Blog - Page 10 of 30 - Teton Fly Fishing -Jackson Hole

Some bamboo and cutthroat

May 3, 2016/0 Comments/in /by testing

Jamie, Lulu and I got out for a few hours of fishing yesterday, taking advantage of some great spring weather here in Jackson Hole. We choose a small stream, not too far from home. Too celebrate the day, I broke out my Sweetgrass bamboo fly rod; a really great rod made by the guys up in Twin Bridges. I choose to keep it simple and tied on a Royal Wulff, figuring that any trout in this water wouldn’t be too picky. The Wulff worked and we caught some fish; one of which was a real bruiser for such small water.

Jamie and I are gearing up for a trip to the Yampa River this week. We’re joining friends and doing a 5 day float through Dinosaur National Monument. No fishing on this stretch due to the big, muddy, warm water, so I’m leaving the fly rods at home and taking my paints. My plan is to capture our journey in watercolors; should have a report (and paintings) when we return on Sunday night.

If anyone reading this is looking to inquire about a fishing trip, please know that I will be out of touch until Sunday night. You’re welcome to email or call and leave a message and I’ll be sure to get back to you when I get home.

Back to the Trout

April 21, 2016/0 Comments/in /by testing

Great to see (and feel) the warmer temperatures the past few days! Lulu and I are over at the Teton Fly Fishing cabin getting it ready for the upcoming season. LOTS of cleaning and random maintenance stuff on the agenda as well as finishing a few painting commissions. Lu gave me the look (and bark) around 10:30 this morning, and while I had other things to do, I couldn’t resist the urge to go wet a line. We quickly hopped in the truck and drove to a nearby small stream that’s known to hold a few trout.

I rigged up my 8.5′ Winston with a small parachute adams and Lulu and I headed to the water. I immediately saw a nice fish holding in the gin clear water. Unfortunately Lulu’s excited state sent the fish running for cover. We’re still working on our training and despite being a great dog, Lulu’s fishing skills leave a little to be desired. At 11 months, there’s still no differentiating a trout from a bird; it seems both need retrieving….. Soo we moved upstream to the next hole and I manage to miss a nice strike. Another run up, I hooked a nice cutthroat. Lulu lost her cool and tried with all her might to get to the fish. In the battle with her, I lost it. Oh well, we’re training right?

So that’s how the next few hours went, a few fish were landed, numerous fish were spooked and one nice brown trout was retrieved and dropped in my net (and swam away)by an overexcited labrador. I can’t say that the time on the water was super relaxing due to my 4 legged companion. However it was nice to fish dry flies in a t- shirt and watching lulu leap and bound over the Wyoming countryside brought a smile to my face; even if she did spook dozens of fish!

A nice spunky rainbow put a bend in the rod!

Lulu on point looking for a released trout. I swear she can smell them; that’s gotta be why she swims around in all the fishy holes when off leash right? Ah, the training continues…

I love small stream fishing. It reminds me of my early days fly fishing in PA. Although I don’t think I’m as good at it as I used to be… Too many days on big open rivers. Definately fun though today. Some holding water I walked by, just observing the fish rather than trying to put a cast under all those willows

A good size brown for this small stream. I saw ( and spooked) some other nice fish, but a lot of the bigger ones were stationed up in root balls.

This time of year the water is LOW making it extra challenging. It’s amazing how fish can sense you and spook from so far away. I only had one cast per run and if I messed up the fish would let me know by shooting by.

Florida

April 18, 2016/0 Comments/in /by testing

After spending a week in Florida, I’m back home in Jackson Hole. Overall it was a fun trip. We met up with friends, Kurt and Kelly and their 3 year old son at the Tampa airport and then headed west to Anna Maria Island on the Gulf side. While this was more of a “family” trip, Kurt and I did do a fair amount of fishing but walked away a little disappointed, managing only a handful of sea trout and lady fish. Our main target, Snook on the beaches, never materialized. We talked to other anglers who reported the same thing. In addition to prowling the beaches, we were also treated to some days fly fishing in the shallow mangroves courtesy of our friend, captain Matt. It was awesome to explore the Bay and see the diverse sea life with an Anna Maria local. Matt isn’t a fly fisherman, but he’s damn good with a boat and was more than happy to push Kurt and I around in search of Snook. Things in the mangroves were quiet too, save the huge School of Mullet that I’ve come to hate (Mullet eat algea and don’t give two shits about a well presented fly!). By far, the coolest sightings involved Manatees and dolphins; some of which swam beside the boat! Enjoy some pics…

Kurt and I on the beach looking for Snook the first morning on Anna Maria. By all accounts, they should’ve been there. Unfortunately we never saw or cast to any.

Kurt shows off a nice Sea trout. Sinking line and a Schminnow proved effective, allowing Kurt to bring several of these guys to the boat. Thanks Captain Matt for finding them!

