Tying Binge

Not much posting going on lately, but a lot of tying. Here are some of the latest...


AND...

Catch Up with Tigers

Man, I'm falling behind on my blog. Oh well, I haven't been fishing much lately anyway, as my fly boxes have been crying out to me to re-fill them and I've put my time in at the vise.

Be that as it may, I'll harken back to a chilly November morning heading up to Dead Man's Lake to go after some big Tigers. Early on, the fish were in shallow and a few were rolling. The lake was getting close to icing over so we knew it might be a mixed bag as to whether we'd get into them much.

Before El Cheecho got his line in the water, I'd hooked into this little feller on my 2nd cast. Nice 22 inch fish. The rest of the day was somewhat slower, as we stalked fish we could see roaming the shallows and tried to hunt them down. We wrapped up the day throwing some nymphs on the Middle and got into a few more fish as well. All in all, not a bad day...

From Sweetflies

Tiger Hunt

Catching big Tiger Trout at almost 11,000 feet in elevation is downright groovy. The hour-long rock-hopping jeep-trail ride and subsequent hike isn't so groovy (hat's off to Jed for the ride) but it's an adventure.... queue video recap....




The rewards are big, colorful and pretty toothy.







Throw in a lot of nice cutts and smaller Tigers lashing out at dry flies and it makes for a pretty fun time....

Strawberry Cutthroats

Word on the street was some good cutts were popping up on a local stillwater to snack on dry flies. Ben is the stillwater ninja so we packed up early and headed to fish it.

Got on the water a o' dark thirty and got a few risers before the sun came up. Strawberry Reservoir isn't super well-known for it's dry fly action, but the fish are known to hit up top from time to time and today was our chance to hit it. Unfortunately for us, the inlet flows had changed and the bigger cutts decided to stay down more than come up -- so the big fish count wasn't as we'd hoped. The planter rainbows were easy to get on the dry though, so it wasn't a total loss.

A day on Strawberry without needing to throw leeches, wooley buggers and the normal stillwater fare is good no matter what. Fun day all the way...

Red-eyed Demons

The drive across the lake Saturday morning was colder than I figured. By the time we had driven to our fishing area, my forehead felt like it had 100 needles being driven into my brain at 50 MPH by the wind. I think it took a full 15 minutes after we started fishing before I stopped shivering. Luckily, I didn't have a lot of time to cry about it as the smallie hunt was on in full.

Fly box: Crawdads -- Check. Perch minnow imitations -- Check.

The first fish just about ripped the rod out of my hands. It was a demon fighting for it's dinner (crawdad pattern pictured above) and it didn't give up easily. It was one of the most fun fish I've ever caught. From the hit to the fight and the fish itself, it was memorable.

------> Come here you little devil....

---------> GOTCHA!!!

And the proud papa with his smallmouth bass:



It was, after all, the first smallmouth on the aptly named "Smallmouth" rod. Seeing that fish bend the 8 wt into a pretzel was downright scary.

And some final shots of other fish that great day...

The smell

I officially ended my trout hiatus the other night. Long overdue. Walking down to the stream, the first thing that hit me was the breeze -- a perfect mix of warm and cool ribbons of air carrying the smell of a trout stream in the summer. I think that's the pavlovian trigger that starts my mouth watering in anticipation of dry flies and wet wading. At the very least, it's a cool welcome back reminding me of the style of fishing I like most.

Summer small streams = minimalistic fishing. One or two boxes, one rod and a lanyard to carry what I don't want in my pockets. I'm a relatively recent wet wading convert so waders are taboo after spending last summer without them. There's just something about standing in the cold water like a nut-job mano-a-mano with the elements.

Starting off, it makes sense to throw the Grumpy Frumpy (hat tip to Cheech for the pattern and photo).



One thing about small streams is that trout find a way to work themselves into every nook and cranny big enough to hold them, provide them food and protect them from roaming herds of hyenas. The first such strip of water across the stream from my entry point holds promise. Two casts later, and a nice brown trout is wondering what happened to the Grumpy looking dinner he had planned and why he's being yanked out of his hidden abode. Next hole up a few boulders away, I find a couple more of his good friends including one with the nerve to swipe the fly. And on it continued...

Later, the caddis would swarm, the GF gets the boot to make room for some new caddis patterns screaming at me from the fly box direct from the testing department. Good times there too as the fish took kindly to what I floated by them. These flies earn a spot in my caddis box.

Finally, as the sun slithers down behind the canyon walls, I stood there and soaked it all in for a few minutes while the water carried on its whisperings to the trout. It's been a good evening. I headed back to the trail, my shorts were soaked and my wading socks were sloshing with water. I was short a few flies but I made a few new slimy friends that evening. The breeze is cooler now and it pushes me back to reality and my drive home. Times are good, my friends...times are good.

What's a trout again....???

It's been a while now since I've seen or let alone touched a trout (not to mention almost a full month since my last post -- ouch). Last trout contact was somewhere around the end of March or early April. That has to be a record for me. For the first time in a long time, I didn't hit any stillwater at ice-off. I didn't fish the Green during the Baetis hatch. Ouch again.



In the meantime, I've been chasing the bucketmouths and a few fiesty bluegill around. Pelican Lake on a 21 1/2 Foot Cobra Bass boat is the way to go. We hunted largemouth all day long and I took some time here and there to hook into a few nice bluegills too. I found that even small bass like to ambush fish close to their size (small 1/0 Bluegill imitation) (top picture).

Then after spending 15 hours on the water, we get attacked by a swarm of some sort of Trico hatch focused just on our boat and saw a cool sunset (props to the Cheechster for the sweet photos)

And a nice sunset....

And finally, a wicked awesome day on the Stans Berries throwing the Tiki Fly where the pigs were abundant and my arm was full-on sore at the end of the day. Thanks Cheech!