DANCES WITH TROUT

Blue Wings are Poppin'

2012-02-16T14:04:00.002-08:00

Yesterday was the first day of the short year that i've seen blue wings out and about. coincidentally it was the most risers i've ever seen on this river. it made me wish i was toting a lighter rod, smaller tippet and a box of small dries but the reality is i was toting my #6, 10lb. tippet and a box of streamers. even though i found enough players to keep me entertained, i had an itch to throw dries. i also wish i had brought my macro lense with me. maybe next time.

Back up Plans

2012-02-11T18:20:00.000-08:00

me and scott met at 5:20 this morning and made our way to our destination 3 hrs or so down the road. we arrived extra early so we could hopefully beat anyone else there. that definitely worked out in our favor. what didn't work out in our favor was all the shelf ice ad frozen river. even though the temp's were supposed to be in the mid 30's there was just to much frozen river for us to do much with. when we could fish we didn't even see a single one. as it turned out we drove 3 hrs, to fish 2 hrs, to drive 3 hrs back and fish something that i know is on the up and up. got back to our neck of the woods and started our journey up river. after i landed one smaller fish i pounded my next hole with about a dozen casts, which is a lot in one hole with streamers, but after i had busted one off on an opposite bank bush, scott jumped in and after a few casts was anniolated by a big aggresive buck that measured 22". after some pics we continued up stream hitting fish after fish. we went thru a variety of colors but it seemed like once we went to yellow the fishing really picked up. we ended up with 3 fish over 20" and a handful of smaller fish. other then the first part of the day, the day was pretty good to us.

Scuba Steve'd

2012-02-10T21:19:00.000-08:00

Went out for a couple of hours after work since the weather was so pleasant. i had heard some good reports locally pertaining to nymphing so i figured if they are active on nymphs then they will be active on streamers. my assumption was correct, i got into a gang of fiesty trout but only managed to land a few. i stuck with a white scuba steve the entire time and it didn't disappoint.

The W.F of the S.F. of Noneya Creek

2012-02-03T21:41:00.000-08:00

I was able to convince the bearded wonder to brave the cold with me today. i met collin at the usual car pool spot we headed SW by NW to a spot i had recently been thinking about. collin of course was game to give it a whirl especially since he hadn't fished it since high school. we made it about 3/4 of the way down the snow covered road until collin's truck with 1/2 ass tires made for the highway started having troubles in the snow. after a brief discussion it was time to back our way back out. in the middle of this backing out process collin really put his driving skillz on display by backing us off the road into a small ditch and getting us stuck. collin was wearing some ice cube type house shoes so i hopped out and starting digging around the tires trying to make the truck a path for the tires to follow back onto the road. it wasn't too long before we were out of the ditch and heading back to the highway to plan B. once we arrived we rigged up with some streamers and the beating commenced. we laid the smack down for the better part of the day with collin railing a couple of real nice fish. my best of the day ended up in my freezer cause it was bleeding pretty profusely and figured it was not going to make it any way. that was certainly not in my plans. you know you've had a pretty solid day when you don't have to change flies, not even once. the day was beautiful and the fish were extremely active.

The Sickness

2012-02-02T20:48:00.000-08:00

To me, I think this is the best looking thing i've tied in quite sometime

Bauer Customer Service

2012-01-30T18:09:00.000-08:00

Last friday after fishing i had left my bauer reel on the roof of my jeep. it fell off at 70mph and after a little dremel work i was able to remove the high metal from the spool and body but could not salvage the foot. i contacted bauer and they charged me $16 and 3 days later i got my foot and that reel is ready to roll again. for the price and how expediently i got the foot, bauers customer service is pretty damn good.

Long Time no Fish

2012-01-29T20:52:00.000-08:00

Scott was good enough to join me to check out some water that hasn't been fisheable since run-off earlier this year. it's finally close to normal flows and is in excellent shape. i had really high hopes for today since the water had to uv been virtually un-touched all year. the river fished the same as it has during past winters, iffy. we started nymphing but with the weather warming up nicely, and me not being able to touch a fish i switched to a small streamer. i have never thrown a streamer in there in the almost 7 years i have fished it and on my first cast with the streamer i nailed a fiesty little brown. a few cast later i was stripping my streamer next to a big rock hoping too pull something out of it's dark lies but instead i saw this fish come barreling from the middle of the creek and put the how you doin on my fly. after that scott switch to a streamer as well but wasn't getting much attention. scott flip flopped back and forth between nymphing and streamers and after switching to a white streamer he had some success with both techniques. i moved about 10-12 fish with the streamer but only landed a small few. the weather was about as good as we could've asked for for a january day. on the way out we followed some cougar tracks down the road.

Olive Berserker

2012-01-28T17:01:00.001-08:00

tweaks of the original

2012-01-27T19:07:00.000-08:00

the original sex parakeet had a wool head and uv polar chenille for a body. these use senyo's for the head and a dubbing brush for the body.

Salvaging a Weekend

2012-01-22T16:35:00.000-08:00

Didn't think i was going to be able to make it out with this rainy weather since it's blown out a lot of stuff around here. got up this morning and the sun was out so this afternoon, with minimal hope, i decided to take a sunday drive and take a look at some water. i found some that hadn't been affected by all the rain and was still low and clear. fished a different section then normal and managed to pull a few small fish using a variety of nymphs.

Jesus, another one........

2012-01-20T16:29:00.000-08:00

The morning started off a bit disappointing when me and jake arrived at the river and saw the chocolate coming down. i think under a warmer time of year the clarity would have been fine for throwing streamers, but i feel it hindered us today. we fished up aways thru some fishy water to no avail. it wasn't long before we decided to drive and find some clearer stuff. once we got above the res we found the water to be ideal. we fished it for a couple of hours, each landing only one small fish each. i did move a few others but that was it. on the way home, we had already driven 5 or 6 miles, when i heard something from above, looked out the rear view and saw something bouncing down the interstate. jake thought it must've been a dirt clod from the jeep, but i knew right away it wasn't. i realized at that time i had left my bauer reel on top of the jeep. it's a bit banged up and will have to get a new foot for it, but i suppose it could've looked worse. shit that two reels now. this past summer after fishing the big hole with corey, i had left my loop on his bumper and it bounced checked down the road at 60mph. shit that's about $800 in reels that have been beat up cause i forgot to go thru my mental checklist of everything before driving off. for those that know me might be better off not lending me any reels cause i can't guarantee you'd get them back in the same condition that you loaned them. even though the temps were in the 40's it's still a bit early for consistant streamer fishing.

The Peace and Serenity.....Metolious

2012-01-19T20:49:00.001-08:00

A River for Christmas from Joel La Follette on Vimeo.

TFO Warranty

2012-01-19T15:42:00.000-08:00

About 2 years ago i busted my Ticr. i finally sent it in last thursday. it is a rod i built and it was tip section that broke. today i got the rod back with a new tip section. i guess my point of this post is $25 and only a week later it's ready to be re-built. compared to other companies i've sent stuff back to, TFO is by far the best.

Simplicity

2012-01-18T18:58:00.001-08:00

I love big sexy eyes!

Not Sure What to Say

2012-01-15T07:43:00.000-08:00

To me this is pretty cool to have been asked if i'd be interested in it. i wish i could've come up with some better stuff in the timeline given but i can't take them back now. i think i'm a decent tier at best but this is a first for me so i thought i would share it.

Making the Jeep More Appealing

2012-01-13T14:42:00.000-08:00

Got some new stickers for my fishing rig from fishingporn.com. good shit!

Small but Sexy

2012-01-09T21:34:00.000-08:00

Got some new material so i hit the vice with the wheels a turnin'. pretty simple but ilike the way they came out, especially the one with the beads.

Makes me Yern for Hopper Season

2012-01-08T19:32:00.001-08:00

Colorado Trout from Joey Macomber on Vimeo.

Bailers....

2012-01-08T19:07:00.000-08:00

So me, jake and pat had plans to pursue some fish of the swimming kind but last night jake let me know that he got called into work and might not be able to make it. i gave him a rendezvous time, he wasn't there so that meant he wasn't making it. i pressed on to meet pat. we arranged to meet at 7am to car pool. i showed up at 6:50 but by 7:30, no pat. couldn't get a hold of him so i left and fished something closer to home. i fished one section till about 11am when i got a call from jake. he was up and ready to fish. we met at another location and fished till about 4pm. we threw streamers the entire time, we each got one, although mine was quite small and i lost a good fish.

The Fish The Fly Trailer 3

2012-01-07T09:29:00.000-08:00

Small Water

2012-01-06T17:21:00.000-08:00

Hit some small water today, in fact it's a small as i've ever fished it. damn winter flows! just did some nymphing and was able to pull a few small fish. i took a short break to turn over some rocks. tons of small, i believe, grannom caddis and a few slamonfly nymphs. the canyon was bitter cold but the spots that the sun was hitting the water were pleasant.