One evening while working our way through some channels, we were treated to a group of dolphins fishing and playing around us. Several times the dolphins surfaces right beside us. At one point I tried to touch them but came up short by a few inches…

A lone ladyfish one evening. I like the ladyfish. They fight and jump hard making for a fun fight

Some storms passed through our last day on Anna Maria. Here’s a shot of the Gulf from our beach.

Gotta have a family picture. The Bennetts and Weavers pre dinner. Always fun catching up with these guys!

A weekend of fish, both good and bad…

April 4, 2016/0 Comments/in /by testing

We had some nice weather here in Jackson Hole this past
weekend. Naturally the best course of action was to go fishing.
Saturday, Jamie, Lulu and I headed south to fish the Snake river
canyon. This was partly to get Jamie on her first fish of the year,
but also to do some dog training. For those that don’t know, Lulu
is our 11 month old Lab pup who has an affinity for retrieving
hooked fish. While you can’t blame her, the behavior isn’t ideal
and needs to be improved in order to make her a good fishing
companion.

We immediately found fish rising to midges and small black
stoneflies. Jamie caught one spunky cutthroat trout after another
while I worked with Lulu. After a while we traded off; more fish
were caught and Lulu got better with each fish. After about two
hours we decided to quit while we were ahead (plus Lulu was
getting tired and cold). We headed back to town, picked up
supplies for cocktails and settled in on our tiny deck with friends
for the rest of the day.

Sunday I headed over to the Henry’s Fork with my neighbor
Chris. We decided to float despite our late start. The weather
seemed perfect; partly cloudy, no wind and kinda warm. As we got
the boat ready and pulled on the waders we saw a few fish rise.
There were all kinds of bugs hatching- BWOs, midges, caddis, a
few larger mayflies, what you expect from the bug factory. Right
off the bat I hooked two trout on a skwala pattern. Seemed like
we were in for a good day. WRONG! That was about as exciting as
it got as we battled our way down the river. I hooked another nice
brown on a streamer and Chris managed a few fish on a dry-
dropper combo. I ended up with more whitefish than trout and a
massive sucker that I swear was a brown trout until he got to the
net…. The highlight however came in the last bit of water when I
got a solid strike on my streamer. Brown trout, nope a PERCH!
Yeah, I caught a perch on the most famous trout river in the
world. That summed our day. Oh well, they all can’t be diamonds
right?

Sunday dry flies and rising cutthroat trout

March 22, 2016/0 Comments/in /by testing

Despite battling a nasty cold, I sucked it up and got out fishing Sunday with my friend Matt. We headed south, choosing to fish the Snake in the canyon, hoping to have water to ourselves. After a little snowshoeing we got on the water; I opted to nymph fish while Matt threw streamers. Both tactics worked, the streamer a little more than the nymphs (at least for a while). I finally tied on a simple peacock soft hackle, a favorite of mine, and could hardly keep the fish off. Dead drifted, swung, it didn’t matter. The cutthroat trout loved it. After landing quite a few fish, I sat down and watched Matt fish. While sitting high above the water i started to see fish rise. That was all I needed. I tied on a small parachute adams, slid down the snowbank and began casting to risers. In the end, Matt and I had a fantastic afternoon of dry fly fishing.

True Confessions..

March 19, 2016/0 Comments/in /by testing

Funny things happened this week. I opted for two things I swore I
never would do….

Number one: Me and the lady are headed to Florida in a few weeks
for some R & R and fishing. I’ll be honest, I never really had any
interest in Florida. Always figured if I made it that far southeast,
I’d continue on to lesser populated areas (ie. the Bahamas). Well
sometimes easy is better, especially when good friends are
involved. My good friend Kurt and his wife were kind enough to
invite us to join them on Anna Maria Island for a week in April.
They’ve been there a few times before and from the sounds of it,
Anna Maria island, located near Tampa on the gulf side, seems like
a nice, laid back place to kick up the feet and take it easy.
Apparently there are Snook on the beaches and other assorted fish
swimming in it’s warm waters. Florida’s not sounding so bad and
I’m getting more and more excited. Naturally I started tying up
some flies for the trip…. If anyone out there has any fishing tips
for this area, shoot me an email.

Second on the list of things I did this week was ordering a….. wait
for it….a tenkara (*cough*) rod. Feel free to make fun now. I’ll
own up and admit to spending the past few years making fun of
tenkara fishing; laughing at the idea of paying money for a
glorified cane pole. Maybe it was the dreary weather or the cold
i’ve been battling, maybe I got caught up in the idea of fishing a
long noodly rod on small cutthroat streams. In any event, I pulled
the trigger and ordered a basic starter rod, line, etc. And I gotta
say, after opening it up today, i’m pretty excited. Seems like a cool
thing to mess around with. It’ll never take the place of my
conventional fly fishing tackle, but it may just be a fun “toy” to
enjoy a day on the water with. I’ll keep you posted….

