The Fishing Gods Are Satisfied....I think

While I was waiting for popper bodies to dry, I decided to hit the river for a quick trip.  I really wanted to go back and see if I could find my camera, not that I think it would work after being in the water for 24 hours.  Well I went back to the hole where I lost the camera.  This is the place we, who fish it, call it the deep pool or deep hole.  I caught one fish on my first cast and promptly got worried.  We all know, you get jinxed if you catch a fish on the first cast.  I believe now though that the fishing gods have been satisfied.  I mean they should be right????  I did offer them up my camera and a work camera at that.  I landed 25 long ears, 10 smallies, 8 red eyed rocks, 1 fall fish and 1 crappie.  Not sure how the crappie snuck in there.  I have never caught them in this location on the river before.  I will say that it was a pleasant surprise.  I checked for the camera but alas no luck.  Not that I expected to really find it.  I managed to take a couple of photos with my cell phone camera.  I was worried about dropping it so I didn't take a lot of photos.  Here they are:

Blog Shout Out for The African Fly Angler

I wanted to take some time and give a shout out to The African Fly Angler and his blog.  When I first started blogging, this was one of the first few blogs I followed.  I was stunned to learn that not only are there trout in Africa, there are also smallmouth bass.  I know right?  Who would have thought that trout could live in Africa?  I know I didn't.  Yet  as I checked out the blog, the awesome tying and the fishing reports, I quickly learned that trout are there, are healthy and seem to thrive.  AFA has done some great fishing reports as well as some fantastic tying.  Click here to see a fishing report in which smallmouth, rainbows and browns were caught http://theafricanflyangler.blogspot.com/2011/04/saterday-outing.html  Check out his poppers as well by clicking here http://theafricanflyangler.blogspot.com/2011/04/poppers.html

Trust me this blog is well worth your time!!  Check it out!!

Sooner or Later

it was bound to be my turn.  I am referring to having a bad day on the water.  The fishing gods have been angry lately with Greg.  He had a bad week fishing.  I suppose it was only a matter of time for my number to come up.  Well it did come up.....yesterday.  Now I didn't have a bad day due to not catching anything or the lack of company.  Quite the contrary.  I caught a smallie, a nice red eyed rock and 13 long eared sunfish.  I also spent the evening fishing with my daughter.  She did fine as well catching largemouth, red eyed rocks and long ears.  It was a nice father/daughter moment.  Well it was nice until I opened my chest pack to switch to a Fish Foolin Frog popper and watched my camera fall out and quickly descend to the bottom of the Monocacy River.  My daughter turned to me and asked "was that your camera?"  I replied "Yep."  I last saw the camera rolling end over end on the bottom of the Monocacy River.  I spent the next ten minutes swimming for it.  The light was fading, the water was high and stained and hope was nonexistent.  The camera could not be located.  To make matters worse, this camera was not mine.  It was my work camera.  I had to call my company last night and explain what happened.

I also called Greg, who naturally, got a great laugh at my expense when I explained what had happened.  He did raise a good point though.  He reminded me how bad an experience he has had on this river lately and in the area in which I lost the camera.  He asked if maybe we needed to sacrifice something to the fishing gods to make things right.  Maybe he had a point???

Big Announcement....Finally I Can Say It and My 100th Post!!!!

I have a big announcement to make.  I have been hinting at it for the past month.  I had hoped to make this announcement sooner which is why I kept hinting at it.  Anyways, for the past month Melissa and I have been working with J Stockard Fly Fishing Company to become a part of their Fly Market.  Well I am pleased to announce that on Friday we went live.  We are officially members of the Fly Market and in July we will become a featured tyer and category.  I think we are both excited and nervous about this new adventure.  I have enjoyed tying flies and I am always happy to see how well they work for others.  It is very rewarding to know that someone else is fishing with something I tied and having as much success with it as I usually do. 

This announcement could not have come at a more perfect time either.  This is my 100th post.  What better way to make your 100th post than with an announcement of such importance and excitement.  Feel free to check us out at J. Stockard Fly Fishing at http://www.jsflyfishing.com/cgi-bin/category/31520

Ever Have a Day Like This.....

