Battling Chrome and Cold - The Salmon River Recap

Life has been pretty hectic so far this year. Endless work hours, time with the wife and kids, constant traffic jams, and more snow that I remember having in PA in a long time. We've tried to head to the Salmon River in NY three times since October and for one reason or another, the trips always got cancelled.

Things finally fell into place this past weekend. We were able to take off work, it looked like our wives and kids wouldn't get hit with a snowstorm while we were away,  the weather up there was cold but looking mostly dry, so we made the journey. Along for the ride was my brother in law, Nick, and our good fishing buddy, Bob from Just Another Fishing Blog. We headed up Thursday night. My step dad, Jack, and his neighbor Ken were planning on heading up Friday morning to meet us.

We arrived a little after 11pm and it was in the single digits. I forgot how damn cold it was up there. We met up with Nick's family in Mexico where we'd be staying, and started cracking beers. And more beers. And more beers. I'm not sure what time we got out the door on Friday morning, but it wasn't very early.

We met up with Jack and Ken in the parking lot in Altmar and got to fishing. Bob lost one right off the bat, then Nick moved in and brushed off the multi-year steelhead skunk with a little baby.

As for me? Well....I started early...and pretty much continued all weekend.

Fish for half an hour, drink a beer. Fish for half an hour, drink a beer. I was feeling pretty good around 4pm and not really caring that I didn't get into any fish and then I started to feel even better when I felt the switch rod bend.

I too brushed off my steelhead skunk with a nice slab of a fish and holy shit, it felt good.

He took a blue estaz stonefly nymph. I hooked another immediately after him but broke him off. John Ryan, Nick's cousin, centerpinned all day and nailed a ton of fish. Damn beads. Jack, Bob, and Ken walked away empty handed.

We headed back to the tackle shop, hung up the waders, and pounded a ton of beer.

I think we were up fairly early Saturday morning, but I honestly don't remember already. I know we met up with Jack and Ken at McD's for breakfast, and then hit the water.

We fished hard in the morning. I opted to stay in the lower fly zone while the majority of the crew trekked downstream. Beers started happening around noon and  I wound up sitting with John Ryan and his dad in the Altmar hotel getting lunch since the rest of the crew were down somewhere between the schoolhouse and Ellis cove. As we were leaving, they were walking up. Nick told me that Jack got a fish, and from the look on his face, I could tell it was a nice one.

I owe a lot to Jack. Besides being an amazing step dad, he also gave me my first fly rod 5 years ago, and the rest is history.  He even gave me my first vise. He's came along with me 4 or 5 times up to NY, but has always walked away empty handed. He's an amazing fisherman but just couldn't shake the steelhead or salmon skunk. I don't think I've ever seen him so happy  as when he was telling me about his fish. From the sound of it, it was one to remember. Unfortunately none of us were with him when it happened, and he cared more about getting the fish back in the water than a hero shot, so there were no pictures. I've been kicking myself in the ass for not fishing near him when he landed it. Hopefully there will be more.

After lunch it was back to fishing. About half an hour in the water and I felt a slight pop, and then my boot FILLED with icy cold H20. Yep, bye bye waders. My leg was soaked.

I pretty much gave up on fishing for the rest of the day and headed to the car, where sweet, sweet IPA awaited me. About an hour later when I could officially not feel my foot, I went to get Nick to head back to the house. As I cross the bridge and look down, he's into a MONSTER, and his uncle and cousin were hooking them left and right as well. Bastards.

And so ended day 2 of fishing with Bob and I walking away empty handed.

But the day was only half over. Jack and Ken came over to the house for dinner. A ton of wings, pizza, and beer was consumed, following by dick jokes, really bad IPA farts, Suicide Girls Instagram comparison, and a fly tying marathon.

We whipped out some bugs, and got completely trashed. Zero f*cks were given. And we realized that with his Buff on, Bob is definitely an understudy for Reno 911.

We went to bed at varying times between 1 and 3:30am (of course I'm the last one up and listening to snore-a-thon) with the alarm set for 6am, knowing sure as shit we weren't gonna be up then.

9am rolls around and we get out to the river by about 10:30. Jack opted to head home early with Ken because a storm was rolling through NY and PA. We decided to fish anyway. We fished hard until about 1:30. I was hooking up nonstop with some fish. Here's a nice male I brought up that unfortunately took a hook in the fin. John Ryan got a few as well

We then packed up and headed home, only to drive through the entire freaking snowstorm. The typical 3.75 hour drive turned into 6 hours. Roads sucked. Snow sucked. It was awful.

