Last fall I started working on a little side project. I had an idea to throw a fly fishing tournament for Carp that would be a great chance for a bunch of people to get together catch some big fish, drink some awesome beer, eat some BBQ, and help the Native fish we all love.  After some hard work and lots of help from from some awesome people at the Native Fish Society, Orvis, Ninkasi Brewing, Idylwilde Flies, John Montana, and others I am proud to say it has finally come together.

Today I am proud to announce the first annual Carp-pocalypse Tournament at Banks Lake in Washington. Clear water, shallow flats, lots of fish, and plenty of sun make this a perfect place for everyone to get together and have some fun while helping our native fish. This is a two day tournament with a tailgate party on Saturday night so come prepared to impress with your tailgating abilities as well as your mad flats fishing skills. All it takes to join is a minimum donation of $25.00 to the Native Fish Society. To sign up or get more information come see me at the Portland Orvis store or give me a call at 503-598-7680.

Hope to see you all there.

Adam

Why fish the Gunny? Here's one reason.

“Why didn’t I think of that?  That’s a great idea!”  That’s been the typical reply when I tell people about my friend Chris Mortimer’s new company, Gunnison River Pro.  GRP is the first boat/gear rental service and logistical support company on the Gunnison River.  A great deal of anglers out there know how to row a boat.  However the tough part about the Gunnison Gorge is dealing with getting boats and gear into the wilderness, to the put-in.   Gunnison River Pro provides everything you need to get down the legendary Gunnison Gorge with ease.

7000+ trout per mile can't be wrong!

What started as an idea over a few beers a couple years ago has become a reality and Gunnison River Pro is operational and taking bookings for the 2012 season.

Two GRP rental boats, in the Gunny Gorge.

Now that I’m living and guiding in Washington you can be sure that when I do get back to Colorado you’ll find me in a GRP boat, back on my old stomping grounds wrangling fish with my buddies!

Check Eric's sweet retro hat! ...and the big brown that ate a Chubby.

McCrary bets his living on the Marabou Tube

Marabou Tubes are putting them on the beach for McCrary clients.

Adapting your fly choice  for winter run steelhead to summer run steelhead is simple.  Just keep fishing the Marabou Tube.  Local Portland guide Matt McCrary has his clients fishing marabou tubes in all conditions.  High water, low water,  unweighted swung in close to the bank.   If he feels the need to get the fly down faster or deeper he slides a lined tungsten cone in front of the fly to micro adjust for weight without taking the time to change out sink tips.

“Right now the Clack has a mixture of late winter fish and early summer fish.   I always have one of my clients make a pass with the marabou tube.”  say McCrary.  “Its easy for clients to cast and I have tremendous confidence in the pattern.  Successful steelheading is all about confidence.”

Hi Zach

Let me know if that batch of photos made it OK.

Had a rocking good salmonfly day yesterday.

Off to Baja Saturday.

BO

I had a rocking computer day yesterday!

Unseen fine detail makes the Idylwilde brand = quality

Ask any angler what brand rod they fish?  What brand waders they like?  What tippet they like? etc… Each angler will easily be able to immediately give you the brand name and a reason they have chosen that brand.  Not so with flies.

Why should you care about what brand of flies you are buying either on line or when looking through the bins?  Here is a quote from Mike Hennessy that says it all.

” What really drives me bat crazy is clients coming from far away spending thousands of dollars on travel, lodging, restaurants, charters, rods, reels, fly lines etc…. and they show up with a $3 fly with a crappy hook that straightens out like my &$*%*^# on any fish over 5#s HELLLLLOOOOO the fly is the end game to all this fly fishing investment buy the best fly you can find!!!!”

Here are a few reasons the next time you purchase flies online or at a fly shop you should be concerned about the brand you are buying.

1.  Over your lifetime as a fly angler you will probably spend more money on flies than any other single piece of fishing gear!  Rods are $600.00 that’s a major investment!  Flies are just a couple bucks here and there.  Not so.  A $600 rod will last a life time (if not the rod companies will give you a replacement for free).  If your fishing career spans over 20 years your investment in that rod is just $30 a year.  Show me the fly consumer who spends less than $30.00 a year on flies!  As a guess I would say on average people spend a minimum of a $100 a year on flies.

2. A Parachute Adams is a Parachute Adams no matter who ties it.  Wrong!  Just because the cosmetics of 2 flies look similar does not mean they are both worth $2.25.

