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Sunday, April 8, 2012

The Bunny HOPper fly

I have wanted to do this for a while at different holidays but I finally made it happen. Here is the recipe:

Hook: Mustad 9672 scrounged from and old leech pattern
Thread: UTC 70 Hot pink
Body: 1/3 of a Reese's peanut butter egg
Legs: 1/3 Cadbury Cream egg wrapper folded to fit hook size
Wing: Marshmallow bunny wrapper cut to shape
Hackle: Skittles wrapper snipped and cut to shape




I think I will fish it this fall and see how the fish like 5 month old candy(wrappers).


Tuesday, March 20, 2012

Reel cases

A few months ago I saw a reel case for sale on an online board. I really liked the look but not the price tag. I still have all of my leather working tools from when I was in scouts (thanks Mom), so I went to the local Tandy Leader store and got some leather. I played around with it and made a pattern. That first reel case went to my brother for his birthday. It was not super fancy and the next one turned out a little nicer (sorry Daniel). This was for my brother in law, Nick, for Christmas. I was able to finally give it to him this past weekend.

Sunday, March 18, 2012

Tying

I have been sitting at the vice almost every night for two weeks. It is not because I need more flies. I have realized that a lot of my evenings are spent in front of the TV. I enjoy certain TV shows and like to spend time with Kris watching them as well. After thinking about it for a while I have come to the idea that, in the end, I get no long term satisfaction out of the programs that I view. I have decided to limit the amount of TV (notice I did not say cut it out all together) and spend more time tying flies or working on a rod or two rather than sit in front of the TV 4 or 5 nights a week after the boys go to bed.

In my efforts I have amassed a rather large quantity of flies. I was curious how many flies and how much it would cost me to replace a lost fly box if I had to buy it all again from the store. Here is where it gets interesting.

I have decided to provide a little contest. Guess how many flies are in Ben's Dry/nymph fly box. Here are the rules:

1. Entrants must not be able to tie their own flies.
2. You may only enter one guess per person.
3. The winner must provide me a picture of them self with a fish caught on the prize.
4. All guesses must be received by Sunday March 25th at 8:00pm MDT
5. The winner will be the person who guesses closest to the exact number in the box. (Kris counted the other night so any flies lost this week will not go against the total number)

The prize: 1 dozen  flies of your choice. I will tie them up for you and the water in your area.

Information you may want in order to make a good guess.
-The box has a capacity of 902
-it is not full
-I have been tying more nymphs than dries lately
-you cannot call Kris and ask her to tell you!
-You can comment on this post to enter or email me if you do not want others to know your answer.


Good luck!



Sunday, February 26, 2012

Reel Seats

When I started to build bamboo rods I was interested in building rods and making/using tools that would speed up the process. I have built many tools but I only use a few that are under power. that is the case with reel seats. I really like the look of a good reel seat wood spacer. So I built a little router table that would allow me to cut the mortise and it turned out pretty nice. During my latest build I have been trying new things. I have made a Trihex shaped rod and used bamboo for the ferrule. I wanted to make a reel seat and cut the mortise by hand. I have lots of wood that I could have used but I saw in one of my boxes a rough cut piece of Mahogany that I had turned at Pa's house last summer. I put it in the vice and got out the file and started to file away. About 30 minutes later I had a pile of sawdust and one of the nicest reel seats I have a made. I don't know if I will make a reel seat spacer again that is not morticed by hand.



Monday, January 9, 2012

Rainbows and Midges

The midges that I tied up the other night proved to be effective on Saturday afternoon. Despite the snow and cold I took a trek out to my favorite small stream to test out the new hip pack (thanks Sharon) and to give the midges a go. Both worked to perfection. If the cold has cooped you up too long and you have a case of the Shack Nasties (borrowed from Gierach), go out and fish a little, it will rejuvenate you!

Saturday, January 7, 2012

Tying Midges

Last night I just started tying and I couldn't stop! Midges for fishing later this afternoon. This should be plenty for a while. 50 of assorted colors and sizes.



