Wednesday, December 24, 2014

My 2014 Alaska Guide Season: The Aftershock


© Barry & Cathy Beck (http://www.barryandcathybeck.com/)

As some of you know, I spent my summer guiding and fishing at Reel Action Fly Fishing's Alaska Lodge located on the Kanektok River. I had an incredible time and I'm looking forward to the 2015 season. Since being back, I wanted my first post to be a special one... So instead of sifting through thousands of photos from Alaska I thought I would start with the photos I began taking  within moments of stepping off the plane...



Friday, December 12, 2014

Players


Colors of GL steel...

With the thought of several fishless days on my mind, I eagerly anticipated a day when everything would come together. Thankfully, I didn't have to wait too long because of an extended weekend. Adam had a few days off from guiding and we were able to reconvene for our first steelhead action together in almost a year. The last time we swung the river together, it produced one of our best days of fishing. This particular trip did not disappoint and we were able to find quite a few willing participants...

Tuesday, December 9, 2014

The Stinger Missile Fly


Steel on the stinger missile...

During a winter storm in 2009, I concocted a fly for one of my first sessions ever swinging for steelhead. It is heavily influenced by John Barr's Slumpbuster, but is much larger and has a few key differences. At the time, I was learning on a switch rod with a 510 Airflo Skagit Compact and I was tying and throwing some seriously heavy stuff. Needless to say, it was not pretty. On a late November outing, Adam and I did really well for ourselves. My fly was able to pick up my first ever fish on a legit two hander setup. The brown pictured below crushed it in a very fast section of water and I was hooked. The fly became my "go to" pattern for the next few years as I learned the ways of the skagit. I started calling it the "stinger missile," and it has still accounted for more steelhead from the Salmon River than almost all my other flies.

Monday, December 1, 2014

Money in the Bank


A Mid-November Winter Wonderland

A planned retreat brought my girlfriend and I to the shores of Lake Ontario. We met up with some friends to stay at a lakehouse and fish the Salmon River for a few days. Faced with the first lake effect snows and plunging polar temperatures we had our work cut out for us, but our trials and tribulations were money in the bank for future steelhead trips…