Bass Tournament - Restore the Delta - Random Bass Video

Daniel and I attempted to throw down at the 1st Restore the Delta tournament. Unfortunately, I'm going to have to blame the weather as it was awfully nasty out there the day of the tournament. On the brighter side, my personal goal was just not to get last and luckily we nabbed 1 keeper that went 1.43lbs. Considering the big fish for the fly guys was 2.3lbs, I wasn't too dissappointed, but would've definitely like to have at least brought a limit to the weigh in. Oh well, maybe next year!!
Couple of fish from the day before the tournament.

One of the stripers that took the fly instead of the largemouths on tournament day.

Brown Trout!

Beardsley Afterbay

Dad Has a Lucky Night!

Final Score: Dad: 5, Me: 1, Daniel: 0

Rough night for us Gotta Stay Fly guys, but my dad seemed to have things dialed!
Here's his big boy from last night plus a few other from other nights:

Team Gotta Stay Fly is gettin' Published!

2011 Umpqua Feather Merchants catalog!

Where Have All the Big Fish Gone?

When I write "Big" fish, maybe I should clarify myself a little bit. By "Big", I'm talking about big from the Lower Stanislaus River. On average a fish caught there below the dam is around the 10-12" range and on occasion you can hook a healthy 15-20 incher. As of late, talking the past two weeks since the flows have lowered below 500 cfs, almost every fish caught has been in the 6-10" range. All bright and shiny new spawns I suppose. Today was a little exception to that. I managed to hook and land a 13/14" with nice thickness to him. He was that darker color like he'd been there a while. I hope to get that picture posted soon. Anyway quantity has not been the issue here, its really been quality. With multiple double digit fish days out there, the "big" fish are playing the illusive card and killing us. Maybe its time to move up in elevation and get some quality in our game. Stay fly my friends. D

*UPDATE W/PICS*


Tom G

KDM Rat! Your Answer to Weedless!

So, we've been doing a lot of bass fishing lately and what does one think of when they think bass habitat? Vegetation and weeds! Bass like to chill out in thick cover and this can be quite a challenge for us fly anglers to make a good presentation without yarding in 80 pounds of crap attached to the hook. In my younger days of conventional bass fishing, a great lure to throw into this so-called "danger zone" that bass hide in was the Snag-Proof frog. As you can see below this baby can ride on top of the mossy mats without hooking up, but as soon as a hungry bass nails it, they are met with two, nice big pointy surprises.

So, one day KD decided to apply the same principle's of the Snag-Proof from to a fly and voila! Here are a couple of my KDM rats:


The bottom is made with sticky back lead and UV epoxy. I believe the reasoning for the lead is so the fly lands the right way up when casted. The epoxy on top allows the fly to slide safely (until big momma bass hits it!) across the mats.

I test drove them somewhat today. No takes, but I did learn a few things I want to tweak on them. I can't wait to get one to hammer this thing! But I did manage to still get a solid handful to take:

Kistler Ranch

Little Bit O' Bass Fishin'

Daniel and I mobbed out to some local bass ponds today. Definitely needed to throw some line! With all the local rivers flowing pretty high, there aren't too many "after work" fishing opportunities. We had some fun throwing topwater poppers and some comical takes on the surface to say the least. Here are a couple of the fish below. There will be a small video to follow. I should mention too that this short video will be absolutely ridiculous! It will be bass-tastic!

Merced River Float

With the Stan and Tuolumne blown out, a few weeks ago Thomas and I decided to take out the pontoons and float down the Merced river from the hatchery down to the park in Snelling. Check out the map.



The float itself was actually very chill and relaxing with little rapids along the way. You kind of just float for a bit and pick and choose your spot to fish. There are many good spots along the river that will produce I believe. This trip, being our first time going down the river, was more of a recon mission. We fished some random patterns and came across a few fish including these two. It really made for a great day.

Old School Stanislaus Fly Fishermen

"I Thought it was a Snag!"

Back on the Stan!

Headed out again tomorrow!!

Rogan Royal Grey Ghost Var. #1

Thursday Night Fly Tying

"Striped Dragon"

Stonefly Hatch

Thursday Night Fly Tying

I can't say enough about how much fun these tying nights are! Last night we continued with some more classic steelhead patterns.

