Inland Oceans Book Now Available

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One of the greatest most unexplored fly fishing frontiers finally has a book that will help more people tap into a great resource.  Jerry Darkes is the author, of this well written, full of information, fly patterns, stories and maps to help anglers get into fishing the great lakes.  With endless miles of shoreline full of browns, coho, chinook, smallmouth, carp, and muskie.  It’s almost impossible to hit all the ports, harbors, and river mouths in a lifetime.  This book will help narrow in the hotspots if you have a desire to fish this great resource.

Buy this at your local fly shop first, but if they won’t get it for you, here is a quick link.

fly fishing the great lakes

Moon and Mouse

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Have some exciting things in the works with Snap T Pictures again.  As Erik Rambo and I contiunue to combine forces on projects.  We have been bouncing around in the dark, and are excited about the latest project that should be done this fall after all the editing.  Stay tuned to see what night vision camera’s saw in the dark.

 

The hunt for browns in the dark leads to seeing the moon rise above the sky line.

New Bug 2 Tails

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So from time to time you see a bug on the water, and at certain time of year it stands out. It separates it’s self from every other bug on the water.  When this happens it must be funny to be the birds in the trees, watching me chase after the bug in my Clackacraft.  Rowing as fast as I can forward, backwards, and side to side.  Making the boat spin and dart the best I can to get the angle to grab this bug.  What fishing guides do to learn more about their craft and the environment they fish in.

Now if you have ever fished with me for dries I’m a simple match the size and match the color kind of guy.  My first questions about bugs on the water always is, are the fish eating them?  But the mystery bug below if it can come out in enough numbers will for sure have fish looking up.  So with my limited knowledge I always ask Ann Miller author of the best Hatch Guide book I know of for the Midwest.

Current word is still out, feel free to add your input.  The reason for the problem is the 2 tail dilemma.  Will have it figured out shortly but just wanted to post the pic.  Trout fishing has been real good, still have one day open in June the 5th if you want to get out for a prime Iyso period.  Shoot me an email.

I like the reflective nature of this picture.  Had to shoot at 640 ISO because of how late in the evening this was so thus the grainy nature of the image.  Plus no tripod in the boat.

michigan mayfly

May Dry Fly Video

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Worked with Chuck Hawkins yesterday and taped a couple video’s that we just posted on our Hawkins Youtube channel.  Did work separating audio from video and inserting photo’s inside the video to display detail.  Working with audio is not an easy as it sounds, but enjoy the video and hope it helps bring to light how good May dry fly fishing can be.

Fly Fishing Inland Ocean

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If you love taking your fly rod to different places and chasing anything that swims, this book is going to help you update your “to do” list.  Jerry Darkes has just published a new book about all the great lakes and how to target anything that swims within these bodies of water.  From Salmon to smallmouth to carp.  So many ports, beaches, breakwaters, and river mouths to try, that an angler couldn’t do them all in a couple years.  But this untapped frontier needed a book like this, pick it up from your local fly shop or follow the link to amazon here.  The book will cover how to, when to, fly patterns, and so much more.

Also a bounce you might know the guy on the cover.  Will also be an assortment of Mangled Fly Media images within the pages as well.  Great job Jerry!

fly fishing the great lakes

Mis Fit Heads and future Muskie Flies

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With a fresh 13″ of snow that fell have a couple days off to hit the vise pretty hard.  Have a new product I’ve been wanting to play with.  They are called Mis Fit Heads you can find them here at the Lund Fly Shop.  I think one of the hardest parts of finishing big flies, is making your heads look nice and sexy.  Also epoxy products can weigh down your patterns, so I’m excited to see how these new flies swim in open water once we thaw out.

mis_fit_head

Muskie Mis Fit Pattern

 

B&W Fly Underwater

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Working on a project had the camera out yesterday, did a little taping here is a snippet.  Might take a few minutes to load, as I’m still figuring out the WP format for hosted videos.

Video was shot with the New GoPro3 Black 

B&W Fly

Picture of the Day, – Pumpkin Seed

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The panfish family has always had a special place in my heart.  Most likely from the fact that they are the first fish I can really remember targeting as a pip squeak youngster sitting on an end of a dock.  Fishing for hours upon hours.  So when this time of year comes around, I always have to head out and throw around the poppers.  If you have not visited bream bugs.com  I would highly recommend them for the best assortment of poppers and other flies for warm water fishing.

 

 

 

Rag Style Clown Egg

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I would say about 10 years ago a good friend and fellow fly-fishing guide at the time Fred Stueber showed me my first clown egg.  He also showed me a popular way how to tie an egg, popular that is out west, and the rag style clown has been a staple in my fly box since.

Just finished a how to tie video for the Hawkins site and thought I would also post it here, as it is one of my KISS Flies (Keep It Simple Stupid).

Rag Style Clown Egg