Heading out west, where hoppers rule and rattlesnakes scare the sh*t out of you

I was invited to be in my friend's wedding so last week, I traveled solo to Sacramento California, fly rods in tow (or... at least in baggage claim).

 I arrived Thursday just in time for the rehearsal dinner, and had the wedding on Friday. The wedding was very close to Napa Valley and as you can imagine, the wine was incredible, as was my hangover on two hours of sleep on Saturday morning.

 My flight was leaving at 6am on Sunday so I fought through the jet lag and alcohol poisoning, and headed almost two hours northeast to fish the Yuba River. I was pretty amazed when I got there. The river bed itself was probably half a mile wide, but the actual water was only about 40-50 yards wide at the most. As I walked over the ankle breaking dried river rock, I heard someone playing the maracas. Turns it that sound was a rattlesnake. And then another one. Much different than the scariest thing you'd encounter when fishing around here, which would probably be a wasp.

 It was cool to do some traditional western hopper dropper fishing. What was really amazing to me was the fact that I'm in desert high country, with sweltering heating approaching 100 degrees, but I'm seeing Salmon jumping and starting their reds. It was an amazing site. I didn't last long. It was too hot and I was too hungover, but I did put in a good 2-3 hours. I hit a few spots, but the fear of snakes and my chosen attire of shorts, ankle socks, and sneakers didn't make a hike through the high brush sound too safe. I fished hoppers, and various droppers. I lost a nice fat slab on a hopper juan, and another on a psycho prince. The fish fight much harder out west than they do out here, that's for damn sure.

 I walked away empty handed, but I didn't mind. It was a great experience and I'd love to go back and spend more time there when I'm not dry heaving and dehydrated. Here's some pics of the journey. I only had my iPhone with me so they aren't that great, but it will give you an idea.

There were lots of huge stonefly shucks on the dried rocks. I can imagine that certain times of the year would be great fishing with them.

Downstream from the Route 20 bridge

These small lizards were all over in the rocks.

A couple shots from Sycamore Ranch. I saw quite a few salmon trekking up this way.

The sun rising over the Sierras the next morning from the airport at 6pm. You win this time Yuba, but I'll be back.

After two years, I finally got one!

I headed out Thursday night after the kids were finally asleep in the darkness to stalk some nighttime risers. I stopped at a few spots with street lights and noticed two things, extremely low clear water, and no fish. I guess the bait chuckers were really wiping them out.

I headed down to the old foot bridge were I was chasing carp over the winter and I saw a few rises. Perfect. As I walked to the stream I also noticed it was really muddy. I then saw a ton of monster carp mudding along the edges of the stream, digging for food. I opted for the bigger species :)

I tossed a small crayfish imitation named "Skip's Dad" that I got from the Instagram Fly Swap. I swung it in front of a big carp and a smallie came out of nowhere and smashed it. OK, not what I was looking for, but I didn't get skunked.


This wound up happening a few more times, with dink smallmouth taking the fly. After a few minutes I saw a window of opportunity with two big carp heading towards the same big rock. I dropped my fly perfect between then and saw a slight pull on my line as the small one inhaled it.

Once he was on, I realized that I had made the mistake of not really having the gear for this fight. I had a 4 weight and 6X tippet. Not something you want to realize when you're backing deep into an 8 lb carp.

I took my time, played him right, and safely landed him. I was so freaking excited. After two years, I finally got my first carp on a fly. I let out a giant "YES!!" even though I was standing in the middle of a dark park by myself with no one else around. This was a night I won't soon forget.


I watched him swim away with a giant smile on my face and noticed the trout starting to rise again just upstream. It didn't matter. No trout in this stream would repeat the fight I just had.

I absolutely love dry fly fishing in February

After a long week, I was looking forward to some time on the water on Sunday. What orginally looked like bad weather turned into an almost 50 degree sunny day. I spent Saturday night tying up a bunch of midge patterns, both weighted and dry, and I was hoping for the same rises we ran in to last weekend.

I had planned to fish with Matt, the Functioning Fishaholic. I had fished with him once before after the tying symposium, and unfortunately he got the skunk. I didn't want that to happen again. I told him we'd find rising fish and I was hoping it was true. I had remembered him saying he only caught one trout on a nymph before, and I thought it would be cool to have him get his first one on a dry fly.

