Streamer pile

I have not had much time to post here lately because I have been so busy at the vise knocking out streamers in advance of the coming season. Here is a big order headed north in the morning; a bunch of Double Deceivers, Red Rockets, Stinky Mayos, Voodoo Squatch, and Meal Tickets. More to come in the nex few days...


-mike schmidt
www.anglerschoiceflies.com

Flies for The Fiberglass Manifesto winners

Finished up the flies tonight for the two lucky winners in The Fiberglass Manifesto 2000 fan contest. Nikki Targowski and Christian Fitchel will each recieve one of the new Umpqua Streamer Boxes, supplied by Blue River Fly Company, loaded up with a dozen streamers from Anglers Choice Flies. Included are Red Rockets, Voodoo Squatch, Meal Tickets, and muddlers. They will be in the mail in the morning and hopefully in the water catching fish next week. Congratulations you two!

-mike schmidt
www.anglerschoiceflies.com

Buncha streamers...06.20

It's been a busy couple evenings, but I am headed to bed 'early' tonight. Double Deceivers headed one way and the other flies headed the other way. Wish they were all headed to my boxes!

-mike schmidt
www.anglerschoiceflies.com

Weekend is upon us!

Another week of working and tying in the books...welcome to the weekend (at least in a few hours)!! This week has been fun for me as I took a short break on a few nights from tying to hit a local series of ponds for some 'urban fishing' with a few buddies. It kind of feels like cheating when I go to this spot until I make that first cast and watch the fish spook...not the bluegill of course, but the largemouth. These fish require a pretty accurate cast and presentation both due to the already mentioned skittishness in addition to the fact that there is so much food even when they are interested they are not going to move far to eat. That abundance of food is allowing these bass to grow faster than most in Ohio, and frankly the fishing here is really solid for something that is only a few years old.

Fished a few different patterns and styles but the fly that has been best for me this week has been a Schmidt's Rattlesnake. It is a great little pattern that sinks slowly and then can be retrieved slowly while maintaining it's depth in the water column.

Here is another fish that fell prey to the Rattlesnake. Again it was sight fished, with the fly cast ten feet or so out in front of it as it lazily made it's way across a point. Fly landed and sunk a few feet before being twitched, and then on the second twitch...YAHTZEE! Where as the first fish was a bulldog down deep this fish fought more like a smallmouth and actually jumped clear of the water three different times. It was awesome, and a great fight on a 4WT.

The first night over there Mariano got in on the action and hooked up to this fish while I had the first fish on. He was slow moving a pencil popper and the bass was not about to let it get away. Crappy picture, but cellphone shots from 100 feet away do not blow up well.

Also got a few shots from ACF friend and customer Mike Paulus. He was up in northern Michigan fishing the Au Sable River...and putting some Meal Tickets to good use. Here are a shot of a 20+ brown and a pig of a river smallie that he had to hand. Congratulations and thanks for the pictures Mike!

On a final note, I received my copy of Soulfish2 yesterday and promptly threw it on while I tied...big mistake as I was not exactly as productive as I should have been. Soulfish2 is the new Mikey Weir/Burl Productions video that follows Mikey and a cast of friends through some amazing fishing locations such as Mongolia, Egypt, Louisiana, Belize, BC, Hawaii, Mexico, and Northern Cali. The word 'epic' is thrown about a lot these days but in this case I can think of no better word for this hour and a half video excursion. It is not as fast paced and frenetic as other videos from the last few years, rather it incorporates smooth post production work and rock solid videography to make you feel like you are there in the room or on the stream with them. The cast of friends included in the video are extremely knowledgeable, well spoken, and skilled anglers. While this video has a underlying story narrate through each section, it is chocked full of fish coming to hand. This is not a video that makes you wait for a payoff, and despite the 'professional angler' status of most of them these anglers are genuinely happy and infectious with their enthusiasm. I own most of the fly fishing DVDs out there and, in my opinion, this one is way up towards the top of the stack...I thouroughly enjoyed it all four times I have watched it since six last night.

-mike schmidt
http://www.anglerschoiceflies.com/

A few flies from the last few days...big and small

It has been awhile since I have tied trout flies, but got back in the swing and knocked out some size 16 and 18 loopwing emergers this morning. Also a couple of snowshoe hare emergers in the mix...going to have to tie some more of those for my pathetically stocked boxes.

Here are a few more shots of flies ready for the water.

The last shot is Deceivers and Andino Deceivers headed to Bolivia in pursuit of Golden Dorado, wish I could go with them!

-mike schmidt
www.anglerschoiceflies.com

Some days you just got it

Back up at 4:30a this morning and back to the river. On the way to the river I was thinking about the previous morning when Mariano had told me that despite completing his graduate studies in a month he was not leaving until he landed a 20" brown. Upon arrival riverside we were again greeted with high and light cloud cover to start off the morning with temperature and water color that was absolutely perfect....it was on!