So there you have it. True confessions from Teton Fly Fishing’s
world headquarters. Something tells me both of these things are
gonna play out alright. Time for some whiskey…

week in review

March 11, 2016/0 Comments/in /by testing

Spent the past week painting, teaching and tying/ organizing
some flies. The good news is that I finished and shipped a series
of cutthroat paintings to a client of mine. I think the four cutthroat
watercolors will look nice framed and matted in their new home.
Now it’s onto the next project, another commission that, if all goes
well should be finished in the next week or so.

All four painting together on the floor. Each one is
11×14″.Top left to bottom right: Snake river fine-spotted cutthroat,
Bonneville cutthroat, Yellowstone cutthroat and Colorado river
cutthroat. Anglers who catch all four species in Wyoming earn a
cuttslam certificate. You can read an old blog about our cuttslam adventure here.

The freelance art world is funny. Over the years I’ve done a
number of projects and it seems like when it rains, it pours (in a
good way). Besides the paintings I’m working on, it also looks like
I’ll be doing some illustrations for the JH Planet’s best of issue. I
did some work for them last year, doing chariactures of various
winners. They were happy with them and it looks like I’ll be getting
out the ink and watercolors to complete a few new pieces…

The weather’s been pretty good around here and maybe i’ll
sneak out in the next few days and wet a line. Hope folks take
advantage of warm temps over the weekend.

Not all streamers have to be articulated with tons of
rubber legs… Here are some simple, farily ugly, yet VERY effective
blinged-out wooly buggers for spring lake fishing. My thought
process, “let’s make’em look like a panther-martin or something”.
And yes, these blinged-out synthetic mutants will work in a river
too…

Recipe: tail: gold flash, body: white sparkly chenille,
palmered olive grizzly hackle, Yellow dumbell eyes. Hows that for
easy?

Fly tying and rainbows

March 6, 2016/0 Comments/in /by testing

Ran over to the Teton Fly Fishing cabin in Dubois last week to spend a few days working on some paintings and other odds and ends. Lulu joined me and we had some fun roaming the river bottom and finding tennis balls in the Sage brush. I was particularly excited to organize and add a bunch of new fly tying materials to the cabin’s tying desk. It’s nice to be able to tie flies while at the cabin and also offer guests a place to tie. Every fly fishing cabin needs a fully stocked fly tying desk!

Friday I had the pleasure of guiding some great folks from Mass. Rob and his two boys, Jake and Bo joined me for a fun day of fly fishing. The weather couldn’t have been better and the guys did great learning how to dead-drift nymphs and hooked some fish. The highlight came at the 11th hour when Jake, after loosing several fish, hooked a hot rainbow. The ‘bow ran up and down river, taking line off the reel in an effort to allude us. Jake did great, keeping pressure on the fish but letting him run and eventually got him close enough for me to net. He was all smiles as he admired his catch!

A few days on the Snake

March 1, 2016/0 Comments/in /by testing

I spent the better part of this past week fishing clients on the Snake river. For the most part the weather was great; sunny and temperatures in the 40s. We found some nice cutthroat trout feeding on midges in many side channels and back eddies. Jason, hailing from TN got to enjoy some great dry fly fishing on Thursday, bringing many nice cutts to hand.

Sunday proved a bit more difficult for me and my clients. We covered a lot of ground, fishing what I thought was great water. Unfortunately the wind really picked up, blowing straight up river and shutting down and hopes we had for some good dry fly fishing. The three guys were champs, not complaining at all when we switched to nymphs, fishing run after run. Eventually everyone managed some fish, include one BIG cutthroat, but I’d be lying if I said i wasn’t disappointed. I really wanted to get these guys on rising trout, but it just wasn’t in the cards for us (at least where we were fishing…)

It was nice to be out on the water for a few days and introduce visiting anglers to the waters I love so much. The fishing should continue to get better as we get into March.

A clean bench

February 25, 2016/0 Comments/in /by testing

It doesn’t happen often, if ever. My fly tying bench is a collection of materials, flies, and coffee stains. I try to keep it fairly organized, but seldom give it a full on cleaning. With the arrival of new fly tying materials the other night, I decided it was time to do some spring cleaning. It felt good organizing thread, tinsel, glues, chenilles and everything else that seems to get out of control over the course of a year. I’ll do my best to keep it tidy, but I suspect that as more flies are tied for the upcoming season, things will get back to a type of organized chaos.

Whoa! look at that clean bench. I can see the surface and find what i need!

Threads are organized. Tying enough flies for me and my clients requires a pretty good selection of thread, tinsel and wire.

Fishing around here has been good lately. I spent yesterday scouting some water with Lulu. We covered A LOT of ground and fished a bit too. Today I spent the day guiding Jason from TN. We had a great day fishing midges to rising cutthroat trout. Tomorrow we’ll pick up where we left off today, hopefully finding more rising fish and enjoying the sunshine!

Jason casts to rising cutthroat trout on the Snake river today as a moose watches from the other bank.