Midwest Fly Fishing Show 2011

Made it back from the 2011 Midwest Fly Fishing Show in decent time yesterday. The show this year was excellent as usual and as busy as I have ever seen it. Saturday was a mad house...the gate was rumored to be over 2300! Patrick Kelly drove up with me this year and we split a booth. For those that don't know Pat he is a shop guy over at Mad River Outfitters and ties big predator flies for his company Apex Fly Co. He does not have a site up just yet but is a primary participant on the blog Fly Fishing for Muskie. If you have not seen his flies then do yourself a favor and check them out...they are the sickest of the sick when it comes to musky gear! Let's just say that the guy has the fish fever as bad as any I have ever seen; you can not help but get excited with him when talking fish and flies.

I personally had a great time at the show as I got to see the whole crew of Michigan guys throughout the weekend. It is always fun to catch up with shops and guides to see how the streamers I sent up have been doing for them over the last year and get things lined up for this year. For this show I borrowed a swim tank, created by Tony DiBenedetto Jr of Tube Fly Tech, to be able to give people a fish eye view of what the articulated streamers do under the water. It was a fantastic tool to show people how the hydrodynamics surrounding a meaty head really make the fly dance. It was also really entertaining to watch people walking down the aisle looking around and just stop dead in their tracks when they saw a pair of five inch articulated flies 'swimming' in the tank; it made starting conversation around the flies very easy.

Production tying at a show is always a challenging proposition as you should be spending most of your time as a tier talking to show attendees and demonstrating techniques that you are working on. I was though able to work in the finishing touches on the Voodoo Squatches that I posted a few days ago as well as tying more for people at the show. Once they saw these in the tank it was hard to keep them on the table. This particular batch will be terrorizing fish out in Connecticut at some point in the near future.

The one thing I was looking for at the show was a good tube fly box...and I found two. I had seen the fantastic boxes from Bob at Great Lakes Spey Shop and was determined to pick them up. They use a super easy pin and magnet system, and there are no weak spots or pieces to break! While over at his table I found two absolutely grade A+ patches of Temple Dog that needed to be bought, so they were and will be gracing flies for me this tying season. I did manage to take some time at the very end of the show yesterday to use that Temple Dog to tie a smelt pattern on a Pro FlyTyer tube.

Now that show season is over for me I can finally get all my gear back in the correct bins and really buckle down to hammer on some flies, and open up some time on the water. Things around the Midwest are starting to really heat up so there are fish that need caught.

Now...time to fill out some brackets!

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

Step by Step: Back Winged Scandi Tube

I have really have enjoyed tying with the Pro FlyTyer tube components and have some pretty wild ideas that I have been exploring possibilities on them. Before I get to in to the crazy though I have been working at making sure I have a solid base in the traditional to work from. To that end I posted up a step by step of a Scandi tube fly over at http://www.steelheadalleyflytying.blogspot.com/, check it out and let me know what you think.

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

Huron River weekend

I drove up to Toledo after work on Friday and crashed Greg Senyos place for the evening. Had a feast of a meal and hung out with him and his son. Spent the evening hanging out, going through flies and materials, and finished off watching a movie on fishing in New Zealand for monster browns that should be out some time this year. Long story shot it was absolutely amazing.

Got up in the morning after an alarm clock delay and hit the raod in pretty rough conditions to make it up to Canton to get to the 6th annual Huron River Fly Tying Symposium....got there at 8:57! With a quick set up I quickly settled in to tying streamers for the day. It was a bit slow early but once the roads cleaned up a bit it was a steady stream of people throughout the day.

Towards the end of the day I pulled out the Pro FlyTyer tubes and played around a bit. The more I tie with them the more I like them. Here is a shot of a back wing Scandi that I tied up with a IC Sub dyed Funky Feather from John McClain. The back of the tube is a little long and will need to be cut down a bit, but I really like the overall effect.

Today I got back to the vice and have been working on orders. One group that held particular interest was a request for mega sized sculpins. I went ahead and tied up half a dozen Conrads that are nine inches long anf an inach and a half wide in the head! Two Daiichi 2220 size 2 with a Beadalon connection; these will be wicked cool in the water.

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