Archive for year: 2019

Finally getting some time to catch up on the Blog. My weeks have been busy fishing anglers on our local rivers. The dry fly fishing has been really good as you’d expect this time of year. With October nearing, I’m looking forward to more good fishing, both with dry flies for our native cutthroat trout and also with streamers for large brown trout.

Great day on the water with Dennis and Tutu. Tutu fished dries with some southern flair and shows off one of his cutthroat trout from the Snake River.

Always fun fishing folks out of the Teton Fly Fishing cabin. Allows us to fish remote waters for gems like this… Brook trout in the fall are about as pretty a fish as you can catch.

Jamie and I got to fish together on a day off. We hit the spring creeks in the park and Jamie fooled this guy with a caddis fly.

Mark shows off a nice Yellowstone cutthroat trout. Always fun fishing him and his friends every September. Despite having to cover some ground, fish were eager to take our dry flies.

Been doing some trips up to Yellowstone lately with folks. The Firehole is fishing pretty well and it’s hard to beat spending a day amongst the geysers and buffalo. Sporadic hatches of BWOs and PMDs have allowed clients to catch some fiesty browns and rainbows on various stretches of the fabled water. When the fish aren’t rising, we’ve swung wet flies and nymphs with success.

Trapper shows off a nice Firehole River brown trout. Not bad for his first time fly fishing.

The Firehole isn’t known for big fish. Most anglers can expect to catch spunky browns and rainbows in the 6-12″ range, but it’s possible to catch some larger fish. The Salmonflies should start appearing in the canyon stretch in the next week or so. In addition to Yellowstone, we’ve also been fishing some area lakes. I always find lakes to be hit or miss. When they’re on, they can be some of the most fun fishing around. When they’re not, like yesterday, it makes for a tough day…. Regardless it’s always fun to introduce anglers to some of our fine stillwater options.

On days i haven’t been on the water, I’ve been tying flies and getting the Dubois cabin ready for guests. When I was working over there last week, Lulu and I discovered a fresh bear cache just above our property. Looked like a Grizzly had picked off an elk calf and devoured most of it. I got a few lousy picks on the game cam and am hoping next time i check it I’ll have something worth posting.

Just returned from spending two weeks on Andros Island in the Bahamas. Andros is the largest island in the Bahamas, yet one of the least populated. Much of it is wild, unsettled country (mangroves, swamps, forests, etc.) with a few tiny “towns” thrown in for good measure. It’s known as the bonefish capitol of the world and expectations were high as we stepped off the small charter plane at Andros Town Airport.

A group selfie as Kieno flew us from Nassau to Andros.

I’ve fished the Bahamas many times over the years and love it! Fish are good size, flats are white sand and the people are super friendly. It was good to be back on Andros after a great trip to the northern tip of the island last year. Joining Jamie and I were our great friends, Kurt, Kelly and Connie. We rented a nice house a few miles south of Fresh Creek and had a blast. Kurt and I were particularly excited about the fishing potentials since the house was situated on a bay with flats as far as the eye could see. Unfortunately the fishing was a bit of a bust. Each day we walked the flats and saw very few if any bonefish. Waters that looked like they should teaming with fish were empty. Empty not just of bonefish, but seemingly all life, save sharks and the occasional barracuda. It left us scratching our heads and drowning our tears in Kalik and spiced rum.

Kurt showing off a nice bonefish.

I took my watercolors and did quite a few sketches. This one is of the beach in front of the house.

Never before have i experienced such a beatdown on the flats. Now we did manage to catch some bonefish, all of whom were big and angry. In fact, Kurt caught a huge one in a mangrove-choked area behind our house. I also found a few mutton snapper who were hungry and harassed some boxfish. While we did get a few shots at fish here and there, most of few fish we saw were super spooked and moving fast across the flats. Locals told us the recent inconsistent weather and cold fronts sent the fish to deep water. It did seem like the shallow waters were chilly and maybe that does explain the empty flats. In any event, it was a hard two weeks of fishing in paradise. The good news is that we got to fish in paradise for two weeks and had a blast!! I can’t wait to get back!

Me with a bonefish. On this particular day, we found a few fish and hooked them!

I love the mutton snapper! They are beautiful and pull some line. This guy’s a smaller one, but equally cool.

I also took a uke with me and played quite a bit. I decided to give an impromptu concert while waiting for a hotel taxi in Tampa on the return journey

My favorite pic from the trip. Jamie and I Connie are exploring and snorkeling a blue hole that was near our house.