South Platte River - Deckers 12/20/10

 Had the chance to sneak away on Monday for a few hours of fishing. Headed up to the South Platte river above Decker's. Thought I would try my hand there since the lot is closed for the canyon. They are replacing the culvert under the road to Cheesman Dam, they are using the parking lot for the Gill trail to stage there equipment. Arrived at the the river around 9:30am, flows are a little low at 57cfs. A couple cars in the lot. The weather was more like a spring day in the Rockies, not mid December.The high temp for the day was around the high 40's degrees.  An hour to the west, the Rockies are getting dumped with white gold.  Rigged up the rod with a three fly nymph rig, golden stone nymph, stuffed olive and a Young's midge on the bottom. Started fishing at the bend pool above Decker's. Spotted a few nice fish feeding, pretty quickly hooked up with a nice little rainbow. Ended up with a dozen fish in about 4 hours of fishing. Packed up about 2:00pm and headed home, counting down the days down to our annual New Years Day trip.

 2nd fish of the day

 The fish of the day, a real fat 18" rainbow.

The fly of the day, Stuffed Olive. Accounted for all but one of my fish.

Newest Olive Nymph

 I have been working on a heavier BWO point fly for a nymph rig. Also to use the nymph as attractor pattern. I think I have the pattern. Been fishing one this fall similar to this, it was tied with a tungsten gold bead and I didn't like looks. I received some new Dark Olive Luccent tungsten beads from Montana Fly Company and that is what the pattern needed. Now it is ready for some field testing, the one similar to this preformed well. This is a quick tie

Hook: MFC#7076 1XL Size 14 thru 20

Bead: MFC Luccent Tungsten Dark Olive

Thread: MFC 8/0 light olive

Tail: Coq De Lon Medium Pardo

Rib: 1 x-sm gold wire & 1 x-sm green wire

Abdomen: MFC 8/0 Light Olive thread colored on the top half with sepia Pantone marker

Wing Case: Lagartun Flat Mini Braid Dark Olive

Thorax: Arizona Peacock Dubbing in Bronze. Inserted in dubbing loop and picked out.

Also I'm trying to name this pattern, not much creative juices flowing right know. Give me your ideas

 Top View

 Under side

Group photo

BH Golden Stone "D" Rib Nymph Tying video

Just complete another Tying Video. Let me know how you like it.

BH Golden Stone "D" Rib Nymph



Hook: MFC #7073 Size 10 thru 14
Bead: MFC Luccent Tungsten Coffee
Under body: Flat Lead Tape
Thread: 6/0 Yellow
Tails: Gold Goose Biots
Abdomen: Light Golden Stone "D" Rib
Markers: Sharpie Marigold and Brown
Wing Case: Rainy's Stretch Flex Golden stone
Dubbing: Rene Harrops Tannish Yellow Mixed w/ UV Ice Dubbing Light Yellow
Legs: Natural Partridge

Testing out my new Vise - Regal Vise

 Went back to my roots in fly tying, the first high end vise that I purchased was an Regal. After tying on my Regal for quite a few years I got the bug to go a rotary vise. That end up for me being a mistake for me. I tied a few different vise in between. So now 20 plus years later I have moved back to Regal vises. Pretty much the same mechanics in the the vise. The ability to rotate the head is new from what I had before. The hook holding ability is still top rate. No adjustments for different hook sizes either, place your hook and go. The other feature I like is that you can buy the heads separate, right now I have the stainless jaws and the midge jaws. I will get the standard jaws after the holidays. Check out there website if you are interested.

http://regalvise.com/

 Midge head

Size 22 in the stainless jaws

DH Hopper Tying Video

Just Finished my thrid tying video, DH Hopper. Added a couple new ideas with this video. Hope you enjoy.

Goldenstone Nymph Juan/Carl verison - Anglers All Tying Demo

 Went to watch Juan tie at Anglers All on Saturday, I wanted to see how he tied wing cases on his new golden stone nymph. Earlier in the week he had sent me pictures of a golden stone nymph that he had tied with my "D" rib abdomen and the thorax region of his. Juan should how he tied it at the tying demo. Who would of thought that the thin white foam packing material from most electronics would look so good with a little coloring from markers. Need to work out a few kinks with the proportions on this fly.

Juan's Fly that he tied

CP's Caddis Larva Tying Video

Just finished my second tying video. CP's Caddis Larva nymph. Let me know what you think. Hope you enjoy.


