Captain Jared's Lee's Ferry Fly Fishing Adventures

Gettin Ready For Dinner

lake Powell Aug 3-5 the First Day Lots of boils showing up on east facing walls in padrae bay And OutSide Of Sandy Hill.Bass where great off of big main lake points that droped off to 25 feet of water all bass where on the drop shot rig.With hand poured robo worms.

great clients lots of fish and good times

Teaching girlfriend how to fish for cicadas…tip for gf was when you bring your forward cast through, accelerate and promptly stop.

Tip of the Day 7.19.12

Subject: Setting

Set on everything!

Now, of course, I don’t mean this literally that every time you are fishing and you see your indicator twitch that you should set. At Lee’s Ferry, however, I do mean it. We are having high water right now which means longer leader and tippet. I have found with my clients that they set proportionally less the more line I put on below the surface of the water to get down to the fish.

Picture this: You are fishing a dry fly with a dropper below it. When that floating bug twitches just a touch, generally you set that immediately. Somehow your reflexes are sharper because the action is happening near the surface of the water.

For some reason, when the action is happening well below the surface of the water, clients have a harder time reacting to slight twitches of the indicator. Perhaps it is because they think it is just moss or maybe just the current altering the movement of the indicator. But my advice to you is this: Set on Everything. At best you will catch a 30 inch rainbow because you set the hook on time and at worst, you practice your hook set and throw the line back out there for the next time.

Good start to my day at the office. Come visit me at work!

This is how a net should look

Cicada Time at Lee’s Ferry!

I think that, come summertime, every fisherman in AZ is waiting on edge to hear that familiar hum coming from the trees and shrubs so they can pounce on the rivers and streams with their cicada pattern flies in tow. Well, the time has arrived and the dry flys are definately starting to get some action. Since the cicada hatch is so important to the Lee’s Fery fishery, I decided to do some research on them.

Arizona Cicada

There are two types of cicadas, annuals or periodicals. Here at the ferry, we have annual cicadas. This means that some cicadas appear every year. Periodical cicadas come around every once and awhile and not yearly. Even though we have some bugs come out yearly, the nymphs (or immature cicadas) burrow underground for 2-5 years. The mature bugs lay their eggs in tree branches. When they hatch, they drop to the ground and burrow down where they drink from plant roots (ps since they actually suck they are considered real bugs). They emerge generally after the summer solstice and during the “dog days of summer” thus they are nicknamed dog-day cicadas. First they climb shrubs and trees to molt and after that they are mature adults. They only live 3-4 weeks and mostly their purpose is just to mate and lay eggs.

I think that it is important for fishermen to understand this cycle so they can understand why “hatches” differ from year to year. Since the eggs are laid years in advance, I believe that how many cicadas we get depends on the moisture content in the root systems of the plants that the nymphs have been feeding on. So the weather or conditions of the current year may not have an effect. Instead, the conditions of previous years may be what cause the differences. Now enough science already!

Here is a picture of the “luna negra” cicada pattern that has been working well for me. Really any pattern with a black body will probably work well. Look at the fish my great client, Brian, caught on a dry!