I Gave it a shot

2012-01-03T16:30:00.000-08:00

Well today the weather was in the mid 40's so after work i couldn't pass up the chance to throw some streamers. i headed to some familiar water, rigged up and got to fishing. i figured with the cooler temp's the fish would be huddle in the deeper pools so that is where i concentrated most of my efforts. one thing you can always count on when fishing this river is trash, primarily beer cans. i'm not sure why it's so hard for people to carry their trash out with them, i mean if you can pack it in then your bitch ass should be able to pack it out, especially cans. i mean when they are empty they are certainly lighter. anyway the fishing was slow as i expected but i did manage to get a decent fish to follow and i also lost one right after it went air born. i generally don't throw streamers this early in the year so i can almost call it a successful day of January streamerin. on the way out i stopped by a spot where i saw 2 piles of approximately 1/2 racks and loaded up my net. that was my biggest haul of the day.

Urban Fishery

2011-12-26T19:00:00.000-08:00

There's nothing more unappealing then fishing around populated areas of water, but i found a new piece on a familiar body of water so me and jake gave it a go. after a long walk thru tall frosted grass i was given the go ahead from jake to give the first hole a work over. 1 cast and jake netted my first fish of the day. already this stretch was feeling electric. unfortunately i have always felt that a fish on the first cast was a bad omen. after a few more fish in that area, including jakes 21" brown, i was having second thoughts about that bad omen. we landed a few fish right away and then, of course, things really cooled down for us. it wasn't until our last hole that shit got scorching hot. about 2 hours of rotating out with each other we figured we took probably close 2 a couple dozen fish out of this spot. the water looked fishy but certainly not that fishy. at about that point houses started to come into view so we called it a day and made the long walk back to the jeep. pretty damn good day with great weather to boot.

Some More Tinkering

2011-12-24T14:55:00.000-08:00

Baitfish pattern that needs a little something different, maybe some cayenne.

12 Months of the Year

2011-12-23T18:12:00.000-08:00

January Brown

February Brown
March Brown
April Brown
May Rainbow
June Pike
July Brown
August Cutt
September Bull
October musky
November Rainbow
December Brown

Beings that it's the end of the year i figured i would browse thru one of my on line galleries and pic out what i feel were my best fish of each month. not just the biggest but my best for various reasons.

A Curtis Fry Attempt

2011-12-20T16:50:00.000-08:00

I had asked curtis about some ties that incorporated midge diamond braid and he linked me to one of his tying videos on you tube. maybe i should have watched the video again before i tied these but i did what i could with the materials i have so mine are a little different but the concept is the same. here is the link for those that are interested.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9gtH7yAwitw i actually just watched it again and realize that mine don't quite look right but hey, i'm not perfect

40 Degrees my Ass.....

2011-12-17T20:21:00.000-08:00

The river had dropped a whole 50cfs and the weather channel said 40 degrees, should be a killer day was my mindset when i went to bed last night. jerry allowed me a little sleep in time since he didn't want to meet until 8am unlike the usual 6:30 meet times that myself and the others have. i still managed to be a little late. a little betos and we were on the road. the best sight when approaching the river is the absence of others cars/people. although there were no other cars there when we arrived i was 1/2 expecting someone to show up as we were gearing up so we rushed as fast as we could and made the trek to the water. the morning was brisk and i apparently had left my gloves at home so i was in no hurry to start casting any time soon. the morning started off very slow, it wasn't until about lunch time that i was into our first hook up. right away the fish came hurling out of the water and it was easy to see that it was the best fish i had hook there in quite sometime. jerry fumbled with the net job, but finally got the job done. a still pretty beat up fish from the spawn with lots of color measured at a cool 22". a few pics and it was on it's merry way. we pounded that hole for a long minute with nothing more then jerry losing his first opportunity. in the next 2hrs i caught one more while jerry was shooting blanks. once jerry did land one though it was smooth sailing from there. we were almost done when one hole welcomed us with open arms and practically starting throwing fish at us. between us it seemed it was one fish after another. that one hole definitely turned our day around. really the only pisser on the day was the temp's. we don't think it reached above 30 degrees and we spent all day constantly de-icing our guides.

Tying and Tinkering

2011-12-11T21:25:00.000-08:00

I've been re-stocking my nymph box all week so i've been tying a lot of smaller stuff. i have already posted a purple boogie but i made some camera adjustments and propped it up so the camera was out of my hands and wouldn't be shaking for the macro pic. i was able to get the whole fly in focus so that's cool. the other fly looks like a basic pheasant tail, but it's not a pheasant tail. the body is olive dub with the pheasant as a shellback, with a red wire rib.

Where's the Beef?

2011-12-04T19:40:00.000-08:00

I picked up scott at o' dark thirty and after a quick pit stop for some grub we descended upon our destination. the morning was extremely chilled, which made getting out of the jeep to gear up a real chore. as we were gearing up a truck pulled up along side of us and i feared it was other fishermen, luckily it was just duck hunters. they crossed the fence and within 5 minutes several shots were fired and they were walking back to their truck with duck in hand. that was a quick hunt, and off they drove. we fished our way up about 1/2 of this section with scott getting the only fish, so instead of continuing up we chose to walk back to the jeep and try a different piece of liquid ice. even though we arrived at the new section at noonish there was not another vehicle in sight. a rare phenomena indeed. we had the river to ourselves. it might have been fished in the morning but we were still optimistic that the fish would be active. my luck certainly made a positive change. i was able to wrangle a handful of solid fish, while scott did mot fair so well. for some reason i have noticed that the last couple times of fishing there that it seems the fish aren't as big as normal. i'd say a couple inches on average actually. although the fish are as spunky as ever, i'd like to know where all the bigger boys and girls have gone.

Purple Boogie

2011-12-02T18:50:00.000-08:00

tail - purple midge braid

body - purple dubbing

shellback - mirage tinsel

rib - red wire

collar - starling

thorax - purple ostrich

head - purple tungsten bead

The Best of Catch - Season 3

2011-11-27T09:31:00.000-08:00

The T-Motion Collection from Todd Moen Creative on Vimeo.

Did I Really Just Fish the Provo?

2011-11-19T18:25:00.000-08:00

By the masses (8) of people i thought maybe we made a wrong turn somewhere. Our morning started off with a little excitement. the roads were a bit slick and as we were making our way up the hill a truck coming at us lost control and started to fish tail, seemed like he missed us by no more then 10ft. he couldn't get control of his slid and went off the road and flipped over. we quickly made a U-turn to give them some aid. we ran to the truck and heard a lot of panicked commotion and we really thought somebody had to be messed up. it was a husband, wife and three little ones, looked no older then 8-9 yrs. the mom had the seat belt wrapped around her neck somehow and as i tried to get the door open scott struggled to get the mom free of the seat belt. we accomplished both but there was no way they could get out from the door so with the windshield already destroyed and partially dislodged we just ripped the rest of it off. they all five were able to walk out of the wind shield and surprisingly everyone was in really good shape. the mom had a couple of cutts on one of her hands and that was it. mom was a bit shaken but everyone else were in good spirits. we waited around till the cops showed up so that the family could stay warm in our vehicle and once the cops showed up we were on our marry way. i was hoping that since scott and i did our good deed for the day that the lord would bless us with some phenomenal fishing. well sometimes it doesn't work that way so our fishing was less then stellar but we managed to get into a few decent fish. the wind kicked our ass all day but other then that the weather was cope-able. anyway, as to my provo reference, this particular piece of water does not see much pressure and i rarely ever run into any other anglers while fishing there but today, for some reason, i counted eight other anglers and it really dampened my mood. where the hell did they all come from? it was rediculous!

A Little Somethin Somethin

2011-11-18T20:01:00.000-08:00

My buddy made this little vid from our last outing.

The Lows of Fishing......

2011-11-15T17:01:00.001-08:00

If you can call it that. this is pathetic and another reason why i hate people.

Northern Exposure

2011-11-13T17:07:00.000-08:00

Myself, pat, scott and jake ventured to the northland for a little non-spawning rainbow action. the drive took exceptionally long due to shitty weather and roads but pat finally got us to our destination. the weather was freezing and the wind was cooking, luckily the snow wasn't to deep, which made for easy walking. when we got to the area we were going to fish i jumped in first and on my 3rd cast i was streamer deep into a fat hen. pat stepped in next and second cast....fish. after a few shots no one else was quite ready saw pat threw his streamer out again and quickly latched into another fish. 6 total casts and three fish and then nothing for quite awhile. it seemed like we wore out our welcome real quick but we stuck it out and all of us ended up getting more fish, including a slab of a 26 incher. both fish that i caught were the biggest i have ever caught out of that lake. today wasn't a big numbers day but it was a killer day none the less.

Vet's Day

2011-11-11T15:13:00.000-08:00

Being a vet and since it's vet's day i chose to do a little nymphing. i fished a different section then yesterday but the story was almost the same. lots of redds, only in todays section more redds were occupied. but like yesterday most of my fish came from deeper pools and runs. most of the fish were smaller but there were a couple of bigger ones to be had as well.

A Few Fish

2011-11-10T16:07:00.000-08:00

I had planned on chasing tiger musky today but couldn't find my pump to blow up pontoon boat so i hit a local river instead. the weather was nice and the water was low and clear. i nymphed throwing a variety of combonations and a pig sticker and an olive flashback scud were the only flies that worked. the browns were small but the scud did catch a real nice cutty. my intent was to fish up to where a 2nd fence used to cross the river but as i was working my way up the water started to muddy up for some reason and never cleared up so i called it a day from there.

