The holliday season would be incomplete without eggnog, Christmas gifts, or the annual running of Timeless Rhythm at FAOL.

I stood there on a large gravel bar along the Nisqually River on Ft Lewis Washington, with a long flat bend before me. From that point it was but a few miles to where the river emptied into the Nisqually basin in the Puget Sound.  Being fresh from "back east", I had been anticipating getting on water for some time.

This is a new twist on an old favorite.

The old rubber legged stonefly nymph has been one of the staples for ages when fishing freestone streams and rivers in the Intermountain West and the Northern Rockies with stonefly populations. So why change a good thing? The design of JARS is intended to accomplish several things – improved profile, more action, better texture, and a shorter hook shank to give the fish less leverage during the landing process.

July 22nd, DePuy's Spring Creek, the morning was cool at 7:30 A.M. with partly cloudy skies and no wind. I sat on the breached dam watching the spring creek and its residents wake up and begin a new day. The whitetail deer were out grazing, the osprey had begun to soar over the waters of the creek looking for a healthy breakfast of fish.

I had a Saturday off, and the need to be on the water was so bad. Bad enough that my better half said to get out of the house. She said that it was worse than the shack nasties. I am sure that you will believe me when I say it was not that bad.

I went to a pond that has some nice crappie in it. I did not fish it last year as it was too wet. There are a couple of flow places to cross that would eat the truck when they are wet but now it was dry enough now to get into the pond. I arrived at the pond and set up my canoe. The lily pads had exploded in number, and they were around most of the pond. The water was down about 2 feet, and several of the lily pads had their feet in mud and not water.

Five hundred and twenty-six years ago Dame Juliana Berners, said to have been the prioress of St. Albans, a nunnery in Hertfordshire, England, wrote a chapter on Angling in The Book of Saint Albans; a book containing chapters on Hawking [Falconry], Hawking, and Heraldry. While scholars continue to debate the identity of the author, the fact remains that The Treatise of Fishing with an Angle is a foundational work in fly fishing literature.

Last Spring the phone rang and it was my old friend Jim. We talked for quite some time. He shared with me that one of his sons had recently broken up with his wife of ten years and wasn't doing well. He asked me if I would take Brad fishing and take his mind off his dilemma. I had fished with Brad a dozen times in the past and enjoyed his company and thought it would be a good idea to get him out in nature and get his mind off his worries. I knew the exact place to take him.

As the weather warms, May/June in the south and June/July farther north, mature damselfly nymphs climb onto a structure to molt into the adult stage. Curiously, the newly hatched adults are not homebodies and usually leave their pond as soon as they are capable of flying and may not return for weeks.  Because of some instinct science has yet to fully identify, most damsels do return to feed and breed. Adult damselflies live for a couple of weeks to a few months after molting.  For this limited period, dry flies for damsels might be somewhat effective. Unfortunately, that somewhat is not as common an occurrence as we would like to believe.

A little over a year ago a police officer from Holland, Michigan called me.  He introduced himself as Jon Osborn, and informed me that he was going to write a 'coffee table book' about a few 'classic' Michigan fly patterns.  He was hoping I could help him with some historic information on some of the patterns and tiers.