While I was making a slideshow for the Caddis Fly Christmas party, I decided to make a slideshow of my favorite fly fishing photos from the last 6 months with some tunes. Crank the volume and enjoy. -MS
You can find some high res versions of these fly fishing photos here.
In this video, Barrett talks a new salmon fly fisherman through landing a nice chrome fish on an Oregon coastal stream:
Friday Dec 12: Caddis Fly Shop Christmas Party! We’ll have food, wine, lies, buys and beer from 4pm to 8pm. Don’t miss it. Where: The Caddis Fly 168 West 6th Ave., Eugene, OR 97401
Sharkskin Running Line with grey load zone identifier performs great. Today I fished it with my Z-Axis Switch rod using a 30ft Rio Max Shooting Head, the line shot like crazy, had little memory and it’s tapered section at the junction of the head allowed me to pick up the line with the head out of the tip guide. It made fishing a shooting head much easier. The clickety clack of the loops through the guides when setting up the cast was minimized greatly.
The upside to this shooting line is that it utilizes the micro-replicating surface of all the Sharkskin fly lines. That surface helps the line shoot and float better than any line we have ever used. The Sharkskin surface also minimizes tangles. A particularly critical aspect to running lines, as they tend to get piled up at your feet, finding a way to catch themselves on any exposed d-ring or zipper. The large loop connection makes for easy change of shooting heads, and the tapered gray load zone identifier at the junction of the shooting head lets you know you are nearing the shooting head.
As for the negatives of the Sharkskin running line, the roughness of the surface has bothered some folks. If you are not careful you can create a groove in your finger. The shooting line currently is offered only in floating versions .032 and .035 diameters. The price is $59.95 almost double the cost of some other running lines.
The bottom line is weather you are using a floating running line for a conventional shooting head system or for you Spey line set up the Sharkskin shooting line is worth considering. -CD
Larry Hansen sent us this photo of an absolute chrome hog wild Umpqua Steelhead. The fish is back in the water and headed upstream. Most of the fish in the lower river near Elkton, Bunch Bar, Sawyers Rapids appear to have moved up river. With the coming rain there will be more fish in the lower river soon, but now it’s time to fish the North Umpqua. The water is in perfect shape and a fish like Larry’s can make your winter.-CD
The Four-eyed Charlie is a bonefish pattern that has been very effective in the Florida Keys for Barrett and the Bahamas for Chris. The stripes give this bonefish fly the illusion of movement.
Four-eyed Charlie Bonefish Fly materials:
Hook: Gamakatsu bonefish, size 6 SL45
Thread: 6/0 Uni
Body: Flat pink diamond braid
Wing: Cerise and Tan craft fur
Eyes: Orange bead chain, black mono eyes
Stripes: Black marker
Check out this great how-to article on Midcurrent about Fly Fishing for Bonefish for more info.
You know it’s coming… probably by the end of the week. It’s going to rain, and keep raining for like 90 days. The rivers are going to blow out, they’ll come back into shape on a weekday and be back blown out again by the weekend. The next thing you know, it’s 8 weeks later, you’re sitting in front of your vise with a bunch of lime green nutria fur and some dumbell eyes. And you’ll wonder what the hell you’re doing. When was the last time you even saw a fish?
Well, it doesn’t have to be that way this winter. If you want to catch some monster fish and hone your stillwater trout tactics, you need to book at day up at the Roaring Springs Ranch in Scio, OR. The facility has three ponds — two for people who like the idea of shooting huge fish in a barrel, and one lake-size impoundment with warier, wilder trout.
Roaring Springs has shelters near the lakes to keep you warm, and grills for cooking. It’d make a great winter outing. Call the shop for details and bookings: 541-342-7005. Stay tuned for an advanced stillwater class at Roaring Springs this spring.
Recently, we reported that the Western Oregon Plan Revision was on the Governor’s desk for review and asked our readers to speak out against the plan. The Governor released his findings today asking the BLM not implement the WOPR. View the press release or the Governor’s letter to the BLM.
Governor Kulongoski expressed concern that the BLM plan to not complete consultation under the Endangered Species Act until after adoption of the plan could set a “bad precedent” for other federal agencies. In other words, no end runs around the ESA allowed now or in the future. In fact, both the conservation/environmental community and the logging community expressed concern about that very issue. The Governor’s other concerns included: water quality impacts, wilderness areas, insufficient monitoring provisions and the absence of forest management strategies that fight global warming.
We realize that the timber harvest community is hurting right now but in these economic times ramping up logging to 502 million board feet annually from these lands doesn’t make sense. Demand is sharply down. Why flood the market with cheap Oregon lumber? The Governor has expressed his support for the 502 million board foot target but believes that given the four year reauthorization of the Secure Rural Schools funding the BLM has time to develop, using the existing plan as a foundation, a management plan that is in compliance with the law, will bring a steady, dependable revenue stream and will protect Oregon’s natural resource heritage.
Thanks you to all of you out there who sent comments in to the Governor’s office.–KM
Tonight, Oregon’s fly fishing photography guru Brian O’Keefe came to Eugene to help us promote a Trout Unlimited event before heading off to Chile for a fly fishing adventure. In this podcast, O’Keefe goes over the logistics of putting together Catch Magazine, the pros and cons of putting out an online magazine over paper magazines and more.
Brian O’Keefe talks about the online fly fishing magazine evolution.
