Wire For Steel...

Some metal for metal?  You bet.

Bugs like these are soon to be available at Emerald Water Anglers in Seattle.

Get some.

Trout Bugs For FFC...

It's time to round up your bugs and donate to the Fly Fishing Collaborative.

2014 was a fantastic year for the FFC,  teaming up with many guides, bug wrappers and other supporters to raise enough money to build a self sustaining talapia and produce farm in Thailand.   This farm will allow the orphanage to take up to 160 more children in and out of human trafficking and sex slavery.

2015 has the FFC planning on building two more talapia farms, but their encountering a new problem....

The internet has found them.  Numerous web sites have picked them up and demand for their fly wallets is outpacing their ability to fill them with flies

It's a good problem to have, but if you're good on the vice, you have the opportunity to donate your flies and become part of the solution

Two problems really, helping fulfill the demand and bring more children in the impoverished out of sex slavery and human trafficking.

Live beyond just fishing, and turn your passion into great social justice.

Click HERE to get in contact with the FFC.   Trout bugs are in high demand....dry flies, nymphs and streamers to create trout fly wallets.    Salmon and steelhead flies will always be gratefully accepted, but as the FFC grows outside of the Northwest, the need for non-anadromous flies is growing exponentially.

Now gets to wrapping!

Dead Bugs...

My traditional steelhead box is full of them.  Dead bugs.

We all have those flies that we haven't weeded out. Year after year, they occupy space and you know you're never going to use them.

Half of them you would have used them or did use them, but now they're rusted out.  The other half are bench creations that you look at now and think "what the hell".

Finally I made the leap to cut bait and recycle what was left of some of the good hooks.

Happy Halloween everyone.  Maybe you'll find new life in your old bugs too.

Very, Very Itchy....

June's a tough month for an inland steelheader...

You can only sit at the fly tying bench for so long pumping out patterns that make you say

"yeah, that will hunt"

You can only stare at the local rivers for so long at runoff stage without saying

"well shit"

You can only prep your gear so much, you can stare at the fish counting graphs....you cant make the fish run any faster or earlier

The only thing you can do is wait.

And waiting sucks.

The Karma of Other People's Flies....

There's a whole lot of mojo in other people's flies.

Often times I find myself midstream staring at my fly box in the typical mental battle of what next to try. Truth be told, steelhead dont give a shit.  They're either going to eat, or they're not.  Simple as that but we as fishermen or women, especially those to tie, elevate the decision far beyond the mental capacity of our swimming quarry.

So back to the starring contest with a couple dozen flies.   I decide yes, then no to about a half dozen varietals, then settle into a fly that was given to me by a steelhead Jedi a couple years past

Turns out that I was fishing with that dude that very day.

Cinching the knot, I just had the feeling.  The fly had the juice.  Stuff was about to go down.  Planets were aligning at that very moment.

The best part of that crazy line ripping three hours?  The back story on that fly.  How it's predecessor was given to my friend and in turn, gave him a great amount of success.  Moving forward, he put his touches on the fly and then gave some to me.  The line of connectivity of three anglers through giving, not hoarding success, brought special meaning to that day on the water.

Often times, through commitments of life I have more bench time then fishing time and in turn wind up with a bunch of extra flies.  Giving those extras away and then hearing about fish caught on them is a pretty awesome thing and I believe it adds to the experience of chasing steelhead around this great Pacific Northwest riverscape.    It keeps me connected to the flow and the fish even when I cant get away.

So give away your extra flies, fish others given to you.   My bet is that the karma train will make a stop at the end of your line soon thereafter.

An Unruly, Flashy Mess...

Steelhead season has a way of undoing all my well thought out organizational systems.

Oh hell, where's the blue schlappen?

Almost Ready....

Just a few more to go and we're ready to rock. 

Oahu bound Monday.  Boom!