Where everything you do during your time fishing is wrong?  Well I have and I know now that Greg has.  We tried to do some river fishing for smallies yesterday.  You will notice that I said tried.  First, before I go into the debacle that was Greg's fishing adventure, let me again say how crazy the weather is here in Maryland.  It was overcast, windy and in the mid 70s yesterday.  We are almost at the end of June and we are still in the 70s.  Now I am not complaining mind you as the 70s are pretty nice.  My issue with the whole temp thing is the constant up and down.  I am tired of the 105 with the heat index one day and the low 70s the next.  The bigger issue is of course what it is doing to the fish.  They aren't fairing well with the constant temp changes either.  Case in point was yesterday.

We hit the river around 1:30.  I took Greg and his son to the run where I have been catching the smallies the past few outings and.....we caught nothing.  Not a darn fish.  They just didn't want to bite.  I was throwing a Clouser and Greg was attempting to use a gurgler.  I say attempting only because Greg was struggling with his casting as well as playing fishing coach with his son.  It was a continuous battle of how to cast, where not to cast, how to unsnag the lure from a rock, his person, and the trees as well as where not to walk after he fell in.  Needless to say Greg was having a rough time just attempting to fish, never mind the fact that he was struggling a little with his casting... and don't forget that the fish weren't biting. 

We moved further down and finally we located the fish.  They were in a much slower run.  I switched to a purple Road Kill Nymph that seemed to work well.  I would strip it fast and then slow/stop which would seem to result in a strike from a fish.  As we worked our way down the run, I managed to land 17 fish of which 2 were smallies, 2 were red eyed rock bass,  2 were warmouth and 11 were long eared sunfish.  Greg on the other hand struggled... yet again.  He had a swing and a miss 6 times on 6 fish.  The last one did him in.  I heard Greg call me so I turned around.  He held up his rod and said "I am done".  Apparently in an effort to catch a fish he set the hook, lost the fish, and then tried to dodge the fly coming right at him.  At some point his rod tip snapped off and he lost about 3 inches of his rod.  Some days it just pays to call it quits and go home.  Not us, though!  We went back to my house where I loaned Greg my spare 5wt and moved on to a pond I know about.

Unfortunately, the issues Greg was having continued.  He did, however, manage to land a few small bluegill but I am not really sure they made up for all the issues he seemed to be having.  The fish also weren't helping as yet again they weren't biting here either.  Maybe I should say that they weren't biting well as I managed to land 14 bluegill over the course of 3 hours.  That is tough fishing.  We could see that they were spawning and really wanted nothing to do with whatever we threw at them.  We could also see a lot of nice sized largemouth who couldn't give a rat's ass about what we threw at them.  In the end, I used the Fish Foolin' Frog and the Fire Tiger popper plus the Monocacy Bumble Bee to land the gills.  It was a long, tough day of fishing at every location.

Sometimes we as fly fishermen and women forget that the fishing itself is the goal and the catching of fish is just a bonus.  It is nice to be out in nature watching it, being a part of it regardless of what we catch.  Of course, this could just be me talking since I managed to catch fish yesterday... Your thoughts,  Greg?

Fishing Report for 06/20/2011

Went out yesterday with Greg and his on on their boat.  We hit a local lake.  This lake is usually heavily fished and therefore it can be a real struggle to connect with anything.  All of us did very well though which was surprising.  We also managed to catch a few yellow perch.  I have never caught a yellow perch on the fly rod.  The interesting thing about the perch was that they are not supposed to be in the lake.  Currently, they are unsure how they got in there.  We managed to catch 5 of them in four different locations. 

Greg and his son were using spinning gear while I fished with the fly rod.  I was rockin the clouser minnow in yellow and green with red flash.  It was slaying them.  I ended the day with 63 Warmouth, 15 Crappie, 10 Bluegill, 8 Long ears, 7 Largemouth and 1 yellow perch.  Not bad at all if I do say so myself.  I will admit that my arm was sore after 10 hours of throwing a weighted fly around the lake but boy was it worth it.  Ok now let's see some fish porn......

