The Winter of our Discontent.

What does one do during the winter of our discontent?  Tie more flies of course, and watch Season 1 of Sherlock.

A Roku box is a neat little gadget.

While Sherlock was doing his thing I found another you tube video about tying a simple may fly nymph.  I like simple and an easy tie while I watch a little tele (British influence coming through).  A lot of the modern fly patterns are really getting fancy.  Crazy synthetic materials that make the fly look more realistic but they also increase the tying time.  Not my cup of tea (there it goes again).

I needed to add a few different colors and some variety to my nymph box.  A quick search and I found a pattern I liked.  Theflymanjim.com has turned out to be a great source of instructional videos for just about any pattern I want.  The latest one is a simple may fly pattern.  Some pheasant tail, pale dubbing, fine copper wire, tungsten bead and about 5 minutes later another fly in the box.

Time to get started on the dry flies.  Where to start?

Wonder how many patterns I can find on you tube?

A year in a life – February

This is getting old.  The last estimate I read was that 87% of the great lakes is covered in ice.  The last picture I saw of Lake Erie looks like the entire lake is frozen.  Normally I spend February getting ready but this year there’s no rush.  Besides, there is a 2 foot snow drift in front of my garage door that I would have to remove before I can get to anything.  Kind of hard to get excited about any walleye fishing with all the snow on the ground.  I figure it won’t start getting good until after Easter.  I’m sure a few people will be out dodging ice bergs with the hope of catching that wall hanger.  I’ve pretty much given up on that dream so I’ll wait until the males move in so that I can fill the freezer. Speaking of which the supplies are running a little low.  Hope I have enough to get through Lent.

In the mean time I’ll keep on tying flies and completing little odd jobs to make a few extra bucks.  When it does start up I will be in full attack mode and gas and launch fees add up really quick. I did manage to secure the date for my tournament, May 9th and 10th.  Now all I have to do is nail down the weigh-in site.  I am trying to work out something with Sharkey’s Tavern on Grosse Isle.  Thought it would be a nice change to have it at a restaurant that might possibly serve walleye chowder and have something to drink afterwards if we want to stick around and BS.   

For all you guys that are married now would be a good time to get as many honey-dos out of the way as possible.  It’s not like we are doing anything else.

When Mother Nature gives you snow, Tie Flies!!

In January my area of Michigan broke the old record set in 1908 for most snow in a month, 39 inches.  Guess how we started February? Yep, more snow.  To make matters worse that after it stopped snowing it started to rain and then the temp dropped to make a frozen mess of everything.  Looks like a good weekend to stay indoors.

As I had mentioned before I got back into fly fishing in 2013.  I plan to carry on with that in 2014.  Only problem is that I obliterated what few flies I had so I need to replenish.  With the way this winter has been any trips I make to the AuSable in May could turn out to be a streamer/nymph/wet fly trip.  I’ve never done much nymph fishing before so I spent the first part of Saturday watching You Tube videos on tying bead head nymphs.  Once I saved a few videos and watched them repeatedly I dug through my materials to see what I could come up with.  I think the results turned out pretty good.

I spent Saturday tying up some Caddis Fly nymphs and pheasant tail nymphs.  Any pattern that uses pheasant tail fibers is all right with me.  I saved a lot of tail feathers from my pheasant hunting days and I’m all about free materials.

Caddis Fly Bead Head Nymph

Pheasant Tail Bead Head Nymph

The next day I decided to take a drive up to Schultz’s Outfitters in Ypsilanti to pick up some more beads, hooks and dubbing material.  Today I was going to tie up some Hare’s Ear Bead Head Nymph’s and Frenchie Bead Head Nymph’s.  I have never tied either before so there was going to be a bit of a learning curve here.  The end result wasn’t too bad, I just hope they fool a fish or two.

Frenchie Bead Head Nymph

Hare’s Ear Bead Head Nymph

Wonder if I get an invite this year if the other fishermen will want extra’s?

Well since Seattle is kicking the snot out of Denver I guess I’ll go tie up some more.