OF A BITCH! The frickin 5 year old one up'd me AGAIN! Anyways, it was kind of cool to get recognized, even if it was my daughter that is the famous one. It was kind of cool just knowing someone besides the guys I bribe with flies, beer and gas money actually read this thing.

Anyways, I did head over to Chatfield this afternoon to see how the carp were doing. And they weren't doing nothing. The water was about 8-12 inches too high and I didn't see a damn thing. The Army Corps website says it is slightly under 5,432 feet - which I guess is a foot higher than I wanted it. I may have missed my window of opportunity to get into carp this year at Chatfield. Cabo was swimming in all the areas she can normally hang out in - which is bad news. I didn't even string up the rod. I only saw a few fish jumping out of the water - although I did meet a couple of nice walleye spin fishermen.

The water was way off color and it was warm. Not sure I will get another chance to hook up with the carps.

No fish, but still a happy dog.

Dreaming about Chatfield

2010-06-10T15:01:00.004-06:00

I've been seeing all the posts with everyone carp fishing lately - now that all the rivers are blown out - and I am starting to think about carp fishing at Chatfield again this year. The second week of June is a good time to start stalking them - it was June 15, 2008 that they were getting their groove on and I hooked into a bunch of them there.

I looked up the past history of the water levels Chatfield has - last year it was at 5,434 ft - which was flood levels and about 2 ft over ideal conditions.

I just checked the US Army Corps of Engineers site (type in CHFI) for water level and it seems to be at a normal level of 5,431.56 ft. That is right in line with two years ago - so I am thinking I need to go check it out.

I am thinking about heading over there on Saturday for a look - it is going to be some crappy weather, but I don't think the fish will much care. I'll break out the big rod and reel and have some fun.

Oregon Fishing - May 27-30, 2010

2010-06-03T08:41:00.002-06:00

Sorry for the delayed post - it is kind of long winded:

Wednesday - 26th
Steffan and I left for Oregon after work on Wednesday the 26th - flew into Eugene airport and were at my buddy Eric's house around 10pm. Eric and I went to Keene HS in Keene, NH & then briefly he went to Northeastern University in Boston - we hadn't seen each other in probably 18 years or so. We saw each other on Facebook, saw we both loved fly fishing and planned a trip - that finally came to being after about 15 months of planning. It couldn't be worse timing for Eric, who had just bought his first house and was semi moving at the time of this trip. Matter of fact, that first night was the first time he had slept in his house. That night we had a few beers and hung out a bit, then retired early to get up even earlier.

Thursday - 27th

Woke up before 5am, packed the truck, hit the local store for beer, snacks, water and were on our way. The day started out raining hard and didn't really show any signs of stopping. Eugene is situated in a valley - basically with mountains to the west (towards the coast) and the east. There are tons of rivers in this valley and it gets a good amount of rain this time of year, and it can reek havoc on water levels in the rivers - but there is always a place to fish due to spring fed rivers or tailwaters. We were on our way over the mountains to the East side - which is much more arid and like a Colorado climate. The mountains are not as tall as Colorado's, but they do get tons of snow and today we saw a lot. The top of the mountains had snow along the roads, and the peaks we all snowed in. We were headed to a river just on the other side of the east peaks - a spring fed, legendary river called Metolius.

We were on the Metolius River around 9am and ready for some serious fishing. Before jumping in we decided to hit up the Camp Sherman Store for some info, unfortunately it was still closed.

So we headed for a spot Eric had fished - we were pretty excited and rigged quickly, got on our gear and headed down river. This river is the most amazing river I have ever seen - clear as gin, beautiful undercut banks, lots of logs in the water for structure and it has tons of public access. The river however is fast, and is very very deceiving - you can see the water, and it has a nice rocky bottom, but the water moves and you can get swept away pretty easily. Spring fed or not, this thing was flowing fast today.

Cold, clear water also has it's down sides - the fish can see you a mile away and there aren't a ton of bugs in the water - you really need a hatch to find the fish and to get them popping. Of course that never happened - no really hatch developed and we were left to try and find where the fish were holed up, and we couldn't. We started the day at a beautiful hole that had to have fish in it - it was 9:15am and time for a beer! - of course we couldn't buy a fish.

Unfortunately we didn't have any luck, unless you call this rock "luck". I literally hooked, fought and landed this thing - it felt like a fish (with no fight) and stayed on the hook the entire time.

