Signs of Spring

The other day somebody asked the inevitable question, “Ready for summer yet?” Well, in one sense yes, I think we are all getting just a little bit of cabin fever waiting for the snow to stop. On the other hand, that's the water we need to keep our streams in good shape come the dog days of August so I can’t feel too bad about it. My usual answer to this question is more along the lines of, “I’ll be ready for summer about Labor Day,” and there is some truth to that too.

There are some standard rituals though that tell me summer is coming, however reluctantly. Tax day. Put away the skies and snow shoes day. Restructure the display gondolas for summer stuff - T-shirts and such day. Periodic check in new inventory days. Oops, need to get an order into this vendor or that days. Earth Day events, not always on Earth Day, days.

This year Ben and I took a boat and participated in the Yellowstone River Clean Up day organized by Trout Unlimited Chapters to cover the river from Gardiner to Billings. Over all there were more than 200 volunteers out who collectively picked up several tons of trash. That's the good news and the bad news. Our segment was the right bank of the river from McConnell Access to Brogan’s Landing, about 5 miles, and we collected what looked like a boat load. The good news is that it really wasn’t as much as it has been in years past. I think that segment of river got the most use it has ever seen in 2008 yet I remember in the 1960’s we always carried a trash bag in the boat and always filled it every day. That trash bag may have been the Livingston TU Chapter’s very first conservation project, we got a couple of hundred onion bags screen printed with the TU logo and handed them out to cleanup volunteers all up and down the river. Woodsy Owl is slowly getting the message across.

Earth Day itself market another mile stone for Bear Creek Council, our local chapter of Northern Plains Resource Council as we participated in the commissioning of a solar power panel at the Gardiner school. This project was the result of a grant from Northwest Energy to the school which was facilitated by BCC. In addition we are putting up cash to fund a teacher’s development of curriculum around the solar panel for each grade level. Today Gardiner’s carbon footprint is just a little shallower.

Spring is promised to return next week. Richard 4/29/09

Streamers for the upcoming week.

Right now the weather outside is frightful (35 plus snow), but when it's not so nasty and the river has at least 18-24" of visibility, the streamer bite is on in a big way. This should remain true for the next week or so, shading into the Mother's Day Caddis and then the spring runoff.

Our go-to streamers are the usuals: Woolly Buggers in a variety of sizes and colors. Early in the day, try a PT-Bugger or another bugger with dumb bell eyes to make it ride upside-down, and fish it dead slow. Later, strip and rip. With the dirty water, the fish may well be in six inches of water tight to the banks, so don't hesitate to launch the bugs into cover.

Here are some more esoteric patterns to try now; save the Stacked Blonde for summer. We don't stock any of the patterns below, but if you would like to special order some, I could probably do some direct retail (aka not through the shop) --otherwise they're too time consuming to be worth doing commercially and they won't come cheap anyway.

Blogger is screwing with the pictures, so it's best to just post a link to the album: http://s557.photobucket.com/albums/ss16/Kesserendrel/Streamers%20April%2009/

Enjoy!

Tan EZ-Sculpin
Hook: 2xl nymph, #2.
Thread: 3/0 tan Uni.
Wing: gold variant standard rabbit strip, leave long as shank.
Body: golden brown flash chenille.
Gills: red Flashabou.
Head: tan EP streamer brush, trimmed into a wide/flat shape and with top colored with a brown Prismacolor marker.
Other Colors: olive, golden brown, black.


Articulated Chewbacca
Rear Hook: #4 Gamakatsu SP11-3L3H
Thread: 3/0 olive Uni.
Tail: copper Flashabou
Wing: gold variant or natural grizzly rabbit strip.
Body: olive speckled flash chenille.
Joint: 15lb nylon coated wire with three golden-olive 6/0 "E" glass beads.
Front Hook: #2 Gamakatsu SP11-3l3H
Wing: gold variant or natural grizzly rabbit strip.
Body: olive speckled flash chenille.
Legs: three metallic pumpkin Sili-legs on each side.
Head: two clumps of Australian possum, flared, divided by three turns of natural mallard flank.


