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Friday's Fluff Piece
It's Friday lets laugh a little. Unless you find this to be a disgusting display of the reprehensible exploitation of rainbow trout. Then don't laugh. Please, don't laugh.
New Website!
Our web address is still www.jumpcreekflies.com, but you will notice our design is changed. This page will now serve as a blog on which I will post trip reports, information about our flies, new products, or various fly fishing tips. Keep following us here on the blog, and make sure and check out www.jumpcreekflies.com for more information on specials, and to make purchases from our fly shop.
You will see we are offering a Grand Opening Special on the website through the end of November. Any order from the website of a dozen or more flies will get 6 additional flies of their choice free. A great chance to stock up that fly box for next year.
Thanks to all of our great customers!
You will see we are offering a Grand Opening Special on the website through the end of November. Any order from the website of a dozen or more flies will get 6 additional flies of their choice free. A great chance to stock up that fly box for next year.
Thanks to all of our great customers!
Fall Special - THE BAETIS BUNDLE!!
Here I sit at my desk looking out the window at a gray day in the Treasure Valley. It's mid morning and the temperature is hovering in the low 50s. Where do I wish I was right now? On the river, no question. I can only sit here and imagine the little mayflies we fly fishermen often affectionately refer to as Blue Wing Olives popping up on the surface of the river in numbers that virtually blanket the water. The little sailboat profiles bobbing along, then *slurp* disappearing under the dark snout of a trout. Only a slight ripple, and a small bubble remain.
Torture. That's what this is. I need to get out of the office. I hope many of you get the opportunity this fall to fish, especially days like today, when the action can be virtually non stop. The only problem is that when baetis are hatching in numbers that they often do on days such as this, and the trout are up on them, the fish can afford to be incredibly picky, and they often are. So it all comes down to having the right pattern in your fly box. So why don't you try one, or better yet, all three of these. At some point in a BWO hatch each of these three patterns will catch a lot of fish.
BWO Bubble Emerger
This little pattern is always a fish catcher. Fish can't seem to say no to a fly caught in this vulnerable position as it is attempting to emerge. Fish take this early in the hatch as the majority of bugs are on the surface working to free themselves of the nymphal shuck, in the midst of the hatch as fish key again on the insects that are struggling with the emerging process, and late or even after the hatch when a few fish are up snacking on the scraps left over in concentrated lies. Places like soft edges or eddies where these scraps will collect as they are at the mercy of the current.
For me this pattern is the all purpose fly during a hatch. It seems to catch fish at any and all times. It is also surprisingly easy to see on the water. When I first tied this pattern I thought visibility would be it's down side, but the bubble rides nice on the water and is not that hard to pick up.
CDC Wing Sparkle Emerger
Finally we come to the fly that started it all for me. The first fly I ever sold on this website was this pattern. This fly has been around in my fly box for as long as I have been stalking late season baetis hatches. While it specializes in being a bit of a later stage fly it too works in many different situations. I have the best luck with this fly when I see fish sipping duns off the surface, but it will work as an emerger and I have even modified it on stream in a pinch by pushing the wing down and to the side when fish were taking spinners. It's a versitile pattern, and if floats like a cork. With the CDC fibers for the tail, biot body, and deer hair wing, it can't help but float.
Torture. That's what this is. I need to get out of the office. I hope many of you get the opportunity this fall to fish, especially days like today, when the action can be virtually non stop. The only problem is that when baetis are hatching in numbers that they often do on days such as this, and the trout are up on them, the fish can afford to be incredibly picky, and they often are. So it all comes down to having the right pattern in your fly box. So why don't you try one, or better yet, all three of these. At some point in a BWO hatch each of these three patterns will catch a lot of fish.
BWO Bubble Emerger
For me this pattern is the all purpose fly during a hatch. It seems to catch fish at any and all times. It is also surprisingly easy to see on the water. When I first tied this pattern I thought visibility would be it's down side, but the bubble rides nice on the water and is not that hard to pick up.
CDC Wing Sparkle Emerger
This is my newest member of the BWO line of flies. I started tying it up last year, and it has been a fish catcher. Like the bubble emerger it seems to work at almost any point in the hatch. They body of the fly rides extremely low in the water, but the high floating wing gives a nice profile of the mayfly wing. It really does a superb job of imitating a mayfly that has more completely emerged than the bubble emerger, but one that is still caught in the vulnerable position of being caught within the shuck. Fish love an easy meal, and they know this bug isn't going anywhere. They rise confidently to this fly.
In the past year, in my testing, I have caught more fish with this fly than with any other fly in my fly box. It's a keeper.
BWO Biot Duck Butt Dun
A Summer on the Water
It's been a busy summer, filling orders left and right, and then trying to get a little fishing in between. I hope everyone out there has had a good summer of fishing as well. I haven't fished as much this summer as in years past, but that is only because the demand for Jump Creek Flies has increased quite a bit this past year. I won't complain about being busy tying up bugs for happy customers though. So thanks for keeping me busy.