We proceeded to a bridge hole that we could over look the river and see if there were any fish. There were a few big Bull Trout sitting in the hole, and we tried fishing to them, but we couldn't get our flies in front of them because there was a huge toilet bowl effect that had 20 different currents and would push your flies away from them before getting down to their levels. We decided to move again. There is tons of public access as most of this river is located on National Forest Lands (as most everything is in Oregon - access is never a problem).

This hole had a 24 inch plus bull trout sitting at the bottom - with several other fish swimming near by - but the water was deep, close to 15 feet and there was no way to get your flies down to them. You can not used barbed hooks or additional weight on your line, so that added to the difficulty of catching fish. After fishing for a few more hours we decided to call it quits. We stopped again at the Camp Sherman Store got lunch (amazing cheeseburgers there!) and headed for Lost Lake.

Lost Lake is a small lake situated almost at the top of the pass at around 9000 ft and was right next to the highways. It has tons of brookies and rainbows that average 8 inches but go as high as 15 inches. The weather was aweful, going from sunny to windy to cloudy to rain to sleet to snow and sleet to rain. We tried and tough it out for an hour or two, but we were soaked and the temp dropped into the 30's. Standing waist deep in blowing rain took its toll on us. I managed this lone brookie, and Eric hooked into a larger one.

On the way back to Fall Creek we decided to hit some off the beaten path waters - a place a bit out of the way, but on the way home. The river is officially known as the South Fork of the McKenzie River and it flows into Cougar Reservior. This section changes based on the height of the reservior, and it was high today. We fished this section from the bridge up to about where the river met the lake. The water was still flowing pretty quickly, but was fishable around the edges. Steffan and Eric stripped streamers while I kind of took it all in. It was still a bit drizzly, and we could see a host of families setting up their Memorial Day camping spots in one of the free camping areas near the bridge. It started getting a bit late, so we decided to leave. None of us had caught anything and we were ready for a new spot. Eric came trotting out of the woods carrying a huge pair of antlers. I 12 point buck had dropped them about a foot apart and they were pretty fresh. On the way back to the truck we got asked about them by some of the campers. They were a great matching set and would look great in Eric's new house.

With still some darkness left we headed home. Along the way we saw a few elk grazing in a meadow next to the road, but did not have much luck getting pictures of them. We had one final spot - a very local river that Eric had some great luck at - this river will remain nameless.....for my sake. It was pretty much dark when we pulled in - we checked out the water by the boat ramp and there were a few that were hitting the surface - so we all dashed our with rods in hand. Within seconds I had a fish slam my streamer/possie bugger rig. I could tell it wasn't huge, but it fought like a 20 inch trout - when I landed it, I was in for a surprise....of course if there is a retarded fish out there you know I will catch it...a squaw fish aka a pike minnow.

I actually caught two of these that night - both about the same length (14 inches or so) but the first one was about twice the size of the last. We basically called it a night around 9:30pm when we lost all light. We hit Wendy's on the way home - got back to Eric's house and crashed.

Friday - 28th
We got up late - like 8am late, and tried to decide what to do. Diamond Lake was hot lately and Eric had never fished it, but had heard great reports. This lake was 100% killed 4 years ago due to being over run by bait fish, but it had been heavily stocked in the last 4 years and the beneficiaries were getting large.

Since we were starving our first stop was at the Trailhead Coffeehouse in Oakridge, OR, which is a hippie run cafe that had some of the best breakfast I have ever tasted. We were waited on by a biker dude, into his 40's named "Lumpy" - he was emblazed with a claw mark tattoo down the right side of his face. You knew Lumpy had played hard and was enjoying his time in this mountain biking mecca. We had a great breakfast and headed on our way.

A little further up the road Eric had us stop at Salt Creek Falls - which is located right off the highway. These falls were amazing and the river was roaring. Of course it was rainy and cold and we didn't stick around long. These falls are 286 feet high and are beautiful.

We made the 2.5 hour trip through rain, some snow and some amazing scenery and landed at Diamond Lake Resort around noon. The lake is beautiful, with two large volcanic snow covered peaks on each side - Mt Thielsen to the east and Mt Bailey to the west - Bailey never made it out of the clouds all day and seemed to have it's owe weather system.

