LRHF said:

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brs4688 said:

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Do you tie flies or buy them?

If so, where do you buy?

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Mostly tie my own. Have some older boxes and buy some flies when in a new area and don't have supplies or time to tie.

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Thanks. If you have the time, would you put together a list of what to buy as a beginner.

brs4688 said:

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LRHF said:

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brs4688 said:

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Do you tie flies or buy them?

If so, where do you buy?

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Mostly tie my own. Have some older boxes and buy some flies when in a new area and don't have supplies or time to tie.

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Thanks. If you have the time, would you put together a list of what to buy as a beginner.

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I Will have soMe time in a couple of days and glad to help. Lots of good reasons to tie flies just don't let cost be one of them! To be a good tier, one needs a stupid amount of materials! Are you focused on Freshwater, Saltwater or both?

Fairly standard lost of trout flies that you'd probably want to have on hand: elk hair Caddis, royal Coachman, yellow humpy, stimulator, parachute Adams, black first beetles (small and large, small works for ant mimics), and hoppers.

Nymphs: prince nymphs, Pat's rubber legs, zebra midge, San Juan worm.

Anytime you're in a new address, it's always a good idea to stop in a local fly shop and buy a half dozen to a dozen flies that they suggest.

If you're just getting into tying, pick 1-3 patterns you want to learn and buy the materials for them. Materials get expensive. They'll last a long time, but it's kind of like accumulating tools in your garage. You don't but they all at once, just something here and there as you need it. And buy good hooks.

LRHF said:

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brs4688 said:

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LRHF said:

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brs4688 said:

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Do you tie flies or buy them?

If so, where do you buy?

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Mostly tie my own. Have some older boxes and buy some flies when in a new area and don't have supplies or time to tie.

---

Thanks. If you have the time, would you put together a list of what to buy as a beginner.

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I Will have soMe time in a couple of days and glad to help. Lots of good reasons to tie flies just don't let cost be one of them! To be a good tier, one needs a stupid amount of materials! Are you focused on Freshwater, Saltwater or both?

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Freshwater

Good list. I'd add the hare's ear and pheasant tail nymphs. These two flies and a Pat's are on 90% of my nymph rigs. Great all around flies for western trout streams!

Duncan Idaho said:

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Don't be jealous but i spent the morning making the most awesome pivot table in excel.

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Caught my first smallmouth on fly last night, trying to decide if my body can handle wading one of the smaller rivers this evening, meeting a coworker to fish the Vermillion tomorrow, probably venturing somewhere on Sunday that is TBD, then wife and daughter fly back in Monday. So less fishing after this weekend.

Do you guys dry camp most of the time? How does that solar charger hold up? Enough to run everything but the A/C?

Lt. Joe Bookman said:

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Do you guys dry camp most of the time? How does that solar charger hold up? Enough to run everything but the A/C?

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Yes, most of the time we are dry camping. The solar panel does a great job of keeping the batteries charged. We have two 6 volt batteries in series to get 12 volts. I do Have a small Honda generator if we need to charge batteries or run the TV to watch DVD's. We do have an AC but can't run unless we have shore power.

Cool. We're getting close to getting a travel trailer and will be dry camping most of the time since we have so much BLM and forest land nearby.
Will definitely make the fishing trips a lot more fun!

Spent the afternoon up there Vermillion River with one of my coworkers. Hit some small pools in an area that our company has done a lot of stream restoration, so he wanted to show it to me. We each caught 5 or 6 cutties in the 8-10" range, which is about all you can expect as far up the river as we were. Was spectacular to wet wade, as we've been up near 100 degrees the last several days.

Headed to the Thompson River tomorrow for a full day of wading, hoping for some better size, but I'll take whatever. Need to give the 4wt a good work out.

We met some friends in Ketchum, ID for a few days. Our camp was about 30 minutes out of town on a free spot in the National Forest. Caught a few small fish in the stream by camp.




If you head over the mountain, you can fish the Upper Big Lost. Strange flows, very low on the freestone but too high below the damn safely fish. Caught a few fish but had a great time in the high desert landscape.




