Fishing an Idaho Early Spring Skwala Hatch

This one is unreal. I remember years ago seeing heads poke out of the water like this eating flies, it was on the Picabo /Nature Conservancy section of world famous Silver Creek, the "graduate school of trout water" that lies about one hour south of Ketchum, Idaho. A past trip with friends Daryl Knight and Brad Frazier was an amazing trip in terms of seeing huge fish and some incredible dry fly fishing. Enjoy!

Playing and Landing a Beast of a Rainbow

client Dr. Jim Kaley playing a huge rainbow in the NC High Country on a guided trip with me. He and his wife Martha landed 3 citation sized fish, 2 rainbows and 1 brown, along with over 40 other fish from 11-18 inches, all on a full day guided trip with me. It was a blast, well done Martha and Jim, the fish fear you!



Cause for celebration indeed, a nice fish comes to net.....after wearing Jim's arm out of course...! But a willing price to pay for a nice fish....we'd do it again? Absolutely!

Some Red Hot Rainbows......

Friend and regular Client Dr. Patrick Burney gets into a hot rainbow at Escatawba Farms in Covington, VA. These fish are Shasta rainbows, they are the hardest fighting rainbows you'll catch east of the Mississippi.

Wow Thats a Good One......

We have all done this before.....you see a big fish, you get excited, you make a cast and there in the middle of your soon to be perfect presentation a nice puff of wind from the wrong direction blows the line and rig into the rod and man what a mess you have. Its one of the joys of fly fishing......well, maybe not. Its probably one of the most stressful things about fly fishing, and on the wrong day it can put you in a bad frame of mind.........know what I mean?

I often get asked how in the world I manage to keep my cool untangling lines and rigs and fixing stuff when either less than perfect conditions or repeated bad casts cause frequent snafus like the one above. The truth is, it is sometimes nerve wracking no matter who you are, guide or no, but I will say the only thing that has helped me untangle some real bad messes has been the fact that I have made a mess of my own so many times and then had to fix it that I have gotten good at it- - -and because of my many mistakes. Mistakes are good after all!

Its great to know that with even a real mess you can learn something. Almost like there's a life lesson in every tangle. A tangle gives you time to stop, reassess the situation, make necessary repairs and adjustments, and rest the fish. . . all things that are worth doing. And sometimes you still get a chance to catch the fish.

Now lets see if I can go out on the water next time and put all of these wise words into action.......

This Is Incredible....

Its That Time of Year Again.....

Last year it was the Giants and Patriots.... this year the Cardinals and Steelers. Not my Panthers.........hopefully you feel my pain.

But the show goes on. And every time this time of the year comes around I have the crazy idea of creating some flies with team colors like the teams in the playoffs or Super Bowl. I always have the idea, but have never followed up on it. This year I did just that.

About two or three days after it was clear who the playoff teams would be, I took a break from tying some fly orders and played around with some new materials, creating several new fly patterns to try out. Another plus is that occasionally when playing around creating some new flies something actually works.

I had purchased some tinsel materials a while back, in fact it was last Christmas if memory serves me correctly. The materials were closeout stuff, like 80-90% off stuff, and was like packages of icicles - the silver, tinsel like material you buy in a package and that is messy and once you put some on the tree it is a mess and finds itself all over the house. Simply put it takes you months to clean it all up. But the stuff I found was multi-colored, and much like tinsel, and was a neat mixture of red, magenta, green, blue, gold, silver, yellow, blue, and more. It was this stuff that was the main ingredient of my new creations.

Using the famous and effective Copper John fly as a pattern, I went on to tie my rendition of a Copper John in the colors that would match the playoff teams. I tied a Tennessee Titan, a San Diego Charger, a Philadelphia Eagle, A New York Giant, An Arizona Cardinal, A Baltimore Raven, A Pittsburgh Steeler, A Carolina Panther....I think you get the idea. The tying was fun. The trying them out was very interesting........and the results - - -or how the fly performed- - -and to parallel that how the corresponding team performed in their games to come - - - it was both interesting and ironic....

The Tennessee Titan, the Carolina Panther, the Baltimore Raven, The New York Giant, the Philadelphia Eagle....all flopped. We fished them over some favorite holes full of fish on the streams I guide- - some streams like Escatawba/Dunlap Creek and Helton Creek and others- - - so whether or not we were really fishing over the fish or fishing where the fish were- - - this was a non issue. The flies were fished over tons of fish.....and there were clear winners. And I must say the Charger fly showed flashes of brilliance, then floundered. The Steeler fly emerged as the clear winner.

In fact, on a guided trip I met Phil Rea of Raleigh, NC up in Ashe County for a trip on January 9. It was a cold day, post cold front and snowy weather w/high water, a challenging day. But we caught fish, in fact we did quite well. And one hole we got to I said to Phil, "I have been doing this experiment with flies tied in the same colors as NFL teams.....and this one works pretty well....its called the Pittsburgh Steeler fly. " He said, much to my surprise, "....thats great, because I am a Pittsburgh Steelers fan." Hard to believe.

And the fly caught fish. After fish. After fish. I must admit in my head all I saw was dollars and cents as this might be a new pattern I could sell to customers. It was working well and worked consistently well. And a new fly pattern was born. The truly amazing thing is that the Steeler fly emerged as the clear winner of them all.

And that is interesting as they are one of the teams that are left in the hunt for the Super Bowl trophy. I must say first that I love the Panthers. Jake we would strangle you but forgive you. Admittedly, deep down for several reasons I am a Kurt Warner fan. Its more about him than the Cardinals, but it wouldn't bother me at all if they won the big game. But that Steeler defense.....Mike Tomlin.....James Harrison.....Troy Polamalu....... And then there's the effectiveness of that Pittsburgh Steeler fly.....is that a harbinger of what is to come? Will they take home the trophy....? We'll see

Line Control is Paramount

Here's a short clip that was put together after a recent guided trip with a regular client/customer Mac Cheek of Greensboro, NC. Though we didn't fish with the intent of getting these clips, they worked out perfectly for putting together a short piece on line control and fishing subtle currents. Great job Mac...



This is the first of many such clips that will be forthcoming over the next several months.....Good fishing!