6" perch pattern

2011-11-09T20:31:00.000-08:00

This is my 3rd attempt at tying a perch pattern. the 1st was shitty as all get out and the 2nd was tolerable, in fact tolerable enough to get my 1st tiger musky a few weeks ago. this one, i think came out a lot better.

The Yeti

2011-11-07T18:08:00.000-08:00

A couple of color schemes tied on a 45mm waddington shank

Pike and the Rednecks

2011-11-06T13:01:00.000-08:00

a BACKYARD in NOWHERE official HD trailer from Sellfish Media & Smatis Film on Vimeo.

Poly Bear Minnow

2011-11-05T21:09:00.000-07:00

Tied with Poly Bear Synthetic type stuff, not even sure what it would be classified as.

Spawn Season

2011-11-05T15:08:00.000-07:00

Well the time has come again for the fishing to slow down, at least for me. the brown spawn is upon us and i hate it. most of the time nymphing eggs to spawning fish is very productive but it just doesn't have the luster like throwing streamers or dries for healthy fish. every once in awhile i will resort to throwing eggs and other various sub surface flies to assed out fish, but i really don't like it. today was one of those days. i hooked into 2 fish in some deeper water and 2 fish in some shallow stuff. landed a dink of about 10" and 1 beat up, twisted mouth, nasty ass brown that was a much bigger fish. he looked so beat up it almost depressed me. the weather was cold and it snowed most of the day. i didn't get out of bed till about 10am so my options were limited.

A Day Well Spent

2011-10-28T19:27:00.000-07:00

I think this was probably my last uinta trip for the year. me and scott got to the end of the dirt road at about 8 this morning and it was nipply to say the least. freezing temp's, ice on the lakes and iced up guides are not what i had in mind before the day started. we fished the 3 lakes that are in the immediate area unfortunately having to skip some good water due to ice. we did manage to catch fish in all 3, none of any size but some really colorful fish. the weather cooperated and for late october at higher elevations it was quite nice.

Condit Dam Breached

2011-10-27T18:38:00.000-07:00

Condit Dam & The White Salmon

2011-10-26T20:14:00.000-07:00

Good to See

2011-10-25T19:35:00.000-07:00

I got into a few fish in about the first 50 yards, landing only 1 of them and then nothing the rest of the short evening. i was happy to get this fish cause i rarely get into anything throwing streamers this time of year for some reason so i was happy. a nice brown of about 18". i got this fish right out of the gates so i had anticipated a great evening just to get shut out from there.

Down an Hour

2011-10-20T18:07:00.002-07:00

Just went to check the river out to see if it cleared up any. it had cleared just a smidge, streamerable but barely. the down fall is is that the flows came up quite a bit, which meant that i couldn't cross the river but once or twice. there just about an hour, got 1 hit and caught this little guy. the weather was to nice not to try and fish.

Tiger Musky

2011-10-15T17:13:00.000-07:00

Got an invite from corey to take up some space in his drift boat pursuing some predator type fish. it was a welcome change of pace from all the trout fishing i'm accustomed to. after an entire day of rotating between casting and manning the sticks i landed the only and my first tiger musky. i didn't notice him following my perch pattern until it was about 2 ft. behind my fly. i had given 2 quick strips then paused and when i paused he made his move and pounced on it. it was cool to see it all unravel. there was no need to wait to fell the tug before setting the hook. i saw his big ole mouth open up and as soon as i saw my fly get engulfed i set the hook. unfortunately tiger muskies, like pike, at least from my little experience with pike, don't have a whole lot of fight in them. it was still awesome to land such a sweet fish. we got a rough measurement of 36 inches.

Pre-Saturday Warm-up.....Hardly

2011-10-14T16:50:00.001-07:00

Today was my friday off and since i didn't get a suspected call to head north i stayed pretty close to see if the fish would still be looking up. as i figured, with the nice weather the fish certainly were. i stuck with the usual purple haze. i rose quite a few fish and all though i didn't land anything of size it was still enjoyable. i did miss a couple of good fish though. i also fished one of my regular sections and as usual it didn't disappoint.

Muddy Waters

2011-10-09T21:00:00.000-07:00

Flows on the chart looked a bit high but me and jerry decided to check it out anyway. i picked up jerry at 8:30 and off we went. when we got to the river the flows looked perfect but there was quite a bit of stain in the water, but it looked fishable. we parked, rigged up and made our walk to our starting point. the fishing started off slow but i did move 2 fish with a streamer. eventually i switched to a nymph rig and shortly after started tagging fish. sows were fishing well and eventually jerry started landing a few on sows as well. the holes were hit and miss, the fishing was less then stellar. i did pick up 1 more on a streamer. once we were done we drove over to check out another piece of water that the gauge was showing really high and it certainly was. we took a different path home so that we could see some more water. it looked perfect so might venture that way tommorrow.

Off the Grid

2011-10-03T19:45:00.001-07:00

Off the Grid from RA Beattie on Vimeo.

Fall is for Brookies

2011-10-03T17:21:00.000-07:00

Got the family up early to make the drive to brookie lake. it's always nice when i can some of the family on the water let alone all of them. we geared up and made the long hike to the lake. when we arrived the weather was calm, sunny and didn't see anything threatening above us. shortly after arriving at the lake the weather quickly changed. all of a sudden the wind picked up a bit and on the horizon it looked like snow. neither the kids or i wore any sweatshirts or coats cause of the weather looked like when we parked. michelle was the only one smart enough to wear a coat. austin wanted to go back and get something warm so while i went back to the jeep with him, michelle and jasmine stayed back so michelle could fish. she hadn't even hooked anything in the short time we were fishing but when me and austin got back to the girls michelle said she had caught a nice one and it was confirmed by the pics that jasmine had took. another impressive brook trout for michelle, i was pretty damn excited. as we worked our way around the lake michelle didn't catch as many as i but she caught the bigger and the more vibrant fish. mine were smaller and for the most part less colored up. the weather had blown over for a short period but then came another little storm that spilt a little rain on us. the kids were ready to go back so michelle went with them and i decided to fish my way towards the trail back to the jeep. i guess michelle was having to much fun catching the fish so she gave the keys to the kids and decided to make some more casts. after i caught up to her at the end of the lake she was landing another good fish and after a few more pics it swam into the deep. we threw at them for a few more minutes and closed the day with a brookie/grayling double, the first grayling of the day. i wish michelle would've caught it since she never has but at least she got to see one since she never had. it was an enjoyable day with the family. i did try and teach the kids how to casts but it's gonna take some time for them to figure it out.

Todays Lunch Special......A Purple Haze

2011-09-30T17:43:00.000-07:00

I went back to the urban fishery to try a section i hadn't fished in a minute. my first cast had me hooked into a decent fish but it was short lived. there were a few risers up above me but i could not get any of them to eat. but up above them a really nice fish ate and then came raising towards me so at first i wasn't sure of it's quality, size that is. as it raced by me i got a good look and was glad that i remembered my net today. it was truly a nice fish and i hadn't landed any of the bigger fish i have hooked in this stream. this one i finally got to the net and it measured a real nice 19". my biggest to date on this water, most fish i catch here are 12-16". i was pretty damn stoked. i skipped past a short section of water that has never produced anything for me and then came to one of my honey holes. missed a couple of smaller fish then right off the bank another really nice fish took my purple haze and got his acrobats on. 5 jumps later and that colored up beauty was in my net, 18" solid inches and my day was just getting better. well i had hoped to get into another tank or 2 but no such luck. i did however get into a lot more fish but of the smaller variety. actually i did lose one more good fish, not quite as big as my 2 big ones but a really nice fish none the less. i was moving up to some pocket water, stripped some line out, plopped my haze right down in front of me, within 10ft., i then tried to pick up my fly to cast it and it was solid. a fish had sucked it down right in front of me and as it bolted down stream, the line that was hanging down flew up and around my wrist and rod handle resulting in no slack in the line and a busted off fly. that one had me butt hurt a little but what can you do. it was a pretty good numbers day and i landed 2 of the biggest fish there. a good day for sure.

A Shift in the Seasons

2011-09-29T20:57:00.000-07:00

It's that time again for the seasons to change. i noticed it especially today, not only in the beautiful colors that line the shorelines and the mountains but today with each fish released i had to continually blow on my hands cause they just wouldn't warm back up. hoppers were a no go today but a purple have and brown drake pulled some fish. a beetle also got smacked a few times but couldn't seal any deals. this river is constantly providing for me 15-16" fish the past couple of years and every once in a while i'll get into something in the 20" range, those of which i have yet to get to hand. today provided a bunch of smaller fish, 8-13" and one fish that i figure was 18-19". that one i had at me feet, hand on the leader a couple of times but his constant thrashing around caused my drake to come free. i forgot my net today other wise i could've netted this beaut and snapped some shots. oh well that's the way it goes sometimes. i only fish this river a few times a year but it is always entertaining.

