Friday Popcorn Reel

Here's a couple of video clips to make your Friday at work go ever so....slower...

RA Beattie

Beattie Outdoor Productions Fly Fishing Demo Reel from RA Beattie on Vimeo.


This is not much of a fish video, but the videography is over the top.  Be sure to watch full screen.
From Felt Soul Media:


[81435] from felt soul media on Vimeo.

Put a Fork in Me

I watched the weather report all week.  40% chance of rain, then down to 30%, then back up to 60% the day before we left.  Yes, put a fork in me.  I'm done planning these trips where the hatch is missed or Mother Nature unloads on us.  But, to the Fork we went, Henry's Fork.  With everything in the area blown out with high water and mud, our little section below Ashton Dam grew quite the crowd.  Gear Guide Wyatt became Oar Boy for the first 3 miles.  Then promptly kicked our butts with fish.  While he was busy snagging fish, I was trying to steady the ship with rain stinging my face.  Sweets just smiled and cinched down her hood.... she never complains.  Salmon flies?  Leave when you read this, and you'll hit it just right.  With the rain, we didn't dare bring the camera out, so these will have to do....

Did I mention it snowed the night before.  Here's the trout mobile just before we left Driggs

Cast...

... catch a fish...

...it's not that hard...

The Trouts didn't get the Memo

The Green River is famous for 3 of it's hatches; winter midges, Blue Winged Olives, and Mormon Crickets (Cicada's have been nonexistent of late, so we won't go there).  BWO's show up as early as the beginning of April and stick around well into June.  The Evening Hatch usually pays the hatch a visit around the end of April when fish are feeding off the top, without a care in the world.  Last weekend was our vist... and surprise.  We arrived with 20mph winds blowing knots into every cast.  We figured it was going to be a day of nymphing and lots of weight in the now 4600 cfs water level.  We fished all day and noticed there was something missing, the fish never fed on top.  Chalk it up to the wind?  There were bugs all over the water.  Day two, no wind, snow, sunshine, snow, no fish on top, and still bugs all over the water.  We managed to pick up fish... nymphing.... again.  C'mon, this is April 30th, there were bugs all over, what was up with the fishes?  This was literally the craziest BWO hatch I've seen on the Green.  Gear Guide Wyatt was pimping some new Simms gear and the new Rio Gold line, and was high rod for the weekend.  Fun? Yes.  Fish? Yes.  Bewildered? Yes.  Going back? Yes...... maybe terrestrial patterns in late May....after a morning of streamers and midges...

 Any wonder why they call it the Green River?

 The Baetis were doing their thing, the fish were not

 The Tree Sparrows were about the only thing feeding on top.  With the wind, they could hover close to the surface and pluck the bugs as they surfaced

 Gear Guide Wyatt with a nice toothy Brown

 This Brown put his shoulder into Sweets' Sage.

Grab Some Popcorn

Simms staged a guide/film maker war this past month.  They challenged film makers to make a video in 3 days.  They were given 2 days to fish and film and one day to edit.  The short films were then put to a vote.  Below are the films, in the order of how The Evening Hatch voted.  By the way, can you tell this was promoted by Simms?... and various distillers of adult beverages....

Fourth Place

SIMMS shoot-out submission. from Detonation Studios on Vimeo.

Third Place

Fly Fishing Mystery Theater from RA Beattie on Vimeo.

Second Place

Ice Out/Shoot Out from bryan huskey on Vimeo.

Winner!

Simms Shootout 406 productions from 406 productions LLC on Vimeo.

Fun with Midges

The Green, Snow, Traffic.... and Fish

Here's a few from this past weekend.  Gear Guide Wyatt joined us for our annual midge trip to the Green River.  The weather was less than stellar, but the midges came off nonetheless.

Yes, this is the same fish, but I thought it was pretty cool seeing the angler and the photographer, in the reflection of his eye.

The Gear Guide, with the new Hatch reel

We saw lots of snow on the drive out of the gorge

Why is there a blurry picture of cars?  Well, this was our parking lot, sometimes referred to as I-80, and the cars are all stopped at mile post 34.  The accident was at mile post 14.  We waited 4 hours without moving one inch, while they cleared the 11 semi-trucks from the East and West bound lanes.  We were lucky, when we finally hit marker 14, East bound was still closed.  Lucky?  It still took us 10 hours to make our 4 hour drive.

Deke Nose Best...

It's been fun to watch Deke get his "snow nose" this winter.  Yellow labs are notorious for losing the pigmentation in their noses during the cold winter months (oh, and it's been cold!).  Below are a few shots from this year showing the transition.  The black color should come back this spring and summer as the weather warms (hopefully).  There certainly wasn't anything wrong with his sniffer.  He followed his nose to several downed birds in the bushes.