The Neighborhood Bruin

This fellow has made quite a stir around here of late and has even got his picture in the local rag. Below are some shots taken by a neighbor's friend ( I did not get the name or I would have given them credit) of the bear while he was taking a mid day snooze in a roadside tree. He has not caused any major problems, other than rooting through your garbage if you happen to leave it out unsecured.


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPad

They are finally looking up!

Its been a difficult season this year.  On most days that I have had available to fish I was forced to deal with  high muddy water.  Lots of fish caught but all below the surface.  Things have finally settled down over the last few weeks and there has been some fine afternoon dry fly fishing.  There have been some great sulfur hatches but little in the was of surface feeding.  The late afternoon spinner falls are another matter all together.  Fish can be found boiling on the surface as clouds of spinners descend to the water, just as the last visible light slips below the horizon.  It becomes a game of feel and sound. There has been some great fishing just after dark.  Fishing in the dark presents challenges.  Since I try not to use a light on the water, re-tying flies to tippets can take forever,  There is enough fumbling with rod and reel going on, so no after dark photography for me, besides its a short lived game, so there is no time for pictures.

Luckily there have been a few that have been convinced to sip a dry fly while still light enough to enjoy seeing the take.  This guy fell for a carpenter ant at high noon...

This one on a sulphur emerger fished in the film.

Its been a long time coming...

Golden Stonefly Nymph

Golden Stone 

This pattern has been particularly effective over the last few weeks.  Many of our local streams have seen an emergence of large stone flies in late May. Trout have been keying in on these large nymphs as they move towards the shore to crawl onto to the bank in the evenings to molt into winged adult stoneflies. 

Pattern Recipe:

Hook: Tiemco 200R (size 8-10)

Bead: Tungsten brown or black (3/16" for size 8)

Thread: Danville 210 denier white

Underbody: 8 wraps .30 lead wire

Tail: Goose biots (golden yellow)

Abdomen: Tapered thread underbody tinted with olive brown on top and golden yellow on bottom, covered with yellow or clear vinyl d-rib (medium)

Rib: Medium black wire 

Thorax: Synthetic or natural dubbing in a golden stone color to match the natural

Wing case:  Two Pheasant "church window" feather cut with a wing burner.

Legs: Round rubber (solid or barred)

Tying Instructions:

Although this pattern calls for a lot of materials it is relatively easy to tie.  

Begin by mounting the bead and placing 8 wraps of the lead wire on the hook shank, pushing it up against the bead to hold it in place.  Place a drop of head cement or super glue over the lead wraps.  

Mount your thread behind the lead and wrap towards the bend of the hook, where you will tie in you split biot tail, wire ribbing and vinyl d-rib.  

Next build up a tapered thread body and cover the lead wire with thread wraps.  Once your underbody is formed, tint the thread with the markers, dark on top, light on the bottom.  

Form the abdomen by wrapping the d-rib forward with tight touching wraps stretching the material slightly as you wrap it.  Tie it off at the start of the lead wire. If you wrap it with the flat side of the material against the hook shank you will get a nice segmented appearance.

Next, wind the black wire rib forward allowing the wire to fill the grooves between the d-rib. 

For the thorax apply dubbing to the thread and dub half of the remaining space on the hook shank behind the bead.  

On top of the hook shank tie and the dubbing you just applied tie in one of the wing case feathers.  

Apply additional dubbing to the thread and dub right up to the bead.  

Next tie in the final wing case feather and tie in the rubber legs on each side of the fly.  Apply a small amount of dubbing to cover your thread wraps and whip finish and apply head cement if desired.

Golden Stone (alternate view)

Solving a Mystery

I spent a few hours on my favorite trout stream over the holiday weekend and had an excellent day of fishing.  I had the whole section of river to myself, which shocked me since it was a holiday weekend.  What made it even more enjoyable, was the fact that it was one of those rare occasions where you manage to figure out what your pea brained quarry is focused on and find that little piece of the puzzle that makes for a great day's fishing.

After spending the first few hours of the day picking off a fish or two.  I sat down on a mid stream rock and began to ponder all the reasons why the fishing was so slow.  I reckoned it could have something to do with the little bit of color that still lingered in the water from the high water event earlier in the week, or perhaps the fish were gorged on sulphur nymphs that have been coming off in huge numbers every afternoon.  As I sat on this rock and retied my leader and selected yet another set of flies to present to the fish I spied this fellow crawling up from the waters edge.

This was a good sized stone fly with bright yellow markings on its underside.  With no better choices to go with I selected a large golden stone fly nymph as my anchor fly and was rewarded with a fish on my first cast.

And so it began...for the rest of the afternoon fish after fish came to this fly including the big fish in the previous post.   Here's a few more quick shots of this fly in action.

The fly I fished was a one of a kind experiment.  It was a more detailed version of a soft hackle stone fly that I regularly use.  Instead of a soft hackle it has a traditional double wing case and some rubber legs added.  When that fly was eventually lost to a fish, my soft hackled golden stones produced well enough but not quite as good as the experimental version.  So its off to the vice to turn out some more of what is now a proven pattern instead of a experimental one.

Catch and Release

Over the past few months I have caught and released this fish on four seperate occasions.  She has always been caught in the same spot despite the fact that she has been released several pools down stream from where she is originally hooked.  She always does the same thing, a few quick bursts up stream than an about face and a mad rush down stream that requires you to beat feet after her or she's gone baby gone!  The fish has a damaged mandible from a former battle and and a very recognizable spot pattern on the cheek.  The picture above is from our most recent encounter this weekend, when she took a big golden stone nymph (more on that in a future post).

