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: