Marvelous Maine

Continuing with fishing travel updates before returning to "favorite destinations" posts, I drove directly from the Pennsylvania Crappie Camp to Maine to spend a few delightful days with Doug Teel of Northridge Outfitters. I also got to visit the home of Old Town Canoe and even picked up a new boat while I was in Maine, but that's another story for my next post.

Doug operates a modern lodge in rural Penobscot County and outfits adventurers year-round. He guides hunters for everything from rabbits to bears to moose, but from mid-May through the end of summer, he turns his attention to fish. Smallmouth bass are the main attraction, but Doug also fishes good waters for pike and largemouths and occasionally, he'll hit beautiful backwoods ponds and flowages for native brook trout or lead other types of fishing excursions. This was my fourth time fishing with Doug, so I admittedly arrived with high expectations.

I wasn't disappointed!

Doug and I squeezed in big variety for only 3 1/2 days, spending one full day running ATV trails and backroads for colorful brookies and splitting the rest of the time fishing two vey different sorts of lakes and the Penobscot River. The river, which is where Doug spends the most time during the summer, was the one "must do" part of the trip, and as a spoiler alert, you'll learn more about it if you continue to follow my list of favorite fishing destinations. Smallmouth fishing is crazily good and highly predictable, with lots of topwater action.

One lake we fished was new to me and about two hours away. Doug promised it would be worth it and was right. Of course, I never doubted that as I've learned to trust his judgement. We spent the whole day catching and releasing chunky smallmouth bass from ultra-clear water and only saw one other boat on the lake while we were there.

I guess my favorite outing was a short, early-morning river stop on the final day. I had plans to be at Old Town at 9:00, so we hit the river from about 5:30 till 8:00 and caught oodles of smallmouths in that short time, mostly on topwater, without ever running anywhere. Doug dropped the trolling motor as soon as we launched, and we just started fishing. If we even got out of sight of the boat ramp, it wasn't by much!

Of course, we ate well. You're supposed to do that in Maine. And if anyone ever asks, I can say without hesitation, that if you have haddock chowder to dinner, lunch the next day is not too soon for all-you-can east fried haddock, and the leftover chowder makes an excellent dinner that evening!

Favorite Fishing Destinations Countdown: No. 8 - Upper Mississippi River, Minnesota

Thank you to Darl Black for use of his photos, including this one of Steve Dezurik and me looking mighty goofy in our matching shirts and hats but displaying the kind of smallmouths that make certain stretches of the Mississippi River so fun to fish, plus the close-up of a another Mississippi River smallie that is inserted below.

I can't think of another fishery that flies under the radar quite like the Mississippi River upstream of Minneapolis for smallmouth bass. Based both on my experience and all I've ever heard from others who have visited my favorite sections, the fishing is simply exceptional. I believe the main reason it gets minimal acclaim is its location. Minnesota is the Land of 10,000 Lakes, after all, and anglers there have a "lakes" mentality. So many lakes in all parts of the state offer great fishing, often with fishing resorts on their banks, that the rivers get overlooked. Closely related, Minnesota is walleye country, and many anglers there simply don't care about smallmouth bass.

I've always likened the character of the fishing to what you can experience on a large Appalachian or Ozarks stream at its absolute best, except instead of catching smallmouths that average 3/4 pound, you catch fish that are mostly between 2 and 4 pounds, and any given fish that bites could be an absolute trophy. We didn't have means to weigh my biggest from the river, but I've caught a lot of big Great Lakes smallmouths, and I'm certain a giant that I caught on a Zell Pop in the Brainerd section about 10 years ago was very close to 6 pounds.

Beyond producing fast numbers, the stretches of the Upper Mississippi that I like best offer a style of fishing that I think is really fun. It's classic river fishing -- staying on the move and targeting eddies, current run-outs, ambush points behind rocks, etc. The fish are mostly shallow and in predictable river spots, and if you pay attention you can really pattern them. They'll also crush topwater during the summer. During one three day-trip, I kept a popper on one rod and a shallow dropshot on the other the entire time and never considered trying anything else.

The Mississippi River has many great smallmouth fishing sections, including a few above dams that can be fished effectively from a bass boat. However, the specific sections that I'm mostly talking about are the Monticello/Elk River section, which I'm guessing is about 30 miles upstream of Minneapolis, and the Brainerd section, quite a bit farther up the river. Both of these sections have to be floated, fished from a jetboat or waded in select spots because of plentiful shoal habitat.

