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 Striped Bass: My First Real Fish On A Fly!
Posted by JohnD-RailRiders on July 03, 2009 (65 reads)
Having gown up fishing (with a spin rod) with friends off the coast of Martha’s Vineyard for blues and stripers I am not a complete newbie to the sport of fishing. With that said, I had not thought about nor fished much in 15 years. About a year ago, when my company RailRiders began selling adventure clothing to fly fishing shops, I became curious as to what this addictive sport was all about, not to mention I figured I should learn to talk the talk.
About 6 months ago I was introduced to Jeremy, Joey, Kory, Boz, Dave and many other Flies And Fins crew members . Jeremy and I talked a lot about the sport and I watched tons of videos and looked at hundreds of websites and became intent on learning this mysterious addiction. With advice and help from the Flies And Fins crew, I proceeded to buy a fly rod, fly reel and some flies and went off on a sailing vacation in the Caribbean. I was psyched to give my new toys a try. I quickly learned this is a sport more frustrating than golf and those without patience, such as myself, did not help the cause. Needless to say it blew 24 knots consistently; I saw lots of fish and came home empty handed.
About a month ago my daughter and I decided to give it a go on a lake in NH where we have a summer home. After practicing my fly casting in the yard we headed to the dock to see if anything with fins lived in the lake. After several casts I felt a tiny tug and landed the
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Maine: I've Got A New Secret Spot
Posted by pat-m on June 25, 2009 (472 reads)
What a great State the State of Maine is. Even though I have fished and hunted all over the state of Maine for my entire adult life, I still find places that I have not seen. Such was the case this past Sunday. Greg had told me about a secret spot that held an impressive number of brookies and landlocked atlantic salmon. The best part was when he said is no one else would be there. I have to admit, I was skeptical. I figured the only reason no one would be there was because there were no fish there. Perhaps this was a spot that Greg had fished when fiberglass was the rod material of choice and he only hoped the fishing of days gone by was still there. After a reasonable drive from my home we arrived at our destination. You know how you look at water sometimes and just know that it is either dead or alive. This water was alive. You could just sense fish as you looked into the clear flowing water. As we geared up Greg told me stories of the past conquest he had at this secret spot. After seeing the water I was more inclined to think we were in for one of those days. Once rigged we walked up river to a hole Greg was sure would be holding fish. As we walked up river I was taken in by the shear beauty of the area. I thought how can something this beautiful be in
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Alaska, Sockeye Salmon: In Search Of Alaska's Grey Ghost
Posted by kodiakcommando on June 21, 2009 (328 reads)
It is 3:00 pm and I can't help but keep glancing at my beat up but functional watch while working my job for the airlines. Will the seconds tick by any slower? Doesn't father time know the sockeye salmon are running and that I'm itching to hook into one and have a fresh tasty salmon dinner? It will be like this the rest of the summer for me, work hard and play hard and with the exception of some rounds of golf and deer hunting. “play hard” really means fish hard. Early June is a wonderful time on Kodiak Island. The weather warms up, the sun shows up for most of the day and the vegetation turns green giving kodiak's nickname ‘The Emerarld Isle” some meaning. Most importantly however the first salmon of the year start showing up on the kodiak road system. For me, sockeye salmon are hard to beat. They run hard, jump high and have a flesh that is delicious and nutritious. Some say that their shortcoming is they are very spooky and don't bite. I know however they will strike a fly and I enjoy the challenge of fooling a wily fish with a fly. It's finally 3:30 pm and I briskly make by way out of the building and head to my fishing mobile, a 79 Chevy that has seen its fair share of action. Some call it ugly but I call it a fishbummobile. I make the 2 minute drive
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California, Sierra Mountains: Spring Creek Trout Look Up!
Posted by troutaddict1 on June 16, 2009 (315 reads)
When I woke up at 6:00 am in the morning, in Mammoth California to see the "sunny" climate that the weather channel had promised; I was surprised to find out that it was snowing. Regardless, I was pumped up to fly fish. My father, my brother and myself hopped into the truck and made our way our down to a creek that we like to fish. We have fished this creek in the summer and we are almost always expecting to see many anglers lining the banks. This creek is not one of our favorites, but in the summer months water in the Sierra's is limited. The great part about this creek is that it does tend to produce trout regardless of the conditions. After we geared up and trudged through a foot and a half of snow to the creek, we were happy to see that there was not a soul in sight. I got out my fly box and began to tie on a small WD-40. I was ready to get after it. Three casts after into it, I hooked and landed a fish that fought as if it was 4 times its size. Little did I know that there would be one of the strongest BWO hatches around midday. Never before have I had the chance to stick trout on a dry fly on almost every cast; while it was snowing! I fish the winter midge hatches and usually the BWO's are fairly small, but this time I was fishing a size 14. All in all, we had a great day of fly fishing to some beautiful winter trout in the Sierra Mountains. Despite the guides on our fly
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Flies And Fins 2008: ''Protecting A State Of Mind''
Posted by jeremy on June 10, 2009 (457 reads)
Watch Video:
Flies & Fins 2008
What a year! The best year ever! I wonder what makes every year so much better than previous years? Maybe it is all of the new technology and whiz bang features we implemented on the site? No, the technology and features are minimal and virtually exactly the same as when the site started six years ago. Maybe it is the dedication to perfect writing styles and grammar, super duper mega pixel pictures and better than HD videos? No, the writing is more about soul than structure (loaded with “mistakes”) and everyone uses cheap point and shoot cameras. Maybe it’s the fact that we all gravitate to the newest hottest fly fishing trends and dedicate our lives to one style of fly fishing. No, as long as a fly is being using on a fly rod with fly line … there is no one method of fly fishing that is better or worse than another method of fly fishing. Maybe it is all of the experts who know it all about fly fishing and grace us with their infinite knowledge? No, everyone is in a constant evolution of learning and it is universally agreed upon that it is 100% impossible for any 1 person to have fly fished for every species in the world and fully understand every ocean, lake, pond and river in the world. Maybe it’s the fact that we are all from somewhere like Montana where “A River Runs Through It” was filmed? No, we are from all sorts of places like the Netherlands, Denmark, Argentina, Hawaii,
(Read More... | 12 comments)
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