I did get a few outings on my local "home river" this summer as usual. Then sprinkled in a few drift boat trips to a great Rainbow Trout fishery that lies a couple hours east of me. Those two waters usually get most of my attention, but I do like to branch out a bit and try new things. This year I spent a little time up North on the Lochsa River and then found myself doing a little stillwater fishing in NE Oregon. It's been a good summer, and Fall is just around the corner. Football season is in the air, as is my favorite time of year to fish. So as we enter into Labor Day weekend I wanted to pause and look back at another great summer spent waving a fly rod around. Enjoy a few pics, and have a great weekend everyone.
I did get a few outings on my local "home river" this summer as usual. Then sprinkled in a few drift boat trips to a great Rainbow Trout fishery that lies a couple hours east of me. Those two waters usually get most of my attention, but I do like to branch out a bit and try new things. This year I spent a little time up North on the Lochsa River and then found myself doing a little stillwater fishing in NE Oregon. It's been a good summer, and Fall is just around the corner. Football season is in the air, as is my favorite time of year to fish. So as we enter into Labor Day weekend I wanted to pause and look back at another great summer spent waving a fly rod around. Enjoy a few pics, and have a great weekend everyone.
New Patterns in the Catalog!
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| An armada of WC CDC Rusty Spinners ready to be shipped out to a river near you. |
This is a great Spinner pattern because the White CDC is pulled over the back of the fly making this pattern much more visible on the water than most spinner patterns. And it flat out fishes great.
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| PMD CDC Wing Sparkle Dun |
With PMD season just around the corner, these are both excellent patterns to make sure you are stocked up on!
PMD's on the mind
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| Stocking up on PMD's |
I have been holed up in my bat cave now for the last few weeks hunched over the vise and churning out PMD's like no body's business. Right now I only have 2 specific PMD patterns in the catalog, but I did work up two more patterns that will soon be joining them. Let's review what I do have available here and how I like to fish them.
First, my favorite, and old standby PMD Duck Butt Dun. I like this pattern because it is so adaptable, and I can cover a wide range of hatch stages with one pattern. The body floats down in the film so unless fish are taking very high floating duns, they will be all over this fly. It works as a late stage emerger, cripple, and if I really grease it up as a dun as well. In a pinch I have even taken fish eating spinners by pulling the deer hair wing down to the sides, and clipping out the middle. Maybe not the most efficient way to make a spinner, but having a pattern that can substitute for another in a pinch is nice. This has been my top producing mayfly pattern for several years running now.
Next is the PMD Bubble Emerger. This is a great pattern I use early in the hatch when the bugs are just starting to emerge on the surface, and fish are grabbing those emergers on the surface. The fly is designed so just CDC bubble rides on the surface while the back of the fly hangs in the film. Fish love this easy meal.
Coming soon!
I am going to be adding two PMD patterns to the catalog very soon. The first is a PMD version of what has become one of my favorite BWO patterns this spring, and the second is a cripple pattern I have had very good luck with, especially on windy days. I will post here on the blog when those have been added.
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| The BWO CDC Wing Sparkle Dun is coming soon in PMD! |
What I Learned on the River this Week - Episode #5
It's been a while since I have posted a "What I learned." I guess the weekly idea was a bit of a stretch. Life does get busy from time to time, and this past month it has come in the form of a couple good sized custom orders that this part time fly tier had to devote a lot of time to. I simply didn't have time to fish but this week that changed. I only made it out on the water once but it was a very good outing that once again taught me a few valuable lessons. The lesson for me on this trip was improvisation. Or you could say it was more about preparation, depending on your perspective I guess.
This week I took advantage of the early morning light and fished my favorite time of the day. I happen to work a half hour from a very nice tailwater, that holds plenty of nice Browns, and a few fat Rainbows. That gives me the opportunity to hit the river in short bursts through the year, either before work, or even an hour or two in the middle of the work day. As an early riser my favorite time to fish is the first couple hours of daylight. It helps get the day off on the right foot I guess you could say. The river is usually empty of fishermen this time of day, giving me the freedom to explore any water I would like rather than simply looking for an open run. The morning air is often about as calm and free of wind as you will ever see it, and to top it off there are a lot of fish that take advantage of this time of day to feed on the surface. On the river I fish, the trout are usually up on midges, or some sort of mayfly spinner depending on what the seasonal hatch is at this early hour. In the late summer and fall, there are tricos hatching as well and often, even though the hoppers usually sleep in until the sun hits them and warms up their cold blood, dead drifting a hopper over early morning fish also works well in those late summer months. This time of year though I was expecting fish to either be up on midges, or possibly a spinner pattern if there were scraps on the water from an earlier BWO Spinner fall. But what I expected was not quite what I found.
A few fish were up feeding on this late April Morning, but not as many as I find later in the year. This is the earliest in the year I have tried to make the early morning shift on the river before I head into work at 8. It was a feeling out process for sure. You can try and be prepared for anything, but at the end of the day, you will probably run up against fish feeding on something that you simply were not ready for, and don't have a specific pattern to match. On this morning the few surface feeding fish I did see in this run were all as tight to the bank as you can get. Feeding right up under overhanging branches. To make matters tougher, the feeds were sparse, and erratic. Just by watching their actions it seemed these fish were feeding on something very specific, and something that wasn't overly plentiful on the water.
