Spring Youth Fly-fishing Contest

Brought on by Compleat Thought, A cool site with a bunch of fishy stuff happening.

This entry is for Dylan.

I'm 10 1/2 years old I have been learning the fly for the last few years.

This is the first year I can do almost everything by myself.

I like to fly fish because it makes me feel relaxed and its just fun.

When I fish, I enjoy having that feeling of a fish on the end of my line. When I hook a fish, it gets me exited and makes me want to catch more. I like to use flies because, they look like stuff that fish eat. My dad teaches me different techniques and handy ideas like, where the fish are and which flies to use. After that I know when to set and how to keep my rod bent.

Sometimes I fish for bluegill with my cousins. I enjoy seeing their faces when I have a big one. I also enjoy seeing them catching fish. It's fun to take the tackle and rod that I think Ill be able to catch a fish on and actually catch more than one.

It is fun to fish beside my mom because she gets exited when I have a fish or she has a fish on. Also because she doesn't have very much time to fish as much as we do.

When I'm on a river and I get a fish on and its big, I automatically know I need to keep my rod bent and set downstream. I also know when I have a rainbow on its easier for them to get on the top of the water as I bring them in.
The difference between a brown and a rainbow is, Browns are more tougher and are a good fight. rainbows spaz out sometimes jump and screw you up. A rainbow has a few dots and they have a purple line down the center of their body. Browns have big black dots and have a curled top lip and a big muscular body, they are yellow and light brown and sometimes have red dots.

Cutthroats are really pretty colors
When I'm fly fishing, I need to look for good drifts and places where fish could be, but sometimes I like to look for snakes and throw rocks.

I ALWAYS let them go.

Thanks for a chance to win a cool Rod and reel!

Wednesday Tuggs

Wednesday went well, lots of people fishing and conditions were tough.

No fish hungry enough to chase down a nymph so everything had to be right, very minor adjustments to the rig were required in order to obtain hook ups.

Fish were not holding in there usual places and there was little activity bug wise.
Although we were able to spot feeding trout, the presentations had to be exact and lead by distance. The drift had to be flawless, in order to get a subtle take. The takes were lighter than a split shot bumping a rock. Dylan's exact words "WOW! that was crazy, I'm na really hafta watch"

After we entered this element, we earned fish.

I left Dylan to the stretch of water above and I headed up around the corner to the right. Found a deep old swirl with a few ambitious fish willing to eat their young.

From the distance I heard the "code" which was the sound effect of a crow.. A sound Dylan said we would make if we hooked a fish..

I thought to myself "right on" kids got a fish... then about three minutes later I heard it again. I figured it must be big and he needs a hand.. I come around the corner and this is what I see.

Turns out that was the second sound because it was the second fish. He had hooked up with two fish in two casts, with two fellas watching from across the river.

It wasn't 5 or 6 cast later and the kid was all bent up again.

No that's just proper... No need to touch em with your hands when you have already connected with them in that fashion.

As the sun dropped over the wall of the canyon, we made our walk back to where we came from. While crossing a bridge, we stopped to look for fish.

"Gosh darn it kid, just when were ready to go, ya have to go and spot a fish laying down in some fast stuff and sick me on it."

All admit it took way to darn many tries, but.... I did get it.

I told the kid on the way home.... Ice cream and soda for you tonight for correcting the stop on your forward cast! He said "yea I looked like a dork in that last video"... I closed it with... "your just like your dad"

After School Tuggs

My son Dylan and I made a deal...

And we shook on it!

Were going to do our very best to go fishing together every Wednesday night until school gets out for the summer.
Wednesday is a good day for it because school gets out at 2 p.m. and we can get all of 4 hours on the water.

I will write of these Wednesday's and title them After School Tuggs..

This day we headed out right at 2 o'clock with fishin on the brain.

We made the quick 23 minute drive, jumped out of the seat and into our fishin britches. We began down low on the river in hopes of spotting and stalking a decent fish. last year at this time Dylan landed a 20 inch rainbow on a little bitty bug.

The lower section was dry as a bone and we made a B line for the upper stretch.

