Reece’s Masked Bandit
By Bob Reece
In the world of streamers, bigger is not always better.
The majority of forage fish found in flowing or still waters are quite small. I believe that to optimize the success of streamer fishing, a fly fisher must make some adjustments to their typical streamer selection.
Good foundations are essential to highly effective patterns. For this reason, I chose the Gamakatsu Octopus hook. Its combination of short shank and offset point result in an exceptional ability to penetrate and hold in the jaws of large fish. A tapered head and large eyes are perhaps the most prominent feature of the shiners, chubs, dace and other species that this fly can imitate. The Fish Mask and Living Eyes provide a perfect representation of these. They also save valuable tying time at the vise compared to creating heads with epoxies and glues. Equally as important to the effectiveness of this pattern are the pine squirrel strips. The mottled color of the fur provides an accurate imitation of scales and fins of the naturals.
I’ve never hear a fly fisher complain about catching more fish or big fish. When properly presented, the Masked Bandit will lead to both of these outcomes. While smaller than its typical streamer companions, this pattern is more than capable of producing big results.
Watch the video and learn to tie Reece’s Masked bandit.
Read More »10 Inexpensive Fly Fishing Life Hacks From The Home Depot
By Louis Cahill
EVERYONE WANTS THEIR LIFE TO BE EASIER AND EVERYONE LIKES TO SAVE MONEY.
Here are 10 handy and inexpensive items you can repurpose to accomplish both. You can pick all of them up at the local Home Depot or order them online. I’ll supply links to each. Some of them are so obvious you’re probably using them already, but I guarantee there’s at least one thing on the list that you haven’t thought of and will love.
TOOL HOLSTER $10
This tool holster by McGuire Nicholas is made for a tool belt but is right at home when clipped to the edge of a drift boat or boat bag. It holds all of your frequently used fishing tools and supplies and can be easily moved around the boat so your stuff is always handy. There are endless variations so it will be easy to find one to hold whatever you need. I outfitted mine with a superintendent’s keychain for my nippers.
ANCHOR KEEPER $3
This oversized carabiner is made by Husky for drop chords. It’s the easiest way I’ve found to handle a boat anchor. You can clip it into the anchor ring and carry it easily by the padded rubber handle. The real benefit cones when you get to the car. If you drive an SUV like I do, having an anchor in the truck is a real hazard. If you crash, that hunk of metal is coming up to the front seat in a hurry. Use the Husky carabiner to secure it to a seat belt or tie down and you’re rolling safe.
EASY DRY ZIP POCKET ORGANIZERS $7
These handy zippered pouches from Husky can be used to keep up with anything. I really like them for Spey heads. The mesh panels allow the contents to dry quickly and you can see what’s inside without opening the zipper. A tab with a grommet allows them to be stacked on a carabiner.
FLY TYING TRAVEL BAG $38
This canvas tool bag, made by Husky, is great for taking your tying kit on road trips. It will hold a ton of feathers and fur as well as your hooks, tools and leader material. It has handy pockets for special items like the Clear Cure UV flashlight.
GOPRO BOOM $19
This five foot painters pole, made by Shur-Line is the bomb for shooting fishing photos and video with the GoPro. It collapses to about two feet and extends effortlessly. Submerging it in water doesn’t hurt it so go for the underwater shot or the overhead. A GoPro mount is easy to attach via a 1/4-20 bolt.
Read More »10 Tips For Spotting Permit
PERHAPS THE LOFTIEST GOAL IN FLY FISHING IS CATCHING A PERMIT.
Maybe it’s not your thing but if there truly is a fish of ten-thousand casts, it’s the permit. There is enough to catching permit to fill a bookshelf or magazine rack. It’s a complicated game, but where it starts is simple. To catch a permit, you must find a permit. And to find a permit, the angler must know what to look for. With that in mind, here are 10 tips to help you spot a permit.