In examining the surface of the river as it swirled around my waders I didn't see anything that grabbed my attention. I did see a few midge pupa drifting by just under the surface, and even a few adults riding the currents, but not a lot, and this made sense in my mind as it related to these fishes feeding pattern. I tied on a midge emerger pattern (Harrops Transitional Midge-I don't always fish my own patterns, and a House of Harrop pattern is always a good bet) and got nothing out of the fish. I tired a CDC Bubbleback midge pattern and still nothing. These fish were obviously eating something off the surface as I could clearly see their snouts rise up as they ate. I didn't think they were taking midge pupa just under the surface so I wondered if there were a few spinners on the water that I wasn't seeing. I tied on a small CDC Rusty Spinner, and received the same treatment from the trout. No response. I was getting a bit frustrated knowing these fish were looking for something specific that I hadn't shown them yet. So I stopped and took another good hard look at the rivers surface.
There I noticed something that I had been missing but that made even more sense as I considered the fact that each fish I had spotted rising was hugging tight to the bank, often under limbs and along rocks. Ants. Quite a few very small black ants, in fact, were drifting in the current. The only problem...I had not been prepared for them, and had not a single ant pattern on me this morning. It was time to improvise. The smallest black bodied pattern I had in my box was a Trico spinner pattern with CDC wings. I looked at it on the water and noticed the CDC fibers did a pretty good job if I spread them out and clipped them a bit shorter of mimicking the impression of the ants legs. This pattern also rode low in the water just as an ant does. I clipped the tail fibers, trimmed the wing, and splayed it out along the body a bit, and went to work with my on the fly "ant" pattern.
The first cast I made was to a stubborn fish feeding just off a bank side boulder. It's nose would literally rise so close to the boulder I could not see any space between it and the rock as it dimpled the surface. The cast hooked perfectly from my position around the boulder so it would flow right against the far side and around and down the exact feeding lane of the fish. I could not even see my fly as it went around the backside of the boulder, then suddenly I saw some rise rings come from behind the big rock. It looked like the fish had moved up to take my fly while it was out of sight so I gently brought the rod up, and sure enough felt the pull of the fooled trout. My Trico/Ant had worked.
Moving up the bank I was able to pick off a few more fish on my improvised ant pattern and call the morning a success, heading back to the office with a smile on my face. While being prepared and having a few ant patterns in my box would have been ideal, there are often ways of dealing with situations like this by looking at your current fly box a little creatively.
This week I took advantage of the early morning light and fished my favorite time of the day. I happen to work a half hour from a very nice tailwater, that holds plenty of nice Browns, and a few fat Rainbows. That gives me the opportunity to hit the river in short bursts through the year, either before work, or even an hour or two in the middle of the work day. As an early riser my favorite time to fish is the first couple hours of daylight. It helps get the day off on the right foot I guess you could say. The river is usually empty of fishermen this time of day, giving me the freedom to explore any water I would like rather than simply looking for an open run. The morning air is often about as calm and free of wind as you will ever see it, and to top it off there are a lot of fish that take advantage of this time of day to feed on the surface. On the river I fish, the trout are usually up on midges, or some sort of mayfly spinner depending on what the seasonal hatch is at this early hour. In the late summer and fall, there are tricos hatching as well and often, even though the hoppers usually sleep in until the sun hits them and warms up their cold blood, dead drifting a hopper over early morning fish also works well in those late summer months. This time of year though I was expecting fish to either be up on midges, or possibly a spinner pattern if there were scraps on the water from an earlier BWO Spinner fall. But what I expected was not quite what I found.
A few fish were up feeding on this late April Morning, but not as many as I find later in the year. This is the earliest in the year I have tried to make the early morning shift on the river before I head into work at 8. It was a feeling out process for sure. You can try and be prepared for anything, but at the end of the day, you will probably run up against fish feeding on something that you simply were not ready for, and don't have a specific pattern to match. On this morning the few surface feeding fish I did see in this run were all as tight to the bank as you can get. Feeding right up under overhanging branches. To make matters tougher, the feeds were sparse, and erratic. Just by watching their actions it seemed these fish were feeding on something very specific, and something that wasn't overly plentiful on the water.
In examining the surface of the river as it swirled around my waders I didn't see anything that grabbed my attention. I did see a few midge pupa drifting by just under the surface, and even a few adults riding the currents, but not a lot, and this made sense in my mind as it related to these fishes feeding pattern. I tied on a midge emerger pattern (Harrops Transitional Midge-I don't always fish my own patterns, and a House of Harrop pattern is always a good bet) and got nothing out of the fish. I tired a CDC Bubbleback midge pattern and still nothing. These fish were obviously eating something off the surface as I could clearly see their snouts rise up as they ate. I didn't think they were taking midge pupa just under the surface so I wondered if there were a few spinners on the water that I wasn't seeing. I tied on a small CDC Rusty Spinner, and received the same treatment from the trout. No response. I was getting a bit frustrated knowing these fish were looking for something specific that I hadn't shown them yet. So I stopped and took another good hard look at the rivers surface.
