Thisisflydaily.com recently posted a you tube video showing a French guy landing an absolutely monstrous brown trout on a fly rod.  The thing is ridiculously huge.  What I can’t figure out is why during the entire video, the guy is losing his waders until they are eventually around his ankles.  Thankfully he is wearing some swimming trunks. Video below:

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.

Pete between the oars

I recently got in touch with my old boss from my guiding days, Pete.  He and my favorite local outdoor news writer Brett Prettyman took a marathon day trip to the Green River on Tuesday 4/13 and floated the B Section.  Sounds like amidst the snow and sun breaks they had a great time fishing.  Read more about it here.

They floated with one of the Green River originals, Emmett Heath who has recently returned to work for Western Rivers Flyfisher in Salt Lake City.  My favorite Emmett story, which I understand is supported by video evidence, is also from the B section of the river.  The story goes that he was taking a crew from Fly Fisherman magazine down the river for a video they were shooting.  They filmed him as he made his way through the most technical rapid on the fishing sections of the river, Red Creek Rapid.  Usually in low water guides choose to have clients walk around the rapid as there is a fairly high chance of a mishap in the rocky rapid.  On this occasion, however, he had the woman who hosted the show float through with him.  Apparently just as they entered the chute where you “drop” into the rapid, his oarlock malfunctioned and pulled out leaving him with only one working oar.  Somehow he had the cool to get through the rest of the rapid and get them both safely through.  It would be cool to see the video of that.  I wonder if it is out on YouTube somewhere.  I would have had to change my shorts after that for sure!

Fish Pimp fly fishing products. Keep your pimp hand strong.

Last month, at the International Sportsman’s Expo in Salt Lake I met Quentin, the guy behind Fish Pimp.  He has a really nice product line including a cool line cleaning system that  hooks onto your rod, a two part powder based fly drying and floatant system, Fly Sauce, and a cool take on cork indicators.  He was kind enough to give me some free products to match any that I purchased from dealers at the show.  I bought some Fly Sauce and the medium strike indicators and he gave me the smaller indicators and dry fly spray.

On my recent trip to the Green River I was able to use the stuff for the first time.  Overall I was pleased with the products.  I have been nymphing for a long time and have tried all kinds of methods/products for strike indicators.  I tend to like the foam cork ones as they float high, are responsive, and are easy to add to or take off of your line.  The Fish Pimp indicators really fit the bill well.  Instead of a toothpick to hold them in place, they use tightly fitted lengths of tiny surgical tubing.  I found that they were effective indicators and we definitely caught our share of fish even with many subtle strikes.  The larger indicators stayed in place well and were easy to adjust up or down the leader.  I had one issue with the smaller sized indicators when I applied one to the lower end of my leader to help me fish a tiny … Continue Reading

Brett Prettyman has just posted part two of the video of his recent trip to the Green River in eastern Utah.  Another great video.  I made a trip to the Green during the week and had a great time.  I will be posting that report later.  For now enjoy the video below.

Fly tying demo area

I took my kids to the Wasatch Fly Tying and Fly Fishing Expo over the weekend and we had a great time.  I had a good time wandering and watching the guys doing fly tying demos and checking out a few of the booths.  The kids really enjoyed catching bugs from the Stonefly Society entomology trays.  They had some massive stoneflies that came from a local creek.  It is cool to see them as they aren’t common around these parts.  We also had fun at the kids fly tying desk.  The kids both tied some mean looking wooly buggers and as a result were entered into a kids only drawing for a Cabela’s fly fishing outfit.  Unfortunately, we didn’t win that one, but I did manage to pick up a killer wet/dry bag for my waders in the silent ticket auction, so I was happy about that.  The best part of it all was connecting with old friends from my days hanging out in the fly shop, some of whom I haven’t seen for probably 25 years.  It was a great time.  Looking forward to next year already.

The Green River in Utah

I have an opportunity next week to go float the Green River with some friends and I couldn’t be more stoked.  These recent posts about the Green have had me thinking and then out of the blue some old friends emailed to invite me to fish with them.  I have started tying bugs including some foamergers and compar-a-mergers and am hoping to get a few chubby muffins in the box.  I should be set to go there. Should be a great trip!

Wasatch Fly Tying and Fly Fishing Expo

If you need something to do this weekend and you are in Salt Lake City, be sure to stop by the Wasatch Fly Tying and Fly Fishing Expo (March 27) at the Karen Gail Miller Conference Center at Salt Lake Community College in Sandy.

There will be plenty of demonstrations and exhibits to see.  You can pick up tips from local fly tiers and fly fishermen.  Be sure to check it out.  For more information, click here.

Brown trout. Credit: USFWS

I did a more exploring of local urban creeks last weekend and I can only report that I am more amazed than ever.  My latest expedition found several wild browns that were absolute bruisers in the 16-17 inch range.  I’m not even sure if these fish have ever seen a fly, but I can assure you they will soon.  Now I just need to figure out how to get a good drift through the shopping cart they were hiding in.  Seriously though, I am really amazed at how resilient these browns are living in all the trash and pollution they must endure.  There was a nice mayfly hatch coming off too.  I didn’t ever get to catch one for a closer look, but they were about a size 14-16 and a dusky gray as far as  I could tell.  I can’t wait to wet my line in pursuit of these beauties. Hopefully more to come on this saga.