Hook: MFC#7045 Size 14 thru 18
Bead: Black
Under body: Flat lead tape
Thread: 8/0 Light Olive - 8/0 Black
Abdomen: MFC Wonder Wrap Caddis Green
Rib: X-SM Green UTC Wire
Wing case 1: Black Holographic Tinsel
Wing case 2: Black Flouro Fibre
Thorax: SLF Black Prism Dubbing
Legs: Black Flouro Fibre

Buckskin Midge - something old, some new

Going threw my tying material and found these pre-cut buckskin strips. I had them in 4 sizes, medium, fine, extra fine and super fine.  I would guess they are around 15yrs old. Combine these strips with a 10/0 white thread and some Coq De Leon Light Pardo feather fibers and a little different technique to tie them in. What you get is a nicely proportion size 20 buckskin nymph. When I started tying a long time ago I would get a bulky body. I never liked the way they looked. Can't wait to give these a try this winter on my local tail water

Pre-cut buckskin strips

 Size 20 buckskin nymph

Hook: TMC101 size 20

Thread: 10/0 white

Tail: Coq De Leon Light Pardo

Abdomen: Super fine buckskin strip

Head: Black Marker on thread

Same as above but on size 20 2xl curved shank hook and a 1.5mm black tungsten bead

Old freind last Sunday - Cheesman Canyon

 Last Sunday got the chance to go visit an old Friend for the day. Haven't been into Cheesman Canyon most of the summer. Me and a co-worker left bright and early. We arrived at the parking lot to the view above, sky was on fire. Geared up and headed into the canyon, started off at the picnic table hole. Flows where running very good for this time of the year. Fishing was good, fish where pretty active. A lot of different flies caught fish. no one pattern worked better.  Crowds was on the light side, had the pick of the holes.

 Picnic table hole rainbow fell to a Yougs flasher

Kelly getting ready

Colorful little brown 

Fly Fishing the South Platte River - An Anglers Guide by Roger Hill

 I got this idea from a video that Juan Ramirez blog, he did a video of Ed Engle tying the stillborn midge. This pattern came  from this book, Fly Fishing the South Platte, An Anglers Guide. This was the first fly fishing and fly tying book that I bought. Roger Hill the author was one of the first to write fishing and tying flies for Cheeseman Canyon. He also spends some time writing about the materials for tying small flies. If you can find a copy of this book I highly recommend it.

Over the winter I'm going to spotlight some of the fly patterns in this book. The patterns in this book are examples of simplicity in tying. Most of the material are all natural furs and feathers.

The first fly I'm going to spot light is the Muskrat Nymph.

Hook: TMC100 size 20 - 26, I tied the pattern on TMC101

Thread: 8/0 gray

Body: muskrat fur, very sparse

Build up thorax with tying thread, sparsely dub thread, and wind onto hook. Whip finish and cement.

 Here is the muskrat nymph I tied

Biot Emerger Video in HD

Re-did my Biot emerger in HD, trying to improve video quaility. How does it look compared to the other video? Also working on getting it to fit my blog layout better.

Fly Tying Demo Saturday 10/30/10 at Angler All - Englewood, Co

Andrew Grillos a Signature Fly Tier for Idylwilde Flies will be doing a fly tying demo this Saturday at Anglers All in Englewood. He also guides on the western slope. Demo starts at 10:00am and is up in the class room. All demo's will be shown on the HD TV. Please stop by and check it out. Here is a link the the shops web site.

http://www.anglersall.com/event/fly-tying-demo-andrew-grillos

First try at a tying Video - Biot Emerger

This is my first attempt at a tying video that I did the video camera work. Juan has done a couple for me. Little rough around the edges. Tell me what you think

Fall day on the Colrado River - 10/10/10

 Sunday October 10th me and Chris Skinner took off to fish the Colorado River for the. I have never fished the Colorado River much, but Chris wanted to take me up. As we came up Berthoud pass we figured out that winter was not far of. Pretty much a cloudy all day, we did have a few rain sprinkles. We started out at the Breeze unit just below the Parshall hole. The fishing started off a little slow but picked up fast. I was hoping to see a BWO hatch, none to be found. Fished all day with a nymph rig, a egg followed by my Biot Emerger. The fish would not let my biot emerger pass by without eating. This fly took 90% of my fish for the day. A lot of fish caught in the 14" to 16" range. No sign of spawning browns.

