Green on the Stream!!!

The Family and I spent the day at Tuolumne regional park for the Green on the Stream festival in support of the Tuolumne River Trust Foundation. I was there representing our club Stanislaus Fly Fishers along with our President Derald & other fellow members Brian, Tom & James. I was the resident tier for the day while the other members assisted the festival goers in the art of fly casting. The event was chalked full of vendors from Vegan bakers to roller derby girls and some really great local bands. I was entertaining our visitors with my fly tying skills while still taking in all the great energy from the bands on stage. I was really surprised in how many people are intrigued by fly fishing as well as fly tying. I have only been tying seriously for the last two months and it felt good to see our veteran fly fisherman admiring my work. Our President Derald was impressed with my birds nest nymphs so I gave him 3 patterns to use on his next trip. The only requirement is to take photos of the fish he catches on my flies.
Here is a few photos of us doing what we do best...sharing our passion for Fly Fishing!!





































All in all it was a great day!! I will catch all you cats next time...Back on the Fly!!!

No Fishing makes me...a better fly tier!

Thursday's are usually my fishing days on the lower Stanislaus river but the flow are still a little to high. So, when I can't fish I have been sittin' in front of the vise and tying some flies. My friend Patrick has been my fly tying coach for the last two months. We have tied flies for bass, trout & bluegill. Yesterday we cracked a bottle of wine and went after the Marabou Muddler. It should have some good action in the water. We will be throwing this one at our next trip to Kislter Ranch.


After tying the Muddler we headed down to visit our friend Bob who owns Sierra Anglers Fly Shop. Bob has a great assortment of our fly tying needs as well as everything a beginner to a professional might need for their next fly fishing outing. After spending an hour at the shop going over what our next purchases are going to be and pretty much acting like kids in a candy store, we decided to head back to Patrick's to finish our bottle of wine and tie a few more patterns for Goodwin(lower stanislaus). We tied a griffith gnat with indicator and a beadhead olive Birds Nest.
























Today Nicole went to visit a friend and do some networking so the boys and I tied up a few patterns. I tied a Dragon Fly, hoppers, zebra midges and some crazy patterns my boys came up with. It will be interesting if some of their creations catch fish. I'm just excited they are interested in tying. My oldest son Carson wants to tie something that we can catch sharks with...I will definitely post pics if we ever get to that point!
























Tomorrow I'm taking the vise down to Green on the Stream in Modesto. I will be tying some trout patterns that work well on this river. Come by and say hi. I will be representing our club Stanislaus Fly Fishers.

Keep on keepin' on and I will see you...Back on the Fly!!!

Tracy Fly Fishers general meeting featuring Mike Wier

I attended my first Tracy Fly Fishers general meeting tonight in Tracy, CA. I arrived at about 6:30pm to catch a group of guys sitting around a table watching fellow member Steve Holtzclaw work his magic on a fly tying vise. I quickly recognized Stan Elijah whom I met just the day before at a networking event. Brief History: My rule of thumb is "if you don't tell people what you do, then they don't know". So, when I was greeted at the networking event someone asked what I did and I said "I'm a Fly Fisherman"! "Well, then you need to talk with Stan Elijah". So I talked with Stan and he said he was VP of Tracy Fly Fishers and they were having a meeting the next day. See how it works, I never would have known. Anyway, back to the meeting. Right before 7pm the members started pouring in and I was trying to meet as many as I could. Everyone was very friendly and the best thing was they all shared the same passion...Fly Fishing. What impressed me was there were probably over 40 member's and everyone was so happy to see each other. I along with 3 other people were first time guests. They asked me to introduce myself to the group and give a brief history of my fly fishing experience (i.e. when I got started fly fishing and where I primarily have fished). After the introductions the meeting quickly got under way. They talk about the some upcoming outing as well as some conservation concerns. Then we had a brief intermission to mingle and check out the raffle prizes. I was impressed with the raffle prizes. they had a new Rod, hand tied flies from a member, line, tools, wooden rod rack (which I won), several bottles of GREAT wines...Awesome!!