Happy Father's Day to Me

Went for about 4 hours yesterday to the river.  I wanted to get some fishing in during father's day.  My wife, who is awesome and rocks, came with me to keep me company.  I threw my size 10 clousers the whole time I was there.  The water is still high, fast and stained so the fishing is still tough.  There is no popper fishing right now given how fast the water is still moving.  So, I threw the clouser and did pretty well.  I managed to land a total of 16 fish of which 4 were smallies, 11 were long eared sunfish and 1 was a big surprise.....a 20 inch catfish.  I haven't caught a catfish on the fly rod in quite some time.  It was a total surprise and put up one heck of a fight.  I could not find my camera so I had to use my cell phone so I am sorry for the crappy photos.  Oh and since I was wading and there was no shore line for me to step on to I had to hold the catfish out as far as I could to photograph it.

Poppers in Action

FinFollower over at FinFollower.com took the Safety Cone Slayer out for a test drive yesterday.  It produced, no shock there, and was working great until he lost it.  Sorry to hear it was lost so soon but glad it worked well for the time you had it.  Click here to read about it Safety Cone Slayer in Action

Jacob from Chasing Blue Lines was also using his shiny new Purple Night Stalker and doing well.  Click here to read about it June Pond Report

Great job guys.  So glad to see you both catching fish with your poppers.

Hello Old Friend....How I Have Missed Thee

The past couple of weeks have just been terrible for me.  I have had issues in both my professional and personal life.  I apologize for not being able to blog more.  I just haven't had the time.  My reel crapped out along with my line coupled with my Regal vise.  In all we spent quite a bit of money to get everything back up and running.  I am guessing one of the kids knocked my vise off the table, picked it up, and didn't bother to tell anyone about it.  Big surprise.  The weather here has been up and down.  We have had a lot of rain which in turn has made the water high, fast and stained.  Well despite all of that, I managed to get out on Sunday.....for all of five casts.  I took the family to the river to check it out.  It looked great so we raced home and I got everything ready.  New reel, new line, lots of hope.  By the time I was done, I walked by a window and noticed that the sky had gotten darker.  Taking a look outside I knew it was going to be a close one.  Well I packed everyone up and headed to the river.  We got there, I got in, and got literally five casts in before the thunder and lightening drove me from the water.  No rain mind you but I have a healthy fear of becoming a human lightening rod.  Go figure.  So we went home.  Several hours later and still no rain I was pissed.

Anyways, we decided to give it another go today.  Let me again say that over the past couple of weeks here in MD the weather has been up and down.  Last week the heat index was 105.  Yesterday in was 92.  Today it was 72.  I figured I would give it a shot regardless of the 20 degree temp change.  The water actually wasn't as cold as I thought it would be but it was high, fast and stained.  Not good popper water.  However, it was perfect clouser and Road Kill Nymph water.  God how I forgot how much fun smallies are not to mention the fact that river fish fight like crazy in general.  In all I managed to land 8, three of which were smallies.  The bite was slow given the temp change but it was so worth it.  Hello old friend, how I have missed thee so much!!!!!!!!!!

BTW I know they are small but they are smallies nonetheless and these are pretty average for this body of water.  I love them just the same!

Order Up!

Here is an order I did for a customer who will be chasing bream.  It contains 1 Fire Tiger size 8 Popper, 1 Fish Foolin' Frog size 10 Popper, 4 Price's Panfish Persuaders, and 2 Road Kill Nymphs.  A great all around package for chasing the bream/gills.  They should do great with them and I cant wait to see some photos of what they catch.

Orvis

The family and I stopped by the Orvis store yesterday.  I had to get some new leaders and tippet.  We decided to check to see how the poppers and Monocacy Bumble Bee were selling.  As I walked in, the owner told me he needed more and I figured that was a good thing.  It was.  Checking the bins with the flies, I saw that all of the small Fish Foolin' Frogs were gone as well as most of the big ones.  The Luscious Lemon had sold roughly half of what we brought in.  The Purple Night Stalker was also selling.  Interesting enough, the small Safety Cone Slayer sold some, not a lot, and the big (size 8) wasn't selling at all.  I wonder why.  I have great luck and success when I fish this pattern.  I am hoping some people give it a try to see how good it really is.  Anyways, he asked for more poppers and I will deliver.  I think we are going with 2 dozen of the Fish Foolin' Frog in both sizes 8 and 10, and a dozen in each size of the Retro Lime-A and a few others.  I will keep you all informed as we go.  I have some new stuff to showcase but it will have to wait until tomorrow or later in the week.  Also, I still have the big announcement to make.  Stay tuned for it.  I am only waiting to hear from someone and then I will let you all know what has been going on!