Custom rod madness

I've been working the past several days on some custom rods for some folks in the area and finished up one last night. It's a Winston BIIx 9'6" 6wt that I would love to fish myself. It didn't come easy, however, with seemingly never ending problems with parts manufacturers as well as no small amount of parts modifications on my part, it was a nail-biter to say the least. With all the problems as well as some serious personal issues coinciding with the build there's a lot of heart and soul in this one and I'm going to be proud to present this fine rod to the customer tomorrow. Hopefully it means a lot to him because it certainly does to me. With spring runoff approaching I've got one more to finish for a good friend before I can even think about starting on my lake rod which will be a serious departure from the traditional. If progress continues as it has in the past few days I should be able to get out and fish this week for a few days and maybe get over to the Henry's Fork with Burkhart.

Boooo. Yaaaaaaaaay!!

After a few weeks of not fishing, I headed south and met up with Andrew D. to fish for a few days. Monday was brutal, we fished hard in off-color conditions all day and came back with only a small bow and a whitey to show for it. For an area reputed to hold big browns, we didn't see anything to excite us. There was even a good midge hatch going and no signs of fish. Disheartened, we decided to change up the game plan and switch rivers Tuesday. It turned out to be a great idea and we spent the entire day on a stretch less than a mile long. Throwing nymphs and leeches was the ticket and within ten minutes of hitting the river the first big brown came in, followed by several more hard-fighting cuts, browns, and bows of good size. Actually, one cut caught twice on different flies which fought harder the second time. The water temp was in the mid forties all day and it seemed to be about right to get the fish out of slow mode. The whiteys seemed to be in a frenzy as well and couldn't keep off our flies, so much so that nearly every cast brought one in. Oddly enough, the whiteys may have made the day because we were catching so many that the entire time fishing we were cracking up at the absurdity and every few minutes one of us would hook something else. The action stayed on nymphs throughout the day and although some errant BWO's were in the air we saw only a few scattered rises and didn't bother with dries. This was certainly not the creep around in the bushes and stalk fish kind of day that is typical on this river. When the last big brown came in around 6, we decided to pack it in and go get a cold one, satisfied with our comeback from the serious ass kicking we took the previous day. And to add to how good it was, Andrew lost his net at some point and received a call a few hours later from some dude who found it. He said he'd found "one of them trout scoopin nets." I'm not kidding. I may have to put a sign up in the shop that says "Trout Scoopin Nets".

Cutty Redemption

Ok, so after trashing Cuts all day Monday and Tuesday, I stand corrected and hereby apologize to the Snake River Cutthroat for being so down on them. I headed down the canyon today and brought the 7wt. to get out to a riffle that I couldn't reach last time with the 3wt. As before, fish were bouncing all over slamming midges. Two absurdly long casts (and one very frustrating tree snag) into the far riffle and I watch the indicator jump sideways and disappear. I set the hook and discover that pigs can fly. This girl jumped three times before coming in. Figuring the fish was securely hooked, I grabbed the camera and went for the underwater shot. It's a lot easier to do this when you don't have a bouncing rod in the other hand, as I found out. I was only able to get one halfway distinguishable shot of her before I gave up and figured I better land the fish before she got off. She measured just shy of twenty two and was lean and mean. I don't normally measure but figured this one was worth it. A few minutes after releasing her the wind and snow picked up and it got noticeably colder. I figured I wasn't going to top that and packed it in. So accept this as my apology, cutties everywhere, and kindly keep eating my flies.

Upper Green Overnight

In the past two days Josh Graffam, Andrew D. and myself headed into the upper Green to check out open water caused by a hot spring flowing into the river. We skiid in and set up camp under bluebird skies and hit the river around noon. Between the three of us we caught a lot of browns and bows in the 10-16" range using mostly nymphs. Josh got one cutty on Monday. Princes and San Juans seemed to be the ticket. Andrew got the largest of the trip with a nice bow late Monday as it was getting dark. This morning we set out with temps in the high 30's. Josh and Andew both headed downstream of camp and pulled some decent fish each. I headed upstream to fish the inlet of the spring and fished anything that looked good on the way up, pulling a fish or two out of each hole, but not the monster I was looking for. I was able to pull eight small fish from the inlet area before the wind picked up and made casting a bit of a chore. None of us pulled any pigs but we had a great time nonetheless. It was really nice to get away from the Snake and hook into some fish that actually try to get away. I'll take a 10 inch bow or brown over a 16" Snake River Cut any day.

Hunt for the Big Iron

Getting geared up for next week. It looks like Andrew D, Josh Graffam and myself are going to be heading into the upper Green on Monday. Andrew and I have been talking about doing this in the winter for a couple years now and with some recently heard rumors, it sounds like we need to get there. I've been working on some patterns for an endangered baitfish species that lives in the area and is supposedly high on the trout hitlist. Hopefully we'll find something worthwhile (double digit browns are the goal) but however it goes, I have a feeling it's going to be good. Who knows, Josh might finally get his monster...

Snake River Canyon Feb. 17

I still can't figure out why everbody goes all the way to the South Fork in the winter. Andrew D. and I headed down the Snake canyon today for a shot at some areas that practically never get fished. After a long snowshoe in and no small amount of fumbling through deadfall on snowshoes, we started working some runs with nymph rigs. By midday, after catching nothing despite bein able to spot fish, we had worked up to some bouldery pocket water that Andrew had spotted on the hike in. After about a minute of checking it out fish started porpoising all across the river. With a pretty steady snow coming down, we opted for midge nymps and proceeded to beat up on the large pod of cuts and whities. I was throwing a #18 zebra midge with a gray bodied emerger and andrew was throwing a blood midge nymph unweighted. We pulled a few dozen cuts to 18" as well as a pile of whitefish that started to be a nuisance after a while. Having to pick them up nearly every cast made for some very wet gloves that went really well with the steady wind and snow blowing on us. We headed in once the cuts seemed to slow down their feeding around 2:30 but were still seeing sporadic rises as we started the hike out. Andrew finally got his redemption after being skunked the past few times out on the Snake.

Historical Weirdness

Weird to say the least.  There is an incredibly slim chance that there is a remnant population of landlocked atlantic salmon floating around the upper Snake river.  Absurd?  Maybe.  My research indicates that there were stocking attempts in Yellowstone and Duck lakes in 1890.  Based on some recently heard stories and a recent personal experience on the Snake, I'm not convinced the stocking efforts completely failed.  In fact, the current theory is that a small population of these fish survived and have been mistakenly identified as Loch Leven strain brown trout over the years when they are occasionally caught.  The only way to be sure at this point is to catch another one.....