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.