Lookin' Back

It has been another subtle year of fishing at the Floatfisher compound, once again the NetJet

shares were used to the full extent and many miles were driven to float a host of fabulous rivers. Our goals and objectives were met, as good times, new places and old faces were visited and made, oh , and a couple of fish were exercised along the way.

 Fence Line on the Missouri River- summer 2016

 First Snow- Arkansas River - Fall 2016

 American Bison - December 2016

 Snook - Belize- fall 2016

 Chubby Lover - Western River - Summer 2016

 Swimming with the fishes

 Searching for Tarpon, Belize 2016

 McCoy Waterwheel , Colorado River, fall 2016

Trico spinner fall on the Missouri River- June 2016

Parachute Adams

b/w Parachute Adams

by 

kuchynkaPHOTO

Chasing Light

Just another nice short from Yeti, giving us the insight on the life of Wayne Meinzer, 
a trapper in his younger days, moving on to become the only official Texas State photographer
as bestowed by George W. Bush. Just a fantastic story along with a wonderful soundtrack.

Ease back and enjoy this fantastic short film.

ICE CALL- Sam Favre - Backyard Projects

Although I am not a skier, I admire great work behind the camera and on the skies. 

It is mind-boggling to think what goes into these folks mind when putting a course like 

this together in some crazy-ass terrain. Hat off to Sam and the team of photographers who put 

this together.

Santa's Workshop

Santa called and said he would be a little late with our new ride. 
As you can see, the elves are putting the last little finishing touches,
for delivery to its new home. Ours.... 

Merry Christmas to us.

Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all the faithful readers of Floatfisher . Wishing you and your loved ones as safe

Holiday season.

What Happens When you Take you Lady to Bone Town, ID

On a recent trip to Idaho to visit my mother and father in-law, we decided to take a drive 

out of Idaho Falls looking for photo ops of the local variety. Our destination was a little

dot on the map called Bone, well, that immediately struck instant chord with me, and of course,

it was on from there. I was taken Mary to Bone town. 

As you would guess , Bone does not consist of much, a bar and some rental rooms.

We decided we would have some lunch and talk with the locals.

 Well it seemed our timing was perfect to Bone, as we right in the middle of

true to god, Idaho cattle drive. There were hundreds and hundreds of them everywhere.

 All in all, we had a great day in Bone, cool people, ice cold beer, great food and

a cattle drive too boot.

Pre-Christmas Fun

A sacrifice was made to take a trip to the City of Sin to celebrate a monumental 

birthday for my niece and celebrate early Christmas with the Kuchynka side of family.

The Bellagio would be the center all operations for food, shows, gambling and other 

activities.

 No shortage of great restaurants  and food in Las Vegas. Yellowtail would kick the 

trip off, offering up amazingly great sushi and sake. Emerile's over at the MGM would 

offer up another kickass meal , topped off by PRIME steakhouse at Bellagio, for an amazing meal

on the patio overlooking the fountains.

 The main lobby featured wickedly cool winter wonderland, complete with

the North Pole, nut crackers, snow globes, 20+ beautifully decorated trees.

Absolutely beautiful...

 Our view from the dining table at PRIME Steakhouse. Really cool to have the music and fountains

going off in the background. 

Not allowed to show you photo's of the $100 and $1000 chip stacks due to IRS issues.

New Year Tidings

We have an early Christmas Present from the Colorado State Parks and Wildlife Dept. and Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area with a new boat ramp and revised parking area at the Rincon Recreation Area.

 Although this ramp did have a concrete ramp prior, they came in, ripped out and redesigned 

the ramp at a new angle into the back-eddy and slack water. No longer will we have run your truck and trailer in the water or drag your boat over the rock, wearing your boat down pre-maturely. 

Hats off too the nice work the Colorado State Parks continues to do with fee's we pay

each year. It is nice to have nice, graded, maintained boat ramps along the Arkansas River.

I do not mind paying launch and take out fees for nice ramps like this.

Hurricane Home

Walking around the Caye Caulker I came across this home that was damaged by Hurricane Earl this fall. Loving the color and texture of the photo, it caught my eye, making me stop and rap off a few clicks. 

