"Dead Flies Don't Swim"

Dead Flies Don't Swim from scumliner media on Vimeo.



I've been all over the place fishing and working like a maniac all summer.  I hit the Baetis and early caddis on the Mo, the salmon flies on the Big hole, the traveling sedge on G-town, PMDs on the Saint Regis, got into a million grayling in a local mountain lake, and even caught some redbands in Washington State.  I just spent the last week in Craig fishing the trico and evening caddis hard.  Ten hour + days all by myself!  I needed that.

Anyway, check out this great video about fishing the tricos on the MO from Sumliner Media.  If you think you're a good dry fly fisher, you'll get put back in your place by hitting the tricos on the MO.  If you want to cheat and catch a million fish all day with a lot less skill, tie on a zebra midge or sunken trico nymph and rack up some serious numbers.

2015 Drift Boat Drive-in and Caddis Festival

Looks like a solid weekend of fun in Trout Town, USA!!  See you there...

LaFontaine's Buzzball - A Step by Step Guide

LaFontaine's Buzzballs!

In the book Trout Flies: Proven Patterns by Gary LaFontaine, he sates that he developed this fly for the great winter midge hatches on the Missouri River here in MT.  I have found that this simple and effective little fly does a great job mimicking midge clusters wherever they are found.

In recent years, the Buzzball has had a huge resurgence in popularity with the credit mostly going to Mark Raisler of Headhunters Fly Shop in Craig, MT.  He has found that the Buzzball also works great in the summertime on the MO when there are a ton of dead bug parts on the surface.  I, as well as everyone else he's turned onto this fly (I actually think Sara R. gave me my first one), have had amazing success with it.

It doesn't end there.  Being the endless experimenter that I am, I've taken the Buzzball all over Montana and used in on a variety of waters.  I've tested it on everything from the freestone rivers and Georgetown Lake, to stocked borrow pits and high alpine lakes.  I've also experimented with the recipe.  The variable here is the orange hackle used in the original pattern.  If you use brown or black instead of the orange, you can cover a variety of lighting and hatch situations.  I've also found that substituting a cream colored hackle for the orange is extremely effective for the spruce moth which occur on the west-side, freestone streams.

The Buzzball is ridiculously simple to tie, easy to see on the water, and extremely effective in a variety of situations.  In my book, that is what makes a good fly!  Here's the recipe for the original and step-by-step instruction.

Hook:  Size 18-12 dry fly hook (16 is my favorite)
Thread:  8/0 burnt orange
Hackle:  1 grizzly hackle in the appropriate size (approx. 1 1/2 gap length); 1 light dun hackle (smaller, but size doesn't matter); 1 orange hackle (smaller, but size doesn't matter) 


Step 1:

Wrap the hook shank thoroughly and evenly.


Step 2:

Tie in the grizzly hackle in a size appropriate to the hook.

Step 3:

Tie in the orange hackle (size is not important because this is going to get cut).


Step 4:

Tie in the light dun hackle (again, size in not important because this going to be cut) and the advance thread to front of the hook.


Step 5:

Palmer both the orange and light dun hackles to the front of the hook.

Step 6:

Cut the orange and light dun hackles to about hook gap length all around the hook so that it resembles a bottle brush.

Step 7:

Palmer the grizzly hackle forward and then whip finish.

Step 8:

Cut the grizzly hackle flush to the orange and light dun on the top and bottom of the fly only.  Your done!

Driftboat Drive-in in Craig

O Osprey, Where Art Thou?

Squeaky Oar Lock from Headhunters announced on the HH blog that osprey made it back to the Missouri River about 2 weeks ago.  After that, I spotted one on the Bitterroot that looked like he was still on the move.  Then on Tuesday, the Missoulian ran an article about the osprey couple that nest in the outfield at the Missoula Osprey's baseball stadium.  Last year, the pair was in the news and people were all upset because some geese claimed the nest before the osprey got there.  I see this happen around here every spring.  The geese, perched high up in the in the nest, just stand their ground and honk as the osprey dive bomb them over and over again.

This year, Dr. Greene from the Montana Osprey Project installed a "goose excluder" (otherwise known as a cone made out of chicken wire) on the nest at the baseball field.  It proved successful and those osprey are on that nest.

 

Osprey nest at Allegiance Field (baseball stadium) RBM 2008

So, while there are some osprey back in Montana, where the hell are the rest of them?  On his Facebook feed, Dr. Greene says, "...well over 90% of the osprey nests in Missoula still have no one there."  And most importantly, where are Iris and Stanley, our Hellgate Osprey Cam superstars?

MPG Ranch Montana

They are still on winter vacation!

The dots are satellite tagged osprey that summer in Western Montana.  If you visit the interactive map at MPG Ranch website, you can zoom into each point to get a closer view of exactly where they are and follow their voyage all the way to Montana.

If you just can't wait to see a western Montana osprey, in its nest, while you drink coffee, or whatever, check this out.




This nest is on the Dunrovin Ranch in Lolo, Montana near the Bitterroot River.  Meet Ozzey and Harriet, and what sounds like a billion other birds.  If you are stuck in a shitty place right now, turn up the speakers!

Stay tuned for updates on the Hellgate osprey etc.

Saltwater flyfishing is WAY more fun and difficult than I had ever expected!

I recently took a trip to Western Florida to attend a week long party family reunion.  I got the chance to go on a guided flats boat trip with Sea and Stream Outfitters in Boca Grande. 

Fly Fishing Guide Austin Lowder took us deep into the mangrove flats around Boca Grande.  This was one of the most beautiful places I have ever been to.  We were in what seemed like a mangrove jungle.  There was such an amazing variety of birds, fish, and creatures that I was totally overwhelmed.  Not to mention, Austin was poling us through water from 8" to waist deep that was loaded with large, super skittish redfish and snook.

I bet a flats guide's worst nightmare is an avid trout fisherperson.  A trout fisherperson may think that because they can catch a bunch of trout all the time that they'll be able to go to the flats and rock it.  NOPE. That was the hardest fly fishing I have ever attempted.  It was also some of the most exciting.

Austin's Hells Bay Flats Boat at the marina in Boca Grande

Favorite coffee thermos from Headhunters

I would certainly recommend Austin Lowder for your Florida fly fishing adventure.  Unlike many other "charters" in Western Florida, Austin only guides fly fishing and he prefers to sight fish for tarpon, redfish, and snook.  Austin Lowder also guides out of the Livingston, MT area for trout in the summertime (Austin in MT).  I learned a lot about the fish, threats to the local environment, and got a great casting lesson.  I was so busy scaring away all the fish and being overwhelmed by the natural beauty that I didn't take many pics.

Here are some pics of the Gulf of Mexico's fabulous wildlife that I took when I wasn't on the guided trip:

Gopher Tortoise

I saw many friends from MT like this heron

Brown Pelican

Heron in the mangroves

Those big sticks were mangroves that were damaged in a hurricane

Stump Pass, FL