No one took me up on any offers to go fishing this morning, so went to Maplewood to go ride for a bit. There was about 1" to 2" of fresh snow on the ground from yesterday, which is sorely needed on the trails right now. Temps were fairly mild in the mid teens to lower twenties, but it was quite blustery with winds gusting to over 30 mph. This created some drifting on the trails and it was nice to be able to ride in some fresh pow; I was worried that the trails would be hard ice pack. The trail leading out from the parking lot was thin and icy, and I was worried that the rest of the trails would be this way. Once I got out to the trail crossroad/opening on the NW side of the park, the trail conditions improved dramatically. Overall the riding was pretty decent considering the lack of any real snow since early December. I only noted one real bad spot, which came out of the woods into a clearing on a south facing slope: a recipe for no snow, and sun, as the spot was down to bare dirt. With a base of hard pack, the riding was pretty fast today. A few of the spots had were bad for skis darting, but after a few sleds came through and busted up the crust, it got better. There was practically no one on the trails today. I got out early and there only two fresh set of tracks on the trails, and they came through South Lida. Otherwise I only met four other sleds out there. That's why I love riding in the park. That, and the incredible vistas. I put on about 90 miles today, and with that, it puts me at 5 more miles ridden than last season. With all of March left, hopefully I 'll get at least one more ride in this season before it's all said and done. I'm glad I didn't go fishing today.

here's my rant for the day. It was based on a post regarding the allowance of fishing two lines in Minnesota and the decrease of youth anglers:

One thing managers will likely need to consider down the road is if managing the resource for sustainability will decrease user participation in the future. I'm all for sound management, but if there are less users in the future (as all of the license sales trends have indicated), then there will be less revenue coming in to manage those fisheries. If you aren't able to manage the fisheries effectively anymore, than what's the point of having rules in place then?

There will likely need to be a compromise sometime in the future to allow some flexibility within the current rules package to allow more angler recruitment and retention, whether it be by allowing extra lines, or less restrictions on taking fish or easier regulations to remember (less waters-specific regulation). The way things have been going lately, I just don't believe that you can have sound sustainable management practices and still be able to attract new anglers, unless you nuke every video game ever created, destroy urban centers, and kick every kid out of the house on their ass and force them to play outside like we all used to do. I'm surprised kids these days aren't developing some sort of allergy to vitamin D and UV radiation.... Maybe if you give humans another 50 years you'll start to see more genetic mutations for albinoism and Nintendo thumb.

Clam Before the Storm

hook: size 4 Mustad 34007
thread: 3/0 UNI, dark brown
weight: hourglass eyes, black, large
shell: furry foam, brown (or cream, colored with brown marker)
body: micro chenille, pink

Wrap thread on mid-section of hook and tie in the hourglass eyes on the top of the hook shank. Tie in a 1.5" piece of chenille just past midway on the hook shank. Cut out a piece of furry foam in the shape of an 8 (or hour glass figure). Tie in the foam at the middle of the "8" using a figure eight wrap. Wrap thread forward to the hook eye. Pull the chenille forward over the body between the two clam shells and tie in just behind the hook eye. Lift the chenille up and add a few thread wraps underneath, enabling the chenille to point up, perpendicular to he hook shank. Whip finish and epoxy the thread wraps.


Fish the fly heavy in the stream bed, preferably in an area with a native mussel/clam population. The hourglass eyes will help get the fly down quick and stay on the bottom. Fish with an indicator to detect the often subtle bite of a redhorse, buffalo, carp, and other shellfish eating fish. Credit for the fly pattern goes to Craig Matthew's original bonefish pattern, and to sexyloops for their adaptation of the fly.

Eclipse Nymph

hook: size 10 Tiemco 3769 or other 2x heavy nymph hook
thread: 6/0 UNI, black
head: black bead, 5/32”
wingcase: flashback (mylar or other wing material), pearl
thorax: peacock herl
legs: pheasant tail, black
body :pheasant tail, black
rib: Ultra Wire black, medium
tail: pheasant tail, black

Place bead on hook and wrap thread to hook bend. Tie in seven or eight pheasant tail fibers for the tail, leaving the length of fibers about one hook length. Tie in the wire rib. Wrap thread forward over the tag end of the wire to midway across the hook shank. Wrap (palmer) the PT fibers along the hook shank, tie off and trim. Wrap the wire rib in the opposite direction that you wrapped the PT fibers, tie off and trim. Cut the flashback material in a 1/8” wide strip. Tie in. Tie in two or three peacock herls and wrap thread to beadhead. Palmer the peacock herls to the beadhead, tie off and trim. Tie in a small bunch of PT fibers on each side of the thorax behind the beadhead, length at about one hook length. Fold the flashback forward, tie off and trim. Whip finish behind the beadhead and epoxy the threads and wingcase.

