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You're welcome. Bunch of days on the water, guiding and fishing between us.

It is fun. Especially when you are feeding them into the "perfect" spot

I'm trying. He's been on the IR after a couple surgeries

@@alexlafkasfly-fishing9088 I wish him a speedy recovery.

It started here on that last cold front. Had a bunch of opportunities with clients yesterday but....failure. Not looking like a great week but should improve once the next front hits

I'm not sure you're hearing the vinyl or the frame. I'm guessing it's the frame. I taped up where the frame comes together but might need to wd40 the joints. Two boats I use for 2 different applications. I love my raft in small water but feel it's about useless on big rivers. It really depends what you plan to do with it.

Yes. There are a ton of rivers in that area I'd like to spend more time on

There will be more to come.

I'm planning on doing more of it. You are definitely not alone

I've got a couple hundred miles of trout streams within 2 hours of the house. A good problem to have

I'm still not sure if I love it or hate, probably gotta keeping going and trying to figure it out

That's the key with that wet skunk. It's absolutely devastating when fished correctly

There's plenty, just had a rough day. Caught plenty the other day with a client

Those of us who live here are very fortunate

Last I looked he didn't have many colors in stock but he'll reload it soon I'm sure

Larry, good to hear from you. Everything is good on my end, hope the same is true for you

It's a struggle. Best advice is to vist shops and pick through them. You might reach out to the guy at Midwest bucktail and tell him what you're looking for. Ive gotten some nice stuff from him

That yellow does piss off the males

Might get a little before long but will definitely have some big rubber content by late November

Awesome!

Thank you

Thanks

I'm a pro!

Sure thing Dean

It's all fun. The fly tying has led me into a bunch of lure customization. It really helps keep me going when the trout fishing isn't great

Good to hear. I love it all and there's a lot to each approach

I'm into all of it and sometimes the similarities shocking. Doing both (muskies and browns) has helped immensely for each species. Minnesota is one id like to visit but I am a little bit of a home body when it comes to fishing. Michigan has a lot to offer and seasons are way too short

Exactly what I said the first time I saw her coming up to the boat. Then it was a cluster as i tried to land her solo

@@alexlafkasfly-fishing9088 i m since 6 Days in Sweden and try to catch something like you did. I m yelous. 😁

Should be a good one for you

Thanks Terry

Somehow or other I ended up with enough seven weight's in my collection to have figured this out over the decades, and it's lots of different fishing situations. When you really need an eight weight, you haven't got it. Or when you need a six, the same. One thing that did shock me since I began to take readings of my different lines (first to obtain gram scale weight measurements, and later on taking more accurate measurements of distance on the grass, to try and figure out length of lines I find work, combined with weight data on the same), . . was I took the measurement of weight of a full 'seven weight' fly line. Granted one is not using the entirety of the weight forward line when casting. But still, putting a floating seven weight fly line on a scale shocked me, how much floating lines do weigh. I don't know what I had expected to happen. The point is that I had cast shortened tungsten impregnated lines for a while, where I'd used only a portion of a full Sink 3 or Sink 6 line. And I consistently ended up with something that was a lot lighter in weight than floating line would be.

Because if you think about it, if you only have the amount of sinking line material that is necessary 'to deliver a presentation' of a certain size of streamee fly, then you can step back down to a running line of your choice thereafter (at the rear end of your fly line head). That is, you don't require a colossal amount of 'fat' floating density line, or you don't require a huge amount of sinking density line material either. Only enough to deliver a said presentation of a said fly. Nothing more. And when one learns that much discipline, then a seven weight starts to make some sense (RIO gripshooter is gossamere thin running line with an orange coating for some line manipulation). It comes in a really thin-ish 20LB version, and slightly heavier 30LB, which is more suitable to seven weight. The 20LB will shoot nicely on the average six weight.