A Not so Friendly Return

2011-09-26T11:55:00.000-07:00

So to continue the theme of the utah waters not treating me well since my return, me, pat and corey ventured out with hopes of a killer day. the last time me and corey fished these waters they fished great and like an idiot i expected the same today, knowing that everday can be different. it was a combo streamer, hopper and various dries kind of day. the sun was out with a little breeze. nothing was really doing much, in the way of catching. top water had plenty of smacks but very few fish actually hit the fly. great looking water, just this time, the fish got the best of us. not much to report other then a few small fish mixed with a couple of netter ones.

A Few Hours

2011-09-23T20:59:00.000-07:00

Met up with jake gillette after my in-processing for my new job. got on the river at about noon. the clarity was primo for streamers but of course the flows were dropped again, to damn much for my liking but what can i do. the good holes and runs are few and far between due to the flows. i did manage to hit a handful of fish and catch a couple of small fish. i did hook one nice cuttie that parked itself on the rocks but as it was flopping around it shook the hook and flopped back in the water. jake got into a few fish as well but like me, nothing noteworthy.

And That's a Wrap

2011-09-21T03:08:00.000-07:00

My vacation in montana tommorrow will be officially done. just when the family and i had the mind set that montana was gonna be where we called home, i got a job offer back at hill afb, utah which is where i retired from. more pay, less hours and benefits was tough to pass up, plus now my wife doesn't have to quit her good job that she has. i really do like the missoula area better but for financial reasons utah is a better fit right now. i will truly miss some of the streams that i have wet my feet in and regret not hitting some of the waters i meant to, but it will be nice to get back and fish some of the waters that i do miss in utah. looking forward to chasing big aggressive browns again.

Deja Vu

2011-09-17T20:27:00.000-07:00

I met scott at 7:30 in the AM then we were westward bound. the plan was to throw streamers on a a piece of water where i had probably my best day ever on a river. i hadn't fished it in a month and as shitty luck would have it, the levels had dropped considerably due to irrigation usage. we still headed up anyway hoping the fishing hadn't changed in the last month. holy hell it sucked! we landed a few small cutts then chose to say screw it and some water next door. we ended up fishing the same piece that i had fished yesterday, only cause someone had just fished through where i wanted to try out. it was almost like i had been here yesterday, almost like deja vu all over again. the weather was a bit cooler and pretty damn windy. we didn't get to the river till about 1:30 so we just made the walk down about a mile before fishing our way up. the fishing was nothing like it had been but we still managed a few, very few, nice fish. a chubby and a morrish hopper were the ticket for the few willing participants. i had planned on heading out again tommorrow but my old ass is wore out.

School was in Session.....

2011-09-16T21:03:00.000-07:00

That was the way i felt the 1st half of the day. tirko was throwing a black spring creek special and i stuck to dries. tirko was landing one fish after another, all i kept hearing was fish on, fish on, while i was thoroughly getting my ass handed to me. tirko started the morning off with a decent bull trout, which none of the pics came out worth a damn. i did manage 1 fish before noon, but it felt cheap to me. at the time i was throwing a deer hair caddis with a dropper and neither was doing shit so i cast into the big pool and decided to strip the flies to me. a cutty took the submerged dry fly on the strip. almost felt like i was cheating, i was desperate, haha. the sun was kind of hit and miss today and much cooler then it has been but didn't seem to bother the fish to much, it was took a little longer the top water action to kick in, but once it did i gained a lot of ground on tirkos fish count, not sure what it was but i was picking up momentum. as usual a purple haze was unconscious then around 2-3pm the chubby started pulling it's wait. we fished the same section as last sunday but walked down much further this time. tirko did finally get his 1st fish on a hopper, a pink chubby chernoble, this nice cutt also had a nymph wedged in it's corner pocket. unfortunately while i was trying to snap a couple of pics it got away from tirko and snapped off his chubby. now it is swimming around with 2 flies stuck in it's mouth. the fishing ended with my crawling on a little log jam peaking at a couple of nice fish chilling in front of it. i knew if i hooked one it was going to be tough to land. on my 2nd cast a good fish came from out of my view and slammed the purple chubby and right away went under the logs. my 4 weight was buckled over as i tried to horse his ass back out of there. it took a bit but i finally got him to hand for a few snaps. i hooked in the same spot last weekend but it quickly busted me off in the logs. a little redemption this time. the temp's were comfortable but cool enough to keep my shell on all day and the fishing was almost as good as last sunday. when we finally arrived back at the jeep, since i was leaving in a few days, i wanted to show tirko what to expect if he had to fire off his can of bear spray. there was no wind so we should've been good. i fired it off and as we were discussing it we started to choke. apparently even though there was no wind it had lingered around and let us know it was still there. my nose started to burn and we were both quickly gagging. the vomit reflex was full throttle. man was my stomach sore after all the refelxin'. it seemed innocent enough but i guess even if there is no wind you're not safe. as it turned out, not one of my brighter moments but no harm done.

I Sure am Going to Miss This Creek

2011-09-10T18:36:00.000-07:00

Me and tirko hit the creek again only this time instead of fishing up we chose some new water and walked down about a mile or so before fishing our way up. got to the river a little after 9am and made the long walk down. we encountered more bear tracks and some good sized ones this time. at one point we ran into so many washed out trees in the river that we had to get out and brave the tall brush that was between the creek and the woods. a little nerve racking and seeing bear shit all through the tall stuff did not help ease our minds. we took comfort in the fact that at least the tracks were not fresh. it was tough by passing all those good looking holes and after about an hour of walking we came to an extremely large slow hole that we could see some fish chilling in. right below that was another hole, of smaller proportion, that we could see a good 15 fish including a couple that were pushing the 20" envelope. i worked over these fish while tirko, wanting to throw a bugger through the big hole, went and did just that. neither my dries nor tirkos buggers were working. in my hole i could see that the fish were feeding, evident by their movements and i could see their mouths opening up as if eating something. i had some stuff that i could use as a dropper, so between a small soft hackle and a jerry's baetis i managed to pull a few decent fish, but not either of the 2 big ones that i was eye balling. i did eventually get one of them to eat my dropper, but it quickly broke me off. after awhile fish finally started to come top side on a consistant basis, which is always encouraging when rigged with a dry. i had wore my hole out (that doesn't sound good), but tirko finally started to land a few. it wasn't long though that tirko put a bugger back on and it started to nail some fish as well. at one point after tirko landed a fish he started yelling for me so i went over and proceeded to tell me about this huge fish that was chasing his smaller fish as he was bringing them in. i think, due to tirkos excitement, he over-exaggerated when he put his hands up and had them so far apart you could've put a king salmon between them, when describing how big this fish was. i started calling him marv (tirkos friend in my shut the hell up post awhile back). i copped a squat on the shoreline waiting to see this king salmon sized fish show back up. sure as shit, tirko hooked another fish and as he was bringing it into the shallows, here was this big ass fish, a bull, chasing around tirkos hooked fish. granted it was not the big salmon sized fish that he had shared to me but it was a good 25-30" bull trout. i knew it was a bull cause with the water so gin clear and in the shallows you could see it's white tipped fins. well'p that was enough for me, i tied on a jj bugger and went after it as well. that big fish did this several more times but we could not hook up with him. in the process of trying tirko landed his 1st bull and i took a nice sized bull and a brown, which i had no idea would even be in there based on everything i've read about the creek. my trifecta was complete! we stayed and fished that spot for 2-2 1/2 hours before deciding to move down further. we fished down with me picking up a few more nice cutts on top. the top water action was starting to really heat up, i fished a purple haze for bit getting lots of love and then at about 2pm switched to a pink chubby chernoble, which absolutely killed it. tirko hit a few more fish on the bugger as we worked our way up but his action had slowed way down. we came acrossed some more bear tracks on the other side of the river from where we saw the 1st ones and in the same general area. we finally got back to the jeep right at 6pm and i was beat. it was a good 40 fish day between the 2 of us and with seeing that big bull chasing hooked fish, tirko getting his 1st bull, me actually catching a brown in there, it all chalked up to another amazing day on the water.

Labor Day with Pat

2011-09-05T17:28:00.000-07:00

I had planned on taking michelle to the river today, later yesterday evening pat had called and wanted to get out so at that point pat was going to join us. had thought about some holiness but pat kind of wanted to stay closer, no worries, closer it was. as it turns out we ended up having to watch our niece that night so michelle decided she was going to just stay home and not bring our niece to the river. good choice since it was pretty damn chilly for the first couple of hours in the A.M. the water was surprisingly still off color, can't figure out why since there is nothing left to melt and i'm sure the res. isn't letting out more water. it think the stain killed the fishing but i have had some decent days on stained waters. not much went on the whole day, moved a few fish, but that was it for me. pat did land one decent fish and then later snapped his #6 rod on what ended up being a foul hooked sucker. pat had another rod in his truck so we walked back then drove further up-river. the fishing up there was no better and by 1:30 we were walking off the river calling it a day. this river has kicked my ass the three times i've fished it in the last month. i'm wondering if it's cause there was so much water running through it this whole summer that it may take a lot longer to get back to fishing right.

The Dub.F.B.

2011-08-28T17:59:00.000-07:00

Not much to say today fished a new piece of water, the dub.f.b. and it was less then stellar. a few small fish to hand, although i did lose a nice fish in the rocks. my leader to a beating on the rocks and it busted my tippet. good looking water that just didn't produce for me. threw a variety of dries but it didn't matter to the fish.

