Tying Video - Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear Nymph

Here is another fly in my fly tying class, Gold Ribbed Hare's Ear Nymph. It is a classic and some solid techniques in teaching fly tying. Enjoy.

Frontrange tailwater fishing report

Took of from work on Thursday and headed south for a day of fishing with a group of friends. Headed to one of the front ranges tail waters. Beautiful day for late December, arrived about 8:00am and the temp was about 40 degrees. Strung up my favorite 4wt rod and headed to the water. Spent most of the morning fishing with Jeff. For me the morning was very productive. Running a 3 fly nymph rig, BH "D" Rib Golden Stone nymph, Stuffed Olive and a red midge. With in the first hour all three flies had produced fish. The "D" Rib Golden Stone fly Nymph was the fly of the day. Around mid to late morning I was working this deep channel and I hooked a 20" beautiful rainbow. She was bar far the fish of the day. River was getting really crowed by lunch time, started moving around to get out of the crowds. Moved down stream to a little different spot and got out of the crowds. Few more fish at the new spot, we than loaded up and headed home.



Jeff in a very productive run



Fly of the day



Beautifully spotted Rainbow




Fish of the day, 20" Rainbow




Me with the fish of the day



A new Christmas toy

My family really surprised me this year. They all kicked in on a new digital camera, boy this thing is cool. Lots of learning with this one. Nikon Coolpix P7100. Lots of bells and whistles

Some sample fly pics, auto mode in macro. The detail is killer, zooming in on these is where you can really tell the difference.

Fly Box Organization

Why keep your fly boxes organized. Keep your fly boxes organized will help you spend more time fishing and less time searching you fly box for that one certain pattern. Couple guys I have fished with have no rime or reason to there boxes and it took them twice as long to locate flies in there boxes. Also if your a tier it will help you to know what to tie in that next tying session. If you don't tie it will help you fill the holes when you take that next trip to the fly shop. You can keep the organization simple or you can take it the the extreme. My boxes seem to go to lean more to the extreme side of things. As a fly tier I carry a lot of flies with me.

The first step in organizing you boxes is to select the right style of box that best fits your needs. All of my boxes for nymphs and parachute dry flies are micro slit foam. I personally like C & F fly boxes and the the Umpqua UPG boxes. They are a bit on the pricey side but all micro slit foam boxes are not created equal. The density of the foam really makes a difference in how it holds the fly. Also all of my fly boxes are water proof. In my opinion this is very important one tumble in the river and you don't dry out a fly box well enough can be a disaster. You might as well just throw it away. For dry flies I use an water proof compartment box from Orvis.

Here is how I organize my fly boxes

Box #1 is my meat and potato fly. This box contains all of my bigger nymphs plus a lot of my bead heads. Here is a sampling of the patterns in this box. Hare's ear nymphs, prince nymphs, Copper Johns, Crane fly larva and stone fly nymphs. How you organize inside the box is up to you. The more organized you keep it the easier it is to manage.

Box #2 is my mayfly and caddis nymph box. This box contains all of my hatch matcher flies. Pheasant tail nymph, Biot emergers, plus various styles of caddis nymphs.

Box #3 is my all things small box. This box is full of nothing but midges. I organize this box by color, black, red, white and olive.

                                    

Boxes #4 & #5 are compartment dry fly boxes. These boxes contain various styles of hackled dry flies.

Boxes #6 is my parachute dry fly box. This box is a C & F slit foam box. This box contains a selection of parachute dry flies

Box #7 is my hopper box. This box contains hopper, ants, crickets and beetles. This box has lots of foam in it.

Box #8 & # 9 are my streamer boxes. I have a small streamer box and a larger streamer box. I find more of my streamers are going articulated

Box #10 is my eggs and worms box. This box has various types of san juan worms, pig stickers and eggs

Box #11 is my still water box. This box is full of chironomids, scuds, damsel nymphs and various other still water patterns.


Keeping your fly boxes organized can be a plus in a lot of ways. My boxes are continually evolving. You can organize your boxes by fly type or by water way. What ever you choose can make your time on the water more enjoyable.

Also take the time to put your name and phone number on your fly boxes. 95 percent of all fly fisherman would return your fly box to you if you lost on the river.

So take the time this winter and devise a plan for your fly boxes and you can reap the benefits this upcoming fishing season.

DH Hooper - The evolution of a pattern

 The DH Hopper made another small change over the weekend. I was playing around at the vise this weekend and this is what came about. I borrowed the lower half of the abdomen from the Hooper Juan, so far I really like the effects. This gives a really neat affect of the under body . I think this pattern has made it's final steps. The DH Hopper killed it all summer up in South Park. My friend Lance and is guide service tore it up with this pattern late summer. He fished the previous verison to this one. The under body is now tied with 2mm foam instead of the razor foam. I actually tie in the under body complete before I tie in the over body. The flies you are seeing in the picture are all size 12, will not be hard to increase the size

Fly #5 in Tying Class, BH Prince Nymph

Fly #5 in my fly Tying class is the BH Prince Nymph.

Stuffed Series Nymphs

I have been playing around with my stuffed series of nymphs. Changed the dubbing on thorax, was using Arizona Synthetic Peacock. I'm now using a blend of Squirrel SLF Spikey dubbing and the matching color in UV Ice Dubbing. Changed the wingcase material toWonder wrap in a matching color. The Squirrel SLF Spikey Dudding is super cool. The beads are all still the same Montana Fly Luccent Tungsten Beads.

