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Post 21 Sep 2017, 16:25 • #26 
Master Guide
Joined: 06/28/16
Posts: 930
Location: Northern WI
Got the flies today, all look fantastic. Won't have a chance to fish them until next weekend but I should have pictures of some orange bellied brookies to post after that.


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Post 21 Sep 2017, 23:52 • #27 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 07/11/14
Posts: 1784
Location: urban Colorado
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flies arrived, thank you so much - you are very generous..
the flies are much better than my picture shows, at some point I need to build a lightbox to get better pics.

forecast is lows in the 20s, highs in 40s, mixed rain/snow.. so maybe not much for dry fly action.. but I'll be out there trying..
Think this is a Silaflex 322975 stream, let us see how we do..


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Post 22 Sep 2017, 19:45 • #28 
Sport
Joined: 07/17/12
Posts: 92
Location: US-OK
JimR, have you checked your messages? I said if you PMed me your address I'd get you mix.


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Post 22 Sep 2017, 22:29 • #29 
Master Guide
Joined: 07/04/15
Posts: 388
Location: Coppell, TX
bassman wrote:
JimR, have you checked your messages? I said if you PMed me your address I'd get you mix.

Thanks for the heads up. I'll go get the PM (don't check that email often). Man, I'm excited.


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Post 28 Sep 2017, 19:08 • #30 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 07/11/14
Posts: 1784
Location: urban Colorado
here's my report, from Water Valley Ranch in the Encampment drainage, Wyoming.
TL,DR: the flies worked beautifully ;-)

This be the rod and reel, Browning Silaflex 322975 perfectly delightful, and Martin 67.
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We got some colors on the drive in, though in Wy/Co most of our colors are green with a bit yellow in the fall. Later arrivals had an inch of snow to get through, we were early enough to just have rain.
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Greg and I headed out to the pond in pouring rain. The ranch hand said, 'true outdoorsmen' to which I replied, 'truly foolish'. When you are a city slicker with a chance at some WY fishing, weather don't matter, until your lips turn blue..
This brown hit the olive woolly bugger from my last pic, above. He ran out to the backing and then flourished on the surface, way out in the dappled water.
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Two other fish had a go at the fly but I didn't connect.

This trip was a church men's group retreat. Father Ted and Father Lou arrived a bit later on the road by the pond and didn't believe in my fish, doubting Thomases all.

Next day we did retreat things until mid-afternoon then headed upriver. Five of us, the other four at least are decent to good flyfishermen, accounted for a 5" rainbow and a 10" brown. I nearly caught a small brown out of the scum here. He rolled up to take the Crackleback but my strike was too late, too early, too sideways, who knows.
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Next day we went downriver to work back up. I took the lowest beat which began with a half-mile of shallow water and no holding pools. Sometimes there will be smaller fish in the pockets but not today. I was almost resigned to another skunk when a 3' deep pool arrived. It had not much of anything for cover with two main currents plunging in. The skunk-buster, handsomely spotted 11" bow, took a #16 beadhead zebra midge with a green pheasant tail body and peacock head - not pictured above. See below for its appearance at the end of the day.
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A small brown came out of the slack water between the currents. Usually by now I'd expect to have spooked the pool and would move on, today the dearth of holding water kept me fishing carefully and patiently. In the end there were six takers in the pool, landed five, including a strong handsome 16" bow. Every fish today took the zebra midge and ignored everything on the surface.
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The view up from the pool, more discouragingly thin water.
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Way up around the bend there was a bit deeper water in shadow which yielded two medium bows and a pretty little brown.
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Lunched contentedly on a rock in the sun.
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The ranch owner is planning to start a restaurant in Cheyenne and had the chef working at the ranch in the meantime. Juan is a graduate of Johnson&Wales culinary school who produced spectacular meals three times a day. It was difficult to refrain from licking my plate. For lunch the sandwich was on a ciabatta roll with at least ten different flavors going on, I ruminated upon each mouthful.

After lunch I saw a big brown movement upriver, at first thought otter, but then realized it was a wader leg. Jeff was taking a restless little nap among the yellow leaves. He'd fished down some good water without moving anyone. We rested a bit and went back up. I sent Jeff up to the good-looking pool and fished a little riffle below it. After twenty casts or so the Crackleback stopped and this big bow came thrashing up to the surface, then bolted downstream.
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Usually in these situations I apply side strain to persuade the fish into an eddy on my side of the river, then run around to get below while holding a light pressure. Often enough the fish will pause in the eddy and let me do this. The side water was so thin the fish didn't hold anywhere and ran back into the current each time, took me about fifty yards to finally wear him down.

Afterward I tried to guide Jeff to a fish but did not succeed. After busting off a couple of flies we humped back up to the trail and walked up to this very Wyoming, very River Runs Through It kind of scene.
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The pond above them is where the brown came from.

Here's the remnant of a well-chewed zebra midge, ready for its honorable retirement. Actually I'll probably keep fishing it until they stop taking it.. thanks bassman..
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Post 28 Sep 2017, 19:42 • #31 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 10/26/12
Posts: 1188
Location: Fairfax, Virginia
The Encampment is such a wonderful drainage ... with some nice hidden fish :)

Pecos


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Post 29 Sep 2017, 12:42 • #32 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 02/12/16
Posts: 4094
Location: USA-CO
Great report; thanks for showing! Especially good lesson about not giving up on skinny water.

That's my kind of retreat.


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Post 01 Oct 2017, 20:58 • #33 
Master Guide
Joined: 06/28/16
Posts: 930
Location: Northern WI
Was finally able to use the flies this weekend. They worked well :).

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A little predator control for the native brooks...also doubles as a great meal for the frying pan. The bows went wild in this system about 15 years ago from plantings way downstream. Along with browns they're bad news for the natives.