Have the right glasses
This is stupid simple but it really is the most important piece of equipment for the saltwater angler. There is no replacement for quality polarized sunglasses. Good saltwater glasses have a rosy color to the lenses. Pass on green or grey. Copper, rose or brown will offer better contrast. A lighter tint to the lens is valuable on darker days and a frame that shade your eyes is a plus. Glass lenses offer the sharpest vision and, unless you have a heavy coke-bottle prescription, that’s what I recommend.
Tails
The long, graceful forked tail of the permit is its most distinctive feature. It is black in color and stands out when the fish shows its profile. Often the permit’s broad, silver body disappears completely and it is the black double sickle tail that gives him away. This sight is never more exciting than when the tail is held up out of the water. Called ‘”tailing” this happens when the fish feeds off the bottom in shallow water. This means that the fish is actively feeding and the chances of him eating your fly are good.
Spikes
The permit’s long, sickle-shaped dorsal fin will often give him away. When the fish is
A Closer Look / The Pacific Steelhead
I DON’T KNOW IF THERE IS A FISH I GET MORE WORKED UP OVER THAN THE STEELHEAD.
What remarkable creatures they are, bridging the gap between freshwater and saltwater fly fishing. This fish was caught about a half mile from the salt in the Dean River. What a beauty.
Read More »Pothole Fish With John I Missed
By Dan Frasier
IN SOME WAYS IT WAS THE SECOND DAY OF MY FOUR-DAY TRIP TO THE COLUMBIA RIVER.
In a more meaningful way, this was early on day one. My first day in Portland was spent doing one of those things that seemed worthwhile at the time, but in hindsight was just a day of fishing that didn’t happen. You know how priorities seem different in hindsight? Yeah, one of those deals.
Anyway, John “Montana” Bartlett had displayed his renowned graciousness and now we were on the water. I was ready for big fish and plenty of them. I’ve been known to catch a carp or two and, despite John’s warnings, it seemed pretty obvious that the Big C was just another carp-laden body of water waiting to be conquered.
We hit the road from John’s house early. He had a vague plan that involved a lot of “if they aren’t there then we’ll move onto the XYZ spot”. To be honest, I’d quit trying to keep a mental map. John speaks about the Big C like you do with an old lover; using allusions to past events, pet names for places known only to him and broken references to memories that are more feeling than fact. It didn’t matter anyway. If I ever repeated the names of the spots we fished, John would have hunted me down like Seal Team 6 and people would be left to ask, “Hey, whatever happened to that Dan guy?”
My first bout of nerves started as we entered the water on the first flat. Things here were different, but in an eerily recognizable way. My brain immediately grasped that the water looked like a carp heaven. Like something I’d seen before and recognized. Good water, good clarity, obvious feeding areas. And yet it was wholly different than what I was used to. The bottom was more like a moonscape than the mud flats I fish; piles of cobble and sharp volcanic rock with divots and craters in between.
The water itself looked like those translucent aquamarine glass shower doors. You could see through it very well, but it wasn’t colorless. It was colored with an opacity that you had to consciously try to look through instead of at it. It was like the Columbia gave you enough to make the carp fishing reasonable but no more.
A few steps in and the nerves subsided. We were thigh deep in good-looking water with fly rods. For me it seems that the familiarity of the activity of fishing quickly overcomes the unfamiliarity of a new location. This time was no different. It was just fishing, albeit in a storied and strange location.
John and I walked this submerged moonscape with the confidence that is natural at the beginning of a long fishing trip. John new he could catch every fish he saw and I felt confident that I’d either get my share now or learn quickly enough and have plenty of time left in the trip to get it later. We saw a few fish, had shots at a couple (which John let me take) and landed none on that first pass. That was alright, lotta fishing left to do.
