Carping

A nice long weekend means getting out and fishing for carp. I found a nice load of them all rooting in the grass, but they all seemed to busy to notice my offerings. However, after two days I finally fooled one by running a green crayfish out of the grass out in front of it as it was moving pass. After several long runs I finally got the carp to the net for a quick photo and then back into the water.

I also tied up some files for gar fishing for a friend and hope to see what happens when he takes them out for a spin.

A box full of flies

It is already almost a month into the new fishing season. Yesterday was the first day I have fished and I have to say the season looks very promising. It got pretty windy in the morning, but we ended up catching quite a few rainbows and one that was big enough to smoke for lunch. Once the wind died down the bite went off and we decided to head home.

Aside from wanting to fish, I have tied up several classic patterns (green highlander, black doctor, silver doctor, blue doctor, blue ranger, durham ranger, and  jock scott) for salmon on mainly size 2 hooks. I did also tie up a size 4/0 silver doctor. These will be used on land locked salmon that I live close to. I was going to make a fly wallet for these, but ended up buying a wheatley fly box.

Fully dressed salmon flies

#1 - This is the first time that I have tied the Durham Ranger, but I have been wanting to do along time. This is most probably the first fully dressed salmon fly I had seen and then Davie McPhail posted a video of him tying it so I had a good idea on how to go about tying this fly. I would have liked a nicer jungle cock cape for this fly but it still looks pretty good to me.

 #2 - I have tied several lady Amherst, but this is the first one on a small hook (2/0). One thing that really effects the look of this fly is the topping, I might have to go back and redo the topping to give it a more of an open look.

 #3 - First time I have tied the black doctor and most probably not the last time. I would have really liked to have a smaller head, but I still like the look of it.

 #4 - A MOM to end of the set, this will be a fishing fly so I was not overall concerned with the look of it.

Flies for a swap

Here is some Mrs Simpsons that I have tied up for a swap.

Lagerman Res.

Due to all the natural disasters in Colorado I had to put an end to my fishing season early. However, I did get out yesterday to Lagerman Res. which is greatly unchanged. Hoping to find a pike (I am pretty such none are in there) to catch I set off around the lake. I did see some rabbits in the rocks and some blue gills close to shore, but not much else. There was a carp hitting the seeds on the surface and a carefully placed Miss Simpson ended my drought with a crap in the net. After seeing this carp I turned all eyes to finding more. I end up spotting about 10 more carp happily eating from the mud, but no more luck came my way. However, it looks like my fishing season might start up again for a little bit longer.

I have been really hitting the classic salmon and bass flies hard and I really need to post some images of those.

wild basin - ouzel lake

Finally I took a trip up into RMNP. This time instead of going to Sandbeach lake I headed to Ouzel lake, which is about 4.7 miles in from the trail head. The hike up was broken up in to nice sections due to the number of falls on the way and forks in the trail. It was not that hard and the lake is an amazing site. Both Griffith gnat's and small mayfly emerges worked well. The trout were very spooky, but there is nothing like walking around a rocky bottom lake and being able to sight fish. Both green backs and brookies were in the lake and meant to be in the several rivers on the way up, but we ran out of time to stop and fish the rivers as the clouds started to roll in.

Bass and Classics

Just to show that something does happen on this blog. Here is a range of bass that I have been getting on some blue gill flies that I have been tying. Also, I have been trying to increase my ability to tie classic flies so I have added in a couple of patterns that I have been working on.

Bass Time

The sun is out, the weather is perfect, and the bass are in close. Finally, started the 2013 warm water fishing season with a bunch of blue gills and a nice looking bass

A couple of flies

I have been back working on classics and these are two that are straight out of the book "Twenty Salmon Flies: Tying Techniques for Mastering the Classic Patterns". They both on size 0/2 hooks instead of the 0/5 that are used in the book.

Back at the bench

 

It’s the last day of March and tomorrow is the first day of the new fishing season. That has also meant I have been at my tying vice making flies. The majority of the flies have been pheasant tail nymphs tied the traditional way with just copper wire and pheasant tail. Additionally, I have tied some blue wing olives, midget larvae, and green humpies. To get over tying small flies I tied up some yellow Dorothy’s, a streamer that I found highly successful in New Zealand. Additionally, I have been getting back into salmon flies, both for fishing as well as display. The two small salmon flies are Green Highlanders and the larger fly is just a practice fly of my own making.

The good and the ugly

My trip to New Zealand is looking like it will becoming to an end, so time to hit the rivers while I have the chance.

