Let the Winter games begin...

I got back from Florida early Thursday morning. The continuous cold fronts had made fishing difficult for the second half of my trip. I was stoked to get back to Eugene because I knew winter steelheading had begun. Fish were moving into the systems throughout December and with the high water in early January I knew it was time to find'em. Jeff and I made a half day scouting trip to the Siuslaw where we both hooked up and landed some beauties.









I managed to fish the whole week (because my girlfriend was out of town) and did better than expected. I had hooked 27 fish and landed 15 which was enough to feed an entire frat house as well as fill my freezer with springer bait. Most fish were quite chrome and gave excellent battles. None were natives, although I did here of some caught.




Last Friday, Myself and three buddies traveled to Newport to do some night time fly fishing for the solitary and elusive Black Rock Bass. The seas were rough and the fishing was slower than anticipated, but we still managed to get 8 nice fish on ice. After eating too many hatchery steelhead, rock bass are a much needed improvement. There meat is white and is perfect for fish tacos or whatever else you can dream up. This is also a nice species to fish for in the depths of winter because it allows you to strip flies and make long casts which reminds me of striper fishing back in New England.

Flroida Christmas '09

Florida was plagued with colder than normal temperatures this January and it limited the number of days you could get out. Russel and I made it to the "no-motor zone" where we had hooked tarpon, snook, and reds back in October.
This is his favorite time of the year to fish because of the variety of species up and feeding on the flats. His favorite quarry is the Speckled Sea Trout (shown above) which is abundant on Florida's flats during the winter months.



I had always wanted to catch a big Redfish and this was it! I battled some sweet reds, trout, and a huge Black Drum which made my 6wt beg for mercy. I ended up losing the Black Drum after a 10+ min. battle and most of my backing depleted.




We would take Kayaks into the Banana River and paddle over 5 miles getting there in order to get to fish that were "happy" and unpressured. When the mid morning winds would pick up we would start working our way back eliminating the need to go to the gym and work out on those days. When I was down in October (without a Kayak) I actually walked the 5 miles on foot just to get a shot at surfacing Tarpon. I would walk in through highly patrolled and secured NASA property in the dark only to be greeted by Florida's copious stocks of wild boars, bobcats, gators, and in one instance a black panther.

November Salmon Fishing Continued.....

Elk River mouth at a mostly low tide.





Me, Helping some lady across the river


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K8 & I setting up for the next day's sick photo shoot!!




My first upper river Elk Chinook.




This Chinook ate a blue tailed chartreuse comet

A cool video shot by Bing Bong on Upper Talerik while fishing for Coho's...

Found My Camera! and the missing pics... From Fall and Summer '09

Maine Bluefish On the 8wt

They taste like shit and fight great! So you can put them back guilt free.

I looked forward to fishing in New England for most of the summer so I made a point to get out and chase various species in the early part of October. We went out of Boston Harbor in hopes of finding Stripers but were pleasantly surprised to find 30in. Blue's crushing bait and spent most of the evening chasing schools of fish under the canopy of heavy traffic at Logan Airport.



I caught some Stripers from the beach on Plum Island with my 10wt. but I was hoping for something more pelagic. Dave and I decided to head down to Long Island Sound to find False Albies. We went out with one of his buddies and were stoked to find tons of fish blitzing on anchovies at the channel. We started off catching nice Stripers and Blues in the 30in. range on small baitfish (epoxy) patterns. Around 9am we left feeding fish to find the "Little Tunny" and it wasn't long before we could see a different kind of blitz happening on the surface. Instead of "popping" and "sucking" sounds coming from the frothing water all you see was torpedo shapes darting in and out of the discombobulated anchovies.

This phenomenon made it difficult to hook up(at times). Because the bait was so thick the fish were just charging through it with mouths agape and not picking out individual fish. When we did hook up you could see the fly line and backing melt off your reel in a way rarely encountered.

False Albacore on a 10wt

Coastal Fly Fishing for Fall Salmon

The Summary for fall '09 goes as follows: It was a great year for overall numbers of salmon. Having said that there were very few Chinook. I would say that I only hooked 10 Kings out of 200 fish. Most fish hooked were wild Coho's with the exception of one Chum which was fairly fresh and gave a better tussle than the average Silver.