3. Construction of a fly pattern is what you are paying for.  That means that no tying steps are skipped.  Tying steps are skipped by some brands to bring their costs down and profits up.

Quality in Quality out!

At Idylwilde quality is what our brand is built on.

4.  Quality of hook is essential as Mike points out in his quote.  Good hooks cost more money but on the water is where the return on investment is.  You can dress a cheap hook up real pretty.  When a fish eats your fly and the hook bends out or the point breaks “pretty” doesn’t really mean much.

5.  Buying less expensive poor quality flies is not saving you money.  In fact in the end it will cost you more money.  You will end up using 2-4 as many flies for the same amount of fishing you will get from one quality fly.

6.  It is cost prohibitive to patent a fly.  This means when certain flies become popular they are copied by inferior brands and sold to the consumer as the same thing.  Its the nature of the fly business.  That said by paying attention to brand you can be assured the version you are paying top dollar for, is from a trustworthy brand.  For example the Chubby Chernobyl has become a popular and versatile fly.  Look for the Idylwilde brand next to it before adding to your shopping cart.

There is no reason you should not know what brand of fly you are purchasing when buying on the internet.  Idylwilde will provide branded pictures to the dealers at no cost to the dealer. We offer this so you can be assured you are getting your money’s worth.

Identifying flies by brand out of the bins is not so straight forward.  Bins can sometimes have a mix of quality and substandard flies in the same bins unidentifiable to the consumer.   In some cases dealers will purchase the unique flies (like the Chubby Chernobyl) from a quality brand like Idylwilde.  With the standard patterns like Pheasant Tails, Parachute Adams, Elk Hair Caddis etc… they will buy from substandard manufacturers at much lower prices.  This is possible as they count on you the consumer not being able to tell the difference and chose not to identify their flies by brand.

Flies are not big dollar items when looked at on an individual bases.  $2.25 big whoop.  You aren’t writing a check for $600.00 for a rod.  Rather think about the amount of money you spend on flies over the course of 1 fishing season and you might just surprise yourself.

From the time my son was born we listened to Beastie Boys together.  At 3 I would drive him to his 2-days-a-week daycare.   He would demand that the Beastie Boys were played the entire trip.  I was required to  follow a play list he had decided on in his head not just put on any random album or song.  His favorite song was Sabotage.   Things escalated and I saw not  harm turning  him onto some of the B-Boys music videos.  After watching Sabotage we watched many of the others vid.(Intergalactic another favorite of his).

One innocent day he accompanied my wife to Starbucks.  With their drinks they proceed outside (mocha for my wife chocolate milk for Little Blair) and sat down on the edge of a square flower bed as it was a nice day.  Little Blair drinks his milk and climbs up into the flower bed.  My wife consumed with reading the local paper notices Little Blair out of the corner of her eye.  What she sees is a 3 1/2 year old boy jumping up and down stomping on every single plant and flower in the bed.

Of course my wife is horrified.  She stops the carnage then proceeds to ask Little Blair what was he thinking with that behavior?  He innocently looks up at her and said, “I was just pretending to be a Beastie Boy!”

Thanks for getting me in trouble Adam!

Its open but you got to find fishable water

The California Department of fish game marks every year the last Saturday in April as the “opener of general trout season”.   Non-tailwater trout rivers of the sierras and foothills open to fishing should not be confused with conditions are condusive to fishing. Like most things in nature you can’t just put a day on the calendar and declare it so.  It is like the first day of summer being around the end of June every year. Things in nature gradually take place on their own schedule far removed from a human calendar.  Summer begins slowly and by all means has usually arrived by late June. Slowly pants are replaced by shorts.  My flip flop tan turns from a burn to a legitimate discoloration of my feet.  Heavy beers and brown water are replaced with light beer and lime juice and tequila.  Oh and I stop wearing shirts around the house cause it is dam hot. So goes the beginning of trout season.

Opening day means a few things in my world none of which are drive to a trout river…here is how my opening day goes.

I start by studying the flows on various rivers I fish or guide on; The North Fork of the Yuba River, North Fork of the Feather River, Deer Creek, Upper Sacramento River, and various other creeks. Checking flows means I get an idea of how long it is going to be before these rivers/creeks will drop to what I consider fish-able level.  Fishable levels are acheived when chucking lead, with heavy stoneflies or pulling streamers an angler can expect to maybe catch a fish or two.  In my experience this usually occurs 2-5 weeks after the “official” trout opening is declared.

I'm up to date on shad flies now

It also means I need to get my shad rods ready and a fresh batch of shad flies tied.  My boat is inspected to make  sure everything is working as shad season is about 3 weeks away. Also part of the ritual is to make sure to tie a good batch of clousers for the stripers, make sure my 9wtsare set up properly with lead core line.

Expect run off to be in full effect on the Lower Yuba.  By keeping your eye on the levels you can sneak in some days when the snow melt slows down and the river comes into shape for a day or two before it resumes.  When in shape stoneflies, san juan worms and big attractors are consistent producers for me.  These windows of fishing remind me that just around the corner it will be PMD, PED, Golden Stones, and Caddis time.

The Opener also signals a farewell. The Lower Feather River is a big part of our guiding here in Nor Cal.  Fall is long gone, winter is done and the spring run of steelhead is thinning out. For me this signals after 8 months I can pull my bead box out of the boad and drive through Oroville without stopping

Trout opener is a signal that my raft needs to be pulled out of storage and set up.  uhhhh!

Lower Sac trout fishing tends to slow a bit as the March/April caddis hatches slow and the PMD hatches start to get going strong. The fish in various stretches are spawning or in post spawn and fishing can get kind of funky at this time. That said the Lower Sac is still a pretty consistent trout fishery even with its up and downs.

Is that beer or coffee?

If I do get all the above mentioned work done in a timely fashion my reward is to head to a local bass pond, lake, or river.  Lets be real bass fishing is going OFF at the end of April!  Bottom line…the trout opener is all about getting ready for the fishing that has not quite arrived.

New Product Report – who has not drank out of a plastic red cup…(if you are reading this out loud in a group, Look around then make fun of the guy that raised his hand as he had no friends in college or just moved out of his moms basement). If you have ever been in a college town or attended a party with a keg,  plastic cups make a lot of trash…lots and lots of trash. Now my boys at Klean Kanteen in an effort to abolish single use plastic products and clean up the front yards of Chico.  They have invented the Stainless Steel Pint. They are sold in single or 4 packs with cool rubber handles and carabiner  for stop loss protection. They are great to replace the red cup for mixing margaritas in (my preferred use), coffee around the house, or just having an iced drink. Personally I am pushing for a beer pong kit. We’ll see.

New Music – I personally have not bought any new CDS but I did burn a copy of the new Jack White solo album and that thing rocks!!! A real diverse album with amazing great classic guitar sounds and grooves. I did buy the documentary video “Talihina Sky: the story of Kings of Leon”. Good documentary and really interesting story about the band and the weird southern bible baptist world they came from. That said I am a sucker for any music documentary.

Booze News – So I have officially made the transition to fall/winter drink into late spring/summer drink. Finished my last bottle of scotch and it was not replaced with scotch. I bought a handle of Jose Quervo instead for margaritas. Now everyone has their own margarita recipe or concocktion. Personally I have tried many…and when I say many I mean anyone I can get my hands on…I like margaritas. Loving scotch and margaritas is perfect, there is no off season. I finally settled on one last summer that I feel is the tops. I can’t take any credit for it as I picked it up from fellow guide and over all cool mellow dude Gino Bernero whom I use to guide with at Clearwater lodge…I still guide there, Gino does not.  Any tequila will work but instead of margarita mix you use Newmans lime juice…I add a shot of triple sec and a splash of orange juice, obviously shake vigorously over ice, and it is amazing!!!! I also bought my first 12 pack of Bud Light Lime, loving known to the chico crew and BLL’s. These go down way to easy on a hot afternoon and I am convinced have little to no alcohol in them as I can drink them hand over fist and not even get a buzz. Perfect summer beer.

hogan brown
www.hgbflyfishing.com
www.hgbflyfishing.blogspot.com

That bucket could be on a front end loader

Lawnmower proving its worth in the field

KP starts “The Process”for new bass pattern The Lawnmower.  The main design phase has been competed.  The Lawnmower is now being subjected to rigorous field testing before KP even considers whether to submit the pattern to Idylwilde.  I am no betting man but looking at the field lab results my guess is The Lawnmower will one day grace the pages of the Idylwilde catalog.

KP fishing with confidence

Lawnmower even performs for regular people