What also shocked me was the difference there is between 'seven weight rods'. One I can use to cast large dry flies, combined with a four weight floating line. Shocker. Another I can almost cast a ten weight RIO outbound with, but not quite. It's a seven weight that is almost a nine weight (the other can operate with a four weight line on it). And I've got one seven weight now, that is pretty much what I think a seven weight rod is. Or it seems to consistently produce the results in casting and fishing that you'd expect a normal seven weight to produce. So when we talk about fly rods, it's important to know that about one's rod collection. So when you pick up a rod to use it for a purpose, you know in advance what you can expect, or not.

I spent a decade and a half up in the ten to eleven weight single handed fly rod power bracket. So my knowledge of eight or nine weight is peripheral. Similarly with six weight and four weight. However, everything I said about 'seven weight' applies to 'five weight' rods too. Know what you have. In fact, number eleven weight rods are hugely dissimilar (I've a ten weight that is much stronger than my oldest eleven weight, but that old eleven weight, it's 'lack of spine' is really it's thing, and it's a valuable thing). Last week I unwrapped and cast a new 'four weight' and it's completely unlike my existing one. So now I understand, that everything I said about 'seven' and 'five' weight, does apply to 'four' weights too. Six's and eight's are too essential tools to learn, but thus far I have one single six weight in my humble possession, and I don't think I've ever had an eight weight. I did have a nine weight, which I broke, and stick to ten and eleven afterwards. But, eight to nine weight in that true weight or power bracket is a tool that I'm missing for certain jobs now.

Yes, I completely agree. Some of the rods I've cast over the years, it felt like they just put a random number on it. I've had 6wts that felt like 9s and 10s that felt like 8s. I do think that if you have an opportunity to cast a rod with multiple tapers and weight lines, each caster will find their perfect combination

You're not alone. It's all fun!

Yeah buddy!

If you're at all familiar with how bass anglers add 'weed guard' in front of hook points (dragging structure jigs through vegetation under water). Behind that deer hair part, one can tie in a piece of Airflo tungsten coated monofilament leader, even the extremely heavy variety for salmon or steelhead. I'd dress it in facing forward, so that it sits in behind the deer hair head, but then curves around back towards the hook point, approximately like those weed guards look on bass casting jig lures. It's just another way to keel these buoyant types of flies, and it adds a small few grams additional weight around where the hook weight itself is located at mid-section (helps you get that side-to-side pivot).

Another place, using those tungsten coated monifilament leaders I add weight to. When I get down to the thin part of the leader. I use a short length of the thin part of leader straight out the back of the fly, sort of embedded in the tail of the fly. What does it do? If you don't overdo it, it will slow down the back end of the fly, and make it more difficult for your deer hair up front to plough into the water directly in front of it. Where would you want this? Because yeah, I get it, when you pause the fly this tail weighting causes the fly to sink backways instead of suspend. Where on is casting over large boulder structure, saltwater habitat with high kinetic energy. You want you're deer hair buoyant fly to take it's time creeping and crawling over, and up and down between them. The tail weight works so it's easier to make the fly accelerate 'up' towards water surface, and then back down again.

As you are drawing the fly up from below towards the water surface, you can change orientation of rod and fly will seem to forage and feed sideways along a boulder side, or a depth change in a river channel. What you want in this type of fly fishing is a fly line that is really easy to control and hold above the fly. The line I find operates best for me, on some of my old 'six weight' higher end sink tip lines, that had aggressive increase of diameter at the head, and a light, thin floating line behind the head. I find this sort of 'four weight' floating running line material can be salvaged as a line. I just put ten or twelve feet of 'medium' sink rate in front of it. And fish it on a four or five weight fly rod. Something that I can bend around like a noodle in terms of a rod, and I have that thin floating line as a running line that I can use for line handling.

