Fly Fishing On My Muley Hunt

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Scott702
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Re: Fly Fishing On My Muley Hunt

Post by Scott702 » Wed Apr 16, 2014 9:44 am

Fly Fishing is awesome! If you go on youtube you can look up videos and get a better idea of the different types of fly fishing. As I see it there is dry fly which I already described. Then there is wet fly fishing, and that divides into two categories, streamers and then the rest of wet flies. Streamers you either drift or strip a streamer through the water and feel the trout take the fly. With the other wet flies you drift a small wet fly under a strike indicator and the trout takes the small fly and you see the strike indicator bob in the water, just like a bobber.

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derekp1999
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Re: Fly Fishing On My Muley Hunt

Post by derekp1999 » Thu Apr 24, 2014 8:27 am

November is a great time to throw some line. As already mentioned the brown trout spawn that time of year and can make for some fun times, especially early in the day when they are on the redds. Just try not to walk in the river too much and definitely stay off the spawing redds.
A nice rod/reel setup can be had relatively inexpensively. I am a Cabela's man when it comes to fly rods and you can find a rod/reel combo there in the neighborhood of $100. They are nice setups and work great for beginners... if you decide that fly fishing is for you then you can upgrade later. I fished with the Cahill setup (under $50) for 15 years and was perfectly happy with it.
Your best bet in November would be a nymph setup, especially if the browns are actively spawning. I'm not familiar with the area or river so I don't know if browns are even present in the Dolores where you'll be hunting. For spawning browns I like to go with a tandem glo-bug rig, that means one fly is tied onto the end of the tippet & another piece of 12 to 18 inch tippet is tied either thru the eye of the first fly or from the bend of the hook (I prefer from the bend of the hook) and a second fly tied onto that so you have 2 flies on the end of your line. I call this "buffet fishing." I've found that an "attractor nymph" like a glo bug, San Juan worm, Copper John (basically anything brightly colored and/or slightly larger in size) trailed by a smaller more realistic/muted pattern (Pheasant Tail, Hare's Ear, Prince Nymph) will elicite strikes on the more muted pattern. fishing with two flies can be tricky for the first timer and if you don't have your timing down it can be extremely frustrating because the knots and tangles are world class. For a beginner I would recommend a single glo-bug fished below a strike indicator (I really like the small Thingamabobber indicators). Set the indicator so that you're just barely off the bottom and use a couple BB split shot 12 to 18 inches above your fly to help get you down there. It's not dry fly fishing but it's effective & once you feel like you have the rhythm down give the tandem setup a try. If there are trout, you may see a hatch in the afternoons and some surface action, but at that time of year you can bet that the bugs will be tiny and your casts will have to be nearly perfect with very small flies and delicate tippets... which is a recipe for frustration for the beginner.

One other tip... ALWAYS CRIMP YOUR BARBS. Better yet, buy or tie flies that are already barbless. This is for your benefit and safety as much as the fishes. I've been fly fishing since I was 5 and I impale myself in some way shape or form at least once every trip. Crimping my barbs or having barbless hooks has saved me countless trips to the ER. The last thing you would want to have happen on your hunting trip would be to cut it short due to burying a fish hook in your ear, cheek, or neck (aside from your fingers, those are the places you WILL be removing a hook from at some point in time as you learn to cast a fly rod).
“The consequences of our actions are always so complicated, so diverse, that predicting the future is a very difficult business indeed.”
-Albus Dumbledore

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