So, who here loves to fly fish?

[KenSchramm]

I'm in the Detroit area, and get up to Grayling from time to time. I've also had the good fortune to make some trips to some decent destinations courtesy of frequent flyer miles (usually someone else's).

Anyone else here fly fish? How about tying? I'm always game to meet new fishing partners, and a fishing partner who brews or makes mead? How can you go wrong?

 

[flyangler18]

Me!

I learned from one of my favorite professors in college, and still get out as often as my schedule allows.

 

[alcibiades]

fly fishing is awesome. I make any excuse to visit my buddy in boulder CO who happens to be a guide.

 

[KenSchramm]

So where do you fish - no secret spots required - general vicinities?

 

[chefmike]

I really enjoy flyfishing, although house renovations, marriage, and a baby have led me to spend more of my time brewing, as I can do it at home.

When I lived in southern Colorado... all fly, all the time. Brook trout in small streams are my favorite still.

 

[Rushis]

I used to live in Ann Arbor and we'ld make regular trips up to the Grayling area as well. Good trout water up there.

There are some decent streams just north of A2, but the names escape me right now. Nothing really impressive though.

 

[Marko73]

I love to Fly Fish. Second favorite thing to brewing. As chefmike said, a whole bunch of things keep me from it, but I still manage to get up to Vermont to fish the White River every May. . .

 

[bad67z]

Love to fly fish, @ my in-laws in Ashtabula Oh. and plan on going steelhead fishing in the A.M. Gonna be tough fishing though, water is gin clear and very skinny. Wish me luck.

 

[azscoob]

I love to fly fish, I am usually on the water in the evenings fly fishing for smallmouth bass when I get up to the cabin in Eagle River WI. my wife loves to fish, so I am lucky to get to go out every eve and hit the shoreline. my father taught me to fly fish when I was a kid, nothing better than remembering a quiet eve in the boat with my old man! I have since taught her, and hope to one day pass it on to my kids one summers eve. if you ever get over to WI, give a holler, I will gladly throw a line with a fellow brewer.

 

[flyangler18]

So where do you fish - no secret spots required - general vicinities?

Mostly area streams - Clarks, LeTort, Codorus, Quittapahilla, Yellow Breeches, Donegal Springs, Fisherman's Paradise near State College. When we lived in VA, I spent a lot of time in the Shenandoah National Park with a 3wt in hand with brookies as my quarry.

 

[eriktlupus]

can't say i do a lot of flyfishing but i do throw a lot of hardware for trout locally in the nottawa river 10miles south of me. decent fishing with lite pressure lately from a smaller than average planting the last 4yrs or so. my personal best on the stretch from the village of athens down to the next confluence is a respectable 19 inch brown.

 

[Yooper]

I'm a "learner". I have a good friend who taught me a little fly tying, but I still have a hard time trying to match the hatch. I fall back with a spinning rod and become a worm dunker more times than not.

 

[bradsul]

I both tie and fly fish, have since I was about 8 or 10. During trout season up here in Ontario you'll find me on the Grand River fishing for browns about 6 days a week. I actually moved to the town I live in because it has me only 15 minutes from the river.

I like fishing for smallies in the river as well, but trout are my favourite fishing. Steelhead are number 2 and fortunately they hit the rivers just after trout season closes. Heading out tomorrow in fact up to the shores of Georgian Bay.

How's this for linking the two?

 

[bradsul]

I'm a "learner". I have a good friend who taught me a little fly tying, but I still have a hard time trying to match the hatch. I fall back with a spinning rod and become a worm dunker more times than not.

Give some streamers a try rather than matching the hatch. Sometimes there's nothing more deadly than a classic black woolybugger retrieved fast across the current.

 

[bierhaus15]

Ah, my first obsession! I bet I spend at least 15 hours a week fly fishing - from April to October. I am very lucky to have such good quality trout streams near my home and some truly world class waters within an hour or so. I practice catch and release only.

My best catch to date is a 22inch wild brown trout caught on a caddis fly in early May 2008, using a 40yr old split cane rod. It was one of those fishing moments where the heavens aligned and everything was perfect. I can be sure I will never experience anything like it again. In memory of that fish, I brewed a Belgian Dark Strong and aged it on cherry wood. It is by far the best brew I have done to date and is rightfully named "Jasconius." Pretty much all my beer is named after fish I have caught.

 

[RIBeer]

I've been learning how to fly fish and fly tie for the last five years or so. My current fishing/brewing buddies are 6 and 8, so fishing trips usually involve me acting more as a mate and less as a fisherman. Its hard enough using a spinning setup with the girls, let alone fly fishing. I love the chances we have to get into the woods together though, so, until they're more competent on their own, I'll continue taking one for the team. I still get a few days a year to get out by myself though. We belong to the Mystic Rod and Gun Club in CT. We keep the lake there stocked with rainbows and browns, and there are native brookies and largemouth.

 

[KenSchramm]

I'm primarily a trout fisherman, but have also caught a few salmon and hit the smallmouths - in the Huron River and on Lake St. Clair. My tying has gotten spotty lately, mostly because I'm busy with work, and I end up spending a lot of time making or talking to folks about mead. When I first got started, I was a pretty dedicated tyer; you can see some results here.

Brad, if it's not a pain in the butt, I'd like to pick your mind on the Grand some time. That river had a real following at my local fly shop (before it closed), and I'm curious. RIBeer - good for you, and hang in there. My eldest started dunking worms about that age, started tying around 10, and now she's 22, has her own vest, waders and a 5 weight St. Croix outfit. Her casting still needs some development, but she caught her first trout on a dry last year.

