Cabin Fever

Well......it's still raining. Not much going on. It's dumping loads of snow up the hill, which is absolutely crazy for this time of year. I snowboarded at Dodge Ridge on Tuesday and I can honestly say in the 11 years I've boarded there I've never seen this much snow......and it's March!! All of our local rivers are still flowing ridiculously high and these cold temps are probably screwing with the brains of the bass who normally are in pre-spawn/spawn mode by now. Needless to say, there's not much fishing going on now. So what is there to do?? Tie flies and get crafty! Daniel's been working on a prototype stripping bucket, which is nearing completion. This bucket, when done, will be made with a significantly low cost of materials. This is a big deal considering there are crackheads in the fly fishing industry getting away with murder selling these buckets at over $100 a pop!!! Daniel's bucket will have all the functionalities of these expensive buckets as well. Not every fly fisherman is a rich doctor/lawyer type that can afford to drop $125 on a stripping bucket, but there are many of us that see the functionality of having such a bucket. I'm sorry, but those flimsy laundry baskets just don't cut it. Anyway, tonight Daniel worked on another small project and sewed up a rod sock out of digital camo fabric. It's pretty pimp!

As for me, I did some late night fly tying for our upcoming trip to Pyramid Lake. I started thinking and one of the reasons pyramid woolly worms are tied with a small tail is for short strikes and the theory that longer tailed woollies don't hook up as much. This led me to thinking about steelhead flies that are tied with a trailer hook. I liked this principle so I applied it to your traditional Pyramid lake woolly worm pattern and voila! I now have a new pattern to try out there. I'm not entirely sure if there is a fly out there like this already (but then again there really aren't too many truly new flies out there today anyway), but I've dubbed it the T-Bagger for now. Oh and the front hook will be clipped (not clipped in picture).
Hooks: Front: 5263 #6, Trailer 5263 #8
Trailer hook is tied with 2 tufts of marabou, silver mylar wrapped around the hook shank, and a hackle collar.
Front hook is clipped off and tied with a loop of backing to connect the trailer hook and the body is just tied like your traditional woolly worm without a tail.

Hopefully it will work out there!!! Stay fly

Rain is here...again

The forecast says rain for the next 11 days or so. That sounds promising for our local fisheries and flows.. not. I guess then this makes a perfect time to build that custom rod that I've been wanting to build. Oh wait, I just finished it last week. Yes I got my Sage VXP 5100-4 blank kit last week and wasted no time. It looks awesome with its real French silver tinsel accents and I cant wait to cast it and land one. Dont worry I GoPro'd the whole thing and should have a time lapse video up in the next few days. So in the next 11 days or so when the rain visits and stays around, maybe we will stock up our fly boxes. Tie up for the upcoming trips like Diamond Hair streamers and El Ratons for the Restore the Delta Bass tourney or even time up some small baetis for the Truckee. Oh and we cant forget to tie up a bunch of woolly worms of various flavors for the all too hungry Lohantons over the hill at Pyramid Lake. The next two weeks of rain should drown our rivers but we will continue to look forward to upcoming EPIC trips. Stay tuned for the Rod build video and you can be sure the GoPros will be running, gobbling up GB, creating our next awesome video short.

Green Fish Season Will Be Here Soon!

I did a little bass fishing on my birthday yesterday. The conditions still aren't quite ideal yet (water is still on the colder side), but I managed to get a nice little dude on a meat whistle at the secret spot. We didn't know about this spot during spawn season last year, but post spawn was awesome, so I can't wait to catch some of these fish when they're fat and pissed off when a El raton, popper, or diamond hair streamer rolls through their nest. With the next Restore the Delta tourney approaching soon, Daniel and I are going to have to get back into bass mode soon!

Redemption?

Coming this April 3, Thomas and I will have the opportunity for some redemption on the Delta in the the second Restore the Delta/ CSPA Benefit Bass tourney. The last tourney, check the past post about it, was pretty sad. We had one fish to weigh and the weather was pretty torrid. April should provide some pretty nice early weather for bass fishing and maybe this time the top water will be going off. Its a great benefit tourney with an amazing raffle and bbq afterward that is worth attending solely for. Check it out and if your up for a little competition sign up and well see ya out there. The Gotta Stay Fly crew and the GoPro's will be out there in full force.

Back on the Stan

Its definitely been a long time since our last post and I guess we have some catching up to do. Lets start with what Thomas and I have been up to in the last few months. Well in a nut shell here it is: Thomas built a new rod, Sage Z-axis Switch 5wt, I had a baby girl, all the local rivers have been blown so not much actual fishing, Thomas hooked and lost a trophy on the Merced, we attended the annual Fly fishing show in Pleasanton last weekend(sticker mania), and we have acquired the best addition to our gear..GoPro video cameras.(ill put up a post just on this later this week).



As far as fishing goes, yesterday was the first successful day this year for us. With it being about a month since we had actually slung any line we decided to hit up the Stan. With my new Galvan T-5 and Thomas's new switch rod along with our rigged up GoPro Video Cameras we headed into the canyon. Within minutes of getting on the water I was on to fish and with the cameras rolling we got this footage of a really nice bow. Only thing I can say about this fish is that in all the time we have fished that area, I nor Thomas have ever seen a fish of that quality caught and landed. Either he took the long trip up the river or he had fallen over the dam either way it was a beautiful suprise. Check out this video, shot entirely with our GoPros, of our morning out there and the catch. Stay Fly..D