Cascadia Wildlands presents on Copper River Delta

EVENT TONIGHT! Gabe Scott, Cascadia Wildlands Alaska field staff, will be presenting tonight at the Eugene library. Gabe will be presenting images from wilderness photographer Brett Cole and talking about his cutting-edge conservation work in south-central AK.

Details:
"At the Edge of the Ice Age: Alaska's Lost Coast and Copper River Country"
Tuesday, November 6 * 6:30-7:30 pm
Tykeson Room, Eugene Public Library (10th and Olive St.)
Join the Cascadia Wildlands Project (CWP) for an informative and stunning slideshow presentation about Alaska's unparalleled Copper River, its rich Delta and threats they face from the Trans-Alaska Oil Pipeline and commercial extraction interests. CWP staff has spent the past 8 years in Cordova, a quaint fishing village on the mouth of the delta and on the eastern shore of Prince William Sound, working with fishermen and locals to ensure the world-class salmon fishery and surrounding wildlands remain unspoiled for future generations.


Check out this video on commercial fishing in the delta:

McKenzie River Fly Fishing Report: 4/15/07

Last night I headed down to Armitage to try my luck wading the lower McKenzie River for some late afternoon trout. The day had warmed up nice, especially compared to the day before, so I expected the trout to have the feedbag on. No dice. We got there around 5-ish, walked downstream to the little gravel island and a tail out. It looked PERFECT, but nothing was happening. Not much in the way of bugs either. Sporadic little caddis coming off, some really weird thin mayflies too, but nothing major. Fish were rising though, maybe to some sort of trico spinner? I didn't get a bite. T-O-Double-D caught a couple fish before Wild Bill and I got there, but we never saw one on the line. The evening temperature drop might have put them off a little. Good news all in all: You can wade Armitage and there are fish there.

There is word on the street of crazy-early summer steelhead below Dexter. I can't believe it, but will if I start hooking them in the town run.

Wild Bill is out this week, chasing roosterfish in Baja.

The Kid (pictured below) is coming in from NYC to decompress. We'll probably drift from Salt Creek to Black Canyon in our inflatable kayaks, unless somebody thinks that would be suicidal. Seriously. I've run them all summer, but never in high water. I'm asking for advice. Meantime, I'll check out my Soggy Sneakers guide.

Blood midge for stillwater trout

Gordon Cordova from Northern Calif. tied this blood midge at the show. It's a size 20 scud hook with a cross stitch embroidery bead for a head. He uses a smaller version of flash called liquid flash for the body and antron yarn for the shuck. He wraps the red all the way to the curve to make it look like it's swimming a little.

If there is one thing I've learned this week, it's that I should be buying my materials at the craft store if I want to save some loot. Cordova's beads were way cool -- and he said there were plenty of colors and sizes to pick from.

This first photo shows how gorgeous the fly is, the second shows the scale we're dealing with here.

From MattStansberry

From MattStansberry

Here are a couple other blood midge patterns: Westfly, California School of Fly Fishing.

This post is part of a series of profiles of fly tyers at the Northwest Fly Tyers Expo in Albany, OR.

Warmwater poppers for West Coast bass

West Coast bass bugs: Charlie Kears from Arroyo Grande, Calif. specializes in warmwater fly fishing. He was tying these colorful bugs for the fishermen mostly, he said.

His real innovation is a fly called the voodoo popper which is made of cork, not balsa like the ones pictured below. It's made from "salt & pepper" size corks you buy at a hardware store. "You can tie it right in the boat and throw it," Kears said.

He was shooting a video on tying his poppers for the FFF that afternoon.

From MattStansberry

Fly Fisherman magazine ran an article on Kears' home waters this month. The San Joaquin Delta (everybody just calls it the Delta) is supposed to have the best bass fishing in the country.

This post is part of a series of profiles of fly tyers at the Northwest Fly Tyers Expo in Albany, OR.

Foam mouse flies

This is the fifth in a series of fly tying photos from the Northwest Fly Tyers Expo in Albany, Oregon.

Douglas Fear from San Jose, Calif. stumbled onto this mouse pattern on accident while tying a topwater burbler for bass. Pretty soon he tweaked his pattern and came up with the mouse you see here.

From MattStansberry

He uses 2mm craft foam on a size 4 Mustad hook. He also uses thick thread that doesn't cut the foam. I'm going to take one up to Alaska this May and see if they work on those rainbows as well as they do on California bass.

Oregon fly fishing show season begins

Oregon Fly Fishing Shows: The timing is about right. It's late in the winter steelhead run, early in the spring trout season. Sure there are fish biting somewhere, but it's snowing and the water is high.

Back on February 17-18, 2007, The Fly Fishing Show came to Portland, OR at the Oregon Convention Center. Chester Allen, a writer for The Olympian, had a great write up of the event.

From the article: "Hordes of fly anglers herded themselves right into the Oregon Convention Center and forked over 24 bucks for two days inside a building that has all the charm and intimacy of an international airport."

That show has come and gone, but the new show on the block is around the Corner. The Northwest Fly Tyers and Fly Fishing Expo 2007 is going to be March 9 and 10 at the Linn County Expo Center in Albany, Oregon. It's run by the same group that put on the Fly Tyer's expo in Eugene in previous years.

The NW Fly expo is being put on by the Federation of Fly Fishers. Oregon Outdoor Journal will be on premises at the event, volunteering to run a booth for Eugene Trout Unlimited Chapter 678.

We'll have a full report from the show right here.

Also, I'm headed to Houston and Orlando this week -- talking about energy efficiency and technology. But not much about the Oregon Outdoors. But if something comes up, I'll post.