The PT fibers on the dyed black tails seem to be finer than those on a regular tail. You may need to double the amount of fibers added to the die, to give the desired look and appearance for the tails and wings. Fish this in rocky riffles like a little black stonefly, or traditionally like a mayfly nymph.

A recent topic brought up at roughfish.com about how I came to be interested in fishing got me to thinking....

I grew up in Hawaii. My dad taught me to fish. I don't know how old I was when I started, but it was before I could really remember anything. My ancestors fished to survive, and so did their ancestors, and so on. It is in my blood. I used to play around in the streams and caught all sorts of tropicals like guppies and tetras, crawfish, prawns, and of course koi. I have particularly fond memories of playing in Manoa stream after school got out with my friends. My dad had a pretty ornate pond that he constructed by hand from lava rock. All of us kids helped finding rocks from time to time to add to the pond. The fish we caught we added to the pond over time. My dad fabricated all sorts of metal screen traps to catch these fish; it was pretty cool. We did a fair amount of inshore fishing, from fishing beaches with heavy surf gear, to fishing reefs with cane poles. I even remember catching rocks crabs with a bare hook and fishing line. We had outings deep sea fishing for tuna and mahi-mahi. We even had a few fishing trips to Minnesota, fishing with my uncle.

My parent's split up when I was about 6 or 7. I moved with my mom and youngest sister to be back with family in MN when I was 11. Luckily my grandpa and uncle introduced me to the wonders of freshwater fishing and fly-fishing. I've had some great memories shared with them both. Fishing for lake trout and salmon on Lake Superior, evening trips to the Kinnickinnic fishing for trout, I even remember a trip to the Apple River catching bass on a trusty old Mepps spinner. My uncle's introduction to fly-fishing is something that has stuck with me till this day. I am grateful for that, as fishing and fly tying are one of my few refuges left in this world.

Although I haven't gotten to spend a whole lot of time with my dad since I moved to MN, nearly 20 years ago, fishing is one of the strongest memories that I have of the time I spent him. That's why teaching my daughter to fish will be one of the biggest accomplishments and highlights of my life.

I got out fishing for a bit over the last two days. You'd think with warm temps and stable barometric pressure (not to mention near a full moon) that the fishing would be pretty decent. Not quite. The perch are insane right now. They are everywhere you go, shallow, deep, it doesn't matter. No dice finding tullibee yesterday. I had one encounter on the flasher today and of course I was eating my lunch at the time. I easily burned through a tank of gas drilling holes and covering spots. I at least got into a decent bite of pumpkinseeds and crappies, but nothing like the size of the fish I caught a few weeks earlier. I can't complain about the weather, I didn't need my hat, I was down to a t-shirt and I even got sunburned. The bite should pick up in March. Looks like I'll take a breather from ice fishing for a while and hit the tying bench. Hopefully I'll be able to get one more snowmobile ride in before the season is over. Once we get some spring melt, and temps stay above freezing for a few days, I may head down to the Otter Tail for some early spring fishing. I can't wait.

Rubber Legged Copper John

hook: size 10 Tiemco 3769 or other 2x heavy nymph hook

thread: 6/0 UNI, black

head: black bead, 5/32”

wingcase: flashback (mylar or other wing material), pearl

thorax: peacock herl

legs: silicone grizzly legs, silver peacock

body: Ultra Wire black, large

tail: goose biot, black

Place bead on hook and wrap thread to hook bend. Tie in two goose biots for the tail. Tie in the wire for the body. Wrap thread forward over the tag end of the wire and goose biots to midway across the hook shank. Wrap wire around the hook, 2/3 of the length, building up a tapered body. Tie off and trim. Cut the flashback material in a 1/8” wide strip. Tie in. Tie in a sili leg on each side of the hook shank at the thorax. Tie in a couple strands of peacock herl. Wrap thread to beadhead. Palmer the herl to the beadhead, building a thorax, tie off and trim. Fold the flashback forward, tie off and trim. Whip finish behind the beadhead and epoxy the threads and wingcase.

Fish the fly like a standard nymph. This should be a deadly roughfish fly with the sili legs.

