San Juan

Here are a few pics from a trip I made to the San Juan back in 07. Had a great time and unfortunately lost a lot of the pictures from the trip. I need to get back out there one of these days.

Average fish for the Juan.

Releasing a nice 19" fish.

Netting a fish with the sandstone cliffs

 in the background.

Fish of the trip!

To pretty not to get a second pic.

Tightening up the drag after a big fish 

almost spools me.  

Fishing Report

Nothing to big to report, but at least I finally got out to do a little bit of fishing. Had a pretty good day. Ended the day with a dozen or so smallmouth, nothing to big but some nice solid chunks. The fish were really keying in on a foxy clouser. Wish I lived closer to this location and it was easier to get to but the effort it takes to fish it is defiantly worth it.

First smallie this year. 

A nice spotted bass 

Gou's are still one of my favorite fish. 

The fish to were really keying in on a foxy clouser. 

Bass Jig

Here's a great pattern I've been tying up this week restocking the bass box. Its a fairly large jig intended for large mouth bass. I'm sure it would be a great small mouth fly if you down sized it some and if you went with a size 6 and changed up the colors the carp should take a liking to it also. This fly happens to be purple and black, but black/blue, rust/black, tan/rust, and other buggy colors work just as good.

I start off with a size 4/0 Mustad 60 degree jig hook. This is a medium wire hook, it is very sharp and plenty strong. Tie in some marabou, I'm using 2 plumes since this is a fairly large fly. I like to tie the marabou down the length of the hook shank to build some body to the fly.

Next tie in just a little bit of flash.

Then take a contrasting color of ostrich herl and 

mix in with the marabou. Its kinda hard to see

in the picture, sorry.

Tie in some estaz chenille along with 2 contrasting colors of large schlappen. Great colors are black/purple, black/blue, and so on. Bears Den is a great Fly Shop by the way!

After you tie in the schlappen and estaz, tie in the eyes. these are the 1/4" I-Balz. The wrap the estaz chenille up the hook shank and figure 8 around the eyes.

Take the schlappen and fold them on top of each other and

 wrap up the hook shank to the eyes. 

Tie off right in front of the eyes.

In front of the eyes tie in some more ostrich herl. You'll want some on the top and bottom of the fly. They just need to be the length of the hook shank to slightly past the bend of the hook.

Here's a great tip I learned from Rob Woodruff who is an Orvis Endorsed Guide on Lake Fork. When making a leader for bass fishing. Take about 3' of chartreuse mono like Suffix Elite as your butt section. Then add your 4-5' of flourocarbon to complete the leader. This colored butt section on the leader acts as a strike indicator. Bass can either slam a fly or just ease up to it and suck it in. When using a fly like this jig that your going to be working fairly slowly, LMB are most likely just going to come up and suck this fly in. You won't know if a fish has taken your fly till it starts swimming off. Watch that colored mono for any movement to detect a fish has your fly. I fished with Rob several years ago and learned alot about LMB and techniques to catch them. He defiantly comes highly recommended on my list of guides to fish with and if you ever have the chance to take a trip with him on legendary Lake Fork don't pass it up.