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Trout Spey and Preparing for the Madison Fall Run
I’m staked out here on Hebgen Lake near West Yellowstone, Montana and I’m getting excited to fish the Madison River Fall Run. The town had a fly fishing and art festival last weekend called “Wretched Mess Fest“, which is just a damn great name. My first motorcycle was a Yamaha XS500 that I lovingly referred…
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Texas Specks (Salty Toothy Trout)
In 2019, I spent a few winter months pursuing Texas redfish on the fly from North Padre Island eastward over to Matagorda Bay. I caught plenty of small puppy drum blind casting into murky water, but the goal of sight fishing to big reds in clear water was elusive. I did finally find those fish…
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A Madison River Fall Run Flybox
I’ve got a story simmering about the experience of fishing the Madison River above Hebgen lake in the Fall and it just isn’t coming together the way I want it to yet. In the meantime, let’s take a look at some of the flies that I’ve tied for that event, in West Yellowstone, Montana. Probably…
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August on the Bighorn: 2021
I had spent a couple of weeks on Hebgen lake near West Yellowstone, and after getting my fill of that top notch dry fly action, I decided it was time to move on. As often happens in my meandering travels, I didn’t have a plan set in stone. The skies had been getting more smoky from…
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Gulpers on the South Fork Arm of Hebgen Lake
July, 2021 I caught a few fish on the first day out from the float tube, but they were on a leech pattern under the surface, and I was searching for gulpers. They are the famous Hebgen trout that methodically eat emerging and spent callibaetis mayflies over a long stretch of the summer, making this…
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Fly Tying Friday
Let’s take a look at my San Juan flybox from my recent not-so-stellar visit to the northern New Mexican tailwater. About half of the flies in this box were tied while camped at the Crusher campground at the end of the “Quality Water”. The holdovers from previous trips include the terrestrial patterns in the lower…
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Doin’ the San Juan Shuffle
The San Juan river in New Mexico, below the Navajo Dam, is one of the more frequently mentioned tailwaters in the country when it comes to fish size and quantity. I’ve heard some people even assert that it is the best river in the whole country, if not the world! There are supposedly around 10,000…
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Cheesman Olives
In June of 2016, I hiked down into Cheesman Canyon to fish that stretch of the South Platte River in Colorado. Cheesman is known as a tricky body of water with “well educated” fish, fish that have seen every fly flung by many of the best anglers in the business. I do not typically enjoy…