All in all, it was an awesome weekend. Memories were made, as were flies and hangovers. Nick and I broke the skunk. Jack got his first one ever. And Bob...well you can read his version of the trip here. At least he was the only one that got a fish last year.

You'd be hard-pressed to find a better group of dudes to fish with.  Thanks so much to the Lutz family for putting up with our smelly asses for 3 nights. I look forward to the next trip.

Chasing the toothy critters

I've decided to hunt for pickerel and pike this weekend. I'd also say Musky, but I don't have a few spare years to catch one.

The lake I fish for pickerel contains a ton of small bass that are a bright emerald green color, so that's where I started. I call this one the Wes Mantooth.

Size 4 3XL streamer hook

Marabou - olive (tail and collar)
Orvis crystal dumbbell eyes
Sili-Legs - chartreuse
Crystal Flash (tail)
Grizzle neck hackle (sides)
Hare Ice Dub - olive green (body)
Schlappen - olive (palmered over body)
Cut up zonker fur wrapped in a dubbing loop (head)



Also, I checked out Whitakers.com today and noticed that they uploaded one of my king salmon photos that I submitted the other day. Pretty cool.


By the way, don't get Wes started on his mom, or he'll kick your ass.

NY Trip Recap, Getting Revenge, and My first Salmon

Jack and I just returned from a long 3.5 days on the Salmon River in New York. Unlike the last 3 times I've gone up there, we finally had some luck. I picked up 4 kings (admittedly - one was foul hooked right at sundown and we didn't realize it until he was in the net), and interestingly enough, a monster chub, and a sucker who both loved a red Estaz egg. Jack unfortunately walked away with two small trout on a woolly bugger, but he did hook in to quite a few.

I'm not going to post a giant play by play of the trip, but here's a quick top 5 list of how it went down and some observations.

1. The Salmon - It's truly amazing to watch these things jump. The Kings kind of porpoise, doing a slight raise of their back fin out of the water, while the Cohos go crazy and shoot straight out of the water, sometimes up to 4 feet in the air. Think of someone throwing the biggest log they can pick up into the water, every 20 seconds, all day long. That's what it looks and sounds like. Unfortunately, a lot of the fish we saw and hooked up with were at the end of their journey and not looking too great. I don't get how people want to eat these things with how they are looking. You also spend the day ankle deep in rotting salmon carcass. My car smells so awful right now.

2.Even though they are close to dying off, King Salmon are hands down the strongest fish I've ever fought on a fly rod. I battled one as the sun was setting on Thursday night for over 20 minutes until he finally did a big run and broke me off. My arm was killing me.

3. Two-Handed Rod - I am 100% absolutely in love with my new switch rod. It is so much more efficient than a single handed rod. You can shoot 75 yards with ease. I'd highly suggest it to anyone who fishes big water. Much easier on the arms and shoulders as well after 12 straight hours of fishing without a break.

4. The Ugly Stick Posse - People are scumbags. Seriously. I've never seen so much blatant disregard for the law in my whole life. These guys get Ugly Sticks with bass spinning reels, 50 lb test, big hooks, and just put a tiny cube from a sponge on the hook to call it a fly. They add like 5 oz of weight, and just zip their hook through the water until they hook a fish in the fin, and then reel like hell. It's a shame that law enforcement doesn't crack down on it. They keep every damn fish they snag too.

5. Weird stuff - On Thursday, I think I was the most unlucky person on the face of the Earth. I was walking up the hill from staircase hole to meet up with John, and two guys walked by me and said hi. One had a cigar lit. When he ashed his cigar, the wind literally blew a hot ember right towards me, up under my glasses, and right into my eyeball! What the hell are the odds of that? It finally feels better today but I did have a littled blurred vision. Creepy.

An hour later, came within 12 inches of getting hit head on by a drunk driver flying through a stop sign to take a piss at a Porta-a-potty. Serious bad luck.

Well, that's about it. Here's some not-so-great pics of the trip. No amazing artsy farty shots though, I was too busy fishing. Enjoy. I know I did.

Rotted Salmon



Me getting my ass kicked by a Salmon at the Staircase


John Ryan choosing a fly before the evening bite at Staircase


The snagging crew was already hard at work at 7am in the Unemployment hole


My biggest fish of the trip on a size 4 purple Estaz egg. He was pretty spawned out.