Different day.....different result

2011-08-27T18:57:00.000-07:00

Myself and scott headed to the same creek and same section as i had fished last thursday. i figured the fishy would be just as fast and furious as it was last week and i wanted redemption on the big cutt that took me to school. 1 out of 2 would have to do. the fishing up to the point where i got schooled last week was less then stellar, in fact, it just really sucked. it fished so well last week and today with the same types of flies, we were lucky to even see a fish move. it was disappointing to say the least. i had caught 1 dink and a small 10" or so cutt. i think that was a bout it for the both of us. we did come acrossed some pretty fresh bear tracks along the shore and some more bear shit. when we got to the hole of my schooling i made one cast with my deer hair caddis/spruce moth and it was on. the hole is pretty small so i am assuming it was the same fish. that made my day right there, getting that nice cutt on only 1 cast this time. as we continued up the fishing started to heat up. scott was finally tagging some fish including the fish of the day. i had actually spotted the fish rising but could not tell it's size due to how far back from it i was. i called scott over and told him there was a fish rising at the bottom of that run so go ahead and hit it. 3 casts and a couple of minutes later and a really nice fish pushing the 18" envelope came to the net. a few pics and off it went. scott said that was the biggest cutt he had ever caught. the journey continued and as we approached another log pile i saw a fish rising in about a 5ft area pool right behind a 1/2 submerged log. looked like a decent fish but not huge. i made a couple of casts and my caddis got sucked down. i could tell right away that it was a lot bigger then expected. it darted towards the middle of the creek and into shallower water, really big fish. it headed straight for a snag structure, swam past it on the upstream side then darted downstream eventually busting my fly off. scott got a good look from his vantage point and we figured something in the 19" range. remember that all these sizes are just guesses. that one was tough to swallow. we continued up hitting a few more fish before finally reaching our take out spot. we made the 1 1/2 mile walk back to the jeep and decided to head over to another stream and chuck some streamers. scott had never really fished them and hadn't taken a fish on them. we weren't there very long but scott got his 1st fish on a streamer, a small brown and i ended up losing a really nice fish after having him for about 10 seconds. today definately did not give us the same kind of fishing that we had last saturday but we got a few quality fish, so i will definately take it. also the pics with what looks like smoke is from the local forest fisre that has been burning all week.

A couple of small ones

2011-08-26T19:31:00.000-07:00

I had a golf tournament this morning, getting done around 1-1:30. headed home with thoughts of fishing higher on the clark fork. tirko wanted to go so off we went. fished it for about an hour and a half catching a small cutt-bow. i wasn't feeling it so we drove to rock creek which is super low. fished that forabout an hour and caught 1 small brown. not much of a fishing outing but it was better then sitting at home. tommorrow should be killer.

Product Review.....Floatant

2011-08-24T20:34:00.000-07:00

When my buddy corey k drove up with his pops a few weeks ago. we fished a saturday with some guide friends of corey's, one of which owns the sunrise fly shop in melrose, montana. he introduced me to this floatant that he carries in his shop. when i was on the boat with him we soaked the fly once and that was it. never had to dowse it again, even after constant water time for a mile or so before the fly was changed. i usually use frog's fanny and still do for flies tied with cdc but this stuff outperforms the fanny. the downfall, to me anyway, is that it smells like solvant and i hate to get it on my fingers. you just take the lid off, put the fly in, screw the lid back on and tip the bottle upside down. the reservoir fills up and soaks the fly. the lid does not seem to affect the integrity of the tippet. just make sure you make some fast faulse casts before use to dry it off. the other downfall is is that is the only place i've seen carry them. you can order it on-line from shops in the UK but haven't seen it anywhere else. if you can find it i would certainly recommend giving it a try.

Backcountry Fly Fishing

2011-08-21T17:38:00.000-07:00

Yesterday was awesome but today was phenominal. the morning drive consisted of a lone cow elk walking acrossed a field, a lone coyote just off the road in another field and in yet another field were 3 whitetail bucks of equal proportions chilling along a fence line till i drove by then they galloped to the woods edge. i love to see wildlife so this was a good start to a tremendous day. just like yesterday i was fishing a section i had not seen before so didn't really know what to expect. once i had hit the river and started my journey upstream, it didn't take long for me to notice one thing, how pristine this river is. other then a couple of fences and some ranch/farm structure, there was hardly any sign of man. i mean i got used to fishing waters in utah for the past 6 years and although i will truly miss some of them, there was no trash what so ever that i saw. no beer bottles, cans, wrappers, worm containers, etc. i started with a brown streamer which only lasted about a half hour of fishing before i changed to an olive and yellow one and once i did it never gave me a reason to change it. i think today was the only day that i have ever fished the same exact fly the whole day. never even had to re-tie the knot. i think if today had been jack dennis's one fly contest, i would've won. i stopped several times along the way to just sit and look at the river, the large piles of logs caused from the high waters, the trees, the mountains and watch the occasional fish taking a helpless insect floating by. it was awesome just to sit and soak it all in. in some ways it reminds me of some of the rivers back home, particularly the s.f. nooksack where the family property is located. when it floods and recedes it leaves piles of debris/logs and sometimes very large shorelines and always a new look. rivers that aren't under dam control tend to do that. i had fished way up once before and only landed cutts and i had fished down a ways once before and landed mostly bulls. today was filled with strong, thick and aggressive cutthroat, with a couple of cutt-bows mixed in. quite a few of the fish were extra thick and in the 17-18" range. i really don't think that any of my pics do the fish justice. the over all health of these fish was incredible, at least better then i for some reason thought it would be. i ventured quite a ways up stream to a point where i though one more good hole and i think i will call it quits. as it turned out it seemed as though each time i thought i was done, the water up above look enticing and it was hard to not to go and check it out. i got to one spot where i thought i would be done after making a few casts in it when on my 2nd run through my fly got nailed and right away i could tell that that fish felt even stronger then the others before it. it raced to the other side of the river, it's nice to actually have a fish rip line from my reel once in awhile. once i managed to get the fish back on my side i noticed that the fish didn't look like the others then i saw what i thought were white tipped fins and i started to think. right on this could be my 1 bull trout for the day. sure as shit, it was an impressive bull, at least to me. tapped at a solid 19". a couple of snaps and off it went. i thought about ending my day there but i wanted to get into a few more fish so i kept going, each hole seeming to be my last. a few more fish down and i was truly done. i was getting hungry and had a helluva walk back to the jeep. i picked up a couple more fish on the way down and after 6 hours on the water i was finally back at the jeep. man, what an awesome day and an awesome river.the only regret i had was not packing my floating line and a few dries. it's always fun to take nice fish up top as well and it only would've, if at all possable, made my day that much better. on the way home though i was passed by an ambulance and when i got a ways down the highway, traffic came to a stop for about 20-30 minutes. i was stopped just shy of the crest of the hill, when all of a sudden a life flight helicopter arose from the middle of the highway and shortly after traffic was finally moving. unfortunately a motorcycle and car collided. i'm assuming the motorcyclist is the one being helo'd out since his bike was demolished. to many times that's the cost of poor decisions and/or not paying attention.

Yes, a bear does shit in the woods

2011-08-20T18:46:00.000-07:00

As tirko would say when we encountered the several different piles of bear shit. but, in between these encounters were some sweet little holes and a lot of willing finned participants. tirko hadn't fished here before and i wanted to check out a new section since the other 2 times i had fished this creek were done so higher. the weather was perfect although early in morning the water was painfully cold, to the point that my wet wading feet were burning from the cold. to me it's always fun to hit different sections of water to see what kind character it has. this section did not disappoint. within the first hour and a half or so i caught my biggest fish out of the creek and then further up i caught even a bigger fish to top the earlier one. my biggest before had been about 14" but my best today was an impressive 17" that had the kind of girth that would make ron jeremy proud. ok, it was girthier then that. the stretch on my fingers was maxed. we were watching these fish pick off spruce moths by the dozen, which of course i had no moth patterns, who usually does? the closest candidate was a deer hair caddis. first cast and i landed a solid 15" class cutt and 2 casts later i land the prize of the day, an absolute tank of a buck. that's the most excitement i've shown on the water in i don't know how long. on the way up to where we eventually got out, we encountered several other mid-teens sized fish, including a real nice fish that we watched sitting in front of some fallen trees ease his way up to my green drake when out of nowhere this damn smaller fish beat the bigger one to the punch. the smaller fish raced pace the bigger one, smashed my fly and in the process came completely out of the water in acrobatic form, then tangled me up in some branches. it was cool to watch but i was bummed cause i wanted that much bigger fish. our day ended in a hole where i spent the longest time i have ever spent in a hole, trying numerous different patterns to coax a fish that was eating like it hadn't eaten in days. it was a tough fish to figure out cause it would never eat in the same spot consecutively. i'd watch him eat, so i'd think, ok, there you are, i'd cast there and while my fly is drifting he'd rise 7-8 feet away. after watching this enough times i just felt that it was the same fish and not a different fish. the colors were always the same and so was the size. i rose him twice to a green drake pattern but he didn't take. i would then switch after a bit to something different and come up empty handed, then threw on a deer hair caddis, he nailed it but was only on for about the count of 2. couldn't get him to come back up, meanwhile he is still engulfing moths with reckless abandon. i switched 3 more times but couldn't get him anymore. tirko tried with a couple different patterns with no luck. i think my determination to outsmart this fish had me in that spot for about an hour. i left feeling like i got kicked in the nuts. can't wait to face him next week. what a fun day!

