11-27-11

The bandits....

My Brother Chris

My Brother-in-Law..Dan the Wee Man

We journeyed to the Salmon River again today...hoping for some Steelie chasing...We met up with fellow maniacs John Collins and Mike Nutto...We walked high and low...swung streamers...bounced bottom....There was no action to be found. The water dropped to 335 cfs...41 degrees....and was littered with turkey stuffed fishermen everywhere...

Needless to say....the fish outsmarted us...This game of steelhead cat and mouse is an interesting one for me. First off..I hate winter..I hate the cold. I started this type of fishing last year...I decided to learn to love winter, embrace the cold, the snow and a new species of fish for me...Everything about this sport of steelheading is different then what I am used to. The flies are different, the technique is different, the fight is different, the take is different...even the people chasing them are different. Which makes finally catching one of them that much more exciting...I feel like I have earned the take when I get it...

No Steelhead were landed...but I did stick a healthy Brown with the Fenwick...I hooked into a Steelhead that ran like a freight train and broke me off in less then a second...Always a good time...

11-25-11...getting perchy

After an amazing Thanksgiving meal on Thursday (thanks Mom)...my brother and I decided to hit the water for hour today to burn off a little gravy...We hit a local resevoir with rabbit strips and bead head pheasant tails to hook into some perchie goodness...Perch we found...I put the new(old) Southbend glass 5wt to the test...recently snazzed up with a 1494 Pflueger and a Cortland 5 wt floating line....perch were just asking for their fresh lip piercings...My brother hooked all of his fish on flies of his own design...The CC Crusher...a blend of lead eyes and bunny strips that proved to be deadly...

Heddon 8306 Mark1 8'3

So I have a deep appreciation and fascination with vintage fiberglass rods..Simply put..I love everything about them. I have to give credit to Cameron from the fiberglass manifesto for sparking the obsession. I now have 5 glass rods, all dating back to the 60's. I have a ridiculous number of reels as well...my collection mainly consisting of old Plfuegers......although I have a Martin and an old single action Cortland as well....I love hearing that click...All of these rods and reels perform just as well as when they were made. They are tough, the casting is slow and smooth and I'm able to still cast sink lines and big flies like a graphite rod.

I recently broke the ferrule on one of my rods..a Heddon 8'3 8 wt. It was on a pickerel trip, the rod slipped apart just a bit and snapped the metal in half. It really was my fault for not checking it more. So I did some questioning and found a man to send it to to have it repaired. Andy Manchester Jr. of Old Yankee Rodsmith's did an amazing job...Not only did he fix the ferrule, he repaired the hook keep, replaced the cork handle and re-clear coated the rod. When I received the rod back in the mail, less then a 3 week turn around....it looked as if I just went into a store and bought it new off the shelf. I will be in time sending the rest of my glass collection to him for restore...Amazing to say the least. It's probably all in my head, but the rod even seems to cast smoother now...If you are in need of a new rod, Andy also does custom builds, glass, graphite and bamboo...need a rod repaired or restored..he's the man...over 40 years experience perfecting his craft...Give him a call....

Andy Manchester Jr.
Old Yankee Rodsmith's
1-203-435-7948
andymanyankee@yahoo.com

Here's some pics of the rod in progress....

All ready to chuck some fluff....Thanks Andy for the great craftsmanship...Tight Lines and Fiberglass Loops....

New store items

I added a few new nymphs to the store today...

SF Golden Stone

SF Black Stone

SF Steelie Golden Stone

SF Steelie Black Stone

www.rusuperfly.com

Symposium...The day after

This is one of my favorite shows of the year that I participate in. An incredible group of talented tyers from all over the world. It is an honor and pleasure to tie along side of these individuals. I made new friends, had some frosty barley pop with old friends. I feel inspired and awed by the amazing flies being produced by some of these folks. If you are a fly tyer or angler...you owe it to yourself to come to one of these events. There were some great opportunities presented to me at this show, details to follow at a later date..Let's just say I formed some new relationships with some great companies. Here's some photos of my booth from the show. See you all in January...

Fly Tying Symposium

The car is loaded an ready to go...The International Fly Tying Symposium in NJ is this weekend. Stop by and say hello...I'll be packing an stacking bass bugs all weekend..I also have a healthy assortment of other flies for you to check out...

Some new work...I was playing around with some articulated deceiver designs utilizing the eyes made by Andy Weiss of Germany. You can purchase them directly from him...Pretty crazy looking approach to eyes...

For all of you salties out there....feed this to a striper...This is a fully functional deer hair diver squid. It needs a bit of fine tuning, but the idea is there...

11-13-11

My usual routine this time of year is to begin chasing Steelhead and huge Browns on Lake Ontario tributaries. As much as I enjoy doing that...my real passion still remains with my warm water fish...A day like today..a little warmer, a little sun...gets my blood going for some warm water action.

Phil and I took the yaks out of winter storage and hit a local favorite hot spot lake for some bass, panfish and pickerel action...We easily hit into the 20+ fish a piece category...some beautiful fish were caught and released for sure...

I utilized one fly only today in two different colors. I was using the Strip-a-Boo Leech...I usually use this fly for smallies and carp...but in a couple of different color patterns......It worked like a charm today...I will be updating the color offerings on my website... www.rusuperfly.com

I kicked it old school rocking only a Fenwick glass rod and a Curt Gowdy Signature...both equipped with Plfueger reels...made in the USA of course. There is something magical about these rods and reels...Something special...I'll save that for another post....here's the porn...enjoy....