Jack working a run in the Schoolhouse pool on Wednesday night


John Ryan hooked up into this beautiful colored up Coho in the lower fly stretch right before we headed back to PA.


Drift boats getting ready to launch at first light



Another king


Thanks again to the Lutz family over at Little Salmon Tackle for the accommodations. If you ever need lake fishing gear, this is the place to go!

It's almost time...

Sorry I haven't been posting much. I'm leaving on Wed AM for the Salmon River in NY to chase after Steelhead, Browns, and what's left of the salmon. I've been spending my nights intensively trying to fill the fly boxes. I've been knocking out bunnies, buggers, leeches, stoneflies, and eggs like a madman.

I'm actually really excited because I just picked up an 8 weight 11'6 LSI switch rod with a Lamson Reel.

With the Rio switch line, it came out to $420 after all the discounts. Ouch. I'm pretty psyched to try it out for the first time although I'm guessing I'll spend the first few days just getting the hang of a two-handed cast.

I'll try to get a blog post in tomorrow night before I go showing some of the new bugs, and maybe some pics from our weekend trout hunt, but for now, here's an amazing video I picked up off the Drake's website.

I hope some Salmon are starting to rot....

So I can toss these flesh flies I knocked out tonight. Preparation for the Salmon and Steelhead trip continues...




I also tied a bunch of BFBs (Big *#@%king Bunnies)


Now it's time to clean up..Either that or drink more. I haven't decided yet.


P.S. Fellow bloggers, I finally took time tonight to update my blog roll, especially for all the people that took the time to leave some comments, and those who are sending me traffic (Greatly appreciated btw). If you'd like your blog added, just drop me a line.

Centerpin anyone?

I remember the first time I went to the Salmon River and I saw these guys with like 13 foot rods, and giant fly reels totally spooled with mono. I first thought they were crazy but after watching them, I found it to be pretty damn intriguing.

Turns out they were pinning. You suspend a fly, bead, or lure under a float, and these centerpin reels would peel off line as current pulled the float downstream. This allowed you to get a drag free drift pretty much as far as you could see downstream. With typical chuck n' duck steelheading on a fly rod, you might get a proper presentation for about 10 feet. With pinning, you get a fly properly presented for about half a football field.

I have a co-worker that frequents the SR and pins whenever he can, and he's shown me some pics of some monster fish he's landed using this method. Turns out that he actually makes and sells centerpin rods and has an instructional video for using them. You can check them out at Troutpin.com.

Here's the video, which gives you a great overview in case you've never seen this method before.

Watch out Steelhead...

I'm finally packed and heading to the Salmon River in NY to chase some pre-spawn Steelhead and monster browns. I spent some time filling the box tonight with more woolly buggers because I heard they were killing em' right now. I did some barred rubber legs for the tails mixed in with the marabou. They look pretty sweet. I'd take a picture but I already packed the camera. Expect some streamside blog posts and hopefully some hero shots with some chrome as long as I get some cell phone reception.

Wish me luck. I gotta break this streak of getting skunked up there. It's been two times in a row now.(Although the last time wasn't our fault. The river was running at 20,000 CFS!)


If you're up there this weekend and want to grab a beer, drop a note in the comments.

-Mike

Weekend Recap - Outfished by a 2 year old!

Yep, my son turned two on Sunday and he outfished me this weekend, even with opening day!

Nick and I were on the road with the boys by 7:20am on Saturday to make it to the kids trout derby before the 8am start. We got there and it was ABSOLUTELY MOBBED. I've never seen anything like it. The place was a small pond, about 1/4 of an acre at the most. There must have been over a thousand people surrounding it.

The derby was supposed to be for kids 16 and under and the only thing adults could do was cast the line for the kids. We got there and noticed all the adults that were supposed to be "watching" the kids fish had rows of chairs set up to block out their area. Plus, there were quite a few 17/18 year olds there fishing. No one would let two little kids in to wet a line. It was disappointing. We finally walked all the way around and some nice guy let us squeeze in a tiny 3 foot space to let the kids cast, one at a time. Once 8am hit, it was amazing to see how many adults were just "holding the rod" for their kids. That really pissed me off.

Anyway, Nick takes Rowan over to wait on the picnic bench, I rig up Michael with a nightcrawler on one of my old ultralight spinning rods and cast out. I remember trying to get him to fish last year and he couldn't grasp the concept of reeling in. I handed him the rod and to my amazement, he had no trouble at all. Another line caught us so I reeled him, untangled and cast back out. I hand him the rod again and he starts ripping in line like crazy, doing a great job. All of a sudden I see his rod just bend and start bouncing! I kept telling him to reel in faster, and he did. What he brought in wasn't a trout, but I've never been so proud of him in the last two years. We took a few quick pictures before letting it go.





