Vis-a-dun does WORK

I fished up on one of our valley rivers yesterday. Let's just say it was one of those days where everything didn't quite go as planned. I did not plan on fishing a river. I did not plan on there being a hole in my float tube. Lastly, I did not plan on catching 15+ healthy sized bows on dry flies!!! I got lucky and happened upon a hatch coming off at around 1:00 yesterday afternoon and actually had a fly that matched close enough. All day I had be stripping streamers/watching the bobicator and only had one fish to boot. Then, out of no where, a ton of rainbows started porpoising at the end of this tail out I was fishing. I quickly noticed some duns fluttering about (which I think were BWO's) and switched out my nymph rig to a 9' 6x leader with a #18 BWO Vis-a-dun and a BWO emerger dropper. I proceeded to make a nice first cast slightly upstream, got a good drift, and BAM! Fish on! For a solid 45 minutes the fish were keyed in and I was catching fish after fish. It was quite possibly some of the best dry fly action I've ever had on a valley river.

I've always been a believer in John Barr's flies. With a classic such as the Copper John, it's hard to not love his flies. I have now tied every fly in his book, but have yet to catch fish on every fly. The Vis-a-dun was one of those flies. I love throwing just a simple parachute Adams in most dry fly situations, but for whatever reason, yesterday I grabbed a vis-a-dun. Thankfully, to my surprise, the fish couldn't say no! I shot some video of the action yesterday and I'm thinking about maybe doing a quick time-lapse movie of tying the Vis-a-dun, so check back in a few days.

See ya on the water,
T

Old Man Winter

Winter is definitely upon us. Rain, fog, wind, and cold ass mornings. He tried to stay away as long as possible but it was inevitable. Old man winter is here. With the lower waterways closed til Jan 1st we must search out other places to sling some line. Trout are still biting and if you can get to one of the open rivers and withstand freezing your ass off, hit it up. Browns are on the move to spawn and the Rainbows are eager slam something. Throw big buggy buggers and baitfish patterns down deep or go with a super small baetis pattern and you will be in the fish.

Striper season is near but not quite on it yet. Yes there have been some decent bass caught recently, check out Pats and Patricks nice keepers above, but for the majority the bite hasn't been good. I was supposed to go on a trip with Dan Blanton tomorrow on the Delta in search of a lunker but he decided that it would be better to wait a couple of weeks for better weather and better fishing. He says its been down right horrible out there. Anyway when that happens I will post up some video and pics from the day and hopefully land me a fatty.

So brave the cold morning, navigate through the fog and get out there and find those fish. Most believe fishing stops in oct and picks back up in the spring but I feel thats when it gets good. This is the time for the bigg'ns to be caught so man up and get out there.