When Mary Ann was guiding the Salmon River in Idaho a few years ago, there was one particular stretch of river she called “The Gnarly Zee’s” because of all the rocks in the river. The current flow wasn’t fast, but the rocks required some tricky navigation of the drift boat to get through without hanging up or hitting the rocks. Here is a fun video of Mary Ann rowing us through that section.
Bamboo EuroNymphing on the Middle Deschutes River
I finally got back out recently on the Middle Deschutes River about 25 minutes from my house with a couple of good fishing friends. The river is fairly small in this area due to water being pulled off for irrigation…but that makes for some great fly fishing water. The salmon fly hatch from two weeks previous was over so I expected that fish would be holding close to the bottom…sounded like a good opportunity to try some Bamboo EuroNymphying. I took out my 9′ 0″ 3 wt Bamboo EuroNymphing rod for the day and wasn’t disappointed. The rainbows, browns, and whitefish were happy to take small nymphs, but the majority were less than 12″ long. But, I was lucky to pick up one very nice brown on a #20 two-bit hooker pattern. Here are a few photos of my day.
My Recent Fishing Adventures
Wow, it’s been way too long since my last blog post. After a couple of months of staying at home and hibernating in my workshop, I’ve been able to get out on some of our more isolated waters here in Central Oregon. Caught some big fish…caught some smaller fish…but it has been great to get back out with my bamboo rods. With no stories attached, here are a few pictures of my exploits over the past two weeks.
Bronze Finish on Snake Guides
I’ve always used snake guides on my bamboo fly rods that have a bronze finish. I’m not fond of a chrome finish on guides, and the bronze finish blends very well with the color of bamboo. Unfortunately, bronzed guides are no longer available so I’ve been working for the past couple of weeks to do my own bronzing on my guides. The early results are looking very promising, but I still have a little more testing to do. So far, I’ve come up with a very slight bronze color, all the way to almost black, playing around with time and temperature in the bronzing solution. Here is an example of my test samples:
RiverKeeper Flies
I always like to give a shout-out to my good friend, John Kreft, and his WEB site RiverKeeper Flies. John is one of the best fly tiers I now and his site is a great resource for fly patterns and Info on fly fishing. Check it out at: www.johnkreft.com.