We met up with a spring time friend we like to call W that letter stands for wind but we try not to say it much. The fish were feeding like vultures and we had the meat!

The whole evening pretty much went like this...

With a little of this...

And some of these...


With a pinch of...

All mixed in with a ton of...



Fly Fishing Action!

Versatility Will Prevail

If you have the time, if the patients is there, if you drink the will, and eat the want... You can do stuff outside... I fished with Andy today. He made the near 7 hour drive up here to do no more than hunt for trout with flies.

Like I've said before, Andy's attitude on the water is so pleasant and fishy, that when he got around the corner, I felt as though I needed to catch up, for fear of missing him spaz out over a good take or a rising fish.

We got to the water pretty early and were the first ones there, we had pick of the litter when it came to trout and although the sky packed with clouds and the visibility poor, there were still fish available to be taken by sight.

Like a shoe, ya just gotta try one on and pick your size. Andy has the eye and we spent the better part of the morning working subsurface. small midges would come off in waves most of the day. The fish were feeding moderately and we fished smaller than size 20 micros and emergers from 9 a.m. to noon. Fishing with light tackle, 3 and 4 wt rods and 6 and 7x tippet, we played the finesse game and took numbers. The rods stayed curved for the whole morning.

Later in the morning, we had an opportunity to learn some key points of shallow water nymphing. This came about as we walked up on some nervous riffles and began to chat about how especially in this light, the fish will take advantage of a smaller feeding zone by narrowing it down laterally. Meaning that they only need to look up 6 inches and down 6 inches when holding in 12 inches of water. The water we stand is less than a foot deep and I had a hunch that they may be stacked in there.

You see we had been fishing the deeper runs and it becomes implanted in ones brain that the fish are holding there.

Three fish in three casts proved otherwise.

Proper hook removal. As the people began to show, we were pushed up river but continued to push ourselves, to keep a good thing going. We wanted it bad, and the fish came. At noon the crowds were getting bad and neither of us like fishing for an audience. So we opted to shuttle one of our cars and make a walk trip. Deeper in the canyon where "you need to be a damn billy goat to get around" (Andy's words). We dumped the nymphing sticks and loaded up for bear! Andy with a 7wt and me with a 6, we went to the streamer in search of that big ugly brown. We had our fun spotting and stalking, sneaking little flies in to the mouths of the fish, but wired to 110 and plugged in to 220 the both of us wanted to cover the last half of the park and make something crrazy happen.. The numbers dropped off as they normally do and the long waves of of the heavy stick began to get intense. Right at first, we were getting them to look seriously at the streamers but no takers. The lookers were big and got bigger as they turned away. Our eyes were bugging out of our heads at the size of some of the fish and we knew that they were willing to play, it was just a matter of locating one of them and sticking it good. Fish story: I spotted a brown near 30 inches as it circled an olive bunny leach. It's belly was red/orange, the jaw had a huge Kype, his spots were as big as my nose. When he circled my fly, he seen me and decided not to grab it. Before maiking his slow somber turn back to the depths, That fish and I made dirrect eye contact. Makeing a breaf connection that will bring the both of us back out for another look at eachother. After getting rid of the squeeks of the nymping gates.... we prospered... The brown above was taken in shallow water at the head of a run. It smashed the fly before the last bit of tail went through the film, bent me over took me for a jog.

The brown above, Andy had been stalking for the better part of 5 minutes from the other side of the river. When he finally stuck it I was the second one to know about it and zoomed er in for a shot.

The both of us took a few nice browns on the big junks but most importantly we already had our fill on numbers and were just walkin around having a good time.

These boots were made for... Stompin...

I can honestly say that in this case, On this afternoon the fish that we encountered would have been almost impossible to take on a nymph, unless it was bigger than the ones that I fish. I say that because there was a certain smell in the air and an almost enchanted look and feel to the water.

The big browns were just having a bad day.

When a Brown trout has a bad day... Well, they eat their freakin baby's!Climbed right on in there! Hooked Andy up with some killer bugs for his trip this weekend to the Blue and sent him on his way. Good luck to him and the bwo hatch that he is expecting!