The weather was pretty nice, but it can change pretty quickly. We rented a pontoon "party boat" and headed out. We hit the South side of the lake and tried chironimid fishing. The depth was about 12-15 feet for most of the lake. We got into some stockers right off - I caught two 14 inch stockers on a crystal flash chiro, size 16. Then it just shut off. We tried various parts of the south side of the lake to no avail. The wind was starting to gte bad and would blow us off our anchor and we would drift quite a bit. We saw a ton of other fly fisherman in belly boats, pontoons and other craft.

Around 3pm we headed to the north side of the lake - it was slightly deeper and more importantly out of the wind. We didn't do much better - although we did have several takes we couldn't seem to set the hook on. As we fished our way back to the boat rental place we passed over some deep drop offs that I thought for sure we would get into fish. But nothing happened - except the wind kept blowing. We decided to call it a day and we returned the boat around 5pm.

On our way back to Fall Creek we decided to hit some meadow fishing and we stopped at a super secret fishing spot - again to remain nameless (mostly because I forget the name of it - let's call it "Big Marsh Creek"). This spot was off the road a bit, and we parked near the railroad tracks in a nice little campground - that no one was at, surprisingly on Memorial Day Weekend. This campground is the kind you dream about in Colorado (there are a few like this) - close by the water, large space - of course it had it's down falls to - mosquitos. Luckily we were there in May and the mosquitos were still down south for the winter.

After a short hike we found this amazing creek - about 8 feet wide and flowing fast. It didn't take long for Steffan to start nailing them on small dark caddis patterns. He had a half dozen on instantly - including this brookie and a nice redband rainbow.

Above is the amazing view of the meadow as we stood on the railroad tracks over looking the river. We stayed here the rest of the evening - literally until 10pm and we couldn't see anymore. Eric slayed them here - catching a ton of fish. I had a couple on, but they all wiggled off before reaching my hand. I nymphed this river with no luck - you can't fish every river like you do in Colorado. I dry flied and dry/droppered it to with no luck. It was pitch black and we again headed home. This was one of our latest nights out, and we weren't in much of a mood to get up early the next day.

Saturday - 29th
Saturday morning we had decided to stay local. Eric had another secret spot that he didn't want to give away, but since we were pretty much skunked out, he decided to take us. It was actually very close to the place we finished up on Thursday night - but on the other side of the river. Problem is that the other side of the river means going 25 miles around the Reservior! After climbing up a dirt road for over 15 miles we finally hit the Yellow Gate Hole - which means nothing to anyone since there is no yellow gate around there.

We dressed, and headed on a short hike to the river. This river was big, slightly off colored, but looked very fishy. We were about 1/4 mile from the entrance to the Reservior. We immediately jumped in, but couldn't even see fish. The river was about 6 feet deep with large riffles and spin outs where the water could pool up - but it was blowing probably in the 4200 cfs range. The closest river I can describe this as is the Colorado at Gore Canyon - but blowing twice as much water at the Gore's highest point. The caddis and mayflies were coming of - large size 10 green caddis and slightly smaller maroon mayflies. The fish never did take from the top.

Steffan took this beauty on a golden stone - a 16 inch rainbow that was very healthy. This would end up being the fish of the trip. I could see several fish in this one hole, but could not entice them to eat - and I tried about 2,000 casts in there. I was indicator fishing and Eric seemed to think that was my problem. The fish in OR like the movement and swing of large flies. Steffan actually caught this one without and indicator on the swing.

About 12pm we headed back to Eric's house for some lunch and I actually ended up mowing part of Eric's huge lawn on an old tractor. We had a nice cookout, drank a ton of beer and then decided we needed to fish some more. We scouted some more local areas as Eric tried to get us into some steelhead or salmon. We swung by a buddy of his house who has some private property right on the river. Unfortunately there were no signs of steelhead or salmon hanging out in that pool so we moved on. So we headed out again.

This time we hit Little Fall Creek, a little ways out of town - it was a good sized creek, about 215 yards across and it was known to have salmon or steelhead in it. Eric took us to a big falls pool where the steelhead would ahve to stop because they couldn't go up the falls. We fished this section for a while, but again, nothing. I had had about 10 beers by now and I was feeling pretty loopy - in fact, Steffan still swears I almost took a header and went down river. But, I don't remember it and we were back in the truck again trying out some lower sections of the same river. Again, it was getting late and we basically called it a night. (I'm going to be honest with you here - I don't remember what we did next - I just remember more beers and going to bed!)

