Brian Wise

So I was fishing by myself on, of course the NFOW....had a nice big golden stone and a dropper on and heard a fish work behind me so I layed a cast down and nothing. Stupidly, I turned back around to the water I was initially working to make another cast and WHACK, golden stone through the cartilage in my ear. I hadn't been on the river long so I bit the line off and left the fly in my ear. A couple hours later I show up at home and just look at my wife, she says "What are you looking at?".....I don't say a word but turn the pierced ear toward her and she laughs hysterically and says "LET ME GET MY CAMERA!!" And that is now the header image on my blog

Hey guys, Just thought I would let you know that the 2011 Feather-Craft Fly Tying Contest has begun. If you have an original pattern that you want to throw in the ring the top 3 flies will go into production at Rainy's and will be featured in the 2012 Feather-Craft catalog. This was a ton of fun last year and turned out to be less of a "contest" and more of a fun way to show your pattern and learn some new tying techniques.....(although the prizes are awesome for the top 3 with Renzetti's, Fishpond tying bags, etc given away along with Rainy's producing the flies) Check it out guys and if you have any questions about submitting a fly, have a video request (we are vowing to do more tying videos this year), or just want some more info, contact me. www.flytyingcontest.com Brian

Hey guys, Just thought I would let you know that the 2011 Feather-Craft Fly Tying Contest has begun. If you have an original pattern that you want to throw in the ring the top 3 flies will go into production at Rainy's and will be featured in the 2012 Feather-Craft catalog. This was a ton of fun last year and turned out to be less of a "contest" and more of a fun way to show your pattern and learn some new tying techniques.....(although the prizes are awesome for the top 3 with Renzetti's, Fishpond tying bags, etc given away along with Rainy's producing the flies) Check it out guys and if you have any questions about submitting a fly, have a video request (we are vowing to do more tying videos this year), or just want some more info, contact me. www.flytyingcontest.com Brian

Breathing the stonefly is the hard part.

Justin hit it right. The Falls, Jack's Riffle, and Cave Riffle are the go-to's but upstream of the Falls is Rainbow Alley and tends to fish well in the spring, and also right in front of the Treehouse can be excellent fishing. Truly the best way to fish the river is to float it so if you can float even one day you would get a chance to see the river the best possible way (besides in the bow of my drift boat ) ROLF has rental rods, waders, boots...pretty much everything you would need to get on the water. The river can be humbling, far from the troutparks and the stocked rivers but if you fish it deep with good drifts and somewhere near the right flies you'll get into some fish. It is too far out to say what flies will be on-point but if you will shoot me an email before you come I'll throw all the info I have at you. Brian

http://flytyingcontest.com/2011/01/12/and-the-winner-is/ I thought you would like that fly Brian! It is one of those flies that guys like us (who eat sleep and breathe stoneflies) probably should have come up with ourselves!

See, now that is just good stuff!!

Exactly...we wanted it to be less of a "competition" and more of a site to get some ideas, launch some new stuff, and still have a contest and award awesome prizes. It is a lot of fun. Brian

Do I see a pair of waders sitting next to him?

We are kicking off the new 2011 Contest NOW. Submit your flies guys....a chance at having your pattern go into production is pretty cool. :-) Also, if there are any tying video ideas you have let me know, we are looking to do more of those this year. Brian

Agreeeeed on the Blue Moon! And the boys...I was talking to my eldest (7 years old) last night and asked him if he wanted to start spey casting this summer, I have a 10'6" switch rod that I think would be COOL to see him mess with. He said "You mean that kind of casting where you whip it all around? YEAH!!!" He can already haul a little so I am thinking it will be pretty easy to get him spey casting and double hauling before he is 9....they are little sponges and if they don't know it is 'supposed' to be hard they just kind of do it.

Baahahahahaha! Go now you must....and those fish you must catch..mmmmmmm

Hoping to get over to fish VERY soon.....and GET some video on the 11 point!

Thanks and come on down!

Actually I have no clips from the 11 point. This was all the North Fork of the White, Bryant Creek, and Dry Run Creek with my boys. Brian

Here you go guys....awesome year!

Thanks guys! I KNEW someone would catch that! Nope, that cooler was on the ground at 'least' 15' from the rivers edge.

So here is a mashup of some of the best clips of 2010. Had an insanely fun year and can't wait to see what 2011 brings!

I will attest to that....I started guiding in 2000 and for a green guide it wasn't fun. A LOT different now, thank God!

To totaly switch gears.... Brian, did you ever hear any more about taking brood from the NFOW and raising "our" strain to see how they would do in the Eleven Point? The rivers are so similar in several regards that it just makes sense to me to at least try to see if taking fish from the NFOW and raise a few stocking years and see if that would help wild trout reproduction. This year our water level was the lowest during spawn that it had been in YEARS and you could still do a connect-the-dots with redds in almost every spawn-type area.

Will keep that in mind.... Glad to be the first person on the forum to use that emoticon, Brian

11' Grey's is the next rod to hit my arsenal for sure.

The 11' 3wt......TASTY! I am yet to fish that one. Fished Kyles 13' Tenkara and could have fallen in love except still freaked out about not having a reel. It's very true that most of the time you are going to get into "dinks" when you are Euro nymphing---but then you get into something a little better and a reel immediately becomes a necessity. Got a 19" brown not 10' from me in less than a foot of water while Czech nymphing this fall....the reel was handy on that one! Good to hear you did well Jeff. You fishing slinky's, sighters or just a straight-line?

Thanks Aaron! The "Powerbait" was actually the real thing...I guess you could say the best Powerbait ever. Brian

hahahaha, JINX!