There I noticed something that I had been missing but that made even more sense as I considered the fact that each fish I had spotted rising was hugging tight to the bank, often under limbs and along rocks. Ants. Quite a few very small black ants, in fact, were drifting in the current. The only problem...I had not been prepared for them, and had not a single ant pattern on me this morning. It was time to improvise. The smallest black bodied pattern I had in my box was a Trico spinner pattern with CDC wings. I looked at it on the water and noticed the CDC fibers did a pretty good job if I spread them out and clipped them a bit shorter of mimicking the impression of the ants legs. This pattern also rode low in the water just as an ant does. I clipped the tail fibers, trimmed the wing, and splayed it out along the body a bit, and went to work with my on the fly "ant" pattern.
The first cast I made was to a stubborn fish feeding just off a bank side boulder. It's nose would literally rise so close to the boulder I could not see any space between it and the rock as it dimpled the surface. The cast hooked perfectly from my position around the boulder so it would flow right against the far side and around and down the exact feeding lane of the fish. I could not even see my fly as it went around the backside of the boulder, then suddenly I saw some rise rings come from behind the big rock. It looked like the fish had moved up to take my fly while it was out of sight so I gently brought the rod up, and sure enough felt the pull of the fooled trout. My Trico/Ant had worked.
Moving up the bank I was able to pick off a few more fish on my improvised ant pattern and call the morning a success, heading back to the office with a smile on my face. While being prepared and having a few ant patterns in my box would have been ideal, there are often ways of dealing with situations like this by looking at your current fly box a little creatively.
Spring Time is BWO Time
I wanted to share a picture of the BWO version of the CDC Bubbleback Emerger you will now find in the Dry Fly section of the online catalog. This version has been for sale for a while there, but it had been a bit hard to find. Now it has it's own picture and listing on the page.
This little pattern has quickly become my favorite dry fly for fussy trout picking on BWO Emergers, Cripples and Stillborn bugs. I use it early when the fish are first starting to rise, and I will use it late in the hatch or even after the hatch has subsided when a few fish are still up in the more protected lies, sipping those cripples that never made it off the water. It is fished with only the front of the fly riding on top of the water. The CDC bubble floats that part of the fly. I use a powdered desiccant such as Frogs Fanny on the Bubble and the dubbing under that bubble, but leave the rest of the fly untreated so it hangs below the surface of the water.
Feel free to ask any questions you may have on fishing this or any of my patterns. **Click here**
What I Learned This Week on the River - Episode #4
I must admit I learned nothing ON THE RIVER this week. Not because I am so smart, but because I was not able to GET OUT ON THE RIVER this week. I am not bitter about it, but I do hate taxes, and let's leave it at that. To make matters worse I heard two different reports from my home water this week and one said he "caught the most fish in a day he has ever caught on that river" and the other one said he "actually got tired of catching fish." So it sounds like I really did miss out.
But in my conversations with other fly fishers this week, I was reminded of a little tip I will pass along here in lieu of the usual tip from an actual trip on the water. This little reminder was mentioned when I was discussing fussy trout and overlapping hatches and ways to figure out what a fish is really eating, with a friend. As the weather warms up we are going to start seeing more and more types of insects hatching through the day, and this issue of overlapping hatches is more and more likely to occur. This may be more of a Summer time issue, but it can arise in the spring as well. My friend reminded me of a little tip I have used, and it has worked for me in the past. It is simply this: carry a small pair of binoculars with you on the water.
It is simple, but it does help close the gap and bring you up close and personal to a rising fish, and you really can often pick out what bugs a fish is eating without crowding it. It won't always work, if the fish is taking emergers just under the surface it is still going to be tough to see, but if nothing else it's nice to have a pair of binoculars on hand when that nice mule deer wades into the river a couple hundred yards upstream.
So that's all for this week and hopefully next week the only problem I will have will be typing up Episode #5 because my arms are so tired from landing fish!
Tight Lines.
But in my conversations with other fly fishers this week, I was reminded of a little tip I will pass along here in lieu of the usual tip from an actual trip on the water. This little reminder was mentioned when I was discussing fussy trout and overlapping hatches and ways to figure out what a fish is really eating, with a friend. As the weather warms up we are going to start seeing more and more types of insects hatching through the day, and this issue of overlapping hatches is more and more likely to occur. This may be more of a Summer time issue, but it can arise in the spring as well. My friend reminded me of a little tip I have used, and it has worked for me in the past. It is simply this: carry a small pair of binoculars with you on the water.
It is simple, but it does help close the gap and bring you up close and personal to a rising fish, and you really can often pick out what bugs a fish is eating without crowding it. It won't always work, if the fish is taking emergers just under the surface it is still going to be tough to see, but if nothing else it's nice to have a pair of binoculars on hand when that nice mule deer wades into the river a couple hundred yards upstream.
So that's all for this week and hopefully next week the only problem I will have will be typing up Episode #5 because my arms are so tired from landing fish!
Tight Lines.