We hit the end of the flat and John was ready to move. The Big C has more fishable carp water than a person can cover in a lifetime so there is no point dallying at a spot that you’ve already walked. We hopped out of the water and up the riprap. This is the steep riprap of large sharp stones that indicate significant human modification to a river. Great chunks of granite rise from the water’s edge at a steep angle for twenty feet. It’s treacherous walking and difficult fishing. From that position an angler can get great visuals on a fish, but that’s about all he has going for him. Casting from riprap that steep means your line sags and moves the fly well farther in than you expect. The fish tend to be very attuned to any movement above them on the rocks and the angle makes hooksets VERY difficult. Elevated fishing is a strange and diabolical kind of torture. It lets you identify more targets that are nearly impossible to catch.
Hell isn’t fishing without finding fish. Hell is fishing and finding huge numbers of uncatchable fish.
Read More »The CDC Blood Midge
MIDGE PATTERNS CAN BE REMARKABLY EFFECTIVE FOR TROUT.
Depending on how you count them there could be over a thousand species of midge. That’s a lot of choices for the discerning trout. There are almost as many choices for the angler and a midge obsession can easily get out of hand.
I find that more times than not a Blood Midge will do the trick. I spent a morning on the Colorado River one April and caught twenty-four brown trout on a blood midge without moving my feet. Trout are naturally attracted to these red patterns even when they are not an exact match for the naturals. I’ve tied many different Blood Midge patterns but my current favorite is the CDC Blood Midge. The power of CDC can not be overestimated. This is a great pattern and very easy to tie.
Watch the video and learn hoe to tie The CDC Blood Midge.
Read More »Fast Action Fly Rods And The Fly Lines That make Us Love Them
Selecting the right fly line for your fast action fly rod isn’t as easy as it used to be.
I have found myself having this conversation with three different anglers this week. That’s generally a good sign that it’s time to write something on the topic. There’s plenty to write on the topic of choosing a fly line. Fly lines have become increasingly specialized and more numerous. You can buy a line for any species of fish alive, for any style of fishing, for specific destinations, and now Winston has started selling lines specifically for their rod. A strategy I’d be shocked to not see adopted by other companies.
The decision is further complicated by the action of today’s fast action rods. Some of these modern hotrods can be pretty finicky about the lines they throw. The exact fly line which works for you and your fly rod is best determined by trial and error, but I’m going to try to eliminate some of the variables and get you started in the right direction.
2 Kinds of fast.
When it comes to fast action fly rods, it’s important to understand what makes your rod fast. The term “fast” refers to the recovery rate of the rod. That’s the time it takes for the rod to return to straight from a flexed position. The less time it takes to recover from the flex, the faster the action.
Traditionally, “fast” has meant “stiff”. The way rod designers have made fly rods faster has been to throw graphite at the problem, adding material to make a stiffer rod. These rods became so stiff that many anglers struggled to load them. Line manufacturers responded by making heavier fly lines. Before long, experienced anglers started to realize that they were putting 6-weight lines on their 5-weight rods and started to ask, “why are we calling this a 5-weight, anyway?”
A fair question, and as more anglers grumbled about it, rod companies started to respond by making fly rods with more accessible actions. A new type of fast action rod started to emerge. These rods had fast recovery rates, not because they were stiff but
Read More »Grass Roots Fly Fishing – People Making A Difference
by Louis Cahill
Is it time you gave something back?
You can’t go to school for fly fishing. You can take some classes or workshops, here and there, but most folks learn to fly fish one of two ways. On their own or from a friend or family member. Either way it’s a tough learning curve. Information is pieced together from tips and suggestions, successes and failures. Some anglers hire guides or casting instructors to teach them but that’s not an option for everyone. What if there was a better way?
Well, there is. There are local clubs and groups that take on the mission of educating anglers and creating a community around our love of the sport. Some are better than others and some are great. At their best, these groups do more than share information. They share the passion, the ethics and the camaraderie of fly fishing. I’m going to tell you about one of them.
I didn’t know my life was about to change when I met Scott MacKenzie. We fished together, and hit it off right away but I had no idea what a positive influence he would be, for me and others. Scott is just one of those guys who radiates positive energy. He came along at a time when things were pretty tough at G&G world headquarters. It is not an exaggeration to say there would be no Gink and Gasoline today, if not for Scott.