I'm not sure when I'll have opportunity to return to the Upper Mississippi, but I'm constantly looking forward to that next time!

Favorite Fishing Day of 2017

Last year brought many fabulous fishing days in many different settings. My favorite day, though, had to be the one I spent with Doug Teel of Northridge Outfitters on Maine's Penobscot River catching smallies at a sometimes fevered pace. We started at 100, counted down to zero, and left with the fish still biting. I told the whole story at the time on Rebellures.com.

Our top producing lures that day were Rebel Wee-Crawfish, especially in the new Flaming Junebug color. We also caught several fish on top on Baby Torpedoes and Crazy Shads.

Beyond the great bite, a day on the river with Doug is always big fun, and our smallmouth catchfest capped three days of fishing and was part of a super stay at the Northridge Outfitters lodge.

Pennsylvania Smallmouth Fishing Report

The last word on this blog, way too long ago, had been that I was northbound for a couple of days of smallmouth fishing with Pennsylvania tournament angler, Ty Spade. Although I posted pics a few place, I never did update this page, so I'm finally doing so now.

Despite obvious success that the photo above shows, Ty and I hit tough river conditions and really had to work for our reward. Giant rains the day before I traveled north and a couple of days before that completely blew out one of the rivers he had in mind for us to fish and left the other way muddier than normal. His jetboat also was down, narrowing our options on the Susquehanna River, where we ended up fishing.

On day 1 we really had to grind it out just to catch some fish, although we did end up catching a few pretty decent smallies. On day 2, Ty started seeing some things that gave him clues, and he persisted in a few areas where he knew the larger fish had to be. The river color also got a tiny bit better, although not by much. While we still didn't catch big numbers and we never encountered the furious topwater bite he'd envisioned when we planned the trip, we definitely found high-quality smallmouths for what turned out to be a really fun and productive photo trip.

We ended up catching fish on a fair variety of lures. Among the top producers, though, were a BOOYAH spinnerbait matched with a YUM Pulse swimbait, a Bomber Fat A and Bandit 200.

I look forward to the next round, whenever that might turn out to be.

Run for the Bronze

As often seems to be the case with me from mid-spring through late fall, I'm off on a smallmouth quest this week. I've never quite been able to commit to a favorite style of fishing, but I can say with certainty that river bronzeback fishing is way up there on the list.

I fly to Pennsylvania today to spend a couple of days with Ty Spade fishing the Susquehanna River and possibly the Juniata River. The Juniata is a "maybe" because it got hit with some recent mud and we'll have to see how it shapes up. Both are new waters to me, so whatever plan we end up going with will be great.

I actually was supposed to travel to the same area late last summer, but airline problems caused me to cancel that trip. So I've been looking forward to this one for a quite a while!

I wish I could promise, "report to follow," but I've been so sporadic with this blog of late that I dare not make promises. I can say with pretty good certainty that pictures and reports will be posted, but they might be on my Facebook page (Jeff Samsel fishing) or on Instagram or Twitter (@jeffsamsel).

New (to me) Fishing Car

I'm so excited about my new fishing car that I almost wish I was driving it to Maine this morning. "Almost" is a fairly important word in that sentence, though. In truth, driving it to the Greenville/Spartanburg airport and flying the rest of the way will be just fine!

New, of course, only means new to me. It's an '08 that has already traveled just shy of 100 K miles. It seems to have been nicely cared for, though, and is in great condition.

Car is a Subaru Outback, which should be awfully perfect those rainy and snowy days when I still want to fishing and for those times when I want to go a little farther off the pavement but also comfortable for the many highway miles I log. It doesn't quite get the crazy good mileage of my Ford Fiesta, which served me mighty well for three years, but it still gets a pretty good 27 MPG on the highway.

I'm also glad to say that the Fiesta isn't going away. My 19-year-old son Nathaniel needed something that gets a little better mileage than his '95 F150 for a season.

Enough writing now. I'd better hop in the new car and drive to the airport. Smallmouths, pike, largemouths and beautiful Maine brookies are waiting at the other end.

Favorite 2016 Fishing Accomplishment: Crawfish Bass Slam

Guadalupe bass, Guadalupe River, Texas, Teeny Wee-Crawfish

2016 provided many amazing fishing opportunities, including chances to fish in a few states where I had never fished before and a few new species catches. I'll have to think more about specific favorite destinations and specific catches, but my favorite fishing accomplishment of the year is easy, and the story began in February with the bass pictured above. It's a Guadalupe bass, a black bass species found only in select Texas waters, and I caught it from the Guadalupe River in a state park of the same name. I only caught one and it wasn't very large, but I was thrilled because it was a species I'd never before had the opportunity to catch.

