Happenings Around the Shop

Well the week is almost over, and tomorrow I head out on a 3 day hiking trip, but its been a busy week at the shop for Casey and I. No fishing involved, but hours at the vise... yup lots of those. For whatever reason we decided it was a good time to skip tying all our trout flies of the up and coming season, and well start on some Redfish flies for our trip in September. Yeah I don't know but its been a fun time so far. We have tied over 3 dozen flies and haven't booked a plane tickets, many have come from 2 sites Kyle showed us, Skinny Water Culture  and 239 Flies. So the Plan is that Kyle, Casey, and I, will head down to the gulf side of FL in September, here's what we have so far.

And this is what we are looking for:

Check out Brian's Blog, for the rest of his stories from Florida!

On top of that I want to thank everyone who came out to the State College store, and watched the Fly Fishing Film Tour yesterday. It was a great success, and the turn out was awesome. And besides, there is nothing like having a few beers (and maybe some Bourbon) with your buddies that you don't see very often.

Other than that not much else going on, just getting ready for the Fly Fishing Show in Lancaster. Not doing anything next weekend come on down to the Lancaster convention center and say hi.

Tully Report

Last week marked the first two consecutive days of decent winter fishing on the Tully. Casey and I, fished the end of the week, having Leland and Kyle tag along as well. The first day the fishing was still a bit slow, but Casey managed a really nice healthy brown. Day two was a little better with a solid rainbow coming to hand minutes after getting on the stream. We hand a few more fish that day, all healthy Fat rainbows. Just about the time we started to head back to the cars, fish started working on top, Casey had a few fish working in front of him, while up by Kyle and I we had many fish coming up, but with no pattern to them. I wish we could have stayed around for another hour or so, maybe tomorrow.

Hot Flies: Hot Head Prince Nymph, Hot head PT, Zebra Midge, Glass Biot Midge

TCO's Rental Fly Shop

TCO is proud to announce the beginning of its full service Rental Fly Shop! Whether you are headed to a new destination, or just want to try out some new gear, TCO can help! Check out our selection of rental gear at http://www.rentalflyshop.com/. TCO's rental fly shop has many features to help you prepare for your next adventure, going to the tropics? or out west?, we can get your gear to your final destination before you arrive. Don't know exactly what to get; give the Reading shop a call, and we can help you pick out exactly what you need, toll free 877-826-3597 or 610-678-1899.

We can set you up!

Smallmouth ???

So, when you think about warm water fishing, you don't think about frozen guides do you? Well we do, and did, after talking about smallmouth at Somerset, I had an itching to get out and throw the 6wt. For 3 days straight I talked about smallmouth bass, and how awesome the Schuylkill River was, so I had to get back out. I started looking at the map, realizing that there were a few more access points closer to the Kernsville dam, an overhead dam above Hamburg PA, I some how convinced Frank "Chip", and Casey to tag along as we checked out some new water. We got to the take out, checked it out, "Yup we can make this happen" I said, dropped Casey's car off and headed up stream. We got to the dam, where there was another access point, not sure what size boats they were talking about, but no Outcast 1400 was fitting down the narrow 100 yard trail to the river, so we headed down to a couple other spots we had checked out. Under the rt. 61 bridge, "Yup looks good", so we got geared up.

We fished all the way down to the take out, finding some awesome water long the way, Chip hooked one fish right off the bat, but that was it. We spooked a couple others, but frozen guides and 10 degree temperature changes from, shade to sun, didn't help us much. Either way it was an adventure, something I had been lacking for a while, and we found an awesome stretch of water for the summer.

Can't wait till this is full of Smallmouth Bass

Chip, all excited, thinking about the monster smallies

Oh yeah, and a new Musky Streamer I tied up for the trip.

This is probably my new favorite Musky Fly Pattern

Thanks Casey and Chip for tagging along!!!

Joey's Fish

Travel is in Joey's new job description, for those of you that don't know, Joey is now a sales rep for Simms, Winston, and a few other leading manufactures in this industry. With the amount of windsheld time he has been putting in, its hard to find time to fish, so when he does, it has to count. A couple of days ago he was down at Mossy Creek Outfitters in VA, so naturally he had to stop by the stream and check it out. Here is what he saw.

Joey with an amazing Mossy Creek Rainbow

The fly.

Featured Fly - LG Baitfish

After talking about smallmouth bass for 3 days at the Somerset Fly Fishing Show, I had the itch to tie up a new streamer to makes it's debut this summer, or maybe spring for steelhead, or maybe this weekend for trout. Either way I wanted to tie up a streamer. So I picked up a simple streamer that Lenny tied and I really liked it, so I decided to add a couple twists to it and see what happened. Here it is.

Materials:

Hook: 35mm Shank

Tail: Rabbit Strip - White

Body: UV Polar Chenille - Pearl

Back: Rabbit Strip - White 

Collar: Guinea - Red

Legs: Sili Legs - Red

Collar 2: Barred Mallard - Natural 

Head: Rabbit - Dubbing Loop

Eyes: Oval Pupal 3D Eyes 

Step 1: Make a thread base, adding a piece of .030 lead under the shank.

Step 2: Tie in the Fireline about 3/4 the length of the shank.

Step 3: Tie in the rabbit strip at the back of the shank.

Step 4: Tie in the UV Polar Chenille right in front of the rabbit.

Step 5: Palmer the polar chenille forward. Leaving about a 1/4th the shank empty.

Step 6: Bring the rabbit forward, tie down.

Step 7: Tie in a Guinea feather by the tips.

Step 8: Make 2 or 3 wraps of the guinea.

Step 9: Tie in the Sili Legs, but only make them about an inch long.

Step 10: Repeat step 9.

Step 11: Tie in a Barred Mallard feather, make 2 or 3 wraps.

Step 12: Make a dubbing loop with rabbit.

Step 13:  Palmer the rabbit, to form the head.

Step 14: Add a little head cement to the back of your eyes and push onto the rabbit. You are now done