Olive Circus Peanut
Rear Hook: #6 Gamakatsu SP11-3L3H
Thread: 6/0 olive Uni.
Tail: dark olive marabou with copper Flashabou.
Body: peacock Ice Chenille (or similar flashy chenille).
Hackle: grizzly dyed olive saddle.
Legs: 2-3 olive dun Sili-Legs on each side.
Joint: 15lb nylon coated wire and two golden olive or red 6/0 "E" glass beads.
Front Hook: #4 Gamakatsu SP11-3L3H
Eyes: 3/16" black Spirit River I-Balz.
Tail: olive Chickabou spun around the shank to cover joint, with 3 strands of copper Flashabou on each side.
Body: same as rear hook.
Hackle: same as rear hook.
Legs: same as rear hook.
Collar (optional): olive grizzly Schlappen.
Head: body chenille wrapped around eyes.
Other Colors: tan/natural (sculpin), black, white.


Black LaFontaine's Dropnose Minnow
Hook: Mustad 9672 #4
Bead: 3/16" copper, brass or tungsten.
Weight (optional): .025 tin wire.
Thread: 6/0 black Uni.
Tail: black Marabou and copper Flashabou.
Body: black Ice or other flash chenille.
Underwing: black bucktail (to support wing).
Overwing: black marabou, full, with copper Flashabou.
Head: peacock herl.
Hackle: grizzly wound dry fly style.
Other Colors: olive, white, brown over yellow, gray over white, chartreuse.


Olive Love Bunny
Rear Hook: #4-6 Dai-Riki #810 bass hook.
Thread: 3/0 olive.
Wing: olive variant rabbit strip.
Body: olive speckled flash chenille.
Joint: 15lb nylon coated wire and two translucent golden olive 6/0 "E" beads.
Front Hook: #2 Mustad 9671.
Eyes: Gold 3/16" Spirit River I-Balz.
Wing: olive variant rabbit strip.
Body: olive speckled flash chenille.
Hackle: olive dyed grizzly saddle.
Throat: red Flashabou.
Legs: barred olive Crazy or Sili-Legs.
Collar: olive dyed grizzly Schlappen.
Head: body chenille wrapped around eyes.
Other Colors: black, golden brown, white, gray and white, brown and yellow.


Sylvie Sculpin (variation; original lacks front hook)
Rear Hook: Dai Riki #810 bass hook #4.
Thread: black flat-waxed.
Wing: black rabbit strip (push point of front hook through and tie off on bottom of hook).
Body: black Angel Hair.
Joint: 35lb Power Pro braided line.
Front Hook: #2 Dai Riki #810.
Eyes: black Cyclops.
Throat: red holo Flashabou OR Angel Hair.
Head: black Polar-Aire spun in a dubbing loop, wound forward, and trimmed to shape. --OR-- black sculpin wool and black Polarfiber stack-tied and trimmed to shape. Head shape should be close to cylindrical.
Other Colors: olive, rust, white, natural.


Black Scleech
Stinger: #6 Dai-Riki #135 scud hook.
Joint/Body: 35lb Power Pro covered with eight translucent silver-lined black 6/0 "E" beads.
Front Hook: #4 Dai-Riki #810 bass hook.
Eyes: black 5/32" Spirit River I-Balz.
Wing: black rabbit strip, extending to point of stinger hook (push point of front hook through and tie off on bottom of hook).
Collar: two turns of rabbit used as wing.
Throat: red holo Flashabou.
Dorsal: black Widow's Web.
Head: black Widow's Web spun in a dubbing loop, wound forward, and trimmed to shape.
Other Colors: olive, white, brown and yellow, any "sculpin" combination.