Brown Antron Special

hook: size 10-16 Tiemco 2457 or other 2x heavy scud hook
thread: 6/0 UNI, dark brown
head: black or copper bead
wingcase: flashback (mylar or other wing material), pearl
thorax: antron yarn, brown stone
legs: antron yarn, brown stone
body: antron yarn, brown stone
rib: Ultra Wire gold, medium
tail: antron yarn, brown stone

Place bead on hook and wrap thread to hook bend. Tie in 3" of antron yarn, leaving the length of fibers about one-half of hook length as the tail. Tie in wire rib and wrap thread forward, a few eye lengths behind the eye. Wrap (palmer)the antron yarn around the hook, 2/3 of the length, building up a tapered body. Tie in and leave tag end on bottom of hook. Wrap rib in the opposite direction that you wrapped the antron body, cut. Cut 1/8" wide strip of flashback, and tie in as a wingcase. Wrap the existing tag end of yarn forward to behind the beadhead, building a thorax. Tie off and trim. Tie in a small piece of yarn on each side of the hook shank behind the bead head, forming the legs, about 2/3 of a hook length. Tie off and trim. Fold the wingcase forward, tie off and trim. Whip finish behind the beadhead and epoxy the threads and wingcase.


This is a designed carp fly but could be used for just about any fish species willing to take a fly. Fish this like a standard heavy nymph. This is my entry to the Carp Anglers Group fly swap this winter.

There was as total lunar eclipse over the northwestern hemisphere this evening at about 21:26 CST. I tried to take a few pictures with my Powershot S3 IS but I totally suck taking photos. I just got this camera for my birthday, so I'm learning the new modes that weren't an option on the Powershot S1. I haven't quite got the hang of it yet, and I'm sure if I had a tripod, that three-quarters of the pictures that I took wouldn't have been blurry. Looks like I'll need to invest in a compact tripod...

Blog's all set. Time to head home, watch some Idol tonight, and hit the bench later to tie up some flies. I'm participating in two fly swaps so far this winter. One has a nymph theme, the other is a carp fly theme. I've got the nymphs all finished, but now I need to start tying up the carp flies. I'll probably tie up the antron fly that I came up with on the yarn fly challenge from Corey over at roughfish.com. I'll likely add a gold wire rib for durability, and possibly a flashbakc casse for a little sparkle. I still am working on a darth vader fly variant. I like the all black look, but I want something a little different. Maybe I'll look for some black dies pheasant tails. Those would be badass. I also need to tie some nymphs that will ride hook side up. This is key when fishing for suckers in the rocks. This will reduce the number of snags and dulling of the hook point, as well as increase the hook ratio on these finicky fish. I'll be sure to tie up some buffalo killers.

Carryover

I've been working on transferring my old fishing blogs on over from another site. I think I got most of the ones I wanted moved, and my blog is looking pretty much the way I want it to, for now.

Startup

I'm starting out my lame fishing blog. Behold my incompetence while I fumble around with the web controls and set this thing up.

all right now

my old computer died on me the other week. The motherboard fried and all hope was lost to restore the machine. So I’ve been having to borrow my wife’s laptop to get network access at home. This has considerably cut down the amount of time I was able to spend online, especially checking out the fishing forums . Well all is right with the computer world now, as I picked up a new machine over the weekend. Of course it was quite tedious to reinstall software for my peripherals and to tweak the OS to my customized likings, but now I am ready to rock and roll. Even with a new OS, Windows Vista, things are running smoothly so far on my new PC. So, I hope to bring you a new HSO blog on fly fishing gear in a few days. See you soon.

Baby Brother

My 8 weight Scott ARC fly rod got a baby brother last Friday, a Scott ARC 9'6" 4-piece 6 weight! After picking up the 8 weight last month, I couldn't pass up on seconds. I got another good deal on the 6 weight. This has the same progressive taper as the 8 weight, and has a fighting butt to boot. This rod will be matched to a Lamson Velocity Hard Alox (model 2) and Scientific Anglers Mastery Series Steelhead taper fly line. This is the identical setup as the bigger brother 8 weight. I'll mainly be using it for suckers and small carp, and likely some smallmouth and trout, as well as panfish. I should be able to give the old one-two punch to the fish with these combos, as these 6 and 8 weight rods are very versatile rods, capable of handling most fishing conditions and scenarios.
Is it spring yet?

One Yarn Nymph

hook: size 10-18 Tiemco 3769 or other 2x heavy nymph hook
thread: 6/0 UNI, dark brown

head: black or copper bead, 5/32”

wingcase: antron yarn, brown stone

thorax: antron yarn, brown stone

legs: antron yarn, brown stone

body: antron yarn, brown stone

tail: antron yarn, brown stone

Place bead on hook and wrap thread to hook bend. Tie in 3" of antron yarn, leaving the length of fibers about one-half of hook length as the tail. Wrap thread forward, a few eye lengths behind the eye. Wrap (palmer)the antron yarn around the hook, 2/3 of the length, building up a tapered body. Tie in and leave tag end on bottom of hook. Cut 1" piece of yarn, and tie in as a wingcase. Wrap the existing tag end of yarn forward to behind the beadhead, building a thorax. Tie off and trim. Tie in a small piece of yarn on each side of the hook shank behind the bead head, forming the legs, about 2/3 of a hook length. Tie off and trim. Fold the wingcase forward, tie off and trim. Whip finish behind the beadhead and epoxy the threads and wingcase.

