Vol. 13 No. 49

RIO LINE REVIEW - RIO OUTBOUND

I recently purchased a TFO 6wt Pro for smallie and larger trout streamers. I did some research on what line would be best suited for this.

PALE MORNING DUNS (part 7)

Many anglers don't like to fish nymphs, which is a personal choice that each angler must make. However, I would like to point that 85% of what the trout eats is under the surface of the water. Personally I would cultivate an interest in mastering fishing the nymph.

HISTORY

Since the merger of the Ladyfisher [Deanna] and the Chronicler [Neil] last summer there have been several months of sorting and disposing of various items. Since we have somewhat of a shared history going back to our days on the Au Sable River in Michigan in the late 60's and early 70's, and our subsequent mutual migration to Montana in 1974, there are a number of items that, from photographs to fly rods, that bring those days back to mind.

OLD FRIENDSHIPS

We had dinner Tuesday night at the Sport (remember that menu from last week’s column?) with nephew Tom Travis, the Vicar. Robert Spaigth and his lovely wife Ann from the north of England and a couple I had not met before, Lynn and Buck Crawford adopted Montanans like so many of us. Robert and Ann have been staying a 'fortnight' with Lynn and Buck in their guest house, which is north of Livingston, while they fish around the area with Tom as their guide.

STOCKING AGAIN

It is another opportunity to get out and spend some time putting a line in the water. Not that I really need an excuse to do that. I had promised another person that I would get some fish and put in their pond. The pond had winter killed off. He had pumped the water out of the pond and cleaned the bottom out. There was about six feet of dirt in the bottom that had washed in. Rain has filled the pond again and there is a need for fish to go into it.

GOOD AND PERFECT GIFTS

I don’t have much time to fish and it’s unbearably hot. As I walk the trail to one of my favorite ponds I can feel the humidity thick in the air. Perspiration starts to form on my forehead and neck even before I step out of the woods onto the pond’s bank. I really love this place! No one ever fishes it but me and it’s full of bluegill, green sunfish and largemouth bass. Sure, it's covered with mats of vegetation (not too pleasing to the eye), but where the water is fishable the action is lights out! 

A FISH LAKE TALE

I am primarily a stillwater nymph fisherman. Back in the eighties, my wife and I had a tent trailer with a rack for a small aluminum punt on top. We would travel in Alberta to various lakes.

My wife, Connie, is a lovely lady but she is fair weather fisherperson and also she would have to be an octopus to handle everything she likes to take with her out in the boat. Two hands are not enough for a mug of coffee, a thermos, a book, three quilting magazines, a nervous kitten needing non-stop petting and a pair of binoculars. Now adding a fly rod that "has to be constantly held securely" was just about too much

BLUET DAMSEL (a lesson in tying an off body fly)

If you’ve never tied an ‘off body fly’ I hope you’ll find this article interesting and informative. I’ve chosen this damsel pattern because it pretty straight forward and one the tier can have a reasonable degree of success with when just starting out.  Many of the hex patterns I tie also call for ‘off body tails’ because of the large size of the flies and the pursuit of imitations that look real.