July 3rd, the weather was pretty much a repeat of yesterday until the late afternoon with the clouds billowing up and darkening the sky causing a modest PMD spinner fall to occur around 4 p.m. After the mini spinner fall the skies cleared up and the winds came up placing a late evening spinner in jeopardy.

I had a chance to get out to a pond. I had some limited time so went to the pond with two bamboo rods and a couple of boxes of flies. The temperature was in the mid 70's with a light breeze. I hoped the fish would be active.

I put on a black furl tailed leech and a Goldie Jr. on the other rod. This is my standard idea for a light and dark pattern to start with. I made several casts with each fly, and I had fish hit each fly, but I did not hook any of them.

The air was cool in the pre-dawn July morning as I stepped to water's edge, and the soles of my waders settled into the gravel. I was in a tee-shirt, but realized that, in short order, the sun would rise and I would go from chilly-to-sweating in short-order. Alone on the stream with nothing to remind me of people, but for the occasional sound of a passing car on the nearby country road. It's my favorite time on the water, when all that is heard is the gurgling of water passing over rock, and the morning birds hopping through the streamside vegetation.

Books on fly tying are very numerous and, in recent years, most of the books that I have read that concern fly tying techniques have basically just been a rehash of material that is available in other books. Jeff Morgan's book Productive Trout Flies for Unorthodox Prey is a breath of fresh air. This is not to say that the patterns and techniques that are found in this book have not been previously covered in other fly tying manuals, but he opens up an area of imitation that has only been briefly covered in other books.

Many fly fishers are going to read these words and be upset, because much of what I have to say goes against much of the writing and conventional wisdom of the day. I would just ask that you read, digest and consider the conclusion I will present. These methods, practices and understandings have stood me in good stead over an angling career that has spanned more than fifty years. These are also the methods I teach at fly fishing clinics and on guided fishing trips for the past thirty five years, and these practices have been proven to be effective time and time again. These methods did not spring full blown into being; they were developed over time and by learning from others, including those that I was instructing.

My daughter was invited to a college visit with her parents on a Sunday, to tour the school and see if it met her needs. I knew of several places to fish in the area since it was not too far from home so I suggested to my wife and daughter maybe we should take two cars and I could leave early and fish for an hour or so before our 12 noon arrival. They both agreed and I was off with a hall pass to meet up with some Virginia Brook trout.

Clarence A. Roberts, born in 1916, in the small town of Onaway, Michigan, went on to become one of the most iconic fly tyers of Michigan lore.  He passed away in 1984.

It all started back in the late 1930s, when Clarence Roberts' older brother Cliff bought "the whole nine yards" of fly tying equipment from a Herters Catalog.  When Cliff joined the Army Air Corp in 1942 he passed on all of his tying equipment to Clarence, who was a game warden in Grayling, Michigan.  Clarence rapidly became good tyer and he loved it!

Thomas Snyder brings us this issue's fly of the week : The Mahogony Wasp.

To fish you dead drift it and twitch or move every once in a while.

Recently here in Montana we have been experiencing the heat that has gripped most of the nation since early in the summer, heat that has made it too hot to do almost anything outside. Being more of a temperate-loving sort, at least weather-wise, when the temperatures reach into the 90's it's time to retreat to the shade. I located a lawn chair and positioned it in the shade of the willow tree in my side yard where I could catch the errant breeze wafting from the direction of the Yellowstone River just beyond the football field beside the local high school.