Big Bird

Most guide flies morph into something real simple over time. I see them lost quick so I want to tie them quicker and of course, cheap. This is a  good 2 material fly if you count the thread, doesn't get much easier.      Little love for the Ostrich.

The Big Bird

Hook: #22 Tiemco 2487

8/0 Black thread underbody

Rib: Stripped Gray Ostrich herl

Collar: Gray Ostrich herl tied in soft hackle style.

Tan Ostrich over rust 8/0, Olive over Brown works good too

When you prep the Ostrich, just strip about 1" of the barbs from the butt of the quill. When you tie it in, pull the stripped end to position the barbs you have not stripped at about the collar tie in point and wind back towards the bend. This eliminates having to tie in another piece of herl and reduces bulk. It doesn't always work out, sometimes you have to tie in 2. Before winding the quill forward, coat the under body with head cement to insure it lasts longer than one Brown Trout. Hen, Starling and Grouse will always be go to materials for soft hackling, but it can be a pain finding small enough feathers to pull off the tiny stuff. Ostrich herl is a great material to use when soft hackling tiny flies #22-#26 or god forbid.....smaller. 

The back yard beat is still looking good here in Min-urn.

Winter Blues

Daydreaming at the vise more than fishing as of late. Experiencing a more normal weather pattern here in the Eagle Valley,  cold and snowy has me filling boxes instead of  getting wet.

#16 Tungsten Winter Blue

#22 Piece of Cake

#24 Gray Wee Wee

#24 Yellow Wee Wee

#16 Blue Tungsten Softhackle

The gift of Macro

Fly Fishing is hard, so is Macro Photography. I have been struggling to take close up shots of bugs, natural or not for the better part of 10 years, with poor results. With the addition of the new camera (Nikon D3100)  the research department immediately began the hunt for a Macro lens to"get smaller". Along the way and through the information tunnel that is the Web we found that for under $10 you can buy a ring to reverse your lens and basically pull off the same shot. Saved $300 buy not buying a macro lens and only regretted the fact it took 30 days to get here until this afternoon, now we are in business. With a few toothpicks to jam the aperture wide open, a tripod, 2 lights, one Peak Vise, 3 days of patience, a couple of Google Chrome searches and here you go.

The Crip Keeper. Works even better with a bead.

It's awkward turning your lens around. The brain of the camera has no connection to the lens any more and the focal length becomes very small,  not to mention a gremlin could crawl in the exposed guts end.. By manually operating the aperture lever at the end of the lens the shots began to come. There is still a ton of blurriness, probably due to the fact that the shutter is open for 10 minutes while both my carpenter hands are on the camera. Guess the next purchase is a cable release so the camera doesn't move.

PMD Moltin MayFly

So's I guess the 3 of you who read this blog can thank my new Reversing Ring from Australia for all the dirty little secrets I'm about to take pictures of. They work and I've got a couple of filthy one's. I have plenty of my clients time to experiment with; thousands of hours of research and development go into this seriousness don't cha know.

Drop Zone Caddis

Frack off

I wonder if my brothers back home on the Marcellus Shale deposit had the amount of info we now have, how many of them would have sold their soul? I remember lots of my friends selling off mineral rights on their farms or hunting land assuming no one would ever knock on the door.
 I was lucky enough to pass through the gate of a piece of property that is part of who I am recently. It's a place that I wish was closer for Sam to enjoy, it is without a doubt a piece of my soul. I can't imagine having to dodge oil pads on my way to the tree stand.

If by chance your looking for me, this is where I be.

I want to be a terrorist

Pebble Mines, Pipelines, Dams, Firming Projects and Fracking are true threats to my family's right to enjoy nature, water, mountains, hunting and fishing. If standing up to them makes me an "Environmental Terrorist" then let me know where to send my picture to homeland security.
 If Buff is smart they will add a 40th way to wear it that makes us look like a wacko martyr, because apparently what a menace looks like is changing......Terrorist's are starting to look a lot like my peer group. Keep up the good work my friends, not doing something, not being heard will only add to the terrible weight regret will have on your heart.

Reel Life

 Back in the day, Fly Fishing media was called a book. Today it's an art form called video and it is every where.

 It seems the most popular spin on fly fishing movies is "following your passion", "finding yourself" or being "brave" enough to follow your dreams. It's beautiful, inspiring and an escape for tons of people, myself included. Shit, Vimeo's fly fishing channel has become Sam's version of Saturday morning cartoons, but he's watching for the pretend part, not for the charitable zen guidance of some fishing bum with an expensive video editing program .Camcorders and fly fishing videos have certainly come a long way and I am impressed. It's not the poetic interpretation of someones new found courage to face the day from a different yard as much as the way these things are shot that blow me away. The camera work, music and editing that makes up the end product of some of this genius can bring a tear to your eye or better yet make you quit your job and go live!