 

[boo boo]

I think my wife and myself went trouting only once this past year. I must make a effort to do a lot more than that this year. We both like trouting, but only I do any flyfishing.

 

[menschmaschine]

I used to fly fish when I lived in PA. I'll probably pick it up again at some point in my life. I also got in to fly-tying for a little while.

I like it because it's so many things rolled into one... fishing, hunting, biology/ecology, adventure, being out in nature... oh, and can't forget... advanced knot-tying!

I love fishing with dry flies, but bradsul's right... sometimes a good old fashioned woolly-bugger can't be beat.

 

[Yooper]

One of the issues we have here is that we have very few "open" areas. The rivers are full of trout (especially brookies) but the rivers are narrow, with lots of brush and overhanging trees. You'd have to roll cast most/all of the rivers except for the very widest.

I'm a good guide, though, for anybody coming up this way. I'm very familiar with the central/western UP area. We have friends who have a camp in the Two Hearted River area (in the eastern UP), and I can't help but think of Ernest Hemingway when I'm over that way.

 

[bradsul]

Anybody spey fish? I've been thinking about picking it up because it's supposed to make steelheading much easier, but the cost of the gear has been holding me back thus far.

 

[BA_from_GA]

i do love some fly fishing. sadly don't have much time to do it the past couple years, but really wanna get back into it. Esp since SWMBO got me a new rod/reel last year. I'm always hearing "when are you gonna use that rod i got you?"

 

[bierhaus15]

Anybody spey fish? I've been thinking about picking it up because it's supposed to make steelheading much easier, but the cost of the gear has been holding me back thus far.

I bought a spey rod last christmas, thinking that I would get into salmon fishing up north. I used it once before realizing that if I wanted to have any level of proficiency with it, I would need to practice ALOT. Though I took it with me to Florida this past spring and it did a bang-up job on redfish with clouser minnows. My rod cost me around $220.00.

 

[bradsul]

I bought a spey rod last christmas, thinking that I would get into salmon fishing up north. I used it once before realizing that if I wanted to have any level of proficiency with it, I would need to practice ALOT. Though I took it with me to Florida this past spring and it did a bang-up job on redfish with clouser minnows. My rod cost me around $220.00.

The rod cost alone doesn't bother me, I'd just build it myself. I priced it out a while back and I can build a Loomis blank spey rod for around $250CDN. The pricey part is the reel and line. Once it's all said and done I'm probably looking at around $500CDN unfortunately.

Oh well. It's not like I NEED it.

 

[TxBrew]

I love it but get to do it rarely. Rivers here have nothing of substance so only time I get is when I'm at the Coast in the bays.

 

[mplutodh1]

One of several hobbies I have. Love getting out, unfortunately don't get out as much as I'd hope though. Surprised there aren't more folks from the Pacific Northwest replying and chiming in that they fly fish.

Only got out a handful of times this last summer - my dad and I have started a tradition of booking an annual float on a nearby river (Yakima River) with a guide we've been with a few times - we went in October and had a blast. Unfortunately it was the week temperatures started to drop in the area and the fish got a bit slow and weren't as active as they had been weeks before. Still a good productive day on the water - and any day on the water beats a day at the desk in front of a computer!

Hope to make a trip out to another of our favorite spots, Rocky Ford Creek sometime in the next few months after all the vegetation has died off around the banks - gets windy and freaking cold but the fish are lunkers and put up one heck of a fight most days!

 

[craigd]

I just started here if FL with SW Fly Fishing. I get out on Mosquito Lagoon for Sea Trout and Redfish though I am still getting the basics down so I spend a lot more time practicing my cast than really fishing...

 

[flyangler18]

One of the issues we have here is that we have very few "open" areas. The rivers are full of trout (especially brookies) but the rivers are narrow, with lots of brush and overhanging trees. You'd have to roll cast most/all of the rivers except for the very widest.

Sounds like some of the tiny mountain streams I used to fish back in VA. There were some fat brookies in those little pools that were spooky as hell - you needed to place the fly perfectly or just move on to the next pool. A short 2wt was indispensible; there were times that I only flicked out the leader and that was enough for a strike.

 

[Shake]

I spend my summer days chasing trout around Northwestern Wyoming. I picked up a drift boat last summer and have become an elitist snob who refuses to allow spinning gear on the boat. My friends still enjoy fishing with me but I think it is because I bring homebrew.

 

[bradsul]

I've taken a few guide trips in drift boats and they're a lot of fun. But I just don't enjoy myself to the fullest unless I'm walking the river for some reason. It's just part of the fun for me. Though I do enjoy floating the smallmouth sections of the Grand River in my canoe.

I'm not purest, that's for sure. I have a full float rod setup for steelhead as well as my fly gear. Though I use my flies rather than fish eggs. When it comes to steelhead I'm about the fight, not so much about the how.

 

[eriktlupus]

probably 80% of the salmonoids caught in the rivers here in the fall/spring are on either spawn bags or skein. i do bags or egg sucking leeches depending on the water i'm fishing,tailraces do good on bugs but slackwater is better with the bags or minnow imitators. the nice thing is most of the rivers on the west side also get a decent false run of walleye in the fall to add to your catch.


winter around here is almost the exclusive domain of flyers tossing wooly buggers or the aforementioned egg-sucking-leeches. also some clauser minnows.