New Materials

I was recently sent some new materials from my good buddy Kevin Compton at Performance flies. He is now importing some materials from Sybai out of the Czech Republic.

SYBAI Tackle s.r.o. is professional producer of tying materials and accessories for fly fishing. The way we develop and manufacture our products is putting great emphasis on quality and continuous process of innovation is enabling us to successfully export and distribute our products throughout the world.

Some of the materials I received from Kevin.

Flexi-floss is an excellent stretchable floss with all the qualities of rubber. This material is ideal when forming bodies and legs on any type of fly. I have been using the flexi-floss as a ribbing agent on both nymph and dry fly bodies. It is a very sturdy material and easy to work with. I have also been using it as gills on midge patterns. Comes in a huge assortment of colors.

Pearl Braidback is another material I got which is Very translucent and pearl luster material used in nymph bodies, backs and wingcases. This material makes for a great shellback on czech nymphs and makes a beautiful wingcase for nymphs. I need to experiment more with this material.

3D Epoxy Eyes,

The eyes are made by the most modern technology from the special resin of the excellent quality, which includes especially:

UV radiation resistance ( no getting yellow and color stability supporting)

long time elasticity ( scratching and cracking by stroke resistance)

high transparency ( against usually used resins on the polyester base our ones reach higher „ 3 D“effect)

The most of the 3D Epoxy Eyes are the original models, which SYBAI tackle is the only producer. I have not yet played around with these, but looking forward to twisting up some streamers using these neat, very neat looking eyes.

And one of my favorite products that I received was Fine Flash Dubbing. A fine diameter, Flashabou textured synthetic dubbing. Can be mixed with other dubbing materials. Perfect for speedy formation of shiny saltwater, streamer, nymph and wet flies bodies. This material is a lot like the Siman Peacock dubbing, but with a wider variety of colors. This was the first product I broke into and started playing with. I took some Black Spikey Squirrel dubbing and the Burnt Orange color of Fine Flash dubbing and mixed it up to get a very neat Salmon fly body color. This stuff needs to be chopped up a bit for the fibers are long, but very workable. Looking forward to working with this material more as time goes on.

Well time to get back to the work bench and see what comes off the vise.

Tight Threads!

The Midge

Here is a link to a neat little clip of midges hatching done up Ralph Cutter.

http://www.midcurrent.com/video/clips/cutter_midge.aspx

Taylor Park

For my sons 7th birthday, we had two choices at hand. The first camping with one group of friends at a Disney Park type of campground in Grand Lake with all sorts of rides, foods, events and high dollar cost for the weekend or rafting with another set of friends. Jen and I let Quinn decided on how he wanted to spend his birthday weekend. He chose rafting. Great choice Quinn! So Friday we packed up the camping gear, rafting gear and of course the fishing gear and headed off to Taylor park. We left town right around the four a clock mark on Friday afternoon. The traffic thru the western suburbs on I-70 was slow going and once we got to 285 it was easy sailing thru the mtn towns. We made it to Buena Vista at about 7:30 for a quick stop at Subway for some dinner. Got back on the road and started up Cottonwood pass. We made it up and over Cottonwood pass as the sun was setting. Once we made it down into Taylor Park, we needed to find a camp site. It began to rain a bit, but not bad or heavy, just a light consistent sprinkle. We found a campsite up on the upper Taylor in a field about a 100 yards away from the river. We got the camp set up, fire going and got the kids ready for bed. After a few beers and discussing about the float next day we headed off to bed ourselves.

We all woke up just after 7 to bright blue sunny skies. The girls made breakfast while Jason and I readied the gear for rafting. Got all loaded up and headed off to down river to Almont to raft the Gunnison. We set in where the East and Taylor Rivers merge to form the Gunnison. Our float was an 11 mile float down the Gunnison to what the locals call the Bridge. After dropping the raft and running a quick shuttle, we got back to the launch site and got ourselves all geared up and ready to go. Jason was on the oars, the girls in the back and Quinn, Myles and I up front. I got the boys all set up for fishing, but they were more interested in just floating and having a good time, so I strung up the fly rod.

Started with a streamer dropper, but I soon noticed fish were taking Caddis off the top, so I quickly changed to a stimulator and dropper for the afternoon and began working the shore line. Missed and broked off the first few fish, but finely landed a nice brown. After a few more fish a few mishaps and just plain old relaxation we made our way down river to the take out. The fishing was not hot nor cold, but average and most importantly a good time with the families.