Sunday - 30th
Our last day of the trip started out late again - around 9am. Eric knew a great spot that was sort of on the way to the airport and we could get in and out pretty easy and still amke it to the airport by noon.

We headed out around 10am and were on the water in no time. This river was the Coast Fork Williamette and was right near Highway 5. The river had a weird bottom to it - it had like a shail bottom with slotted sections where the fish could hide in some holes. There was also an island and that broke up the water - so we fished around the island. The water again was blowing strong and fast and tea-colored, so fishing was going to be tough. Eric headed straight for the island and was immediately into rainbows and cutts. I joined him and hooked up with a nice little cutt of about 12 inches.

I continued to fish and caught a few more fish - including my first ever double - a 14 inch rainbow on a black zebra midge and a 10 inch rainbow on a size 14 possie bugger. I hooked a few more and then it was time to go. Steffan hadn't caught a fish at all in that section. On our way back to the van, Eric started telling us abotu the shale and it's history. This area had actually been a bay and the shale contained imprints of wood, shells and plants from thousands/millions of years ago. We started turning over rocks and finding imprints of all kinds of old fossils - sticks, shells, various imprints. It was very cool. We headed out right at noon time. Stripped out of our stuff, packed our gear, said our good byes and were on the way to the airport.

That was essentially our trip. Not a whole lot of catching, but a great time none-the-less. Oregon is beautiful and we learned a lot about it's history and it's landscape. It is so much different than Colorado, but equally as beautiful. Steffan and I would liek to thank Eric and his wife for putting up with our asses for 4+ days and we appreciate his hospitality. I can not wait to go back.

A couple of thoughts on Oregon:
- The rivers there are huge - you can't compare them to anything in Colorado. The water flows so fast it is hard to judge, and it makes them difficult to fish at times. Although I would like to blame myself for not catching fish, I think the new surroundings and completely different water had something to do with it.
- There are a lot of rednecks/hippies/crazy people in Oregon. From crazy mushroom pickers to tattoo faced hippies, the place has a wide variety of loons.
- I saw about 100 logging trucks go by us that first morning at about 100 mph in the rain - pretty crazy.
- Logging is a way of life here - it makes and breaks towns. Loogers/mills/trucking is everything in some towns. I was against clear cutting, but these people in Oregon take it seriously and treat the land with respect. They replant everything they cut and it takes only about 40 years for a forest to regrow to cuttable trees.
- It is very natural there - wildfires are natural, the water is natural, keeping hatchery fish is natural...it is just a peaceful place there.
- There are so many different local beers in Oregon - and although none were my favorite - it was awesome trying them all. To say we had a lot of choices is an under statement.

Soft Hackles

2010-05-19T09:14:00.005-06:00

I have never really fished any soft hackle flies before. I guess a nymph or midge has been my go to fly and I have never really had to resort to fishing a wet fly/soft hackle/flymph. But, after talking to my buddy in Oregon I hear that soft hackles on the swing are the best fly to use - especially for hungry cutthroats and in early summer/late fall.

So, I have to start tying them tonight (not bad, a week before I am leaving) - and to be honest with you, I have no clue how to tie one. Sure I've tied some soft hackles on my possie buggers, but I wouldn't call them nicely tied by any means.

I have been poking around the web lately - and specifically today - and found a few really nice patterns. Check these out below. I will be tying some of these tonight.

The Flymph

I have posted this pattern before on my site - just never got around to tying it. I like the color and the bugginess (if that is a word). Plus, I don't think it is too difficult to tie.

March Brown Soft Hackle

Easy tie - and the March Browns are popping right now in OR!

Soft Hackle Hare's Ear

Quincy Soft Hackle

These are just a few that caught my eye - I will be tying a bunch in the next few days - I will post some pics of what I have tied up.

The Lightning Bug - FOTD

2010-05-04T21:24:00.003-06:00

I just saw this fly over at Reno Trout Envy, it is the Lightning Bug - nothing too fancy, but very flashy and easy to tie (not to mention the photo is excellent as well).

I have tied a few of these and they do kind of look like the rainbow warrior, and they do work - especially in off color water. You can tie these even smaller - all the way down to size 24 as my buddy Darren does - with a sort of purple tinsel that is only a mm wide. This tinsel needs to be glued down to hold it in place and because it can be brittle when trying to pry it out of a fishes mouth with forceps.

These flash/tinsel flies are easy to tie, can be tied all the way up to a size 10 or so and the colors can be any color you can dream of (just look at some of the colors Brian used in his fly box.