I was involved in a challenge to tie a fly using only one material, yarn, and thread. Bead heads or bead-chain eyes, optional. It was time to get creative and I had already been experimenting wtih antron yarn. I was trying to tie an all synthetic nymph. This was one of the results. Fish this like a standard heavy nymph.

LaFontaine's Sparkle Pupa

hook: size 10-18 Tiemco 3769 or other 2x heavy nymph hook
thread: 6/0 UNI, brown
head: tan or beige antron dubbing
wing: elk hair
body: antron yarn (or dubbing), amber, amber/ginger mix, or gray
pupa case: amber antron
body: amber antron
tail: antron yarn, clear or white

Placehook in vise and wrap thread to hook bend. Tie in white antron yarn, leaving the length of fibers about one hook length as the tail. Wrap thread to mid-hook and tie in two bunches of amber antron yarn, one on top and one on bottom of hook shank. Wrap thread back to hook bend. Tie in another piece of amber antron yarn. Wrap thread forward to 2/3 of hook length. Wrap (palmer) the antron yarn around the hook, 2/3 of the length, building a body. Tie off and trim. Pull amber antron forward, over the the top and bottom of the hook shank, to form the pupa case, making sure to leave a pocket around the hook shank. Tie off and trim. Take a small pinch of elk hair, clean the underfur, and stack. Tie in as the wing, one hook length. Trim. Add beige/tan dubbing and wrap to just behind the hook eye. Whip finish, forming a slight head with the thread. Tie off and epoxy the threads.

Using antron yarn to form a pupa case is unique, as it simulates a trapped gas bubble often found in emerging caddis pupae.

X Factor Nymph

hook: size 10 Tiemco 2457 or other 2x heavy scud hook
thread: 6/0 UNI, dark brown
head: black bead, 5/32”
wingcase: flashback (mylar or other wing material), pearl
thorax: antron yarn, brown stone
legs: silicone grizzly legs, silver peacock
body: antron yarn, brown stone
rib: Ultra Wire gold, medium
tail: antron yarn, brown stone

Place bead on hook and wrap thread to hook bend. Tie in 3" of antron yarn, leaving the length of fibers about one hook length as the tail. Tie in the wire rib. Wrap thread forward over the tag end of the wire to midway across the hook shank. Wrap (palmer)the antron yarn around the hook, 2/3 of the length, building up a tapered body. Tie off and trim. Wrap the wire rib in the opposite direction that you wrapped the yarn, tie off and trim. Cut the flashback material in a 1/8” wide strip. Tie in. Tie in a sili leg on each side of the hook shank at the thorax. Tie in a piece of antron yarn. Wrap thread to beadhead. Palmer the yarn to the beadhead, building a thorax, tie off and trim. Fold the flashback forward, tie off and trim. Whip finish behind the beadhead and epoxy the threads and wingcase.

Fish the fly like a standard nymph. Experiment tying with different color wire, antron yarn, and sili legs. The possibilities are endless.

Buffalo Soljah

hook: size 10 Tiemco 3769 or other 2x heavy nymph hook

thread: 6/0 UNI, dark brown

head: copper bead, 5/32”

wingcase: flashback (mylar or other wing material), pearl

thorax: peacock herl

legs: pheasant tail

body :pheasant tail

rib: Ultra Wire red, medium

tail: pheasant tail

Place bead on hook and wrap thread to hook bend. Tie in 5 or 6 pheasant tail fibers for the tail, leaving the length of fibers about one hook length. Tie in the wire rib. Wrap thread forward over the tag end of the wire to midway across the hook shank. Wrap (palmer) the PT fibers along the hook shank, tie off and trim. Wrap the wire rib in the opposite direction that you wrapped the PT fibers, tie off and trim. Cut the flashback material in a 1/8” wide strip. Tie in. Tie in three or four peacock herls and wrap thread to beadhead. Palmer the peacock herls to the beadhead, tie off and trim. Tie in 4 or 5 PT fibers on each side of the thorax behind the beadhead, length at about one hook length. Fold the flashback forward, tie off and trim. Whip finish behind the beadhead and epoxy the threads and wingcase.

Fish the fly slowly along current seams, riffles, or backwater sloughs for suckers, redhorse, carp, or buffalo. This fly also works for catching panfish and trout.

Tight Lines!