soft hackle

Soft Hackle _ Tied by Vlad.
I love soft hackle flies. Small clump of dubbing for the body, few turns of partridge or starling feather and you are ready to go. It’s hard to believe fish will fall on those tiny, “not very well tied” flies. Surprise, surprise and more surprise! No need for the complicated foraging theory or visual searching image hypothesis… You just need to try it by yourself and you will be a believer… just like me!… It’s a simple form of old technique, yet elegant and deadly! With the renaissance of the spey cast, the swing, and greaseline presentation… the softhackle fishing is coming back! I am so glad people start to talk about it again. Yeah! Talk about take a fish with a relax way!

I had a TON of fun fish for trout with softhackle last year in Utah. I cast them out and wish it with some good luck, then the current will take over and take care of the action where the hackle emit it’s voodoo power to the fish… and a simple pause of the line… fish is on the other end of the line. Don’t set the hook, I will add. The fish will set the hook for you. The form of soft hackle fishing is like you sent out an invitation message for a play to the fish, then all you need to do is wait and enjoy your surrounding. The fish will answer your invitation. Ha : )

what secret?!?

well... secret is secret... @@


......the answer......



The Pinky! - The little salt sister of Little Olive

fishing report in Japan

Ok, it's time to check out our friend - Yun's blog - slow fishing He got some hot action in white spotted char in Japan... and most importantly caught on one of my dream rod Meiser Hybrid 4/5/6 (OMG!). Check out those report and beautiful photos yourself. LINK

Expert gear fisherman - Frank

I do not gear fishing, simply because I don't know how. But my friend - Frank is very good at gear fishing, i would say he is the best gear fisherman I have ever seen. And he also fly fish too. Dual! It's such a pleasure to watch him cast a lure. very faaar, very precise. Alway into the sweet spots, sweet current. And,of course, he is a fish vacuum. You don't want to fish after him for sure... ha... but I had a great time to fish with him. A truly gentleman and he know the river and the fish behavior really really well! I even asked him if he got a biology degree...He did not. He just make the fishing professional (in attitude), but it's really sad to know he is unemployed from last year because of the economy down turn. He told me he is applying a new job, I heartily wish him all good luck and hope to see him as often as I can. I don't mind fish with fishing vacuum... really. I enjoy watching him fishing a lot!

green mood

1 % for the planet

A concept founded by the Patagonia founder Yvon Chouinard and Avid fly fisherman Craig Mathews. It's a very simple idea. a simple appreciation of what we take from the environment. Why? a good say from Senator Gaylord Nelson: "The economy is a wholly owned subsidiary of the environment, not the other way around." Thumbs up for you guys!

spring fishing

I love fishing, I love prepare a fishing trip. Wake up in the pitch black morning and brew a cup of coffee is always an exciting overture for my fishing trip. I like to set off a hunt when the world is still quiet, whether fishing or banding birds : ) The Spring fishing season is open as the river start to settle to it's regular shape. White bass run is almost ended but fellow with the exciting striper and hybrid run all summer long. Striper fishing is not easy,IMO. They are moody and finicky. Even I know they are there... it still would be hard to make them open their mouth, sometimes. I guess this feeding behavior maybe due to their diet. They can eat a lot of high energy and big amount of food at once (usually shad and minnow), so they don't need to eat readily. I also "suspect" they might work together in foraging or (alternatively) environmental conditions (cues) turn them on and coordinate the eating mode. When I hook one, more likely I will get another one, and my neighbor fishermen are likely to hook one soon.
Anyway, I went fishing and got some actions which is very good to me because I did not get a tug for a while. The water looked promising, the birds were singing and the riverside belong to myself! Awesome! I want this spot and I don't want to share with others in this particular morning.@@ ha... usually I like to share and fish with friends. But today I want to enjoy the whole mist and my new spey rod alone! I have practice this new baby in the park pond for a while. It was a ugly stick - ZPEY 13' 9/10. Ugly but powerful... so stiff that it hardly can bend. This is part of the reason I bought it, because I want to practice a new casting style - Scandinavian cast, A.K.A Underhand cast. Treat the top hand as pivot, it use more powerful underhand (lower hand) to power the cast follow by the body movement. A short stroke can lunch a laser beam cast a looog way..."if" I done it right! ha...