What I Learned This Week on the River - Episode #3
DOWNSTREAM PRESENTATION
The lesson of the week for me was that, as the heading states, a downstream presentation can make all the difference when the fish get spooky.
The river I fished this week is at very low flows, so the fish are often in some skinny lies. Add to this fact that this river happens to be about the only game in town right now for a decent sized Metropolitan area with many fly fishers, and you get a lot of pressure on these fish. Add a few of these factors all together and you get some very discerning fish.
This week I was fishing a trickle cascading down through a bit of a rock garden, and my first instinct was to start at the bottom of the run, and work up, casting my fly from below a feeding fish. The problem with this presentation is that the first thing the fish may see, before they even see the fly, is the leader, or tippet. There are casts you can make to minimize this such as some type of curve cast, but it still won't eliminate the problem. Usually I don't find this to be a major problem, but there are times it will make a difference. Fish on the same river can be more leader shy one day, and seemingly not the next. In my opinion, here are a few factors that will make fish more leader shy.
1. Water level and clarity - skinny water means fish are more wary, because they are more susceptible to predators. They can be more on guard and skeptical.
2. Sun angle - Line, Leader, and even your 6x tippet can cast a shadow and even if the fish doesn't see your leader, if it sees the shadow, it probably won't eat.
3. Sporadic, or non existent hatch - Here is one that I am a believer in, but there is some room for disagreement, so feel free if your experience tells you any different. I think that fish can be a little less leader shy in the midst of a heavy hatch. I mean one of those hatches that has many fish up feeding on the surface in a run. I think they get into a rhythm and their focus becomes on simply eating the buffet floating down to them, and they may get picky about the stage of the bug, but less concerned with seeing the tippet. When I find leader shy fish it seems to be when there isn't really a hatch going on, but when you see a few sporadic rises here and there. Maybe there are a few bugs hatching and a fish or two has decided to feed on the top, but there aren't really enough bugs for them to get into a rhythm.
4. Angler pressure
There are many other factors, but those are the conditions I encountered this week so I will focus on that for now. Now lets get back to my trip to the river. I fished up the run a ways, spotting several fish, some even were rising occasionally, but not often, but every one was ignoring my offering. About halfway up the run, I turned around and spotted a fish I hadn't seen on the way up the run holding on the far side of the river behind a submerged rock. I decided to make a presentation down to it, and what do you know, on the first drift...bam...that fish jumped all over the fly. That little moment changed the way I fished the rest of the run. After landing the fish, I walked out of the river and up to the top of the run, and fished it with a downstream presentation. Nearly every fish I made a downstream cast to took the bug, and every fish I tried to catch fishing from below it, didn't. I don't call that a coincidence.
Now a book could be written on the subtleties of a downstream presentation and how to do it right, but I will just put a couple main highlights in and spare the verbiage.
1. Keep a low profile - the fish will spot you much easier when you fish from above them.
2. Don't position yourself straight upstream from a fish, cast from a slight angle to one side or the other.
3. When you set the hook, don't use an upward motion. This is a case of do as I say, not as I do, because my thick skull has never been able to get this bit of advice through it. This week, I would say I missed about 50% of the takes because I would jerk the rod up, and yank the fly right out of the fish's mouth. If you can, try and remember to set the hook with a sideways motion and you will actually hook more fish.
I think I will let it be at that for this week. There is a lot that can be added to this subject, I think I bit of a little more than I intended. If you have any further questions or want me to clarify anything here feel free to email me at b.sorenson@jumpcreekflies.com.
Now get out there and do some fishing!
What I Learned This Week on the River - Episode #2
Already two weeks in and I am wishing I had named this feature something else. But alas I feel the need to stick to my guns.
I only made it out once this week, but it was an amazing outing. The fishing was outstanding. I guess the tip I can pass along here is that if you look out your window and it looks a little damp and cool, leave work ASAP and head to the river. Those little bugs we refer to as Blue Wing Olives seem to love these conditions, and thus so do the trout. And no, I won't be held responsible for whatever consequences your receive from skipping out on your job.
Last year I wrote up a little piece that I posted on my "Getting Out" blog but don't think I ever posted it here about the joys of spring, and BWO's. Hey at least I didn't steal it from someone else right? So week 2 and I am already taking the easy way out, but it is timely.
Cut...
Paste...
Action...
The reality is that BWO's can have a presence
throughout the year, and make a strong reappearance in the fall, but
their spring time arrival is about as welcome an event as you can have
for both fly fishermen and fish alike. Other hatches get all the hype,
but these little bugs can make fish go bonkers, and in weather
conditions that used to rank right up there with the reason I felt
spring was over rated, these bugs flourish. If you ask me now what days
in the spring I look forward to it would be a fairly cold 45-50 degree
day with overcast skies spitting a few rain showers, with even a little
breeze thrown in. Of course not enough of a breeze to make casting a
fly rod difficult, but just enough to push those little sailboat profile
mayflies around on the water, and concentrate them between a swift
current seam and a grassy bank. Natures way of creating an
all-you-can-eat buffet for hungry trout coming off a cold lethargic
winter of snacking on whatever requires the least amount of energy to get to.
