I got one of my bamboo fly rods in the hands of one of our good friends, John, from Colorado recently. John is relatively new to fly fishing, but he didn’t have any difficulty picking his first fish swinging a black wooly bugger on my 8′ 3″ 5 wt rod. Here is John in action:
Swinging a bugger on the Salmon River.
Fish On!
A happy angler.
I was looking through my fly box recently and realized that I was out of (and hadn’t even fished) a Tellico Nymph in a very long time. It used to be a favorite pattern of mine but for some reason I had gotten away from fishing it. Most of us on the west coast haven’t heard of this fly as it was originated years ago in the Southeastern United States. A well known fly back east, it does a great job at imitating a golden stonefly nymph. And, you can be guaranteed that the fish in our local waters haven’t seen this fly before. So, I tied up several a few up a nights ago and Mary Ann and I hit the Crooked River yesterday for a few hours of fishing.
We got the river about noon. The recent snows were mostly gone and it was a nice overcast day with temperatures in the mid 40’s. Small fish were already rising for BWOs on the surface. Mary Ann picked up several fish on dries but I decided to stay with nymphs. The Tellico Nymph didn’t disappointment me and I picked up a handful of decent fish drifting this fly towards the bottom through the deeper runs. Since I’ve now “rediscovered” this great fly pattern, it will again be a standard in my fly box. Here are a couple of shots from the day, as well as my fly recipe for the Tellico Nymph.
The Crooked River
A nice fall rainbow that took a Tellico Nymph.
The Tellico Nymph
The Tellico Nymph
Hook: #8 to #12 – 1X Long (Daiichi 1560)
Lead: 15 turns of .015 Lead Wire Underbody
Thread: Brown
Tail: Grizzly Hackle Fibers
Body: Yellow Floss
Rib: 2 Strands of Peacock Hearl with Fine Copper Wire Counter Wrapped
Back: Turkey Tail Fibers
Hackle: English Grouse
A good friend and owner of one of my bamboo fly rods, Noel W., is from Australia and just sent me some photos of a recent fly fishing outing where he was successful with his 8′ 3″ 5 wt bamboo rod. It’s summer down-under right now, and he got into some nice trout. Here is Noel at Moffat Falls, New South Wales:
Fish On!
A Beautiful Rainbow Trout From Australia.
It Really Is In Australia!
It’s interesting how quickly trout respond to changes in river conditions. For the past several days, the Salmon River here in Stanley, Idaho has been blown out from flash floods that resulted in serious mud being dumped into the river. The normal crystal clear Salmon River had become a water system of chocolate milk, with visibility being reduced to nearly zero. But, a few days ago the river started to clear and Mary Ann and I were able to get out on the drift boat with one of my 8′ 3″ 5 wt. bamboo fly rods. We weren’t really expecting much out of the day but the fishing gods smiled on us. We managed to raise several fish on tan hoppers, and large streamers stripped through the deep runs worked also. Here are a couple of fat fish that came to the boat:
The Salmon River after clearing from a muddy mess.
A fat Westslope Cutthroat that took a large JJ Special streamer pattern.
A beautifully colored up Westslope Cutthroat that took a hopper.
After way too long, Mary Ann and I finally got out for a couple of days of fishing on the Crooked River in Central Oregon last week. The water level was nice but we found fishing success was a little slow. Some bugs were flying in the afternoon (caddis, BWO, and midges) but very few fish were coming up. Mary Ann tried swinging streamers with one of my 10′ 6″ 5 wt bamboo switch rods but the fish didn’t seem to want the larger flies. I tried an 8′ 0″ slow action 5 wt bamboo rod from my Spring Creek Series and had decent success with French nymphing techniques and indicators. The slow action of this rod cast the lightly weighted nymphs well and the soft tip helped with detecting light strikes. We both managed to pick up some decent rainbows and whitefish in the 10″ to 12″ range, typical sizes for the Crooked River. A small #18 black AP nymph or a #8 stonefly nymph fished on the bottom with French style indicators proved to be the most successful. Here are a few photos from our time on the Crooked River last week:
French Nymphing on the Crooked River
A nice rainbow from the Crooked River
Mary Ann and some two-handed casting with a bamboo switch rod.