Wading gear review: Hodgman Wadelite Wader Support Belt

Best purchase ever: Fact, the best buy I've ever made in my fly fishing career was my Hodgman Wadelite Wader Support Belt. I picked it up a few months ago after fishing the Umpqua River with Wild Bill. I'd fallen a few times on that notoriously slippery streambed while we were annoying the summer steelhead. Bill had watched me fill my waders a few times and suggested I buy the belt he was wearing.

Since then the belt has actually helped me stay upright and has kept the river from filling my waders several times.

The wading belt cinches up tigher than the standard belts you get with your wader purchase. And the extra wide back support eases the lower back. When I first moved here I was wading every day. My back woud be kiling me. This belt actually makes it easier to wade, it doesn't hurt at all -- instant yoga.

Product specs: Features nylon coated high density foam construction, web belt with Velcro cinch, dual accessory D-rings, and PVC "no slip" dots on inside to prevent belt from sliding on waist. Cost: $27.99.

Coastal Cutthroat bonanza on the fly

I headed west this afternoon to fish a coastal stream (which will remain unnamed), looking for steelhead. It's a river I've been scouting for a little while, waiting to get my license.

I was using my standby, black, size 10 beadhead woolybugger. It wasn't doing much, so I put on a tiny orange nymph float. Soon after, I figured it out -- fish were hitting my orange float.

From MattStansberry

I switched out to an egg pattern and started catching cuttrhoats on an egg and indicator rig. The first few were tiny, but as I worked upstream to bigger pools I started catching bigger fish in the 14" range.

As it got dark I switched back to my woolybugger so the fish could see it. They started getting more aggressive and taking it on the swing.

They weren't giant winter steelhead, but you know, after catching about 15 of them I lost count.

Fishing bloggers taking action

Fishing bloggers are taking action on issues that impact our sport. I've been going out and reading a lot of outdoors blogs lately, and I've been really impressed. One of the bloggers I'm reading hits close to home, Greg Lum from Rotten spawn sacs, tattered flies and leaky waders wrote about a private club owner that is moving in on Ohio steelhead streams, trying to lease the crown jewels of the Great Lakes run. I lived 25 years of my life in Ohio and I'm glad somebody like Greg is watching over the home range. Plus, I love fishing Midwest steelhead with my dad and brother when I'm back east, see below:

From MattStansberry

Then there is the Trout Underground, who wrote one of the most persuasive posts to take action to save trout I've ever read. This guy should be working for Trout Unlimited.

From the Trout Underground:

As if surviving another work week wasn’t accomplishment enough for a Friday, it turns out we need to stop a Canadian mining company from building an open pit coal mine. Seems they want to build it smack dab atop the headwaters of the Flathead River in British Columbia.

I myself think that you simply haven’t truly enjoyed a quality outdoor experience until you’ve seen a couple dozen trout go belly up from toxins while taking in gorgeous scenery like mountains with their tops removed.

If it’s one thing the Trout Underground stands for, it’s Trout Protection. We worship trout. We got their backs.

Here’s the part where you walk the walk: invest 18 seconds (I timed myself, honest) convincing the British Columbia government to reject the Cline coal mine and protect the trout fishery of the Flathead River. Eighteen Seconds. That’s all it takes. Eighteen (I timed myself). Do it. Now. Right now. Now. And then let us know you did.

Well, what are you waiting for? Fill out a letter.

Lastly, special thanks to Fishing Jones for the link today. I've been blogging in various forms since '03, but I always existed in a vacuum. What I'm finding now is a real community. It makes me feel like I might not be crazy.

Sweet Creek: Coastal rivers and waterfalls in Oregon

Yesterday Bill Laroux from the Eugene Chapter Trout Unlimited and I went on a steelhead scouting trip to Sweet Creek, a coastal river near Mapleton, OR. This small Siuslaw tributary didn't seem to be holding any fish at the time, maybe next month. The falls were really big and some signage along the trail said that spawning steelhead jump the falls to get upriver. Hard to imagine. Here are some photos.

From MattStansberry

From MattStansberry

From MattStansberry

Fly fishing film tour comes to Eugene

Tuesday night about 65 fly fishing enthusiasts braved the weather to check out the Fly Fishing Film Tour at the University of Oregon. The Caddis Fly sponsored the event and the guys from the Angling Exploration Group hosted. The AEG are the young ballsy fishing filmmakers that brought us the Trout Bum Diaries, 150 minutes of fish porn set to schizophrenic music.

I'm a big fan of the AEG and the Trout Bum movies, but the highlight of the presentation came from the team at Felt Soul Media. The opening film was a short film about fly fishing for rooster-fish from shore and I can say it was one of the most entertaining fishing videos I've ever seen. The second film from Felt Soul was "The Hatch", about the salmonfly hatch on the Gunnison River. The film definitely had a really good conservation message.

And that's what the Trout Bum movies are missing. They're not big on message -- and that's their gig. But the Felt Soul guys have something to say and it definitely adds to the film. I will say that I bought the DVD of "The Hatch" and it was about 17 minutes long. So if you saw it on the film tour you probably don't need the DVD unless you want to support the guys on their quest to make a movie about Mongolian Taimen.

The Fly Fishing Film Tour was definitely worth the $12 ticket price.

Fly fishing Eugene, Oregon -- in town!

Hitting up the Willamette River in Downtown Eugene, I've been banging up the stocked trout that are coming out of Alton Baker park and hanging out on a big riffle. Just a big olive wooly bugger, swing drift and then stripped back. I've had 4 fish nights, which doesn't sound impressive until I explain they were 4 fish nights, fishing for an hour before dinner. Also last week, I pulled a wild cutthroat out of the river. Eugene is good.

Also, there are a ton of Geocaches out there at Alton Baker. Katie did a good job helping me find one the other day.

Here are some pics of my buddy Ben catching some wild cutts.

From MattStansberry

From MattStansberry