New flies,no fish.

I finally got out this weekend,up to Paradise Springs it turned out to be a beautiful day but no fish at all. Got up there at 7:00 am, lots of Midges coming off but not a lot of fish taking them off the surface.I started with the usual tactics,midges and leeches.I usually do good with those but no luck yet, tied on a number of midges with different leader configurations all with no results.Tapered my leader back to fish leeches,damsels,dragons and streamers with no luck also.After three hours of beating myself to death it was time to pack it in and head home. Better luck next time.

I've been tying a lot of flies as of late with Spring coming in. I've tied up some Bass bugs, nymphs and streamers. Worked out a cool-ish Pheasant Tail nymph with a bright bead head and an epoxy back with fine glitter it the mix.Also a couple Bass "jigs" and a bunch of Pink Squirrels for my Wisconsin trouting in May.

Streamers for 2011?

I've been tying alot of streamers, bugger types, not sure why, I don't fish alot of them, here and there. I had a pack of hooks from Cabela's just thought I'd burn through them.I getting itchy to head to Paradise Springs, it opened up on the firts of the year but it's been pretty darn cold scince we got back from vacation, hopefully in the next week or two I'll get up there, I'll have to tie up some midges, thinking about some Mercury Midges, or in that style woth the clear/silver bead.The lake fishes good, lots of midges come off in the morning so I'll have to give those a try.

Swampthing articulated!

I was playing aroung with the craftstore yarn the other day and tied up an articulated version of "Swampthing" this should be killer for bass and trout alike! I really like this yarn, I need to get it in bright colors, I think this would be a good Brown and Steelhead fly too.

New Bass flies

In the last post I was talking a bit about some yarn a was working with, I thought I'd put up a few more pics of the results of the yarn trials.

Not much going on.

As the post title says, not much going on 'round here.The Wisconsin season is closed now so I wait for the chance to get up for Steelies and Browns coming in from the lake. I n the mean time I've been playing around with some new "materials" I found at the local crafts store, I really like the way these look,the range of color i nt the yarns is amazing, giving alot of depth to the fly.I've just been clpping it into inch and a half segments and putting it in a dubbing loop, I'm a huge dubbing loop guy.

Season Closer

Well, all good things must come to an end and with that it was the last trip up to the Driftless for the season. I was lucky enough to get away for the weekend thanks to a very wonderful wife who tollerates my obsession.
I met up with my father-in-law, Jim, on Saturday morning at the motel we would be staying at. We geared up for the day and hit the water. The first stream we fished was one we've been on before. We had some success with the usual patterns, landing several small-ish Browns. Fished for a few hours and thought to get to the Motel for check in. We took care of that then on to the next spot. Again, another stream we have fished before. I thought I knew what to expect, come to find that I was totally wrong. The stream had been blown out by some flooding a couple months ago, an almost foreign landscape. I never thought that there could be so much change to a stream by a flood. I guess I'm just not that familiar with what floods can do to a stream.
We fished through there for hours and caught many fish, all Browns on the usual Leeches and Pink Squirrels. We did some scouting and hit a small stream for some quick Brookie action and then headed in for dinner.
The next day brought us to a stream we had not fished before and was a blast to fish. It was small, narrow and had beautiful deep pools with Browns and Brookies alike!
After that we made our way to a different stretch of the stream we fished the day before and had about an hour to fish before heading home. I was happy to have caught a couple more Browns out of this section, one small 10-11 incher and one decent 12-14beautiful Brown in Fall spawning color. I guess it will have to keep me happy until next season.............

Some news.

Not alot to report this past weekend.I had sent some of my Bass flies to Cameron Mortenson at the "Fiberglassmanifesto" a couple weeks back, he had a post up on his site about them and that I would be having them for sale soon. I've been working on this, sourcing boxes for the flies and working on the logo design for stickers etc...
I have settled on the name of "Lilly Pond Fly Design" I'm going to be getting pics up and starting a new page for the sale of them. I will be keeping pricing very friendly, I plan on offering well tied innovative flies for people who fish them.
Enough for now, please keep posted for the details.