Here Chicky Chicky

2011-08-17T19:31:00.000-07:00

A killer little video i saw on the utahonthefly.com site. bad ass pike!

Some Familiar/Unfamiliar Waters

2011-08-14T19:27:00.000-07:00

Had to make a trip back to utah to help out the misses with a few things going on back there. her kids just got back from a summer with their dad, she just moved into a new apartment and was just a little overwhelmed with everything. drove down wednsday morning and right away got started on some things i needed to take care of. friday i was able to an old stomping ground. of course with the recent high water,the familiar water suddenly became very unfamiliar. some of the holes i know are still there but some have gone while others have shown up. the water was still stained but i did manage a couple of fish. no big bruisers like i was expecting but sometimes that happens. my wife came out with me and snapped a few shots. only got to fish for 3hrs cause i had other stuff going on but it was good to see my river again.

Jimi Hendrix Would be Proud.....

2011-08-07T19:20:00.000-07:00

Cause the purple haze put on a clinic today. drove right into the heart of grizzly country armed with some dry flies and a couple bottles of bear spray. got to the creek about 9 this morning and as i expected no one was around. as i was rigging up some old guy pulled up and asked which direction i was heading so that he could fish the opposite. i fished here a couple of weeks ago and could tell that the water had come down since then, probably a couple of feet. some of the holes that i fished last time were now stagnate but some of the water that was a bit torrid then were now looking good so it all worked out. i started with a purple haze and that's how i finished. it was on fire so there was really no need to change although i did change once to a hopper but after a handful of casts and no looks i switched back and never looked back. i fished up probably bout 2x as far as i did the last time i fished it and only turned back when i got tired of climbing over and crawling under all the washed out trees that were strewn all over the creek. i took 1 small brook early on then it was all cutts from there. the fish ranged from 8-14 inches. the weather was great and the company was exceptional.........me, myself and this guy.

Back For More

2011-08-06T18:23:00.000-07:00

Today i hit the same river as yesterday just much lower in the system. the river takes on a much different appearance down here. slower, wider but just as gin clear. i showed up at my parking destination and as expected not a car in sight. each time i have been this way i have yet to see a car parked here or anyone fishing this section. never fished it before so wasn't totally expectant of what to expect. not sure if that makes sense. rigged up with some meat of the yellow variety, a variation of robinson's munchable minnow, and right away starting moving some fish. quickly i was netting my first bull trout. no real size but cool to see. i used to catch dolly varden trout all the time when i was a kid so bull trout are close to that. at the bottom of the same section, a fish of more preferable size latched a hold but only briefly. after i set the hook he start tail slapping the surface and within about 10 seconds threw the hook. that fish was clearly, to me at least, more in the 20" range. i continued to work down moving and hitting numerous fish only landing 3 more, including another bull, a cutt-bow and a cutthroat. at one point i came to a big ass rock in the middle of the river which created a nice deep hole behind it. i tangled with 2 fish there but came up empty handed. at one point while stripping my fly i noticed a dark figure turn away and cruise back to the rock. not sure how i didn't see him follow my fly, but like i said, i didn't pick him up, visually, until he had turned away and retreated. after i spotted him it was hard to take my eyes off of him cause he definitely would've gone 25-30". i got him to move one more time and that was it. i lost my ummph early so started walking back up to the jeep and suddenly there were people everywhere. a canoe, couple of kayaks, a raft and some fisherman and when i got back to the jeep there were 4 other cars there. now how is it that i have never seen a car there and the 1 time that i decide to park there other people show up? at least i got the water first.

Shut the Hell Up!

2011-08-05T15:29:00.001-07:00

So me and tirko had planned to fish some new water and right before we get ready to go he says that this guy he knows had come into town from utah and he was going to come with us if i didn't mind. whatever, i had never met the guy but hadn't really heard much good about him and was fore warned that he is a talker. i was a little irritated by it cause i had visioned what this dude was going to be like. shit it was worse! apparently he was at wal-mart waiting for tirko to come pick him up, tirko told him to get a fly rod set-up and some hoppers. when they finally get back to our apartment, i meet the guy and my first impression weren't very good. brace on his wrist, some sort of wrap around his shin, bout 300lbs., and holes through out his funky t-shirt. we wait for him to get his shit together and he decides he's going to bring his .22 rifle as well, not sure why. on the drive up there this guy kept telling us about extinct trout, how he used to watch his grandfather catch 9lb. trout all day long, how he's fished all his life, about his die hard natzi grandmother, about how when rivers are high trout head straight for the headwaters, blah, blah, blah and etc., etc. just non-stop. now remember, this guy fished and fly fished all his life, well he shows us the hoppers that he bought and they were plastic lures in the shape of hoppers. mr. fishing/fly fishing extroardinare bought a fly rod and grasshopper lures to go with it. we get to the trailhead and some kid who was sleeping in the bed of his truck crawls out and we find out he's a french intern at the UofM. well tirko's friend starts babbling about how the french get their asses kicked during wars and that the french should be more appreciative of america for bailing them out during WWII. at this point i'm embarrassed cause this guy is just shooting off at the mouth making it obvious why no one likes americans.......cocky and arrogant. we rig up as the french guy walks off. tirko's friend says he'll catch up so me and tirko take off up the trailhead, finally some peace. the river is just beautiful running through a canyon, crystal clear waters, big boulders and some deep pools. would've fished great with dries but i was chucking meat as i often do. me and tirko get down to the river and the first pool i land a healthy cutt. we leap frog each other down quite a ways getting into a number of fish, no bulls, just cutts. we end up running into the french guy who is throwing dries and fishing his way up. i stop and talk to him for a minute and he ends up landing a real nice male cutt on a drake. we had decided to fish down a little further then drive down and fish lower on the river. as we get roughly to where we thought the jeep might be, up the ridge, we start hearing gun shots and new that had to be tirko's friend. we start yelling for him with no response. we hike and and find the main trail that we started hiking on when we left the jeep. we get back to the jeep and tirko's friend is no where to be seen. tirko goes and looks for him. i wait inside the jeep and start dozing off so i recline my drivers seat. a short while later an SUV pulls just passed me on the road, about 20 yards, and the passenger, a woman, gets out, looks around, doesn't notice me cause my seat is reclined, drops her pants and starts pissing right on the road. she gets done pulls up her pants up and they drive off. 2hrs later tirko finally arrives back at the jeep, he had finally found his friend who was lagging behind, apparently had taken a fall and gashed his ankle. he finally makes it to the jeep and by this time i'm really pissed cause he just cut 2hrs of fishing time. he looks like he is going to have a heart attack. sweating up a storm, face all red, limping, breathing very hard, smokes tucked above his ears and once he gets his breath back just starts talking away. it was 2pm and i decided i was done fishing. i couldn't stand to be around the guy anymore, not just cause of his mouth, but he stunk real bad. add it all up and it was just time to get away from him. the fishing was great but 1/2 the company was excrushiating. i rarely ever care about a persons appearance but when you look and smell like you never heard of the word hygeine and you're annoying, i can't deal with ya. damn! sounds like i've been ranting, sorry about that. the fishing was sweet though.

A Weekend With Corey and his Pops

2011-07-31T17:48:00.000-07:00

Day 1- corey does some website stuff for different

shops and outfitters so he gets some perks with

that. as luck would have it he invited me to meet

up with him and his dad garret and stay the weekend

and fish with them and a guide. hell yea i was up for

the challenge. corey had bought a drift boat over

the winter and this was the first time it was getting

some river action. there was actually 3 boats that

were in our little group, corey and me in his boat,

garret and the guide in the guides boat and then

and then the other boat was another guide, a friend

of corey's, and 2 clients. i offered to take over for corey

on the sticks, since i had rowed once or twice, so that he

could fish as well but he just wanted to row and get a

good feel for the boat and mimic what the other guides

were doing. corey did a great job on the sticks but

unfortunately the fish were not cooperating. i missed

1 or 2 fish throwing different dry patterns before

the guide rowing garret gave me a small pmx pattern

that was producing for garret. i landed a beautiful

brown on the pattern and then the rest of the day

was spent landing a few dinks. garret landed a few nice

fish and the 2 clients in the other guide boat were not

doing so well. we stopped about mid-way for a shore side

lunch and surprisingly the guide with the clients fed all

of us, which to me was very unexpected. after lunch me

garret switched boats so that corey could row his dad.

as i said, the rest of the day for me consisted of dinks

but garret managed to net a couple more nice fish. as we

neared the take-out i was more then ready to be done.

i am not used to fishing off of a boat and when you don't

row, all you do i fish and my wrist was absolutely killing

me. it was a double digit float and all that constant casting

really did me in. you can't beat being guided for free though.

on the drive from the take-out back to the shop corey heard

something, looked out his side view mirror and says....what

the hell was that? he saw something bouncing down the road

wondering if something came off the boat or if he ran over

something. he pulled over and ran back to where he saw it and

then came back with one of my loop reels. i had left it on his

truck bumper and it came off at about 65mph and bounced

down the road like a basketball. guess i'll take it to work this

week and smoothed out all the high metal. it's got some nasty

scars now but is still round and reels just fine.