Suwannee bass, Santa Fe River, Florida, Deep Wee-Crawfish

In March, I got the chance to fish for Suwannee bass in Florida's Santa Fe River and to catch a few on Deep Wee-Crawfish. Having then caught two black bass species I'd never caught before by March and having caught both on Rebel Crawfish, I wondered how far I could carry that in a year. To shorten the story, I ended up catching seven species, which at one time would have been considered  true black bass slam, all on the Rebel Crawfish. Biologists have fairly recently defined a couple of other bass that are very similar to spotted bass a distinctive species in select watersheds, but the seven I caught represent what traditionally has been seen as a slam.

Interestingly, the last one I caught, which came late in the summer, was a shoal bass, and it came from the section of the Chattahoochee River that is less than 1/2 hour from my house. See photos below for species three through seven, each with a caption telling the species, location and kind of Rebel Crawfish.

Largemouth bass, Ouachita River, Arkansas, Middle Wee-Crawfish

Smallmouth bass, Ouachita River, Arkansas, Middle Wee-Crawfish

Spotted bass, Ouachita River, Arkansas, Middle Wee-Crawfish

Coosa redeye bass, Chattooga River, South Carolina, Deep Teeny Wee-Crawfish

Shoal bass, Chattahoochee River, Georgia, Wee-Crawfish

Whole Lot of Packing Going On

Asher and I are in full packing mode because tomorrow we leave on this summer's biggest adventure. We're pointing the car north this year, instead of west, and headed for New England. I suppose the primary targets would have to be the beautiful brook trout that live in the ponds of northern New England, but we'll be hitting a variety of waters in New York, New Hampshire, Vermont and Maine for brook, rainbow and brown trout, along with smallmouth bass, pike and whatever else wants to cooperate, and we'll even spend a day or two saltwater fishing on the Connecticut coast. If you followed last year's Rebel Trout Trek, this one won't be quite that grand. We were gone nearly a month and traveled all the way to Olympic National Park just outside of Seattle on that trip. I think we'll end up being on the road a little less than two weeks on this summer's trip.

At one point I thought we'd fly and get a rental car, but the more I thought about all the junk I wanted to tote and the scheduling freedom that comes with driving, the more I became convinced that the hours behind the wheel would be well invested. Now I just have to decide which wheel. My Ford Fiesta has been a mighty fine "trout car" and handled last year's cross-country trek, and it is the most likely choice. I need to check logging road conditions in one area of Maine, though, to make sure ground clearance won't present a problem. If that's too iffy we'll spread out more in the Expedition, and I'll just have to spend a little more time squeezing gas pump triggers.

I'll be sharing stories and photos from the trip on the Rebel Lures website and Facebook page beginning Aug. 1, which is around the time we'll likely be returning home. In the meantime, I'm sure I'll post a few travel updates here, on my Facebook fishing page and on Instagram and Twitter (@jeffsamsel on either).

Banking on the Buffalo

I had only floated Arkansas' Buffalo National River in the past, but given low water that would have dictated a lot of canoe dragging, Glenn Wheeler suggested a wading approach for our day on the Buffalo last week. I'm glad he did, and I'm intrigued by the notion of a multi-day trip with a similar approach some time in the future. The many National Parks Service access points provide a tremendous amount of river access, and I think it would be really fun to hop from access to access, working down the river, for a three or four days, camping by the river each evening.

The Buffalo is ever-winding, with gravel bars on long inside bends and bluffs across the river. Access points naturally are on the inside bends, so from just about any one, you can cover a lot of territory without any kind of boat. And when the water is low, like it is now, before you reach a point where the river changes directions, it's easy to wade across to stay on the shallow side.

In truth, for our trip, with limited time and a desire to hit a few different access points, we didn't even have to wade. An enormous amount of really good water could be reached from the bank. I ended up wading some, mostly because I like getting in the river, but two of our in our group stayed dry, and I didn't catch any more fish then they did. Together, I'd guess we caught a bout 40 fish (mostly smallmouths) in half a day of hopping from one access point to the next.

Just as it has when I've floated it in the past, the beautiful Buffalo River left me longing for more and I'm already mentally planning "next time." When exactly that next time will happen, I don't know, but I know I'm looking forward to it!

