I stopped into Atlantic Outfitters yesterday for some supplies and mentioned to John Thompson, the owner, that I’m getting ready for my northern pike outing next month. He pulled this from his tying table, a creation from one of his weekly tying classes, and gave it to me to test for results. Looks to be pike nasty, maybe even muskie nasty, so we’ll see what goes down.
Posts tagged “muskellunge”
Killing rabbits has become trendy in Brooklyn. Okay then, but what are they doing with the pelts? As Matt Stansberry reminded me in his blog post about his pike ties on the vise, rabbit strip agrees with the Esox family. We’ve got our own pike fishing trip coming up in May. While I’m more apt to fish a Puglisi pattern or an Eat-Me, I’ll always dedicate time working some dead rabbit. I’m haunted by the memories from Aught Two, when our man Crispin worked the vise one night, then used his white rabbit-strip creation to entice this 52″ muskie out from under a felled tree. Damn I’d be down with some of that.
Tagged: muskellunge, northern pike, pike flies
Tagged: anti-purist, bait casting, muskellunge, muskie fishing
42 degrees, windchill of 32 on the water. 20-25 mph North Wind. 500 casts. Fishless. Beer brings up the core temperature.
Tagged: cold weather, muskellunge, muskie fishing
Tagged: fly tying, muskellunge, muskie flies, vice work
Tagged: chasing big fish, muskellunge, muskie
The place on the river has been in the family since the 1840s. As good as my brothers and I think we are, being the only ones who really fly fish the area, the best angler in our family’s time had to be Great Great Uncle Frank. We have pictures of him handling several large muskie, stringers of smallmouth, and a human-sized wahoo from Florida, where he also fished. He used bait casters and oiled silk and catgut and wooden lures and plugs. Another Uncle described him as a water genius. In his later days he became legally blind but he still took out the skiff every day and tended to his minnow traps and fished. He’d find his way by shadows based on…
I met up with Robert Tomes, who wrote the book Muskie on the Fly. Not surprisingly, when he fishes saltwater he chases permit. “I like fish that don’t like me,” he said. The comment turned the discussion to mapping the personal evolution of the fly angler. Making the commitment to learn to cast a fly rod, and then catch fish with it, means you’ve already made a decision to make things harder on yourself. At the beginning the focus is on just getting that one fish to fall in line. That first fish on the fly is like the stamp on your hand as proof of admission.You never want to wash it off. Then it becomes kind of a numbers game; success is measured…
Tagged: muskellunge, permit, Robert Tomes, self flagellation
Robert Tomes will be signing books at the Urban Angler tonight.
Tagged: muskellunge
The Fly Fishing Film Tour comes to NYC on this Thursday, April 2nd. Click the link for location and directions. Robert Tomes, author of Muskie on the Fly, is doing a book signing at the Urban Angler on Tuesday, April 7th from 5-7pm.
