Tag Archives: Dave Dozer

Tipping your Fly Fishing Guide

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Since my wife, Mary Ann, is a fly fishing guide, I hear a lot from her and her fellow guides about tips they do or don’t get from their clients they’ve taken on the river.  Occasionally, they get no tip, and we all like to think that their clients just weren’t aware that tipping guides is a common practice in the fly fishing community.  Other times, they get very nice tips for working hard to help make their clients day an enjoyable experience.

While this post has nothing to do with bamboo fly rods, I wanted to share a few aspects about “tipping your guide”.  The fee you pay your outfitter/fly shop to hire a guide, somewhere between $400 and $550/day, does not all go to the guide.  Actually, the guide usually gets paid about 50% of that fee, and the outfitter gets about 50%.  The outfitter typically has costs for insurance, meals, permits, and flies, while the guide has costs like gas, guide insurance, and their own “special flies” that they tie themselves.  The distribution of these costs vary from outfitter-to-outfitter, as well as state-to-state.  The rule-of-thumb for tipping is to give somewhere between 10% and 20% of the total cost of your guided day if you feel your guide has worked hard and you’ve had a good day.

Your guides work very hard to make your day enjoyable.  Their day usually starts an hour or two before they meet you to get setup for the day, and ends another hour or two after they drop you off back at the fly shop.  So, the guide’s day is often 10 or 12 hours long.  Sometimes fishing is slow and they have to work extra hard just to get you into a few fish.  Other times, the fish just seem to “jump into your net” and the guide’s day is easier.  But, their main goal is to make your day as enjoyable as possible, get you into fish, and pass on helpful information if you need it to improve your overall fly fishing skills.  I recently read a great article in Mid-Current that talks about Tipping Your Guide.  Check it out if you’re more interested at:  http://midcurrent.com/experts/why-do-we-have-to-tip-guides/.

New 9 ft. 0 in. 3 and 4 wt. Czech Nymphing Bamboo Rods

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I recently redesigned my tapers for my Czech Nymphing Bamboo Fly Rods and I can’t tell you how great they’ve come out.  First, as a Czech Nymphing rod, I want the rods to be a light line wt rods, have a slow action to them, and have a very soft tip to detect subtle takes.  And, I also want the rods to cast dry flies well in the event you’re out on the stream nymphing and a hatch happens.  These new tapers in 3 wt and 4 wt rods do just that.  I build these rods with Custom Engraved Reel Seat Hardware, Figured English Walnut Reel Seats, and Olive Wraps with Straw and Black Tipping.

Earlier this week I tested out the new 9 ft. 0″  3 wt. rod on the Owyhee River in Eastern Oregon.  For Czech Nymphing, it roll/lob casts small to medium sized weighted nymphs great.  And, at 9 feet in length, it lets you get further out in the stream than traditional bamboo fly rods.  The soft tip is super-sensitive and light takes are easily felt.  I then put on a standard 3 wt floating fly line with a 10 ft. 5 wt dry fly leader.  The rod did well at casting large #8 Hopper patterns, as well as #20 PMD dries.  The slow action of this rod wants you to slow your dry fly casts down, but once you do, the rod loads deeply and turns over flies nicely with very little power put into the cast.  These rods will prove to be great longer, lighter line wt. bamboo fly rods for those anglers who utilize Czech Nymping in their fly fishing adventures.

My 9′ 0″ 3 wt Czech Nymphing Rod.

My 9′ 0″ 3 wt Czech Nymphing Rod

Fly Fishing the Owyhee River with Rick Robbins

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I had a great time this week spending 4 days fishing the Owyhee River in eastern Oregon with renowned bamboo rod maker Rick Robbins from Virginia.  We spent the 4 days sharing bamboo rod building stories and trying to figure out the hatches.  Mornings and early afternoons were pretty slow fishing but there was a decent PMD hatch starting at mid-day that went on until dark.  We were pretty successful with small PMD dries and emergers for the large Owyhee River browns, and we landed several nice fish in the 16″ to 21″ range.  Here are a few photos from our trip.

Rick and I on the Owyhee River

Rick casting small dries on a nice drop-off.

A nice Owyhee River Brown that took my #20 PMD Comparadun.

Fly Fishing the Gallatin River with Bob Jacklin

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While attending the Fly Fishers International Fair in Livingston, Montana last week I had the great privilege of spending the day on the Gallatin River fishing with Bob Jacklin.  Jim, a fantastically talented fly caster, also joined us…boy, those two guys can cast!  The three of us had a wonderful time on the water and everyone caught several nice rainbows up to 15″ on dry flies.  Bob gave us some of his personally tied spruce moth patterns that worked very great.  I fished one of my 8′  3″  FreeStone Series Bamboo Fly Rods during the day, which performed well and handled some tricky casts and mending in fast water conditions.  Here are a few photos of the day.

Bob, Jim, and I getting ready to hit the water.

Bob, making a nice cast.

A nice rainbow that I picked up.

I just picked up a great classic reel…and broke it in today on the Fall River

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Update:  I hit the Fall River today with my Hardy Sunbeam line up on one of my 7′  0″  4 wt rods.  Doug, one of my new bamboo rod building students joined me.  We rose quite a few smaller rainbows and brookies to our dry flies.  A #10 black stonefly seemed to get the most attention.  Here is feisty rainbow practicing becoming a larger fish.

Doug and I with our bamboo rods.

It’s not always about how big the fish are.

 

I just love putting an old reel on my bamboo fly rods.  I’ve been looking for a nice old 2 3/4″ Hardy Sunbeam Reel for several months and just picked up this on Ebay….All original, beautiful patina, and great working condition.  Can’t wait to line it up and get it on one of my 7′  0″  4 wt bamboo fly rods.

Hardy Sunbeam Reel