fishfreak

don't forget the big sanjuan worms during runoff!

i generally keep 3 of each in my box, and replenish regularly. if i'm out of a particular fly, it forces me to try a fly i don't normally use. however, i have more (~6) of my go to flies, which i'll share with others or just lose on trees, rocks, and bad casts.

She's a keeper alright. All I have to do now is feed her subliminal messages throughout her childhood so that she loves fishing when she's older.

It's been a busy past 3 months, as our little girl Amelia was born January 3 at 1:02 am. She'd be a hefty broonie at that size, hehe. She's grown a ton already in the last 3 months, and we've been enjoying every minute of it. I haven't been on here much lately because of it, but hopefully I'll be able to escape here and there to pound the bow! (actually, I did yesterday... pic & report to come!) She still likes to sleep.

Yeah, I tend to lose flies before the fly starts to unravel. However, I've had times where my unravelled dry fly outperforms my perfectly tied ones. Still trying to figure that one out... Icky's been great to me. Glenbow's flies are good too.

My second pair of waders were Streamsides. The first few days they were great, and I thought they were excellent bang for the buck. However, after maybe 5 days of fishing, they started leaking. This started a 2 year debacle of literally pouring Aquaseal into the seams of the neoprene boot. This would work for a day or 2, but then the leaks would come back. It's definitely not a lot of fun when you're fishing in the fall with a leg full of water. I then tried a giant tube of Goop, both inside and outside of the seams, and still there was a leak. I thought what the heck?!? Frustrated, I bought a pair of Simms Guides for a decent price and have used and abused them for the last 2.5 years with no issues. Leaky waders suck. Good ones are worth their weight in gold. I hope you don't go through the frustration I went through.

I've hooked 100+ cutties in 2 hours, but never had a 100 (landed) fish day. I hate to admit it, but I like catching fish - big ones, small ones, ugly ones, and the odd edible one too. And I'd do it again.

BC called... they want their steelhead back. Sweet fish!

bhurt, I saw your pile in the woods. this was right in the middle of the path... not your style. rickr, I pissed on the pile to mark my territory. I'm taking over!

nice browns!

I don't catch enough big fish to stop measuring, but I've only actually taped 1 fish in my life. All the others I measure against my rod or net if I need to. However, I only do this on 20+ inchers now. I like the arm measurement approach... I might try that next time. Maybe I'll tattoo the measurements on my arm. As I get old and wrinkly, an 18 incher will be a 24!

Hey, I found a pile of crap on a path on my way to the Bow on the south end of the city, and it had a lot of berry seeds in it. To me, it looked a lot like fresh bear scat. Have there been any reports of bears in the 22x area? It was a creepy (and long) walk back to the car in the dark.

nice salmon!

yeah!!! evil!!! yeah!!!

This run of warm weather should have them looking up, especially this weekend. Too bad I'm out of town.

Awesome pics! I'm pretty sure I know where you were, but I'll keep it quiet. Looks like you've had an eventful summer!

Been there, done that. I feel your pain, dude.

I'm not a pro, but here are my thoughts: Before the heavy July rain, I thought the cutty fishing was normal. The water temps were great (wet wading with no excruciating pain to the feet), bugs were hatching, and lots of fish to be had on the dry. After the July rain, I found that fish were harder to come by. I'm blaming the higher water flows and lower temps for this, as it seemed that the fishing were rising a little later (when the water wasn't as cold, ie. my feet didn't feel like they were going to fall off). I waited until there was a good week of warm weather before I returned to the cutty streams and was rewarded with some decent fishing days, but not as much surface action. I would say I've only been catching about 50% of my fish on the dry (and the rest on the dropper), when usually it would be 60-80% on the dry. I've found that rivers like the Liv have been getting a little tougher to fish on the dry since I've started fishing there in 2001. I remember in 2001/2002 sitting on a certain hole that held over 150 fish, and catching 50 fish between the 3 of us in a couple of hours. Over the last 8 years, the productivity of that hole has diminished as the fish have gotten bigger (and probably smarter). This year, I didn't get any in that pool, but landed a few nice ones in the faster water above it. My fish count has decreased, but the average fish size has increased. 16+ inchers were tough to find back then, but now I usually get some 18+ inchers (and sometimes 20+") in a typical day. I used to get away with fishing a green drake most of the day in mid-July, catching 20-30 fish with the one fly. Now, I need to switch up my flies a lot more and go smaller. Also Overall, I would say this has been a good year for cutty fishing for me, but not as many on the dry. Every year I'm working a little harder to catch them, but have been rewarded with bigger fish on the average over the 8 years I've been hitting the cutty streams. Just my observations...

no ego stroking here... just lots of awesome pics. thanks for sharing both the pics and the tribute to your grandpa. hope to see more pics from ya.

Nice colours on the cutties!

Thanks for the report GM. Yeah, I know that there are pockets of decent fishing in the area, but I also hope that, with some work, the Elbow can get as good as its cousins to the south. Gorgeous brown by the way. The colours are awesome!

Good luck on the procedure. Let's hope your vision improves. Maybe that's why you suck at dryfly fishing.

Let's hope that money is put into good use on the Elbow. I'd love to see that fishery improve.

Nice cuttie, and gorgeous water! I can almost feel my legs getting cold from those pics, hehe.

I think he dreamed this one up. It never happened. He THINKS he landed a few on a dryfly, and even threw in a few that he lost for good measure. He forgot to end the story with "... and then I woke up."