The Cleansing of the Boat Bag

I've been so busy the last few months working on IT things - which is really pretty funny in itself - that my boat bag somehow fell into disarray. Some might blame it on my inability to maintain organizational skills in many areas of my life. Some have even said that I can be a little messy at times.

While that might be the case - I prefer to blame things like the current state of my boat bag on the Noid. The Noid? Remember that dude from the Domino Pizza commercials in the....80's...I am getting old. In my opinion - the Noid has been following me around for the last 20 years (ever since his contract with Dominos expired) and gets his kicks out of messing with me. He hides my keys twice a day, mutes my phone and hides it in a drawer, steals my wallet for days on end and then sneaks it into the visor of my Suburban, and then there's my fishing gear.

I can't tell you how many times I have picked out  a dozen flies for a guide trip only to get half a mile from the truck when I realize that the "secret patterns" our sill in my center console. He's even taken my lunches out of my cooler and put them back in my truck as I was launching the boat - usually only once a year.

I decided that I should start getting my gear sorted for the upcoming season as I will be traveling quite a bit the next few months. Things like inspecting my fly lines, seeing where I'm at with leaders, and clean up my fly boxes. As you can see, the Noid was quite busy this winter with several of my fly boxes.

Icy Thoughts

Seems like my theme the last week days has been on the coldness that is winter in Montana. I know that a lot of you are elsewhere - maybe someplace warm - and the thought of 20-30 degrees in the morning is just plain frightening.

Where I grew up in Texas, the schools would cancel the night before if it even looked like the weather might possibly maybe kinda freeze. While my 12 year old here in Bozeman goes out everyday for recess so long as it's not below 0!

So, fishing in the cold? Well, this is what the Gallatin looked like this morning after nighttime temps somewhere in the -10 range. Looks inviting huh? Not much pressure today, that's for sure.

Once it gets below 25, count on frozen guides on the rod - this is reasonably manageable until it gets down around 17 or so. Once it gets much below that, the guides, frames on reels/spools, drag mechanisms, hands, feet, lips - they all freeze pretty quickly.

So what helps? Stanleys Ice Off paste helps slow down the freezing of guides for about 4 minutes. Dunking your rod/reel in the water helps for about 3 minutes. WD-40 sprayed liberally on everything reduces squeaks and helps reduce freezing for about 2 minutes.

Things to try that others have tried and failed with (but probably because they didn't do it right) (I am not suggesting you try these, but would be curious to see if these things worked for you...send pictures please). Coat everything in vaseline - it's not water soluble so that should work. Carmex. Crisco. Transmission fluid. Antifreeze...that's gotta work.

We're not responsible for damage to equipment or your humanity if you so choose to try any of these latter methods. Go get 'em!

It's Really Cold

 I don't know what the high was today but it was much closer to 0 than 10! Always amazes me when the weather gets like this that someone tries to give it a go on the Gallatin or Madison. Seriously. Not today though! It was windy and as cold as it has felt all winter. I bet the Gallatin is a bit chunky tonight.

The website is up and we've been getting lots of great comments...so thanks to all and we hope it helps make life a little easier for everyone...especially us!

When the weather does warm up, we should be on the front end of midge fishing on the Lower Madison. We just got in a bunch of new flies including some pretty sexy midges (if a midge could ever be considered sexy that is) and a healthy restocking of the saltwater bins. I spent the majority of the day trying to figure out where to put them - always a good time!

New Website Is Up

Finally! Our new website is up at www.finsandfeathersonline.com ! It's been a long process and still is not all the way complete...but we're getting there! A bunch of new features including a redesign of how we do the fishing reports, a blog (I'll keep doing this one, but we will now be able to bring all of our "blog things" together in one place), and all the usual bells and whistles regarding our guide service and fly shop. It just went live earlier today so there are still a few bugs here and there so be patient if you run into any "dead links" the first few days.

Cold Spell?

I was kind of determined to fish yesterday no matter what, but I did expect the weather to be tolerable at the least and balmy at the best. Well, it really was neither. As I made my way to the shop to meet up with my buddies, the thermometer in my suburban said 12. NOAA was calling for a high in the low 30's...they were wrong.

The bleakness of the situation came shining through when we hit the lower Madison and Swanson says something to the effect of "is that slush?" So we decided to drive around and come in from the dam, hoping that the sun would work it's magic given some time. Didn't happen - it snowed all day. It was around 15 by the time we got to the powerhouse, so things were looking up. The stretch from the dam to the powerhouse was very low which makes for easy gettin' around but pretty spooky fish as there is hardly any current in the deeper holes right now. The water coming out of the powerhouse was very green. Oh, and it was really cold. Got a few and got out of there...better photos than fish.