As I stood in the midst of a frenetic river last week watching one of the most amazing hatches of Blue Wing Olives come off, it reminded me of watching popcorn, except, unless you really like popcorn, a bit more exhilarating. There is the quiet calm where the kernels sit quietly in the slowly heating oil. It can be hard to tell when this stage starts as all the action is underwater, hidden from the anglers eye. It may look like the water is quiet, but underneath the surface things are starting to happen.
Then the oil starts to
sizzle and pop. Like when you start seeing those first few intermittent rises. Usually
just dorsal fins, or tails as the fish take the rising nymphs as they head for the surface. Things are getting more heated now. And the
first kernels are starting to crack. You hear that first pop in the
pan, or you see that first dun on the surface gliding slowly along
drying it's wings. A fish here and there begin rising for emergers, and a couple are even up on the few duns floating down
river.
Suddenly, like that moment that the kernels
begin exploding, not one at a time, but at a constant thunderous rate,
things get bananas. In that run you could have sworn was void of any
fish just minutes before there are more rises than you can count. One
look at the water and you see exactly why. The evidence is littering
the surface as the small sailboat profiles are everywhere. Where once a
sporadic bug or two drifted alone, there are literally hundreds...no
thousands! It gets crazy. You hope this crescendo lasts for a while.
The fish are going nuts and so are you. In the right conditions (see my
new favorite spring weather above) this stage can last quite some time,
and when it does I count my lucky stars or what ever that saying is.
Then
just as quickly as they started popping things subside. Again you can
only see a couple duns drifting on the surface. Some of the
stragglers, like those half popped old maids in the popcorn bowl, are
struggling to make it off the water. Something has happened in this
process for them and they aren't going to make it. Like those old maids that settle and collect in the bottom of the popcorn bowl,
these wounded and battered bugs get pushed helplessly by the current
into protected pockets or up against a grassy bank where they become
more concentrated. Much of the surface activity has subsided as well,
but a few of the wiser and larger fish are still around. Tucked into
those little nooks where those crippled and half drowned mayflies have
been rounded up against their will they sip away quietly. It's the
tail end of the action, but the careful eye of an observant angler knows
there is still action to be found in seeking out these protected areas
and keeping a keen eye out for those stealthy rises. Then the river is
quiet, waiting silently for the next out burst.
I am not an entomologist by any means. I just know I love to watch a good hatch develop and reap the rewards that come along with it. There are plenty of frustrating moments in this process for myself. But it is what keeps me coming back. If things were always easy, then what would be the point? These BWO hatches have given me some great study material this spring. I have learned, and I have gone back to the drawing board. Many times, but it's all part of the process.
I only made it out once this week, but it was an amazing outing. The fishing was outstanding. I guess the tip I can pass along here is that if you look out your window and it looks a little damp and cool, leave work ASAP and head to the river. Those little bugs we refer to as Blue Wing Olives seem to love these conditions, and thus so do the trout. And no, I won't be held responsible for whatever consequences your receive from skipping out on your job.
Last year I wrote up a little piece that I posted on my "Getting Out" blog but don't think I ever posted it here about the joys of spring, and BWO's. Hey at least I didn't steal it from someone else right? So week 2 and I am already taking the easy way out, but it is timely.
Cut...
Paste...
Action...
The Joys of Spring, BWO's, and....Popcorn?
I will admit in the past Spring has
never been my favorite season. I know the ideal image of spring brings
to mind thoughts of fresh sprouting green grass, soft gentle rains,
budding willows, and freshly bloomed daffodils, but it seems that the
reality is often closer to dull gray skies, harsh winds, and sticky
brown mud...everywhere. Okay that may have been the pessimist in me
coming out. But in the past I have always felt that Spring was a bit
overrated as a season, and just a necessary transition that must be
endured until summer finally arrived. As a fly fisherman though I have
garnered a whole new found respect for that formerly overrated season,
thanks to one tiny bug. The Blue Wing Olive.
 |
| A freshly hatched BWO rides along the calm surface. |
As I stood in the midst of a frenetic river last week watching one of the most amazing hatches of Blue Wing Olives come off, it reminded me of watching popcorn, except, unless you really like popcorn, a bit more exhilarating. There is the quiet calm where the kernels sit quietly in the slowly heating oil. It can be hard to tell when this stage starts as all the action is underwater, hidden from the anglers eye. It may look like the water is quiet, but underneath the surface things are starting to happen.
 |
| A nice fish that came early in the hatch on an early stage emerger pattern. |
 |
| This fish fell for a more standard upright wing pattern mimicking the BWO Dun |
 |
| One of those fish spotted after the hatch sipping cripples that collected along a shallow grassy bank. |
I am not an entomologist by any means. I just know I love to watch a good hatch develop and reap the rewards that come along with it. There are plenty of frustrating moments in this process for myself. But it is what keeps me coming back. If things were always easy, then what would be the point? These BWO hatches have given me some great study material this spring. I have learned, and I have gone back to the drawing board. Many times, but it's all part of the process.
