Summer! Summer! Summer!

With Spring and Summer finally starting to make an appearance I have started to get a little excited for this upcoming season.

I thought I would post come pictures from last season to share the excitement!

I will start with a couple pictures from late spring of 2012

This was my first Steelhead on a long line that season, I had just put the skagit head  away for the season. This fish took a muddler in the tail out of the Canadian hole. What a Rush!

Nice coloured up dropback Steelhead.

This Atlantic was caught  in the heat of summer, nothing is as refreshing as kneeling in the water to tail a fresh Atlantic!  This fish was a bit of a surprise, I remember saying to my buddy kyle that it was just a weee little guy, and as soon as the words left my mouth the rod started to bend all the way to the cork! This was a hot fish that took a lot of convincing to land!

This  fish  has probably had the biggest influence on my tying style than any other fish.  After seeing many brilliant fly tiers dress classic salmon flies I wondered if these flies were actually fished? After some research and meeting some very skilled anglers I discovered that there are a very few select anglers that do actually fish these flies.  So I thought that there must be some merit to these flies, I figured that if a fly didn’t catch fish then chances are it wouldn’t have survived 150 years right?. After some research I decided that I would try to tie and fish one of these flies. I decided to tie a “Jock Scott” and fish it! I will be the first one to say that my Jock Scott was not the most successful tie, there numerous mistakes and substitutions in material, but I got the general pattern on the hook.  One day while fishing with my buddy Kyle, we were having a slow day, very few fish caught that morning. Then we decided to fish some different water down river, after both of us walked through the run with no fish to hand we were stumped, I then opened my fly box and my eyes instantly went to my mangled Jock Scott. I tied it on and a couple swings later I had this Atlantic comp down and take off, it took a little bit of convincing before I managed to get  him to hand.  After this fish, I have become very fond of  salmon flies, its definitely something to remember when a salmon chomps down and commits to a 150 year old salmon fly pattern!

Hopefully these pictures and stories reminded you of some of your own special memories made on the river!

Thanks!

2013 Spring Expo

Hey Everyone,

It has been quite a while since I last posted and I apologize for that.

It has been a couple very busy weeks for me, between tying flies for customers, getting ready for the Spring Expo, and working full time on top of that. But not that the Expo has passed I am able to relax and focus on the blog some more.

For the 2013 Spring Expo I was asked by the Arts Council of Sault Ste. Marie to do some fly tying demonstrations. This is the second time I have had the opportunity to  work with the Arts Council. This time I asked Nicole Esson and Brett Kelly to come tie with me.

I forgot to bring my camera to the event so unfortunately there is only one picture from the event.Photo: Left to Right – Nicole Esson, Brett Kelly, Chris Anema

It was a great event to be a part of and it was great to see all the interest in fly tying, we even had two young kids ask to tie a fly! We took the time with them and walked them through tying their first Wolly Bugger! It was great!

We also had the opportunity to hang out with some of the guys from Fishbum Outfitters. Make sure you check them out, the owner Matt is a great guy and you will be hard pressed to find better customer service anywhere! 

 

Stay tuned as our Steelheading season is starting to warm up and this blog will be ontop of reports and lots of fishy pictures!

 

Thanks

Chris

 

Spey Hackles!

Just thought I would give you all a sneak peak at some Spey Hackles Brett and I have been working on.

You can see how large the hackles are by using Brett’s hand as a reference, these hackles are the perfect substitute for Heron. I will post a picture of a fly tied with this hackle later on so you can see how it wraps around the hook.

There is talk of getting these hackles out to market for everyone to purchase, but nothing is set in stone yet. We will keep you posted!

Making the Switch to WordPress

Hey everyone,

Currently I am working on transfering my blog from Blogger to WordPress

There may be a few kinks I have to work out so please bear with me, Ill be posting fishy things in no time!

 

Thanks and enjoy the new blog!

Ready for Battle

Lately I have been getting ready for my Spring / Summer season, and man I am getting excited. When the days start to get longer near the end of winter, I start turning my eyes towards summer flies and long lines.

In this post I will let you in on some of my plans for this up coming season. Since I started spey fishing and tying flies I was instantly drawn to the classic and traditional style of fly tying. My summer box hints quite heavily on this fact.

I have added some mixed wings to my box for this summer, its a shame that this style of salmon fly has faded out of our fly boxes and into books of a past generation of anglers. I am not sure why this is, maybe because the materials are expensive? Well so is Jungle Cock, Rhea, Amherst, Temple Dog, and lots of other materials that are still used quite extensively in modern fly tying. Maybe its because they are to hard to tie? I think at first they may seem daunting and hard, but I remember when I tied my first woolly bugger I thought the same thing, and now I can whip out a bugger in less than a minute.

I will say that I have nothing against Intruders and all those fancy new Steelhead and Salmon patterns out there. I guess in time every thing gets buried in history books, and who knows maybe in a hundred years someone will be saying the same thing about Intruders, but for now I will keep some history out of the books and in my box.

This is a set of mixed wings I have in mind for some fresh Steelhead and Atlantics, the two on the far right have already been in a Steelhead’s jaw, but sadly I wasn’t able to land them.

Muddlers are extremely productive here in the St. Marys River. Iif your planning of coming up for some Atlantics this summer, make sure you take lots of muddlers, they get chomped up pretty fast. 

I am also going to use some skaters for this season, I am going to spend alot of time looking for that one special fish that will commit to a skated fly. There is a very good chance that I won’t connect with one of these fish, but there is also a tiny chance I will, and for me, that makes it a worthwhile pursuit.

Fish eye view of some Skaters.

This Ringneck Heron is fast becoming one of my favourite and most productive flies, It has proved it self with and without the Heron hackle. The above version is tied with out the Heron.

Fish eye view of the Ringneck Heron.

Here is a simple spey pattern that was the predecessor to the Ringneck Heron, this fly has always held a place in my box as a confidence fly for me. 

This is a simple, sleek strip wing, I intend on using this fly in gin clear water when other patterns don’t seem to be producing.

Here is my mixed wing army ready for battle, A couple flies in here were tied in hand with out a vise, I chose to tie some in hand to pay tribute to the salmon fly dressers of the past who never used a vise. 

Fish eye view of the mixed wings

Feel free to comment with your opinions on why traditional salmon flies are falling out of popularity. 

I hope you enjoyed this post, looking forward to showing you all some pictures of these flies in the jaws of some beautiful fish!

Chris