I want to use this big rod to explore more different spots that I can not reach before. Also it would be fun and easier to shoot bigger flies. I tied one of the striper candy Vlad sent me. First cast, a precise cast delivered the big eye flies into a sweet current... I mended the line, the line jerked and next time I have noticed was my reel start to scream and the powerful rod bend to the but... this is the first time I felt this 9/10 weight stiff rod has "a butt". The run are so powerful that I know immediately the landing chance is so small even I have 300 50lb gel spun backing with this powerful reel. The current was just too strong and the fish definitely not a "rookie". She know where to go (with the current) and she is powerful. I have 14lb fresh tied leader with this new line. So I put as much pressure as I can to the rod... but still... no return of this fish... all the way downnnn...well... After few minutes of exciting heart pumping arm wrestling... the rock cut the line and my new polyleader bounce back, it was a big shock to the leader that it separate the core and skin of the leader... weird to me, since this is my first time to use the polyleader. A good fight! And a great fun in the mist morning. I have no regret about the long distance release...ha... (a little bit maybe). "It's all about the take!" I am happy the new rod works, the new fly works and my arm definitely was worked!

what a surprise! wow...

I went home in a beautiful afternoon yesterday and as usual I checked my mail box. There is a envelop sat in there quietly. I already have some hint what is going on here... but I tried not to get too excited... I went on poured a cup of juice for myself and opened up this little envelop... then all of a sudden, all the little fish swim right our of the envelop... wow... what a beautiful creatures!! I also found some soft hackles was dancing on the corner. Those flies are stunning! Vivid in color and perfect balance in shape! I always say there are two kinds of flies in general. One is the fly that catch fisherman and the other is the fly that catch fish. But the flies I just received are doing Both... The design is NO no-brainer. A very brilliant design! I am sure the jig hook will make the hook tip stay up and slide over the most "sticky" rocks. The Bloody red mouth of the cease fly with a relative rigid mouth rim, I am sure she will sing out loud on top of the surface. And the 3 D shape leech is just too "juicy" to pass by by any bass here... Thanks Vlad! My friend! see the website here youself LINK.

let's cook up some noodles

I am a line freak...I have to try a line myself to be sure it's good or garbage. There are so many garbage (indeed) I have being using. What make a bad line? easy coiled, tangled, hard to shoot and have wrong configuration for my type of cast. So many wrong, BUT there is one benefit to use a bad line... they actually "improve" your casting ability. Why? Because they are so difficult to use, then they make you scrutiny and careful about every step of your casting. It is a good for training indeed. Like athletes handicap themselves in the training course. When you get a good line, on the other hand, you will feel it immediately! You will be the KING of the cast...The line goes wherever you want them to go... your elbow doesn't complain anymore and your mind just move to another state! Cast in the breeze is what others describe... : ). I recently required some new Airflo shooting head lines from RedShed. The AD said, It's so easy to cast, it's almost unfair! That is really true! Those shooting head are so great! Airflo use new material called polyurethane, it has low stretch and slick characteristics. I like it a lot! The Scandinavian shooting head was design for the use of light flies on the more calm surface. It's triangle design make it so easy to shoot a tight loop. You don't need to be careful about the D loop, just pop the line back and throw them away with your underhand... it give you a arrow loop and a soft landing! Superb! This is the type of fishing I really enjoy, stealthy and strategy.

Henrik Mortensen - A Great Fisherman

Great caster, great instructor and great info in his website!
Quote from Henrik Mortensen
"Distance”"is an overused and inappropriate word and concept in the world of fly fishing. From the birth of the sport fly fishing, distance has never been a major factor. Distance is more important for another sport called casting, and this has nothing to do with “fly casting.” That distinction needs to be made clear.

If you are interested in fly fishing then distance shouldn’t be a factor in your decision about which fly fishing equipment to buy. Fly fishing takes brains, not brawn. Precision and presentation are what make a successful fly fisher. Almost all tackle manufactured these days is able to cast an appropriate distance, but not much tackle is made to enable control and presentation the fly from any position and any depth. This is the tackle that should be bought, and this is my personal design goal.

AK2UK_ Anti-Pebble Mine

Quote from bigpull
It’s alternately inspirational, touching and heartbreaking to see the AK2UK crew fighting with everything they’ve got to defend the fish on which their lives depend, and to speak sense to the dark cloud on the horizon that is the Pebble Project. Everett Thompson, for instance, in a London Times op-ed piece, tugs on the heartstrings of Britons by comparing Bristol Bay today to the River Thames centuries ago. The Thames, which flows through London, was once one of the great Atlantic salmon rivers of the world until London became an epicenter of the industrial revolution. The last salmon in the Thames is believed to have been caught in 1833.

