A few flies from today and the '50 Followers Giveaway' winner!

After a full day on the water on Saturday I had to dig in today to get some tying knocked out. Orders are packed up and ready to hit the mail in the morning to Michigan, Pennsylvania, Wyoming, New Mexico, Oregon and California! Above are a few of the flies tied up today; Red Rocket, Voodoo Squatch, Robinsons Munchable Minnow and Meal Ticket.

Also excited to see that the site has now exceeded 50 Followers, so it is time to give away a few flies. Ran the Followers through a randomizer and the winner is......ZAK! Congratulations man. Shoot me an email with your name, number, address, and preferred colors (if you have any) and I will get your flies added to the list. If everyone who is a follower gets just one friend to join in the fun then we will get to the '100 Follower Giveaway' in no time!

-mike schmidt
www.anglerschoiceflies.com

A few flies from tonight...03.01.2011

OK...so maybe it was the last few nights.

As bad as I want to keep this batch of flies, this order is headed to northern Michigan in the morning and I am off to bed early tonight. Tomorrow I will get going on the next set and have week three of the advanced tying class at Mad River Outfitters.

Today we hit 25 followers, so we are half way to some free flies out the door...

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

A few flies from the last two nights

I've been busier than a one legged man in an ass kicking contest knocking out flies lately. Here's a bunch of Red Rockets, Voodoo Squatch, Meal Tickets, Conrad Sculpins, and a few other assorted goodies ready to hit the mail tomorrow. Canada, Kentucky, New York, and Arkansas...so quite literally the four corners of the compass!

-mike schmidt

http://www.anglerschoiceflies.com/

BIG ASS Ohio brown and the MRO tying class

6:07pm ring ring ring

Mike: Hello?
Ron: Hey Mike, it's Ron Lewis. You'll have to talk loud since my phone is in a vacuum bag.
Mike: Oh...OK. Sounds like you are on the river ehh...how's it going?
Ron: Thought you should be the first to know...I just caught my personal best!

Mike: (internally remembering the last best at 27.5") Dude, that is sweet!

Ron: Yeah, and I caught it on that Red Rocket I got from you.

Mike: HELL YEAH, DUDE THAT IS SICK!!!! Tell me you got pictures?

Ron: Sure did, set the tripod up on the bank and got shots. I will send them when I get home.

Mike: Awesome, can't wait to see it!

Well...here it is! 28 inches of baddest fish in the river; a resident brown, not a lake run. I am confident we have them bigger, but not much and definitely not many of them. This is one hell of a nice fish for anywhere let alone central Ohio. Well done Ron!

28" Mad River brown with a Red Rocket hanging from it's maw...a thing of beauty!

Took me a bit to settle down after hearing about that massive fish and get to business, but it was time to get the Mad River Outfitters Advanced tying class underway. Six guys are signed up this session so it is a very comfortably sized class. We had a great time tonight tying a few streamers and getting the feeling of what the guys want to tie in the coming weeks. Looks like a few articulated streamers, some deerhair work, parachute dries, musky fly, and maybe a tarpon fly are on the docket!

The next few days will be tying a lot of flies as usual, but after seeing Ron and having rising water coming I may have to figure out a way to sneak out for a few hours on the water...

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

Buckeye United Fly Fishers show weekend

What a crazy packed weekend this was! Left work early on Friday to head down to Cincinnati for a weekend of teaching and tying. Got it all rolling on Friday night with a 15 person articulated streamer class put on just down the street from the convention hall. It was a really fun group that performed extremely well at the vise. We were able to cover three styles of articulation by doing a Senyo Sculpin, Hawk Sculpin, and Meal Ticket followed by a demo tie of the Red Rocket.

It was a nice set up to tie and teach with; had a over the shoulder camera with a small feed in front of me and projecting on a large screen behing me. With the prototype double headed light from Alert Stamping there was certainly no problem with light!

On Saturday morning I made it over to the show location and got my table all set up then had the first two hours of the show to tie up some flies and talk with people stopping by. At 11 I made my way over to the lecture room to perform a lecture on articulation styles. The room was packed, a few hundred people, so I was pretty stoked to see that turn out...then I realized I forgot my threads at my table...crap. After grabbing my thread I proceeded with a full hour covering the styles and flies that I had done the night before. It was fantastic for me to see that sort of enthusiasm for streamers.

By the end of the day my table was pretty well rummaged through! It was great to see everyone down at the BUFF show, and I had a great time tying next to Tom Gribble.

No rest for the wicked today, dug in and knocked out a few more orders to get in the mail tomorrow. The Double Deceivers and Red Rockets above are all going to a regular customer that obviously loves chucking streamers for big fish! The next few days I get to switch gears and knock out some smaller trout bugs...

-mike schmidt

http://www.anglerschoiceflies.com

Treading water

I took off from work today and stopped off at Office Max to pick up a replacement chair for the one that became a casualty of the sidewalk crack outside the HRFF show last weekend. I did not realize how bad that chair had gotten until I got this new one back to the house and put together. Three adjustments, mesh back, lumbar support...this thing does everything except give a mid-tie massage... Definitely tying in style now. As you can see above I had my usual helper for the evening. Amazingly enough, when she sets up shop in my lap and lays her head down to watch she never goes after material. Weird cat...

Been able to keep up lately with the flies that need tied by keeping some late hours. Basically treading water until the show season is over which gives me back a few days a week to put towards orders. Tonight I finished up a bunch of GHB Sculpins and then started on the Red Rockets to fill this order, but this is as far as I got and where the night ends. Off to bed I go to listen to the freezing rain as it coats everything and makes tomorrow morning very interesting.

-mike schmidt

http://www.anglerschoiceflies.com/

Red Rockets off to the post

A few Red Rockets that were finished up and sent off today. These are the four most common color combinations. Each has proven themselves successful in different situations, though I suppose a piece of the puzzle is fishing what you have with confidence. The colors are Olive w/Tan, Black, Burnt Orange w/Black, Tan w/Yellow. Looking forward to swimming some of these again myself next week since I have a week off from the shows!

-mike schmidt
www.anglerschoiceflies.com

A few flies from tonight...01.26.11

Took a quick shot of some of the flies I tied up for one of the orders tonight. This particular set is headed east to a guy that is no doubt hoping for some open water to chuck them at soon. With a good range of size and weight this set is begging to be put in a box and walked along the river. Each of these patterns will maintain their profile and allow the fisher to swim them back in either a horizontal or vertical serpentine motion.

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