flyangler

Stella's?

The spots we fished in Idaho are at least a 3 1/2 hour drive from Sandpoint; the St. Joe and the Clearwater near Avery and Pierce. I'll bet there's some good fishing closer to Sandpoint. check this: http://sandpointoutfitters.com/flyfishing.html

No indeed. We've enjoyed a barley pop or two there in the Pass't. Still driving that magenta truck and chasing the steelhead?

Thanks for the PM's fellas. Much appreciated.

I'm psyched. We're returning to Canada for our fishing vacation after two years of straying into Idaho and Montana. I liked Idaho better of the two, but have fond memories of the 5 or 6 prior adventures to BC and AB. Our first 5 days will be in the Fernie area, and then we're staying by the Castle and it's branches for the remainder of the time. Some Wisconsin friends who have never seen your beautiful country are traveling with us. We're driving up from Minnesota. It's been a long time since I've even lurked here, but I try to keep up to date on Lynn, Darren and sometimes even Tiana and that Bull Trout master on fb. I'll be tying Double Bunnies and heavy black stonefly nymphs for the bullies. I remember doing well with Lime Trudes and curiously small Coachman Stimulators with the cuttys. Also looking forward to tossing obscenely large hoppers, but we hate tying those. Any comments you'd like to offer as we prepare for our trip? Good microbrews available? Good values in dining out? Flies you can't live without?

Well, it's been too long since I stopped in here, but it looks like you've kept the place in good order. Very very funny T. I still need to see video, though.

That first golden looks like it's smiling! Must have been lonely and glad to see you.

I don't fish streamers much. Very inspirational post! I'll have to tie up a few.

Coho like this in blue and silver with a grizzly tail. You may want a swivel to keep from knotting your tippet, but it works just fine on heavy tippet if you expect it to just wobble, not spin. I made mine out of blue lure tape that I found among the spinners in a tackle shop and used some silver mylar from a potato chip bag. I did clean the chip bag before tying or it would have driven me crazy at the tying bench, as I try not to eat and tie in the same area! http://bvipirate.com/spoonfly/index.html Smallmouth bass seem to like this one too.

That's amazing.

Besides finding an excellent way to spend my time, I've only found the usual angler tools that have already been mentioned. However, for our river clean up, we award a prize for the oddest find. In previous years the winners have found: A 10 point buck (dead) with a lawn chair stuck in his antlers. A waffle iron and a tiki torch. A plastic plant, potted in concrete. A metal headboard with bullet holes in it. A golf ball. From Palm Beach. Not winners, but not bad: an air conditioner, a plastic glow-in-the-dark-statue of Jesus, a big orange shovel, a Schmidt beer chair with a place to stash your beer under the seat, a mattress and box spring set still in the plastic wrapper, and articles of clothing too numerous to count.

It may not be a true spider, nor a scorpion, but it is 100 percent ugly. Unless you're talking about Graham Owen's version of it. http://www.grahamowengallery.com/fishing/Camel_Spider.html

Outstanding work, Max. I can't even pick a favorite, they all rock.

The cat will not chew the wings of the fancy fly until it is nearly done.

I cast right and left, but nobody says I do either well. I do manage to get the fly in front of the fish, though. I wish you well (and fast!) in your recovery. It is absolutely worthwhile to go fishing anyway. So cast lefty, if the line handling and fish netting chores don't aggravate your right. Probably somebody else should row the boat, thought. And, can you still pop a brew?

The river clean up I organize is always scheduled for a Saturday near Earth Day. This year's event is Saturday the 25th. I've spent many hours already shepherding my volunteers who now number 244. We clean a 25 mile stretch of trout water in western Wisconsin. Last year we pulled a couple thousand pounds of trash and a couple thousand pounds of recyclables out of the river. Angler reports lately have the fishing good and the cleanliness excellent, so maybe we're putting ourselves out of a "job" after 5 years. Maybe residents of that county are treating every day like Earth Day now.

Pricier than B.C. eh?

My husband had his surgery a couple of days ago and is back at work today. He'll need reading glasses for the close up stuff, so he still won't see my wrinkles that well. Whew!

Happy Birthday and many happy steelhead returns.

Lynn, all I can say about your topless qualifier is that it would hurt you more than it would hurt me if I did it. There's evidence of blindness caused by seeing me in that condition, what with my Mike's cataract and all. As for the sandwich, I thought it sounded so good that I made my own version for my straight, married-with-children fishing buddies today and they thought they absolutely rocked with a Pilsner Urquell. To wit: Turkey on ciabatta with provalone and raspberry chipotle salsa. It didn't suck that we dined streamside on a glorious, sunny spring day with a major blue winged olive hatch ahead of us. But I digress. I'd love to float in your boat and maybe catch some fish and certainly enjoy a frosty bev, but I'll just have to daydream about it.

That WAS pretty freakin funny. Thank you!

We were thinking that maybe this summer we'd get back to AB and BC. Now my spice's company is contemplating further layoffs. We won't know until May if they'll keep him, which just extends the unpleasant uncertainty. Fortunately, he'll get his cataract fixed in a couple of weeks, while he still has health insurance. If I needed to work to support us, the clients of several non-profits I volunteer with would be up a creek without a paddle. I can do this, I put my first husband through law school, I'm just feeling a little blue about getting back to your part of the world again. So feel free to try and cheer me up.

I thought for sure that the fish came here. I'm in the same boat as Maxwell and Silver Doc. Most of the time I tie to please the fish and some of the time I tie to please myself. It never hurts to try something new and give one away to your friends. If they catch fish on them, you might put one in your box, too. Or sell them to your friends!

I hardly no where to begin.

Absolutely agree with Maxwell. Hook in the ramp, hackles off the face. My personal preference beyond that, is to arrange them by species, color and size in the ridged part of the box. For attractors like Royal Wulff or The Usual, anywhere is fine for me. The lid of my dry fly box is flat foam and that's where I put the big hoppers and little floating terrestrials like ants and beetles. I use a different box for sub-surface things like nymphs, brassies, scuds and streamers. In general, I try to remember to put enough space between them to get my fingers in there. I have a tweezers in my tying kit, but not in my vest, so I've got to be able to pluck them out of the box, even with frozen fingers. No matter how you decide to arrange them, be sure to let them dry before storing for any period of time to avoid rust. Also, go through the box and clip out tippet ends you may have left on a used fly, remove any hopelessly unwound flies, bent hooks, broken points and so on.