September 13, 2011

smart business decisions

What do you do with all of the countless fly leftovers and daddy's got to eat? You trade flies for beef. Prime 100% grass fed locally raised beef. I'm glad someone's got a use for all the test flies and holdover patterns from the past several years, but frankly it was an insult to them to be sitting in my fly boxes not even getting a chance to see light of day or breathe some fresh air. Now, there's two winners involved here. My buddy gets to stack his fly boxes with some roughfisher originals and I get some tasty beef from Thousand Hills Cattle Company. Winner.

thousand hills beef
I think I've just found a new niche market, bartering flies for food and drink. Now if anyone's got some homebrewed IPA, barleywine ale, or imperial stouts they're willing to trade for, I'm listening.
Use the contact link to get in touch.

September 11, 2011

The Mustache Ride Strikes Again

Another poor victim who went on a Mustache Ride.

mustache ride
Believe it or not, I've made it out fishing twice this past week. Almost unbelievable considering the summer I've had back at the Roughfisher Command Post. And as much as I'd like to contribute fishing stories and adventures with you all, I've had a couple of cameras snafus this past week, one involving accidentally deleted photos which were immediately overwritten by Android OS, the other involving mystery photos that never showed up on my SD card. Maybe it was operator error, who knows, but the bottom line is I won't put up a fishing story without photos simply because then it becomes just that, a story. You know what they say, pics or it didn't happen. Words to live by....

sneak attack
So I met up with a Facebook friend of mine the past two weekends. Last weekend was on his home turf near southeastern Minnesota. This weekend was on my home turf up on the Otter Tail in northwestern Minnesota. Kind of like a home and home series. Flows in both regions have been somewhat stable, something that has been in short supply this season. Even the Otter Tail was low, having finally dropped to 543 cfs, the lowest it's been in two years. Of course normal flows for this time of year is 206 cfs, but I'll take what I can get. We'll see how long this lasts.

bassin
the release
It was ungodly hot this weekend with highs around 90 both days. Fine for you southern folk, but not for us northerners, and especially not in mid September. Hell that's above average for us even in the peak of summer in July. Regardless, the bass were soaking it up. I watched countless numbers of smallies expolode towards my fly as I skittered it across the rocky shoreline. There was tail dancing involved. I know it's just a bass, but it provided for some quick entertainment between searching for pods of carp.

heron style
With the lower flows and water levels in the reservoirs above Orwell, I was expecting to find a bunch of congregated carp feeding. No dice. This has been the summer of where's the fish? I can see fish being dispersed off the flats during high water and on to the floodplain, but now that the water's dropped, those flats are barren and the floodplains dry. Where have they gone? I have no idea, but I'm curious to see if these fish will work their way upstream this fall IF the flows stay somewhat reasonable for awhile. At least that's what I can hope...

slayed
capr
Finally got my first Minnesota carp to take a Mustache Ride. I had pondered whether or not this fly would be too big for the Minnesota variety carp, but I was pleasantly surprised when this fish hit it. I watched a pod of two fish turn out off a flat and enter the main channel. I was at a high vantage point and dropped the fly right into their feeding lane. I had wondered if my fly was going to be coming in hot and way too high for those fish until I watched one of them roll up off the bottom and rise to the fly. It quickly inhaled it and turned downstream. Any shred of doubt about whether or not this fly would be effective on Minnesota carp was immediately thrown out the window. Now that's what I'm talking about! Not the biggest carp by any means, not even average sized really, but this little guy helped turn the worm and proved to me that the Mustache Ride can hang wherever it's fished. Good to know.

bass thumb
I know the bass love a Mustache Ride. Thanks for the bass thumb little fella...