There was increased pressure on our spot this year despite dropping the rod as cars passed. Too many people saw the proof and I know the area was fished thoroughly even on days where we weren't there. It didn't seem to matter in the numbers of fish hooked, but it did push salmon up under the brush where it maid it virtually impossible to show them the fly.



Alsea Chinnok that fell for the red bead.



The Sickness with a Chrome Coho that was caught on his own chartruse creation.



Oly with a dandy that came just before nightfall bringing the days count to 70+ fish hooked!



Tidewater chinook from the Nushagak

Iliamna Summer '09

Harris on the Newhalen



Newhalen September Rainbow



Lower Talerik September Rainbow




Lower-T Bow




Newhalen Bow



Jackson w/ Newhalen Bow



28 Newhalen





Hangin with Brown bears on Moraine Creek in July



Having a fly experimentation day on Kamishak. We wold tie the most heinous looking patterns and see if the Dolly's would still participate.




Copper river crush fest with Sergio the camera man






Southeast Sockeye in full spawning colors

Southeast Rainbow

Kamishak Chum

Morainebow

Lower Talerik fall rainbow

Lings in the Spring

I went out with Kreg Strickland and his brother for solitary and illusive Rock Bass with the chance of getting some Lings. It was an awesome day that super seeded expectations, as we hooked a small Halibut, Vermilion, Cabezon, Kelp Greenling, Ling Cod, and yes Rockbass.

When we took his 21ft. Dory boat out past the Bandon jetty we could see herds of Rock Bass feeding on the surface. Kreg used homemade plugs on an ultralight trout rod and I used poppers on my fly rod. It wasn't long before we had limits for all three of us, and than it was on to bigger and better fish.

Summer Fly Fishing in Eugene

Rock Bassin' in Coos Bay is awesome, day or night. Andy and I took his 17ft Jetcraft out to the bar in Charleston in search of Ling Cod, Rock Bass, Stripers, or anything else that would hit a 5inch baitfish pattern. We caught around 30 fish a piece with having no prior knowledge of the area and structure. The bite remained good right throught the wee hours untill our casting started to fatigue and hunger set in. The highlight of the evening came in the midst of hooking rocky's at a fervent pace, and then having the coast guard come over and kick us off the bar due to swells.



Davis Lk. was slow but still produced some large LMB's all while being able to spot fish cruising. Casts of > 60ft were needed to get there undivided attention without them feeling the boat or seeing the fly line. Long leaders and natural colors seemed entice a few, but overall the bite was tough. An interesting moment came while pulling anchor. I had let a bait fish pattern settle to the bottom, when I gave it 2 strips, a large elusive Davis Lake rainbow picked it up and began tail walking across the surface with the white streamer hanging out of his mouth. The fish was a plump lake bow that was pushing 25 inches, in the 5-6lb range. The bastard eventually got away when he made a line ripping run. With a sudden stop and 180 deg. change of direction the fly fell from his mouth and the fish swam right past the boat adding insult to injury! Anyway it was cool to hook one and they are considerably hotter than the bass.

Springer fishing has been awesome this past week. One ate my spinner 10ft off the bow of Jason's Alumaweld this morning on the town run and it was awesome to see him actually chase down the spinner and suck it in. The Santiam fished well on Wednesday where I hooked 6 in a few hours on gear. Going back out tomorrow!

May 1st Davis Lake Bass Fest!

With the warmer temps and spring rains, the ice is off most of the high cascade lakes. JC and myself decided it was time to go strip big flies and poppers for the elusive Large Mouth Bass. Davis Lake had been illegally planted with LMB in the mid to late 80's which quickly vaulted it into one of the most controversial lakes in Oregon. The history behind the lake was that it had, at one point, been one of the states best stillwater fisheries for trout. It was not uncommon to catch native lake 'bows in the 30in. range. Today those fish are still out there but have been largely decimated thanks to the voracious appetite of the LMB. We felt we had to do our part in order to sore-mouth a couple of those "ditch pickles!"

Davis, is a fly fishing only lake which makes it nice and sometimes easy to catch big bass on flies. Shooting heads & sinking lines can be a must for catching pigs, but as summer temps take over the bass will move into the shallows and become vulnerable to surface flies. We had temps in the upper 40's and I'm guessing H2O temps around the same. We figured poppers would not produce because of the frigid spring temps. Towards the end of the day we were pleasantly surprised to see Bass actually waking after, and devouring our frog patterns and poppers.