Posts Tagged ‘alaska’

Finally… a day of fishing! Our first trip out was about 10 days later than normal this year. The water levels on the Talkeetna River stayed very low due to a cold spring, and when they did come up enough to get a jet boat upstream, it was a matter of juggling three different schedules on short notice to make a date for Friday, May 24th.

Tri-River Charters ran us and our pontoon boats up river on their 21’ Woolrich. Strap three 9’ boats to the back of a river boat, add the three of us, two additional anglers headed upstream, plus the captain, and you have a full boat. Good news is that we were able to get a “freight run” price which kept the trip really reasonable, dollar wise. We asked to be dropped off just upriver from Fish Creek; and geared up our boats against a steep bank.

10:00AM launch – 11:00AM fishing: not bad.

We were greeted by sheets of bank ice on much of the river. It looked more like early May as opposed to the third full week into the month. However, the day was absolutely gorgeous, with sun all day long and temperatures that had to be in the 70’s. It was a weird way to fish; being almost too hot in shirt sleeves, while casting our flies into water that was cold and off color from ice and run off. It didn’t take us long to realize that the main stem Talkeetna was turning darker as we watched. Visibility went from almost a foot in the morning at the launch site to about 6” in just a few hours. We decided to concentrate on the areas where clear water from Fish Creek and Clear Creek mixed with the Talkeetna. Read the rest of this entry »

For most Alaskan fly fishers spring brings melting snow and thoughts summer fishing, with (hopefully) sunshine and green things growing everywhere.  But some of us have discovered we can have frys with our spring.

Salmon eggs laid last fall have been hatching under the ice, slowly developing into alevins (yoke sac fry). As ice pulls away from the spawning beds, the alevin, having used up their yoke sac, become fry. New fry swim to the surface, gulp some air to fill their air bladder, and begin free swimming and feeding. It’s at this point in their young lives that fry become available to all the other fish that have been on minimum rations through winter.

Read the rest of this entry »

The Tubular Smolt came from my desire to have a fly that imitated the young fish I grew up seeing in the shallows of lakes. In my younger days we had small Flatfish and Rapalas for our ultra-light spinning rods. Once I started fly fishing I missed that basic minnow shape, and the desire to imitate it never really left the part of my brain that fishes. When I began learning more about bait fish, I kept thinking that there had to be a way to create a pattern that would mimic the head down attitude of a crippled fish. I also reasoned that a pattern that floated head down could be twitched back to horizontal creating an impression of struggling to stay alive. I wasn’t so concerned about movement, there are plenty of flies for that, I was mostly focused on size, color, and shape.

Although I had played with a few different patterns over the years, it was the thermometer probe cover that finally got my creative juices flowing. Here was the shell for an underbody. I knew I wanted to use Mylar tubing as an outer cover; all I had to do is figure out a way to get this long, thin walled tube onto a hook. After a few failed attempts at prototypes I became frustrated in that I just could not come up with a way to create a solid enough union to a hook to tie materials onto and over the tube. So the probe covers sat in my material box for almost a year. Then, while looking at some tube fly materials, I noticed cone heads designed for small tubes. “Tube flies” I thought, (mentally smacking myself on the side of the head) that’s the answer! I had toyed tying tube flies in the past, but being a bit of a traditionalist, I had failed to think past the shanked hook school of design when working on this baitfish imitation.

It took three attempts to create a tube fly that suspended head down, looked like a small fish, and did not have the disadvantage of an extra-long hook shank. The material sizes listed in the instructional PDF are based on getting the fly to suspend with neutral density. I’ve since subsisted foam for the head, for a high floating fly, and I’ve been stuffing the front part of the probe cover with fluorescent glo-bug yarn and/or Everglow fibers. You can alter the length of the body to create a shorter or longer baitfish and color the body to match any local baitfish. It is important that the body (Mylar tubing) be sealed. I’ve used regular epoxy, rod wrapping epoxy, and am currently playing with a couple different UV cured coatings. All seem to have their pros and cons. I use nail polish, especially ones with sparkle, to add color and extra bling to the body. Once you have the basic pattern, variations are endless.

Rainbow that took Tubular Smolt on the Agulawok River

The pattern’s name come from the fact that I now fish areas where salmon smolts are a prime baitfish; and the fly has proven itself on a couple of different river fisheries for rainbows. The interesting point is that I’ve yet to get the chance to fish one in a lake, where the process started years ago. But then, life is still young!

For a PDF of the Tying Instructions for this pattern, go to our Patterns page.

If you have questions or other comments, please feel free to post them here or email me at Rich@2GuysFlyFishing.net.

Seasons On The Fly - Naknek

Our friend and fishing buddy Greg Heister just posted a new segment of his show Seasons On The Fly about fishing the Naknek with guide Nancy Morris Lyon. Beautiful photography, great river and BIG RAINBOWS!! Check it out and see if you agree. This segment is only available on Facebook. But if you want to see more of Greg’s work go to his website –  Seasons On The Fly – where you can watch full episodes of the show. Or you can catch him on cable on the NBC Sports Outdoors channel (formerly Versus) Saturday morning and Monday afternoon. Fire up those DVRs!

Fly Fishing – Silvers On The Fly from Greg Heister on Vimeo.

Greg lived here in Alaska with us for many years. Now a resident of Spokane he fishes here when he can. This video is part of a series Greg produces called Seasons On the Fly. It’s shown on Versus weekends and covers fly fishing better than most of the other shows. If you go to Vimeo you can see segments of several of his shows or go directly to the web site at SeasonsOnTheFly.com. Enjoy! Get’em Greg!