He kept jumping up and down clapping and yelling "Fish! Fish!" It was awesome. Then we backed up to let Rowan have a cast. By that time, everyone was rigged up with lines in the water and it was next to impossible to do anything.


Nick trying to avoid the 1400 other lines in the water


As soon as they got their line in the water, Rowan ran off because he had to pee, and Michael had enough and wanted to leave. This was at 8:07am. :) We packed it up, took the kids to the playground, and then to a diner for a nice big breakfast.

Later that afternoon, I thought I'd hit the stream behind my house for some stockies. I got there around noon and it was pathetic. The night before, I had scouted a pod of well over 100 fish with some pallys mixed in holding in a small run above a foot bridge. By the time I got there at 12:30pm, there were two fish left in that hole. One was a pally, which had literally at least 20 guys throwing gobs of powerbait the size of Ohio at it. Very depressing. I walked upstream and it was the same thing. Two pallys with people literally hanging from tree branches to get a cast at them.

I found some stretches of open water and had a few taps, but that was it. I headed home to prepare for Michael's birthday party the following day.

My little guy turned two. I can't believe it. Time flies. Happy Birthday Michael. I love you! We got him a Thomas the Train Hot Wheels bike, among other things, and made him his favorite breakfast, chocolate chip banana pancakes.


His party was a blast. There were like 60 people and the kids were going insane in the moon bounce all afternoon. He was so tired from not napping and going crazy all day, that he was miserable on Monday morning. We had planned to take him to the Phila Zoo, but we opted to stay local. We went to this giant kids playground in Doylestown called Kids Castle. He had a great time.


After some lunch, we took him home for a nap and I figured I'd FINALLY get to do some fishing without all the rednecks in camo jumpsuits and hot orange baseball hats. It took me twice as long to get to the spot I wanted to fish because I was stopping and picking up trash along the way from all the weekend warriors. I found 8 cans of almost empty powerbait. Awesome.

I finally got to the run and to my surprise, there were fish rising like crazy behind a rock in this channel. No bugs on the surface..The only thing flying around are size 26 midges. hmm....I opted for a size 20 Adams dry. After 3 casts and 3 rises to my fly it was obvious that these weren't trout. I got in closer because I no longer worried about spooking them and realized that they were big shiners! I took off the dry fly and moved on.

There were still about 20 other people out so my usual open spots were mostly still getting hammered. I tried swinging wets, streamers, and a few natural looking nymphs with only a few taps. Then I figured I might as well throw some junk. All the powerbait I saw floating downstream was either pink or chartreuse, so I opted for an orange egg, followed by a pale yellow one.

I popped on a thingamabobber and settled in for a boring afternoon bobber fishing slow water. Then I look upstream and see this guy coming past me.



Seriously, who kayaks in a 15 foot wide stream when there's much better water around? It actually turned out that he was good luck. A minute after he went through, I FINALLY caught my first fish of "trout season". It was a little stocker bow, who was really spotted up.




So yeah, I did catch one fish, but it was the start of the new week so my son still outfished me!


Also, expect some posts from the land of Steelhead this weekend. I leave for the Salmon River on Thursday night until Sunday night.

Here's a peak at some of the new ones in the box.

I've been on a soft hackle kick recently. Here's a big soft hackle Stonefly. This thing is a paperweight.


Also did a version of the hot wire prince nymph with some palmered feathers from a pheasant rump.


Filled the box back up with some size 12 Copper Johns. I know these look pretty bad. I was definitely in quantity over quality mode when I knocked these out.


And last but not least, Nick tied me a few woven golden stones. These things are sweet!

Mega-post from the Sex Dungeon! (safe for work - I swear!)

Well, I kicked Pneumonia's butt after it kicked mine for almost the last three weeks and I'm back in business. Unfortunately, I had to back out of the Salmon River trip this weekend so I can get back to full speed. My bro-in-law is up there now and reported the skunk today so I don't feel too bad.

Since I can't fish, I've been doing a lot of tying. I actually got a new vise delivered to me from Bass Pro Shops yesterday. I went with the Anvil Apex because it came with a C-clamp, pedestal, material clip, and it looked like it handled a WIDE range of hooks.


