SilverDoctor
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Posts posted by SilverDoctor
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Well, as I posted on Doc's board, my much anticipated fishing trip on my drive home from Vernon was a little disappointing.
I tried experimenting in BC, and as can often happen, experiments can go bust.
No fish caught in the Blue River, no fish caught on the Fraser. Should have heeded someone else's advice, but oh well. It was amusing floating dry flies over 10lb salmon in the Blue river in a foot of water. Course, once I remembered salmon develop lockjaw in freshwater, I quickly moved on.
Jasper fishing was disappointing, most notably Medicine Lake. Lake seemed very high for late August. Tried the south end for an evening with no bites, no rises.
Saturday was spent fighting the rain on the Maligne river. Holy cow that river is swift. Found one really decent pool that Neil W was fishing; he seemed to have the trout figured out. Caught a few fish, but found the lack of holding water disappointing.
Do you guys actually fish those deep, swift runs on the Maligne? Nymphs I assume? With what, half a dozen AA tin split shot?
Also gave up rather quickly on the mouth of the Maligne (confl. w Athabasca) as it didn't seem I could find the whitefish (no bulls either).
Don't think that cold front moving into Jasper helped at all. Sporadic hatches at best and no BWO's that I could see, so I cut the trip short by a day (my friends didn't show up and I don't like camping by myself and otherwise accomodations are expensive), so there's not much more I can say. Ever had a summer where the fishing was mostly disappointing? I'm having one of those summers (course, it would help if I could get out more). Wonder what anyone else is experiencing...
Looking forward to fall backswimmer fishing.
Smitty
Thanks for posting, it's not the quantity of fish but the fishing experience. Sounds like you had a great experience.
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Black or dark colors are the key, upsize you flies a couple of sizes and fish closer to the bank.
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Welcome and see you on the water.
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I love the south end also. In the past I would just park in the Sikome lot and walk in.
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Hey Thnaks......You tie all of those? They look great. Is it expensive to get into tieing?
Depends how you approach it. You do need an outlay of equipment and materials. Just slip down to a local fly shop and you can get an Idea of costs. If you do a search on the old forum I did an article on fly tying. Let me know if you can't find it and I'll post it again.
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SilverDoctor,
Trying to figure out what you used for the handle in the 2nd picture. From left>right, it looks like maple>cork ring>burled cork>birch tree bark>burled cork>cork ring>hardwood.
Is the center section birch tree bark? How did you seal the sap?
regards,
Don
Hi Don, you have the the sequence of materials dead on, great eye. Yes the center section is Birch bark. I dried the bark and peeled it. Not much sap in the bark. I could trade you the info for a bamboo blank ....
Ha ha. I actually had to experiment a bit with some smaller sections before I got it to work. But I think I have it down now. I have some simple notes I kept on it to remind myself for next time. If you pm me I will dig them up and email em to you during the week. I did go through a bit of bark to find the right stuff. Have to get out this fall and find some more fallen deadfall. Maybe on a Raven trip.
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Was planning on going but got called in to work for an hour. Also I'm suddenly committed to going to Ikea with the wife today. Ah well, will spend some time tying flies this afternoon. I need to finish up an order for a shop in BC. of 200 Steelhead flies.
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And another one
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another one
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I've built about 12 to date, If you want to chat just pm me.
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Thanks for posting, I also fished the Miramichi river many times with my Dad. Some of my fondest early memories where in that area.
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Rain, That mens I'll be out tomorrow morning for sure.
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or if ya got a bunch, dunk them all in a cup of boiling water .. ..
BUT DON'T DRINK THE WATER!!!
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Just to add a bit to all the excellent posts here. I'm also big on trying to imitate the bait fish on the water. look in the shallows for what is on a stretch of water. Remember baitfish grow. Start with smaller imitations early in the year and size up as the fish grow. I love to target underwater boulders and other areas a predictor may hang.
Streamers generally fall into two categories, imitators and attractors. When streamers and also bucktails were designed to imitate baitfish, such as black nose dace, creek chubs and smelt. Today and you will find plenty of impressionistic patterns such as Zonkers and Woolly Buggers rather than imitations of natural forage fish. At times it's nice to go to the classics for a great imitations. Impressionistic patterns tend to have trout strike by aggression or as a territorial response.