This is a great, easy to tie fly that produces. Thanks Brian for another great fly!!

Pumphouse, Colorado River - April 22, 2010

2010-04-23T13:23:00.003-06:00

Darren, Dave and I fished the Gore Canyon stretch of the Colorado River today. It was a great trip. Flows were 530 cfs (which is as low as I have seen it) and the water was dirty with less than 12 inches of visibility.

The day started at 4:45 when Dave met me at my house, we loaded up and were at Darren's at 5, then we headed up the mountain, a wet but smooth trip to Dillon, south into Silverthorne, about to Green Mountain and it started getting nasty - snow and rain and poor visibility. We pulled into the Pumphouse parking lot around 7:30 - checked out the water and suited up. Although the air was a bit warm, the wind and blowing snow SUCKED ASS. Everything was wet in minutes.

On the river soon after and found a great long run up river from Pumphouse where a small creek dumps in and the river makes a huge riffle and then a 90 degree bend. We sat in this spot for a while. Darren was hunkered down and started catching fish immediately - he had 2 or 3 before anyone else, including a chunky brown that ran 17 inches:

Right after that Dave hooked up and he had on a pig - and this fish couldn't be muscled in - we finally got it to net and it was a slab of legit 18 inch brown. Beautiful fish - thick, fought hard and was fiesty - love them freestone browns!

The boys continued to trade fish while I flopped around in the water working on my skunk. I snagged bottom, added a birds nest, lost flies, lost weights, almost fell in....yeah, not so good. The boys decided to head up river without me, I waved them on, because what I was about to do should not be witnessed by anyone without a strong stomach. Yes, that's right - I went whitie hunting! And man did I land one. 19 inches of thick pig, as big and fat a round as your calf. He was the biggest fish caught today and I was sure proud of him! Mark him off my list of To Do's this year!

I caught up to the guys at the bend, where I found out that Dave had basically caught another 5 browns and Darren another 7 or so. Dave took some time to sift through the river bottom with his little aquarium net and man did we find some bugs! In one scoop with his 4"x4" net he scooped up 8 salmon flies - I grabbed these three below for samples for a friend - a crane fly nymph, a caddis nymph and some other larva. all where a drab green. The salmon flies were HUGE - I mean they stretched 3+ inches long and were meaty! Not too difficult to see why the fish get big!

Moving closer to the canyon we traded some fish - Darren slammed this 18 inch slab of a brown in 2 feet of water no more than 3 feet off the bank - where the fish were hanging out all day.

The fish seemed to be taking anything shiny and big - hare's ear worked for me, Darren had luck on some streamers and a wire worm and Dave had luck on a midge/buzzer pattern. All flies were larger than normal - most in the 14-16 range and Dave's midge/buzzer was a size 18 (I think).

I landed a hearty little brown - about 16 inches - and then a couple of others further up into the canyon.

The weather cleared about 2.5 hours after getting there, the rain.snow stopped, the sun slowly came out, the wind died down, and we saw some blue sky. Most of the day remained that way, the sun stayed behind some clouds, but it was manageable. The fishing turned off however - we had a couple hits, but no more than 1 or 2 fish landed in about 2 hours. we decided to head up more into the canyon. Where the BWO's were coming off, however the fish were never really keying on them in the canyon. We did see some taking the BWOs a little later down outside of the canyon.

Around 2pm we decided to head back to the entrance of the canyon and try our luck. Of course our stomachs got the better of us and we headed back to the truck for a beer and a sandwich. We didn't stay long at the truck and suited up again and headed back down to the river. Dave and I fished the same stretch - Dave pulled out 5 or 6 on a double emerger rig and I hooked and landed 1 nice brown.

Darren of course disappeared, crossing the river and heading upstream. The weather started turning nasty again with wind and flying snow. On D's way back crossing the river he managed to hook into this bad boy - you, he got a whitie too!

It was a great day on some new water for D & D. Dave did manage a chunky rainbow - that I think Darren got a pic of - so that rainbow was the minority fish of the day. Great day of fishing! Thanks guys!

Possie Bugger - FOTD

2010-04-23T12:56:00.003-06:00

I am headed to Oregon next month and have heard that the #1 fly in Oregon is the possie bugger. I have been tying them off and on for a couple months and they look nice, but aren't great. Brian ofver at Reno Trout Envy has tied up some beauties. I like the speckled hen look as a soft hackle and need to tie some of these up. I will be tying a few of these tonight!