A side note for the day, had the chance to test out my new rod and reel. I have never been a fan of the high dollar fly rod until now. I just got my hands on a new R.L. Wintson 9'-0" 5wt BIIMX, this is one amazing rod!!.



Fish picture




Another fish picture




Chris with a nice brown



My new set up

Fly of the day - Biot Emerger

Wounded Warror Project - Project Healing Waters.

On Friday October 1st I had the honor to spend the day volunteering my time to guide a couple of our finniest soldiers in the wounded warrior project. Project Healing Waters was able to get a 2-1/2 day trip step up for the wounded warrior project to fish the Blue Sky Ranch for 2 full days. Many of you might only know this stretch of water by the name of Jurassic Park. I would like to give big thanks to Mike the ranch manager for all of his hard work in this project, with out his effort this wouldn't have been as successful. They had the ranch set up into about 16 beats, what amazed me was how much still water is on the property.

I was assigned beat 8 a great piece of water on the river. With the river flowing at close to 700cfs we had to be careful of the wading. Both of the young men I fished with where good anglers, you could tell they have had some fly fishing instruction.

Both of the young men I got the honor to guide for the day are based out of Ft Carson in the Springs. All of these men are very thankful and appreciative of  all the hard work that everybody did for this trip.

This was the base camp where everything started. They also served a first class lunch, provide us with plenty of water and pop. The ranch had three of there ATV's to help move people around and lots of great volunteers.

Clayton is the young man I got the honor to spend the morning with. The one thing that I will never forget with Clayton was his joy in seeing the first fish we hooked up in the morning come out of the water.  That fish went close to 10 pounds, we didn't land her bought he fought her for a while.  Clayton was able to get 3 fish to the net in the morning.

Jesse is the young man that I spent the after noon guiding, we had a tough afternoon on the river. We where able to get him into a few fish on one the the small ponds.

New patterns added to Montana Fly Company Line Up for 2011

I will have two new patterns added to Montana Fly company line up for 2011. The first pattern is the "D" rib black stone fly nymph. It is basically the same pattern as the golden but tied in black . The thorax is tied with peacock herl, I love the iridescent of the peacock herl in this pattern.

 The second pattern is the bead head version  of the "D" rib golden stone nymph. The bead I'm using is the Montana Fly Luccent tungsten bead in the coffee color. The fly is also tied on the 3xl bent shank hook by Montana Fly company. With the lead under body and the tungsten bead this one gets down deep fast.

Montana fly is also adding another size for the "D" rib golden stone nymph, they are adding a size 14 in that pattern. That is the size I fish the most.

Soft Hackle "D" rib Golden Stone Nymph

This is a creation I have been playing with for a while. The rear half of the nymph is from my "D" rib Golden Stone nymph. The front half came from another nymph I saw. The combination of patterns has been deadly on the water. The soft hackle collar is a combination of CDC and Whiting Farms Brahma Hen neck in a Golden Olive.  When this fly is in the water it has a lot of movement. With the tungsten bead and the under body of lead tape will allow this nymph to get down deep fast. On my last trip I was trialling this of  a DH Hopper with great success.

Rear view

Group photo

Brahma Hen Neck

Brahma Hen Neck Golden Olive

Razor Foam Caddis tying tutorial

Razor foam Caddis, simple but effective fly.

Three basic materials for this fly. Standard dry fly hook, deer or elk hair for the wing. Standard brown dry fly hackle, and of course razor foam. For this pattern I like the razor faom from Wapsi. It is a little more elastic and that helps with getting a nicely tapered body.

Step 1: Lay down a base of thread on the hook shank

Step 2: Cut a narrow strip of razor foam, taper at the tie point. The thickness of razor foam I use is based on the hook size, size 14 and smaller I use .5mm thickness. Size 12 and up I use the 1mm thickness

Step 3: Tie in the razor foam, I lke to tie in at mid point of the the hook shank and bind it down towards the bend of the hook

Step 4: Wrap the razor foam foward, adjust tension on the razor foam to create a nicely tapered body. Wind forward to just past mid point of hook shank

Step 5: Clean and stack a clump of deer or elk hair for the wing. Tie it in and bind the ends. Cover the ends with thread. With right type of elk or deer hair you can tie this fly down to a size 20 with out any problems.

Step 6: Select and tie in the apporiate sized dry fly hackle. I tie them shining side up.

Step 7: Wrap the hackle forward and tie of at the head. Do not crowd the head like I just did

Completed fly

I tie these also in black, olive and yellow