A little out of order...

These posts are a little out of order, the previous post about my wife was actually today, and this one was yesterday... but whatever.

Spent close to 3 hours on the Hudson for one fish. One. Stinking. Fish.

I guess smallmouth fishing in big rivers really does slow down in August. All those books I've read that were written by Lefty Kreh really were right. Maybe he knows a little about the subject.

Anyway, here it is... in all his near-black glory.

Knock one off the list...

A while ago I posted my list of things I wanted to accomplish this year - number 10 was get my wife to try fly fishing.

She did, and I am going to knock that off the list. Not only did she try it, but her first time fishing, fly fishing, dry fly fishing, she caught something. Nothing huge, but it was certainly something.

On a dry fly. Seriously. A Yellow Sally I had stuck in my hat. I can't even catch fish on dry flies, and here she is showing me up?! I'm proud. Very, very proud. I can't even stop talking about it.

I caught a fish too, but on a mini clouser. Hers was a little bigger than mine.

So, knock it off the list.

Also, in that same post, I listed the species of fish caught. I couldn't come up with #10, but I remembered what it was... Rock Bass. And now I've added the Chub as well, so that makes 11. Hopefully next weekend I'll add two more - Pike and Brook Trout.

 I'm excited. And I'm DEFINITELY bringing both fly rods next weekend for some couples fly fishing. As if I'd only bring one anyway.

Have I told you, lately...

... how much the beautiful and spactacular trout frustrate me?

Met up with two friends and fly fishing guides, Al Hammel and Chris Stiles, to do some trout fishing on a very famous local river. The plan was originally just to give Chris some flies for the fly swap I am part of but turned into "why don't you join us fishing". I can never say no, so I didn't.

Don't let me fool you, I love trout fishing. I love the settings, wading in beautiful, cold rivers and the anticipation of a picky fish taking a small fly from the surface film. Its all great... for a while. Not catching fish is a little disheartening but I guess if I put in enough time, it will eventually come.

We parked one truck down stream and took another truck up stream a ways - 2 miles by road but between 3 and 4 by river. As we were getting dressed, I asked Chris whether he thought today might be my day. He said something that was very clear, consice, and made a LOT of sense to me - "You won't know unless you try". That's a good point. I don't put anywhere near the effort into trout fishing that I do bass fishing. When I trout fish, I spend a lot of time and certainly don't take the easy ways - its always long days of wading, fighting through brush, and walking miles and miles looking for pods of fish. But I don't do it often.

I'll cut to the chase - I didn't catch any fish, Al was the first to get the skunk off by catching a nice little Brookie, and Chris caught a decent sized brown trout toward the end of the evening. We ended up having to get out of the water about 3/4 of a mile from the second truck because it was pitch black and we were approaching a slick old dam that could've proven dangerous.

Here are a few photos

Sorry, this is kind of a cheesy post, but I'm exhausted and need to clean the house. I'll have another post later - gotta charge the batteries in the camera to get a photo off. Lets just say, I can take one thing off my this-year list. And it happened in a pretty impressive way.

On Hold...

I owe you guys a couple of fishing reports and a few Fly Splats but everything is on hold - way too much work to do and not enough time to do it. Things will hopefully return to normal in the next few days. Stay tuned.

Daily Fly Splat - 08/29/2008

Another prototype fly. This one was tied specifically for sunfish. I'm not sure what drew me to these colors and this design - I just took a bunch of known good sunfish flies and smashed them all together. Hopefully it is as successful as the last prototype.

Unnamed Prototype Bug

Daily Fly Splat - 08/28/2008

Let me start off by saying that if I had only one dry fly to fish with for the rest of my life, this would probably be it. I doubt it needs any more words than this. As you can tell by the appearance of this fly it has been fished, it has been taken by fish (trout even, but I missed many many hook sets), and I tie them sort of crazy looking and not paint brush like.

Elk Hair Caddis:

Hook: Size 8-24 Dry Fly Hook
Body: Black Dry Fly Dubbing, black or brown palmered dry fly hackle
Wing: Stacked (or unstacked, in my case) Deer body or Elk Body hair
Tail: Elk or Deer Body Hair

Daily Fly Splat - 08/27/2008

Fished like a woolly bugger, this has produced for panfish this year for me. I'll be trying it for small bass, chubs, and maybe even a red-breast or two if I can find them.

Bead Head Flash Back Hairs Ear Nymph (BHFBHE):

Hook: Size 10-18 nymph hook
Tail: 4 to 6 strands of deer or elk body hair
Body: Tan or Light Grey Hares Ear Dubbing
Weight: Bead Head, Wire wraps under dubbing optional