Summer stuff part 2

Where to begin. I have fished a bit through out the summer, but it hasn't been super high on my priority list. Have been saving for a trip later this fall with the wife to a little island in the Caribbean. I have fished the Frying Pan, Dream Stream, Yampa, Blue, Cheesy, Joe Wright Res, and 11 mile. Nothing to shocking or out of the ordinary there. I have brought the float tube on a few trips, but have yet to pump it up.

The Frying pan was high and muddy and flowing near a 1,000 cfs when we were there. We hit 11 mile before the high waters hit. Fished the dream at good flows and caught a bunch of fish, the blue, is the blue, Joe Wright was fun, caught a few grayling, which was a nice change of pace. Cheesy is the cheese as well and had a good time as always before the high water set in there. Went up to the blue a couple weeks back and forgot my wading boots, so attempted to fish the higher water in my chaco sandals. I really dont recommend that, unless you want banged up toes!

Took a family vacation up to Steamboat this past week and got out a few times during the week. The first afternoon I tried to fish just before town, but it was just below the main rubber hatch area and I spent more time dodging tubers, which wasn't all that fun, caught a few small cutts, before I decided to bag it.

Then a two days later I headed up towards Stagecoach, but didn't make it quite to it, I found a nice section of a mile and half of river that I had by myself for a while, before I ran into another angler who said he was up near Stagecoach, but it was packed with folks and he came down here, because it was open and no one was there but me. I had a great time in this section, landing and loosing fish after fish after fish, caught browns, cutts, and big bows. I lost a few big bruisers as well. I didnt have my camera, but had my Iphone on me and managed to snap a few shots with that, but I was too afraid that I was going to drop it into the river, so only broke it out a few times. Some of the photos of fish are below.

Then on Friday, we went to town mid day and walked around town and the kids were tired and the family wanted to head back to the condo for some rest and relaxation, so we went back to the truck and I put on my wading boots grabbed the rod and decided to work my way through town and work my way back to the condo. Spent a few good hours on the river, catching fish and dodging tubers. I managed, a grand slam this afternoon, with a cutt, brook, and few browns and bows to boot. Was a great time.

That is about the end of it. Nothing to spectacular, but some good times and well some off times.

Have a couple more trips planned in the coming weeks, but nothing big, just a bit of water time.

Summer Stuff

Decided to take a bit of a vacation from fly tying for the past month and some and get out and enjoy the outdoors. Have made a few ventures out for some fishing. With the super high water flows, haven't hit all the normal spots which was nice, because it got me outside the box of my normal places and got me to venture off the beaten path and hit some new body of waters, that I haven't fished previously or it has been years since I have wet a line in a few of the places.

Anyhow it was good to get out and have some fun. As for the fly tying, finally got the urge to sit down and twist up some bugs. I have spent the last a few nights in the dungeon twisting up various bugs of all sorts. Will get those photoed and posted here in the next week or so. But here is a little photo collection of various stuff. Enjoy.

Not Much Going On.

I feel like I have not updated this in quite some time, oh well, not too much going on. Camped and Fished over the Memorial Day Weekend. Nothing to special, fished 11 mile canyon with Jason, and our boys. The fish were hitting a variety of bugs, bwo emergers where the meal ticket for the 2 days we fished. Nothing very big, but then again, I didn't really care, because I was just happy to be out.

Then we were supposed to float the Gunny Gorge, but that got blown out with run off, so we headed to 11 mile canyon for a weekend of drinking and fishing. Fished Friday/Saturday and Sunday for a few hours. Good times were had by all and the fishing was good. Lots of fish, again nothing to big, but a few bruisers were caught.

Then a couple of weeks ago camped way above Ruedi Res and was going to fish the pan, but that was high and dirty with flows above 800 cfs. Not too fun. So we fished the inlet to Ruedi, nothing to special but fun to be out. Have tempted to break out the float tube, but have not gotten around to it. Bummer!

Haven't been down to the dungeon to tie much lately either, finished up with a few custom orders before the memorial holiday and only tied a 1/2 dozen bugs for fishing a few weekends ago, but haven't been back to the bench. Just got an order for some woven bugs, so looks like some tying time to come here soon.

I hope to get out this coming weekend for a few hours, don't know where yet. Maybe break out the tube and hit a still water for kicks and giggles, but again not too much happening. Been busy with Jen and Kids doing a ton of stuff, which has been a blast and nice filler from fishing.

anyhow, hope it goes well with the rest of ya!

Cheers.

