2023 Fish-Pic-O-Rama

[The Suit]

Ever watch baseball? There's been a lot of rule changes but 3 bags is still scored as a triple.

IGFA can’t count

[Harry]

IGFA can’t count

I call shenanigans.

In the Fly Fishing category, they require “a leader with a breaking strength of under 20 pounds”.

Good luck landing a Musky with that.




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[Hopeless Sinner]

I call shenanigans.

In the Fly Fishing category, they require “a leader with a breaking strength of under 20 pounds”.

Good luck landing a Musky with that.




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My understanding is the leader just needs 1 section that's 20lb or less, it doesn't require the entire leader to be 20lb.

[plugboots]

Really tough today. Only a couple fish rising.

[Underoos]

In the Fly Fishing category, they require “a leader with a breaking strength of under 20 pounds”.

Good luck landing a Musky with that.]

With a wire bite tippet and a 16 lb class tippet, you could land a 50" musky in a couple minutes. The hard part would be casting the fly, which still wouldn't be all that difficult.

[tgapp]

Fkn stoked for you, Harry. That's awesome. Amazing shit.

A lot of my experience with fishing is learning a new sport and developing core skills and competencies; I cast a fly rod for the first time a little over a year ago (4/20 on the green), so a lot of what I'm psyched on is learning new techniques, skills, and strategies, and then using them to catch fish.

This last weekend was my first "real" introduction to streamer fishing. I've been practicing casting and streamer technique out on stillwater, but hadn't really spent any time on the river practicing it. My goals this weekend were to:

1. master the basics of a roll cast to pickup and go right into casting
2. get better at timing the haul on my forward cast
3. get better at getting contact with the streamer immediately after casting & then maintain contact through the strip

I figure I can work on distance later; if I want distance I can always cast across my body, but I'm not so good at double hauling and line control where I can confidently manage that.



First, the knots: stoked that I can tie perfect blood knots now, and i learned how to tie a loop knot too. Here I have one on a fly that Telee gave me; I didn't net any fish on it but I had lots of action on it including the biggest brown of the trip that followed me to the boat and slashed at it right as I was picking it out of the water. Pretty fucking exciting for a new fisherman.



Managed to get one in the net on this sparkle bugger streamer guy, psyched on that. First trout on a streamer!! Goddamn streamer fishing is exciting.

When the streamer fishing slowed down I started to nymph a bit - another skill that is both frustrating and boring. Got a few; missed a ton of others. I'll get better at it. Just need to practice it; too bad it's the most boring kind of fishing.





One of the pieces of advice that I've taken to heart is "fish the flies that you'll be excited to land a fish on", so the last day I decided to start throwing some big foamies even though there really weren't any bugs on the water and the cicadas hadn't started yet. I learned how to fish throwing cicadas on the green and it's probably my favorite form of fishing still. Watching a big brown cruise up from behind a rock and smash your fly is about as exciting as it gets, and with just a few miles left on the B during our last day, I figured I would give it a shot. Better than watching a bobber all day.



Third cast of the day was to a shelf right below a grassy bank - I put my hopper right where I thought there would be a trout waiting for me, and sure enough one immediately cruised up and smashed my fly.

All in all, getting fish by three different methods, getting my first trout on a streamer, and getting the first fish on a terrestrial for the year made this trip memorable. Rowing red creek clean in our boat full of camping gear at 850cfs was just the icing on the cake.

Finally, a great reminder from the phone booth at Taylor's flat.



Fish of the trip goes to my buddy Greg, who netted this beautiful 20" fish on a streamer. Strong work!!

[John_B]

Nice tgapp! I've really enjoyed streamer fishing for the last few years after I made a point to practice it. Are you fishing those on a floating line? If so one thing to try is fishing a type 6 full sinking line like a Rio Outbound. I typically do that with lightly weighted flies. The caveat is that I'm mostly stuck on shore rather than in a boat.

[MarsB]

Fine work, tgapp. I would say a sink tip is more practical for the water you and I fish than a full sink, but a floating line will work fine for heavier streamers. Hope to meet up with you and wet some flies once the local water drops enough to become fishable again!

