VagabondFly Craft beer 100 shot fly tying challenge

Who's up for the "challenge"?  We could modify it from craft beers to PBR...

Found this video via Moldy Chum:



VagabondFly: Craft beer 100 shot fly tying challenge: behind the scenes from VagabondFly on Vimeo

Fortunate

I have been very fortunate.  

I am fortunate to have a wife who tolerates my need to fish.  

I am fortunate to have met some great friends who share my passion and show me new places to fish.  

I am fortunate that life has put us in a beautiful place.

I am fortunate that God made trout such awesome creatures.

Orvis Web Belts

So I got the new Orvis fly fishing catalog in the mail over the weekend and saw something that caught my eye.  This may or may not be a new product, but I hadn't seen it before, and my collection of Orvis clothing is rather small due to the cost associated with said gear.  I had been looking for a nylon web belt with some awesome trout motifs to wear pretty much all the time.  So they are offering these belts and they are just okay.  But look at the awesome collars offered for dogs in trout prints.  I'd much rather wear this print on my belt

 

than this print

I emailed Orvis and let them know how I feel and was told that my comments would be passed along to the Product Team.  Hopefully that means soon I can be wearing a belt that even non-fisherman would recognize as a trout print versus one that looks like some sort of digitized camo.  If you feel the same way, contact Orvis and let them know how you feel.

Breaking the "O" Skunk

Saturday I fished the Owyhee with two friends.  While we didn't have a record breaking day on the increased flows, I caught my first fish on the Owyhee and added two more to the tally before the day was over.  I had six on the line, but was only able to land three of them (I need to work on landing these Western trout).  I landed one trout while nymphing and two fishing a caddis on top.

Since this a catch-n-release stream, here are some videos of the brown trout being released.  I need some work on my video skills, but it's a start.

 

Snake River Tributary

On Saturday I fished a tributary of the Snake River with a friend and a few of his friends.  We did well, catching rainbow trout in beautiful scenery.  It doesn't get much better than that!

Wish I hadn't covered this fish with my fat fingers.  It was really pretty and most likely the fish of the day.

A fisher prowling the bank.

 I think I need a new fishing hat.  My Penn State Fly Fishing hat has shrunk (or my noggin has grown) and doesn't really fit anymore.  Any great ideas for a new hat?

Sweet Vid from The Connecticut Yankee

Check out this video The Connecticut Yankee put together from a pretty epic salt day last fall.  Days like this are the reason we keep fishing.

Go check out his blog, some really great stuff on there!

Christmas Wish List

Dear Santa,

I've been a very good man somewhat good man aw shit, I've tried really hard all year to be good.  Santa, I hope you can find me since I've changed addresses and been really bad at updating my blog.  If you have any space on your sleigh, maybe you could find the time to drop me off a few things.  I'd very much like to fish some off the beaten path places, you know, high country alpine lakes,

small mountain streams, 

and I've also been doing a lot of hiking.  In order to find these gems nature has to offer, I'd really like a handheld GPS unit so I can get "there" and back.

I'd also really like a GoPro (is there something better? comments welcome!) so I can record my awesome outdoor accidents and make all you laugh at my expense (it's ok, I'm probably the one who laughs at me the most).

So Santa, I'll be looking for a lump of coal in my stocking since I know that's what I really deserve this year.  Next year I'll try harder.

Dub the Thorax: Day 5 Giveaway - Strip'n Flywear Shirt (and Day 4 ...

Dub the Thorax: Day 5 Giveaway - Strip'n Flywear Shirt (and Day 4 ...: First off, congrats to Garrett over at Fumbling The Fly for winning the Tailwaters book. Send me your address! For today, the crew from...

The Fiberglass Manifesto: The 12 Days of Christmas Starts Soon

TFM does a really great job with his 12 Days of Christmas give-away.  Keep an eye out on his blog for the posts to enter each day!

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Rising from the dead

Well this place has certainly been quiet for a while.  I apologize to anyone who was relying on me to update this blog with any regularity.  Life got crazy in 2013.  My grandfather passed away, which sent me into a tailspin.  We found out my wife was pregnant, and we had a beautiful baby boy at the end of September.  And I took a new position and we are in the process of relocating to Meridian, ID.  So, all the miles of rivers and too many to count lakes and ponds of this great western state are mine to explore.  Come Jan. 1, I'll have my license and be ready to explore all this great state has to offer fishing wise.  To fill my time till then, I've been hiking.  Check out these pictures as an apology for my absence.

 Boise Foothills

Snake River Canyon below Swan Falls Dam 

Snake River Canyon below Shoshone Falls (about 1 mile upriver from Evil Knievel's jump site) 

Wees Bar petroglyphs 

Shafer Butte Lookout, el. 7582 

Rocky Canyon 

Wees Bar petroglyphs 

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Dub the Thorax: 3 year giveaway - Rules and prizes announced!

Dub the Thorax: 3 year giveaway - Rules and prizes announced!: It's Sunday morning and I'm about to go fishing for the day, so I'll make this quick. We have 7 days of worth of giveaways, star...

January's Trout

The month of January can be checked off the list thanks to some meaty, articulated streamers.