Back on the Train

Okay then, last update, was Good Friday, which was, depending on how you look at it, either a good day or a bad day. What is your definition of a good day vs a bad day. Well on this particular day the good wasn't so much the fishing, but I did manage to catch a helluva fish. Bad-was the 4-runner breaking down. Now lets flash forward a few weeks, I still have the 4 runner, which is still not working, and won't be until someone who decides to buy and fix it up them selves. I decided to upgrade the vehicle a bit, while every one is down sizing their cars, I biggie sized mine. LOL. I ended up with the car I have sought for some time. A Toyota Sequoia, now I just have to keep a little journal to remind myself to change the oil every four thousand miles and then some, instead of my previous output of say every 7 to 10 thousand miles. This way Ill keep the Toyota running for some time.

So after being vehicle-less for sometime, I put fishing on the back burner no fly tying and no fishing for a few weeks. Which was good, because when I finally did get back on the river, I had a good day. A range of nice sized fish, small, medium and a few pigs. Good times.

I also found myself getting back to the vise this past week and turning out a few BWO dries and emergers, some green drake dries, some adam's dries, and to wrap it up some pmd cdc paraloops. So hopefully I will be getting around to photographing them this week, before disappearing in the mountains for Memorial day weekend.

Also this week, look for a product update, this one all you midge tiers will like.

Cheers...

Good Friday or was it.

Managed to get out with my buddy Mac on Friday for some fishing. The fishing started off slow for the day, it was cold and windy as heck. First we checked out the Colorado River, but that was too high and muddy and flowing good for my buddy Mac to fish it. So we decided to head over to the Blue. Fished the lower Blue for awhile and nailed this little beauty. First fish of the day. After fishing here we decided to get in the car and warm up and head over and fish in town. Fished for a few hours in town. Caught several fish, but none the size of the first fish and decided to head home. On the way down the mtn, truck started ticking and appeared the transmission/clutch dropped just outside Dumont and was able to coast off the highway onto the exit and pull over. Couldn't get the old 4runner running again so called the tow man to come and pick us up. Got the truck back to Denver and now begins the thoughts of what to do. Fix it or buy a new truck. Ill have to sit on this one awhile. A little bummed about the truck breaking down, but what is one going do. Stuff happens. No reason to get mad. At least I caught a nice fish.

The H Bomb

This pattern has been a pattern that I have tweaked and re-tweaked and continued to alter over the years. It has been one of my most consistent flies that I have ever tied. When I first developed this guy many years ago. It was a just a simple take off the Woolly Bugger with some of my own twist thrown into it for good measure. It has mutated itself over the years, by adding this or that and taking away this or that. I have combined this and that too over the years, just seeing what works and doesn't work. Lucky for me, all the different versions that I have created over the years have caught fish and a lot of them too boot.

In tweaking the pattern over the years, I have always stayed true to a key ingredients of the fly. Those key ingredients are the just a few of the keys to this fly. Streamer hook, Tungsten Cone, Marabou Tail, silli-legs and wire under-body to make it heavy and sink like a rock. I have always kept the profile slim so it will slice through water and gets down fast.

The few ingredients that have changed over the years has been the flash in the tail or along the side of the body. The body material itself, but I have always kept the body shaggy and buggy as I could using dubbing with longer and shaggier fibers to give it action. I have wrapped hackle around the body, like the true wooly, but I always thought wrapping the hackle around the body of this fly took away from the dubbed body and the shagginess that it had. So I have stirred away from the hackle. I have experimented with the thorax and collars too over the years. I have given it different styles of wings from your classic matuka streamer wet wings to jungle cock wing pads to zonker strips.

I also have played with the colors scheme of this pattern as well, but there is one color plate that I keep going back to and tying every year. The choice color that seems to work year round and in tailwaters, still waters and running water is Olive. After my last few outings, I was starting to get low on a few colors of the pattern so it was off to the spooky dungeon man cave of my house to begin twisting them up.

With this batch came a few new twist that I have yet to incorporate into the pattern yet. Instead of diving right into the pattern, I played around with a few ideas I had bouncing around my head for sometime. But after I twisted up the ideas, I didn't care too much of the results and now knew, what I didn't want to put into the pattern. So I was set. With this batch I decided to go with slightly bigger streamer hook then in years past. I also added some new flash into the tail that I had used on the Platte River Apprentice flies, opting for the Rusty Olive Angel hair. This gave it a nice amount of under flash with the marabou over it. I continued with the 3/4 strands of krystal flash on each side of the tail as well.

Next up was the body. Sometime last year I whipped up an Olive blend of dubbing that I had titled Psycho Olive for Bunker Bombs. Looking back it must have been sometime last spring when I was, well replenishing this fly, but never got to using this blend. Twirled it up in a dubbing loop, twisted it on the hook and gave it a quick brush to shag it up.