What some don't realize is that predatory bait fish, who are forced in saltwater environments to eek out their existence inside of these areas of high kinetic energy of the saltwater. They spend a lot of their time opportunistically swimming 'up hill' along the sides of under-water structure. It's what bass anglers spend forever taking about in terms of crankbait fishing, where the use the bill on their crankbaits, with the right casting anglers to bounce their lures off of structure. Because fish recognize it as a trigger of some small predator or juvenille fish is foraging around structure. It's a pattern that as yet, I haven't seen fly anglers talk about or study. Looking at weight on the fly, line design and selection, combined with casting angle and retrieve, it's a way to pattern fish in saltwater that can improve odds.

I guess the other point is I try to get my fishing time in, by standing on dry land portions of coastline (literally I'm situated above the fish and have to cast down towards these areas from above). The horizontal fly casting angle or retrieve doesn't do a lot for me. However, I see crankbait lure anglers do this all over the place, fishing rip rap etc from boats or kayaks and casting parallel to shoreline structure. Those anglers claim that they use softer crankbait rods because the treble hooks are easy to pull out in playing fish. I also think the reason is, they're fishing from above, down to structure with baits intended and designed to do this thing. Of creeping over structure. And that means your fishing rod with a crankbait lure has to engage with the lure a bit, to help the lure work. I favor the 'rod tip' down in the water in other circumstances, and perhaps a stiff tip, in situations where I haven't boulder or rip-rap ahead of me. I know guys claim conehead weighted flies climb over timber pretty well. I still see coneheads and lead wraps as being mid depth lure weighting techniques. For lures fished over structure underwater, I'd like the weight outside of the hook, dressing etc. And those tungsten coated monofilament strands are able to keel these flies in ways that is interesting for structure fishing (you can allow the fly to topple over sideways, and it then keels itself back over to right-side-up). In highly kinetic saltwater or freshwater rip rap conditions, the fly will likely spend a lot of it's time getting thrown sideways anyhow. The pauses in that fishing are the times between the ocean swell.

Id lean more towards pre spawn. After that the fish tend to prefer baits that go down in the water column. In the 50s (degree water) fish seem to like to chase more than lift and eat, from what I've seen. That's why I believe I've had the best luck from june through mid September in Michigan on it. It'd probably work just fine on a deep nymph rig though

I've got a new website domain and channel name picked out. Just trying to decide when to make that jump. I can deal with backlash, im hitting the age where I care less and less about that nonsense by the day

@alexlafkasfly-fishing9088 hell yeah dude! Hope the channel goes crazy for you. Hundred percent agree with you.

It is

Appreciate that!

Thanks!

It's beautiful up there

@@alexlafkasfly-fishing9088 Agreed, it’s just a really cool area up there to escape for a while

Thanks Alex

I do a little. Might get out this week for it.

@@alexlafkasfly-fishing9088 Nice, maybe you can make a video if you can. In the States is such an overlooked fish for some reason, here in Europe is very popular.

@@akaperry5626 I will. That might be a good plan for tomorrow

@@alexlafkasfly-fishing9088 Nice, can't wait to see it. ✌🏻

Rough week!

Kelly fishes conventional gear as well!

Thanks I don't have any dates as of now. I usually only end up with a day or two available each year. All the guys come for 5 days and typically just rebook before they leave

Good guess!

That's where I'm at

@@alexlafkasfly-fishing9088to me this is the leading edge of where the innovation is in both gear and fly fishing. It also cuts out the elitist crap and gets down to ‘fishing’. I really like using gear and fly at the same time with my partners. Then we can hone in on which discipline will fish better for the day. Will definitely follow in the future.

Thanks man

Alex- I’ve been watching you for a couple of years now and really started mimicking some of your deceivers since you did the podcast and tying session with Northern Angler. May I request your email address as I would like to communicate with you off this plate form as I would like to send you some product. I live in Mount Pleasant and fish the Chippawau three times a week wading since I moved here two months ago. Loving MI! Very fishy!

@mattykraemer sure thing man. Get with me at alafkas@hotmail.com and we can go from there

Sweet!!!

Thx Scott