The way I tend to fish streamers is my imitating a small baitfish out of it's shallow area. I like to swim it in a couple of short quick jerks then pause in a safe spot like small fish would then zip to another spot. Sometimes a small split shot 4" ahead of the streamer will make say a muddier or bugger swim with an erratic pulse. Be the minnow. With the spey rod I love to zip a minnow combo behind large submerged boulders way out. I try to throw a mend so the streamer pauses for a few seconds before the water pulls it across. What you want is to give the trout a good broadside look at the fly.
You can keep the fly swimming broadside, across the current, through the entire drift by casting slack line and mending until the fly completes its swing. It is possible to cast quartering upstream with an upstream reach cast and keep the fly drifting broadside by mending upstream until the fly starts to pass downstream of your position. Start mending line downstream when the fly passes below. Keep mending line away from the fly until it comes to rest directly below. Let it hang in the current for a few moments before picking it up as trout will sometimes follow the streamer though the drift and hit after it stops. Make sure to keep enough belly in the line to keep the fly swimming. Mend enough to keep the line tight, but not slack. You can control the speed of the fly by the amount of mend you put in the line. Flick the tip of the rod through the drift to tease the fly. Vary the action according to the type of fly you are using.
Fishing an undercut bank can be deadly. The trick is to get the fly to swim along the bank instead casting directly across and retrieving the streamer away from the bank. Make the cast directly across but use a wide reach cast, mending as much line as possible in the air before the line hits the water. This will put the line at a right angle downstream from the fly. Tease the fly as it swims downstream along the bank, keeping tension as the current pulls against the belly of the line.
Take trout from a slow deep pool by casting upstream and retrieve the fly back down. The fly must swim slightly faster than the current with action and strips. Dart the streamer ahead and pause to dive toward the bottom. Sulking trout will turn and lunge downstream to attack the streamer when fished in this way. The downstream retrieve is a great method for sculpin imitations, which which need to fished near the bottom to be effective. Sculpins try to take the path of least resistance when threatened, which is downstream.
Trout feed in different ways. When trout hit a streamer they aren't sipping it like a mayfly or nipping it like a nymph but they often try to kill it with a quick smash to stun the prey then a take. I often have a brown do a double hit. This double hit is really fast and may often seem like one strike.
Remember that the streamer hook is long. It acts as a leaver and you can loose a fish easily by the fly levering out of the fishes mouth. Keep that tension on, and keep that hook sharp. I will sharpen a streamer two or three times with a small ceramic sharpener while fishing especially if I feel bottom, weeds or just because.
Fishing streamers is actually more complicated than it seems. It tends to have a lot of subtle variations that can make or break a presentation, strike and battle. But it's a lot of fun.
By the way Toolman have you had a chance ot ry that little bug eyed "Doc's Dodger" streamer yet?
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I had ordered some fly tying stuff from Bill at the Fishing hole, it came in yesterday and they gave me the sale discount. A class act down there. Noticed a few fly rods at 40%. Lots of goodies on sale.
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Best wishes to your family. You definitely have the best catch of the year.
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He does beautiful work, does he still live in Cape Breton? I remember seeing an article on him in Fly Fusion.
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Is there a certain kind/size of hopper that is best. I'm kind of new to this game and am not sure of all the flies and patterns. I may even have a hopper but don't even notice. Also by dropper it can mean about anything right? San juan, nymph that type of thing.
There have been 3 or 4 hopper threads recently, try doing a search.
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Up until this year, our fishing on the Bow has been limited to strictly floating from point A to point B, with the day being long enough without stopping. Now with older children and less time restrictions on our schedules, we can finally start to stop while floating down and hit the productive runs and holes (and we have floated enough years that we know where they are, finally!).
Mike and I have both done the walk and wade fishing (not a whole bunch), but have had limited success. So aside from a few questions, I'm hoping someone can offer up some advice.
1) Do you start at the top of the run and work your way down, or the other way around?
2) How many casts do you throw before you move onto another spot when nymphing?
Thanks for any tips and advice!
Pool by pool the old adage is nymph and dry fly up and stream down. Works pretty well. But rules are made to be broken. Keep a low profile, dress in muted colors, don't stand where the trout are and fish all the water and more thatn anything else take the time to study the water.
