Streamer Season

Is fall really in the air. The kids went back to school the other day, the night time cooler temps only mean one thing. Streamer Season is just around the corner. Those who fish with me know I use streamers all year long. The bigger flies produce bigger fish at times. So the last few weeks I have been thinking up some new streamers for fall. So this past week I tied up a bunch of articulated streamer patterns to give a shot. I tied up my first prototype with out the articulation to get my proportions and all the bells and whistles right, before moving on to the articulated one. After a few tinkerings here and there I was able to make the articulated Apprentice. The Apprentice is an off shoot of my original bunker torpedo and the circus peanut dressings, but tinkered into my own fly of pure trout evil. Why do I call it pure trout evil, because this thing is pure evil. I don't know if it was dumb luck, stupid fish, or whatever, but I managed to get out this past weekend and hiked into Cheesman Canyon. I got to the canyon for an early start. I managed to make it down to the water by 6:20 am. I got to a spot where I like to start fishing and work a section of the river before hiking further back. I had the new rod put together, and tied on my new streamer the Apprentice. At this point I didn't tie any droppers on, just wanted to give this bad boy a few cast and see it flow through the water. Okay, I got my line out and made my first cast and was getting ready for the drift, but the thing didn't have any time to drift, because as soon as it hit the water, I nice very thick, 18" rainbow slammed it. The line went tight and the rod was bent. Since this was the first fish with this rod, I wanted to get the feeling of the rod and loosened up the drag and let the fish take off. I don't know if that was a good thing or not, because it ended taking me a while to get the fish back in. After about 10 minutes I landed, revived and released the fish back into the waters of the South Platte.

Getting ready for the next cast, I moved up a few feet from my first drift to work a nice piece of faster pocket water. The flows were beautifully at 356 cfs which is much better then the 96 cfs we usually see at this time of year, but with the work going on at the dam the water temps where much warmer then normal. Getting myself ready for the cast, made my decision on where I was going to put the fly. The fly hit the water, I made an upstream mend and the line went tight! After a few minutes landed a 21" bow. Two cast, two fish, on the new rod with the new fly. The stars must be aligned for me today I was thinking. Worked a few more pockets and runs that I like in this section and another 6 fish later I was ready to hike up stream a bit. All fish took this new articulated streamer I developed earlier this week.

Back to the fly itself, The Apprentice

Stinger Hook: Partridge CZ #12
Tail: Widow Flash, Marabou Olive, and dash of lite Bright Flash

Body: Bunker Torpedo Dubbing
Collar: Wood Duck Flank

Main Body: Streamer Hook Size 6
Tail: Widow Flash, Marabou Olive and dash of polar flash
Body: Bunker Torpedo Dubbing
Wings: Olive Ostrich Herl
Legs: Speckled Olive rubber legs.
Collar one: Wood duck flank, Colored olive
Collar two: Mottled Marabou
Hot Sport : Siman Peacock Red
Tungsten Cone Head

Underbody Weight: 7-10 wraps of .030 Lead

To articulate the streamer. I take a heavy mono filament and feed through the hook like you would be tying it normally. Then I take the two strands of the mono and tie to each side of the main hook shank and wrap it good and cement it and begin the second portion of the fly. Once the fly is completed, I snipe off the hook of the main fly and now you have a really great articulated fly.

Here is another color variation. I titled the Majestic, with some minor flash subsititutions.

But a great purple/black streamer for those overcast days that lie ahead in the coming months.

Tight Threads!

New Rod

Today, I came home from work and my kidos greeted me at the door to say I received a box. I wasn't expecting anything so I was caught off guard. My son Quinn disappeared into the house and came out with a triangled box, which I knew contained a fly rod. But I wasn't expecting my fly rod back for another month due to repair noticed I received a few days earlier. I sent in a beat up Zero Gravity and got back a brand new ZG Helios. I am excited to hit the river and give it a shot. I am also wondering If Ill receive my T3 back or a new Hydros.