TPO's Triple Threat

Aaron Jasper shows us how to tie up the Triple Threat fly.  Keep an eye on the TPO Youtube page for the next fly of the month pattern.

How to Tie Al's Rat

Al's Rat is a fly originally tied by Al Miller, who frequently fished the Little Lehigh and created a bunch of patterns that fool fish there, as well as any where else I have fished them.  This is a great midge imitation and I fish it all different times of the year and at all levels of the water column.  This fly works great as a dropper off a bigger nymph pattern, in tandem with another midge pattern, as a dropper off a dry fly, or any other way you can think to fish it.

Hook: I'm using a size 24 Tiemco 100
Thread: 6/0 brown
Dubbing: Muskrat underfur

Step 1: Start the thread and wrap back to on the shank to a point even with the barb of the hook

Step 2: Wrap back up to the eye of the hook

 

Step 3: Wrap back down the shank, but stop short of where you wrapped down to the first time

Step 4: Wrap back up almost to the eye of the hook

Step 5: Pick out the underfur from the muskrat and spin onto your thread

Step 6: Dub a thorax

Step 7: Whip finish and cut the thread

Addicted to Vise

Do you enjoy looking at classic flies, full dress salmon flies, and wet flies that look like museum quality pieces rather than something you should keep in a fly box? 

Then check out Addicted to Vise.  I've added it to my blogroll over there on the left.  Eunan is a superb tier who has the patience and skills to crank out beautiful pieces of art. 

Check out his blog, and if you get the chance to see him tie in person, go do it!

Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night!

 

Credit to About Flyfishing.com for the picture.

2013 Goals

Well the end of another year is rapidly approaching.  Looking back on 2012, I had a pretty good year of fishing.  This was a year where I focused more on saltwater fishing, both in building up my gear selection and the time I spent fishing.  Made many trips out for flounder and was successful most all of the time.  Hit the sand a few times and had more success than I had expected.  I have my eye on a few more trips yet before the calendar flips to 2013, provided the Mayans just needed to buy a new calendar and tomorrow isn't the end of the world.

With an eye towards 2013, I want to set a few goals for myself to give me something to strive to achieve.

1.  Catch a trout on the fly in every month of the year.  I have never reached this milestone and trying to accomplish this goal will get me on the water much more.

2.  Catch a striper off the sand.  Extra bonus points for catching a striper off the sand with the fly rod.  This will make me think about my gear choices when on the beach and not always reaching for the "easy way out" with the spinning gear.

3.  Get my daughter out fishing more.  She'll be 5 in February and I need to make sure we are spending quality time on the water together.  Even if she gets bored and throws rocks in the water, I want fishing to be something she enjoys and wants to do, not something that she's forced to do by her dad.

4.  Fish some new water, both in my immediate area and hopefully in other areas of the country.

Let's check back in on this post at the end of 2013 to see how I did.  Hopefully I can go 4 for 4!

Whatever you celebrate here at the end of the year, enjoy yourself, spend time with your family, and get outside some.

RIP Pap

Saturday, November 24, 2012 my grandfather passed away.  He had been suffering from cancer in his abdomen that had ravaged his organs before it was discovered.  I am thankful that in the grand scheme of things he didn't suffer too much.  I am also thankful that during his last month I was able to get up and visit with him several times and be with him on his last day alive. 

My Pap was a great grandfather to me who taught me so much during our time together.  He took me fishing and passed on all his secrets.  I started out with spinning gear and he showed me how to rig up to bounce nightcrawlers, and powerbait when it came out, along the bottom of the stream for trout.  Thanks Pap.  I still use this method today when I decided to break out the spinning gear.  He taught me how to read the stream and find those barely visible back eddies that trout love to hang out in.  And most importantly we just went fishing.  We'd get up early in the morning or head out after school (and eventually work) and fish.  He taught me how to fish spinners and gave me his deadly Panther Martin with a wooden body (try finding those now) and I slayed the trout with it until I got it stuck on a log and it broke off.  If that happened now, I probably would swim out and retrieve that spinner, but I was 10 and I had to just let it go.

My Pap and I took fly fishing lessons together at the Little Lehigh Fly Shop.  Over a series of lessons, we learned about stream entomology, casting, the fly setup, and it eventually all culminated with us catching trout on tricos during a prolific hatch when they still went off like that.  I was hooked.  We put away the spin rods and focused on fly fishing and trying to catch trout like that.  It wasn't long and I was interested in tying my own flies. Pap got me the tools I needed to get started and made me a deal: he would buy me the materials I needed to tie flies as long as I kept him supplied with flies.  I can live with that deal.  Once I started working and making my own money, I bought my own supplies but I kept Pap stocked with flies up until the day he passed away.  Thanks Pap.

Pap, thanks for taking me out to fish.  Thanks for spending time with me.  Thanks for getting me started with fly fishing.  It is a lifelong pursuit for me now and I'm not sure I'd ever get to this point if it wasn't for you.  Thank you for going to all the fly fishing shows with me and showing me the true worth of those shows is all the included seminars.  They can't take your education away from and never stop learning were two phrases he uttered often.

Thanks Pap.