A spey style Green Butt Skunk


A Golden Demon (complete with a gold-plated hook and mandarin wood duck wing)

Pulse Flow in Feb......

Here's the schedule of the upcoming flow change. If you plan to be on the river, beware and be careful. I'm going to try and catch the flow around 400/450 Saturday morning so join me if you want.

Date Time From (cfs) To(cfs)

02/05/2010 01:00 600 850

02/05/2010 03:00 850 900

02/05/2010 05 :00 900 700

02/05/2010 11:00 700 600

02/05/2010 15:00 600 500

02/05/2010 20:00 500 450

02/06/2010 13:00 450 400

02/07/2010 09:00 400 500

02/07/2010 11:00 500 700

Comment: NMFS February fish pulse

Issued by: Randi Field

Pics from last Sat

Lower Stanislaus River - Jan 30

Who says that football trout only come from the Kern. Yesterday, Jesse Anderson and I went out to the Lower Stan and proved that this is not true. Check out this beauty!



Yet only around 15" long, this bow had a girth on em'. So the day started, arriving around 8 or so and seeing no vehicles at the roadside parking. Crazy indeed! I had fully expected the Bay Area folk to be in full effect as they had been since the opener. Maybe it was the rain and the muddy waters that deterred them, but whatever it was, keep it up. Anyway, we started in the money hole below the dam and even with the water conditions, we were catching fish. The night before I had purchased a new Sage Launch #5 and my first fish on it was a near 17" beautiful bow. Ill post a picture of em' when I get the images from Jesse. Not a bad way to break-in a new rod. So we fished there, landing around 6/7 fish combined and cataloged them (check out my post about the cataloging). We then hit up the top pool which is really hard to fish due to the dam overspray and had a few takes with Jesse landing one.

With about an hour or so left before we had to get back to town, Jesse took me to a new spot. This was a very frustrating but rewarding spot in the end. I probably had on atleast 5 solid fish on but due to lack of area to let the fish run, the rocks or rapids took them from me one by one. Each time my flies poping out and ending up in the tree behind me. SOB! Jesse tried the pocket and bam after a few drifts, fish on. But to his luck too, the rocks had there way. A few casts later, that same fish was on again. By looking at the fish you can just tell it was the same one. How many fish look like a football come out of the Stan. This time the fish was on and I grabbed the net and thankfully as the fly was poping off, I had the net right there and the fish was landed. After logging the fish, Jesse released it and heres where the trip gets crazy. He cleans up and I decide to get a few more rolls in. As he watches, he saw a rise about 3/4 ft out. I make a drift there and wammo. Fish on, landed it and as soon as it was out of the water, we knew it was the football fish. An unbelievable story that really did just happen.



All in all, this day of fishing at the Stan was one of the best I've had there. Each fish of excellent qualty, tons of research done, and got to really put the new rod to the test. Not a bad January I'd say! Happy Tying! D

A Series of Unfortunate, yet Fortunate Events

First off, I'd like to say happy birthday to my main man Daniel who turned 25 today! Since it's his birthday today, of course we had to go fishing. That's where the story begins......


The game plan was to head to the honey hole on the Stanislaus and continue catching a bunch of fish like usual. Well, we show up and park and pop the trunk and something is missing......my rod. Yes, you read that correctly, I had my boots, waders, and vest, but somehow forgot my fly rod. So then we moved on to phase two, which was driving home, grabbing my rod, and going to the Tuolumne instead. We executed plan two, got to the Tuolumne, put on our waders, put our poles together, and then I realized that I left my fly boxes with my fly tying gear that I took to the shop on Thursday......at this point, I was seriously thinking "WTF"...........

Well, luckily in my gear bag I have a few boxes, my steelhead flies and my "junk flies." (Junk flies meaning ones that are poorly tied/ones that are falling apart from being used). So I ended up just fishing with those. The Lower Tuolumne has always been a tough river for Daniel and I to figure out. We've only landed two fish there between the both of us. Albeit Daniel's fish was a 20-incher though. So needless to say, we don't expect much when we fish there and that's how the first part of the day started off. Then suddenly I felt a fairly soft take turn into quite a mighty pull. I saw the fish jump once and then realized I might need some assistance for the land. So luckily Daniel made it over and netted this nice bow!