Yellow Galloup's Stacked Blonde
Hook: #4 Mustad keel hook (hard to find, check http://www.fatbluegill.com/).
Thread: Uni Big Fly, yellow.
Body: 3-4 bunches of yellow bucktail and pearl Krystal Flash.
Throat: yellow marabou tied in along keel.
Head: thread coated with several layers of Sally Hansen Hard as Nails, with black lacquer dots for eyes.
Other Colors: black, olive, chartreuse, white, any traditional bucktail combination ("Mickey Finn" yellow-red-yellow would probably work for lake trout or, in small sizes, for brookies, for example).
See http://www.questoutdoors.net/skills/ftying/patterns/streamers/sb/ for instructions.

Double Wing

Well, like Wally, I'm still tying flies too, right now it's my version of Gary Lafontaine's Double Wing pattern. 

Lafontaine’s Double Wing... tied Dougies’ way... with help from my friend Bill Pitts.

Materials List:

Hook - Mustad 9671 #12-14 dry fly. 

Thread - White 6/0 uni.

Tail - Antron or nylon yarn, ginger.

Tag - White thread cover 1/3rd of hook shank.

Rear Wing - Elk hair, apply super glue to butts.

Body - gray dubbing 1/3rd of hook shank, w/palmered grizzly hackle trimmed “^” on bottom.

Front Wing & Hackle - 1/3rd of hook shank, white craft foam measured to the bend of the hook, with coachman brown or ginger hackle.

Head: color thread w/brown sharpie then whip finish.

4/17/09:  I've also been doing some inland trout fishing here in NY for our local browns.  The Hendrickson hatch is on now and here is one example of the brown trout I caught even though the creek was crowded... could be that it was the nicest day of the year so far with temp's in the 60's that brought everybody to the stream. Anyway, I hope you get out there and wet a line too!

Float Report, Monday April 13

Richard, Don McCue, and I floated from Pine Creek to the 9th Street Bridge Monday. Fishing wasn't particularly fast, though not terrible, and we each boated at least one fish in the 17-19" class. Don and I fished streamers and got two in this range, while Richard fished using "his" method (read: dries) and got one. Half a dozen 12-15" fish and a couple small ones and whitefish rounded things out. We passed a couple foam patches early in the float with noses poking for Blue-winged Olives, although we didn't stop to switch to appropriate flies and so didn't get any on top. After noon the wind picked up hard out of the southwest (gusts to probably 40mph), and that was it for the risers.

Pictured is the longest fish, though probably not the heaviest. He ate a Black Circus Peanut.

We had heavy snow here in town two days ago. It is mostly melted, but the low-mid elevation snow from the system is sticking around. It's supposed to get into the mid-60s through Tuesday next week, and that's going to blow this out in a big hurry. By Thursday or so the river should clear and be red hot from then until the main runoff hits around the 10th.

Location: Yellowstone River, Pine-9.

Time: 11:00AM-5:30PM
Fish Landed: roughly 15, most trout.

Top Flies: #4+6 Black Circus Peanut, #2-4 Black Woolly Bugger, #10 Matt's Golden Stone, #12 Matt's Bead, Hare, and Copper.

Beetlemania

Beetlemania officially begins April 5

Unfortunately, no rock and roll is in the offing. I just get to sit down to tie about 65 dozen foam beetles. We don't like how most commercial beetles look (they're too narrow and don't float right), so we tie our own. Beetles are the only class of fly we produce completely in-house. The somebody that does the producing is me.

One can get bored after a winter of commercial fly tying, and of course I save the stuff we don't need until midsummer until last. Earlier in the winter I was doing three dozen of this and five dozen of that, with only a few flies (some caddis for the Firehole, Glasshead PT Soft Hackles) breaking the 12 dozen barrier. I have to do at least ten dozen of everything I have left to do, with the exception of some streamers. Sigh.

1. Secure hook in vise.
2. Spiral thread to rear.
3. Secure foam strip 1.5X the gape to hook. Glue to shank.
4. Secure peacock or dub thread.
5. Wind body.
6. Secure foam strip at eye. Trim excess.
7. Add a narrow slip of foam as an indicator.
8. Whip finish and cement.
9. Repeat.
10. Repeat
11. Repeat
12. Repeat
13. Repeat.
.
..
...
645. Repeat