This is a simple scud pattern that I developed back when I first started tying. I used wire wraps to form the heads of flies instead of beads. At the time, I didn't have any beads and it was far too expensive to have a wide assortment of different size beads. So, I just used heavy wire on my larger flies and medium wire on the smaller ones. Being able to vary the size of the wire and the number of wraps used to form the head gave me infinite adjustment on head size as-well-as the weight of my flies. I still tie my scuds this way today in; pink, orange, gray and olive as well.

July 8th, today the Yellowstone River dropped below 30,000 CFS [2011] and this set a record for the number of day that the river was above that mark. Also today the Salmon Flies began to hatch on the Yellowstone and they are three weeks behind their normal hatching date. At the rate of the drop I still don't expect the river to be fishable before August 10th. In a normal year the river would be fishable between June 25th and July 4th with the flows below 9,000 CFS. It has a ways to go before it will be fishable.

I had a chance to get out but it was for a short time so no canoe. I grabbed two rods and headed for a pond. I picked one near the road and got to it fast.

When I arrived I went to the dam end to try fishing the shallow flat on one end. I hoped that there might be some fish feeding in this area. I had a black furl tailed mohair leech on one rod and a Goldie Jr. on the other one. I cast the mohair leech first and it had not moved it far when a nice gill to it. This fish did not want to come to the shore. The rod tip did a lot of dancing but I finally won. I made another cast and picked up another gill in just about the same place.

Having a few hours afforded me on a recent morning; I was able to hit some local water at daybreak. It was a nice chance to fish in the late August heat, and take advantage of those first few cooler hours of the day. The morning broke a little hazy, however you could tell from the temperatures that it would shortly burn off with sunrise and the heat would return with a vengeance.

This story is about Alex and it is a true story, but his name has been changed to protect the innocent, namely Roe in case he reads this.

Alex likes to hunt and fish, he just isn't lucky and is a little out of shape for the things he want's to do. Take the time he went hunting in the National Forest. He was still-hunting on the side of a steep ridge, when he slipped, fell, and rolled down to land on a gravel road. He didn't know how long he laid there since he was knocked out. Another hunter driving down the road found him lying there unconscious and thought he was dead.

The following are the thoughts of an elderly angler as he reflects on several decades of fly fishing and observing the angling scene.

Fly fishing is a great pastime, and unless you are feeding your family with proceeds that you glean from the sport as a manufacturer, shop owner, outfitter/guide or some similar occupation that's all fly fishing is or should be – just a great pastime and nothing more.

This is first for me, a review of an e-book, River Stories, Headwaters to the Sea. The author is Tom Alkire, a name that is familiar to many of our readers. This book is a series of essays about rivers and the people that fish them. There are stories about fishing headwaters streams, spring creeks and big, brawling steelhead rivers. The author takes the reader from the headwaters of our rivers to where they flow and mingle with the ocean.

When I bought it the old cabin next to the river it was in need of lots of repair. The roof leaked, the mice had turned the interior into a vacation villa, and a tree was growing up through the roof of the outhouse. I debated about just tearing the whole place down and starting over, but the cabin, built of hand-hewn logs, was structurally sound so the first summer was spent replacing the roof, evicting the mice, and replacing the outhouse. When fall came the cabin was structurally sound and weather tight. During the winter I spent my weekends working on the interior and when spring came I was ready to do some fishing.