Gilwire: 2009

Friday, December 18, 2009

Dragon Warrior

A few months ago Derek made up a fly that is similar to the rainbow warrior, except that it is tied with black flashabou for the abdomen, and mallard flank for the tail. It is black and white, and looks like a panda ready to kick some butt! That is why he named it the dragon warrior ( If you don't know what I am talking about, watch Kung Fu Panda and it will make sense). So, today Kohler and I fished the Weber. It was a nice day to be on the river even though the fishing was pretty slow. The only fly to produce fish was the Dragon Warrior.

"There is no charge for awesomeness ...or attractiveness."

Dragon Warrior

Nice brown deceived by the panda fly.

"The universe has brought us the Dragon Warrior! "

Master Oogway

Kohler fighting the big one. No doubt this fish doesn't want to give in to the power of the Dragon Warrior!

"Hey, what you got? You got nothing because I got it right here. You picking on my friends? Get ready to feel the thunder. Come out with the crazy feet. What you goin' to do about the crazy feet. I'm a blur! I'm a blur! You never seen *Bear* style!"

Go get em Kohler!

Oh, and a muskrat surfaced at our feet at the end of the day. He must have thought one of us was PO because he peaced out in a hurry! "Skadoosh!!"

Thursday, December 17, 2009

Dad's Christmas Present

Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Rowley Stone

This is one of my bread and butter patterns that I fish whenever large stonefly nymphs are present. It is especially deadly in deep riffles and faster water since stonefly nymphs typically prefer fast oxygenated water. It has produced great fishing lately at Coffee Pot Rapids on the Henry's Fork, and at the difficult Spanish Fork River. It's easy to tie and it catches fish like crazy! Try it, you'll see.

RECIPE:

Hook: Any straight shank nymph hook size 6-12 (Tiemco 5263)

Bead: Gold Tungsten

Thread: Olive 6/0 Danville

Weight: Lead wire .020

Tail: Natural goose biots

Rib: Large copper wire

Flash: Black Flashabou

Abdomen: Peacock Semi-Seal dubbing

Wing case: Black Swiss Straw

Thorax: Peacock Semi-Seal dubbing

Legs: Black-dyed hen saddle

Collar: Bighorn orange Sow-Scud dubbing

1- Start by placing the tungsten bead and lead wire on the hook.

2- Oppose and tie in two goose biots at the bend of the hook. Make them roughly half the length of the the hook shank. Wrap the thread forward and tie biots off behind lead wire and clip off excess.

3-Tie in a piece of large copper wire on the bottom side of the hook. Then prepare to dub the abdomen.

4-Dub the abdomen leaving one-third of the hook shank undubbed.

5-Counter wrap the copper wire four or five wraps and tie off.

6- Tie in 4 strands of black flashabou. Fold a piece of swiss straw over until it is about half the width of the hook gap and tie it in front of the flashabou.

7- Tie in the dyed-black hen feathers as legs directly in-front of the swiss straw.

8- Dub the thorax with a large clump of peacock Semi-Seal dubbing.

9- Bring the swiss straw and flashabou forward and tie them off directly behind the bead.

10- Tie in another set of legs behind the bead again using a dyed-black hen feathers.

11- Dub a collar directly behind the bead, whip-finish, clip, and ...

... the finished fly.

Here is a pattern variation with a peacock Semi-Seal dubbing collar instead of orange. The easiest way to adapt this fly to match other stonefly species is by changing the color of dubbing. Such as, yellow ice-dubbing instead of the peacock dubbing to represent a golden stonefly nymph.

One more thing, this fly is often large enough to entice strikes from sluggish fish in the middle of winter, so don't be too shy to tie on a large fly like this when everyone else is fishing size 22 midges. If there are large stones in the river, the fish will hardly let a delicious meal like this fly pass by. Good luck and stay warm!

Sunday, November 1, 2009

Idaho: Snow and Rainbows

Kohler and I took a trip up to the Island Park, Idaho this weekend. It was the first time for either of us to fish the well known Henry's Fork. When we got there early friday morning we assumed there was a good chance we would have the river all to ourselves since it was so darn cold outside. Even the guy at Mike Lawson's Fly shop looked at us like we were nuts. Turns out we we didn't see another soul on the river all weekend, it was great.

The road leading into Ashton, Id friday morning.

Box Canyon on a cold October morning. We started our trip fishing Box Canyon below Island Park Reservoir. After pulling 6 fish out of the first two little pockets, we were very very excited, unfortunately things cooled off even more, especially the fishing. I didn't have another bite all day, but Kohler hooked and fought the biggest trout either of us have ever seen on the end of a rod. Guestimate: 23"-25" and fat as all get out! Kohler lost him as he made a final run back into the main current. It was too bad! We later decided the day sucked for fishing because I wasn't wearing my nice old red hat that Kohler loves so much. I made sure to put it on early the next morning and it paid off.

We saw some sweet moose, and 5 or 6 bald eagles while we were there.

This is the long stretch of river we hiked Saturday morning to get to Coffee Pot Rapids. The roads were very snowy and we were in my Jetta so we were forced to stay near main highways and do some extra hiking. Saturday morning we hiked and hour and a half in, and 5 hours later we hiked an hour and a half out. Long but wonderful day.

A nice fat 14" rainbow. Fortunately enough Saturday was a little warmer and the fish were more active. We had a great day at the Coffee Pot where we caught many beautiful rainbows. The fish weren't the biggest, but they made up for their size with their density and beauty. We did happen to see 4 or 5 fish that were easily over 20" but no luck getting them to bite.