We quickly rigged up, hiked about 150 yards upstream, and there was no need to walk anymore. There were risers spread up and down a 100 yard stretch of water, and as luck would have it, there were plenty of other fishermen, but not in this stretch.

The Little Lehigh used to have a no wading restriction in the heritage stretch, and since they lifted the restriction, this stretch of water has been plagued with people standing right in the middle of the stream, directly on top of some of the best holes. If you're one of those people, no offense, but c'mon man, you can roll cast to the opposite bank without getting your feet wet. Just because you can wade, doesn't mean you should.

Moving on, I started off with a size 20 Griffith's Gnat, and Matt opted for a Griffith's he tied, but with brown hackle. We instantly noticed bugs coming off and skating across the water. There was a variety of black and brown midges, a few BWOs, and believe it or not, a really nice dark tan caddis hatch, around a size 20. Matt's fly was a pretty damn close imitation. He ever pulled a black adult stonefly off his neck. It was like springtime; bugs everywhere, you were comfortable in only a hoodie, and I wasn't complaining.

It didn't take long before I was in to my first fish, a little wild brown trout with some nice coloring took my dry after about 10 minutes and like 40 casts over his head.


After landing him, the ducks and geese decided to go absolutely bonkers in the stretch of water we were in and all the rising stopped. They were splashing all over, diving under water, and all the trout darted.

I went another 50 yards upstream and I found where they went. About 15 to 20 fish were surrounding a fast chute, gorging on caddis as they came down the bubble line. Nick also showed up and started fishing just above me. I hooked in to another wild brown, this one about 14 inches and brought him to hand. Absolutely beautiful fish. I almost want to get this picture framed, even though he wasn't huge.


Matt was still fishing downstream from the geese and only had a few misses. I motioned him over and gave him my spot. It didn't take him long. I watched him land his first dry fly trout, a wild brownie, on his own fly. Doesn't get any better than that.




After those two were caught, the hole spooked a little and the rises were more sporadic. It also didn't help that other fisherman noticed us hooking into fish and were creeping up into the opposite bank, spooking them even more. I never understood why people have to do that.

We fished for about another 45 minutes, each of us missing a few, before calling it a day. Nick unfortunately got the LL skunk once again. I swear that stream hates him.


You can check out Matt's version of our trip here, and below is a video of his interview from this past weekend with Delaware Valley Outdoors.



The fishing was great, but I think my favorite part of the weekend was some time in front of the vise with Michael. He's started to get good at Honeybug Inchworms! I do have to whip finish for him though.


In other news, I'd like to give a shoutout to Morgan over at Tight Lined Tails of a Fly Fisherman for the flattering post he did about some of the bugs I've been twisting up. I met him through Instagram and he has a really great site which has something that my site has been lacking these days... Daily updates! Head on over, check out his blog, and follow him. Some good reading!

Also, I'd like to apologize for not posting up the stacked foam beetle tutorial I mentioned in my last post. My memory card got wiped out so all the pics were gone. I'll redo it shortly.

If you need me, I'll be counting down the minutes until spring...

February Dry Fly Fishing and Goodies in the Mail

Nick and I decided late last night to sneak out to the stream today, going against the wishes of our wives. These things unfortunately happen sometimes, and there's not much that can be done about it. :) When we got there, we realized we had the entire stream to ourselves. We had an inch or two of snow last night, and that usually turns most people away. Although it was still snowing, it was almost 40 degrees around 2pm, and actually quite comfortable due to a lack of wind.

My experience on this stream in February over the last two years told me that I needed to have some dry midges, but I wasn't 100% sure that would be the case today. As we rigged up, I refused to put a fly on. If I don't see bug activity right when I get there (the parking lot is very close to the stream), it usually means nymphing, but something told me I needed to check upstream before I busted out the lead and tungsten. A short three minute walk put us on some rising fish. I quickly picked out a size 18 Griffith's Gnat. These fish were pretty reckless with their rising, and I didn't think size would matter that much. I was going for a midge cluster, and it worked.

Within about 5 minutes, I was in to my first fish, a wild brown trout, about 10 inches, who was coming up every 15 seconds from behind a big rock. He took my fly on my second cast. As I brought him to hand, he did a quick head jerk and swam off. Not-so-long release, and I can live with that.