Zzz

all the rivers are packed with fishermen at this moment...lures, jigs and baits... but only few got them...luckily, i found some fly eating fish. Zzz them up...good time!
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quote from Riveraddict - speypages
...over the past years on this board about bobber fishing for steehead. In my opinion, yes it is a "legitimate" method of flyfishing, especially for those folks that happen to live in areas where conditions/circumstances make swinging a super-low or impossible odds game. However, I would also like to point out that traditionally speaking, catching steelhead on a fly has never engendered the reputation of being "easy". It has only been in recent times that modern media seems to have acquired the purpose of "hyping" steelheading - today's angling articles say "look at how cool it is to catch these HUGE fish on a fly" -along with plenty of "in your face" photos that promote BIG fish. Unfortunately, in the melee to expose steelheading to the general angling masses a few "facts" seem to have been forgotten...
- swinging flies for steelhead isn't "easy". The very difficulty of the game is exactly why it is considered to be one of the pinnacles of our sport. It is the difficult aspects of swinging flies for steelhead that provides the degree of importance and meaning to its rewards - the casts made, the water covered, the knowledge learned, the time spent -these are the challenges. But that condition - "not easy" - doesn't mesh well with today's prevailing attitudes of "I want it NOW". So, what can we do to catch more fish, quicker, and with less effort on the angler's behalf? In the end, whatever means are instituted, it doesn't really matter. You've "caught your fish", got your picture, have established your claim - "I've caught a steelhead on a fly". But it's a real basic, almost superficial accomplishment - minimal personal investment in time, effort, and skill, results in a correlating depth and degree of reward. It's like making a slam-dunk on the garage basketball hoop that's 4' lower than regulation. Or, getting to the top of a mountain by helicopter - sure you've accomplished the act, but it ain't the same.
- defining a "steelhead". What makes a steelhead a steelhead? To the "average Joe" on the street that even has an inkling of the term "steelhead", it is a rainbow trout that migrates to the ocean. In other words, to most people, along with most anglers - plunkers, gearchuckers, bobbering flyfishers - the steelhead is just another fish. Sure, it might garner a little higher regard than some other species because it is a type of trout, or it looks prettier, or it "tastes better", fights harder... But, to a flyangler that swings for steelhead, the word "steelhead" means much, much more. This is a fish, one that grows large, that fights hard, that is pleasing to look at, that is fished for in beautiful environs, that spends a major portion of its life out of reach in the mysteries of the ocean, that then returns to rivers, with no need to feed - in other words has no requirement to do ANYTHING other than return to its spawning grounds - YET, can be enticed to intercept, chase, TAKE, MOVE TO, an object crafted by hand of feathers, fur, tinsel, and steel - an object that has no "triggering scent", no buzzing, rattling, spinning, flashing, diving, wiggling, wagging, action of its own - an object that's characteristics for attraction are created solely by the angler through personal calculation of casting angle and manipulation of the line as it interacts with the current! This, my angling friends, is nothing short of a friggen' MIRACLE, and to fly swinging steelheaders, each steelhead brought to the swungfly is viewed with an incredible amount of amazement, respect, and wonder! And, because of all the personal investment put into each fish, along with the incredible seeming impossibility of the situation, there is no group of people that hold the steelhead in higher regard.
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Riveraddict

salmon salmon

ready for the swing

all the egg/meat are ready... ready for the swim...

2/0 rapid tubes...

spring rain

waiting for the good run...

scandi cast

let's review the great video from Henrik...

fishowl

bring back the fish owl for kids...

Longbelly Caster Greg

Greg A.K.A Speyforsteel have set up a nice blog. If you are interested in the longbelly cast and more traditional style incline. Check out his blog nice!

NFR (Not Fishing Related)

A bit sweet dose for Yuhina's Mom :o)

Roy's Video

Monster Redfish from B.H2O on Vimeo.
Cool! I have to agree those bull red are way cool!

Angling the World 2 from B.H2O on Vimeo.

pinky pinky

it's on boys!

ZPEY

I always interested in this concept and the underhand cast... stay tuned for the report...


Single handed spey cast... as fun as Double handed!

Spring time

My good ol truck come back alive...he bring me everywhere in search of the Spring soul...fishing under the woods which is decorated by those pretty flowers yesterday.. I really don't care if I catch fish or not. : )

The Best Attractor

The secret is out!! Cheech, a great fly tier and inventor from Utah, have created many of effective patterns for his buddies and me... but I think if I have to choose one to represent his creativity. This is the one! The secret is out... so I will tell you the story... Two Summer ago, me and my brother fished a spring creek... we had a blast by using this pattern all day! Last year, we floated the south fork Snake river again, the only dry flies I used in the three day long trip! This pattern hammered big cut, and big browns...the funny thing was, occasionally I did pair some hopper pattern with this grumpy frumpy fly...but every time the fish just told me they want the "grumpy". They want it bad. The summer is coming, if you are interested in fish some attractor pattern, this one is the winner! You can email Cheech directly, he will love to tie some for you...cheech link