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Showing posts with label mouse patterns. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mouse patterns. Show all posts

Wednesday, February 3, 2016

Alaska Mouse Fishing - Mighty Mouse II

This says it all.


Alaska Mouse Fishing - Mighty Mouse II from Fly Out Media on Vimeo.
It's round two for Mighty Mouse and our fishing adventures in Western Alaska on the Aniak River. We were welcomed once again by accommodating guides at Aniak River Lodge, and an incredible Alaska fishery. Mousing really offers the best in trout fishing. You have amazing top water takes that vary from "dry fly" sips to voracious explosions. With barbless hooks, you really have to be on your toes to keep these Leopard Rainbows on. A head shake and the wrong angle can easily result in that sinking feeling when the line goes limp. Then ten minutes later, the elation rises again with another mouse take. It's the best kind of emotional roller coaster. Watch in HD, share, comment, and enjoy!

Saturday, January 16, 2016

Skate or Die

Key words: "Catching cutthroat on a mouse."


Skate or Die from Blue Halo on Vimeo.
Catching cutthroat on a mouse is the equivalent of catching a wild unicorn while it is jumping over a rainbow.

Fly Tying: More Mice

Japanese print mice

Deer hair mouse

After this, the next photo of a mouse I post will be of one in the jaw of a Rocky Ford Rainbow.

Friday, January 15, 2016

Fun With Mice

This photo of a New Zealand trout is from 2009, one of the years considered to have been a "mouse year" down there.

Photo: Warren Plum

That same year saw the release of Once in a Blue Moon, chronicling the "mouse hatch" in New Zealand that season. Directed by Carl McNeil, that award-winning and ground-breaking video is considered a classic of fly fishing films.

Here is a truncated and bootleg cut. The original runs for 40 minutes and can be obtained at Amazon and other outlets.

Wednesday, January 13, 2016

Tuesday, December 29, 2015

The Sweet Pain

I've had fishing on my mind. But then again, I always have fishing on my mind. I've been watching the river, but conditions have been typical for this time of year: as soon as the high water drops to fishable levels the ice sets in. So for now I'm focused on Rocky Ford.

I tied up some flies well before the Christmas rush. Some scuds. Some mays. Some soft hackles. And a couple of mice. Bigger hooks on the mice this time. The 2X tippet is waiting by the fly box ready to go. There are fresh batteries in my headlamp. And the days are getting longer.


I must have been a good boy, because on Christmas morning there was a new pair of waders under the tree for me. Oh boy oh boy. They were sorely needed. I can't wait to break them in, slime them up, and blood them with one or two of those big Rocky Ford Rainbows.


I don't know yet when that will be. Probably not until next year. The real winter weather has settled in: snow, ice, freezing fog, and frigid temperatures. That has made travel a dicey proposition on most days. The trip to Rocky Ford is two hours over high flats where windblown snow, impenetrable fog, and black ice can ruin your day. 


So I'm biding my time. We've been having some wonderful family time, and that will continue over New Year's. There may be a football game to watch this week. (That's a joke.) And I'll be monitoring the weather and road conditions.

Through it all I'll be earnestly engaged in what Albert Camus called "the sweet pain of anticipation." That says it so well. I wonder if he was a fly fisherman.

Saturday, December 12, 2015

Rocky Ford Creek Report: Whoom

Finally a chance to get back to Rocky Ford. But things keep coming up to do before I can get away. Leave later than I wanted to. Get to creekside with maybe two and a half hours to fish. Got to make it count.


Trip is worth it, though. Much brighter and warmer down here in the southlands. And I'm fishing. Go right to work with the Callibaetis dries. Sort of Callibaetis. Maybe the word is Callibaetish. Get follows, bumps, swirls--no takes. The old story. Keep at it, though.


Except I do lose faith for a moment. Screw on an indicator and hang a nymph under it. Get one pull. Try a different nymph. No pulls. Go back to the Callibaetish. Same story. Bask in a brief outpouring of sunshine. Nice.


The mouse is burning a hole in my vest pocket. Finally, at dusk, I tie it on. Plop it out there. Get an immediate swirl, follow, swirl. Encouraging. Keep at it. More attention. Then I hook a fish--here we go.... No. It's off. Small. So far so good.


Now it's almost dark. I'm casting the mouse out and stripping it in briskly. Going for wet and panicked. The breeze picks up. I can barely see the mouse in the riffles. I give it a wake. I can follow the wake. I get a swirl....strip, strip, strip....another swirl....strip, strip, strip....WHOOM!


It's all happening at once: a hard yank, a heavy splash, a snap, line pelting my chest and whistling past my ears. Silence. Fish gone. Big fish gone. Something whacked me in the leg. The mouse? I feel my way to the end of the leader: the 4X tippet is gone. So is the mouse. Rest in peace, mouse.

I grab the first muddler I can feel on my fly patch and tie it on. Have to use precious time to get the headlamp. Flip the muddler out. Can't see it. Just strip and wait to feel something. A smaller explosion: a fish leaps rapidly downstream: one, two three--five jumps before I can turn him. It's not big, just pissed off. I get it in the net. It's a bloody mess. Don't think I did that. Mice? I tip the net. Fish slashes away into the night.


Tell your daddy, or your big brother. I'm tying up another mouse or two. Buying some extra-stout tippet material. Putting new batteries in the headlamp. Going to come back and stay awhile.

Friday, December 11, 2015

Friday, December 4, 2015

Rainbow Trout Eating Mice Patterns: Colorado

Never gets old.


Rainbow Trout Eating Mice Patterns: Colorado from Joey Macomber on Vimeo.
www.laterallinemedia.com
We hiked into a small creek in Colorado and found some Rainbow Trout that showed some interest in eating our mice patterns.

Tuesday, December 1, 2015

Winter Mouse Fishing With Molly Semenik

It's December, and even though it won't officially be winter until the 22nd, we're now talking about winter fishing. I love the way Molly goes at it in this video from 2012.

Winter fishing on freestoners and tailwaters almost always calls for going low and slow with tiny nymphs, and trying to drift them directly into the mouths of the trout, hanging like frozen fish sticks in the frigid water.

Spring Creeks are another story. I always try big floaters--muddlers and stimulators--on Rocky Ford Creek, and the fish respond to them. The first fish I caught there was a 22" beauty that took a big muddler on top.

Now I'm eager to try a mouse. I'll tie mine fatter and with a shorter tail than Molly's mouse, but I'll bet you it will wake up those Rocky Ford Rainbows. They may not know what to do with it at first, but they're predators. They'll figure it out.