MikeH

I caught fish big and small on Trigg's fly yesterday. -Mike

Messing around with hair and goo. I tied the yellow/brown a little different than I usually do these. There's a gama octopus in the butt end and a rattle in the middle. -Mike

Got mine yesterday. Awesome set, even better than last year's. Planning on fishing the Current this coming Monday so they'll be getting wet soon. -Mike

Mine will be in the mail in the morning. Had to make an emergency feather-craft run today as I was a little short on bunny strips. Of course that $3 pack of zonkers snowballed into $50 worth of random materials. Crafty Rabbit Hooks: TMC 9395 #4 in back, Gama B10s #1 up front Connection: Beadalon, 3 red beads Thread: yellow 140 den Tail: Yellow marabou Body: opal root beer estaz Hackle: Yellow schlappen and UV rusty copper polar chenille twisted together Wing: Gold Variant magnum zonker Legs: Orange/yellow/pumpkin fly enhancer legs Weight/eyes: Small lead dumbells Head: Golden yellow craft fur dubbing brush, markered brown on top

Nice to see my sculpin is working. So far my best on the swap flies was a large mouth in the 4 pound neighborhood on the red and white deciever. -Mike

I'll probably be tying this little guy. They might be a different color scheme but that's the game plan right now. -Mike

I'll be in again this year. -Mike

I tied the red and white deer hair poppers and the articulated sculpin. -Mike

Mine came the other day. Nice tying everyone. -Mike

I finally got them in the mail earlier today. -Mike

Just a little trimming and I'll be done. Ready for addy. -Mike

I'm in with some deer hair poppers. Probably red faced white ones. -Mike

I doubt you have to drag much if at all. The recent rains have helped raise the river to a more normal level and added a slight tint to the water. I fished Baptist yesterday and there was a mixed bag of trico's and BWO's in the morning. There wasn't much caddis action but that could change any day now. -Mike

Got mine. Great tying everyone. The Current River browns are in trouble. Thanks for hosting. -Mike

I hit up Baptist and Tan Vat on Tuesday and fishing was pretty good despite the crazy low/clear conditions. If you get there early enough the trico's are coming off fairly strong in the morning. I went the dry/dropper route most of the day. As usual most fish came on the nymphs. Smallish rusty brown biot nymphs worked well but my best fish of the day came on a #12 pheasant tail. As far as dries went, none of the larger foam contraptions drew any strikes. I eventually switched over to a Klinkhammer(#12 I think) and got maybe a dozen to come up including a real nice brown. Wade sneaky, use light tippet, concentrate on the shady banks and you should do fine. Also, if Tan Vat is crowded I would highly recommend fishing Baptist. Hope this helps. -Mike

All done and they'll be in the mail tomorrow morning. They're a tiny bit different from the one I posted earlier. Here's the recipe. Back Hook: TMC 9395 #4 Tail: Rusty brown marabou around doubled over 3mm yellow foam Body: UV tan Ice Dub Hackle: Yellow Schlappen Counter-rib: Tan polar chenille Wing: Rusty brown arctic fox Connection: Beadalon and 2 red glass beads Front Hook: Gamakatsu B10S #1 Tail/connection cover: Schlappen fluff Body: UV tan Ice Dub Hackle: Yellow Schlappen Counter-rib: Tan polar chenille Underwing: Rusty brown arctic fox Wing/head: Dark tan laser dub barred brown with marker Weight: Lead Dumbells -Mike

Great report. I might see you down there next week. I'm fishing Monday or Tuesday depending on work. -Mike

I decided against the sculpins. Here's what I'm tying. I don't really have a name for it but it's sort of a poor man's version of Galloup's Bottoms Up. There's foam in the tail so it moves even when you aren't stripping it. Here's a video of it swimming a few laps of my buddy's fish tank. -Mike

