The Fluttering Owyhee Skwala

Not the best picture I have taken of one of my flies but as promised here is the fly that did most of the damage the other day on the river.

A Good Day on the River

Today we hit the river again. It is nice being able to cut out of work about 3pm, be on the river by 3:30, and into fish soon after that. The Owyhee River can get crowded as it's secret seems to be out of the bag, and with spring break going on, and the Skwalas expected to burst on the scene any day we weren't sure what to expect this afternoon. We found a couple customary runs empty and tried a couple new one's and found fish in each place. I used a Fluttering Skwala pattern I tied up a few of this weekend (I will post a picture sometime soon as I really like the pattern courtesy of the Trout Lie) with a Zebra Midge dropper, and most of my action was on the zebra midge. I did have quite few noses up on the skwala pattern though.

Other than catching fish the only other story of note from the day happened as daylight was fading. There was a small pod of fish rising along the opposite bank from me under a good sized bush that hung over the edge of the river. I worked out some line and threw a nice cast just upstream of the bush and was getting a perfect drift through where the fish had been rising. Suddenly a small bird dive bombed my fly from the bush. It grabbed it in it's beak and tried to fly back up into the bush but quickly realized this did not feel like a bug and dropped it. The comotion caused by that little bird certainly put the feeding fish down and ruined any shot at catching them but I had to laugh and take it as a compliment to my newbie tying abilities. Not only did I fool fish by tying a fly that looked real from below, it looked good enough to fool a bird with a top view. I'll take what I can get these days.

The fish I caught today were much more healthy looking than the fish I caught last week. Numbers were up as well. Overall I ended up landing 7 in the few hours we spent on the water. Here are a couple pictures:

Finally a Fishing Trip

I finally was able to get out on the river for the first time since early November and do a little fishing. We headed up to the Owyhee mid afternoon yesterday hoping to find fish looking up for skwala's. Once on the river it was obvious that if the skwala's were starting to hatch they were not very prolific yet as I did not see a single one. Stubbornly though, Kelly and I each tied on a fly meant to mimic the skwala anyway. We found that there were a couple fish looking as forward to the skwala hatch as we were as they fell victim to what was probably the first adult stonefly they had seen this year . I landed a couple fish using a zebra midge dropper off my skwala right off the bat. Here are a couple pictures of the trip.

The first fish I have ever caught on a fly I tied, this skwala pattern:

Getting ready for the release.

Things slowed down considerably at the end of the day but it was great to get on on the water again and catch a few fish looking up for big bugs that hadn't really even started hatching yet.

Keaton and Dad Go out in the Desert

Saturday I went with my brother, Todd, and my boy, Keaton out into the desert to sight in my bow. Keaton had a great time but because I forgot my camera, which I kicked myself for all day, I had to settle for these pictures with my cell phone. Not the best of quality but I think you can get the idea of how much fun a little boy can have when there is dirt and hills involved.

It turns out Keaton is a little mountain goat. He climed the decent sized hill where we were three times all by himself.

Enjoying the view from the "top of da world," as he would declare each time he got to the top of the hill.

Playing in the dirt of course.


Here is some perspective as he nears the top of this fairly steep and high climb. You can see Todd approaching the bow target down in the bottom of the ravine a little to the left and up from Keatons head. Just a small speck way down there.

I love that Keaton is getting old enough to get out and enjoy some of these little adventures. The look on his face as he does something that he is so proud of or when he discovers something new, even if it is just an old crusty cow pie, is priceless.

Examining another rock!