As we worked our way through the stretch we had chosen we got into a few year old fish and were having pretty regular action from fish turning on the flies and chasing. About an hour in he informed me that the tree about 250 yards downtream that was sticking out over the water was where he was going to get his fish...to which I responded "sweet!". We continued to work our way from undercut tree to undercut tree and pretty soon were down to the spot Mariano had called. As he carefully positioned himself to get a proper cast all the way up and under the overhang, right to the base of the rooball, I moved a bit downstream to get out of the way and to have a better view through the surface glare. The very first cast I watched in amazement as a big shadow followed his fly for 20 feet before retreating back from site. After a few laughs and big smiles he sent in cast number two, and the fish came out again and followed a good 30 feet...close enough to me when it turned that I could easily tell it was a big male. Dumbfounded he fired in another cast and watched the fish chase again...this was getting ridiculous. I looked at him and he wanted to let it rest for a minute so we carefully retreated to the far bank. I told him that I thought the fly was to light and the fish was turning away as it rose in the water column, to which he agreed and tied on an olive Meal Ticket. The fourth cast seemed to fly in around one branch and under another in slow motion, and as soon as it landed the water opened around it and Mariano was attached to a whole lot of pissed off fish. After a nail biting fight I slipped the net under the fish and we both let out a Jersey Shore style "WOOOO!!!" along with some high fives.

Once the fish calmed down a bit we slid in the tape under him and confirmed that Mariano had indeed called the spot from 250 yards upstream and backed it up by landing his largest brown to date; a solid 21" fish in the books.

We were both so excited about the fish that it took a few attempts to get a halfway decent shot, but I think the smile says it all.

After releasing the fish safely back to the river it was time to sit down, calm the nerves, retie and of course light up a celebratory cigar.

After a quick but intense rain shower we continued to work our way downstream towards some promising water. As we waded down through a relatively shallow stretch I spotted a good looking cut along a log and fired in a cast. As my fly slid in to the head of the cut the bottom of the log moved and my fly disappeared in an explosion of water, it was the most vicious hit I have had on the river. As I let out a yell the fish was furiously trying to dislodge the fly and get back under cover. Mariano was able to get over to me for the net and after a few minutes cram the massive brown securely in to the ghost netting. We both were making such a fool of ourselves laughing and high fiving that the landowner downstream came out to see what all the fuss was and then went back in to get his own camera...it was awesome!

25 inches of Voodoo Squatch decimating brown trout. The tail on this fish was absolutely huge and she had spots I would consider regal looking. She was a gorgeous fish.

Nothing better than a day on the water, except maybe a day on the water with a few big fish thrown in. What an awesome day!

-mike schmidt
http://www.anglerschoiceflies.com/

Mufasa and Oscar's Junk

Lately I seem to have been asked more often "So, what's really in your streamer box?". I generally respond that I do fish the patterns I offer on my website quite a bit, but of course there are a few patterns that are a little less accessible. It is not that I want to hold things back, or keep secrets to have some perceived edge...some patterns are just a pain in the ass to tie! The above picture shows two such patterns; five inches of meat apiece...Mufasa and Oscar's Junk.

The two flies are very similar in construction, having a standard rear hook and an inverted front hook. The back half of the flies consist of a bi-color marabou tail, two colors of schlappen palmered through an Ice Dub underbody, three rubber legs per side, and a topping of barred marabou. The front of each fly appears similar at first glance but are not actually so.

The Mufasa is heavily weighted on the front hook. After the connection is made the fly shank is lined with two strips of .035 lead wire. The fly is then constructed over that base similar to the rear hook but with four rubber legs per side. Once up to the head the Senyo Laser Dub is tied in so that it has the appearance of bleeding gills and a tuft both above and below the hook shank. Finish the fly off by sliding on a Fish Skull which forces the Laser Dub down a bit but it still looks a bit like a mane...thus Mufasa.

Oscar's Junk was actually tied first, have been fished more, and is the precursor to the Voodoo Squatch. The front hook of Oscar's Junk is tied the same to the head as Mufasa, but rather than lead wire there is a set of large lead dumbell eyes tied in. Once the eyes are in you add a small tuft of Rusty Brown Laser Dub as bleeding gills and then clump buils a head around the barbell eyes. The barbell eyes are there only to add weight and width to the head, they will not be seen in the final product.

These flies aren't likely to be offered on my site any time soon as they simply take too long to be able to produce them in quantity, but I may do some by special request if piggybacked on another order. They are a blast to fish. At some point I will get a step by step together on them and get it up here.

These are the rest of the flies I knocked out this evening so far; Mike's Voodoo Squatch, Mike's Meal Ticket, Mike's Lunkergetter, Robinson Muchable Minnow, Mike's Red Rocket, Senyo Sick Puppy, Bellyache, Senyo Sculpin, Galloup's Sex Dungeon, Senyo Shaggy Minnow. A solid batch of flies headed to California in the morning. Now time to hammer out the other Cali order before bed.

***Quick 'Tying in the Pines' update: two spots have been filled, so only four remain. Give me a call to secure your spot if you would like to get in on this weekend of tying!

-mike schmidt
http://www.anglerschoiceflies.com/