Czech Nymphs & Caddis Emerger - FOTD

2010-04-08T21:09:00.002-06:00

This guy (avelino) has some serious talent - I really like the look of these czech nymphs, well tied and very unique.

This is also a very cool looking Caddis Emerger - I like wings coming out the sides.

I'm going to tie up a few of both for my OR trip! Thanks avelino!

Progress?

2010-03-22T22:10:00.001-06:00

Last night I tied up a few more JuJus and HE's - this is what I put together. I got a tip from Juan Ramirez that maybe my hook was too long on my original HE - so I shortened it to a 1X. I think these came out better. I just need more practice.

Possie Bugger - FOTD

2010-03-22T12:35:00.002-06:00

Roughfisher has a sweet little Possie Bugger up on his site today. This is perfect timing since I need to start tying for my Oregon trip in late May. This Possie Bugger is one of the most productive flies in Oregon and I need to tie up a few dozen.

He's tying these in size 10, which I think is about the largest I could go without it looking too large. However, my Oregon buddy swears you can tie these as large as 6 or 8's and still be effective. That seems HUGE to me!

Great ties Mr. Roughfisher!

Fly Tying

2010-03-21T09:47:00.000-06:00

Darren came over last night and showed me how to tie the JuJuBe and the Hare's Ear. I know these aren't tough flies to tie, but I needed to get past the first wrap of super hair on the JuJu and my Hare's Ears never looked right (still don't!). I also managed to tie a Kaufman's Stone Fly. My buddy Tim showed up as well. It was a good time tying and it was good to see D and Tim.

Here are some pics of the flies I tied.

Sunday 3/14/10 - Cheesman Canyon

2010-03-15T13:32:00.002-06:00

I decided to fish Cheesman Canyon with the boys yesterday - met down at the Gill Trail parking lot at 6am - Carl was the first to show, followed by Adis and then John and I showed up a couple minutes after 6am. The weather was surprisingly warm - not like in the 50's or anything - but it wasn't windy at all and was over the freezing mark. While waitning for the slow pokes in our group Wermers and Adis decided to hit the Coors Extra Gold - which almost made me barf, but to each his own. I wanted to see him slam an Old Chub, but no go! Scott and Scotty showed up at 6:15. We all took our time dressing, and just as we were ready to hike in another car pulled up and the guys in it were getting dressed like it was a fire drill. I guess they were afraid we would be taking their holes and they weren't expecting 4 cars in the lot that early in the morning.

I don't have a lot to tell - since I got skunked the entire day, but everyone else caught fish.

There was some terrible competition for the good holes and some members got creative on how to free up some space in the river. Scott was sure this wouldn't spook the fish for too long.

John working a nice long hole:

Adis telling me I'm #1 - thanks man, I love you too!

Scott and Scotty - scheming to steal my Old Chub:

Some little critter tracks:

Adis working a pig:

The day got progressively worse, with the wind kicking up, the temperatures dropping and tiny snow flakes flying sideways. The snow was just enough to soak your top layer and be annoying, nothing really accumulated in the canyon. The temp must have warmed up to because Gill trail was a muddy mess.

We all hit our separate holes in the morning - then met up for lunch - sandwiches, pizza and power bars were eaten, Old Chub was drunkened, Brandon was repeatedly beat on, 3 fish were hooked - none landed. Scott and Scotty had to beat it home, so the 4 of us decided to head back down river and fish our way out.

I took Adis on a hell of a trip up the steep path that is about 70 feet above the river and straight down into it. We had great views of a hole with a ton of fish - and Adis popped into it. He landed 6 nice fish out of that hole. But that was about it for the fish catching for the day. We headed out of the canyon at 3pm. The roads home were sloppy, but by Sedalia it was only raining.

Colorado River, Parshall - Friday, Feb 19, 2010

2010-02-21T19:46:00.002-07:00

My buddies Darren, Werm and I all got the day off on Friday and decided to go fishing. Although we had a bit of a battle trying to decide where we wanted to go, we knew the general vacinity and honestly, it didn't matter where as long as we were fishing.

We hit the road around 5:30am - headed for the Parshall hole - no matter what the roads looked like. The morning drive was pretty uneventful, no cars off the road, and the road actually got better as we got closer to Kremmling. Werm brought the chocolate covered Entemann's donuts - so he scored big points there. But then he lost those points when he made us stop in Idaho Springs at the Kum and Go because he has a tiny bladder (you should probably get that looked at Werm).