In the next hour hour I have two more bigger rainbows do the exact same thing, spitting my fly as I'm beaching them. I then finally realize that I had crimped the barbs when I tied these gnats. That explains it! It also reminds that I shouldn't leave for the stream without my net. Lesson learned.

I obviously didn't get pictures of these fish, but Nick actually took some video footage. I just got my hands on Adobe Premiere, so it will be a good way to get my feet wet with some advanced video editing. More on that later.

Nick unfortunately didn't have any small dries on him, so he had a tougher time. I gave him one of mine and he lost it in a tree. He headed out after that. I continued upstream and found another pod of fish rising. I brought a small brown to hand, and popped the fly without touching him. When they are only the size of your finger, it's better not to even get them out of the water.

Then it started to get cold, very very cold. Wind picked up. Snow picked up. The rises eventually stopped and I switched over to a smattering of midges, eggs, nymphs, and worm patterns. I covered a lot of water and threw a variety of flies at every feeding lane and holding spot. I picked up two fat rainbows, both of which I let go without snapping a pic because my hands were too cold. Not only did I forget my net, but also my half gloves.

So although this post isn't too photo-heavy with fish porn, I did snap a couple shots of Nick to test out Instagram's new filtering options with. I dig how they turned out. (see above as well)


When I got home, I was greeted with an envelope stuffed with stickers from The Fiberglass Manifesto. My ride is going to be covered with them. The new round pumped fist sticker is amazing. Thanks Cameron.


I've also been meaning to share a shot or two of the net I won from Tenkara Talk. This thing is beautiful and I almost don't want to use it. It might hang on the wall at the bar in the man cave until I get the balls to get it wet. Being a dumbass on Youtube can pay off once in a while.



Also as a reminder, if you are in to fly tying and want to join a terrestrial swap, head on over to OwlJones.com and sign up. Now, back to the beer. It's IPA nation tonight!

Braving the cold and getting my first fish of the year

When my wife said that I had some free time from babyville and that I should go fishing yesterday, I packed my gear and was out the door in ten minutes. I immediately ran back inside and put on another layer of clothes. I didn't realize how cold it got. It was 16 degrees when I left the house, and 18 degrees with 25 MPH winds when I got to the stream. It was probably a dumb idea to fish, but it was over two weeks since I wet a line and my cabin fever was setting in big time. Thank got for my Orvis fleece gloves. I highly suggest getting a pair of these things. Your hands stay toasty, and they have the finger covers which fold back when you need to tie a knot or strip line.

I was very happy to see not a single other person on the stream. I figured that would be the case, because my nose started to run and was freezing on my home-from-work-for-2-weeks beard within a few minutes. After about a dozen casts, I remembered how much winter fishing can suck. The guide ice was awful, especially with the bad winds. The only good thing was that the areas that are usually a muddy mess were nice and solid.

I already had a bugger on so I started off with that but a I quickly realized it was a bad idea since the thing turned into an icicle pretty darn quick.

Switching over to midges, I no longer minded the cold. Fish came to hand one after another on a new red midge pattern I tied up the other night. I must have landed 5 or 6 fish in about an hour. My hands were too cold to keep taking pictures, but I did snap one of my first fish of 2012, a nice wild brown.

I didn't last too long in the cold weather, so I headed home to down a few beers and playing with my new Christmas present I finally picked up with all my gift cards, an Acer Android Tablet. After a few days of use, I can say that I do prefer the Apple interface better on my iPhone, but I'm still learning this and I look forward to all the open sourced tweaking goodness. Now I just need some new fly fishing apps for it (Hint Hint Orvis - I'd be happy to do an app review!)

A couple of beers later, the vise came out......

and eggs were tied with a quickness. (I always run out of hot pink and orange for some reason)

So, it's the holiday season

I have 4 days off work, well that is, unless my wife gives birth and then I'll be off 3 weeks. She's 3 cm dilated and 58% affaced (whatever the hell that means) so she'll most likely be going any day now. Between that and all the other things going on with work and holiday gatherings, I haven't had time to post much, although I have been able to fit in a few quick fishing trips.

Here's a quick recap of the past couple of weeks with as few words as possible.