Friday, December 16, 2011

High Uintas

A couple of years ago Nick Stoddard and I went on a 3 day Backpacking trip. It was wet, rainy and cold most of the time but that is what you get for going into the High Uintas in September. We hiked a lot and fished a ton. The fishing wasn't great by any means but we sure saw a lot of pretty back country. This picture was taken by Nick. It is an unnamed lake that we really enjoyed. If the wind had died down we would have gotten out the rods but it never happened. Thanks for going with me Nick. We need to get back there earlier in the year for some dry fly action on that meandering stream through the meadow, you know the one I am talking about.

After reading my post and ripping off my picture, Kris did a little edit job. Here are the results. I say mighty fine!

Friday, November 25, 2011

Blog Surfing

I love to surf blogs about fishing. It could be right here in the west or across the ocean in Europe. It doesnt matter what kind of fishing it is, I really enjoy reading about it. I also love art. When fishing and art come together it can be very inspirational. I have several paintings from my grandmother in my office and they offer a little peace and tranquility on hectic days.

The other day I was cruising through a blog and found this blogger. He is an amazing watercolorist and depicts trout in a very real way to me. Here is one of his latest post about his prints and some of the finest water colors of trout I have seen.

Order Your Rare Trout Prints Today!
As a gift to my loyal followers and the many other that stop by on occasion I have decided to offer a special Christmas-Holiday Special.  Okay, you got me, - I also need to raise a little money to support my two hobbies of fly fishing and painting, both of which require frequent purchases.
I have decided to offer these four trout prints, not as individual prints, but as a complete set for the ultra low cost of $65 Total!!!  That's right, That price includes shipping and handling.  If you were to order each print separately then the total cost would be over $100 including shipping. 
   Each 8x10 print comes in it own 11x14 mat and backing board.  All you have to do is take them out of the protective plastic envelope used for shipping and place them in a frame.  Each print will also be individually signed by yours truly.  They make perfect wall hangers for your man-woman cave, vacation cottage (if you are luck enough to have one), or fly tying station.  They will also make great gifts for the anglers in your life.
I have decide to keep these four prints together because as a group these four fish are threatened by stream degradation, introduction of alien species, and other man made problems.  Hopefully by my little effort to paint these beautiful fish, more people might be enlightened into the threats facing many of our favorite fish.  I think every angler should do their part to protect and educate in oder that future generations might be able to fish for the same species we so enjoy going after.
So How Do You Take Advantage Of This Deal Before The Holidays?  First you need to take a look at the top buttons of this page.  Up there you will see the Christmas Deal button.  Click that and you will be redirected to the Deal page.  Simply follow the instructions and make your order.  This deal is only available through December 31, after that the page will be taken down and the price for each print returns to the standard price.

If you like his work support a great artist and drop by his site to leave a comment or purchase a print or two!

Monday, October 10, 2011

Rough Planing

There are hundreds of steps in building a bamboo rod. After splitting the cane into pieces and straightening the strips over heat to take out the bends you need to plane each strip into a small triangle in order to proceed to the next step. Rough planing is a very important step to do carefully so that the rest of the planing process goes smoothly. If you do a poor job here you may have to start the whole process again later on down the road because you will not have a perfect equilateral triangle.This video shows the rough planing of one strip in time lapse. In a normal 2 piece rod with 2 tips you would have to repeat what you see here 18 times. Now you can see why the rod building process is a 40-60 hour job.

Landscapes on Mountain Dew

I hope this inspires you to appreciate Gods creations and spend more time outside really getting to know the blessings of the earth.

Tuesday, October 4, 2011

Some people are lucky to be alive

This is proof that Darwin was right!

Monday, October 3, 2011

Latest Trip

Over the last few weeks it has been difficult to get out fishing but last Friday it happened. Thank you to Kris for letting me go! I met up with my Uncle Jim and we headed down to a place not to far from home that normally holds 8-11 inch trout. This was not the case for Friday. We got to the stream, rigged up and started down to the water. In the first hole I hooked and landed a 16" Bow and Jim landed another right after me. The next hour was a similar frenzy landing 14-18 inch Bows and Browns. It was nice to spend some time with Jim and it will not be the last time I fish this area this year!