It was a great sell-out crowd tonight at the David Minor Theater for our showing of Drift. Thanks to everyone who came out and made it a great night for the local chapter of Trout Unlimited, and special thanks to Confluence Films. What a great crew!
-MS
Mid-December? Really? While it’s not great conditions if you’re anxious for winter steelhead season to start, the trout fishing is still pretty hot around the Eugene area. We’ve been getting good reports for trout fishing on the lower McKenzie River and the Middle Fork Willamette. Our trout crew headed out to the Middle Fork Willamette today. The water was lower than it was this summer — under 600 cfs and 3-feet on the gage. Water temp was 43-degrees.
The hot fly was a size 14 tungsten bead-head prince nymph, under an indicator. The fish didn’t seem to want the possie bugger today. I’ve been tying nymphs with tungsten beads this year and I do notice a difference in the flies. That said, the tungsten beads cost a bit more.
The fishing stayed hot from 10-2pm. Rick Allen and Karl Mueller tagged super-slob whitefish. Greg Hatten pulled some nice trout before jumping into the river with his pipe. Beat the hell out of watching football on the couch.
-MS
This fly is a variation of the tarpon toad shrimp from a couple months ago. It’s a very effective fly pattern for juvenile tarpon — but it will work for big boys as well. Shrimp tend to have an orange egg sack, and a little orange maraboue skirt on this shrimp pattern really lights the fly up. You could also tie this fly in black and purple for night-time fly fishing.
Bunny tarpon toad fly materials
Hook: Gamakatsu SC17 1/0
Thread: 6/0 uni Orange
Foul guard: 20lb mono
Tail: Magnum bunny strip, gold variant
Collar: Tan and orange marabou
Head: Polypropelene yarn
Eyes: Black mono
The new documentary by Travis Rummel and Ben Knight is now in stock. Angler’s Book Supply is shipping copies to fly shops — The Caddis Fly will have copies after 5pm today.
At the headwaters of the Kvichak and the Nushagak Rivers in Bristol Bay Alaska — the two largest remaining sockeye salmon runs on the planet — mining companies Northern Dynasty and Anglo American have proposed to extract what may prove to be the richest deposit of gold and copper in the world. Red Gold is a portrait of a unique way of life that would not exist if the salmon didn’t return with Bristol Bay’s tide. *5$ of every purchase goes to the TU chapter in AK.
Let’s lick these sub-human corporations and bury them in one of their own holes.
What you can do to help:
1. Speak Up Protect the immense renewable resource value of Bristol Bay, tell Gov. Sarah Palin and the BLM that protecting our fishery resources in the Bristol Bay watershed is important to you and the State.
2. Stay Informed Sign up to receive email updates from Trout Unlimited.
Go to: www.savebristolbay.org and pick up your copy at the shop tonight or buy Red Gold online.
Thanks to everybody who bought tickets to the Eugene showing of Drift next week. The event is sold out! And if checking out the film on the big screen, hearing from Brian O’Keefe, and watching new shorts from some of the best fly fishing filmmakers wasn’t enough — Confluence films just sent us a big box of items for giveaways.
Also, we’re gearing up for the Caddis Fly Christmas party (Friday Dec 12). We’re putting toghether a photo slideshow to play during the party– send us your best pics from 2008 and we’ll include them in the lineup.
-MS
Fall like weather has prolonged trout fishing, and made fall and winter steelhead available to the fly angler all of November and amazingly into December. Today you will find water levels on the Mckenzie, The Middle Fork of the Willamette, main-stem Willamette and North Umpqua in fine shape, summer levels really.
Mckenzie: Fish lower in the river, water temps are dipping down in the low 40s and more activity has been seen in the Belinger to Armitage area than above the dam. Soft hackles will catch fish mid-day when a few midges and Blue Winged Olives are around. Fish slow, soft edges and when your swing is over slowly retreive your emerger pattern. Best success will be fishing medium to small nymphs, Mega Prince, Possie Buggers, Prince, Copper John in sizes # 8-14.
Middle Fork of the Willamette: Flows are not down as low as they can go but they are very wadable in the area from Oakridge down to Black Canyon. Fish nymphs similar to the McKenzie, but you may want to roll a larger stone in faster water. The Middle fork will be a bit warmer than the McKenzie and you may see some Blue Winged Olives. Patterns #18-20 imitating Blue Winged Olive emergers and adults are worth having.
Willamette Main-stem: The town run has been producing a few steelhead and trout. Swing Moal Leeches on sink tips in the tail outs between Island Park and Valley River Center for steelhead. Black and Purple seem to be the best colors. For trout swinging soft hackles and fishing small Blue Winged Olives has been productive in slower runs and edges.
North Umpqua: Fishing pressure has been light. The bulk of the winter run is still out in the ocean, at least we have to hope so. Currently there are still summer fish in the system and a few winter fish. Recently I have had several reports of bright winter fish being caught in the fly water, the first of what should be a good year for winter steelhead on the North Umpqua.
Other opportunities are the state include the Metolius, Crooked and Fall river. South Coast salmon and a few steelhead are available as water conditions remain excellent.-CD
Barrett’s Chinook Clouser is a killer pattern for chrome salmon entering Oregon rivers. This version uses a synthetic extra select craft fur instead of the traditional bucktail.
Clouser materials available at www.CaddisFlyShop.com:
Gamakatsu SC-15
Ultra Select Craft Fur
Dumbbell eyes
Hareline Diamond Braid
Hareline Crystal Flash
Uni-thread
