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!

The Fiberglass Manifesto: The 12 Days of Christmas Starts Soon: This post is just a heads up that the yearly craziness of gift giving called the 12 Days of Christmas starts on the morning of Monday, Dece...

Dub the Thorax: Day 4 Giveaway - 50 Best Tailwaters Book by Stonef...

Dub the Thorax: Day 4 Giveaway - 50 Best Tailwaters Book by Stonef...: Up first, the winner for our Day 3 contest....You guys and gals were WAY OFF!!! There was a total of 404 bottle caps in the fish! (and belie...

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 

Dub the Thorax: Day 1 Winner Announced and Contest #2 - Infantry C...

Dub the Thorax: Day 1 Winner Announced and Contest #2 - Infantry C...: First up, the winner of yesterday's contest. The random number generator at random.org came up with 14! That means. our winner is... ...

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