I decided to stick to rivers I had the best lucky on and ones that were close. Heading out the sun was shining and then as I got closer to the river the sky turned to low cloud. On getting to the river I set up and put on a streamer with a trailing nymph as nothing looked to be rising yet. I headed straight for the intersection of the main stream and a small feeder stream. On getting there, there was a reasonable trout in the shallows, but it saw me as soon as I started to false cast. I headed to a nice ledge, which also was were a fork was in the river. Right below my feed was a massive trout (7-8lbs at least). Not really thinking about what I was doing I put a nice cast out in front of the trout and as the streamer went past the fish bolted, should have gone with just the nymph but I was not thinking at that stage. There were a few trout further up the stream feeding on nymphs so I put another cast out further. This time I had a chasing trout and it looked to have taken the nymph, however I just had to much line out to get any tension before it spat the nymph out. The trout in the main river started rising, more like jumping. I ran the streamer down the side of the river and was surprised by a trout hiding in the weeds that chased the streamer, but did not take. A second cast down the same line and the fish was fighting to get the streamer out of it's mouth. Just my lucky, as I tighten the line I helped pull the streamer out. Already I was two fish down and two that did not want to play ball. Changing to just a nymph and casting to the rising trout I finally got a couple of trout for dinner. The bigger of the two was a really good fight and was running and jumping for about 5 mins, both were over 35 cm. Possibly the last trout I will catch in New Zealand.

Lost

I went out today for a short visit to another dam. The first one I went to I had a walk around and saw a nice trout in a side stream and then a few jumping trout out in one of the ponds. By the time I had started to set up, another group of anglers had arrived and started to fish the pond. They seemed pretty excited about seeing a fish, but missed out. Then they started to work the dam wall from the bridge. I did throw out some casts, but nothing seemed to come in the short period I was there. To make matters worse a family turned up and one was spin fishing while the others waded in the water with a dog, so I called it a day. I decided to see what was on the bridge and when I got there the two guys had a trout on and were trying to play it to a safe landing spot. After talking to them it seemed like they fished here quite often with the same process, usually dry flies but were using a bead head pheasant tail today. The trout they caught was ~35 cm the exact min. size limit.

I then moved to another dam, but one I had been to before. Not much was happening so I swung some streamers. Finally, I spotted a trout feeding heavily on the surface and sub-surface. So I put on a midge larva and after a few casts I got it to take, but then it all when wrong. After the take the trout decided to head straight for a rock and I was not going to have any of that so I slammed on the breaks by grabbing the line and lifting the rod. All that led to was the hook coming out and the fishing racing to the deep.

After my failed fishing for the day I picked some blackberries and headed home.

Busted

It was a nice sunny day so I took the long drive to the Waipapa Dam in the off chance of getting a big trout. I knew the trout were around as some were rising occasionally. Going from dragon flies to a yellow Dorthy  with a trailing bead head hares ear I was finally able to hook into a trout. However, I did not get to see the trout as it busted off my nymph that was on a 8lb tippet. The only sign of the trout was some scales on the streamer hook. It would have been nice to have at least seen the fish, but for now I know I lost most probably the best fish I have had on so far in New Zealand.

Still catching trout in NZ

Times are tough. There are piles of trout where I have been going, but they are clued into something that I do not seem to have. To make matters worse, I did not bring any of my flies with me so I have been fishing with what I have tied here and on a limited budget. So that has mainly been a caddis dry fly and bead head hare's ear dropper. I have also tied a few streamers with material what was donated to me. I have been having pretty good success until now.

It is almost time for the willow flies and I through that was the issue, but my midge nymphs did not work. So last week I sat on the bank watching +5lb trout leap clear out of the water and all I could see were red dragon flies and a couple of brown mayfly spinners. So I tied up some mayfly emerger and spinner patterns with what I had, no dry flies as I do not see the point in buying a cape, and also some red dragon flies with red wool and some red copper john's.

To test out the new flies I hit the river close to where I have been staying and after a few hours of jumping fish and no strikes I decided to move to a small inlet stream and swing a streamer with a trailing hare's ear nymph. Casting across the stream and then flicking the line out all the way to the backing I was able to get a drift through the mouth of the stream with the river. After 3 casts I had a follow, one small rainbow that I let go and then a 30 cm rainbow that I decided to keep for lunch. On the way back to the car I decided to fish my original spot as I could see a larger trout still feeding. Tying on only a red copper john, I cast the nymph in front of the trout. As soon as it landed the rainbow leapt clear out of the water and pile drivered the nymph to the bottom of the river. Pulling back on the rod I was to receive some long runs and spectacular jumps before I got it to shore. This one was a keeper and would be turned into dinner.

When I gutted it I checked to see what it was eating and not to my surprise it's belly was stuffed full of dragon flies.

Now it is time to head to another river where I know bigger fish have been rising like this.