Glacier and beyond road trip

I just returned from a two week vacation with my family and some neighbors of ours. We traveled 3000 miles, 9 campgrounds, 12 campfires, 40+ miles hiked, 1 yurt, several fish species caught and returned to the water, US/Canada boarder crossing a few times, 3 bears, lots of deer, bald eagles, mountain goats and some very beautiful weather.

We started the journey off leaving Denver and traveling north to Billings, Mt, with a quick stay at the Yellowstone River Campground in Billings before making our way to Glacier. We arrived at Two Medicine in Glacier to find a full campground, so we made our way further north to the Cutbank campground in Glacier and got the very last spot. We spent two nights here tooling around two medicine side of glacier.

We then made our way into Waterton Lakes International Peace park for 3 days, we rented a canoe one day and paddled across Cameron Lake to a really neat mountain side made up of waterfalls and glacier. We did a ton of hiking in Waterton, traveled to Goat Haunt on the International Tug Boat, got our passports stamped here and returned to Waterton in Canada. And while in Waterton, we split from our neighbors who searched out some showers and we went up to the Prince of Wales of Hotel. Wow, what a beautiful place. Checked out a few more places inside the park and did a few more Hikes before leaving Canada and heading to the west side of Glacier. Made our way up to Bowman Lake in the upper northwest corner of Glacier, fished Bowman Creek caught a ton of little west slope cutts and cuttbows, fished the Flathead and got a Bull trout. Knocked that fish off my list. Did a few hikes and spent two nights here before leaving the park and headed to Kalispell for laundry day. The girls did laundry and we took the kids to a very crappy restaurant and meet back up with the girls. After we picked the girls up we headed into the Flathead valley to find a campsite, finally found one at Holland Lake, boy what a neat, yet weird campground.

After spending the night here, we woke up had breakfast and did a 3+ mile hike to a really cool waterfall, and returned to the cars to head out to Idaho, we made our way to Salmon Idaho, where we found a campground right on the Salmon river. Jason and I headed into town to get our fishing Licenses. After two stops finally found a place to sell us a license at 7:30 at night. Made our way back to the campground where the girls where putting dinner together. Got camp set up and got the rods strung up and fished the salmon river right at the campground, caught a few salmon, whitefish, a cutbow and a few rainbows. Woke up the next morning early, everyone else was sleeping, so I slipped into my waders and fished for two hours before everyone woke up. Managed to catch a couple salmon and rainbows. We had breakfast and broke down camp and started to make our way to the Galena Lodge, but we made a one stop along the salmon river to fish a few a few hours. Caught a few white fish and a ton of rainbows here, before hoping back into the Toyotas and headed towards Galena Lodge.

Got to Galena Lodge, had some dinner, made our way up to the yurts, which was cool, first time any of us stayed in a yurt. We woke up the next morning, had breakfast, meet our hosts for an afternoon hike, did the hike came back to the lodge for some lunch, ate lunch and the girls and kids hung out at the lodge for awhile while, Jason and I headed down the Big wood River for some fishing. We fished for about 3 hours catching a ton rainbows, nothing to big, but lots of fun. Headed back to the Galena got the kids and girls and headed down to Sun Valley for dinner.

Next day checked out of the yurts, Jason's family went horseback riding, and we headed to a our next campsite, we were supposed to head to the Tetons today, but decided to stay and extra day and camped on the Bigwood river, got camp set up and I went fishing, Jen hung out with the kids. I fished for a while, catching a ton of fish, the day was cloudy, so the fishing was a bit easier today and the fish seemed much bigger today then the day before. After a few hours, I headed back to the campsite, got Quinn and Miles in the waders and took them down to the river we only had about 45 minutes before we had to be back up at the lodge for Horseback Hay rides for the kids and BBQ. After dinner we headed back down to the campsite and Jason and I quickly hit the river for some evening fishing. Got into this hole where every cast would induce a strike or fish, which was awesome. Next morning we broke camp down and started to head home. Traveled through Idaho, and Utah before making our way to Fort Bridger for a quick night on the road, last camp night before making it home. Made it home the next day about 4 o clock. Today back at work.

What a great family vacation, the kids did awesome, the parents managed to drink a few handles of whiskey and couple cases of beer. Back to reality after two weeks and 3000 miles on the road.

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.