Stuffed Olive

Stuffed Olive

 The reason for the changes was the new color of Luccent bead that came out called Deep blue. Came up with a new color combo in the stuffed series called the Stuffed Blue

Hook: 1xl nymph hook

Bead: Luccent Tungsten Deep Blue

Thread: 8/0 Grey

Rib: Lagartun fine peacock blue and X-SM silver

Tail: Coq De Lon fibers

Abdomen: 8/0 Grey Thread

Wing case: Wonder Wrap Dun Color

Thorax: Grey Squirrel SLF Spikey Dubbing mixed with Grey UV Ice Dubbing

The New Stuffed Blue

Stuffed Blue

Fly #4 in my fly tying class - Pheasant Tail Nymph

Fly #4 in my fly tying class.

Pheasant Tail nymph

Tying video Fly #3 of fly tying class RS-2

Fly #3 of my fly tying class - RS-2

Videos for my Tying classes

I thought I would start putting the patterns on video that I teach in my tying class. This will give students a chance to watch the fly being tied again with out me being there.

First fly in my class is a Mircale nymph

Second fly is a brassie

The class I teach is a 4 week class, 3 flies the first night and 2 flies a night the rest of the class

Sorry for the lack of activity latley

Sorry for the lack of activity lately, been working hard a big remodel of my house. Late July we where hit with walnut size hail and it tore up my vinyl siding. Hopefully to have the outside wrapped up next weekend. Will be back soon!!!!

Thanks

New Fly added to Montana Fly Co Line up for 2012

I got the word earlier this week that Montana Fly Co added my Biot Emerger PMD to there 2012 line up. This pattern and the BWO color have been main stys in my box for years.

Material List

Hook: Standard scud hook Size 14 thru 18

Thread: 8/0 pale yellow or cream

Shuck: Amber "Z-lon"

Abdomen: Olive/brown goose biot

Thorax: Pale Yellow UV frogs hair dubbing from MFC

Wing case: Mirage opal Tinsel

Wing case & legs: Flourofibre Shrimp color

New and Improved DH Hopper

I have been playing around with a couple new modification to the DH Hopper. I had some of the new versions out in the field for testing. The results coming back in are sending more DH Hoppers with the new twist. The fish are eating these up. The change I made was adding CDC to the the thorax region. I used the Magic Tool to achieve this. Then I insert it into a split thread, when you spin the split thread it pulls the dubbing to the center and leaves the CDC out long. Marc Petitjean's Magic Tool is turning out to be one of my favorite tools for tying. Here is a link to his site http://www.petitjean.com/. I match the color of the CDC feather to the under body. The dubbing color is either matched to the under body or the orange.  Here are a few pic's of the new DH Hopper. Give them a try they will not disappoint. I also tie these with out the orange mid body.

A Rant about Coloradofisherman.com Forums

This rant is pointed to the fly fishing and fly tying section of the forum. One day this weekend got up an got on my computer and was checking out a couple of the forums. I started reading this post on the Coloradofisherman.com fly fishing forum about a poor customer service from a popular Denver Metro fly shop. The member that posted this topic was very unhappy with the customer service he had been receiving and he was done giving this shop his money. The posted was done very tasteful, no foul language. I marked this post for follow up, came back later in the day and could not find the post. Personally I think some of the moderators on the fly fishing and the fly tying portion of this site delete post way to freely. I understand the need for moderators for these types of site, what they did feels more like censorship. Also I feel if the post was about any other shop than it was it would have been left. I'm really thinking about contacting the site and voicing my displeasure of this practice, moderators need to be kept in check.

Done with my rant. What do you think?

CP's RAzor Foam Caddis Dry Fly

Thought I would do a new video this morning. Tied my Razor Foam Caddis Dry Fly. You can use this Razor Foam on a lot of dry flies. Give it try.


Hook: MFC #7000KBL, Black barbless hook - Size 18 thru size 14
Thread: MFC 8/0 olive
Body: Olive Razor foam .5mm
Wing: Elk hair
Thorax: MFC UV Frog's Hair Dubbing Olive
Hackle: Standard Dy Fly in Brown

Test Kick Outcast Fat Cat LCS

Had the opportunity to take out my birthday and fathers day gift for a test float. I received as Fat Cat LCS for a gift from my wife. Headed out for Spinney mountain res on July 3rd. We arrived at no name bay around 6:00am, fished from shore for a while. Then it was time to get the tubes out. Got all set up and headed out, minor to the seat on the way out. The first thing I noticed with this tube was how high you sit in the water. After a while in the tube I thought i was sitting in my recliner at home. The Fat Cat maneuvers fairly easy. The other thing I figured out is need a different net, I don't like my wooden net sitting in the water all day. After about 6 hours on the water I realized my legs are out of shape. Overall had a blast. Oh by the way fishing was ok, the cali hatch on no name bay was epic. Hard to catch fish with that many naturals on the water.

 This was the fish of the day, went about 20 inches. This fish put up a fight like no other, just about put me into backing. It was like I hooked into a torpedo.

Electric Chironomid Fly Pattern

Been Playin around with a couple new spin off's from the Yankee buzzer. Really like how these turned out, they show a lot of depth in the fly on the abdomen. The red one turned out super cool. Material lists and how to tie to come at a later date. These look super deadly, would like to come up with a better idea for the wing buds.