 Perspective on what's important and how to find balance is found through the experience of doing, not watching. Have these young Francis Ford Fishermen been given some moral burden to get us off our asses or are they just rubbing in the fact they found the way?  How we come to this life (fly fishing) is so much different now, it all seems just a click away. Human nature, technology and laziness strand a huge part of couch fishermen scrolling for the next video experience. They blame the life that was chosen for them for the lack of time to pursue meditative things. For the brave few who actually turn it off and go live their own way, today's fly fishing media becomes just another commercial in the show called reel life.

Giant similarities to the video porn industry right? They had it figured along time ago, get you addicted to the feeling of experiencing an easy escape to some fantasy land, lose a load, rinse and repeat. So the way I see it we either have to stop with all this inspirational fish porn or start charging for it before we are all desensitized, blind or everyone decides to go fly fishing.

Stop pretending GoPro videos don't give you a headache.

Rubber Duckies, Sasquatch and Ivan Drago

With little to do the past week, management was good about giving out a few jobs to keep biscuits in the jar.  It was suggested I go clean and roll up the 4 new duckies that were over at the ranch and take them down valley. Not sure if we bought them and are now promptly selling them or what,  attempting to do what I've been told while fighting my go fuck off gene is a challenge. The boss and Whitty took a couple of these  Cooper Minis down a stretch of the rivers middle a week ago and had some good success going hole to hole using the boats as taxis.
Check out the link for more on their day http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.417471754975272.102625.342358329153282&type=1
There was talk about using the duckies for trips with clients, I get the theory, but honestly can not see any of my clients following behind as I kayak my gear to the next spot. Now on the other hand I can see say, Jmac and I on a secret weekday mission to some mystery water.

The Roaring Fork was out automatically as neither of us needed to be seen in duckies, these things and their drivers can be a huge summertime menace out there and we didn't want to test the guilty by association theory. A section of water where only these stupid boats could go was in order. We have seen almost every inch of the home river except for the Delta and this stealth little play boat was going to be our ticket to see the rest of the map. The manual said there should be post spawn giants moving back to the big river in water no one floats and they should eat everything we throw.  Going into the unknown in  boats neither of us understood how to control was admittedly a nice rush for a Thursday.

We knew where to put in but not exactly where to take out, so phase one involved a parking spot for the 4 Runner on the bottom side. The most obvious spot was the boat ramp back up the big river but there was a huge bridge construction site right in the middle of said boat drag. A drive through the barrio down river had options but the bloods and crips of the area were known to break into unsuspecting gringos trucks. We were suspecting. We stopped and asked permission at the sales office and were granted access by Ivan Drago who was either in charge of rentals, cartel stuff or was watching the 2 pieces of Universal equipment they called a health club. White beard, wind breaker, thick eastern European accent, working the desk at a Latino subdivision  in the middle of the Colorado Rockies....not that weird.


The trip started easy enough but it wasn't long before we heard the river speed up downstream from the frog water we were in. Next stop, Lava Flows. We scaled down what we brought but we still each had cameras, chest packs and I was fishing the demo One from the shop (BTW boys, I have that, it's beautiful) stuff we didn't want to bust or loose. Pulling over and walking boats made sense, It was not a long float so we would be stopping  anyways, translates roughly into, we were scared of swimming. The run at the top of Lava Flows gave us a fish with a few  misses mixed in, we were off to a good start. We grew braver and braver in each rock garden and eventually grew enough hair to stay on board through all but the really shallow sections.

Every turn was new water for the both of us. It was Columbus shit. River right was mostly sheer cliffs of ancient lava while river left was a steep arid mountain side buttressing Cottonwood pass. At one stop a small rock slide started well above us and the abandoned railroad track across the river from our spot. Neither of us saw the creature but we were both convinced that a Bigfoot started the slide to make the men in strange boats go away and give him peace again. Everyone knows Bigfoots throw rocks, shits real when your in the unknown.

All in all we did not murder the fish. "We caught em" but it was not richter. I hooked 3 fish on a side channel to the big river stuck knee deep in some sort of quick mud and managed to lose a fish I would have measured not far upstream of the confluence. It was a gorgeous female Rainbow that came to my feet twice before roaring back to the current to break me off. It was nice to see a giant where we were expecting to find one, but we both figured it would have been a Brown.

I still haven't done what I was told. Maybe I'll put those toy boats away next week