Slaying trout last weekend on a new midge pattern I came up with called the Rubber Rat on the Little Lehigh with a couple guys from the EPFR forum




Still running in to trout late night on the stream behind my house



I got my winning package from The Fiberglass Manifesto. I look like a dumbass in a buff.




Is anyone else on Instagram? If you have an iPhone, you should jump on it! Take amazing photography, add a watered down version of Facebook, and a dash of Twitter mentions and hashtags, you have a pretty amazing app. Some great fishing photography. Here's a link to my profile. Feel free to link up with me. I've uploaded a few nice pics in the last week or so.





I'm lobbying to make Bell's Two Hearted Ale it's own food group



The best Youtube video of the year, hands down (I'M MAKING PANCAAAYKES!)



We lost another dictator. Boohoo.



That's about it. Happy Holidays to you and yours. Time to start drinking.

A great weekend to kick off Autumn

It's definitely getting colder outside. I think it hit 42 degrees here the other night. I tried to make the most of this nice weekend with temps in the 60s by getting out as much as possible. This is a long post. You probably won't read it all. :)

I set my alarm for 6:30 on Saturday morning and I was on the stream at the Little Lehigh by 7:30. Unfortunately, it was either too cold, too early, or the hurricane/flooding just messed up the tricos, because nothing was rising. That didn't really matter though. The fish were going stupid over those size 18 egg patterns I posted a video for in my last post. If you'd like to try a few of them out next time you're on the stream, Dave has some of my eggs for sale now at the Heritage Fly Shop. Orange and Light Cream were the best producers for me.


I bought a total of 5 bows to hand. Three were stocked and two were wild. I also tested out a new version of my rubber legged copper john that I tied using longer legs and tail in a smaller diameter, which produced this fat mutant stocked bow.

While walking upstream towards the "lunker hole" as I heard it called on Saturday, I noticed the tree that got knocked down by Irene wasn't totally removed. It was cut in half, and pushed a little downstream. This created a massive deep pool with a zillion fish podded up under it. Unfortunately, some idiot decides to wade right into it and spook them all right when I got there. (I hate the fact that you can wade this stream now. There's no need for it)



I also was messing around with my camera and did another quick release video of one of the bows.


It was a fun morning of fishing, but the most fulfilling part was when I saw a local guide walking by with a kid that couldn't have been more than 10, looking to get him into his first fish. The hole I was in was full of easy fish and I offered to let them fish it. Well, that kid caught his first trout ever. Trading off the 2 or 3 more fish I could have pulled out of that hole was well worth it.

I headed home early, around 11:30 because my wife wanted to take Michael apple picking over at Solebury Orchards in New Hope PA. This place is full of stuck-up, rich people who wear Prada to hike through a field picking apples very eccentric people, but besides that it's a blast. You go there, jump on a tractor, drive out about a quarter mile, pick a ton of apples, ride back, pay for them, and then finish it off with a homemade cider ice (think italian water ice, but made with unfiltered apple liquid) and an apple donut. There's also some hay stacks and flower gardens for the kids to play in.




We then headed over to Peddler's Village, which is a huge outdoor mall-ish type place with outlets and artsy shops. Michael got an awesome Duck hat from the Balloon dude.


There's a brew pub restaurant there called The Porterhouse that we hit up for dinner. I wasn't feeling their in-house brew on tap (They only had a porter!) so I opted for a cold delicious Dale's Pale Ale. Their burgers rock. I was highly suggest hitting up this place if you're in the area.



Today I decided to spend some quality time with the little guy, so we did some shopping. We hit up a local flea market in search of some old fishing gear to hang in the man cave bar. No luck, but I did take him to race some RC cars. He freaking loved it.


I got him home and when he passed out for a nap, my wife took over watching him and I darted to the local stream for two hours. The fishing wasn't that great. The largies and smallies weren't budging for streamers. I did get a tiny smallie and about a dozen gills on a hopper. I also decided to practice czech nymphing through a run full of 8-10 inch shiners, just for the hell of it. I was picking up two fish on every cast, which was fun for about 10 minutes.



I capped off the day by installing 4 new outdoor lights around the house, putting in a new garage door opener keypad, and mowing the lawn. There's something to be said about a well manicured yard. Enjoy what's left of your weekend.