Reports from Blog Creek

We're chained to our computers,
thinking about fly fishing.
This blog is our outlet to keep our heads from exploding

King of the moonfish

Permalink Comment This day Published: Tuesday April 29th 2008 (10 days ago) Updated: Monday May 5th 2008, 8:44PM by Martin Joergensen I managed to squeeze in some real fishing in Florida thanks to GFF contributor Martin Bowers I have only fished on and off for a few minutes here and a few minutes there during my Florida trip with the family, but Martin Bowers - a GFF contributor and former BC inhabitant - changed that. Martin invited me to go night fishing for snook, and even after having set the alarmclock to 3:40 in the morning I didn't regret saying yes thank you. We drove to the local boat ramp about 10 minutes away from Martin's home to launch the boat. He does have a ramp in the back yard, but that can't be used at night. Leisurely sailing into the channels and the river inlet at Jupiter where Martin lives, we found the lights from docks and bridges and fished under them. There was plenty fish, but I only managed to hook and land one small snook. I also got a jack, but the rest of my fish were moonfish - maybe 10-12 or more. Martin immediately baptized me "King of the Moonfish". The trip was a welcome change from our riding around in an RV. Great fun, but you certainly get to see som road! Well, any day (or night) fishing is better than almost anything else, and being King of the Moonfish isn't bad at all. We headed home at sunup - everything exept the mullet seem to go asleep when the light comes - and my Florida trip is slowly winding down here. Soon it's back to the treadmill and back to publishing lots of new GFF stuff.

Florida bound

Permalink Comment This day Published: Sunday April 13th 2008 (26 days ago) Updated: Sunday April 13th 2008, 5:30PM by Martin Joergensen It's not a fishing vacation, but there are rods in the luggage! Tomorrow this time I will be in Miami if all goes as planned. And efter that I will spend two weeks criss-crossing Florida together with my family. I am lucky enough to be able to avoid the queues in Disneyland, Sea World and various space centers, because my kids are 19 and 21 and beyond that stage. The whole family agrees on that the Keys and the Gulf coast seems more interesting. I haven't planned this as a fishing vacation per se, but of course I have brought some rods, reels and flies plus polaroids and my GFF cap. The Gulf coast in particular seems to offer many fishing options, but I will be on the lookout down south too. I know that fishing on your own down there can be difficult, but I'm sure there will be places where I will want to wet a line. I hope to be able to post a few images from my trip before I come home. I will bring my computer and hopefully be online a few times underway. And should any local GFF readers have tips on places worth aiming for (or want to meet), just drop me a mail or comment this post. I will most likely be able to see it while there. My only regret is that GFF may be a bit quiet while I'm gone - but on the other hand the publishing frequency hasn't been through the cieling as it is, so the change probably won't be significant.     More about: Bonefish Flats Saltwater Tropical

Thunder Creeks

Permalink Comment This day Published: Sunday April 6th 2008 (33 days ago) Updated: Sunday April 6th 2008, 4:27PM by Bob Petti These were the first Thunder Creek streamers I have ever tied. A couple weeks ago I was rummaging through a stack of Fly Tyer magazines and tripped across a profile of Keith Fulsher. "That's it", I said. "Another itch that needs to be scratched". Yesterday, my wife and daughters were in NYC on a girl scout trip, so I had the day to myself. I fished in the AM, but conditions are just not good now. I came home, put the Yankee game on the tube, and dug out some materials. The first fly wasn't so good (the oddball in the photo below), but I wasn't discouraged enough to give up. By the time the dozen was complete, I felt I got a sense for tying these flies, although my results are still miles from Mr. Fulsher's. The biggest challenge is in selecting the bucktail. A real crinkly hair just won't work on these flies. Fortunately, I have a good stash of white tails, so I was able to get the natural browns for some of the backs as well as the good white bellies, but for a few of the flies that called for dyed tails, I was at the mercy of my bin. The Brook Trout, for example, calls for the brown side of a blue dyed bucktail. I have a few blue bucktails, but none of them have that nice straight hair you'd like in a Thunder Creek, so I had to do the best I could. The next challenge is keeping things in proportion. If you study photos of original Thunder Creek streamers, you can see that the head is about a third of the shank length, so I tried to maintain that through my set of flies. I think I did ok in that regard, although a few of the flies required multiple tries to get it right. Finally, the epoxy head is not as easy as it might seem. My first mistake was working with cold epoxy. My tying room is downstairs and it is always cold in there, so the epoxy was pretty stiff and goopy even after mixed, which lead to a few lumpy heads. It was also a learning experience trying to figure out how much to use - just enough to cover the hair but not enough to sag and create footballs. You can see a few footballs in the set of flies. Oh well. They will fish. I tried to keep these sparse - in respect of Mr. Fulsher's original designs. Less is better than more on this style of fly, although a few might have gotten away from me in that regard. The olive grizzly wing on the Brook Trout make those appear to be heavily dressed, but I there really isn't much hair on those. It was fun. Thunder Creek streamers are sorta like Lays potato chips. One you start, it's hard to stop. Now I wanna tie the whole set.