Rivers are blown out and still rising.

Rivers are on a steady rise for three days now. It's crap!

Spring is here and so are the red-bellied toads

As some may know I have a couple of gold fish ponds in the back yard about 8 feet in diameter. The local toads have started showing up and singing to attract mates. I like sitting on my new deck and listening to them sing as evening approaches. Tonight i counted 6, but will have as many as twenty. It can actually be quite defining when all the males start singing.

Sunday Fishing with the Axiom

Alright I actually had chance to throw the new rod on Sunday.
Axiom 8 weight 9 foot
300 grain striper line
9 inch fly
light winds
Didn't have any problems throwing the entire length of the line. Only needed one false cast and let it fly. The rod is definitely more of a mid tip flex than my tip flex TICR+. When casting the rod you could feel the length of the rod load verses the sharper snap of the TICR+. I am very pleased with the entire of the rod and how it operates. It feels to have more available over head when throwing, meaning it could take more line if I had it to give. I am exciting about getting out this weekend and do some more testing.

Got Crabs?

Kinda tired of tying the big flies and need a break from them. I figure I have tied almost 500 since last December.
Planning on going to Florida this summer and I think crab flies are cool. These are very simple to tie and I think they are one of my fav to look at.
You need rubber bands, round velcro dots or another material of the type, eyes and glue.
Tie in a barbell hook clouser style.
Stick the Velcro dot on the bottom of hook and then lay the rubber bands and eyes on the dot like shown.

Glob some super glue on the dot and smash on the top. Hold for a few seconds till the glue bonds. The construction is done.

I used a sharpee to coat the ends of the rubber and put dots on the back.

Shad Pike Fly

Gizzard Shad are a large forage fish in my area. Thought I would try to tie a couple of flies to imitate.

Temple Forks Axiom

Was hoping to have this good fishing report by now, but we have been in the 30's all week and even had snow. Seriously...who pissed in God's cheerios.
So I thought I would do a cosmetic review of my new rod.
Nice deep blue rod. Comes with typical snake guides and alignment dots.

Oversized strippers. These have a nice gold accent to the middle and a gold accent on the wrappings as well. The rest of the stripper is blue to match the reel seat and blank.

Double upward locking aluminum reel seat, again in deep blue to match the rest of the hardware and blank. Got a nice curvy butt going on back there. Just like I like my wife (hope she doesn't read this).

Multi colored cork gives it a nicer finished look than standard one color scheme. Here's one bitch I have to Temple Forks. The majority of their rods are this nice dark blue and the 425 reel only comes in GREY. Its even this shitty dull grey. The 325 comes in a red, gold and shitty grey. Hello? Wouldn't a nice dark blue anodized reel just be the best accent for this all blue rod. I would have even paid a few bucks extra.

Well, I would guess its only a matter of time before they have me designing my own line of rods and reels and I can tell you that reel is gonna come in blue.

Foam head flies

These are done with 1 mm foam, because I think 2mm is too thick. These have not been fished yet, so we will see how it works.

Tradenstuff.com

Went over to my buddy Dave's yesterday to tie some flies. Dave has an internet fly fishing business on the side. He has just about everything you could imagine. New, used, broken, not needed, cheap and expensive. I think at last count he said he had 1300 rods. Crazy.

trader@tradenstuff.com
www.tradenstuff.com

Guitar playin' and stuff

I have been playing heavy metal guitar since college and even did a 5 year stint as the lead guitarist and singer of "Sea of Insanity." Lately I have gotten the itch and been shredding a lot. I don't think I am interested in being in a band yet, but it's a great creative release. Megadeth, specifically Dave Mustain has always been my fav guitarist, but Darrel has always been a close second. The two are my favorite guitars.
Dave's classic black Jackson Flying V with shark inlay.

Darrel's Damageplan ivory inlay Dean ML with diamond plate steel visual. Nice.

Temple Forks Sponsorship

Been working on this sponsorship for a while now. I posted it on the blog, but the goods just arrived tonight. As fly fisherman, nothing is better than new equipment.

Look what was on the porch when I got home.


Wait for it...wait for it.


One fly rod, two reels and two spare spools.


Temple Forks new Axiom 8 weight 9 foot pike fly launcher.


Two 425 anodized large arbor reels and two spare reels. Machined from aircraft grade aluminum and state of the art draw bar/carbon fiber disk drag. (4.25 "diameter, 10.8 oz)


Looks like I need to go fishing tomorrow!

Saturday fishing

It was a nice warm spring day. Had a few nice hook-ups and a couple of big boils on the fly. This was the only fish landed though. Little bugger. The chartreuse fly seemed to be the ticket for the day.

Tonights fishing

Well, at least we didnt get skunked.

Starting to warm up. Saw lots of ducks and birds. Had some turkeys cross the road by us. Lots of fresh beaver activity on the pond by us. All in all a nice night out.

Great Waters Show Blaines

The show was a good time. Lot of nice people and many items that I wanted to purchase. Sold some flies and some old rods. Made some new friends and talked to some old. Many good tiers in attendence. The following were some neat flies one was tying.

Turkey

Drumming Grouse

Flying Mallard