First Annual Oregon Fly Fishing Festival

Saturday was beautiful weather for being outside...no rain, no wind...a perfect 65-degrees...the smells of spring all around.  Several hundred fly anglers visited the Festival. High points were the huge selection of tackle to feel & try, casting events & non-stop prizes. Good times were had by all.

Our store was jammed with people. The local restaurants reported a huge surge in business.  All parking areas were used up, traffic jams were created and shuttles were performed...much to amusement of all involved.  This was the First Annual Oregon Fly Fishing Festival.  Next years even will involve more of our community.  June 16-17, 2007.

Fishing Green Drake Hatches
These large insects are trout candy on our western streams. Green drakes are the largest mayflies that provide fishable hatches in our fast local waters. In the Pacific Northwest region, look for them toward the end of the giant stonefly hatches; May & June. Hatches occur during mid-day and are usually easily visible.  Windless, cloud-cover days are best. Green Drakes are large insects and evidently taste really good to trout.  When Green Drakes hatch in good numbers the trout forget all other foods and target them only.  A dense hatch of Green Drakes can bring the largest trout to the surface.   But, Green Drakes are fickle and somewhat unpredictable.  Some days have heavy hatches others very light.  Some regions of a stream will have more insects than others.  Green Drake hatches are something that the fully armed angler prepares for, even though it may not be the main target.  However, if you ever encounter a major Green Drake hatch and are unprepared you will remember it with sorrow.  Pictured is a Drunella Grandis dun, which is the cover shot from WESTERN MAYFLY HATCHES, By: Dave Hughes and Rick Hafele.  It is a great reference material for the trout fisher. Check out our special deal.

Available by 06/10/06.

The key to success is "understanding".  You can never know enough.
Understanding the organisms that trout feed on is one of the keys to catching trout.
WESTERN MAYFLY HATCHES
By: Dave Hughes and Rick Hafele
is great reference material for the trout fisher.
Check out our special deal.
 

Simms Rivertek Windstopper Soft Shell

The protection of a shell with the soft comfort of a mid-layer.

After extensive testing, our shop people feel the Rio Skagit Floater is the best floating fly line choice, for the Winston BIIX Spey Series fly rod action. 

Length: 13' 3"       Line: #7/8     Pieces: 4   

Length: 13'       Line: #8/9     Pieces: 4   

Length: 14'       Line: #8/9     Pieces: 4   

Length: 15'       Line: #9/10     Pieces: 4   

When Winston initially introduced their new line of B2X Spey rods in 2005 there was a favorable reception in the market place, but no big stir.  They were different, maybe too different for the average caster to appreciate.  They were too powerful for their weight, they recovered so fast it was hard for the average guy to feel the "kick" as the rod unloaded, therefore a little hard for the average guy to time.  I know because even though I get lots of time on the water, it's sometimes hard to adapt to a new rod/line setup. My initial interest was the 8914 model because that's a rod size that fits our fishery very well. Brian Silvey and I experimented with WindCutter fly lines and came to the conclusion

that if we over-lined the rod one size, it loaded down into the butt and delivered real power. At the last Sandy River Spey Clave, I got to cast this same rod with Andre Scholz, Winston's Spey Pro.  Andre prefers a Scandinavian Shooting head system with a much shorter and lighter head and loading the rod off the tip.  The results were blazing, narrow, pretty loops.  Incorporated into Andres system were Poly Leaders and and extremely long tippets.  This kind of set up will present small flies with maximum delicacy and stealth, great for Atlantic Salmon and east-side summer steelhead.  Marty Sheppard Talked about using a 550 Skagit with a 5-foot Cheater and a standard Rio fast sinking tip on this same Winston rod.  He said it was the easiest outfit for his customers to learn to cast and fish with.  That caught my attention, because there ain't nuthin' the matter with easy.  He was right!  It is an easy outfit to fish the rivers on the west side where we use larger flies fished deep.  My wife Patty used this comfortable outfit the last two trips we fished together.  I Mostly fished a 13' 3" 7/8 Winston with a 450 Skagit, using a 5-foot cheater and standard tip.  I could cover all the water I wanted too with this lighter weight outfit, even when fishing with larger tub flies.  Then I tried the new 15' 9/10 weight cannon with a 650 Skagit.  Wow!  The limitation on distance was keeping the shooting line from tangling.  This is the new big water tamer.  Might be interesting to see someone use one of these rods at Spey-O-Rama.

Rio Skagit Floater Spey Line

Color: Yellow Head/Green Running Line
This is a weight forward line that is designed for "Skagit Style" casting. It incorporates a short, heavy shooting-head type line with a compound taper for presenting very large, weighted flies.  The head on this line is 10' shorter than the popular WindCutter line of the same weight.  The compact design allows easier casting of large flies and requires a shorter "D" loop which will appeal to beginners or anglers working around stream bank vegetation.

These lines are very much like the "Mark-mark" lines of a few years ago.  They were shortened WindCutters.  We had found that if we shortened the head of WindCutter Spey Line, it was a lot easier for beginners to learn with.  Since the WindCutters of the era didn't change color at the rear taper like the modern ones, it was hard to see how much "over-hang" you had past the rod tip.  We installed a 6" band with a black waterproof marker pen.  We sold so many of these lines, that guys started calling it the "Mark-mark" line.  It sounded kind of like the hair-lip dog joke, but it worked very well for the purpose intended.
We have tried Skagit Floaters on a wide range of rods and field conditions. Because of its compactness, it is a great line when working in tight places, such as smaller rivers or when working off the steep side of any river that has overhanging branches, or anywhere there is little back cast room.  This is a great teaching line when you want a group of students clustered around you in a small area. It is a great practice line when your practice area is small. The best attribute this line has is beating the wind.  The short, compact head allows you to load a rod hard and stop very quickly, thus generating very fast line speed.

When choosing a Skagit Floater to match your present Skagit Spey system, you might want to rethink sizing.  The chart below shows the the total head weights for Skagit Speys with standard Rio components.  As you can see, the the relative weights of the heads vary widely between floating and sinking tip lines of the same size designation.  If you like the way your rod feels with your sinking tip setup, then you should move up a size when buying a Skagit Floater.