Friday, November 4, 2011

Dry Flies On Ice

Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Taking the Denver Broncos Fishing

I had the pleasure of taking Kyle Orton and Chris Kuper from the Denver Broncos fishing last weekend. They were cool guys and had a great day. The fishing was decent, they landed 10 trout out of 20 strikes, some action on dries most on nymphs. The Broncos had a bye week and the new NFL rules state that players need at least four consecutive days off. So if any other NFL'ers, or anybody for that matter, wants to go fishing my schedule is wide open for the next couple weeks.

Tuesday, October 11, 2011

Wisconsin River Pike

The family flew back to Wisconsin last week for a wedding, and I got to squeeze in a few hours of pike fishing. We've never had too much luck with big pike on the Wisconsin, (a few 35 inchers), but plenty of little guys. I got my wife her first toothy on the fly. My pops always does well with the spinner/dinner rod. I caught an even dozen and picked up a couple bonus smallmouth. A bucktail fly with a barred rabbit zonker strip did most of the damage. A pure white bunny leach also worked well and was easier to cast. Sometimes I add a little spinner for extra action, (Macks Smile Blades), they are light, easy to cast, and always work great.






Monday, October 10, 2011

Crushing the Colorado

My buddy Nate and I had a great day fishing on the Colorado River the other day. Anyone who fishes knows there are good days and bad days on the water, we definitely had a good day. We caught mostly brown trout on a variety of techniques. We started nymphing with small midge and mayfly patterns. That's how these two were caught.

Some clouds came in so we switched to dries. A few missed strikes from some bigger fish were quickly forgot upon seeing tenacious little brown trout do back flips out of the water for our flies.
Then we switched to streamers and busted the biggest browns of the day. Casting at the bank and giving the fly a few short strips followed by a pause drove the fish nuts


Beautiful fall colors on the trees and trout, a great friend, and fishing! fishing! fishing! A great day crushing the Colorado.

Saturday, September 10, 2011

Fish are Food



 Things are starting to slow down at the shop, so today I had the pleasure of taking my wife fishing. We hiked into the hills and fished for little brookies.
 On the left is what brook trout look like just after swimming in the river. On the right is what they look like just before swimming in my stomach.

 

Tuesday, September 6, 2011

2,000 Views

Wow 2,000 people actually viewed my blog. I know that's not that many, but I haven't even figured out my followers page yet. I'm sure I don't have 2,000 friends so that means random people must be just checking my stuff out. I hope more people check my stuff out... I hope millions of people check my stuff out and I make millions of dollars. I hope I revolutionize fly fishing, save the world from useless politics, and end world hunger. Well, maybe I'm getting ahead of myself. I've made around $1.50 with AdSense so far witch might buy a hungry kid a cheeseburger. Either way I'd like to thank all the Dead Pike Fly Fishing Fluff Chuckers who Chase Tail and think being an Average Zero is a Way of Life. I would like to thank the fish and our ability to think, dream, and scheme of ways to catch them. I'd also like to thank my wife, who can stroke fish (and other things), my daughter who would like to catch fish but can only manage to fall in the water (she even fell in an ice fishing hole), my dad who stuck me in the back of the boat, my mom who had me, my sisters for feeding me worms, Eagle Claw for making hooks (maybe they'll send me some free ones), Sage (again maybe free stuff), and our lord savior mother nature for making fish.... OK getting ahead of myself again.
What's a blog without a pic, so this is why trout suck and toothys are awesome.

Wednesday, August 17, 2011

Family Vacation and Colorado Fun

Had family visit recently.
My sister Amy and her husband Joe.
Lauren

Dominic

Ella

Our daughter MooMoo

Fishing
The Captain


Fun Fun Fun





Thursday, August 4, 2011

Here Fishy Fishy

I often think that when you talk to the fish they answer. Sometimes I talk with my mouth and other times with my fly rod. When using ones mouth I'm not quite sure if the fish hear you, but it keeps you occupied and concentrating on your fishing.  I like saying things like "I just want to look at you" or "I'm gonna let you go". My clients always mess it up though. They say things like "Give me the biggest rainbow trout ever!!!" then they catch a whitefish by snagging it in the rear end... Just know if you ever here me praying to the fish it's becoming a rough day. When I talk to the fish with my fly rod it's magic. Fishing dry flies I can preform the swinging stonefly struggle, the skitter drop caddis hop, and the mega mend turn your mayfly around. I can wiggle a nymph like it's nobodies business. I'm a jerk jerk jerk pause with the buggers and you can take that to the bank.

This is one of my best clients taking his son fishing.
All dads should do that.
This couple fished through a rain/hailstorm. Grey mud was floating in from the left, red mud from the right. There was floating islands of pine needles, and they still caught fish.

Two brothers stoking it.



Thursday, July 14, 2011

My New Boat

Here is some pictures of my new Clackacraft drift boat. Awesome boat, but not an awesome time to buy it. The rivers in Colorado are still raging. I did launch it in a couple lakes however. Once at Stagecoach where we got blanked for pike, and then at Clear Creek Reservoir with my wife putting the first fish in the boat! It was a stocked rainbow on a spoon, but it was a fish and it was in the boat. I quickly restored dignity to the vessel by landing one on the fly rod. Then we tried for bigger toothier critters only to get blanked again, thank heaven for stocked rainbows... On a serious fishing note, the Eagle River is on fire right now. Water levels are dropping and floatable, by raft!!! We are catching them with dry fly's, swinging nymphs, and stripping buggers. These two were caught on elk hair caddis' with yours truly on the oars.



Thursday, July 7, 2011

Fourth of July Moose and More

I had this moose walk past my patio the other morning, it's cool to see nature that close to your home. He did walk under a ladder however, I hope he's not superstitious. I was pretty busy the last couple of weeks guiding. The water is still raging but we are getting fish in the net. I had a twelve year old, Weston, who caught twelve fish on the Eagle. The trout in Homestake are starting to hit dry flies as well... Awesome!



Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Taking a Dump at Teva 2011


There were a lot of highs and lows for me at this years Teva Mountain Games. I qualified second in the Quarter finals out of seventy five people. Then for the second year in a row I missed the cut in the semi's by one spot.... It made me want to vomit. That's like leading a bass tournament and then having your boat sink, or dropping your birthday cake on the floor. It's like winning the lottery then getting hit by a bus!!! Well maybe I'm getting a little dramatic, but I felt pretty bad. Then heaven sent me an angel. On the way home I was explaining to my daughter how you can't win them all, and she replied "Dad, we can pretend you won."  Things didn't seem so bad after that, because I have already won. A thousand dollars and a new Sage set up would be nice though.


The first round is distance and accuracy, I qualified second.


Then on to the bridge in front of thousands of people, this is where I flailed.
We're number one.

Saturday, May 28, 2011

Back At It

It's great to be back in Colorado and working again. The water is high and rising so I've been going to Homestake Creek. It is a tailwater that's not affected as much by the spring runoff.


  


Small steam small fish

It's pretty though


Check out this group


She was stoked to catch a stick

One of my friends had his parents in town, congrats Scott and Kristen, so I took his dad fishing. We decided to try the Eagle River, high water and all, and it was good. We easily landed 20 fish in a couple of hours. We had to move around to find fishable water, but when we did the trout were easily nymphed up with San Juan Worms and bead headed nymphs.