I have tied flies with a 12 year old boy a few times this past winter; however I had not done it for a few months because the schedules never worked out. Yesterday I called him up and made arrangements to take him out fishing. I picked him up and headed for a pond. I chose one that is very open so he would not lose flies to the trees.

A Look at the History, Patterns and Uses of the Pattern Style

For me, looking into the history of the Glass Minnow has been interesting and highly informative and a little bit confusing. If you Google Glass Minnow Fly Patterns you will see that there are 67,200 sites to visit and by visiting just a few of them you still might be wonder what the first Glass Minnow looked like and depending the sites visited you might not even know who originated this outstanding pattern.

A timely reprint from the third quarter of 1998:

This is a terrestrial, tied for late summer. Leaf hoppers occur in a huge variety of size and colors. Available world wide. Tie it to match your local variety. It is one of my favorites for fall.

Sometimes something good results from something that, at first, seems bad, and this is a story about just such an incident.

I was returning from a fly fishing trip when I ran past a West Virginia State Trooper doing sixty-eight in a fifty five. He asked me where I was headed and I told him I was going home after a day of fishing and I wasn't paying attention to my speed and I apologized. I figured it had been at least 30 years since I had last gotten a ticket, and I was due. Plus I was out of state, so I knew I was going to get my wallet lightened.

I trudged across the field toward the row of white crosses that marked the cemetery. Somewhere among that row of crosses was the earthly resting place of a man that I barely remembered but who touched my life in ways that he could never have known. Somewhere in that French countryside, among that field of stones were the earthly remains of the father that I barely remember. He had died in World War II, the war that brought the world to a standstill and produced the fields of crosses that marked the final resting place of brave men like my father that paid the ultimate price for freedom. I was barely five years old when my father enlisted in the cause

I have always been more interested in the why rather than the how. Socrates is credited with stating: "The unexamined life is not worth living." While I'm not certain that I fully agree with Socrates conclusion that life without careful examination is not worth living, I am of the conviction that knowing the why is of inestimable importance.

While I'm usually not often one that will speak for the whole, I feel pretty comfortable in saying that creek chubs, are for the most part, the scourge of trout fishermen. On the left-hand coast, the whitefish is a close second, but on the right-hand coast the diminutive wart-headed creek chub wins when it comes to the disdain of trout fishermen. They are to the trout fishermen what juvenile schools of sunfish are to bass fishermen. Never seeming to show themselves when expected, more often than not they choose to announce themselves whenever expectations are high and a fat wild brown is on the mind. So it was that I found myself on stream near my home

I will never forget this whole event and experience. It's been deeply engraved on my brain. This might be why I decided to write this series, with this story being the most highlighted.

One early September day in 2011, I went fishing to the Lamar. I was planning to hike upstream as far as I can but there was a warning sign of bear activity in the area. I was by myself so I decided to turn then I hit Slough Creek below campground (hereafter Lower Slough). I caught some trout on either Green Drake or baetis (Blue Winged Olive) dry-flies.