Fishing my local creek in October

Posted on October 26, 2022 by Dave Dozer

I made it out to my favorite local small creek this past week with my good friend, Joe. I fished my 6′ 8″ 3 wt bamboo and Joe took out his 7′ 0″ 4 wt bamboo that he built in my workshop. This creek runs right below my house and gets almost no fishing pressure, so we had the water to ourselves for the afternoon. This is some of my favorite kind of fly fishing…getting out on very small local waters with light bamboo fly rods. We found several willing native rainbows in the 6″ t 11″ range ready to take assorted nymphs and dry flies.

My favorite small rod with a classic Pflueger 1492 reel.

Joe fighting a nice little rainbow

A nice fish landed!!!

We each caught several of these colorful native rainbows.

Fishing, Fishing, Fishing!!!

Posted on August 13, 2022 by Dave Dozer

It’s been a while since I’ve posted on my Blog…been fishing a lot this summer. Mary Ann and I spent 6 weeks fishing in Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, and Colorado. In Oregon we fished the Owyhee River, in Idaho we fished the Salmon River, Marsh Creek, and Bear Valley Creek, In Wyoming we fished the New Fork River, Savery Creek, North Platte River, and Encampment River. In Colorado we fished the Frying Pan River, Yampa River, Service Creek, and the Poudre River. And, we used a variety of bamboo rods along the whole trip. Here are a few random photos from our “summer vacation”.

The Sawtooth Mountains near Stanley, Idaho.

The Salmon River

A beautiful Salmon River Cutthroat.

Marsh Creek, Idaho

A Marsh Creek Cutthroat

The New Fork River, Wyoming with our great guide, Ryan Hudson.

A beautiful New Fork Rainbow

Mary Ann fighting a Savery Creek Rainbow.

Cicadas were the bug-of-choice at Savery Creek

A Savery Creek Rainbow

A Frying Pan River rainbow that took a PMD Comparadun.

The Yampa River in Colorado

A beautiful brown that came to the surface for a dry.

A Yampa River Cutbow

Euronymphing on the Poudre River in Colorado

Service Creek, Colorado

A nice Service Creek Brookie

A new custom rod I just finished

Posted on March 19, 2022 by Dave Dozer

I just finished a new rod for a customer who was looking for a fast action rod that he could travel with. We decided on a 7′ 3″ 3 piece 4 wt rod. I don’t normally build fast action rods, but I modeled one of my other rods to meet his interests. He chose an English walnut reel seat with engraved hardware, and Royal Hunt primary silk thread wraps on the guides. We were both extremely happy with how it came out…a great fast action rod for small streams. Here are a couple of photos.

A great fast action rod with English walnut reel seat and Royal Hunt wraps.

A beautiful 7′ 3″ 4 wt rod.

Starting a new Bamboo Trout Net

Posted on October 25, 2021 by Dave Dozer

I’m getting started on a new Bamboo Trout Net today to add to my inventory. It will be available for the Christmas Holidays…would make a fantastic Christmas Present for that special angler!

The 5 long strips will make up the hoop section of the net. They are 72″ x .75″ x .070″. The shorter pieces will make up the handle of the net. They are 13″ x .625″ x .200″.

The first step is to start gluing up the handle pieces.

Getting started on a new Bamboo Trout Net

Closer view of handle and hoop sections.

Gluing up sections.

Two handle sections. These will get glued up together.

Both handle sections have now been glued together and shaped.

The handle section for my new Bamboo Net.

Time to glue up the whole net!

Clamped and glued up!

Roughed out net ready for hand sanding.

Finished Net #1

Finished Net #2

Finished Net #3

Savery Creek, Wyoming

Posted on August 10, 2021 by Dave Dozer

It’s been a busy summer so I haven’t posted for a while. Mary Ann and I recently took a 3 week trip to Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho for some fantastic fly fishing. I’ll share some photos from Savery Creek, Wyoming in this post. Savery Creek is a very large working cattle ranch in central Southern Wyoming. They have 18 miles of private trout water on their ranch. And, they put strong limitations on the numbers of guests staying at the lodge so the water doesn’t get overfished. First, Savery Creek is a very small tail water, populated with big rainbows, a few browns, and a few tiger trout. Most of our fish were between 14″ and 20″. All their fishing is guided, and our guides, Bryce and Matt, did a fantastic job. We fished 4 days on the ranch, and never put on a subsurface fly….everything was dry fly fishing, mostly with cicadas, hoppers, ants, and some smaller mayflies and caddis. Mary Ann and I both fished 5 wt bamboo fly rods. Fishing was great, the lodge was great, and the meals were great. All in all, we had a fantastic time and are hoping to get back there next year. Here are a few photos: