Fish Itch - 13 Flies for $8.00

The current Fish Itch deal is through the recycled fish online fly shop from my last post.

For $8 (+$1 shipping) you get a selection of 13 tried and true flies and Fish Itch donates $2 to support conservation.

Dew eeeet! HERE

I did!

Niangua River 6 Pack

Over the summer I made a trip to the Niangua with some good buddies. It was a great day and evening (the parts I remember) spent with friends and memories were made for sure, but the fishing results left a little to be desired. I even got skunked on the smallie water. Not so in the trout water. This six pack of pictures is a good representation of the fishing.

Announcing the Recycled Fish Online Fly Shop powered by West-Fly

Through the magic of social networking (G+ FTW) I have been connected with Recycled Fish PR Director Isaac Miller and he forwarded on the cool news and following text about the cool new Recycled Fish Online Fly Shop powered by West-Fly. You can best I will have some product reviews up in the near future. :)

Please visit the fly shop here.

"Announcing the Recycled Fish Online Fly Shop powered by West-Fly


New online fly shop delivers high quality flies at low prices, delivers money to conservation.



To catch a fish, an angler needs three things: the know-how, the equipment – and the fish have to be there. The new Recycled Fish Online Fly Shop powered by West-Fly helps accomplish two out of the three. It offers high quality flies at low prices to put the right tools in anglers’ hands, and funnels no less than 30% of every sale to conservation efforts to help make strong fisheries with healthy fish populations.



“We don’t ever want to be a fishing products company,” said Teeg Stouffer, Recycled Fish Executive Director. “We are a non-profit organization. That’s why we’ve partnered with West-Fly, who produces, markets and distributes quality flies. They have created something to help our cause in a new and interesting way.”



So does the Recycled Fish Online Fly Shop powered by West-Fly replace standard bricks and mortar fly shops? “Not at all,” says Stouffer. “Fly fishing needs locally owned shops – they’re part of the culture of the sport. What we’re doing complements traditional shops, it doesn’t compete with them. We won’t, don’t, and can’t offer casting lessons or fly tying classes, guide services, or boots and waders. We can’t tell you what the stream flows look like, or what the fish are eating. But once you figure that stuff out with the help of a local shop (probably after buying an assortment of flies from them), you can order a couple dozen of your favorite patterns from us, or prepare for a destination trip by loading up a fly box with the flies for a faraway water.”



The Recycled Fish Online Fly Shop is available at www.RecycledFish.org/FlyShop or by visiting Recycled Fish and clicking on “Fly Shop.” West-Fly makes a quarterly donation to Recycled Fish based upon proceeds from the sales. All purchases through the site qualify for donations to Recycled Fish.



About Recycled Fish:



Recycled Fish is the national non-profit organization of “anglers living a lifestyle of stewardship both on and off the water, because our lifestyle runs downstream.” The Recycled Fish “Sportsman’s Stewardship Pledge” invites anglers to embrace the Stewardship Ethic and join the organization, free of charge. The SAFE Angling Program — Sustaining Angling, Fish and Ecosystems — is a way to help anglers embrace a lifestyle of stewardship on the water. It involves catch and release fishing, including the use of single barbless hooks, biodegradable lures, and non-toxic lead-free weights. Recycled Fish also educates anglers about invasive species, habitat loss, waterway litter and pollution prevention, urban fisheries, and increase participation in recreational fishing for both adults and children. For more information on the 501(c)3 group go to: http://www.recycledfish.org/"

Best Smallie of the Summer

I didn't blur my face because I'm ugly (you all already know that. But because I don't like hero shots. My buddy KC, pictured over my shoulder, deserves the credit for putting me in the front of his boat all day and on this fish. It was only 16-17" but was a BLAST on my 4wt. I can catch fish but still can't catch a tan. :sigh:

Changes

There have been a lot of changes since my last post that have led to a general dormancy on this blog. Those changes, all for the better I think, range from changing up my fishing mode to summer smallmouth, a change in schedule and general business and most excitingly the birth of our second child. I am regretful that I have not made it more of a point to stay current with trip reports on the blog due to the business and other changes, but I am happy to announce that I will be taking the blog in a new direction and giving it a bit of an overhaul that will allow for the posting of more content in the form of warm water and even some trash fish trip reports. You will begin to see the changes take effect over the next few days but they will be slow so please bear with me.

Trout Commander Blog Featured on Fly Fishing the Ozarks!

Guide, fly tyer, videographer, and all around BAMF, Brian Wise featured the Trout Commander Blog on his Fishadelic Foto Friday posting this morning on his blog, Fly Fishing the Ozarks. Too cool. Thanks Brian!

Be sure to check out Brian's kick ass videos and guide services.

Oh and did I mention that Brian's two sons, 5 and 7, both throw some pretty sweet loops themselves? His eldest double hauls better than I do:

Bass, Bastards and Bratwurst

  
April 17, 2011  

Bass Were caught
(and pictures were taken with a cell phone) 

Bastards Harassed us  

Bratwurst Were thoroughly enjoyed

What a beautiful day to be on the water Sunday was. I caught a ride with a fishing buddy and met up with some other guys at the access, took a couple rigs down to our take out and hit the water. Fishing started slow for everyone but picked up as the day went on. The weather was perfect, the river was perfect, the food was delicious and there was even excitement. An over zealous land owner and his buddy with a gun. The landowner liked us so much he visited us twice at two different spots and brought a couple of sheriffs deputies with him the second time.

It is good to note that we were doing nothing illegal and the land owner was just there to harass, scare and intimidate us off of "his property" and the deputies wrote no citations.

 

 

My First North Fork of the White River brown - not big, but wild

Last Saturday morning I found myself headed South again. Back to the North Fork of the White River. My favorite river to fish. It was a wonderful day to be on the river with perfect weather. If anything it was a little hot but I am not complaining. It was warm enough that I wasn't bothered that I had turned my breathable waders into a model with water based foot cooling. Luckily the leak isn't bad enough to fill the waders completely up, but it looks like it is time to research wader repair.

The day on the river started off great. I had hooked four and brought to hand three small rainbows in the first twenty minutes right in front of the campground at Sunburst Ranch. After that things really cooled off. The first four hook ups came on a gray hare's ear nymph but as soon as Brian Wise rolled through with a couple of clients in his boat and another two in a drift boat piloted by Kyle Kosovich the fish shut down and wouldn't touch my hare's ear. I might also add that only a matter of two minutes or less after I pulled a decent sized bow out of a little tail out pool and started working my way up the island that one of Brian's clients had a take in the very same pool I had just disturbed. Really, I am no where near good enough to do that, that's why I moved on up along the side of the island. Obviously that's why he is a guide and I am not!

I did manage to bring to hand nine more trout through the rest of the day though. nothing too note or picture worthy though aside from the little brown pictured above. I am 100% convinced that it is a true stream born wild trout. Sure it isn't big but who else can say that their first NFoW brown trout was a wild one? It was the icing on my cake that's for sure. And although it wasn't THE Happy Ending (although maybe his offspring) it was my own happy ending. The brown, along with a couple others came on the green circus caddis pictured. The rest of my fish (including a abnormally large number of rough fish that were caught) came on a copper john hot spot.

After a great day on the water the patriarch of Sunburst Ranch gave a VIP of the yet to open Dead Drift Fly Shop and fixed me up with a couple of stickers, which I was glad they had due to their awesome logo. To purchase a sticker or two is enough of a reason to visit but ss Justin phrased it the Dead Drift Fly Shop "will have everything an angler needs to fish". I also laid eyes on some very quality flies that were tied by locales that are proven patterns that are river specific and even some homebrew patterns that knock 'em dead on the NFoW.  And, on top of that the shop sits a half hearted toss of a stone from the water! Everyone should pay a visit to the Dead Drift Fly Shop, you will be glad you did.

Best Trip In Quite Some Time (and a Christmas in April teaser)

I have stayed pretty busy recently, mostly with family things and have only been able to squeak in a couple of quick trips to Taneycomo. The trip I am writing about today was another quick trip, only two hours, that took place on April 2nd, my Mother's birthday. Even though it is one of my best fishing trips in recent memory it wasn't on some far away stream like we dream of throughout the work day in Colorado or Montana. It wasn't even a trip to a freestone stream here in Missouri. Heck, it wasn't even to a tailwater or a trout park. I wasn't even chasing trout for that matter. It was a trip to a muddy little cow pond full of stunted sunfish. but this is what made it so great:

 

After dinner and birthday cake with my mom; her, my wife, son and myself loaded up and went a fishin'. Preston caught a couple fish on a worm under a bobber and then caught his first fish on the fly! On a dry fly none the less!

After rigging my wife, son and mothers (it was her birthday and I probably still owe her a few hundred thousand from when I was a tyke anyway) for bobber n' night crawler fishing I finally started rigging my fly rod. Chelsea, my wife, had caught (and I had released) two small fish. (If you keeping score: Wife: 2, Grand Son,  Grandmother and Son: 0). So I finally make my first cast with a Clouser to search the muddy water for bass. WHAM! Big 'gill of the day. Hand sized! Before I had it landed, which didn't take long on my 4wt, Chelsea had another fish. I managed a few more casts that yielded nothing with the Clouser in between releasing fish and rebaiting hooks. Preston finally made connection with his first of the day and he was tickled! It was at that time that Chelsea realized that a couple of the smaller fish that had taken the hook into their gullet were now floating by her feet. This made her sad and she bowed out to sit in the Jeep and finish a book she had brought a long. Not long after that I switched to a elk hair caddis and white shammy worm dropper. This combination evoked a strike a cast from the small blue gill. The only problem was the little buggers could not hit the ehc even when I left it still. I managed very few hook ups, but the constant action was enough for Preston to decide he would give daddy's fly rod a try after all. He has cast a few feet of line in the yard an a couple different occasions but when I asked him upon arrival at the pond he wanted to fish the same way as Grandma and I did not pressure him to try it out. I had since switched to a tandem dry fly rig but removed the second fly in an attempt to keep it simple. I helped Preston with the casting since there was about 20' of line out, but then gave him complete control of the rod and instructions to set the hook when the fished jumped up and hit the fly. And that was exactly what he did! It wasn't by any means a first cast first strike hook up - he worked hard and was rewarded for his efforts.

Final Score:
Grandma: 0 (with three assists after switching rods with Preston at the first sign of a nibble)
Grandson: 4
Wife: 5 (and only fishing for half the time as everyone else)
Me: 6 (but it felt like I did a lot more work than catching 6 fish for some reason)

It is also noteworthy that this was Chelsea's first fish that can recall ever catching and boy was it big:

I think that it is safe to say that Chelsea and Preston are both one step closer to coming along on fly fishing trips with me.



Christmas In April:

What's in it and who's it from you ask?

Stay tuned and you will see! 

Catch Magazine February Update

Perfect timing with the winter storm that has blanketed us today!

Catch Magazine

Enjoy!

Sunburst Ranch (North Fork of the White River) - 01/22/11

     I had a chance to fish the NFoW for the first time ever this past Saturday. After reading nearly every thread related to the NFoW on the Ozark Anglers Forum I decided to go see Justin and Amy at Sunburst Ranch.

     The day started great, the hour or so drive down 181, from my hometown of Cabool, was enjoyable to say the least. Twisty roads + BMW + snow covered scenery = a fun drive. However, now would be a good time to clarify that it was not by choice that I was in the bmw. But when the wife says you drive the gas saver or don't go at all, you drive the gas saver every time. Although it was fun pushing the BMW through the turns on the perfectly-clear-not-a-flake-of-snow-on-them lettered highways of rural Missouri, County Road #352 was not clear. At all. All was well until after multiple attempts to make it up the grade in the road just after a right hand turn (which I found out later was a wrong turn that I didn't need to be making) I found myself in the ditch. Not just a little bit, but really good. (Yes honey, I know I failed to tell you that I slid your car into the ditch, but I wanted to see if you really read my blog or not!) Luckily enough for my ego I was able to make it out, 30 minutes later, without anyones assistance.

     After arriving at Sunburst, getting a solid report and suggestion of flies from Justin, realizing I only had ~18 inches of tippet while rigging up, asking to buy some from Justin and being given 3 whole spools to borrow as much as I needed off of (thanks  again, Justin!), I finally started fishing around 9:30a. I hit the water just up stream of the Camp Store and fished my way upstream. I didn't get a strike until I made it up to the island. I fished off of the island and fished the water on the Sunburst side first, continuing up stream. I caught four rainbows ranging in size from 4-7" out of that run. I was very happy to have caught my first wild trout and excited due to the success I was finding. I caught all fish on a  tandem fly rig of a hare's ear nymph under a scud with all fish taking the nymph.  I then started fishing my way down stream on the opposite side of the island. Near the top I caught two more small rainbows on the hares ear before switching it up.

     Since the scud wasn't pulling it's weight I promoted the hare's  ear to top fly and tied on a tiny bright orange midge that I haven't a clue what it's name might be as my dropper. A mere two drifts later and I was into a FISH. Upon setting the hook I saw a flash of red that was larger than the fish I had been catching! It was the first time for the day that I felt I wasn't bullying the fish around with my 4wt rod! After fighting the fish in I was stunned to see that the fish still had parr marks!!

     I caught two more fish within an inch of this fishes size, with this parr marked fish being my largest of the day. All three large fish were caught on the unidentified orange midge.





     After releasing the 3rd of the three "big" fish for the day I headed back towards Justin's house. I fished the run in front of his house picking up two more small bows on a pink midge tied by RCGuy of the Ozark Anglers Forum. I got out of the water right at 1:30.

      An uneventful tow up the snow covered hillside from Justin (who again would not take any money when offered) and I was on my way.

     This was literally The BEST day I have had on the water yet! I have never felt so content but wanted more at the same time. I will definitely be back. I cannot speak highly enough of Sunburst Ranch. Not only of the fishing (11 total in five hours of fishing with 3 "big" fish and I covered only a fraction of the wadeable water that five bucks can buy for a day) but also the hospitality. I think the way I was treated was the norm, but it could have been because I was the only one crazy enough to be there and they were afraid of me due to any possible mental malfunctions or maybe they felt sorry for me, but whatever it was, it just felt right.

     -Jason