The first time we met it was late winter and it was far too cold to be messing around with a camera so she was quickly sent on her way but I made a note of the water she was in and that damaged jaw.  On that occasion she was tricked by a green rockworm imitation.

Our next meeting took place right before the season opener.  This time a pink san juan worm with a gold bead did the trick.  I saw this take as she rose up from her spot in front of a log and picked off the fly mid current.

Our third encounter took place a few weeks ago during a high water event.  She was in the same spot as always.  She is never visable but you just know she is down there somewhere.  This time a heavy cased caddis imitation fooled her.

I am going to bid her farewell for the rest of the season and leave her be.  Four times in one season is more than enough...

Cabela's 11' Czech Nymph Rod

I recently purchased a 4wt  11' CZN fly rod from Cabela's.  I had to wait a while for it since it was on back order, but its in my hands now and its time to give it a quick review.  First off I should mention the price point.  At $200.00 it is probably one of the cheaper fly rods on the market today.  The rod is manufactured in Korea and the fit and finish on the rod is just as good as rods costing 3 times as much.

I have fished this rod since the begining of the season and have been thrilled with it.  The extra foot of reach over my ten foot rods has allowed me a little extra stand off distance for some of the more tricky spots on the river.  On some smaller streams I can cover the water bank to bank without even getting my feet wet.  This is a special purpose nymhing rod, ideally suited for Euro nymphing techniques.

The rod has a supple tip and a bit of power in the butt section.  It presents a cast of nymphs well and the light tip protects fine tippets but the rod's more powerful butt section allows you to quickly bring fish to hand.  I won't comment on the castability of this rod because quite frankly there is no traditional casting involved with many of these techniques.  Recently I had the opportunity to fish the rod with traditional indicator techiques and it is well suited for that purpose as well.  The added length makes mending a breeze but more importantly eleven feet of rod often allows you to keep the line of the water entirely making mending unnecessary.

If your looking for a reasonably prized Czech Nymphing rod you may want to check this one out.  The rod is available in 3-5wt and lengths from 9'-6" to 11'.

Fishing in the Rain...

This spring has been a very cool wet one for us here in the northeast.  Great for the trout, not so great for those of us that chase them with a fly rod.  I am not adverse to fishing in the rain, but all this rain has kept our streams at or near flood stage for long periods of time.  When water levels and clarity drop down to fishable levels its time to drop what your doing and head to the water regardless what the weather is.  In between all of this rain we have had some breaks with a beautiful day or two but usually the rivers are blown out or running with the consistency of chocolate milk.  I have been glued to the computer, studying water stream gauges on my local waters and dashing out when there looks like there is an opportunity to fish.  On days when the streams are just not an option I've been able to slip my kayak into a local pond and chase warm-water species.

This Monday there looked like there was going to be a opportunity to hit the trout streams.  Water levels were dropping to fishable levels and hopefully there would be enough clarity to fish.  After work I slipped out for a few hours and was not disappointed.  There were plenty of fish in the margins and the softer water along the banks.  The low light and off colored water made some of the stream's larger browns a little more approachable but landing these fish in high water was next to impossible.  Once they headed off down stream chasing them was not an option, so your only option was to snub up on the reel and bid them farewell.

The positive side to this spring's tough conditions will be that there should be plenty of water and fishable temperatures well into June.  It was also good to see that the bugs don't seem to have any issues with the high flows.  Our sulfurs are coming off like crazy and are getting a break from the fish as they ride rapids unmolested, at least on the surface.  So there was no delicate presentation of light colored mayflies to these fish.  It was big heavy nymphs, the kind that will put your eye out with an errant cast.

Longing for soft warm evenings presenting delicate dry flies to rising fish...

A Piece of Fly Fishing History

A few months back I picked up a Thompson Wet Fly Wing Forming Tool. This tool was popular back in the days when wet fly fishing was the standard method of presenting a fly to a trout.  When I purchased the tool it came with only three combs  I was fortunate to find three additional combs of different sizes on eBay a few days back. I have not used it yet since up to a few days ago I did not have the appropriate sized comb for the size flies I was looking to tie. I'll put up another post with the finished product and the steps taken to get there.

 

'Gill Time...

nuff said...

Backwater Paddle Company Piranha Paddle

Last year I picked up a Piranha Paddle from the Backwater Paddle Company.  This multipurpose hand paddle has changed the way I fish from a kayak. It is designed to be used in one hand.  This small paddle does not replace your standard kayak paddle but  supplements it instead.

This is how it works for me.  Once I get in the boat, I use my 7' kayak paddle to navigate to my fishing area.  Once I am in place and ready to start casting the Piranha paddle comes into play.  With one hand I can correct the orientation of the boat for the optimum casting position. Once the fishing begins, I can slowly quietly and effortlessly work my way down the shoreline casting away and making minor course adjustments with the Piranha Paddle.  Simply put it works like a charm.

In addition the paddle has multiple specialized surfaces that come in handy while fishing.  The angled serrated forward edge of the paddle is useful for pushing off objects and assists me while launching the craft allowing to push off a shallow bottom until I reach a suitable depth for my regular paddle. It also sees a lot of use pushing off shoreline cover that I happen to get to close to. The hooked portion of the paddle comes in handy for grabbing branches that are holding that inevitable fly that a errant cast caused it to land in a shoreline tree.  The hook also comes in handy for grabbing items that inadvertently fall overboard as well as grabbing on to a piece of shore line cover for exiting the boat or holding the boat fast to another boat or floating object.

Now for the best part...it cost me twenty bucks.  It is by far the best twenty dollars I have ever spent on a piece of fishing or boating equipment!