July Fly of the Month….Galloup’s Zoo Cougar

Sticking to covering Kelly Galloup’s line of sweet streamers I thought I would only cover his newer flies (the pg-13 line of flies:)  ) but if I am going to cover his line of flies without saying anything about the Zoo Cougar–well, that would just be wrong….WRONG! 

With it’s deer hair head this fly pushes a ton of water and in night fishing that is pretty big.  This fly is a staple in fly boxes for night fishing the White River, Norfork River, and the North Fork of the White for sure along with many, many others. 

I do have to say that the Zoo Cougar is more common in the “blonde” style but don’t forget about the darker colors as well.

 

Here is a video of Mr. Galloup tying the Zoo Cougar:

BRILLIANT!

River of Life Farm….another visit from a film crew.

Yet another film crew stopped by River of Life Farm this week.  Springfield’s KSPR 33 had a little special on ROLF last night on the 10:00 news.  Anyway, here is the link…..

http://www.kspr.com/news/local/23049729.html

Marketing Genius!!!

Marketing fishing supplies to lazy kids…..at least they are outside.

FINALLY a company has come up with a product that can compete with the infamous Rocket Fishing Rod seen here:

Which by the way is endorsed by Bill Dance–seen here.

 

 

 

Introducing……the AVIVA FISHING BUDDY–no longer do you just simply “shoot” your lure to its destination–you DRIVE it!!!  (Please insert me rolling my eyes here)

 

The video is a must see though, worth a good laugh.

http://www.avivafishinbuddy.com/index.htm

 

Trip for Wapiti (video)

Wapiti is a new company who works with corporate groups, families, and basically any other group you can think of to get everyone outdoors–breathing, thinking, learning, and just plain having fun while experiencing good ‘ol O2 and “Oxygen inspired thinking.”

Check out their site here:

www.wapiti.com

Thursday and Friday of last week (6-12 and 6-13) I had the privelidge of taking a really cool guy from St. Louis back to his roots of fly fishing.  While planning this trip for months with Wapiti Co-Founder Kevin Miquelon I knew that this fisherman had been a fly fisherman years ago but with the way life goes had gotten out of the sport because of a busy life. 

The first day of the trip started at Rockbridge (a trout farm with fairly easy to catch fish and great place to teach people the sport) and I expected to teach most of the day but it turns out that once a fly fisherman, always a fly fisherman and he was literally catching fish within just a few minutes of being on the stream.  This day was all about getting him ready for what we should call ‘real’ fishing the next day on the North Fork of the White River.  Fish were caught, plenty of fish, and some nice one’s to boot.

Day 2 we put in at River of Life Farm on the North Fork and floated to Blair and this trip was easily one of my top 5 best guide trips ever–the following video says it all…. 

Welcome back to the sport Trevor glad to have you!

If you like the music in the video please check out: http://www.myspace.com/mattyoungguitar and let the artist know….he is a rock climber with hair like an italian male supermodel so he should already be incredibly cool in your mind!

Brian

 

check, check, check, testing 1 2 3…syvelis, syvelis

Ok, so starting today we finally got the email subscription to sign up for email notifications when a new entry is added to Fly Fishing the Ozarks.  It has been a long time coming and I do apologize to those who have been asking for this forever now.

Right now the sign up is below the weird guy with a mask on the right side of the screen in an orange link titled “Subscribe to Fly Fishing the Ozarks by Email.”  Soon it will be sandwhiched between the weird guy in a mask on both the top and bottom. 

And yes, the Title of this is from SNL….Tom Hanks as a roadie for Aerosmith on the old school Wayne’s World skits–priceless.

 

June Fly of the Month….#2 (Rated Pg-13)

So even though the original fly of the month for June is a seriously stellar pattern I felt obligated to put something “serious” on here.  Ok, so maybe not a fly with such a “serious” name but an awesome big fish catching fly.  During the next few months the fly of the month is going to come from Kelley Galloup’s line of streamers.  Some of the most recent of these flies are really cool looking–and then you see them in the water and if you don’t completely Geek out or are so awe inspired that you cannot talk for a long period of time I will really have to question the streamer digging side of your psyche.

(Here comes the reason for the “Rated pg-13″ part–the name.)

June Fly of the Month….#2 The SDungeon

For some reason everytime Kelly Galloup sits at his tying desk overlooking the MADISON RIVER he can’t help but tie a streamer that I am personally going to drool over.  These flies weed out the little boys from the men (in both casting and fish wise as well) and they are probably the best trout streamers for catching big fish that I have ever seen.  I do have to say that most of the time with these flies it is a “hero or zero” kind of shot.  Use them night fishing, use them in deep pools during the day…chances are when you do get a hook-up with these flies you will be into a crazy-awesome predator of a brown.

I do have to say that the names of these flies leaves a little to be desired (horrible pun) and from a business standpoint I am a little suprised that he would name these flies the names he did.  But if you look on his site the T&A Leech is called a tna leech, the Sex Dungeon is the SDungeon and so on.  Just depends on how you look at it.  Try them and call them whatever you want!

 

June Fly of the Month….San Juan Worm???

Ok, so this months “Fly of the Month” may seem a little like a cop-out.  Sure this pattern is the most stupid easy pattern to tie, but there is NO DENYING that it catches an insane amount of fish.  I am going to say that this fly has caught more fish in the last 2 months than any other fly in my boxes…many boxes.  Big fish fly, small fish fly, crazy numbers fly….all fish like worms!

(Special thanks to Hans Weilenman, super webmaster/tying extraordinaire/all around great guy for the photo.  Check out his site for thousands of the best fly photos, WITH RECIPES!  http://www.danica.com/flytier/index.html

May Fly of the month…Hot Wired Prince

It seems that in the last several years there have been a TON of new spin-offs on old staple patterns.  Without a doubt one of the best nymph patterns ever is the Prince Nymph, it along with Hare’s Ears and Pheasant Tails probably started ‘true’ nymph patterns as we know them today.  In recent years new-school flies have exploded with the Copper John being one of the best selling patterns in its day.  The Hot Wired Prince is a spin-off of a Prince and a Copper John, GREAT pattern in as many different color combinations as you can find.

 

Great Video–nothing to do with fly fishing

With all of the high water in Missouri and Arkansas I am left with nothing to do but tie flies and look for funny videos on youtube to keep the Springtime-highwater-no fishing-Shack-Nasties away as much as possible.  A few years ago my wife and I literally laughed non-stop for an hour during Jim Brewer’s Comedy Central Special, the best part was…..

April Fly of the Month…Slumpbuster

I came across this fly in a swap a few years ago.  At first I thought, “Hey, nice looking streamer”…then I saw it in the water and FREAKED!  Now my streamer box pretty much consists of one full side of these flies in 4 or 5 different colors.  Trout Magnet!

You can order them here:

 http://www.feather-craft.com/wecs.php?store=feacraft&action=display&target=JF150