More tying than fishing lately.  I feel my goal of 52 fishing days in 2011 slipping away with each rain drop.  It’s been a very wet March this year.  I fished a fair number of days in March last year, especially in a foothill stream south of here that doesn’t have the Spring spate of my home waters but have barely been out of the house this year.  The good news is that the lowland rain also means the mountain snowpack is back to normal levels insuring good flows for a nice dry fly season although it’ll probably be a little late getting started.

I did get out to the Yakima last week.  The promising partly cloudy 47-53deg forecast turned into 39deg and raining…  The river was up and heavily colored so there wasn’t much catching to go along with the fishing.  I didn’t even remember to take any photos…  The highlight of the day was the incredible sandwiches made by my wife.  I should have taken a picture as they were trophies of the sandwich world fo’ sho’!  Matt did hook a giant Whitefish just above the takeout which promptly made for the main current, gave him the middle finget and popped the 5X tippet like a baby’s hair…

Given the indoors nature of my March fishing exploits, I’ve done a fair bit of reading and tying.  I particularly enjoyed Ed Engle’s Tying Small Flies and Mike Valla’s Tying Catskill Dry Flies.  I know the little Cutthroat on my home streams don’t give a damn but I like tying and I’m bored with Elk Hair Caddis and Stimulator patterns so I’m going to try fishing some classic Catskill and soft hackle patterns this Summer.  The bushy Stimulator in the photo below is my favorite ‘indicator’.  It makes me feel a little less ‘bobbery’…

I picked up this vintage 2 5/8″ Farlows ‘perfect-style’ reel a while back for the Tom Morgan 3wt.  It ended up being just a bit too small.  It holds a DT 3wt and 25 yards of backing just fine but the coils are so small, it seems like they will cause too much line memory if left on the spool for any period of time. Probably just me being OCD…  I’ll likely get something a bit larger for the Morgan, something in between the Farlows and the 3# St Goerge, something around 2 7/8″ and not too heavy should be perfect.

I actually spoke with Tom Morgan & Gerri Carlson on Friday.  I got an email that morning to let me know that my spot on their waiting list had finally come up and they were ready to get started on my rod.  It’ll be his current version of the TMF, a medium-light 8′ 4wt 3-piece. I ordered mine with a cigar grip and a down-locking slide band with a burl reel seat. From his site:
“The 8′, 4-weight, 3-piece rod is a softer rod for fishing close to medium distances with great delicacy.”

Tom and Gerri are incredibly nice folks and getting to talk to one of my flyfishing heroes was a real treat.  I can’t wait to get the new rod out on the my home stream or better yet, one of my favorite runs on the NF CDA!