[tgapp]

Thanks folks. I fish a full sink for Willard and Strawberry and a sink tip for rivers like the green, Weber, etc. Both on 8 wt.

Willard is fishing really well Mars, come out and fish it with me. Smallies are feeding like crazy, as are channel cats and wipers. Bring bug spray.

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[MarsB]

Sounds like you got the setup dialed. I don't know why, but stillwater fly fishing just doesn't appeal to me much. I'll break out the 3wt in the Uintas, but my heart longs for the trout in those clear cool rivers.

[plugboots]

Way better today:


Bonus picture of number three because it was so pretty in the sun.

Also, by the way, the sixth one was sipping midges in a big pond connected to the creek, (a stillwater), frankly, my favorite type of fishing, other than SW flats.

[swimmy]

Good thread the past few days. Nice work.

Played this week. Here are a few pics.
















Fishing was good. Interesting, most rivers are shit during run off. But on this stretch the higher the flows, the better the fishing.



Banged 'em up pretty good on the streamer.



On deck, salmon flies.

[Harry]

Back at last month’s 4/20 On The Green, one of the non-mags in Underoo’s entourage was a Musky guide from Wisconsin. We exchanged digits, and yesterday he texted that he and a fellow guide/buddy had room in their boat. Their objective was a legendary Musky river, but they wanted to concentrate on smallmouth bass. Turns out that was an excellent call.

We met up at a boat ramp very near Christie Mountain. The last time I was on this stretch of the river I was a Boy Scout in a Grumman canoe using a Zebco 202 and a Johnson Silver Minnow.

We absolutely killed it. Smallmouth after smallmouth were caught and released. We did not keep track of how many, but the largest is in the photos.

These guys may be non-mags, but they were super cool and super friendly. We made plans to meet up again next week, so stay tuned.















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[Rasputin]

Holy mackerel! Well not mackerel, but beastly browns and that smallie is hudge!

I haven't been fishing since last Friday, when I rode my mountain bike, six miles from the trail head, up the Rattlesnake, to an area that was braided, however there was too much water and stacks of downed trees to fish the main channel effectively, and the side channels didn't produce a whisper. I didn't catch anything, and probably didn't get any bites, though a couple times I thought I did.

I had a small black bear run out in front of me, before running away toward the creek. At one point I heard what was likely a moose grunting his disapproval at my presence, I got outta there without confirming what was making the noise in the thick tangle.

I DID catch a bumble bee drying it's wings after the rain.



This is the spot I fishing the longest, it looked so likely, but no luck with anything.

[Tap]

The Mrs. with a John Day smallie. CFS 3k and dropping, its about to get really good

[Norseman]

That ain't no bumblebee, it's a moth!

[tgapp]

That ain't no bumblebee, it's a moth!

Yeah I was going to say, that's a snowberry moth if I've ever seen one. Cool creature!

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[Rasputin]

I guess I'm as bad a species identification as I am at fly fishing, sigh....

[Alexdnmsu]

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[jpcm]

Got out with Underroos and a non-mag for a few days of wilderness floating. Hard logistics, dodgy weather, amazing camping, good people, and 35 miles of solitude made for some well needed adventure. Fishing was pretty good too!




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[tgapp]

FKNA!! Strong work guys. Absolutely awesome to see, would love to read a mini TR if you have time to put one together!

got out with Dibs today for a beautiful day on the berry. We got into some fish, played some stick, and watched one of the most surreal, foggy mornings I've ever experienced.

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[I've seen black diamonds!]

[AmmergauerTele]

Not trout but I live in Va Beach....This past Saturday by third island of the Chesapeake Bay Bridge Tunnel, son and his buddy doubled up on a pair of cobia.

[AmmergauerTele]

Someone hold my hand on how to twirl that photo around?

[I've seen black diamonds!]

^^^ Open it in any photo editing app. Rotate 360 degrees or until oriented correctly and save it.