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Some Home River Love

Summer Flies

A few of the summer flies I've been using on a skagit "dry line". I've got my 11-foot 6-weight dialed in nicely with a 390 grain Airlfo Skagit Switch and a Medium floating MOW tip. Cast easily out to 70-80 feet using sustained anchor casts.

With water comes fish

The Flat River below the dam has been running low and clear for weeks. We got a little rain yesterday morning. So today, I jumped in the river at first light to see if the fresh water had brought in any fish.

 First cast, hit and a miss, but it was something big. Next cast bam and he's on. Shaky knees, heart rate thumping - fight or flight in full effect. A solid hook set and my reel is singing. I quickly wade into shallow water and get ready to walk the fish downstream to a good landing spot. I'm waiting to see the rainbow accented silver bullet break the surface, but instead I see a spiny green dorsal fin. I'm feeling a mix of disappointment that it isn't a steelie, but impressed with the bass I have on. I take a breath and stop walking. 

As is usual for these bigger bass, he runs out of gas pretty quickly and I yank him in. Not super long, but fat, this guy has to be close to 2.5 pounds. I try to snap a few pics and then get him back into some faster current. With a nice tail slap he's gone.

This fish took what is hands down one of the best flies I use for low and clear water, Mike Schmidt's Guppy (Angler's Choice Flies). This is one of the first flies I learned to tie and it's still one of the best - Mike's Guppy Steelhead Alley Fly Tying Blog.

 I tied a few up yesterday using tan Senyo's Laser Dub for the head instead of Aussie Possum. I really like how they turned out.

Ephoron Success

I hardly ever dry fly fish anymore, but this year the majority of my dry fly fishing has been at night. With Gray Drakes, Hex and now Ephorons, I've been having a heck of a time getting a fish to stay pinned. I did some research and I think my problem centers around two main areas:

1. Slack 
2. Angle of hook set.

I found the following video,  it really drove home some good points:


I went out tonight and started with a hopper. I missed a couple nice fish right off the bat.  So I  broke down what I was doing, worked on improving my angles and made sure I had zero slack once the fly landed.

Fish on!

 This guy came on the swing below the dam, I went look for stray summer steelhead before last light.

Kayak Bassin'

I had what was easily one of my best days of Largemouth Bass fishing today.  I think there was some sort of Damselfly hatch going on that was putting these guys on a topwater bite, big time.  Lots of fish landed, a couple lost. Watched my fly pop out of one big guy during a beautiful classic acrobatic display - wish I could have gotten a shot of that - great memories. Only used one fly, my pale yellow gurgler w/ chartreuse crystal flash - Brigid picked out this color scheme.

Pure Michigan

Summer Topwater

Tied up some topwater flies today. First off was Scott Howell's Ska-opper (brown/orange above) this fly is awesome, but it took me at least 20 minutes to tie. Looking for something with similar action, but easier and faster to tie I whipped up a good ol' Gartside Gurgler (yellow above). The Gurgler took me about 2 minutes. I had my wife randomly choose the color.  She picked yellow, and it worked out pretty good (see below).

Both flies had really great action on the water, but the Ska-opper is just sick. They both wake great and chug when pulled hard.  The deer hair on the Ska-opper adds some great bubbles and bobbing that reminds me of exactly what a dying sunfish would do when I was a kid and let one go after hooking it too deep.  Although, both the fish I caught came on the Gurgler, I'm planning on still messing around the Ska-opper because it just looks so good in the water.

The weather has been hot and muggy, we are well into summer now.  The rivers are low and clear.  I think big streamer fishing is over (unless we get a ton of rain) until the end of next month when the kings start to run.  We did have a nice afternoon storm today.  This bucket mouth (large mouth) was tight up against the shore when we went out today at around 8:30pm.

Biggie Smalls

Caught my biggest smallie ever tonight. From lip to tail it was the length of both the handles on my switch rod, which makes it about 20"- no pics, low cam battery. I was swinging a Dave's Bad Hair Day - Eat a Peach Sculpin in olive w/ copper and green flashabou on a #2 Gammy B10s. Bummed about not having a pic... The fish took mid-swing and put such a heavy thump in the rod I thought it was a steelhead at first. This is my second "big" smallie this year. These big guys are awesome but seem to run out of gas pretty quick compared to their smaller 14"+ brothers. Just prior to landing this guy I had brought in a ~14 incher that had my reel singing and was doing acrobatics all over the river.
I also landed what could easily have been my smallest smallie ever today. It was my first fish of the evening. I was working top water with a "Warmwater Whammy". The fly measures out to be about 3.5 inches and the fish was just a tad bigger.
My guess is that these bigger fish in the system right now are post-spawners trying to pack on the pounds before heading back out to wherever they come from.

Comeback Smallie

My girls were all napping this afternoon. So I snuck out and swung a few flies. My first time on the river since Maggie was born.  This  17"+ toadie sipped up my fly while stripping my line after the swing. After a few acrobatics we met on the river bank.  I was using a new pattern from Skagit Master 4 - Dave's Bad Hair Day size 4 in olive with copper flashabou and aquamarine polar flash.  I added an Australian Possum sculpin style head with a mallard collar.  What a beast.  This is my biggest river smallie to date.

I ended up losing the actual fly a little while later, but this is another one I'd tied up at the same time...this one is a size 2 and has rubber legs.  Feenstra's Aquatic Nuisance meets Dave's bad hair day.

 

Feenstra's Bass Detector

I might have a new favorite fly...this thing works!

Two-Handed Skagit for Smallies

I lined my 11foot 6wt Cabelas Tlr switch rod with a 19foot 390 grain Airflo Skagit Switch using a 5'float x 5'sink light MOW Tip.  I tried this out last night and thought it was horrible.  Although, I was still managing from time to time to cast 50+ feet with nice loops. I couldn't believe how heavy and out of control the line felt  I came home watched a bunch of Ed Ward and Tom Larimer casting videos, had strange dreams all night about being at a casting clinic in the Pacific Northwest with Ed Ward.  When I woke up in the morning I hit the river for about an hour.  After a few casts I realized I was too stretched out with my casting stroke.  I pulled things in tighter and closer and things really came together.  I was hitting 60-70 foot casts with a big nasty streamer.  And it was all rolling out in a  nice looking loop.

This let me swing through some parts of the Flat River that I can't normally get to.  I hooked and landed a few nice fish as a result.

Feenstra's
Black and Blue Baitfish

My smallmouth bass interpretation of  Senyo's Artificial Intelligence

Fishing - May 11th 2013

Hit the Flat River around 7am on Saturday.  Started out using a large Circus Peanut type streamer, but was having trouble casting. So I ran through a few flies until I got an eat on a Arctic Fox and flash Clouser type streamer I had tied up using a fishskull head and large red eyes.  I had quite a few bumps, hooked up with three typical sized, but lively Flat River Smallmouth bass.

I also accidentally ran into this guy with my streamer.  

These suckers are jumping all over the place on the Flat

First Smallmouth of the year

Got a my first couple smallmouth for the year along the Lowell River walk.  I was using a Keven Feenstra style crayfish pattern I tied up.

Flat River Showboat Smallie

14" Smallie on a clouser.