Cliff Fly Box Art Madness

Jack Dennis is a last minute kind of guy. On Monday he sent me a box of twelve Cliff Fly Boxes to put my fish art on. He planned to get these boxes to me on May 1st but just kept putting it off. Finally, last week he got around to ordering them and of course he wanted them drawn up ASAP! Well, I’m a man that comes through in the clutch – I got them all done in less then 36 hours.

Cliff Outdoors is a family owned business located in Casper, Wyoming that designs and manufactures unique practical outdoor gear. Their current product line is geared to needs of practical fly anglers.

If you want to order a decorated Cliff Fly Box or send me your own box so I can spice it up, then feel free to contact me. I charge $25 for one side or $50 for both. And I’ll do any fish species you want from the hook jawed brown trout to the fattest carp you ever saw!

You name it! You’ll find a “Contact Me” button on the right hand side of this blog.

Check out even more information on my web site.

Jack Dennis is a last minute kind of guy. On Monday he sent me a box of twelve Cliff Fly Boxes to put my fish art on. He planned to get these boxes to me on May 1st but just kept putting it off. Finally, last week he got around to ordering them and of course he wanted them drawn up ASAP! Well, I’m a man that comes through in the clutch – I got them all done in less then 36 hours.

Cliff Outdoors is a family owned ine is geared to needs of practical fly

Jeff Currier Global Fly Fishing web site

Sand, Crabs and Cool Surf Fish

November 5, 2009

Sam Vigneri and I are still in Baja. Our attempt to catch a marlin ended yesterday and today we rested up by sleeping in until about 7am. Once awake, we headed to Todos Santos to have breakfast with Grant Hartman and his wife Giselle. After the superb Mexican meal, they spent the day relaxing while Sammy and I opted to chuck flies in the Pacific surf.

Grant gave us excellent instructions as to where we may find a few fish. At our first stop we wandered out on to the beach and sized up the fishing challenges. It was simple, the breaking surf was huge and the tide was just beginning to drop. Fly fishing the surf is one of the most difficult forms of fly fishing there is. You almost always have a strong wind blowing directly in your face making it difficult to cast. Crashing waves make it even more difficult by not only taxing your ability to physically stand without being swept out to sea, but also play havoc with your fly line. It’s simple, as you strip line down on the beach while retrieving your fly; waves roll up the beach and wash the line away. As you go to make the next cast, it’s hard to shoot the line because it is getting sucked out to sea by waves. Toss in the fact that your line is gritted up with sand and you can hardly get the fly out there!

A couple tricks that work for me are first off, use a stripping basket. Stripping baskets strap around your waist and rather than stripping line on to the beach, you strip it into the basket. By doing so you don’t have to fight the waves when you go to shoot a cast and you will get a lot less sand on the fly line allowing it to slide through the guides much easier. In addition to the basket, I like to use a 9½ foot long rod. The extra 6-inches helps elevate my backcast over the top of a steep beach. Most of the beaches along the Pacific Ocean are steep and today was no exception.

Four hours into our fishing we were absolutely getting our butts kicked. Neither of us had a strike. We where exhausted, soaking wet and had plenty of sand in our hair and everywhere else you can think of. Worst of all, we completely lost our confidence. Sometimes the surf appears so inhospitable that you just can’t imagine fish live in it!

We kicked back and had some fun catching a few crabs. While doing so I noticed some rocks becoming exposed from the dropping tide. Sam and I both agreed the rocks looked worthy of a few casts so we put on the old Clouser Minnows and placed some casts around the rocks. I picked up a croaker on my first cast then next cast another. I think they were yellowfin croakers, but any verification would be appreciated. I called Sammy over and as I took pics of my second croaker he hooked into something different. It actually put up a heck of a fight. I think it’s some sort of surf perch. I plan to research it this week but if you know please tell me.

Sammy and I had a great week despite challenging fishing. It’s always good to spend time with old friends and that we did. Sammy and I fished until sunset and tomorrow he will head back to Wyoming. I have one last day and will solo the beaches of the East Cape.

Global Fly Fishing Web Site

Carp Commandos Down in the Trenches

I left the house in the dark this morning to meet friends Dennis Butcher, George Kuvinka and Jay Buchner, a well known fly tier of Jackson Hole - truly one of the best I have ever seen. I owed Dennis a guided trip to fly fish for carp and today was the day. It's normally about a 2 hour drive to my spot, but thick fog slowed us and the ride took about 3 hours. Once there it was so cold and cloudy it wasn't yet worth fishing  so we filled up on a huge breakfast at the town hotel. By the time we were finished the weather still sucked, but I had no choice but to lead the troops to the small reservoir. To my dismay, it was nearly dry! Nice guiding job Currier! I had no idea that the dam on the reservoir was being repaired and the carp flats were dry to the bone. It was time to re-learn my favorite carp lake on the spot.  This was no easy feat for the weather still sucked with thick clouds and fog and temps around 35 degrees, absolutely horrific carp conditions. The reason this was so horrible is that it helps tremendously if you can see the carp before you cast and this requires sunshine. Also, 35 degrees is brutally cold for carp as they prefer much warmer conditions. The only water left was basically the old river channel which was too deep to see the carp feeding along the bottom sun or no sun. Fortunately these guys are friends and we went for a walk along the dried up mud flats searching for carp in what water existed the best we could. It was pretty cool actually as we found all kinds of things from soccer balls to half frozen crayfish that we were able to rescue. The only thing missing were the carp! The sun finally popped at 2 PM and at last a few carp began to show. And I do mean a few. On this lake I normally find myself casting to carp almost all day. But with today’s conditions and the lack of flats we only saw about 10 all day!

Luckily, some of these carp were cooperative and we landed three 4-7lb mirror carp. Jay caught one of them on Jay's crayfish pattern. It's a brownish orange color in a size 8. Jay was letting it sink to the bottom and slowly stripping it back. I caught my fish in one of Jay's nymph patterns. It's a beadhead in a size 14. It looks similar to a pheasant tail nymph only it has a red dubbed head and rubberlegs. Most of my favorite carp nymphs have rubberlegs. The fly retrieve was as slow as you could imagine. I literally crawled the nymphs in front of fish using a one finger hand twist. The fish were so lethargic that they followed the fly at a snails pace before sucking it in. In addition to the carp, Jay streamered up quite a surprise when he landed a healthy little smallmouth bass. A species I'd never seen in the lake.

It appears my carping may be done for the year in Wyoming and Idaho due to the onset of winter. I think tomorrow morning I'll do some art then head up to the Henry's Fork Ranch, fish the baetis hatch and stick some pig rainbows!

Global Fly Fishing Web Site