Happy Holidays!

Wow, 2012 has come and nearly gone in a blink of an eye.

I'm a bit embarrassed as to not having any fishing reports or stories to share with my fellow fly fishers. I have been incredibly busy this year for the most part. Fly fishing has taken a back seat to exercising and family life.

The good part is I am feeling a lot healthier and weigh significantly less. For the most part it's because of the exercising and healthy eating habits.

I have a few days of from work next week and hopefully I could get out and fly fish one last time before the 2012 is up.

I have a few New Year resolutions for 2013. On the top of that list will be to get out and fly fish more often and of course to contribute more stories and reports to my few but loyal followers of my blog.

May all your Holiday wishes come true. Here's to another wonderful fish filled year in 2013.


Happy Holidays everyone, and have a Healthy and Joy Filled New Year!

Cheers!
The SoCal Fly Fisher

CARP THROW DOWN

Hey guys, here is a plug for what looks to be another very cool fly fishing event. Test your Carp catching skills out on Saturday June 23, 2012... It's the WARM WATER THROW DOWN at Lake Henshaw. Click on the link for more details CARPTHROWDOWN

Big fish ~ Small Creek

Many times I come home thinking to myself that trout was huge for that small creek. I tell friends about the fish, knowing that they think it might be just another big fish tail.

Back in March 2012, I was up on a small local tailwater. This tailwater has a few decent sized fish, but nothing to right home about. On this particular day I noticed not one, but three very very nice sized fish (trout). Two were in deep pools with slow moving water. I watched as the rainbow trout moved up and down feeding on emerging midges. I tied on a small size 20 midge but had not luck in enticing any of these nice rainbow. The best I could do is sit back and enjoy the show. I sat behind a boulder watching two beautiful rainbows swim back a forth feeding. I actually caught the fish on the DSLR, the images were not the best shots but still cool to see.


If I had to guess as to the size of the fish above, I'd say it's about 14-15 inches.

Here is another that was not quite as big as the first but still a nice specimen.


The day was warm with flowers blooming and Spring definitely in the air.


The Miners Lettuce would have gone good in a nice wild salad on such a warm day.


This small lizard joined me while I ate my lunch.


There is another trout up there, bigger than the ones I photographed, way bigger. The trout is incredibly spooky, any sight of movement and it bolts out of it's holding area. Today I will head up to this tailwater for a bike ride with the family, I bringing along my camera with a polarized filter to try and photographs this incredibly large fish. I would fish for the trout but not on the weekend, as there is way to much foot and bike traffic from all the weekend warriors.

Cheers

The SoCal Fly Fisher

Corbina Fly

The Surfin' Merkin

Some the the materials needed in the photos below.
Note: I also used some UV crystal flash fibers on the tail, silver tinsel around the eyes, plus Clear Cure Goo for durability. The tying is fairly easy if you can tame the EP Fibers, they seem to go all crazy on me.









This the end results, it's about the size of a quarter as Paul Cronin stated in his video tutorial also posted on the blog.


I have a few more flies to go. Enjoy the flies, and happy fly fishing.

The SoCal Fly Fisher

Finally there is a winner

I bet you guys want this to be over with already...

Well I'm here to tell you that it is....

Just one lucky fly tying enthusiast will win...

The good news is your odds of wining just went up...

There are only twenty-two people who turned in flies...

But the fly box miraculously was filled with 408 flies...













This here was one of the last of the flies to arrive, PT Emerger





Well once all the flies were in place it was time to select a winner. I didn't do it, my baby boy was the one to pick the winner of the 408 flies. We carefully folded all the names into small squares and then put them into a red bucket. And as you all could see the baby picked out the winning name.

Picking the winning name out of the bucket...


And the winner is?


ila Trout... WTF


Gila Trout is your winner!


Congrats to Lanny aka Gila Trout on winning the nice full fly box, that's 408 flies!!!!

Thanks to all of you that participated in the very cool fly box give away, it was lots of fun for me. I was always happy to see that package in the mailbox. I always knew I was not going to be disappointed when I opened the package. Thanks to all of you that sent me extra sets of flies, you know who you guys are, I really do appreciate all the flies. Damn this was good, I only wish I could have given this box away in person. Anyhow, Lanny you're the winner! Congrats and enjoy all the fish caught on each fly out of this box.


Cheers!

The SoCal Fly Fisher

Surfin' Merkin

I was surfin' the web looking for a fly tying tutorial video on how to tie Paul Cronin's Surfin' Merkin. Well I found the video, even better than just finding the video I found a video made by Paul Cronin himself, yes you guessed it he's tying the Surfin' Merkin. If you want to sight fish for Corbina in SoCal, the Surfin Merkin is one of the go to patterns. I don't usually do the whole video thing on the blog here, but since I need to tie up a good dozen of these I needed to add the video to where I have easy access and so will my few readers.




Happy fly tying and cheers!
The SoCal Fly Fisher

Surf flies

There are so many fly patterns being tied when it comes to fly fishing in the surf. Below are just a few that I have used in the past. Quite a few shrimp patterns, and a couple of sand crabs on the rod grip. Below the rod grip are a few bait fish/clouser patterns and an attractor pattern.



I was cleaning my saltwater fly box out and trying to rearrange the flies. It was a big mess with not much in the way of order. I have seen similar photos with flies on the rod grip, but I hope none like the one I just photographed.


The SoCal Fly Fisher