He and I fished together in the Bahamas, on one of my bonefish schools. Scott had been a fly fisherman for many years but had never tied flies. I taught him to tie a bonefish fly and when he caught fish on it the next day, he was hooked. From that point forward he was all about fly tying. I’d get a couple of text messages a day with questions or photos of flies. Soon he asked me, “Would you teach me to tie?”
“Of course!” I answered.
“While you’re at it, would you mind teaching six or eight other guys?” He followed up.
I agreed and Atlanta Fly Tying was born. Scott threw down his own money and bought eight complete tying setups. Eight Regal Revolution vises, eight sets of Rising tying tools, thread and materials all in lots of eight and scheduled the first class. We met at Scott’s office. He reached out to The Atlanta Fly Fishing Club, another great organization, and they spread the word that there would be free tying classes, open to anyone.
That first night we had about six guys show up. We sat around Scott’s conference table to tie redfish flies, because Scott and I were going redfishing in a couple of weeks. I dove right in to the instruction. We were cranking along when Scott brought up G&G.
“Here comes the pitch!” One of the guys blurted out.
I was floored. “I’m sorry man,” I told him, “I don’t have a pitch. I just run a fly fishing web site, and it’s free.”
It never occurred to me that these guys were sitting around that table thinking we had something to sell them. I should have realized. That is the kind of world we live in, where any act of generosity, no matter how small, is suspect. Maybe I’m stupid for not having something to sell them. If I had a fly shop or a guide service, maybe I would, but all Scott and I had to offer was knowledge and enthusiasm. Those guys wound up
Read More »Georgia Man Catches Trout On Car Key, But Why?
By Louis Cahill
WHY IN THE HELL WOULD YOU FISH THAT? I’M GLAD YOU ASKED. TO PROVE A POINT.
For some reason this year I have run into more anglers with attitude than usual. Ranging from the dry fly purest who think they walk on the water rather than fish it, to the Bonos of fly fishing who keep a sharpie handy for a quick autograph. Here’s an example.
I was on a photo shoot a while back on the Henry’s Fork. I had a few minutes to fish and frankly, I needed a fish to photograph, so I asked the guide for a rod. He gave me a set up with a Chernobyl Ant, the fly everyone else was using to NOT catch fish. I didn’t have my gear so I ask if he had any streamers. The reply I got brought steam out of my ears. “This is the Henry’s Fork and we don’t do that here”. Rather than launch into a diatribe on what horse shit that is, I explained that this was my job and I needed a fish and may I please have a streamer. Within a few casts I had my fish. The guide was clearly irritated and insisted that it meant nothing.
I was talking, ok bitching, about this narrow view of fishing to Kent, over a few beers, when he challenged me to come up with the most f¥€ked up thing I could catch a fish on. After a few ideas we decided on a car key. I liked this because I cary a key chain with way too many keys. So I picked out a key and tied on a hook with a marabou tail. To further infuriate the purest I chose
Read More »How To Make Your Fly Rod Cast Like A Dream
What Fly Line Matches Up Best With Your Fly Rod?
It always amazes me that there’s very little talk in the industry about how important it is to match your fly rod with the appropriate fly line. My recent visit to the ITFD Fly Fishing Show in New Orleans, I witnessed on more than one occasion, fly rod company’s matching their fly rods up with what appeared to be the wrong fly lines. If you spool up the wrong fly line on your reel, that $700 fly rod you just purchased will end up feeling awkward, and won’t perform the way the fly rod designer intended it to. Below are some quick tips on how to match your fly rod with the correct fly line so it ends up casting like a dream.
Fast Action Fly Rods
Stiff, fast action fly rods require fly lines with a more aggressive head design for optimum rod loading and casting. Since fly rods are generally meant to load at 25-30′ of fly line out the end of the rod tip, anglers often find it difficult to load fast action fly rods, particularly at short distances, unless they’ve matched their rod with the appropriate fly line. Both Rio and Scientific Anglers manufacture fly lines specifically for fast action rods.