After we got off the river and ran the shuttle back to my truck we got loaded up and quick stop at Almot to get the kids some ice cream we headed back towards the campsite. But Jason and I decided to stop at the Taylor dam and let the girls go back to the site with the kids so we could fish. We only had about 2 hours to fish before we were to be back at the camp for dinner, so we didn't want to waste much time, we quickly got dressed and headed down to the river. I had to tie up a new leader, because towards the end of the float, my back cast caught some trees and broke off, so that took about 30 minutes to get myself ready. I finally got my self ready and tried to find an open spot of river, but it was crowded and we walked down from the bridge, but it seems all others were moving up river as well, I looked back down towards the bridge and few anglers had left so I moved up towards the bridge, got my self positioned and saw a couple of pigs to fish to. Started to fish and caught a nice 16" rainbow, landed and quickly released, and moved a little closer to the bridge and spotted a huge pig in front of boulder and made a few cast and didn't even entice the big boy, so I resorted to looking through the fly box and picked out a smaller midge dropper trailed by a Craven Juju in the colors of purple and chartreuse and made two cast towards the pig, but a brown intercepted my drift and he was a nice one, pushing 20". Quickly landed and released him. Made another cast up stream to get the perfect drift for the pig, I saw the huge red strip move and my rod bent quickly, got him. But as quickly as I hooked him, he went into a deep hole and broke me off just as quick. Moved out of the pocket and sat on shore to rerig and some guy jumped into my hole, so I finished tying up and moved up stream about 20 yards and saw a whole pod of fish. Landed another small rainbow and made a few more cast and hooked into another nice fish and he snapped me off, not the rig, but broke the hook in the bend, damn cheap Dai Riki hooks. (I find that the size 22 and 24 Dai Rikis to be really weak and will no longer buy those hooks in those sizes.) So I headed back up stream to find Jason and get myself ready to fish, but the time flew by and we needed to head back to the campsite.

Headed back up to the site, when we reached the site, we encountered 65 mph winds and couldn't get a fire going or charcoal for the grill going, and the sand, dirt was pelting us so hard, we decided to head down to Almont for dinner. Made the 45 minute down to Almont for dinner, had a nice dinner and some beers and headed back up to the site. Once we reached the site, the wind and subsided, we got a fire going, got the kids some smores and off to bed they went. Jason broke out the guitar and we had a few drinks and Jason played a few tunes before we headed off to bead.

Woke up about the same time shortly after 7, the girls got breakfast going, we started to break camp down, had breakfast, cleaned up, Quinn opened up some presents for his birthday and then we finished packing up to head home. We decided to do a hike up to a lake which was 3.3 miles to the lake. The boys basically ran the first mile and half and I had to leave everybody behind to stay close to the boys. A little time later Jason caught up to us, we finally made it up to the lake, what a nice little lake surrounded by the mtns, and the rain clouds came in, a little thunder, rain, snow mix we quickly headed back down the trail to meet up with the girls, they were waiting at the car for us, time to head back to Denver. We loaded up and head back, making it back to Denver about 5:30. Quinn had an awesome time for his birthday.

TU and Urban South Platte River need our help!

Please join the Denver Trout Unlimited Chapter and the Cutthroat Chapter in their quest to restore the South Platte River and bring trout back to the city!The South Platte River runs throughout Denver-metro area, providing millions of metro-area residents and visitors the opportunity to connect with a resource that makes Colorado great--our rivers! Although trout and other wildlife currently suffer from severe habitat degradation and poor water quality along this 12 mile stretch of the South Platte, a private-public partnership has developed a plan to take back this urban gem to provide recreation and enjoyment for all! Having raised over $20,000 for the project to date, the Denver Trout Unlimited Chapter and Cutthroat Chapter are hoping to raise $250,000 more through the Pepsi Refresh grant, and they need your help to win--projects that receive the most votes online by June 30, 2010 get the cash! Here's what you can do to help:1) Cast a Vote with Your Mouse (and do so often!)Click here to cast a vote for the South Platte project on the Pepsi Refresh site. You can cast 1 vote per day. The project with the most votes will receive a Pepsi Refresh grant worth $250K! Voting ends June 30, 2010.
2) Spread the WordForward this message to your friends and family and encourage them to cast their vote for the South Platte project. Click here to share this announcement on Facebook!
3) Learn MoreWatch DTU's video about the South Platte project by clicking here or visit the DTU website to read more about the project.

Camping & Quinn's first trip out

Over the holiday weekend we had our annual neighborhood camping trip. The last few years it has snowed, rained, and hailed on us. This year was different, it was absolutely beautiful. We camped in the Arapaho National Forest up near Hot Sulphur Springs on the mountain side with Beaver Creek flowing nearby. The site was down from the main forest road down a little embankment on the side the mtn. Great site, we were able to fit 5 families on the site with no problem. After the first night we took the kids over to Williams Fork Reservoir for some fishing. It is here Quinn put on the waders and waded out into the water and made some cast with the fly rod. He was casting a big ole bugger in the wind. He didn't hook up, but it was nice to get him out for his first time. He continued on for an hour, with a few tangles here and there, but had a good time. The jetstream then came blowing down on us and we had to breakdown pretty fast, because these winds were just wrecking havoc on the boy's fly cast. We headed back to the camp site for the rest of the day.