We pulled into Parshall Hole at 8am (ish) - we were the only car in sight - and it was easy to see why. The weather was in the teens and it was hell putting on your gear.

D tying on Werm's flies....no, I'm not kidding.

The morning was a typical winter morning on a river - the sun was fighting the clouds to come out and shine, the river was steaming, everything was covered in snow, the river had ice sheets along the edges, and the water was very very close to freezing - at least it felt that way. One fish or strip of your line and your fingers were buring, then frozen then they were useless. We fought this the entire day, off and on, until our gloves were soaked and we just gave up and let them freeze.

The day started out very quickly. As the three of us lined up on the road side of the river in the riffles, slicks and flats of this stretch. Darren immediately started hooking fish, and we had instant info as to what they were taking - green thread midges size 18-20. Werm hooked up next and I soon after and the skunk was off. After that we just had fun.

The sun tried it's hardest to stay out, but would dip behind the clouds for long periods of time. No matter the light we just kept catching fish all along this 100 yard stretch, in the deep riffles, along the slack water, at the very bottom of the riffles in the slow slicks. Most fish were close to the edges in knee to waist deep water - just outside of the moving current. The hits were mostly subtle, with a few strong takes.

Werm and I were hit and miss all day long, sometimes we'd have a good 20 minutes and catch 4 or 5 fish and then it would turn off for 40 minutes or so. Darren and I stuck the whole day with a nymphing rig, Werm tried dry flying for an hour or so with no luck. The fish were popping all day long and the bugs were all over the water. They turned out to be grey midges and the fish porpoising along the far bank - some showing their entire bodies. One particular fish looked larger than the rest and Werm started hunting for it. He switched back to a midge rig and hooked up hard on a sweet fish - definitely the fish of the day - a beautiful 17 inch rainbow. It was only the 2nd rainbow of the day and the only 2 of the 80 or so browns caught by all of us.

Acrobatics

The browns were a ton of fun to catch - I would estimate that 95% of them were between 13 and 15 inches. The occassional 12 incher and 16 incher was thrown in here and there - but the rainbow was the largest and fattest. All of the fish were very healthy and in great shape - and every single brown fought fiestily. Most browns would tail walk on the water and spin uncontrollably trying to get off - many of them would spin your tippet into a bird's nest and strangle themselves on the line between flies. They wouldn't give up and lots of times the fight led you to believe you had a hog on, only to pull another 13 incher out. Either way, it was a blast.

The 17 inch Bow - remember, Werm has large hands...

The day was highlighted by several doubles and even a near triple (Werm had just released his fish). We also had a weird warm spell where our fingers stopped hurting and I could almost feel my feet around 1pm. But that was only temporary, as it started snowing sideways again and the sun slipped behind the clouds.

Around 2:30 we all caught a fish and decided to call it a day. I can honestly say that there was no way the day could have been any better.

I was home by about 5:45pm, and just as I was unloading my gear, I just started to feel my feet again. I was sore as hell that night - my finger tips hurt, my feet hurt, I took some Tylenol PM and was in bed at 8pm!

Great day, great friends, good beer, great fish, gotta love Colorado!

Wet Flies - FsOTD

2010-02-09T13:32:00.002-07:00

I was surfing the Fly Tying Forum and found these beauties. They are tied by Artur Buczkowski from Poland and are amazing examples of some great Wet Fly patterns.

The first pattern is a classic brown with a red thread head.

While the second pattern has a cool looking under body with a grey thread head.

Both are very nicely photographed and professionally tied. Great job Artur!

BWO Nymphs - by Reno Trout Envy

2010-01-26T20:28:00.001-07:00

Ok, I'm a fly fishing/tying blog junkie, and I love midges, I especially love fly tying blogs about midges - and I love it when the flies are nicely photographed. This blog Reno Trout Envy has a beautiful BWO Nymph on it today - in two colors - grey and olive. Nice little ties.

He also has a tutorial on his Grey Winter Midge which looks very effective as well.

Adam Barker Photography

2010-01-06T17:02:00.003-07:00

Check out the amazing work of Adam Barker - he's located in Utah and does some amazing work! He is spotlighted today on This Is Fly and you can check out all his images on his website - just amazing stuff!