Synonymous

2015 brought quite a few changes to my world. The biggest and most exciting is that we welcomed our 3rd child home!  A little boy who is going to have a rough go at catching his older sisters.  He just turned one this week and what a soul he is!

Fishing.  Few people have it as good as I do!  Great, skilled and observant friends and family to flog the water with.

Mentor friends from whom I can mooch as much fishy info as possible from.

Unbelievable waters to ply my craft on.

 Speaking of waters, the focus of my endeavors has relocated.  I now call the 30 miles of river falling from Flaming Gorge dam my home waters.  These waters are a place that allow me to consistently harvest knowledge and enable me to understand presence among the terribly beautiful environment we know as "The Green."

The fish, the geomorphology, the fluvial biology.  Flora, fauna, weather. The drift, the flow.  The focus. The silence, the noise.  All music. A place to die.

Lost and found are synonymous here!

I like it!

I'm privileged to be among the elite guides of Spinner Fall Guide Service.

BIG THANKS!!!

Well this spring has come.  This is my second year guiding for my own business and I am more than pleased with the interest you've all showed in keeping me busy.  Anglers from all over this state and a few out-of-staters chased pike with me and we laid into some dandies!  We had some tough days on the water and some awesome days, that's fishing!  Looking forward to future outings with you all!

Here are a few highlights.


One of the most miserable weather days I've ever had after pike.  We stuck this little guy and called it quits.  The boat doesn't have enough freeboard and we were tempting Yuba into swallowing us whole!

Such a fabulous eat from this fish.  We spotted her laid up pretty in about 12".  Bill is a veteran angler and laid a cast out just right for her.  She plowed it!  Game on!

Here is Pat with a nice fish that was suspended over 10ft of water.  She bombed a cast out to her. Tension mounted with each strip of the fly.  This fish went from being 100% sedated 4ft down and away  to 100% eat!  Sudden as Death! Game on!

This was a difficult day, zero sight-fishing to be had.  Colt put a number of fish in the boat!  Here is one of his dandies!

Merlin worked his magic (I couldn't resist the pun) on this guy and brought him to hand!   I need this fishing shirt!

Was privileged to share the boat with Tana and Kyla this spring.  This day was not a big #'s day, but they certainly closed on the fish that presented opportunity.

Nothing like watching sisters fish together!

Tana seduced this one into eating.  Such an awesome fish!  Nice work girls!

Tana runs a Fly Fishing School called Tie and Fly.  It is a wonderful program that will put you where you want to be with the people you want to be there with. Now you Know!

Spring Consumed!

Well I mowed the lawn yesterday.  Spring is finally here, but not final.  It snowed today! The trees we planted last year are starting to blossom!  I'm simply happy that they didn't die during the winter.

Busy! Busy! Busy!  I was already chasing spring way back in Dec. in pursuit trout.  We definitely took care of the itch during the cold season.  If I could give any advice to cold weather anglers to make your outings more pleasurable, it would be to keep a pair of  "hand warmers" in your pockets.  They are cheap and so effective at conducting heat into your hands.  Also of note, I camped out a handful of times this winter. The next best thing to having your loving companion next to you, is to sleep with these hand warmers.  You will likely end up tossing your warmers out of your bag, removing your hat or sleeping bag hood.  When you have these guys in your bag the chore changes from attempting to maintain heat to regulating it!  What a wonderful problem to have in below freezing temps!

Now I'm sure your are more interested in this winters photography records.

New ball cap design I put together, SOLD OUT! Thank you all!

My buddy who sticks fish and puts together some Sweetness in Graphics, he is called Mike Larsen.

Seam Shot! by Jordan Gilbert of Crimson Jaw

 This Little Piggy! Photo by Jordan Gilbert

Runnin' Shot by Cortney Boice

Carp Photo by Scott Jackson

 Photo By Phil Tuttle of OutSmartingFish.com

Bloody Pike Photos By Colby CrossLand of TheTroutSmith.com

 The Crimson Duo haulin' slabs!

 This Photo by Jordan Gilbert of Crimson Jaw

Photo by Jordan Gilbert

The Gall

Check in with CrimsonJaw.com for a solid Steelhead Post!

Good Day Sir!

A great day on the water and I was lucky enough to have a great camera dude on the boat as well.  David Komatar of Way Back When Pictures, was present to collect our experience.  The angler is a dude we call Colby Crossland.

Kudos Dudes! Thanks for furthering my cause!

Without further ado!

Ecdysis of SheetRock and Stucco

It is now January.  Cold, snowy, and frozen.  Winter.  Lakes, reservoirs and many sections of river are solid. It is difficult and sometimes painful to fish.  But at the same time so, so worthwhile.  Seasonal Affective Disorder is hard at it with the dark skies, the old dirty snow and the cold.  Even getting out to shovel the drive way becomes a liberating ecdysis of sheetrock and stucco!

As may be apparent to those of you that have followed my ramblings any amount, I am not particularly particular about the species I pursue. I purely love fishing, all of it!  Of course bigger is better and meaner is meaner, given the choice these characteristics will be the deciding factors.   But!  Any "visible" fish gets my attention!  If I can see it I'll fish for it, sometimes hopelessly!