Saturday, September 24, 2011

Connect

Confluence Films is at it again. Enjoy!

Monday, September 19, 2011

Somewhere in Idaho

While driving through Idaho during LOTOJA, I snapped a quick picture. We were traveling 45 mph down a dirt road at the time so I am surprised it came out as well as it did.Kris gets all of the credit for the edit!

Tuesday, September 13, 2011

Tamdem Bikes

Yesterday I hooked up a Trail a Bike to my niner so that Lo and I could ride bikes together. Well, as most of you know he has the bike blood running in his little body and he was very excited. Mom pulled Linc in the trailer and Lo and I took the "Tamdem" bike (as Lo calls it) to Maceys for some Ice Cream for FHE. It was a blast. The best part was while putting Lo to bed, after giving hugs and kisses he says, "I had fun riding the Tamdem with you today Daddy." Perfect ending to the day!

Friday, August 19, 2011

These Guys are Crazy

These guys are crazy but so is the fishing! Enjoy! I know I did.

Nordic Fly Fishing Tales - episode 1 - moose and trout from Rolf Nylinder on Vimeo.


Friday, August 5, 2011

Fishing with Daniel

Since Daniel has moved to SLC, it has been hard to get together and fish. Last Tuesday morning we meet super early and went to Hobble Creek to do some fishing before work. It was a great morning. The fish were biting on dries and droppers and we got a couple of very nice fish to net. Both of us were fishing our bamboo rods. Fishing the bamboo was the best part about the day (aside from being with my brother). There is just something special about fishing with a bamboo rod that connects you more to the fish and allows you to feel the fish better. I don't think I will ever sell my first 2 graphite rods because of the history I have with them, but they wont being seeing as much fishing as they normally do each season.

A nice Brown.Walking upstream to the next hole.LinkRobber fly.

Wednesday, August 3, 2011

100th post "Logans Rod"

Well I have been meaning to past these pictures for some time. I have had them sitting on my desk top and have just not had the time to do it.

Logan has asked me for a long time to take him fishing. I don't even think that he knew at the time what fishing was but he wanted to go because "Dad is going!" I wanted to be able to give him a rod that he could cast and would be able to fish for the rest of his life as well as pass down to his own children. Well I got to looking at rod tapers and components and decided that a 1 piece rod would fit the bill nicely. There are no 1 piece rod tapers as short as I wanted so I ended up tinkering with the numbers on a 2 piece rod and making my own design. Here are the particulars:

Rod taken from a 4'4" Payne Banty rod design.
Now a 1 piece 4'4"
Blonde cane
Cottonwood bark grip collected from the Provo River
Spanish cedar reel seat with Nickel Silver hardware
The Wraps are purple tipped in black. I asked Lo what color he wanted on his rod and over a 1 month period consistently answered "Purple and black."

Lo can handle his rod just fine. He gets a little crazy with it but that's OK. When he caught his first fish (cutthroat) he didn't like it too much because the fish was too "Wobbly". Now that he has caught some Bluegill on it he likes those just fine because they are not so "Wobbly". Man I am so glad that this kid loves to fish.

Getting some instructional help.
Trying it out on his own.A little more instruction.
Practicing how to reel.
Checking for trees on the backcast.




Saturday, April 16, 2011

Dave's Finished Rod

I know, its about time I posted the final product of Dave's rod. Not only did I have a fantastic time building this thing, I think it will fish great! Here are the particulars:

Payne 100 taper
7'6" 4 weight
Blond cane
Tiger Maple slide band reel seat
Reverse half wells cork grip
Red agate stripping guide
Chrome Snake guides
Cardinal silk thread tipped with Lemon yellow

I had such a fun time making this rod and fell in love with it so much that I almost wanted to keep it for myself. The only problem with that is that I had Dave's initials engraved into the butt cap. No chance of me stealing it with that kind of ownership on it!

Some pictures that really don't do it justice.This is the rod case that Kris made for it. She is good!

Saturday, April 2, 2011

Nate Dog

I was looking through some old files and found this. This is Nate, my best friend, when we were in college. I was borrowing a digital camera for a class I was taking and woke him up early one morning... he wasn't happy. I miss you man!