By Tim Romano & Kirk Deeter

When my friendly neighborhood fly shop guy, Jason Owens showed me this photo of himself off the coast of Huatulco, Mexico I could hardly believe my eyes. Here was a 50 plus inch needle fish caught on the fly. Jason was fishing for dorado and sailfish when this four foot beast inhaled his blue and white seeker. It’s almost impossible to hook needle fish on the fly as their mouths are almost entirely made of bone and teeth. This was a rare catch indeed. So rare, they decided to eat it. Apparently needle fish is delicious and much to Jason’s surprise the bones of the fish were fluorescent green and blue. Strange. [ Read Full Post ]

By Tim Romano & Kirk Deeter

Think some of the flies you tie are complicated? This praying mantis by Bob Mead has ten separate steps and eight individual tying procedures just for one front leg. It takes him eight hours to tie one. The book “Art of the Trout Fly” by Judith Dunham has Bob’s masterpiece as well as a number of other amazing creations that you’ll never even think of tying. [ Read Full Post ]

By Tim Romano & Kirk Deeter

5. Place the opposed biots at the hook bend with one on each side of the hook shank. Turn them so they are slightly off-center toward the near side of the hook.

6. Wrap two turns of thread over the biots to hold them in place on the near side of the hook. If you tie them in at a slight angle, thread torque pulls them onto the correct position. Pull the tying thread down to tighten the loops of thread and pull the biots on top of the hook shank.

7. Wrap forward over the butt ends of the biots to just in front of the hook point.

8. See photo for properly tied-in biot tails.

9. Continue wrapping forward over the butt ends of the biots up to and onto the lead wraps. The butt ends will help build the taper to the lead wraps.

10. Clip the butt ends of the biots and wrap a smooth thread base from the base of the tail to the three-quarter point on the shank. The thread base should be as smooth as possible and have an even taper... [ Read Full Post ]

By Tim Romano & Kirk Deeter

What's the best part about Monday in Montana? If you're fishing, you can pin down a stretch of river all to yourself. When we got to the West Fork of the Bitterroot, there were no swimmers, canoers or float-boaters on the river. The only things on the stream were cutthroats that didn't seem too particular about what they ate. We scored fish to 18 inches on sculpin streamers, adams, caddis, and yellow sallys. If you can't afford a float trip, this is the river for you. It's very wadeable and is tight and technical with varying water styles.--Joe Cermele

[ Read Full Post ]

By Tim Romano & Kirk Deeter

Are we seeing the rebound of the South Platte River below Cheesman Reservoir? Some guides think so.

For those of you who need some backgrounding, this section of the South Platte is one of the most famous trout fisheries in the West. About an hour from Denver, it's a tailwater, and a virtual small bug factory (bring RS2s). But the poor river has been much maligned recently ... due to the inevitable pounding it takes from anglers/proximity to a major metro area ... the effects of whirling disease ... and of course, the 2002 Hayman Fire that burned nearly 150,000 acres; the runoff from the burn later choked the river with muck.

But here's what's happening now (yesterday): Guide Jeremy Hyatt from The Hatch Flyshop says the fishing is going ballistic, especially at Deckers. Why? Bugs. Mass clouds of caddis that start about 9 a.m. and roll consistently until sundown. Standard tan elk hairs in various sizes. Then around noon, the PMDs start hatching. The hatch lasts about two hours.

Relatively high flows (the river just dropped to 456 cfs from 600 cfs) is keeping the fish tight to the banks (and flushing... [ Read Full Post ]

By Tim Romano & Kirk Deeter

With a lack of water on the upper Big Hole, our high hopes of landing some bruiser trout faded quickly. Fish were rising on the occasion, but they were confined to a deep, slow stretch near the Squaw Creek Bridge. That water gave them plenty of time to study our flies as they passed overhead. We lost a few on black caddis, but the bite wasn't consistent enough for us to stick around. So we high-tailed it out of Wisdom and rolled into Hamilton just in time to use the last light of the day to try and score on the main stem of the Bitterroot. Since it was Sunday, no fly shops were open for info, so we shot from the hip and ended up cashing in with tan caddis on a fast stretch of river just up the road from our motel. The rise didn't start until around 9:30 and lasted well into dark. Mark turned this chunky brown trout at 10:00 sharp with a short roll that put his fly just a few feet from where he was... [ Read Full Post ]