salmobytes

it is too light to cast with a spin rod

Skinny Minnies (generic fly rod wigglers) .... 2015 photo Diving bill snipped from a Costco orange juice bottle, roughed up with sand paper and CA glued to closed cell EVA foam. Adorned as you like it. Tungsten bead in front of a shelled hook, with snell going through a hole in the diving bill makes it wobble considerably. A hole low down on the bill makes it dive deeply and vibrate. A hole high up on the bill wobbles wider and slower but doesn't dive as aggressively. The weight of the bead effects action and dive.

Photo editing is easy. It only took me ten years to learn.

shooting in sun? I'm not sure who you are asking. If you shoot jpeg white balance and exposure are critical All that stuff is less important if you shoot in raw mode and then use image editing software to make the jpeg manually, instead of letting the camera do it robotically Lightroom and Photoshop are as good as it gets. But expensive. I use Darktable and Gimp Mostly Darktable Both are free

How are the Silvercreek/Loving Creek hatches holding up? It's been 15 years since I fished there. Back then the public meadows were crowded but the hatches were good. The fish were so spooky and well educated I had to fish hard for 3 or 4 fish. I did better swinging micro-streamers, even during the hatch. I've found that to be true at Harriman on the Henry's Fork too. I've been hearing depressing reports about the Henry's Fork. But I haven't been up there to see it for myself.

No no. I suspect Roundup and other pesticides. The mayfly decline on the Paradise Valley spring creeks has been going on for years. I went five or six years ago and found a meager hatch. In the 1990s the mayfly hatches were so thick you had to see it to believe it. Today I found no hatch at all. I didn't see a single mayfly. Not one! I was there at the right time too. There has been a major grasshopper event this year in Eastern Montana. They've been spraying like crazy East of Billings. Wildlife groups are all up in arms because they will be killing all insects there and not just grasshoppers, which kills the grasslands birds too. Are they spraying for grasshoppers in Western Montana too? I'm not sure. They have been spraying for weeds here for years. At DePuy spring creek I have watched a four wheel ATV with a big white plastic tank on back zooming around for hours at a time spraying for leafy spurge. They spray for thistles and broad leaf weeds in the hay fields. They spray for wild oats in the wheat fields. I'm not sure if they are using grasshopper pesticide this far West. But I did only see semi-microscopic hoppers. The big locust like hoppers that clack and fly used to be common this time of year. I didn't see a single one. The only hoppers i did see were all so small you could barely see them, like the following mayfly-sized micro hopper. This guy was less than 1/2" inch long. The Montana tail-water hatches (primarily the Big Horn and Missouri) are not what they used to be either, but they are holding up better than the valley spring creeks. The BWO hatches on the Missouri are still a fun time to fish, although nothing like they used to be.

Ouch. I went to O'Hairs Spring Creek today to photograph Pale Morning Duns. But. Ouch. There weren't any. The hatches on Montana's Paradise Valley Spring Creeks (O'Hair, DePuy and Nelson) have been declining for years. It appears they are now near extinct. I stopped in at a local fly shop. "They only hatch well on cooler days" they said. Back in the 1990s when I was a spring creek guide they hatched every day. On good days they were thick as hair on a dog's back. But even on the slow days there was still a hatching event, usually between 11am and 2pm. On cloudy days the PMD hatch would last even later into the afternoon. Now it's..............not even a thing. The guy at the fly shop said "You shoulda been here yesterday." ..............it was 10 degrees cooler yesterday. But still. This is not a good development. I have my hunches about why. But I won't say it now. Not without some evidence anyway.

Sony ar7iii body $2000 90mm macro lens $1100 macro extension tubes $129 macro ring light $169 ....it's worse than fishing tackle.

:=))

:=)) I can do stacking in the basement but not at stream side. Point and shoots even DSLRs etc can do good macros but can't actually magnify much. That's what I'm working on. How to turn a camera into a portable low power microscope. There is some incredible work out there on youtube and other places. I'm not there yet. I am with the studio work but not with the streamside stuff.

F-16 with a more natural-looking background.

Not one of my better photographs. I often make fly photos in a light tent with special equipment, so I can make a maybe 12 or reven 20 exposure focus stack. This is a one shot photo at F9 with a macro lens and extension tubes so it ends up as more than 1:1 magnification. I'll head to the Spring Creek later this week to try and photograph some live PMDs in the field. A new mirrorless camera makes ultra-macro easier, because it makes manual focus easier. Plus you can shoot ten frames a second. One or two out of those ten will be the sharpest. We'll see. In the meantime this was practice on a Pott Sticker--a hair hackle wet fly that flares out nicely without any weaving. Tie the hair so it faces forward. Push it back with the barrel of an empty ball point pen. Push the bead back so it pushes against the hair and keeps it there. Whip finish in front of the bead. Slobber on some head cement. Or glue. Woven hair hackles are a great tradition but these are pretty good too. And lickedy split fast by comparison. Ultra macro without a light tent is hard.

ok. Hmmm. Perhaps.... we'll give it away.

I'm helping someone put together a garage sale of fly tying materials. Sort of an estate sale with a lifetime's collection of stuff, including thousands of old Mustad hooks and ........... more or less everything. Including a 12" cube cardboard box stuffed with hanks of Polar Bear Hair. I think it's illegal to sell polar bear hair--new stuff anyway. Is old stuff grandfathered? What is it worth? I can find illicit feathers for sale on EBay but I came up short searching for Polar Bear hair. Must be 50 small square hanks of it.

Ah entomology. Sorry. I didn't notice this category existed. I had been posting these in the fly tying bench.