Put in the silli-legs and now came for the next part. This is where I wanted to give it something new that I have yet to put in it. I mentioned before I have put Zonker strips in it, as well as jungle cock and various Matuka style feathers. So I had to come up with something new for my little fly here. I started digging around the vast amount of materials I had and when it hit me, to go for a double whammy here. I decided to use Black Ice Angel Hair underwing and Mallard for the overwing. The Thorax/Collar blend is a mix of European Hare Skin Le Lievre, Jack Mickievicz Masterblend of Rainbow Warrior Peacock Olive dubbing and a touch of the Psycho Olive Bunker Body Dubbing and a few have bits and pieces of mallard. Yes, I know it seems like a lot of stuff going on here, but it just pops and gives the thorax/collar a neat look to it.

Spring Break

Spring Break 2011. I have to admit, I really enjoyed spring break this year. Not only for the great company, but for all the activities that came with it. This year I took off the week that my kids were not in school and headed for the mountains of Steamboat for some Skiing, Snowboarding, Fishing, relaxing and chilling. We rented a condo with a few other families, and have to say this was not a normal condo. It was oversized and was able to fit 4 families into comfortably. We left Denver early Saturday and made your way over I-70 needing to take a little detour, because Rabbit Ears Pass was closed to an accident, so we went the long way around and really enjoyed the drive. After arriving at the condo, Jim unloaded his van quickly and I unloaded the truck quickly, and got the stuff up into the condo. After a quick dump and run, we blew out of there and headed down to the Yampa for some late afternoon fishing.

We found an area just before town that we wanted to fish and quickly got strung up and jumped into the river. It wasn't long before I had caught a beautiful Cuttie. Wished I had took a picture but I couldn't get to my phone buried inside my jacket, so I quickly released it and dug for the phone and moved it to my front wader pocket for easy access.

Fished for a little while longer and caught a few more fish, managed to take one picture of a nice brown that I had caught.

A bit later the sun had crept behind a mountain and the temp started to dropped so we started to pack it in, but not before making one last cast. I made the last cast and hooked into what I thought was going to be a pig, because it ran quickly and broke off, oh well. Will try again another day. So we called it a day and headed back.

The next day we put all the kids into Ski/Snowboard school, so we could all ride together and what a great day to be on the slopes. The snow was great there was fresh powder to be had. We took the gondola up and quickly rode down to the Storm Peak express and up to the Morningside Park for some powder action. We played in Morningside park for a couple of hours before making our way into the Chutes and bowls of Christmas Tree Gulley. The snow was great to be riding in here and took one nice run down here.

A stop for a late lunch and cocktail, we made a few more runs before we had to pick our kids up from ski school, so we headed down to the bar for cocktails. Woo Hoo. Packed it up for the day and headed back to the condo for dinner and hot tubbing.

Next morning we woke up, had coffee and breakfast and quickly packed up the fishing gear for a morning on the river. So Mac, Jim and I bolted out of the condo and headed to the river for some snow fishing. Got to the river and the area we chose we were the only ones there for a short time before more anglers decided to show up. No great stories to tell, but some nice healthy fish.

We only fished for about 4 hours before we had to be back at the condo for the girls to make their way to Strawberry Hot Springs and we were on children duty for the day.

The next day we woke to 2 feet of fresh powder, so a the night before we made plans for a few us to get up early and make first tracks and the others to round the kids up and bring them to the mountain for afternoon skiing. This worked out great because, Mac, Jim 2, Jenny, Jen and I were able to make it up to Stormpeak for first tracks. After a few powder runs with the girls, the boys and I broke away from the girls and headed into Morningside park for a quick run, so we could hike up to the no name chutes and bowls for one last run before heading down to meet the kids. And what a run it was, STEEP and DEEP and FAST. Made our way down to bottom to ski with the kids for the rest of the day. We all took a few family runs before meeting for lunch. After lunch the girls went off on their own, Jim 2 took Quinn and his girls for a few runs. And took all of them back to the condo and then it was my daughter Celia and I for the rest of the day. Her and I must have made about 20 runs that day. She was a super trooper on the slopes and couldn't get enough. It was great!

My little girl on dressed up.

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We had to pull out of Steamboat the next day to get back to Denver for the arrival of Jens mom and our niece, for a few day visit. Was able to get out and fish Cheesman on Friday. Nothing special here a few nice fish, great weather.

The weekend consisted of great weather and some fly tying on Sunday. Well that wraps up a great week of fishing, snowboarding, fishing snowboarding, driving, fishing, and fly tying.

On tap this weekend, float fishing Saturday followed up by cat skiing on Sunday.