Sea-run cutthroat signs

While sea-run cutthroat may be listed as Catch and Release in the salt water regulations since the mid-1990's, not everyone is aware of this and it is often up to us that love this fishery and want to see it continue to educate the general public. That is where these handy signs come in.

Thanks to donations from a local fly club, we have a good number of these signs for anglers to post at the local beaches. Last spring I posted a good number of beaches, but some of these signs have since been torn down and need replacing and some places never got posted in the first place. If you know a beach does not currently have one of these signs at it and could use one, feel free to swing by the shop and pick one up, the more we can get posted the better!!

Tis the season!

Every year around thanksgiving, tv commercials start about hot sales, a few festive movies air, and ribbons, bows, lights and other decorations begun to be hung. That's right it's that time of year; Hatchery Steelhead season is in full swing! :)
Here are some shots from my last trip out to the coast. Notice what every fish has hanging from its mouth.... the same thing every one of the other 70+ hatchery fish we've hooked this season has had; BEADS! If you haven't tried them yet, get into the shop and buy yourself the present that keeps on fishing 365 days of the year!



And a day before I got an early Christmas present; My first native of the year. Hard tugging thick 8-10lb buck that had me questioning who was going to win the fight!

Have a great holiday everyone!

Chum buddy loves you

This time of year the pull of the Northwest Crown Jewel (steelhead) fuels the fire to get up at "O" dark thirty and drive to far off places. That drive is further sustained by horrid gas station coffee and the vision of Brat fillets on the smoker or BBQ. On a recent adventure in pursuit of hatchery brats our fishing for steelhead quickly turned into fishing for whatever ws going to bite.....after searching a few likely runs and tailouts we hooked up with this blue collar thug that for a moment had us all thinking about those fillets and grip and grin pictures.

The initial excitement was briefly replaced with "it's a chum".....but gaging the smiles and the quality of the fight of this tobacco chewing, beer drinking, ugly bugger. (No not the knuckle head in the blue coat) but the good sized chum buddy in the grip and grin this was a great fish. The beauty of this scenario was that the cast, mend, drift and hookset were all of the anglers decision and choice making it a pretty cool deal. It is easy to get caught up in the coffee house or flyshop or in some cases tavern bragging sessions about how many steelhead you hooked, rather that taking into consideration that any day on the water that results in a fish to hand is very special.

Going, Going....Gone!

What a differnce a day makes! We had the oportunity to enjoy some decent December weather and water conditions this friday and saturday while on a visit to good friend and fellow guide Gordon Gracey and his wife Kim.....then the rain came....and kept coming and by light in the morning: This is what the rivers has turned into. I often wonder what happens to fish during these events. Do they all get washed out to sea to start the migration over again? Do they hang onto branches with their teeth for dear life. Through the years I have seen fish carcasses in the woods hanging 10 feet in the air on a tree branch and now I have a pretty good idea why. I am anxious to get back to the water when the rivers pull into shape, to see what new challenges have been put in the way of a drift....what old holding water has been washed away and replaced with something new....maybe even better. Honestly I half expected to see and Ark go by full of elk, dear and bear.....and pack of yellow labs. When the rivers pull into shape...be ready to hit the water. The name of the December / January game in fishing is when the conditions are right, can you drop the world and go fishing?

Progress at the shop

Our shop is moving January 1st and we've been hard at work with the build out. Here's a photo time lapse video of us installing the flooring.

The incredable, edible, bead?

Poached, scrambled, fried; How ever we like our eggs, fish like them beaded!

Every salmoniod at some stage of their life eats eggs. They all start as an egg, hatch, and feed off of the nutrients to begin their lives.

Most will continue to find eggs to be a good source of food. Ever throw a real egg in the shallows anywhere smolt are present? even a plastic bead? Smolt jump on it like it's a diamond rolling down the river.
This early imprinting makes salmon and steelhead extremely susceptible to eggs patterns when they return to their home rivers.

Enter the bead! It is the most realistic fake egg we can fly fish. When rigged the correct way, the odds of a fish swallowing the hook becomes almost impossible so fishermen need not fret over mortality because 99% of your hook ups will be like this Alaskan Rainbow.

Rigging:

The stream, species and time of year will determine exactly what size hook I will use but here's my general rule of thumb for sizes based on Gamikatsu hooks (the stickiest, best strength of hook to penetration, for bead fishing):

Salmon: Kings-#1/0-2/0, other salmon- #1

Steelhead:#1

Trout: #8-#4
I snell octopus style hooks because I have seen over the years they give you a better stick on a hooked fish. Then I'll slide a bead on the line and peg it in place about and inch to an inch and a half away form the hook with weed wacker cord. Normally I use 6-12lb flouro carbon for line, but in this case high vise green for example purposes.

At the Gig Harbor Fly shop we are now carrying custom painted beads. Our colors are like no other bead on the market. The way our beads are painted allow them to give off more UV light making them more visible to fish.

we currently carry 5 colors in 12mm, 10mm, & 8mm. The size and color you want to fish is all based on the water clarity you're fishing in. The other nice thing about beads is they're cheap! Nymphing on the rivers of Western Washington you can count on going through at least a dozen or so flies a day and with beads being less then half the cost of most flies it's just another reason to get into fishing them!

Also for those of you traveling to Alaska, the land of beads, we offer Alaskan bead kits painted by a Bristol Bay fishing guide who will get you hooked up with the best beads in the great north!

Custom Steelhead Ring by Kit Kuhn

For those of you that have visited our fly shop, you have probably noticed the jeweler that is right next door to us. Kit Kuhn has been a great neighbor and friend and we'll miss being neighbors when we move the shop next month.
Kit is always designing super cool, tricked out jewelry and recently he designed a pretty cool steelhead ring. I thought I'd show you how cool it is! This is a one-of-a-kind, custom piece! You can see more of his custom work here.

In addition to custom jewelry they also have a lot of other great pieces and if you still don't have a Christmas gift for your wife, you might want to stop by. At least it gives you another excuse to stop by the fly shop!