I'll join. I'm planning on tying my bottom crawler sculpin. -Mike

Yep, euro nymphing. My set up all starts with the long leader. It's roughly 20 feet but the last few are the interesting part. The last 3 sections are golden Stren then neon tangerine Suffix followed by hi-vis yellow Suffix. My tippet goes off this; usually about 6ft. of 4lb flouro with a 3-4in. dropper about a foot from the bottom. This set up is nice and versatile, allowing me to do everything from short line Czech style to long line French style. All I have to do is reel in or pull out enough leader for the situation. The fly on dropper can be any old nymph but the fly on point is your anchor. This varies. A fly like that big Vladi-worm might be needed for some holes while on the other hand I was using just a #16 beadhead in the shallows. No matter which style you're doing it's still generally just flipping your flies up/up and across and following/leading them back down using the colored section of leader to control depth and help detect strikes. Detecting strikes is tricky at first but eventually it kind of clicks. Sometimes you feel them, sometimes you see them and sometimes you just sort of know. Hope this helps. -Mike

I got out and fished the river Thursday the 14th then again Monday and Tuesday this week. I'd describe the fishing from Thursday as slower but steady. I nymphed most of the day then switched over to dry/dropper the last couple hours. A couple came up for the dry but most came on nymphs. Fly of the day was a rusty brown biot nymph. Monday I came back and camped down at Parker. Fishing was slow. I did manage a couple small browns well upstream but remained troutless most of the day. The two browns came right off the bottom on a hare's ear Czech. The water felt warm for trout so I figure a lot of fish have migrated upstream. Those left were sulking on bottom. I finished up my fishing at Parker with some evening streamer fishing and then again early the next morning but I quickly decided I was switching accesses for Tuesday. Back at Baptist I went back to nymphing. Fishing was amazing all the way down to Ashley Creek and remained steady on the return trip. The fly of the day was easily a big #4 Vladi-worm. It worked great on the deep and fast holes but was way too much fly for the shallower water. For these stretches I had a jiggy pheasant tail on point. I had the biot nymph on dropper again, although a hot-spotted version this time. I went to dry dropper towards the end of the day. The biot nymph left the nymph rig and got hung off a big black klinkhammer. I had more risers than last Thursday but most still took the nymph. What fish I did catch on top came within inches of the bank and were really violent takes. This has my really itching for hopper fishing. That just about sums up the trips. More pics and a slightly longer report at the blog. http://showmeff.blogspot.com/2012/06/current-river-report.html -Mike

Spent the whole day on the river Monday. I stuck to euro-nymphing methods most of the day although I did briefly use an indicator. A little rusty brown biot nymph stayed as my dropper just about all day and caught most of the fish. My point flies had varying success but a pheasant tail jig nymph did pretty well in the shallower sections. Caught some decent ones but no monsters, although numbers made up for this. Me and a spin fisherman did have a brown easily over the 24 inch mark spotted. It flashed his lure but didn't want anything to do with us after that. I decided to come back for it but it was no where to be found later. A mixed hatch of caddis and cahills came off in the evening. It drove me crazy at first. There were far more caddis about but they wouldn't take any of my caddis flies. I then went the cahill route and eventually ended up with a CDC emerger that they'd take. I guess the hatch was at an early stage and most of the bugs were just under the surface. Even in good lighting that fly isn't easy to see much less at dusk. Eventually I would have no idea where my fly was so I headed home. I should be back down pretty soon so hopefully the fishing stays hot. More pics and stuff at the blog.http://showmeff.blog...er-4232012.html -Mike

Sounds like fun. Were cahills around during that caddis hatch? Because I think I had the same happen during the evening hatch at Baptist yesterday(report soon to come). They ignored everything drifted over them but after switching flies a few hundred times a CDC emerger of mine ended up being the magic fly. So I guess they were taking the cahill emergers just under the surface. Mike

Thanks -Mike

I fished from Baptist to well below Ashley yesterday. It was so easy I almost felt dirty. When I finally got back upstream I busted out the 8WT and a seriously meaty streamer(see pic) hoping to catch something else. It didn't work. The dumb little guys would attack it the second it hit the water. It is kind of interesting catching a 10" fish on an 8" fly. -Mike