Day 2- we were supposed to fish with another

guide on saturday but he had some issues going

on and couldn't swing it so we ventured on our

choosing some smaller water and staying on foot.

we started lower on the ruby where i nailed a nice

brown on my 3rd cast. garret chose to fish close

to where we had parked and throw some sub-

surface stuff, coming up empty handed, while

me and corey fish our way up delivering meat

to the doorsteps of many trouts. me and corey

only landed a couple in that section but turned

a lot of heads. we all met back at the jeep for some

lunch then drove to the upper section. the fishing

was quite slow. i did land a really nice rainbow but

as i was holding my leader with one hand and

reaching for my camera with the other the 'bow'

starting flopping around and spit the hook before

i could snap any pics. i took my first whitie on a

streamer and had a big bastard explode on my

fly as it hit the water, had him on for a split second

and gone. about that time a nasty storm rolled in

and we made it back to the jeep just as the wind

and rains made their presence known.

Day 3- corey and garret decided they were going

to head home in the morning since the fishing was

less then stellar and i decided i would hit the ruby

for a few hours before my drive back to missoula.

i got to the pull out and i was fortunate to be the

first on the water. it was a no brainer for me as to

was i was going to throw at the fish. streamers of

course. i threw white, olive and a yellow pattern,

all moving fish with white being the least productive.

i switched area a couple of time, coming back to

almost where i had started. i only landed 3 fish but

i sure did move a ton of fish. 12:30, 12:45 and i was

on my way back home.

Creek Cutts

2011-07-24T16:22:00.000-07:00

I hit the creek solo today. i was several miles into the drive and still wasn't sure where i was going to fish. i stopped off at a small creek and made just a handful of casts into it, didn't see anything. drove down the road some more to a creek that i've been eye balling since i arrived in montana but until recently was victim to the lengthy run-off. i fished it lower at first only moving 1 nice fish on a double bunny. i only fished a short section there before driving up river to a bridge which i parked at then walked down about a mile before fishing my way back up. i started with streamers getting into a few then switched to a sgt slaughter in cicada colors and get into a few more. at this point i couldn't decide if i wanted to drive further upstream or fish something different. after some grub i chose to stick with this creek and drove a few miles upstream. the creek took on a whole new look up there. it's much smaller with a lot of washed out trees littering the banks and water. i switched to a grumpy frumpy and started by catching either juvenile brookies or juvenile bull trout, at that age they look very similar. i was casting to this one hole and on my forward casts a small bird flew right into my loop and took the grumpy frumpy to the wing. catching a bird was a 1st for me. not only is it catch and release for bulls and cutts, but also birds. the further i walked up the bigger the fish seemed to be. i ended the day by putting on a sgt slaughter in green with yellow rib to simulate a small green hopper. the last hole that i fished i landed a nice 14" cutt that had positioned itself below an over hanging tree. as i got off the dirt road and onto the hwy there was an ambulance and fire truck crew tending to an over turned truck. over all today was a pretty good day. the weather was great and the fish action was steady.

Provo North

2011-07-23T17:29:00.000-07:00

Myself and tirko ventured to some new waters today. it is a well known creek that actually looks more like a full fledged river and it's crowds reminded me of the provo. it seemed like around every bend there were people, in almost every pull off there were cars. it just plan sucked to see. i threw streamers and dries with most of the action coming from the streamers. i only landed 1 fish but sure moved a ton on a olive/white double bunny. there was to many bugs coming off but did see some tricos and what looked like a small few green drakes. i raised a few fish but didn't connect with any. i fished one section where there was a small pile of logs stacked up from the high water and under one the these over hanging logs were thousands of, what appeared to be, dead flies.....house fly type. i only say dead cause i touched a couple and they didn't move, but most of the bottom of that log was just solid flies. crazy, i'd never seen anything like it. the creek was beautiful and so was the weather but the crowds really kind of killed my spirits.

Camping/Fishing With the Misses

2011-07-19T09:42:00.000-07:00

Michelle was able to get a few days off of work so she made the drive up here thursday evening. sunday night michelle wanted to camp and fish so on the way to our campsite so stopped by another lake and hiked behind it to the falls just for the scenery. after that we headed for our campsite, which was nothing more then a trailhead. once there i backed the jeep up to the lone fire pit and got us a nice camp fire going. i laid down the back seat of the jeep, spread out a couple of sleeping bags and our makeshift tent was set up. i had brought up a couple of nice seasoned salmon fillets that i could've swore i put in the cooler, for dinner, but michelle found them still in a plastic bag and had been sitting in the heat all day. what a waste, into the fire they went. so dinner consisted of potato salad, cashews and beer. the next morning we made some sausage links and scrambled eggs. after breakfast we cleaned up the mess, geared up and starting hoofing it. the hike was very peaceful and enjoyable. being a monday other people were almost none existent. we fished the lake for a few hours, catching cutties on a black spring creek special and a couple of dries. the fishing was not as good as the weekend before but we each got into our share of fish. at 5 o'clock we ventured back and when we got back into town, capped the trip off with a really nice steak dinner. it was a really nice time with my wife.

Pike Diver

2011-07-14T14:19:00.001-07:00

On Golden Pond

2011-07-11T21:00:00.000-07:00

Only minus the goldens. intel told me that at least two of the lakes up there, including the two we hiked to had golden trout. well pond number one was full of beautiful cutts but didn't get a look at any goldens. after we fished it for awhile we hiked back up to lake number two and didn't even feel a fish let alone see any sort of gold. even a small one would've been a trophy for me but no dice. if there are truly goldens in those lakes then maybe next time i'll have better luck. the first lake did fish really well though, especially for tirko. he is a spin fisherman at heart and sometimes tries to dabble with a fly rod. this day i got schooled by him. we found one particular spot on the lake where it seemed tirko was hooking up almost every cast for quite awhile while i was trying to switch my fly but i kept having to net his fish. i think he landed 4-5 before i even got a new fly tied on. i was outfished somewhere in the vacinity of 9 to 15 or somewhere there abouts. we both lost double our catch counts. the hike was great, but exhausting. man, it is so peaceful in the mountains, i absolutely love it each time i get to get up away from the people. my wife is coming out this week and wants to do some hiking/fishing so maybe we'll head up there so i can get her, hopefully into some fast action and maybe we can run into a golden trout this time.

A Sweet Little River

2011-07-09T19:18:00.000-07:00

Got up this morning and took an hour drive to check out some different waters. it came down to 1of 3 rivers to check out. i took a gamble on 1 of them and didn't even look at the other 2. i got to the river and it was in great shape. started with steamers since it was still early morning. fished thru a lot of really good looking water before i finally started seeing some fish. had a few hits and chases but only came away with 1 small brown. i later switched to cicadas since they were buzzing up a storm and right away, landed a couple and again nothing of any size. i threw a variety of dries but only a cicada produced. towards the end of the day i went back to a streamer and hit a few more fish.

Not a good day to fish.....

2011-07-03T19:09:00.001-07:00

apparently, due to my lack of seeing, hitting or catching fish. i made it up to a lake that was snowed in and froze over last saturday. the trail was clear for about the first almost almost mile then the trail was lost under the deep snow. there were some fairly recent foot prints in the snow so it was easy to find my way to the lake. as i found out the forest service was up there yesterday scoping things out. the lake like so many other high elevation lakes was set in beautiful surroundings and as i approached i saw several bald eagles perched in barren trees keeping a watchful eye over their territory. the creek coming out of the lake made a big pool that looked fishy but i came up empty handed. the lake still had a lot of ice so my fishing was minimal. i was able to get around to the other side were there was some open water. unfortunately that was the shallow end and i have had better success fishing along deep drops. again no fish, not even a little love tap. while fishing around i saw someone approaching, it was a forest service dude named luke. he said he was gonna hike up to the other lake so i asked if i could join. i figured i would take advantage of the company and check out the other lake at the same time. it was still completely froze over and probably has another 2 weeks to unthaw. when i got back to the jeep i drove over to some others lakes a few miles down the road. these proved to get the best of me as well. i briefly fished two of them and again no love. if nothing else, the hike up the first trailhead was gorgeous with lots of waterfalls and at one point the trail went right up between them. i'll head back up in about three weeks or so.