The second half of the meeting got under way and the guest speaker was Mike Wier. Mike is a big fish Magnet as well as a great cinematographer specializing in fly fishing videos. Hit the link and browse his site...Totally Awesome!! He talked about still water tactics in the lakes that are right in our backyard. Mike also mentioned how he loves to sight fish for trout feeding along the shoreline. He ran through about 5 or so different lakes that are in are area and explained the different techniques he uses on each one. The highlight for me came when Mike shared with us a 10min video he shot from his trip to Mongolia (follow link to Spring issue '09 Mongo Metal pirates). The fish they caught were the monster Taimen (see picture above). What an Awesome video!! All I know is Mongolia is NOW on my list for places to go fishing.

As for the still water presentation. What I ended up getting out of it was that I have fished some of my favorite lakes and I always would get in a tube or be in a boat. What was cool is you can have just as good of luck or even better sight fishing from shore... Man!! I can't wait for my next fly fishing outing.

So, the meeting ended with the raffle and I came home with a wooden rod rack. Yeah Baby!!! It is always cool to win a raffle prize. It was a toss up between a bottle of wine and the rod rack. I had been wanting to hang my rods in the office for some time now so I couldn't pass up the opportunity... Next time I will get some wine :).

Well, to wrap things up... I decided to join Tracy Fly Fishers. I can't wait to get to know all the guys & girls and start blogging about my new fishing adventures with the club.

See you all next time...Back on the Fly!!!

All about the Bass...uh...I mean Bluegill.

What a perfect day to wet our lines and try to catch some of Kistler Ranch Bass. Temperature was around 80 degrees and there was no wind...perfect conditions for fly fishing for Bass. Patrick and I arrived at the ponds around 2:30 in the afternoon and found ourselves to be the first ones on the water. Kistler Ranch has your choice of three ponds and we decided to fish the upper pond. We hopped into Patrick's canoe with electric trolling motor which makes it nice to move from spot to spot. Patrick loaded his rod with a top-water popper & I tied on a fly I created the day before that resembled some what of a mouse pattern. Patrick & I are both trout fisherman so lugging these large flies out there took a few casts to get the hang of. We pretty much whipped the water into a froth but to no avail. Well, we did see a little action. I will say Patrick gets the award for the most takes on a single fly. Patrick noticed a bass rising near the grass line and he tossed his hand tied Maribou Muddler right near the spot of the boil. The bass took the fly but alluded the hook set... not once but at least 8-10 times. Well we can split those takes between two different fish. Either way I think that is the most non action/action fishing I have seen in a while. It was still cool to see a bass attempt to take a top-water fly. It doesn't take much to get these fisherman excited. The thrill of an almost hook set still gets the blood pumping.

Well, we pretty much fished for about 4 hours straight before we decided to break for a beer and a burrito. After our quick break we broke out the 3 & 4 weights and headed to the first pond for some always fun Bluegill action. Patrick tied on a foam spider with a birds nest nymph dropper and pretty much couldn't keep them off his fly. I hadn't tied any foam spiders so I went with a large dry fly and also a birds nest dropper. Well it took me about 15 mins of watching Patrick catch about 6 fish before I decided that something I was doing was not what the bluegill had in mind. I looked to the "Bluegill Master" for some guidance. Patrick said he had a black foam spider with about a 2' dropper using a black birds nest. So I went into the fly box and found a small black popper and dropped a black ant pattern I tied earlier in the week and BINGO!! I had the right hook up. It was pretty much every other cast until it got dark. We landed countless bluegill and a few redfin shad. Even thou we didn't catch any bass we still had a great time fishing for them. I can say we had an awesome time landing these wild bluegill on light action rods. The day was great spending the afternoon doing what I love to do and that is FLY FISH!!

Well depending on river flows we might be headed back to our home waters of Goodwin Dam or tying some new bass flies for our next Kistler Ranch outing. I will be showing you pictures of bass for sure next time. Till then I will see you Back On The Fly!