Next morning, we headed back down to the Reservoir for some more fishing before the four winds came a blowing again. We mangaged to work on his cast for about 2 hours before the high winds made an appearance again. Oh well, at least we got out for awhile and got him making some cast. We will have to try again in the coming weeks.


Just a heads up last week I received some new fly tying materials from my good friend Kevin, that came from... yeah thats right the Czech Republic. At first glance some very neat stuff and neat colors as well. Stay tuned for some pics and hopefully some new creations from the new stuff. Till next time, Cheers.

Chad's New Olive BWO

Blue Wing Olive season is here and has been a good one. After a few trips this spring with some great BWO action, I went to the bench for my last outing and decided I wanted to work on some bwo emergers. So after I while at the bench and a few patterns later I came up with something close to the one above. I only tied up 3 since I was pressed for time and thought that should be enough to have for the outing. Well I stuck the 3 in my box and headed to the river the next day for some great fishing. Well low n behold, after fishing a good part of the day, sticking fish on everything we threw at them, from streamers, stonefly nymphs, caddis larva, and few midges. I forgot about the 3 bwos I had tied the day before. I was sitting on the bank and rerigging my rig and going through my fly boxes, I stumbled across this fly I tied the day before. I sat on the river bank watching the snow fall and noticed on the top of the river surface these little bwos starting to hatch and becoming more prevalent in the moments that have passed, so I tyed one on and got off my butt and made my first cast, and who would have thunk, not even a full drift, I had this huge tug on the end of my line and quite a fighter at that. Got him after a little fight and quickly released him. Got myself reorganized again , made my second cast with this fly. This time the strike was more powerful and a bigger fish at that. He broke off pretty quickly, rig lost. So I found myself on the bank side again tying up another rig. I thought to myself, was it a hoax that was being played on me, so I tied up the same rig and made my cast. About 10 feet into my drift, I hooked another fish, and this one air born about 3 time and got tangled up in a log mid stream and broke me off. Okay one fly left, so I found myself back on the stream side rigging myself up again. Same rig as before. Got up and made my cast , and again not 15 feet later, the line went tight and another big fish, this one I landed, snapped a picture and quick to release it. By this time the snow gave way to some sun and more bugs in the water. Got myself organized again and made another cast, and bam another huge hit and got to play this one for a couple of minutes, before he broke off, this time, I couldn’t tell if it was weekend tippet, bad knot or, just a strong fish that broke me off. No more flies of this particular pattern, made myself a mental note, when I get home, quickly hit the bench recreate it for next time. So over the course of the next few days I found myself at the bench tying a bunch of these up, and expanding on my original pattern making it a bit more realistic then the first versions I tied. Tried a new technique to my liking I came up with the attached photo. Did a quick google search on BWO bugs and came up with the Real BWO in the vise and by my own amazement, they look pretty darn close to being the same bug. I had them up on my computer screen and my son came into the room and took one look at it and said Dad, did you tie that bug, I said yes and he said you can hardly tell the difference. It looks almost like the real one, expect for the hook coming out of his but. LOL. I am very psyched at how this bug turned out and can’t wait to get back on the river to give it a few more outings. I am thinking this one will for sure take some big tailwater pigs. Got to make a trip up to the frying pan and give it a shot against those picky fish. Here is the details.

Hook: Partridge K3A Swedish Dry Fly Hook #18
Thread: Olive Benecchi 12/0
Tail: Coq De Leon
Body: Mix of BWO dry fly dubbing and Olive Micro Fly dubbing
Rib: FlexiFloss Olive
Under or lower wing: Tan UV Ice Dubbing, dubbed into noodle and tied in and then picked out sparsely to create the smaller mayfly wing.
Over or Standard wing: Z-lon colored up.
Thorax: Mix of Siman Peacock Eye Dubbing and Spiky squirrel dubbing and some deer or elk tips cut at the very top of the hair patch, twisted in a dubbing loop and picked out to get the life like legs.

I have been experimenting with some colors and came up with a grey adams, march brown, pmd, green drakes, and fall baetis.

Well Tight Threads, if you tye this bad boy up, drop me a line and let me know how this works.

Mtn Stimi

The Mtn Stimi.

Sorry for the photo quality, was playing around with some different shots, but wanted to high light the Siman Peacock dubbing and deer hair dubbing for the thorax and out of a few different photos, this one came thru the best.

Thread: Olive

Hook: Dai Riki 270 #14

Tail: Olive Elk

Body: Rusty Olive Emergence dubbing

Hackle: Olive Dry Fly Hackle

Wings: CDC Brown, MFC Wing and Elk

Thorax: Mix of Siman Peacock and Fly DK Dubbin in Olive. Speckled with black marker.

Cheers!