New Water

Bruce Stanton of Rebel Lures has spent quite a bit of time fishing Oklahoma's Mountain Fork River and much more time fishing Arkansas' Ouachita River. Nevertheless, Stanton and I spent all day fishing those two rivers yesterday without hitting any water he had ever seen before.

Instead of going to the known spots, we took a pioneering approach, looking for access as we paralleled sections of both river and getting in to fish where we could.

The upper Mountain Fork runs through a lot of private land where we were, but we were able to gain access at an RV park/canoe outpost along the river and were able to launch our own boats to fish both upstream and downstream of the resort. The Ouachita runs extensively through National Forest Service land, so we simply watched for the brown signs, followed arrows to public access points, and started wading wherever we could get to the river.

While we didn't find the smallmouths we hope to catch, we did find some willing spotted bass, and we loaded up on various kinds of panfish, and the simple approach of finding a public place to get in and seeing what we would find was simply fun. Plus we both know a little more than we did about both rivers!

Small (mouth) Distraction

My focus has been a little split for the past couple of days. It's something that sometimes happens when a big tournament is going on. And it's especially likely to occur when the pros are catching whopper smallmouths. I find myself spending too much time peeking at BASStrakk, the Bassmaster blog, the FLW Twitter feed, pros' facebook pages and more, wanting to know what the fish are doing and who is catching them and of course wanting to see photos of big brown fish.

I suppose it's somewhat of a vicarious fishing thing.

This week it's been a double whammy because the Elites are fishing Lake St. Clair at the same time as an FLW Rayovac Series event is going on at Erie, out of Sandusky. The fishing has been good, and they are catching a lot of big fish. Adding intrigue, friends are in major contention in both tournaments, and on the BASS side, the Angler of the Year race and Bassmaster Classic qualifiers continue to take shape.

I'm still getting my writing done. It's just taking longer than it should. I'd write more here, but I need to check on the weigh-ins!

Fishing Week Celebration

National Boating & Fishing Week is going on right now. It began with the weekend and continues through next weekend. With that I mind, I'm headed back to the North Carolina mountains tomorrow for a few days of fishing.

OK, maybe that's not my main reason, but it sounds like as good an excuse as any.

Whatever the reason, I'm looking forward to exploring the North Carolina High Country region and fishing the streams that head up on Grandfather Mountain. We'll mostly fish for trout on this trip, but Tuesday's plan is a float trip down the upper New River for smallmouth bass. Looking at the agenda, it looks like each day's fishing trip will differ from the others quite a bit in character. The common denominator is that we'll be fly fishing.

My agenda for the media trip that I'm attending begins mid-afternoon tomorrow, but I believe I'm going to blast out dark and early and do a little exploration along the way.

New York State of Mind

Not represented in this photo are about 50 big smallmouths
caught and released on the same day!

As of a yesterday, a little past lunchtime, I thought I'd be home for the next few weeks, writing fish stories and doing only local fishing. Then opportunity arose, and it was one I just couldn't resist. Some time this weekend I'll point the Fiesta north and drive till I get to Lewiston, New York, on the banks of the Niagara River.

Lewiston ranks among my favorite fishing towns, and the annual media gathering I'll be joining is always fun and productive. Last year, it produced one of my favorite fishing days of the entire year in Capt. Frank Campbell's boat on the lower Niagara River. The 10-pound brown pictured above slammed a tube while we were smallmouth fishing, and was among about 50 smallmouths between about 3 pounds and 5-15. To cap the spectacular smallmouth action, which occurred in about four hours at the mouth of the Niagara River, we ran upriver to swifter water and managed to land a steelhead and a laker. Some kind of day, I'd have to say!


Potential opportunities from the same trip also include fishing Erie for big first-season smallmouths, fishing for trout and salmon and Lake Ontario and much more. I fished three days on last year's trip, and each was completely different from the other two. Erie was slower than normal, but one fish I caught weighed 5-11, which is the biggest smallmouth I've ever weighed. The variety of high-quality opportunities is in the Niagara River Region is really pretty astounding.

For now, I suppose I need to scramble to finish some writing, charge some batteries, clear some come cards, pack some junk...

Catch & Keep Requirement

I've been researching fishing regulations in various places, both in preparation for the summer's Rebel Trout Trek and as part of a writing project, and one type of regulation I've found in a few places seems so odd to me. In some waters where introduced game species compete with native species or where some specific species make-up is desired by game managers, it is illegal to release the less desired species. I'd seen this with species like the northern snakehead, but it wasn't until I started looking more closely at the rules in various places that I realized there were places where you had to kill species like smallmouth bass, northern pike and walleyes (Utah's Green River), brown trout (parts of Shenandoah National Park), and brook trout and rainbow trout (part of Yellowstone National Park).