New Zealand Holiday

The first fish of the trip that was netted

Finally something to talk about

The smaller fish is the size that I would get in the USA typically and the bigger one is what I typically expect in the North island of New Zealand

I have been traveling around New Zealand fly fishing at all the old streams that I use to fish. The South Island turned out to be a complete failure. We only saw one fish on the Ashburton. Dickey's road looked really good this time of year and on the second cast I had a fish hooked, but it was jumping like crazy and got off. We had a few large trout chase down our flies, but give up at the end. On the way back up to the Picton ferry we stopped at a lot of places. At the Ashley river I got a 2" fish on a size 14 caddis, not the start we wanted but it looks like we were finally going to get some trout. We stopped at the Wairau River that had a nice wide holding area and it did not disappoint. The rise started just after we got there, but even if I could cast my whole floating line I would just be getting to the fish. Still it was amazing to see what looked like 3-4lb trout rising all over the water. So that was our South Island and it kind of blowed like the strong winds that can come through.

Now based in Taupo you would think that we would be fishing the lake, but without a boat and trying to keep away from the other anglers we stayed out of the Taupo region. Therefore, we also did not have to pay for an additional licence. Taupo is fishing amazingly well this year with people reporting limits with in a few hours of starting to rig (not fly fishing). We decided to fish dam to dam up the Waikato river and we started to see a lot of rising fish and even started to get a few larger trout. Still hoping to catch at least a +5lb trout before I leave, not sure I will get that +10lb trout, but that would be great.  

Salmon Fly

I ordered some feathers from http://www.aaronmostojfeathers.com/ and they turned up about two days after ordering and they were an amazing quality, so I started on a fly that I had seen in a few books. Did make some changes to suit the material that I had and then I decided to tie it on a 4/0 hook, even though I had a 7/0 that the pattern requested. I really like how it turned out and plan on getting some more peacock eyes to set if I can make the 7/0 version.

 

The 2nd fly as promised

This took some time to actually get around to photographing. It is another freestyle fly to practice a few techniques and get ready for some real patterns once I get together all the material required.

Initially I did not have the throat, but since the mohair did not comb out as much as I wanted I added the throat to try and balance the fly. The topping on this fly was almost where I wanted it, but it seems to disappear at the head and that is something that I need to work on still with all my flies. The tippets in the tail seems to short and splay out. I can not wait to get the right size peacock herl as this looks really bad. Also, it would have looked better if the body had some tapper to it.

Freestyle - salmon fly

This is my latest fly off the vise. It is more of a practice for getting the wing to sit properly and trying out body types. I actually put the topping in boiling water this time to straighten out the stem so it would sit straight. I still have an issue with getting it to sit how I wanted it to. I am really happy with the fly and hope to have a photo of another fly I tied over the weekend up later this week. Also, I finally found a mono filament that makes a good gut substitute, also three is better than one.

St Varin - CO

This week saw a  bit of a snow storm come in and we had a couple of days of snow and then a pretty cool weekend.

The original plan was to go to Lagerman Res. and hunt down some pike before ice formed on the lake. So I got up pretty early and drove down to Vic’s to grab a coffee before heading towards Lagerman Res. Upon arriving at the lake the sun was peaking over the hills and there was no wind, however when I got out to have a look around it was a lot colder than I expected. So the plan changed, and it changed to trout; but where to go. So I headed home, grabbed a bunch of fly boxes, waders, more socks and clothes to fight the cold. I consider the St Varin home water, but I have not fished it much and what time I have spent on it has not been very successful. So I drove to a few spots and looked around and finally decided on a section to fish. The first section was pretty low and lacked any sign of fish, however I did end up catching a trout without even seeing it or knowing about it until I went to cast again. This was my first time back on a trout stream for a while so I was feeling like a beginner again and also it seemed like I was walking on marbles half the time.

After my first fish I got into so good water and started to see trout where I expected to see them. Out of a bunch of there was a pretty sizable one at the head of the group so I decided to pick on that guy and forget about what happened to the rest. After a few fly changes I found that he was interested in a midget larva pattern (basically a holographic bead head, thread body and copper ribbing). The fish gave a pretty good battle and it was all worth it. The rest of the time was pretty hard going as the sun was pushing my shadow further in front of me making my presents known by all the fish before I could see them. All that I saw was the wake from the trout as they made for the rocks and holes.

Lagerman Res. - Longmont - CO

I was looking through the maps on http://www.fishexplorer.com for a place to go fishing for pike and I found that Lagerman Res. was close to where I lived and they do stock pike. So I set off to see what it was like. Right now it is pretty free of vegetation and one section of the reservoir is closed for a period of the time during the year for birds, but it is open now. From what I have read, you can catch walleye on the east side, but the normally closed of section looked good for cruising pike. I fished all the way around the reservoir and only saw a couple of dead pike on the rocky sides. When I got around the the flats I did see a cruising pike, but it was not interested in what I had on. The flats look great for cruising fish and once I saw some carp I turned to a small crayfish and was able to bring one to the net. I also spent some time casting to an orgy of carp, but they were either not eating or were to busy eating something that I did not have. Looks like I will be back here to see if I can get some more carp and a possible northern pike.