Sweet Anticipation Plus a Few New Flies

Newly Minted

Its raining in Vancouver today, hard. Its been a week since we had much measurable rainfall and the rivers have gotten pretty low. Over the next two or three days some areas of the Pacific Northwest are forecasted to see a few inches worth of rain, how much actually falls remains to be seen. Generally though its pretty likely that depending on where you're fishing conditions will range from absolutely perfectly cherry to somewhere just shy of flood stage. With a week of fishing ahead of me I'm taking a wait and see approach, watch the hydrographs and the weather forecast closely and make a call when things get a little bit more clear. For a normal member of society unaccustomed to the whims of winter river conditions it might seem maddening, particularly when most people plan vacations months ahead of time. For the steelheader it offers the tantalizing possibility that one or more of the favored stomping grounds could be fishing perfectly. A little high and green always beats the hell out of low and clear.

I've also been doing a good deal of tying lately. Then again, when am I not? Fishing with Ralf last weekend got me thinking about pattern design, size and what makes a steelhead bug "fishy". He's a proponent of smaller flies, tied sparse with just a little bit of flash so they sink well, but have lots of lifelike movement and shimmer. I've always loved the classic lines and sensibility of spey style flies but the appeal of more modern fly design with its emphasis on tubes and stingers, articulated, flash covered sea creature like monstrosities tends to also play a prominent role in my pattern design. So I've come up with a compromise. A classic prawn style spey fly, tied with all the traditional materials, but embellished with just enough flash and nastiness to make the fly really swim. This batch is tied on 1.5 AJs and should fish well under most winter conditions, but I think the pattern holds promise for summer runs as well if its tied on a smaller hook, particularly early in the season when the fish are bright and aggressive.

did someone say Jungle Cock?

A Batch o' Nasties

With temperatures this week hovering around -4 in Vancouver fishing seems inadvisable. We all get a finite amount of time on the water in a given year so freezing my guides is lower on the list of priorities than a few other things at the moment. Still, the Jones' are definitely setting in, stuck in the house this weekend with crappy weather I took a little time to tie. I swear to god this year I'm fishing more traditionals, they work and its nothing like hooking a fish on a sweet tie.

A few from this week:

Quillayutes

Clear Water 1/0 Spey

Peacock and Silver.

Shrimp Style

Nates Magic

Speaking of flies, I stumbled across the Idylwilde blog, some good stuff over there

http://idylwilde.com/wordpress/

Nates Magics

Nate Keen has got to be one of the nicest guys in the business. He recently left Avid Angler aftern managing the shop for as long as I can remember. Definitely miss having Nate in the shop when I go in, in my early stages of steelhead addiction he was always willing with a bit of sage advice or a hint at where I might find a fish. He's not one to brag but the man is just flat out fishy. Nate's Magics are one of his patterns, tied on 3/0 AJs they have an uncanny knack for eliciting massive takes from bright winter steelhead. My best fish of last year came on a purple/chartruse magic. Heres my take on the patter, thanks for the bug Nate.

Orange and Pink

Purple and Chartruse