2015 Fly Fishing Show

Yesterday I spent a delightful two hours at the annual Fly Fishing Show in Marlborough, MA.  I'm no longer particularly interested in the latest fly fishing gear, which wouldn't come as a surprise if you've read my "reflections" post earlier this month, here. However, I did enjoy meeting up with friends and talking with many of my fly tying acquaintances that were there to demonstrate their tying tricks and tips. The burgers and french fries at Longhorn Steakhouse weren't bad, either.

I did take my camera, and if you are a camera geek like I tend to be, then you might be interested in knowing that all images were taken with my new 70-200 mm-equivalent Panasonic zoom lens fitted to my Olympus EM-1 camera.  All were shot at F2.8 (wide open), aperture priority and auto ISO.

Since I was "people" oriented and not "gear" oriented at the event, you'll notice that most of these images are of people enjoying themselves.  Nevertheless, there are a few gear pictures.

You can view all 50 images on my photography Web site.  The images on the Web site are also larger, if you are viewing on a large and high resolution screen.

Below are reduced-resolution images of about 15 of the images:

Reflecting on 2014 - best trout days

My trout days last year were spent entirely in small cold streams flowing from the mountains of northern New Hampshire.  While fishing from my float tube in local farm ponds for sunfish (see prior post) were solo adventures, trout fishing for me means driving north for the day (a long day) with one or more friends.  It also means a (very!) big breakfast along the way, with fishing beginning in late morning and extending until dark.

I pulled the images below from several of last summer's trout trips.

All fishing was done with an 8 foot 4 weight.  However, the line weight makes little difference for this kind of fishing because rarely is there more than 3 feet of fly line hanging from the tip of the rod.  Add an 8 foot leader and that's plenty of reach for these small streams, generally. (8 foot rod + 3 feet of line + 8 foot leader = potential maximum reach of 19 feet. Realistically, that's plenty for a stream that is 6 to 12 feet wide.)

Warning:  The trout in the small cold nearly-sterile mountain streams of northern New Hampshire are small. A 9" brookie is always well-remembered.

So I can see them, I make my parachutes VERY bushy.
This is my first choice fly.  Body is peacock herl.
Tied with or without a tail,
I cannot tell a difference in productivity.

Paul

Jim

One of Paul's elk hair caddis parachutes.
These are my second choice fly.
When I run out, Paul ties up some more for me!

The Mount Washington Hotel

Reflecting on 2014 - best bluegill days

As I mentioned in my prior post, my best guess is that I fished 15 days last year. When looking through my pictures I can see that I either fished from a float tube for bluegills or fished in small New Hampshire streams for small trout.

Below I have pulled together some of the images I took while float tubing for sunfish in a local farm pond.  The pictures remind me of how many big bluegills I caught last summer, mostly in August.  When dressed in spawning colors, they are beautiful.  Especially gorgeous is the pumpkinseed shown in the second to last photo.

All were taken on a 9 foot 5 weight.  My friend Paul built for me a custom 9 foot 4 weight for my birthday, which I am looking forward to using on my next day in the float tube, likely to be the middle of June.

Sometimes I will use a double wet fly or/or nymph fly rig.

Even when I switch the flies I find the second fly

catches more.

My friend Paul makes these mini-Clousers using Craft Fur