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