fly fishing

Caught a few fish in my time. Cleaned them too!

Learn the technic of casting and fishing using artificial flies

I have the rod, reel. I have a couple of books. Last year I had a fishing license. Time to do.

hmmmm! mad caddis hatch in April

caught my 1st fish of the season today, on a dry fly no less. clouds and clouds of caddis hatches all day. only a very few rises on the wane of each hatch. i had been swinging caddis pupa sub-surface for three hours. tied on an elk hair apple green caddid emerger when i saw the rises. sent that puppy about 40’ and wham on the 2nd cast. brought in and released a fat, rich colored 14” brownie. brilliant day, tipped my hat to the gob smacked and went home.

trout are wicked

been a cool/cold april and at my elevation snowing in the evenings. no ice on the rivers but the water levels are in the high 30’s and quite low because it’s been a very mild winter with minor precip. this will probably mean good fishing early on but low levels and quickly warming water temps. the resevoirs that feed the tailwaters are about normal so that’s good – no crazy dangerous flooding to start the year off. each year it’s a different story. that’s why we like it!

used to live in NM. went back to see some friends.

day after this was taken i was working a heavy prince nymph with a green caddis ‘dickhead’ (excuse the vernacular). this above the steel bridge with a stiff 10’ 5wt and 3x tippet. got slammed by a fish easily 2’ maybe 15’ ahead and in front of me and watched him turn, smile and begin to have his way with me. the Rio is quite big and seriously burly in this run.

high heavy water, huge boulders. scrambled up and down for a 75’ or more as he took me into the backing. that bad boy held up in the rocks for a while, caught his breathe and moved further down as i approached. after about 15 min he just ground that tippet against the rocks until it frayed apart.

i’m 6’6” and was holding that stick high—who knew? but that single fish lost sure beat the 20+ ‘half fins’ in the Red River a few days earlier. imho

i’m virtually surrounded by state lands, the East Branch is down one road, the BeaverKill and Willowemoc are down the other. two remote lakes an hour hike up in the hills and the Pepacton Resevoir a few minutes away.

12” of rain overnight, water like mud, guide said he never saw someone so determined. ha!