Myself and a good friend found ourselves wading some local haunts for troot.  Now the following may come as a shock to some, but my first fish of 2014 was a WHITEFISH!  Not too shocking, right? It gets better.  I absolutely loved every moment of it!  The indicator tank!  The ensuing throb of my graphite! Set fast to a slab of muscle in current!  While I do have a fluid hierarchy of fish I pursue, in this moment I was high on whitefish!  Boom!  Ringing in the new year with a graphite rod bouncing over current and sounding in my soul!  

We stuck a good number of browns this day.  One was quite memorable.  Facing down stream in an eddy, relaxed and as I would soon find out meaner than mean!  I flipped my flies downstream and highsticked the flies upstream with the backcurrent.   In this case, target acquisition and inhalation seemed to be simultaneous!  Fish on and immediately into the heavy current between the far bank's eddy and myself.  I was content enjoying the fish until it was somewhat subdued.  Rod tip high, I skied the fish to the hemostats to swing the hook out.

Photo By: Scott Jackson

Photo By: Scott Jackson


Next up, a hole with a healthy pod of whitefish.  I don't know how many drifts I put through them.  I do know that they were far from inquisitive about the fraudulent meal. They seemed disgusted that I would drift such an aberration through their lie, even swinging out and away as it bounced down current.  Luckily I decided to try a drift 12" inches to the far side of visibility.
Bang-a-Rang!
Indicator tanked!
Luckily, a small brown saved me from the insanity of fishing for whitefish that were not interested in eating what I was offering.
This far into the day my feet felt numb and we decided to call it.  It felt marvelous jogging up the hill, slapping frozen, boot and neoprene clad flesh against the ground in hopes of improving circulation.

My lesson for the trip:  Sometimes 12" is the difference!  I must have put upwards of 20 drifts, between 6"-12" from the last small brown.  I moved my drift 12" and............

  

Masochists

I couldn't believe the most recent post here is all the way back in September.  Unbelievable!  The fall leaves have flown as has the time.

Plans were set.  Jake and myself had found a day that we could both be on the water pursuing Tiger Musky.  Another friend, Derek, and myself sent a phone call out to Jake from the boat ramp late in the morning.  Jake who had been serving time behind his rod all morning in pursuit of Tiger Musky met us in short order.

 As he rounded the shoreline into view, a musky size net sat  perpendicular to his person across his back.  The net bag was clearly carrying a burden. One not typical of a fishing net.  My first guess was that Jake's shore lunch was too large to fit in his pack and he had made convenient use of the depressed and empty net.  It was clear when he arrived at the boat that he not only brought the tools and skills to entice an eat from a Musky but he was building karma to close on a musky as well.  His net was full of garbage and flotsam! Boom! Look out musky, you will eat! TODAY!

Fast Forward.

Musky appears, Beast!  It seems that it has just come off a good run at Jake's fly.
No eat.  Musky! Here! Gone!

Fast Forward.

The boat crew has now built to 4, with the addition of Phil.
Jake's fly has not been out of the water long enough to catch its breath.  If his fly were a terrorist, it would have relinquished any information Jake asked of it and then started to fabricate information long ago.

"Here's one!
 Here's One!
 Here's One"
said Jake.

I looked over the gunwale from the console and there it was.  Nearly 4 feet of it!
All 4 of us, now peering over the side intently, studying every move this marvelous fish was making!
All 4 of us, peering over the side intently, studying every move Jake's fly was making!

The musky was on the verge!  4" of water was the only obstacle preventing the musky from ending Jake's fly.

Jake killed his fly and let it sink.  The musky maintained it's 4" buffer!

Jake accelerated the fly.  The musky maintained it's 4" buffer!

Jake figure-eighted his fly.  The musky maintained it's 4" buffer!

These scenarios repeated over and over again as the boat coasted about 50 yds.  All 4 anglers, hearts pounding out of their chests, leaning over the fly and musky, absolutely enraptured!

After an extremely short eternity the monster settled back into its abyss, leaving a boat full of shaking knees and pounding chests!

MUSKY!  One word, shouted as both an expletive and a jubilation!

Terribly awesome!

So much success and so much failure experienced in the same moments.  A truly fearsome monster raised from the depths with craftsmanship, skill, and karma. So close to capture and so far.

Truth be told, what a wonderful fish to take four grown men back to the youthful anticipation of Christmas morning only to rip it from their grasp!

The musky can give you everything you've ever desired of fishing and take it all in the same moment.

And we LOVE them for it!

PS.
Karma collected this day!  Jake stuck a hog musky 20 mins after the rest of us hit the road! Some people deserve fish.  Not only because what the fish means to them personally, but because they have put in the work, time and effort to be rewarded.  Musky are-----Work, Time, and Effort!
Congratulations Jake!

You can find more of Jake's good work at The Colorado Trout Devotee.

Derek and Phil are part of a site known as OutSmartingFish.com.  They put together tremendous content!