Sunday Cinema - Cadent

A Vimeo Staff pick with ton of views, this is a great video short by LivitFilms.

Probably one of the better shorts of the year that I have seen, fantastic camera work,

nice soundtrack and great theme. Pour a Baileys and coffee this morning and enjoy.

Filling the Fishing Calander

 As the holiday season is upon us, so is the 2017 Fishing Planning session. One must always be way planning way ahead to secure lodging and guides in the prime fishing locations and fishing times.

 It is crazy that a year out, choices of week is limited to just a few. Mary and I want too return to Louisiana area , down by Venice to chase redfish. Because we had so much fun in 2015 and missed out this year, we have decided to book 2 separate blocks.

We were lucky enough to get our go-to guide, we will book at the Woodland Plantation, as the accommodations and food are 2nd to none.

Working on April and May now. 

Big Sky PMD- by Todd Moen

From the vaults of Catch magazine and Todd Moen come this great video short from a

few years back. In the height of summer fishing and great hatches of PMD's.

Todd captures some fantastic footage to rising trout, to music that just mesmerizes you.

One never grows old of watching this kind of fish porn.

Tamron 150-600mm F/5-6.3 DiVC USD G2 Lens

Oh, Never the last of needed toys, but Mary insisted that we needed a lens to capture some addition river shots ( rapid, waterfalls and other long to reach places with our traditional lenses) and of course wild lift that we see , buuuuuuut just can't quite get close enough to get the wonderful shot.

Need to get a couple of accessories for my tripod, as this beast is just a bit heavy for the majority of hand-held shots. One would tend to get camera shake and hand shake interfering .

Can't wait to try it out this next weekend.

Partridge and Yellow Soft Hackle- Fly Fish Food

As the winter fly tying season should be setting in, thought I would share another 

box filler from Fly Fish Food that is worthy of 6-8 Slots. Swinging these little soft hackles

is a blast, and is often under estimated on the sheer number fish it will bring to the hand.

Hook: Heavy Wire Scud Hook

Body: Uni 3/0 Yellow- Spun

Thorax Thread: 8/0 Camel

Thorax: Tan UV Ice Dubbing

Soft Hackle: Hardline Premium Partridge

Little Maintenance Goes a Long Ways

Floaters....... Wow , you have got to take care of your boats and trailers. This is almost the 2nd trip in a row that I have seen a trip sidelined to to blown out "bearings" on a boat trailer. Both times right at the boat ramp and absolutely ruining the trip. Besides the obvious routine maintenance, be sure you are not submerging your axles in the below the water line, this will help alleviate a lot of the issues. In addition, have the wheel bearing changed and serviced yearly, especially if you are hauling them a great deal of miles and heating them up greatly.

On other cheap piece of advice is to care a spare set of bearing and accessories in your tool box. Often times there are mobile mechanics you can find to do the work, but finding the parts on evenings, nights, holidays and weekends is another story. This can save the trip and a lot of money.

Busy Winter

It has been a busy winter thus far, as the Floatfisher naval platoon is being revamped for 2017.

After 9 years we will be retiring our Hyside Raft and currently having a new one built by our good friends at Riverboat Works in Salida, CO. Now our 3 boat made by them. 

If you have not heard of them or seen there work, they are worthy of a look. They build some solid frames and carry all the great brands of rafts to put them on. 

On a wildhare, we decided to trade in our two year old Adipose skiff and upgrade to a new one this week. New toys for 2017. January and February will be busy months for picking up new boats and giving them test rows. 

Missouri River Escape

Had the opportunity to run up to Montana, visit Adipose Boatworks to discuss work our boat or a trade-in for a new one. Work in progress, more to come in a future post. after a short stop in Helena, it was off to the metropolis of Craig. Late November and fall cast a whole new spell on the small sleepy towns of Wolf Creek, Craig and Cascade. The bubbling summer cabins are now all boarded up , grasses and flowers are now brown, waiting for on-set of a cold wet winter. Main street Craig, still has a truck, tugging a drift boat or two around , but pretty slow durning the week.

