Thursday, March 29, 2012

17,000 pageviews as of this morning!

This blog is a lot of fun for me, and I want to thank every one that checks in to see what's new.  My first post was on March 13, 2011, so we've been up for just over a year, and just a few minutes ago the actual pageview count was 17,003 views.  Pretty neat!   By far the most popular post has been the rod rack step-by-step, with more than 560 views.  I posted it back in January.  Coming in second is the most recent post about landlocked love for the Deep Green Beauty; 304 page views.

Where do blog visitors live?  The majority - more than 9500 - live in the U.S.   More than 4500 come from Canada.  Its always fun to see where viewers live...Russia, Italy, Latvia, Brunei, Sweden, Argentina, you name the country, seems like someone from there visited the blog.

Some folks come to the blog from forums I frequent.  The following send lots of visitors here, and if you haven't checked them out, you should!
       www.speypages.com
       www.nsflyguy.ca
       www.salmonfishingforum.com
       www.classicflyrodforum.com

Thanks again for stopping by!
Gary

Saturday, March 17, 2012

Landlocked Love for the Deep Green Beauty!

My friend John from Montreal suggested we hit one of the northern New York rivers yesterday for holdover - and maybe even...dare I say it? - bright fish in from the lake.  It's a 3.5 hour drive for me, so I go up the night before and meet John at the donut store at early dark thirty.  Picked up a coffee, dropped my truck off, and headed for the first of the pools we'd fish at first light.  There was a steady rain; the temp was about 40 degrees F.

Not much going on at that first pool, so we moved on.  Water temp 38 degrees, and pushes of ice occasionally screwing things up.

Second pool's a charm!  John hooks up but the fish gets off.



He lands one a few minutes later:



John's flies make other tyers envious but the fish love them:


His fly box is a thing of beauty and shows the pride he takes in his flies.  I shoulda swiped it.  "Geez, John, I dunno, did it fall out of your jacket out in the river or something???"



I can be a good student.  John told me where to stand, how far to cast, and be ready to hang on.  That worked!




Turned out to be a fine holdover landlocked:



The Deep Green Beauty strikes again!


Breaktime was a special treat!  John brought Sopresatta that he and his family make.  Simply awesome.  I drooled so much that he finally broke down and gave me the little I left on the plate to take home!



John hooked up again and landed a fish with several lamprey scars!


They seemed to be healing well:


Just a few yards downriver, the Beauty got more love:



If these mallards knew what a master John is at tying spey flies with bronze mallard wings, they'd have left in a hurry!



Well, there you have it: my first tugs of 2012.  Thanks, John!!

(pics of me  by John, of John by me)

Wednesday, March 14, 2012

Gold Hooks

Bought a pack of Montana Fly Company's 7099GD gold hooks, size six, to see what they are like.  Turns out to be a nice, well-made hook, from Japan, chemically sharpened.   It'll be fun to see what the salmon have to say about them, but I suspect I'll be buying more.

Monday, March 12, 2012

At least I got out there!

Beautiful day in southern Vermont and eastern upstate New York today, so I better go fishing!  Headed to the year-'round section of the Batten Kill.  Air temp. 67 degrees and no wind.  Lovely.  And nobody parked at the Spring Hole, how cool is that?   Down through the cornfield and into the river:


That's the good news.  The bad news is:  water temp 36 degrees, and Gary managed to last 1.5 hours and it appears that New York trout have not yet gotten the memo that the Deep Green Beauty is the tastiest morsel they'll ever sample!  No love for the Beauty!


But....and you knew this was coming....at least I got out there.

Sunday, March 4, 2012

Celtic Beauty - Spey Style

I thought it would be fun to tie up a Spey-styled Celtic Beauty.  I dyed all the feathers:  Deep Green for the Whiting American Rooster Cape wings and Claret for the body (blue eared pheasant) and front (ringneck pheasant) hackles.  The rear body is Uni's Bright Yellow floss; the front body is golden SLF dubbing.  Rib is oval gold Lagartun and the hook is a Daiichi 2059, size 3.

I couldn't resist playing with one of the "special effects" thingies in Picasa if you're wondering why the photo is foggy!

I'm looking forward to see how she goes in July up on the Miramichi!

                                                                    Click on the pic!