Tom L

Good jobs fellas! Them eyes are hard to come by on a fly.

Nice looking fly, Jonn. Not sure what u used for the tail, but if u have some EP fibers, try them. They come in a variety colors.

Would you use a #12 on Steelhead?

I've been using #10 2xH scud hooks for my steelhead nymphs and #12 & #10 2xH stream hooks for steelhead buggers. Low, clear and pressured water, smaller flies get better result.

This looks like a good steelhead fly.

It's even better on a big screen with the surround sound on.

Believe it or not, the whole video was done by Todd only. He was the camera man, the sound man, and the editing man. He used a drone for some of his aerial shots.

This is another fine video by Todd. Steelhead fanatics, this should get your heart pounding.....

We had 12 members convened at the Thai Garden last night for an evening of Thai foods and a few drinks. It was a fun and relaxing evening to spend with friends to share some laughters and fish stories. I'd like to thanks everyone for attending, Ed for setting up the meeting, and the ISA for the opportunity to host the event.

We're getting ready hear at the Thai Garden. The beers are cold and the woks are warm. Come on out and share your fish stories with us. 7pm tonight

1 more day!

3 more days 'til dinner meeting at the Thai Garden, Wed 10/15/14 7pm.

I'm planning to be there this year. Had a conflict with work last year, and I hated to missed it. Looking forward to seeing all of you then.

I just might do this thing.

Excellent! 5 more days.......

I've been using my summer waders for steelheading in the winter. The important key is extra rooms in the waders for winter layering. I normally have 3-4 layers underneath the waders: a mid-weight or heavy-weight base-layer (a wicked dry and non-cotton materials), 1 or 2 mid-layers (fleece pants, again non-cotton), an outer-layer (a thin wind breaker type Gore-Tex pants. This is very important, because the extra layer of Gore-Tex will guarantee to keep you dry.)

As for the boots, extra rooms and layering are the keys also. I have 2 pairs of wading boots: size 9 for summer and size 10 for winter. As for socks, the first layer consists of a thin base layer socks (absolutely non-cotton) and the second layer is a pair of thick Marina wool socks. To keep the toes from getting numb, I put air activated heat-packs in between the first layer and the second layer. Do not put the heat-packs on your skin.

This keeps me mobile and warm. 6-8 hours is a typical steelhead outing.

Nice fly Jonn. Buck-tail body and deer-hair head?

Well this is interesting. I may attend my first ISA meeting if I can clear that evening. Just a couple miles away and a favorite eatery.

 

Hey Tom if you see a 91 year old spritely guy come in there by himself for lunch sometimes (named Joe)...well that's my pops it's a favorite of his..

Wow! Really! Small world. We all know Joe well here at the Thai Garden. A very friendly and wonderful gent. He recently celebrated his birthday here.

Hope you can make it next Wednesday.

I used to have a Cabela's Pretige line before, I wouldn't recommend it to anyone. The line coating is not very lick which make shooting line very difficult. I had to clean and coat the line after every outing, but that lasted only a few casts. It will frustrate you for sure, especially a newbie.

This is a good line and it is on sales for $55 and you may qualify for add'l 20% off.

http://www.orvis.com/p/hydros-bass/warmwater-line/3h46

Apply for an Orvis Visa card. Use it for all your purchases and shipping will be free.

btw, I have no affiliation with Orvis.

Excited! Looking forward to seeing everyone.

Ed, just cleared out the mailbox.

Way over my head on that joke, Manny. I'm just a simple fishman.

There were only "Double Taper" fly lines available 30+ years ago. Now a day, it's getting harder and hard to find one. This taper excel in mending and roll casting. Dry fly disciples swear by this line. The steelhead/salmon taper is very similar to the double taper in that it has a very long (60') head. The head consists of a short front taper (2-3'), a long level body (45'), and a rear taper (10-12'). When steelheading, I only cast 20-40' mostof the time. So the steelhead taper line that I used actaully acts as a double taper line.

I normally carry multiple rods with me, when I'm out fishing. I also have a 7wt rod rigged with a type 3 sink tip line and carry it along too. This way, if I have to fish a deep and fast current section that my floating line can't reach, I won't have to rerig the rod and save time.

I carry multiple rods down to the river where I know that I won't have to wade too far and I hide the extra rods on the stream side where I can keep an eye on them. Sometimes as many as 3 rods.

Depending on what type of rod, a 5wt rod with a good backbone would cast a full sinking line or sink tip line with no issues. Also, the skills of the caster come into play.

To improve casting, the line is more importance than the rod. If you can afford the $70+ lines, any brand would do. Up size the line 1+. A 9wt steelhead/salmon taper and a 6wt bass taper. Lots of time you can find them on sales.

Funny. More harm than good.

Kudo to John and the team for putting this event together. Every year it's getting bigger and better. These are some of the mental notes that I judged down from the casting: Kabuto glass is pure beauti to look at and joy to cast; Orvis Recon is a very well rounded rod at a mid point price, accurate at short and mid range, easy to cast and still have enough gun to shoot 70+; Orvis H2 has a lot of feel and light in the hand than any other comparetable rod, even the tip-flex has enough bend and feel at mid and short distance; the new Sage Salt is truely a surf and rip rod designed to cast long distances and pick up sin tip line, good for blind & fan casting in big waters; Sage Method is very similar to the Salt, but slightly stiffered at the tip and less feel at short to mid range, a cannon to big lakes, it will cast much better with a RIO Outbound Short; Sage One is a more well round rod than the Method and the Salt, if I can have only one rod, it'll be the one; Ron's 2wt 1oz Sage is quite a rod for such a small stick, got enough power to fight the wind and yet so light/small that that its deceiving. There were so many toys with so little time to play them all. Again, big thanks.........

That picture looks familiar. I think I have a few exactly like that in my smallie box.

Manny, it looks very similar to the Morrish Sculpin which has a dumbbel eyes; a rabbit strip for body & tail and a another rabbit strip for bellly, and rabbit fur for head. There are subtle differences between the two though; such as rabbit fur head vs craft fur head, rabbit strip belly vs craft fur belly, rubber legs vs no rubber legs, hackle collar vs no collar.

It also looks very similar to my Foxy Crawdad (one of the flies that I sent you). It is actually an off shoot of that fly.

Big Gulp Sculpin

 

 

Uses a wool head. Is craft fur better?

Tried wool head before. It makes the fly very heavy, once soaked. The upside is it sinks fast, but not very enjoyable to cast. Also, tried deer hair head before. The deer hair make the fly buoyant and sinks slow. Craft fur allows the fly to sink fast and it shreds water quickly. These are the few differences I had notice so far.

I've been goofing around the vise and came up with this pattern: 90 degrees jig hook, dumbbell eyes, rabbit strip body & tail, Krystal flash tail and underbody, craft fur belly, rubber legs, hackle collar, and craft fur head.

Does it work on braid?

Yep. Tried it on 30lbs Power Pro. Cut thru with ease. The nicest thing about this device is that after cutting the tag end of the line it always leave a short enough tag so that you can easily find it the next time and the line won't coil out and get caught in the zipper of your sling pack or tangle on things. There are a lot of gadgets out there to catch fishermen, but this is one of the thing that is really useful.