A crazy sight , the dam parking lot with just our rig at 9 am. Not a sole in sight, and none coming. We would launch to very hungry fish waiting to scarf sow-bugs and midges. the typical menu in winter months. We would rarely go 100 yes. or so without a bent rod, giggling and smiles were on tap for the day.

I think we counted two other boats that would put on at Wolf Creek Bridge, but never catch us , as we would venture down to Stickney. We would run into a few hearty ladies and fella's throwing their spey rigs. Most were hooked up on our passes by, so I would say they bit was on.

As you can see I did not get the camera out very much on the fish side. The fishing was awfully good and I just wanted to enjoy the last casts and hookup of the season. All the browns and bows were in full colors. The bows had some deep colors on the strip and gill plates, the eating is rich right now.

I thank my great friend Eric Mondragon and his wife April for treating me like a king upon my visit with wonderful meals and great days on river. Thank you for the variety of dries, steamer and nymphing , spectacular.

Swamp Grass

" swamp grass "

by kuchynkaphoto

Mysterious Grey Ghosts

Just a nice shot of the Mysterious grey ghost of Belize.

Matt's Midge by Tim Flagler

It is that time of year as the waters cool, the large hatches are gone and we are back to 

the midge patterns for several months. Tim has not taken any breaks this year in the pursuit in

producing solid, high quality, fish catching trout patterns.

This is no exception to his arsenal of videos. Simple and effective, as I always state.

Materals will ve in everyones material collection, Just add vise and hook.

" Boneskin "

 " Boneskin "

by kuchynkaPHOTO

Missed a Spot

Guess what pattern was working?

A Special Day on the River

What an incredible fall it is has been fishing and seeing new sights. It seems the weekend activities just do not slow down although the fishing will come to a halting a few weeks after a trip to the Missouri in Montana.

I mentioned a while back that we treated to a special day on the river with noted photographer Josh Duplechian. We would purchase this fantastic donated trip with Josh last winter at the Colorado TU Gala, a great fundraising event. The day would include a all-inclusive day on the river, including a photo essay documenting our fantastic escapade.

As always it was nice to have someone one row Mary and I down the river , allowing the competitive   juices to flow. In addition, Josh would be able to capture us fishing and I did not have to carry the gear. Wow , how nice this was.

Being able to talk camera talk with Josh was great, but still a little over my head, but I learned and absorbed a ton. It would be neat to see the folk rafting, floating and fishing and watching Mary and I fish the Josh taking photos from every angle and position. I am quite sure if they thought where famous or flunkies. 

Josh caught a little of the OCD side of the fly organization, as we were searching for more caddis patterns.

The fall colors and day could not have been more beautiful on the river, however, it may not have been perfect conditions for the fish. Either way we will take it.

The Blooms Caddis was the meal ticket for the day, and many fine browns could not resist.

Mary casting to hundred of rising fish in this fantastic run.

Please visit Josh's website http://www.joshduplechian.com, and if you have have a chance to 

purchase this trip I would highly recommend it.

How to Fish a Soft Hackle

Scanning the intraweb, I came across this nice little "how to" video by Rio Products on 

rigging and fishing soft hackles. It appears this is the 1st in a new series. I found Simon to explain

the rigging and fishing aspect very easy, and will give it a try as I love to tie them and fish them. 

Take a gander.....

Mini Egg Sucking Leech- Tight Lines Productions

Just a real nice egg sucking leech that can be tied from size #12 up to # 6. 

As you will watch this is a very simple tie and you can pump a number of these out

in Sunday morning prior to football. You can substitute materials and colors to your desire.

Belize on the FlipSide

Well someone in the Floatfisher household landed her first permit and bonefish, along with many other flats fish. I have created a monster as it will be hard to talk her away from the tropical locals now.

One of the many small snappers that Mary would land in the week of fishing, and although not all fish were large the initial run would often show backing and give you the thrill. Smiles were found everywhere.

Our local friend CoCo was nice enough to pose and offer to sell us some fantastic coconut artwork

We had to hide Mary from the local authorities, as she was running wild through the town.

Another casual release of a Belizian bone.

The views were spectacular from every angle, especially the flight in.