I understand the regulations' intent, and in truth using normal angling activity as a tool is probably a really good way to remove an introduced species and allow the native fish to thrive. It just seems so weird to think that if Asher and I fish the Lamar River in Yellowstone this summer, we'll have to keep any rainbow or brook trout we catch. I have to admit that I'd be cheering for all cutthroats. I'm not a huge fan of trout as food, and cooking fish wouldn't be super practical, but I sure wouldn't let anything go to waste.

#RebelTroutTrek

Bug Tying Weather

Trout do like tend to like dark days, but it has rained enough over the past few days that I think the streams might have gotten a bit out of whack, and through the winter, a couple of days of steady, cold rain can sort of keep the trout from ever waking up.

Maybe those are excuses. Maybe it just seemed cold to me to walk up a creek.

One way other the other, today seemed like a good day to stay home, and a Saturday at home typically is a good day to convert jigheads, fur and feathers into critter imitations or attractors that I hope will draw the interest of trout, smallmouths and other fish. Some will work. Others probably will not. Either way, Ugly Bugs are fun to tie, rain or shine.

6 Favorite Fish from 2014

Toward the end of the year I always like looking back at favorite fishing trips, days on the water and specific fish. For the moment, I'm going focus on specific fish and what made each a favorite. And I'll just go ahead and apologize now to any extra cool fish from this year that I'm not thinking about at the moment.

Northern Minnesota Tulibee - It was neither a trophy nor a kind of fish that most anglers even target. So why was it one of my favorites? Mostly, I suppose, because I'd never caught a tulibee, and being sort of a wannabe northern woodsman during the winter, I'm intrigued by all things ice. It also was a fun catch because I marked just inches beneath the ice when I was fishing near the bottom for bluegills, so I reeled up quickly and started jigging with a very short line. It hammered the bait and just about pulled the rod out of my hand.


Green Bay Smallmouth - We didn't have scales, so I can't assign an actual weight. I'm guessing high 5s, at least, though, and it may even have outweighed a 5-11 (my biggest weighed smallmouth) that I caught from Erie about a month later. This particular fish, which came from a small Green Bay tributary, was an extra prize and very satisfying because enduring winter weather made fishing unusual tough that week. I caught it on a Get Bit Baits Crawling Tube.

Lake Pactola Lake Trout - The cool thing abut the laker was how similar it was to another lake I caught a few years ago while ice fishing on the same lake. Both days I was fishing with Tyler French on days based out of Deadwood and we were jigging over deep points, and I caught both fish on minnow-tipped Lindy Watsit Grubs!

Niagara River Brown Trout - My biggest brown ever - right around 10 pounds - and I caught in the midst of catching a gazillion jumbo smallmouths on tubes at the mouth of the Niagara River with Capt. Frank Campbell. Again, it was a Get Bit Baits Crawling Tube that did the job. That day was actually one of my favorites from last year, but I suppose that's another story for another time.

El Salto Largemouth - It was my first trip to Angler's Inn at Mexico's Lake El Salto in about15 years, and the 9-2 largemouth I caught on the first full day of the trip might have been my biggest bass since last time I was there. I've caught a few big pond bass that I haven't weighed, so I'm not sure about that, but it was sure one of the biggest in quite a few years. It was a classic El Salto fish that hit a big Power Worm fished through flooded trees. My first trip to El Salto, by the way, yielded a 10 1/2, which remains the biggest bass I've ever weighed.

Red Lake Walleye -The best walleye from my most recent trip wasn't a genuine trophy by Minnesota walleye standards -- just a good quality fish. However, I caught it from the first sleeper ice house I've ever spent a night in, and I caught just moments after arriving. I probably hadn't been fishing two minutes when the fish hit, and I was surprised to bring up a thick-bodied walleye that landed right in the middle of the Red Lake slot and therefore went right back down into the hole almost as quickly as it came out.

Trout Toys

Punisher Lures float-and-fly hair jigs and feather jigs (flies)  mostly get used under floats for winter smallmouths, but I plan to introduce them to some trout (maybe today), drifting and swimming them with no float.
I'm eager to see both the craft hair jigs and the feather jigs in the current. I sort of think they'll look super good and that the trout are going to really like them. 
I'm not sure how much I'll end up fishing, but I'm at least going to go look at a couple of rivers and take some photos, and I'll most likely do some fishing while I'm at it. And I may end up doing more tomorrow. Plans are forming as I go. If I do fish and find them, I'll post a report.