Getting my Ass Handed to me

2011-07-02T20:42:00.000-07:00

Last night after work tirko wanted to get in a little fishing before his family came into town and since i was thinking of some moving water for today we drove over to scope it out. the creek was great looking, clarity was good, a scosh high but still looked really good. i only came away with one small cuttie but had several others rise to my dry. this morning i made the drive south to the same creek. it took me awhile to find some public access and once i did i was off and rolling. the stretch that i was fished was so damn fishy, i couldn't believe that i touched nothing. like i said it is still a bit high and while crossing in a couple of spots i really wondered if i was going to make it acrossed. i got back on the road and walked back to the jeep and as i was sitting there looking at my map deciding were to go next, out of my peripheals(sp?) i saw someone pull up but before i could even lift my head i was overwhelmed by the obvious smell of some skunky skunky......weed that is. this old dude pulls up, smoke coming out of his window and starts to talk my ear off about the huge fish that he catches in there and in the middle of his speel, out of the blue, he throws in that he smokes a lot of dope. well no shit! he talks my ear off for about a half hour before he finally drives off. i made one other stop on that creek with no success before

cruisin to a different stream. as i got to the stream all i could here were loads of ciadas. before i moved to montana i called one of the fly shops and they told me there were no cicadas in montana.....what a bunch of crap! they were everywhere. this creek was clear as well but even higher then the last and very deceptive in depth. only was able to find a couple of spots to fish and again with no luck. up there in the middle of nowhere was a sign for a lodge and restaurant and since i was hungry i took a little detour, ended up being a 6 mile detour, but the food was outstanding. the road, by my map, looped over to another creek but about 12 miles up the road was blocked off cause the river had taken the road out so i had to backtrack and not fish the other creek. that ended up being the end of my day. i was tired and my allergies were kicking my ass. today apparently was another day of taking pics of anything but fish.

Future Producer

2011-06-30T18:27:00.000-07:00

I've been spending my days at work blending different materials, in my head, in a fashion that i like and now just trying to remember what materials i wanted where. this one looks fishy and hopefully will be getting it wet next weekend

Pounding Pike

2011-06-28T17:39:00.000-07:00

4:30 AM sure does come early. my alarm went off at this time so that i could get on the road by 5 and make it to meet dave by 9.we both arrived at our meeting point a little early and i already had the beers going down. i leave my jeep and ride from there with dave to the lake. we unload the boat and cruise on down to where dave wants to start. after i left my jeep i realized that i had forgot my polarized but decided to hell with it i'll be fine. i was fine except for the misfortune, or fortune, i guess how you look at it, that within about 6 casts will teasing my popper through the lilly's a big pike hammered my fly and started bull dogging me. as i thought i was gaining some ground on him he took off away from the boat mowing down lilly pads like a mower through grass and then it happened, my line went limp. my popper was gone and my steel leader was sheared. dave said it was the biggest pike he had ever seen in there and thought it would have gone 10lbs. and i never even to to see him cause i couldn't see into the water without my shades. another crushing fishing moment. we hit a good chunk of the ing.small lake pounding the shoreline and lilly pads. we took roughly 8 or so pike ranging from 12-28". we next made a detour to another lake that has a good amount of tiger musky planted in there to help control the squawfish. we saw several big tiger's hanging along submerged trees but couldn't turn any heads. our time on that lake was short lived and decided to keep at the pike but head to a different lake. when we arrived at our 3rd and final destination it was about 5:30pm and thought that maybe in the last few hours of light the fish would get a little more active. not till about 7 did we finally start hitting fish there and once we did it was pretty consistant till about 8:30 and we were off the water at 9. i still had a 3 1/2 hr drive home so i had had enough. the weather for the most part treated us well and it ended up being a pretty decent day of fishing.

Plan 'B' it is

2011-06-27T17:10:00.000-07:00

Myself and scott made the drive north to to hike into some different higher elevation lakes. when we got to the trailhead we noticed still quite a bit of snow on the trail and as we were reading the trailhead board we read a note posted by the forest service that the lower lake was still completely iced up and since we were trying to get to the upper lake so we didn't even try. after some contemplation we chose to head back a little south and make the hike elsewhere. after arriving at that trailhead the first thing i noticed was no snow. a couple of weeks ago there was still plenty. once at the lake we chose to fish our way down the northside since i had had luck there last time. scott landed a couple of nice cutts including one that had virtually no spots, pretty unique. i on the other hand got my ass handed to me this time. we made it almost to the backside where the fishing really took a shit on us so we turned back around and fished our way back. as we arrived back to where the trailhead meets the lake we ran into a lady who is a contractor for the forest service. she and her dog were just making the rounds up there making sure everything was kosher around the lake. we sat and talked to her for about a half an hour gathering info on some of the other lakes along the highway. after she left i started to fish just below the outlet of the creek coming out of the lake. last time i didn't move a fish in there this time i took several including one real nice cutt running around 16-17". i don't know if the weather had affected the fish in anyway but the morning started off beautifully, then it started to blow, hail and drop a little rain on us, then the sun came back out and it was nice again. even though it is now summer, it is still spring at higher elevations.

High Waters

2011-06-24T20:04:00.000-07:00

After my father-in-law, who drove into town last night, left for home today, me and tirko headed west for a little small river fishing. i had my mind set on streamers so that was all i brought. the creek is still high which really made it tough to find places to fish. the clarity was really good, but we just had to pick and choose our spots which were few and far between. i did manage to land one small brown and i missed several other fish. tirko tried his hand with the fly rod and came up empty handed. i do believe that this creek is better suited for dries so i will have come with a different aresenal next time.

In Search of Goldens

2011-06-12T19:41:00.000-07:00

After doing some research i have found several lakes within a reasonable drive that apparently contain some goldens. me and tirko set out this morning at 0700. along the way we saw the usual suspects, some deer and a few elk. once off the highway it was 11.5 miles up the dirt road to the trailhead.on the drive up we had to maneuver some blown down trees and a little snow. when we got to the trailhead the was a campsite set up already. as we were gearing up two dudes crawled out of the tent. i don't want to speculate but, maybe there was some brokeback mountain shit going on, not sure. i know if i'm camping with another guy, i'm using my own tent. once geared up we set off on the 3.5 mile hike to lake #2 along the trailhead, that's one of the ones that is supposed to host goldies. the trail follows a beautiful stream littered with little waterfalls and some sweet pools only one of which we fished and had no luck. the trail at this point was still covered with lots of snow. the only way we had an idea of where we were going was cause i talked to one of the campers and he said they had hiked back to the first lake so when the snow covered our trail we just followed their foot steps. most of the snow would hold us but there was a couple of spots where i fell through to my waist and some of the trail snow pack i know would have been over my head, lots of it left, which made for some slow going. we finally made it to the first junction in the trail and instead of veering to lake #1 we started working our way around it to get to lake #2. the problem here was still lots and lots of snow and no foot prints to follow. when we did see some dirt we couldn't tell if we were on the trail or not but kept winging it in hopes of getting on it. we made it almost to the other side of lake #1 but felt that we weren't even close to where the trail should be so instead of chancing getting way lost we made our way down the ridge to see what lake #1 had to offer. when we got to it we saw the there was still some ice on it and we were going to be limited to just the one side of the lake. wasn't about to try and hike our way around all the snowpack to the other side. the surroundings were beautiful as most high altitude lakes are. tirko geared up with his spin rod quickly hooked up and landed a nice cuttie. i started with leeches, then went chironimids and then buggers. an orange beaded bugger got me rolling. i got into a handful of fish landing 6, all cutthroat. tirko landed a few more as well. it was definately the best day, fishing wise, that we have had here in montana yet. the weather was great, the scenery was awesome,and the fishing ended up pretty good. it just sucks that we didn't get back to the golden pond. next time!

Get Outta my Face!

2011-06-12T05:45:00.000-07:00

Why It Is Not Fun To Be A Whitefish On The Metolius River from Chris Eaton on Vimeo.

Outside Bend Productions

2011-06-11T18:05:00.001-07:00

An Angler's Endless Season from Outside Bend Productions on Vimeo.

A Few More Pike Flies

2011-06-11T16:53:00.000-07:00

I'm trying to keep the flies somewhat basic. some are a little more entailed then others but as long as they produce i don't care either way.

Missoulian Anglers

2011-06-10T15:01:00.001-07:00

Most people that check my blog will probably never have a chance to visit this shop but i have to say that they have treated me pretty damn well since i moved to missoula. my first day in the shop i met the owner and as we were conversing i had mentioned that i brought all my fly tying shit but forgot to pack my vice. he quickly offered me to borrow one of the shops vices until my wife sent mine. he also offered for me to use one of his float tubes if i needed to. i thought that was pretty damn cool. the owner kept offering me stuff, my roommate was there as well and was wondering if the owner was going to offer me his wife as well. haha! the shop is well equipped and has a ton of materials that i had never seen before and russell, the owner, is a hell of a guy.

Beattie Outdoor Productions

2011-06-10T06:42:00.000-07:00

this is such a cool little video

Beattie Outdoor Productions Fly Fishing Demo Reel from RA Beattie on Vimeo.

A Late Start.....

2011-06-05T19:03:00.000-07:00

Since i got home so late last night i wanted to sleep in. we didn't get on the road till 11pm. we went in search of a different lake that looked so easy to find on the map but eluded us so we went to some familiar water. the fish were rising and i didn't bring any dries so after numerous attempts to entice the fish, the only flies that worked were a bloody c chironomid, a callibaetis soft hackle and a red leech type pattern. tirko caught a few on some sort of spinner, the gear chucking type spinner. on the way home we stopped at a bigger lake and on my 3rd cast i got into a pike but lost him at my feet. it was a beautiful day to get out.