Blog

I made of list of issues we had this year, and we plan to remedy to make it to the water faster in 2011.

1.  I will remember my anchor, and not have to tie rocks to my drift boat.
2.  We are going to carry boat plugs at the store this year.
3.  The amount of breakfast burritos and Hot Stuff pizza I have eaten at the Ulm gas station has to be unhealthy, and I will make sandwiches in the morning this year.
4.  I plan on drinking more water in the boat, and less of the other... we'll see.
5.  I plan to witness the morning hatches this year, not sure what the Missouri is like before noon but I'm getting older, and seems like I have been getting out of bed easier, so I'm looking forward to that.
6.  I am not chasing stonefly hatches this year, if it happens it happens.  Unless I hear about one, and in that case...well I'm chasing it.
7.  I'm going to land a Permit.
8.  If we are fishing the next day, I'm giving myself a midnight curfew. 
9.  I will remember my camera and the SD card that goes with it, and take it out of it's case.
10.  I'm steelheading for at least a week, bringing the pizza oven and the long rods.

That's a list.

KK is in the shop this week unloading new flies and counting for inventory.
 
Erik's helping out with purchasing and making sure we are ready for our new venture in Northern Idaho.

Savannah says Belt Creek is frozen.  So am I.

New shop staff is driving here today.

Cornfed's been shooting some birds.

We are all fishing the Mo tomorrow like every Jan. 1st, even though the high is 16 and should be windy.

Of course we will be celebrating tonight...as should you!

Happy New Years from Big R Fly Shop
 

The recent article below from Field and Stream has a great idea...especially if you have shoe boxes full of lines like I do...and we are going to have a full closet which is okay because we have an image to uphold here.

"If you're looking for a way to save money on fly tackle replacement, one of the easiest (yet most neglected) things to do is take care of your fly line. Rather than leaving that line of yours spooled on a reel, then stuffed in some drawer or shelf to rot and crack over the winter, take the time to stretch it out, clean it, and store it on a hanger.

My simple system is to pinch in the sides of a plain old metal coat hanger. As I take the line off my reel, I run it through a line cleaning pad to remove the excess grit and grime. I wrap loose coils around the hanger, and I always leave a tag end of both backing and tippet attached to the line so I'm never confused about which end is which. Then I take a pice of paper or a Post-It Note, and I write the line type (in this case 7-weight, 250-grain sink tip), and I skewer the note on the curved tip of the hanger.

Come spring, when I'm ready to spool up again, I find the line I want (clearly labeled), run it back through the cleaning/conditioning pad as I wind it back on the reel, and I'm good to go. I find my lines float higher and cast better right off the bat.

Most importantly, they last longer. I'm going to say the average line lasts 50% longer if you take the time to clean it and store it off the spool when you aren't using it. You do the math...for the average fly line a 50% increase in lifespan is like putting a $20 bill in your pocket. Multiply that by a few or several lines, and this little exercise in frugality might make perfect sense for the next day you're snowed in and thinking about fishing in spring... (via: fieldandstream.com's fly talk)"

 

I can't do this...

 

Macabi #1 from Fish Porn on Vimeo.

As our world becomes more and more reliant on the use of technology, there can be many advantages as well as many drawbacks.  First let’s talk of the things that bother us.  Some people just can’t leave their cell’s behind while they are fishing… there is nothing that irks me more than hearing a ringtone of Garth Brooks going off in someone’s wader’s as we’re floating.  Or people, especially the younger generation, decide that it is more efficient to send a hundred text messages instead of making a thirty second phone call.  But with all the drawbacks there are many things that are great; the efficiency of checking flow charts on the run, having the ability to arrange a shuttle while getting organized at the put-in, being able to order a pizza to go when the evening hatch extended a little further in to the evening than planned.  One thing I really enjoy is sending/receiving pictures, whether it be a hook jawed brown or a killer new steelhead pattern that just got spun up at the bench.   You have to be careful who send these pictures to because if they get in the wrong hand, your secret new pattern might go viral.  Here are my guidelines on sending pictures of flies and fishing reports:

1)      Only send them to your closest fishing friends.

2)      Only send them to those friends who share their patterns/reports with you.

3)      Make sure to never include the fly recipe.

4)      Delete said image off your phone immediately after sending…just in case you lose your phone.

5)      Don’t ever share someone else’s fly pictures…this is terms for instant theft of all your fly boxes and the destruction of your vice.

6)      Always text in code when explaining where you were fishing.  Example:  “Hit two in the pool across from the 17^th green, just down from the clubhouse.”  Translation:  “Caught two in the run across from mile marker 17, just downstream of the cabin.”

 

Text responsibly! (and don’t do it while driving)

 

Here is a short film from a student in California that submitted a grant to research migration barriers and the effects these barriers have on migratory steelhead and salmon.  The ultimate goal for this project is to remove any barriers that aren't being utilized anymore.  The numbers of steelhead recorded compared to pre-dam times are hard to believe, and while energy is necessary for our economy and effiencies of everyday life, if we are no longer using them we may as well let the steelhead and salmon swim back up river, and we can go fishing.  The cool thing is that if we do this now, the results are almost instant, but if we wait until their are zero returning fish then that will be lost, at least for the wild runs of fish.

"With time running short we packed up our gear and headed back to civilization to resupply and plan the next adventure. We got word from one of the locals in town that the Baja 1000 race was going to be coming through the area soon. This has got to be one of the greatest off road races any of us would get a chance to see, so we jumped at the opportunity. While searching for a good place to crash we ended up down a 15 mile dirt road that dead ended at a huge saltwater lagoon. At the end of the road we found a small fish camp with rickety shacks and nets hanging around the property. We asked the man of the house if there was anywhere to camp nearby and he explained that we could camp anywhere we liked. We quickly noticed that he was a crab fisherman and we asked him if he would sell us some. Although he didn't know anyone of us at all he replied in Spanish "we don't sell crab to our friends". After that we were invited in for an enormous seafood feed and they welcomed us to set up our camp on their property."


Read the rest of the story and follow their journal here

Have you ever wondered what the Missouri here in town would look like without the dam?  The truth is that the dam below Holter Reservoir is part of the reason that the fly fishing opportunities are as good as they are year around.  However, because of the short distances between dams here in town and the varied water conditions the fishing below Black Eagle dam can be very good or very poor depending on the dam.  We call this section Black Eagle Reservoir and it's not to be discredited.  It is well stocked, and we have photos in the shop of rainbows you only see in magazines caught out of this section on a fly.  Here is a short video of some trick videoagraphy of what Black Eagle would look like pre-dam (not completely accurate because the dam covered up a good portion of the falls and the water would act differently but you can imagine). 

Here are some things that you may not have known about the Brown Trout or “Salmo Trutta.” Keep an eye out for more, did you know, from the Big R Fly Shop.

Two very important rivers to us here in Montana have been reunited with the removal of Milltown Dam. 

"A Merry Christmas for Two of the Nation's Most Beautiful Rivers

We have been getting asked a lot for Big R Fly Shop shirts and hoodies in the store, which we appreciate very much.  So we took our first stab at some hoodies and T-shirts and they just arrived.  There is apparel now available for men and women in the shop.  There are a lot of fly shop shirts out there from Bozeman, Missoula, and other places but we are from Great Falls... so we decided we had better represent.