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Post 02 Oct 2017, 00:25 • #34 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 04/06/15
Posts: 1249
Location: Central Oregon
Char Hunter wrote:
A little predator control for the native brooks...also doubles as a great meal for the frying pan. The bows went wild in this system about 15 years ago from plantings way downstream. Along with browns they're bad news for the natives.


Love it!
Here in Oregon we're being told to kill every brookie we catch. They eat the native rainbows, you see.
(Nice fish, nice flies, sorry for the thread drift)


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Post 02 Oct 2017, 10:47 • #35 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 02/12/16
Posts: 4094
Location: USA-CO
Beautiful trout all, especially the Brook Trout. That photo of the spots is just great.


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Post 02 Oct 2017, 22:39 • #36 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 07/11/14
Posts: 1784
Location: urban Colorado
another trip report, to nameless lakes in WY..

We started out by doing some work at Ken's farm on the eastern plains. On the neighbor field, three guys stood around a tractor, one opening the toolbox that took up most of the back of his pickup, another with his cap off scratching his head, neither a good sign. The pinto beans could not be harvested since the moist clay soil was clogging the harvester feeders, with more rain coming in the evening. Such is a farmer's life.

Still life with 3 apples on a hail-damaged hood, against a field of alfalfa.

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The apples are from a 100-year old (estimated) tree growing atop a nearby hill. The original homestead is long gone but the tree soldiers on, producing a decent crop of pie apples every fall for the neighbours. No-one knows what varietal it is but some samples are going in for DNA analysis this year. The apples were tart and crisp and purely delicious. I think of the homesteader who planted it - a young couple, or a hopeful young man, in the good wet years of the early 1900s.

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First fishing stop at the pond. I can't find this pond on a map, probably a good thing since Ken is a veteran and could hunt us all down if I spilt any beans about locations. It's a strange spot since it has a thriving and varied set of bugs, scuds, damsels, etcetera, but the best fly is always a #18 or #16 Adams. I started with a little green softhackle from bassmaster's selection, which got one 9" and a series of bumps. Switching to one of the red softhackles (pictured in my post above) produced an immediate gratification who took the fly as it sank.

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That worked pretty well for a bit, until Ken switched to an Adams and started catching fish steadily. The Purple Haze was the obvious contender. It was still descending toward the water on the first cast when this fellow leaped up to catch it. I confess this is not a glass rod, but a slow actioned second-generation Fenwick HMG GFF755.

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I am usually a primitive savage when out fishing, counting the fish as, 1,2,3,4,many. We got to 'many' quickly this day, and even to 'enough'. 'Enough' is oddly harder to get to when not killing fish, as a pile of dead fish does rather dim the catching fever: but the thrill of the new hit persists through many fish. It's like drug addictions, the next hit is the only one that matters. The weather moved in and it grew dim. The 70F at the farm 4299ft was only a warm remembrance in the rain of 38F at 6600ft. We declared it cold enough to head for a hotel, funky, cheap and clean in Medicine Bow, site of the first Western novel.

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Medicine Bow always cues up the Waterboys song for me,
"There's a black wind blowing
A typhoon on the rise
Pummelin' rain
Murderous skies!"
We had all that and more on the drive over, including a narrow miss of a black cow and calf in the black night on the muddy road, fishtailing between them by the grace of ABS, Ken's decades of WY backroad driving experience, and perhaps God.

This song evoked the American West and its bitter high prairie winters for me as a young man in Africa. It turns out Mike Scott didn't know the town existed when he wrote the song.
"I invented the place name "Medicine Bow", and discovered several years later that a real Medicine Bow exists in Wyoming, USA."
It surely was not an invention but a recollection of a memory forgotten.

Next morning cold on the lake we prepared to try a canoe trip.

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Tied on the big gaudy streamer (see previous post pic) at a hazard. I decided this was as close as you could get to fishing a Mepps spinner on a fly rod. That worked, fishing it over the big black holes between weed reaching up to the surface.

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The wind rose and drove us off the water. Fish rising between us and the shore were also a strong persuasion. I hooked a good rainbow on the Mepps fly but an unseen windknot terminated our connection. I was sad to lose the fly. The closest thing left in my box was a Platte River Special, though my tie looks nothing like the fly in that link which is closer to the Mepps fly. Lashed that on and walked up the shore a bit, made a cast on a whim and found a teeming horde of 12-13" brookies, presumably attempting to spawn in the shallows.

The green life of the lake persists, in fish and weed, though the sedge is withered from the lake and no birds sing.

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Further up the shore Ken caught 16-17" rainbows steadily, as I caught everything steadily except the larger rainbows. It seems the Wyoming Game & Fish threw everything from the kitchen sink in here, rainbows, brookies, Colorado R cutts, and even a fine-spotted Snake R cutt. No pictures of these as my fingers were too cold to operate the camera. The coots are always a good sign for me, if there are coots feeding then I'll hie over there to fish.

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The clouds lifted briefly to show us the early snows over the wind farm.

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More weather, we had reached 'enough' and packed out just ahead of a blast of sideways rain.

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Post 04 Oct 2017, 18:12 • #37 
Sport
Joined: 07/17/12
Posts: 92
Location: US-OK
doug in co, you've done my flies proud. I feel very happy to know the flies have turned a few fish. If, by the Mepps fly you mean the spruce fly with the extra bling I just might have a few more of those laying around. Been too busy to do anything lately but will check, hopefully before I make my trip to the White River and try some of my flies myself.


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Post 04 Oct 2017, 18:15 • #38 
Glass Fanatic
Joined: 07/11/14
Posts: 1784
Location: urban Colorado
the flies did much better than 'a few fish'.. thank you again.

ya, the Mepps fly is the Spruce fly with bling ;-)


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