RoboBWO 28Jan14

I'm making progress on the hackle stacker technique. Here's my goose biot body, ice mix thorax, BWO which I call RoboBWO. Olive thread on #101, with medium dun hackle fiber tail and hackle and olive + peacock ice dubbed thorax. I tied some with floss bodies too. These will be my springtime BWOs... hope the ice flash thorax is an attraction not deterrent, but confidence is good as last year it worked OK in the caddis. Sorry for the weird changing background, I forgot to put up the backdrop.

Perfectarita 26Jan14

Many iterations are often required to devise optimal solutions. I've adjusted margarita contents and assembly nearly every batch, at least in small increments. The work continued from Phoenix, to the Baja, to the Yucatan to Colorado. While my most recent prior stop stood a 5 year test of time, today I arrived on an entirely different plane. Today I built some Perfectaritas for Kala and me; these were inspired by a quest for heat in the cocktail and some chilies in the crisper. Simple but so excellent... 1 part lime juice (3 nice limes make 1/3 cup for a double batch), 1 part Cointreau, 2 parts Hornitas Plata (Patron Silver would be fine), 1 TBsp of agave syrup, and the juice of one Serrano pepper... yep. Halve and squeeze limes first into shaker then use one lime rind to rim the glasses and dip them into a salt mine, double the mix with Cointreau and then double that mix silver tequila; top it off with the sugar. Mix with a big spoon. The key is getting juice from a Serrano. Prep Serrano(s) by cutting off stem and slicing full length in half and removing all pith and seed material. Might need to cut these halves in half lengthwise for next step, depending on spoon size. Place peppers skin side up on the big spoon and then crush down on them evenly but completely (with another spoon or muddler handle or whatever) without pulverizing them... see the juice flow out (it might get sucked back into the pepper some, no worries). Once all pepper parts have been crushed into the spoon, put all the parts and the spoon itself into the mix; stir and steep and then remove the pepper chunks. Shake well and serve over ice in the salted glasses. Enjoy the stellar, lip-smackin' sweet, hot, acid.

Tailwater Midge Emergers 25Jan14

I'm nearly done topping off the tailwater midge box. Here are the favorites  for springtime: (L to R) 1) Dave's olive green vinyl KF Flasher (olive thread on 2487, olive vinyl rib with XS copper wire overwrap, 2 or 4 strands Krystal Flash wings, olive superfine dubbed thorax), 2) Coffin's Smethurst Midge Variant (rusty brown thread on 2488H, stripped peacock herl body finished with Sally Hansen's Hard as Nails, olive Krystal Flash wings, thorax dubbing of mostly grizzly hackle underfur but some peacock herl fuzz from stripping process and brown superfine, tied both with and without mercury glass bead), 3) Dorsey's mercury bead head, flashback black beauty, 4) Dave's red glass bead head mojo midge emerger (red glass bead and black thread on 2487 with XS copper wire overwrap, 50% of a strand (4 threads and flash) of Madeira Glamour as wing, thorax dubbing of black superfine mixed with black peacock ice) 5) Craven's olive JuJu midge. Still need to tie some cream stuff but the olive, black and browns are done and I have plenty of red.

Showin' The Right Profile 24Jan14

Taking stock of 2013 in preparing the dry fly boxes for 2014 I note that flies which have a bent hook like the Klinkhamer, which dip the body into the water and ride in the film, or ones which have all the hackle above the hook as with parachutes and comparaduns, consistently outperformed full hackle ties for me. Outperformed meaning caught more fish... why? I believe it's due to the fish seeing the entire profile of the fly in the film of the water, not just some contorted rear part part of the fly.

Comparadun BWO (w/ Shuck)

Caddistrophic (on Klinkhammer)

Parachute BWO

The problem was though, at least for the BWOs with these attributes, that they tended to get waterlogged too quickly or didn't have the hackle density to float the body well. So, I went searching for a new way and the latest issue of Fly Fisherman came just in time to introduce me to the Quigley "hackle stacker" technique... I find it now referred to also as the paraloop tie. The technique is like a parachute tie in that hackle is wound up a post but unlike it in that the hackle stack post is folded back down over the thorax and tied in horizontally!... making most of the dense hackle above the body and showing a full juicy thorax to fish below. I  am working up these ties for the coming year in mayflies at least and while untested I am very hopeful they'll be better than both the other outperformer styles.

Paraloop PMD (w/ Shuck)

Droppn' Into Mank & Fluff 11Jan14

Daryle, Jim and I caught the storm in Summit and Eagle Counties this weekend. I did Breck on Fri with nice new snow but super-cold and wind... none of the top (Imperial, T-Bar, 6, etc.) was open that day. Then it flipped to a bluebird day like spring for the whole team at Beaver Ck. DublD and I passed Vail when all parking lots were full and a zoo of animals had escaped... we met Jim on the mountain at Beaver Ck and skied all day. Kind of thick and manky with the warmth and relatively lower elevation but still the right choice for Sat... a really fun day. Daryle and I dropped into some great fluff two feet deep at Keystone in the Trap on Sun AM and had a number of other fine runs off Outback. Wind and cooler temps swept in at noon and chased us home for the Bronco's game... but we took 50 mins through Dillon due to I70 eastbound clog - it's vital to stay left on Rt 6 as you depart Keystone for Silverthorne. We may suffer 15% additional daily radiation doses in CO but it's worth it.

For Warmth & Safety 05Jan13

The gifting of Christmas brought warmth and safety. A cool Yeti softshell hoodie to match the Superbike is supposed to ride but I'm inclined to keep it casual... great fit and superwarm. Simm's Gore windshell golves with foldover finger and thumb covers were awesome on first outing; warm and versatile and much less of a hook snag than my current Patagonia fleece palm gloves. SixSixOne D30 (that goo that hardens on impact) Kevlar-covered knee pads... maybe needed as age weakens knee and lack of skills increase biffs. Light, fit nice... we'll see on longer rides. Sawyer ultra-lite filter straw for good water in the backcountry; always stay hydrated. Chaos CTR Glacier Bando face klava for the chilly slopes - yeah, its lime green.

First '14 Trout 02Jan14

I thought it'd be warmer but hit the water at 26 degrees at ~10am. New gloves worked great. Not too many folks but definitely hiked to find good water out of the Nature Center. Caught several ~15inchers behind the bigger weirs. Winner flies were Cheeseman emerger, mercury black beauty and electric blue freak show. Didn't fish long.