What I Learned This Week on the River - Episode #1
Most weeks I get out fishing at least once. And every time I go I learn or in some cases relearn something. So I hope to pass on these little items on a somewhat weekly basis. These tips can be about pretty much anything related to fly fishing and some may help you, some may not. Take them for what they are worth.
So on to this weeks items. Two things happened that were "light bulb" moments when I was on the water this week. Lets start with an, "oh duh" moment to establish that I can be pretty blockheaded at times.
#1)For a long time I have fished with fly patterns that use CDC and thus my favorite floatant to carry on the water is of the powdered desiccant variety, such as Frogs Fanny or Doc's Dry dust. These types of floatants do a great job with CDC, but when you open the bottle and apply it to the fly, the fine powder tends to stay airborne a long time. To avoid inadvertently breathing any of this stuff in, which I can't imagine would be good for you, I have always turned my back to any wind or breeze, and applied the powder to the fly, thinking the breeze would carry the powder away from me. However, I still managed on occasion to somehow breath a little in and it was getting old. Finally I realized the swirling current coming around my back was not always carrying the powder away from me but in fact sucking it right back into me. I was creating an eddy and we fishermen know what eddies do. Well ***ding*** the light bulb went on yesterday, and I figured out that the best way to make sure the excess powder gets blown away from me is to turn sideways to the wind when applying this product to a fly. It works much better.
Well now I feel silly as that was probably pretty obvious, but my lungs thank me today for finally thinking of this.
#2)Now on to an a actual fly fishing item. Fish can be feeding in a spot, but it's good to ask yourself, where is the food they are eating coming from? Another pretty obvious tip, but one that is good to remember on the water, so I don't feel bad bringing it up. Here is what I mean by that.
Refer to the above rudimentary drawing to visualize this scenario. This week I was fishing to a lonely riser that was feeding in the very center of a 2 foot by 2 foot area in the midst of three boulders in the stream. My only real approach to the fish was from the rear right of the fish, just because of the way the rocks were situated. Because I had this defined area that the fish was in, between these rocks, I just assumed that any fly that flowed through this area would be on the fish's radar. The way the rocks were situated, and the way I had to approach the lie, the easiest way to fish this was going to be to cast just to the right of Rock 1 in the picture, and let the current push the fly through the middle of the area. It seemed logical that if the fly floated right through the center of the area the fish was rising there was a good chance it would see my fly and hopefully rise to it. After making several fruitless casts I wondered about my fly selection, but as is usually the case, it is often more about our presentation than it is about the fly we are using, so I stuck with it.
Then I noticed that while the fish was in fact feeding in the middle of this area, where my fly had been floating directly over, there were two currents coming together here, and it occurred to me the fish may be positioned to feed on bugs coming from the current pushing off of the left shoulder of Rock 2 (again see above picture). I had cast to the current flowing off the lead rock because it was easier to get my fly drifting from there, to where the fish was feeding, and this current coming from the right was a much tougher cast. The window of where my fly could land without spooking the fish on one side, and getting caught up on Rock 2 on the other side, was much smaller. It was worth a shot though. I loaded the rod and some how managed to drop the fly in that little window on the first cast, and sure enough the fish was all over it. Lesson learned, or relearned, and I will probably have to be reminded of it again one of these days.
It was a rewarding week on the river and with these reminders I hope we all can keep our lungs clear of "Frogs Fanny" and our flies in the correct feeding lane of hungry fish.
Tight Lines.
So on to this weeks items. Two things happened that were "light bulb" moments when I was on the water this week. Lets start with an, "oh duh" moment to establish that I can be pretty blockheaded at times.
#1)For a long time I have fished with fly patterns that use CDC and thus my favorite floatant to carry on the water is of the powdered desiccant variety, such as Frogs Fanny or Doc's Dry dust. These types of floatants do a great job with CDC, but when you open the bottle and apply it to the fly, the fine powder tends to stay airborne a long time. To avoid inadvertently breathing any of this stuff in, which I can't imagine would be good for you, I have always turned my back to any wind or breeze, and applied the powder to the fly, thinking the breeze would carry the powder away from me. However, I still managed on occasion to somehow breath a little in and it was getting old. Finally I realized the swirling current coming around my back was not always carrying the powder away from me but in fact sucking it right back into me. I was creating an eddy and we fishermen know what eddies do. Well ***ding*** the light bulb went on yesterday, and I figured out that the best way to make sure the excess powder gets blown away from me is to turn sideways to the wind when applying this product to a fly. It works much better.
Well now I feel silly as that was probably pretty obvious, but my lungs thank me today for finally thinking of this.
#2)Now on to an a actual fly fishing item. Fish can be feeding in a spot, but it's good to ask yourself, where is the food they are eating coming from? Another pretty obvious tip, but one that is good to remember on the water, so I don't feel bad bringing it up. Here is what I mean by that.
 |
| Exhibit A |
Refer to the above rudimentary drawing to visualize this scenario. This week I was fishing to a lonely riser that was feeding in the very center of a 2 foot by 2 foot area in the midst of three boulders in the stream. My only real approach to the fish was from the rear right of the fish, just because of the way the rocks were situated. Because I had this defined area that the fish was in, between these rocks, I just assumed that any fly that flowed through this area would be on the fish's radar. The way the rocks were situated, and the way I had to approach the lie, the easiest way to fish this was going to be to cast just to the right of Rock 1 in the picture, and let the current push the fly through the middle of the area. It seemed logical that if the fly floated right through the center of the area the fish was rising there was a good chance it would see my fly and hopefully rise to it. After making several fruitless casts I wondered about my fly selection, but as is usually the case, it is often more about our presentation than it is about the fly we are using, so I stuck with it.
Then I noticed that while the fish was in fact feeding in the middle of this area, where my fly had been floating directly over, there were two currents coming together here, and it occurred to me the fish may be positioned to feed on bugs coming from the current pushing off of the left shoulder of Rock 2 (again see above picture). I had cast to the current flowing off the lead rock because it was easier to get my fly drifting from there, to where the fish was feeding, and this current coming from the right was a much tougher cast. The window of where my fly could land without spooking the fish on one side, and getting caught up on Rock 2 on the other side, was much smaller. It was worth a shot though. I loaded the rod and some how managed to drop the fly in that little window on the first cast, and sure enough the fish was all over it. Lesson learned, or relearned, and I will probably have to be reminded of it again one of these days.
It was a rewarding week on the river and with these reminders I hope we all can keep our lungs clear of "Frogs Fanny" and our flies in the correct feeding lane of hungry fish.
Tight Lines.
Tying the PMD Biot Duck Butt Dun
I am going to put a few instructional videos up here over the next year on how to tie the patterns I have available for sale. It is something a little new for me, so I hope to get some of the kinks of this first video worked out over the next few I do.
I am going to start out with the PMD Biot Duck Butt Dun. It is a great little pattern that I have sold to fishermen here in the west as a PMD, and then a few of our Eastern fly fishers have purchased them telling me they work great on their rivers during a Sulpher hatch.
This pattern has become very versatile for me and it gets taken by fish at a variety of stages during the hatch. From the latter emergence through the dun phase fish will eat this fly. I have even modified it on stream by pulling the deer hair wing out flat to the sides and fished it as a spinner in a pinch. And yes it worked.
If you have any questions, or suggestions feel free to let me know at b.sorenson@jumpcreekflies.com.
Enjoy!
I am going to start out with the PMD Biot Duck Butt Dun. It is a great little pattern that I have sold to fishermen here in the west as a PMD, and then a few of our Eastern fly fishers have purchased them telling me they work great on their rivers during a Sulpher hatch.
This pattern has become very versatile for me and it gets taken by fish at a variety of stages during the hatch. From the latter emergence through the dun phase fish will eat this fly. I have even modified it on stream by pulling the deer hair wing out flat to the sides and fished it as a spinner in a pinch. And yes it worked.
If you have any questions, or suggestions feel free to let me know at b.sorenson@jumpcreekflies.com.
Enjoy!
One Full Year in Business, A New Pattern, and Some Customizing Options!
A new year on the calendar also means Jump Creek Flies has officially been up and running for one full year! Thanks to all those great customers who have stopped by this past year. This year has exceeded my expectations and kept me busy! There are a few great customers who I have been able to interact with shooting ideas back and forth, and it is this interaction that I enjoy as much as tying a fly. If you ever have any questions, or helpful suggestions on any of my patterns, never hesitate to send me an email at b.sorenson@jumpcreekflies.com. I really like enjoy hearing from all of you. Now on with the new stuff!
First and foremost I would like to introduce a new pattern. The FT Stonefly is the big, mutated, overgrown brother of the FT Hopper and in the version pictured here works great during the Giant Salmonfly Hatches.
ORDER HERE! This fly will float, float float. It's got a double layer of 2mm foam for the body, and TWO full elk hair Wings as well as an elk hair bullet head. The pattern is incredibly buoyant and easily visible on the water. The profile from the fish perspective, you know, the only perspective that really matters in the long run, is very appealing as well.
Go to the Dry Fly Catalog to purchase a few of these for as little as $1.75/ fly if you order 6 or more. And of course shipping as always is FREE!
Now on to some more exciting news pertaining to this fly and also the FT Hopper. You will find some added options available when purchasing these flies. I have added some more specific customization options so that these flies can be tied up in any combination you would like. You can now choose not only the hook size, but the color of the bottom foam layer, and the color of the legs. I have added these options so that these versatile flies can be modified to meet your needs on your specific water. For Example, the FT Stonefly mentioned and pictured above can be easily modified to work for other stoneflies by simply changing the colors of the foam and legs. The stoneflies that hatch on your waters can vary in sizes and color, so I wanted to offer as many options as possible for you to choose what will work best on your waters. You will find these expanded options available on the FT Hopper as well. I hope to continue to expand my options for many of these patterns as time goes on and I recieve more input from you, the valued customers, on what colors you might like to see. For now you can go check out what options are available, and get ready for your local specific Stonefly and Hopper events this spring and summer.
Hope everyone had a great 2011 and that 2012 holds more time fishing for all of us!
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