20" Snake River Finespot, the fish of the trip

It’s always hard to post the last day of a trip partly because of how busy life gets when you are back and partly because I think it is hard to admit that the trip is finished.  Well, this trip ended with a bang.  After 2 days of beating the water into a lather with not many fish to show for it, we headed to the Snake River for a shot at redemption…and we found it.  After picking up our licenses, we hit the river about 9:30 AM.  We decided that our best hope lay at the Wilson Bridge. There is a great shelf at the foot of the bridge that we fished for about an hour getting chases on streamers and landing a few smaller trout on a dry and dropper rig.

I set out up stream and immediately found some amazing water and saw that there was a healthy green drake hatch underway, so I switched to an olive wulff and a beadhead PT dropper.  The results were nearly instant.  I hooked and landed a nice 16″ cutthroat and then another about 12″ inches long.  I walked the bank and cast nearly straight upstream and found the fish within about 1-6′ from the bank. I next hooked a little whitefish on the dropper.  Another hundred yards upstream I got a HUGE trout to take my fly, but somehow my knot came undone and I broke him off.  What a bummer.  I kept on with a few more fish in the 10-12″ range.

Paul and I met up again and found another monster … Continue Reading

My good friend’s production company recently produced a video for the new Toshiba product called the Libretto (links here and here).  He wanted to put some fishing photos in part of the demo so he borrowed a few from my collection.  You’ll notice from :15-:20 a photo gallery with three fishing themed images. The images are the brown trout, me standing on a log in front of the Tetons, and a group of buddies I fished with recently, I don’t know who the bikini girl is, she certainly wasn’t fishing. I guess this 5 seconds will be deducted from my overall 15 minutes of fame budget.  Hopefully that leaves me enough time to still do something awesome.  Click for the full video:

ThisIsFlyDaily.com shares this nice looking video trailer for the fly fishing photography/videography blog fly-focus.com.  Check out the blog.  There are some really cool images posted that make me want to get out and go.

FLY-FOCUS Trailer from Marcus Sies on Vimeo.

Just remember no matter how badly you think your job sucks, it can’t be anywhere nearly as bad as this guy’s. This photo looks like a scene from a Depeche Mode video. Enjoy your weekend!

Paper Pusher

SkateTheFly.com, a blog by Dylan Rose has a great post today featuring the photos of Jason Jagger (not sure if he is related to Mick).  The photos are primarily of trout in the act of feeding and are really killer shots.  This is sort of the still photo version of the video I posted a couple weeks back.  I have included my favorite here, but you will need to click the link below to see the rest.

STF SPOTLIGHT: JASON JAGGER

Thanks to Shorpy for posting another great photo of early life in the Rockies.  This time they feature Ouray.  Not much to add here.  Click over for the high resolution version.

Ouray, Colorado: as it once was...and pretty much still is

Here is a current photo of Ouray from roughly the same location.

Click here to find out more about Ouray.

Hopefully you are enjoying the historical photos from Shorpy I have posted the last few days.  If not, you will have to suffer through another. This time the photo features Saltair which is in my neck of the woods and is another by William Henry Jackson.  It captures the beauty of what Saltair used to be.  Back around the turn of the last century, Saltair was the THE place to go for a good time.  It had its own rail line from Salt Lake City and people would spend time swimming, eating, and listening to all the latest bands of the day.  Sort of a land locked Atlantic City boardwalk without the gambling. These days, Saltair is a mockery of its former self.  After the original building burned down a couple of times, it was rebuilt using mostly concrete.  They still do concerts out there, but no one sticks around to swim.  In fact, being on the shore of a brine lake it often smells badly due to the marshy edges.  I have seen a few shows there including the Stone Temple Pilots on their first tour, Shawn Colvin, and Big Head and the Monsters.  Guess I haven’t seen a show there for a while.Here is a link to another cool old photo from the glory days.

Silverton, Colorado - the early years

The folks at Shorpy have posted another cool photo of a Colorado mining town from the turn of the last century.  This time the subject is Silverton.  Having visited Silverton last summer I can say that things don’t look to have changed much except for the addition of paved roads and a bunch of tourists.  While there we parked near the old jail and ate lunch at a former brothel, I promise it is a restaurant now-a-days.  I will say that this photo isn’t as cool as the Eureka one, but still pretty cool.  I imagine those folks in Eureka must have referred to a trip to Silverton as “goin’ to town” if you can imagine that.  If you ever get a chance to drive the road from Durango to Silverton and Ouray, also called the Million Dollar Highway, I highly encourage it.  There are several passes at or near 11,000 feet above sea level.  A visit to wikipedia reveals that “Silverton is one of the highest towns in the United States, at 9,305 feet (2836 m) above sea level.”  Pretty amazing that folks could establish a lasting community in such harsh conditions, that is something to be admired.

Eureka, Colorado - the early years

The historical photo blog Shorpy has a great photo today of the Colorado mining town, Eureka which can be seen here in high resolution Eureka: 1900.  The photo is just really striking.  It is amazing to me to see how people scratched out a life in the rugged west, particularly so high up in the Colorado mountains.  There are some really cool details in the photo, I like the kid in the background wearing the 10 gallon hat.  The four miners in the foreground look like they are in the opening scene of a movie.  I spent some time in Southwestern Colorado last summer and was astounded by the beauty.  I got to Silverton which is near Eureka.  The character of those small mining towns remains.  I thought it was really cool to see how they have preserved their main streets; something we have sadly lost in many of the towns around Utah.

The photo is by renowned photographer William Henry Jackson who was among the first to photo document some of the West’s greatest treasures, especially the greater Yellowstone region including early life in Jackson Hole.

Great photo.

During the recent Thanksgiving holiday my family and I visited my wife’s family in Arizona. My father-in-law is an avid fisherman specializing in bass of all kinds. We usually take his boat out at least once while during a visit. This year we went to Saguaro Lake in pursuit of Yellow Bass. Up until last year I had no idea that such a fish existed. They are small and resemble a White Bass, but have a yellowish tint to them. To catch these little guys you have to find a spot where hey are grouped and jig for them. They tend to be in about 20-40 feet of water and you can really only catch them if they are on the bottom. Suspended fish are too hard to catch. The secret jig we use is a 1 oz lead weight painted white with a faint pearly fleck and a treble hook attached to the bottom. Such a simple jig has turned an amazing variety of fish in my last two trips for yellow bass including a channel cat, a largemouth bass, two bluegill and of course lots of yellow bass. Here are photos from the last trip: Possibly the smallest ever yellow bass taken on a hook. Also you can see the jig here.Photos from 2008:This is a pretty standard … Continue Reading