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Jim and Linda Mclennon will be doing a few free presentations at Basspro this weekend March 10th and 11th. See below. Nice way to combat teh winter blues. I'll be doing a talk on Friday evening at 6 on equipment care. Stop into the Fly shop and say hi to Ol' Doc.

I tie what I can't buy or anything that is too expensive The only flies I tie are my preferred boatman patterns, and my articulated streamers/intruders It sounds like you don't enjoy tying nymphs, so don't tie em. From a technical standpoint, I think if you skip dries, you will be hindering your progression long term, but I don't think it would hurt too much if you delayed getting into them tho. Plus quality hackles are expensive. I think you can jump straight into tying streamers. Tying in schlappen is pretty good practice for tying in dry hackles. Stacking or spinning deer hair for your dungeons is lots of fun. but buy yourself a large stacker and gelspun thread first or it will be frustrating. And practice spinning and trimming the head first on some junk hooks cause your first few will suck. Have a play with some rabbit strips in dubbing loops and then composite loops for some awesome leeches have fun

I started with streamers and pike flies. I'm far from an expert but in my opinion one should... - Tie only what you will use. Unless you're trying to learn to be generalist and sell flies. - Buy only what you need and cannot substitute. - Use your imagination. Mix and match. - Remember that you are tying for the fish and for yourself. So just because a fly tied on youtube uses one specific material does not mean you can't play around. It's mostly about learning techniques that when put together with certain materials make a fly. I use the deer hair at the base of my bucktails as the "elk hair" on elk hair caddis. Also as wing material on foam hoppers. Schlappen fathers rather than saddle hackle for my deceivers. Brushed out acrylic yarn as dubbing and fish hair etc. Nobody has complained so far. There are loads of flies that you can mix and match both materials and techniques to make something fishable and decent looking. Some patterns are more exacting that others and just will not float/fish right unless perfect. Streamers are usually pretty forgiving on that front.

I decided to give the Bow rest for a couple weekends and get out into the mountains for some hike-in cutthroat fishing. Luckily, I hiked with a buddy who has a good eye for photography (and unluckily, with much better cardio than me). Obviously please don't name-drop the locations if you know where they are. Hopefully the photo-sharing works fine. Here are some of the highlights: " /> " /> " /> " /> " /> " /> " /> " /> " />