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Hey pros, I've been fishing the Bow for years and never had problems with other (fly)fisherman like mkm and I had last light. After crowding-out another dude and forcing him to leave (swearing) back to his car, these three inconsiderate fisherman saw that I had just released a brown and decided they wanted in on the action. Two went 30 feet upsteam of me and spooked the rising fish I was casting to, and the other completed the sandwich by fishing exactly where I had just netted the last fish I had caught. This was the second time last night someone tried fishing within a short cast from me. I calmly confronted the women who seemed to be the instigator of the whole "oh, lets fish where he's fishing." She proceeded to tell me I didn't know what I was talking about and totally refused to listen to my case. This one was a real treat I'll tell ya. Anyways, I was just wondering what you guys do when people crowd you. Usually I'd just leave, but there were fish rising and I was running out of time before I had to leave. Plus we had already seen this beotch and her friends force someone else packing. If they would have asked if they could fish the run with me I would have probably agreed, but they just acted like complete morons. What's the safe distance? I usually give at least fifity yards, most the time even more.
It has happened to me several times this year. I normally just move on. I have found that by watching the people afterwards they seldom do very well anyway. I often take the opportunity to sit and watch for a while. Twice this year I waited till people moved on then took a couple of trout from the pool, once when they where still in sight.
I've learned over the years that some people are just not nice. To others or to themselves. It's they're problem not mine. I prefer the company of those who care. Move on upstream, smell the flowers, relax, unwind, look at the clouds, watch the trout and count your blessings. You are able to be part of a fly fishing fraternity who understand the unwritten rules of the water and those who enjoy it.
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1) Bow River fishing - to fish till I can no longer walk.
2) Cutthroat stream fishing - then get a buddy to lean on to get me me to the stream
3) Stillwater - after the above still have enough energy to teach fly tying.
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Been concentrating on the weight transfer and sourcing 90% of the power from the anchor hand (lower) instead of the upper - when the tag (anchor) is small and in the right place, it is like the planets have aligned and the cast requires almost no effort - doing this consistantly is the tough part - I am actually finding it easier on my left arm instead of right (old habits ingrained in the right I guess)
TM - seems my compensator is meant to be used with the sinking tips only- lurking around the rio site is helping me sort out my problems with set up - I think the shorter rod forces me to avoid the cookie cutter approach to my set-up
Ironic we call this forum a "lounge" LOL - I love your philosophy Doc - my gut is like the borg - resistance is futile - can I please have a burger, for which I will gladly pay you on Tuesday - on that note I'm going for lunch !
A great source of power on the back lift is the body turn. transfer the pull off the water using you body turn instead of your arms. You can cast all day that way. Much easier on lazy old farts like me. My personnel preference is leading with the foot under the upper most hand because this feels natural for my casting style. If you feel more comfortable with the opposite foot pointing to the Angle of aim then go with it. Your grip can be really light on the rod, I sometimes even cast with two fingers on the upper grip and only my palm under the end of the lower. Keep it at waltz beat for the correct timing. In other words, Spiral -2-3, Sweep -2-3. Shall we dance?
One of the great benefits of my gut is carefully and strategically placed as a counter weight to the rod in traditional Spey style, swinging in the wind like a haggis (and I'm not even Scottish). it also supplies me with great wading traction, a place to rest my scotch and a fly tying bench.
I'm wish I was fishin.
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Man.. for a company that makes such great fly line.. I think they have the ugliest website I've ever seen! Their web designer should be shot.
It wasn't me
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Nice cheeler! Wish I had've thought of that..
The only hopper I've tried so far is the Letort - as per Hawgstoppah's list of recommended flies.
Letort Hopper Dave's Hopper are great. Here is the one I really like.
Magnetic Release
in General Chat - Fishing Related
Posted
I like to carry my net handle up, that way the lower part of the net dangles and gets caught up in bush effectively tripping me, yanking me back by the shoulder or snapping back and nailing me squarely in the back. It also acts as a great catcher for flies on a bad back cast. Mind you it has carried my lunch, water bottle, caught dragonflies and the odd errant indicator. It's been a basket for mushrooms, blueberries, and saskatoons. I once used it to scoop up a large rattler in BC to get it out of the way.
My net is a bit of a comfort to me as it gives me promise of willey browns yet to enjoy it's webbed interior. I like running it under a trout that will not fit inside, smug joy. I often never use the little wooden sidekick but feel lost without her, so she hangs behind my shoulder encouraging me to take just one more cast in the failing light with promise of things to come.