It was a good fishing year overall for me but fires and smoke were almost always a factor in deciding where to go.

Fished a new to me stretch of a meadow stream that had scads of small brookies and the occasional brown and bow.


A feeder trib fished nice as well...especially the beaver pond.



At night we drove to a ridge and watched fires burning a few miles to the east of us...Days later after returning home, we learned that the campground we stayed at (a favorite) had burnt to the ground.

In early September our annual two week trip to nor cal waters had to be moved out of state. Forest closures, fire, and smoke, were the norm up and down the state.

Colorado was very good to me and my fishing partner.. Caught the tail end of a green drake hatch and caught almost everything on dries the entire trip.





My fishing partner.


Also fished a pretty but smallish blue ribbon stream that held some surprisingly large browns. Challenging fishing but once figured out trout were caught. First to hand was a solid 18' fish caught on my 7' 5wt River Rat. Have pictures of the spot but only poor quality video of the fish swimming off..


The typical fish were 11"-14" and caught on dries. Great fun on glass!



With a great start to winter things are looking promising for 2022. On personal note, in December we closed on what will someday in the near future be my retirement home.. Five minutes down the road to a favorite river, and five in the other direction to a lake that holds trout and smallies.


One of my new neighbors.

Fishing in 2021 was pretty tough around here. The heat and drought kept me away, I fished very few times on the home rivers for trout. A couple of cooler days early in the morning.




I did get up to Alaska to fish with a friend and had great conditions and timing, The water was high and lots of glacial till and fish were staging in their natal river in the lower 20 miles of deep water, and we were fishing in the mid depth area another 10 miles up river only 30 miles from the ocean.

Day one was high and stained, day two was lower and clearer, day three was clear with till in the flow but we started to see signs of life, salmon jumping and porpoising. We couldn't see fish, it was too deep and silty but they started to move, and with the improved water they started hitting swung salmon flies well. I did`nt land these on a fiberglass spey, but I haven't seen many around these parts or know much about them, and only have cast a few bamboo rods, but I`m still learning salmon fishing.

Yes that's my thumb, released to make its long journey up river.



I thought I broke my finger and I might of it still aches a little on my first big salmon take, the drag loaded the rod up way too much and the reel spun and my pointer finger was too close, it hit straight on it was also my first fish using a disk drag reel. I had it set too tight and was scrambling to loosen the drag before it broke something besides me. My finger stopped the reel, the salmon almost ripped the rod out of my hands and that slight pause the salmon threw the hook. ow ow ow

It didn't take me long to figure out, that I prefer clicker reels on large fish too and they operate just fine for large salmon, So I rigged up my speyco, the disk drag reel was borrowed and that was grand for me. I had some line burns and palming rash, but that was enjoyable.



I love Alaska, and the midnight sun, fishing 14' Spey rods and landing great fish with friends.

I worked nights all last year too, which really didnt help my fishing any nor my mood, but the few times I got out it was quality fly fishing.

In 2021 My oldest daughter, her husband and the grandkids moved to Sweden but in 2022 I hope to fish AK again if invited, but my fishing will be chasing sea trout and salmon in Sweden and maybe Norway, Long drive from Stockholm. I think Sweden has good stream trout fishing but I dont know, I saw one video on YouTube that looked pretty promising.

I`m learning how to tie classic salmon flies, which is tough, learning that sea run anything is pretty tough to land, and the more I learn, the more I seem to like simplicity and skill over gadgets. Getting better at casting sure, but getting better at fishing more.

Ive had serious beatdowns on the river and hard earned fish, currents that exhausted me, where I felt like the salmon fighting the current, Fishing till exhaustion under the midnight sun in Swedish lap land and in Alaska.

Knowledge was graciously given to me by fly fishers and was hard earned by failure, pain and exhaustion, there is a pride in the triumph of landing the occasional fish, and carrying the tradition of a fly man. It is said that we stand on the shoulders of very tall men, the ones that came before us, I believe that to be true.

I appreciate all of your help and posts, please have a good 2022.

El Duderino, you’re setting up to epitomize the Southern Connoisseurship part of flybassin’ with this type of plan. And props to ya for it, those are some gorgeous fish. Tricky to ID sometimes as well.

The diversity of and beauty of bass species tends to be under appreciated sometimes, I think many anglers just pigeonhole them into something close to what they know or are familiar with.