I hate to say it, but I don't like it at all so far. It's supposed to be rotary, but you have to loosen a wing nut to rotate it and when you do that, the whole barrel becomes loose. I'm most likely going to return it and hopefully pick up a new one at the Somerset show next weekend.

One thing I don't like about my old vise is that it has a tough time handling a hook any larger than a size 8. I decided to put the new vise to the test on a few size 6 long streamer hooks.

It seems like I can't read a website, pick up a fly fishing magazine, or listen to a podcast without Kelly Galloup's name coming up. This guy is supposed to be the master of big streamers for big trout. After seeing his Sex Dungeon tandem hook streamer, I had to try to tie one, if only for the fact that I can say I tied a Sex Dungeon. I studied pics of the pattern and checked out a YouTube video on how it's done, and then tried it out.

Before I post the pic, here is some advice if you attempt to tie this fly.

1.GO LONG on your streamer hooks. my 3XL size 6 hooks did not seem long enough..or maybe it was that my lead eyes were too big.

2.Learn to spin deer hair. I suck at it so bad, and you can tell on this fly. This is only the 3rd time I've ever tried to spin deer hair and I still need a ton of work.

3.Go smaller with the beads. The only plastic beads I had were ones we use for monster channel cat fishing with spin tackle. They are way too big on this fly.

After 45 minutes on the vise, this is what I came up with.


Yeah, I know. I suck at tying flies. It's embarrassing how bad it turned out. The head looks awful. I don't have the patience to sit there with scissors and clip deer hair. Plus, it makes a mess. But I spent all the time tying the thing and I'm now determined to catch at least one stupid fish on it. Expect a ton of "tried out the Sex Dungeon but got skunked" posts this year until I find a fish dumb enough to hit it. My thoughts are that it will be a 8 inch largemouth that finally hits it and that it will happen around August. I will try it once the ice is off my favorite pickerel lake at the end of February though.

Now that I embarrassed myself, let's move on. My last post was a crappy i-phone pic of my steelhead box. I decided that I should give you some better images, and some more insight in to my favorite patterns. Here's a few recipes on some patterns you might not have thought of trying. Keep in mind that I like to keep these flies simple, because you lose so many. They are really quick to tie so you can knock out a dozen at a time.

This pattern was shown to me by the guys we stay with when we chase chrome. I've heard it called a steelhead nymph, or a steelhead caddis. It's a bit different than a standard estaz egg. It has a glass bead, and the estaz is only sparse at the top. THe body is wrapped thin with bright colored thread or preferably, Lagartun french mini flat-braid.

Size 12 Scud hook
Lagartun French mini flat-braid wrapped thin up the body
Killer Caddis glass bead (color to match pattern)
Petite Estaz (or regular Estaz for a puffier thorax..see pic 2)



This next one is something we just kind of came up with while fishing up there. We started having luck on small black scuds, so we started tying them with a brighter colored head as an attractor. I eventually decided to flip it up, making the scud brighter and adding a black head for contrast. One thing I noticed with regular scuds was that steelies shredded the fly really quick and the scud backing would rip off fast. So, instead of bringing the scud back all the way to the head, I cut it off 3/4 up and just did a thick black head coated with cement. I also added some extra coloring in to the scud back.

Size 14 Scud hook
1/4" scud back
UTC Ultra-wire - brassie (copper)
Uni-Thread 6/0 - black
Harelin Steelhead ice dubbing
Berol Prismacolor in darker shade than dubbing - colored on scud back



Here's an egg pattern that I haven't tried yet but I've read about it. It's called Bear's Crystal egg. I knocked out half a dozen of them.

Size 12 Scud Hook
Crystal Flash tail
White 6/0 Uni-Thread
Otter's Rubber Egg
Glow Bug yarn - white


Here's another really quick tie. This is a really basic attractor stonefly.

Size 14 Scud hook
Uni-thread 6/0 - black
Black goose biots
Uni-Floss (body color) of your choice
V-ribbing - clear, small (wrap over colored floss)
Harelin steelhead ice dubbing
Swiss straw (wingcase)



And last but not least, here's a red and black version of the Tungsten Stone I posted last week. I love this fly. It's a freaking paperweight.



A few more patterns, and I can put this box to sleep until I hit the water in a few weeks.


And before I go, I want to give a shout out to Maxim magazine. I hate this awful publication. Someone got me a subscription to it years ago, and for some reason it never stopped showing up each month. I barely ever open it anymore, but that changes when Olivia Munn is on the cover. A girl who loves video games? Yes. Now if they could only get a shot of her in waders....