Dale Hollow Smallmouths, Tailwater Trout & Rend Lake Crappie

When I have to dig into the slide files for a
picture, like this one of Stephen Headrick of
at Dale Hollow,I know it's been a while since
I've been somewhere!

I've spent some days on the legendary waters of Dale Hollow, but given the fact that my photos from there are all slides, I'd say it has been way too long. I'll fix that very soon. On Sunday evening I'm driving to Dale Hollow Marina to spend a couple of days with friends from Punisher Lures. I'm looking forward to returning to one of the most beautiful lakes I've ever fished and hopefully the getting the opportunity to lock horns with some jumbo smallmouths.

After I leave Dale Hollow, my plans for a couple of days remain a little up in the air, but I'm certain I'll be fishing, and it will probably be in Tennessee. Most likely plan for at least part of the time is to explore the tailwaters of Dale Hollow and Center Hill. Both rivers are very close to where I'll already be, and in recent years the latter has developed into one of the South's finest trout fisheries.

Final stop of my next round of travels will be in Southern Illinois, at Rend Lake, where crappie will be the main attraction. Best I can recall, I've never caught a fish in Illinois, so assuming some success, I can add that to my state list. I also haven't caught a white crappie yet in 2014, so maybe I can add at least one species to this year's list. With two months remaining, my current species tally stands at 26.

Uncertain internet and computer time sometimes makes blogging a challenge, but I'll do my best to keep updates and notes about cool stuff I learn posted here, on my facebook page and on Instagram and Twitter, so keep a look out! If you haven't followed me in any of those places, I'd appreciate you checking out what I share and maybe adding a follow or page like!

Today is one of those "get ready" days. Clearing memory cards, charging batteries, gathering clothes and fishing junk, taking care of things at home... Suppose I'd better get to doing stuff!

Splendid Sequatchie

Patrick Roberson and I had been knee-deep in Tennessee's Sequatchie River for about three minutes when the first of many rock bass nabbed the little black jig I'd tied from my dog's shed fur, and by the time we'd worked circled the pool (maybe 10 minutes), we had caught and released four fish of three different species (rock bass, crappie, smallmouth bass). The next pool up produced a longear sunfish and a largemouth, along with some more rock bass.

"That's the thing about river fishing," Pat said. "You never what you're going to catch."

He certainly proved that. We spent about five hours together, wading two different sections of the same river, and during that time we caught nine different species. I sort of wish I'd had one of those little clicking counter things that pitching coaches use, because I really have no idea how many fish we caught. I only know that it was a bunch, and that on quite a few occasions, he and I were both reeling in fish at the same time.

Pat was showing me home waters. The Sequatchie River, which cuts a broad valley between high ridges, runs right through his family farm in Bledsoe County. Our gear and approach were as simple as it gets. We waded wet and each carried nothing but a single spinning outfit and a few extra lures. In truth, we never needed the spare lures. I fished the same hair jig from start to finish, and Pat never had reason to change from his Hildebrandt Nugget.

My fishing destinations range from the ice to the ocean, and there are elements of every style of fishing that I really enjoy. Pressed to pick, though, I'd have to say that wet wading in a cool-water stream and casting small baits for everything that swims is my favorite way to fish, and yesterday's fishing with Pat was about as good as that kind of fishing can get.

That means yesterday was a "best of the best" sort of day, and you can bet that I'm already looking forward to doing it again some time!

Peacocks, Angels & Hand-Tied Jigs

When my 19 year-old daughter Sarah sees peacock feathers, she sees pretty skirts for cornhusk angels. To my 7-year-old daughter Autumn the same feathers represent pieces needed for cute little dolls. To me, peacock feathers a represent jig or fly material. The iridescent green and purple strands make wonderful tail material, and also work really nicely for wrapped bodies. I use them in both smallmouth jigs and trout jigs.

Normally the peacock complements other materials, adding a little flash to a black or gray hair jig or a deeper green to an olive marabou jig. The jig above is actually all peacock.

It also works nicely for me because I get all the materials I need from Sarah's remnants. She needs the full end of the feather with the prettiest colors, and she always end up with pieces that have several strands still on them She would throw those away, so I gladly move them to my tying area. Autumn's use falls in between. She likes the full pretty feathers, but she just likes making things, so she makes her dolls, enjoys them for a while and then takes them apart and give the feathers back to Sarah!

All this peacock talk makes me want to go trout fishing.