No trip is compete without a couple of days fishing Silver Creek! I come here because it's beautiful and a great way to test my fly tying and angling skills. The first day I had many takes but couldn't land any of the fish. I was too quick on my hook sets, too hard on 6 and 7x, a bit unlucky but despite this, was one of my best mornings on the creek. I took a midday break to warm up, eat then exacted my revenge with some hoppers!


I had Only scheduled 1 day for Silver Creek but had to return since I had hooked numerous fish the day before in small flys (sz 22 and smaller Tricos, BWO, PMD's and xxx)

The next day was way busier than the prior day, 9 vehicles were parked when we arrived at 7:30. The trico hatch was starting around 8 and the fishing was fire from about 9-10:30. Long leaders were helpful and the fish did their part! Didn't land any monsters but landed 80% of my takes with the biggest on a size 22 trico spinner on 7x. It felt good to have a successful morning! My SO had many takes and managed to land one fish. If we had another day, I think she would have done much better.






We have now moved to camp and fish on the Henry's Fork. Here is a picture from last nights sunset. A few nights ago, we had a great evening watching satellites and shooting stars!


Almost forgot, we did head over to Sun Valley to watch the Symphony! Unfortunately, because of Covid, it was a series of short performances by the artists In their homes. Had a nice bottle of wine!

Caught a nice rainbow yesterday on the Henry's Fork. We had a slow morning but some fish started rising in the early afternoon. This fish took a small ant pattern on 6x tippet. Thank goodness I had My SO nearby to help net the fish. Big fish on small tippet are hard to land when there is a bunch of moss.

Awesome photo. I've been trying to hook one of those SOB's all summer to scratch if off my fly-rod list and am still 0'-fer. Missed another one yesterday. And two weeks ago was fly fishing on an over flow out of lake somerville and there were dozens coming up to sip air but couldn't get much interest. Had one hit a deer hair bass bug but when I went to set the hook he released. What fly did you catch yours on?

An olive carp bitter
It tossed it about 12 feet, fly was pretty dry and stinking slowly and this guy rose and hammered it while it was still close to the surface. Surprised the hell out me. I wish I could tell you it was something I did on the hook set but the fish took it just right.

Forgot to ask, coming out of the Houston bayou, how'd that gar eat?

As tempting as locally sourced gar balls sounded, was released to fight another day.

A few days apart.

Duncan Idaho said:

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Damn catching so many fish, you had to change shirts

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Changed hats as well... didn't trim beard!

Hudson2508 said:

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Well we made a later than usual trip to Crested Butte last week. Rented a beautiful cabin on Spring Creek in Almont just upstream from the Taylor River. The morning after the 2nd night I almost stepped on a dead bat in my two toddler's room. Well 24 hours later the whole family had rabies shots after we heard from the property manager that they had a bat infestation problem they didn't warn us about. Then the guy told us we had to leave the rental or sign an agreement releasing them from liability. We peaced out and found a less desirable backup condo. Then after all that bull**** I actually was able to fish....

Fished Spring Creek which is my usual hole since I love the difficult terrain that typically scares off the crowds. Well it didn't scare off the COVID crowds and not many fish were to be found. Had some success but decided I wanted to find something way off the grid.

I took a chance on a long drive. I decided to drive all the way to the start of the Taylor River way upstream of the reservoir near the Taylor Peak. It ended up being the best fishing decision of my life. Spent the next two days fishing a beautiful stretch of the Taylor that fished more like a small creek. It was full of decent sized browns and one nice Brookie. I was actually surprised by the apparent lack of Brooks. It was wonderful, every hole that looked fishy had a fish in it. I was also completely alone in the brilliance, not a soul to be seen other than a huge bull elk that scared the **** out of me. My Barclay glass rods were the perfect tools for the stream. I ended up using my 6'8" 3Wt the most since it simply felt perfect in my hands and put the dries right where they needed to be.

Well here are some of the spoils. Can't recommend this location enough if you love small stream fishing.

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Good recovery! That's a great piece of water, nice post!