Next headed back to the lower river, thinking things might have warmed up enough to get rid of some of that slush. Slush doesn't melt when it's 15 out - I now know. The fishing was good though as we hit a few buckets and got some fish in about 30 minutes or so of fishing. Pink stuff.

And, continuing with this getting older theme...there were some guys putting a boat in at Warm Springs which got me thinking about how stupid kids are today! Come on...don't you see the chunks of ice floating by the boat ramp? What do you think the anchor rope does when it gets wet and the temp is 10-15? Do you think the water on the inside of the boat is going to stay warm? Do you really think fish are gonna chase streamers when the water temp is 32? Kids...

Almost 40

I'll be 40 in a few days...which isn't such a bad thing but man it's amazing how fast times flies. We only get one shot at life and my philosophy has always been to make it count! I think I'm still learning what really counts, but I know that I've been as fortunate as anyone to be able to chase my dreams.

Jimmy Houston was one of my fishing inspirations as a wee lad. Don't know why...maybe its was his infectious laugh or just crazy way of always cacthing a pig at the end of one of his shows. Sure there was some behind the scenes things going on to make that happen...maybe a quick trip to a fish hatchery for one of their brood stocks. Most guys wake up thinking about the crap they have to do at work today...I wake up wondering if Jimmy Houston knows how to fly fish.

Winter Projects - Update

I've only been fishing once this year - so far. That looks to be changing though as I've finally begun to see some progress on the various winter projects around the shop. Hopefully everything will be pretty much wrapped up in the next couple of weeks!

Winter in a fly shop is probably similar to any seasonal business in that it the time of year to try to fix the issues of the previous year and better prepare for the upcoming season. This winter has been especially busy around here as we have completely upgraded our point of sale database. Countless hours of staring into excel files is the best way to describe the journey. Also, we're having the website redesigned - which has turned into a much bigger project than we ever imagined - and will be up live by the end of Feb at the latest (I've been going on for awhile about this now and once it's live you'll understand why it's taken so long!). Guide trip bookings are looking better than we have ever seen, which has resulted in a "massive" restructuring of how we do things "in-house" in terms of reservations and scheduling.  And, there is always the e-commerce site which needs more tinkering than one would ever imagine - but it's a big part of our business so a necessary evil.

I have just finished updating our fly selection online! By finish I basically mean fixing what was already up there. This means taking photos of our flies and replacing all of the old images. So that part is done, now I have to add a zillion new patterns and take pics of the remaining flies. BUT, it is looking much better now so check it out and buy some flies!

Late Night Workin'

I've been living the dream the last few weeks of becoming one with our entire selection of flies. Imagine the setup...there I am with my camera, a 180 Macro lens( which happens to come with a bazooka of a lens shade) and a full set of extension tubes - peering into a lighthouse sitting on top of a bunch of fly reels! I think the scene is comparable to one of those cartoons with the scientist using a telescope to look at a mole on someone's nose! The goal of this grand waste of time is to produce quality fly pics for both our commerce site that as well as ones for  the new fishing reports when the new site is ready...soon they tell me. I have over 1000 of images like this for every single fly we carry! Minutia.

Here's a smattering of some a few bug pics we've been making but you can check them out at our store as well www.store.finsandfeathersonline.com , buy some flies too! We're about 75% complete on this project. Good Times.

Talking Snow

La Nina is still bringing it on  SW MT. We just got slammed this afternoon with a ton of snow and some more chilly temps. Great for the summer, crappy for the morning shovel.

Current snowpacks are looking really good again this year, so much so that everyone is kind of talking about good water. The last few years have all been pretty good but it's still hard to not worry after a decade of drought. I guess that's why we all get pretty jacked up when we can head into this stage of the winter without worrying.

Let it snow!

Missoula - 2011

We are trying to get our new website up and running soon, but I think we are still a couple of weeks away from that being a reality. So I'm posting this here instead of building a new page which will have to be rebuilt in week or two!

One of the new things we are doing in 2011 is extending our guide service over to the Missoula area. This is possible thanks to the relocation of Rick Weisend to the area last year. Rick is now based out of Missoula and will be guiding for Fins & Feathers primarily west of the Continental Divide - still available for trips around Bozeman and the Missouri with returning clients.

So here's how it works. Call us at 877-790-5303 like you normally would to make a reservation. You can always e-mail us as well at info@finsandfeathersonline.com if that's easier for you. We'll book the days and get everything scheduled. Rick will contact you prior to your trip to arrange a meeting location that is convenient for everyone.

We primarily fish the Bitterroot, Blackfoot, and Clark's Fork and mostly from a driftboat or raft. The fishing in Missoula is a little different than SW Montana in that it is typically more dry fly fishing with attractor patterns. These rivers are terrific early and late season destinations so April and September are reliable months for long range planning. The runoff is usually earlier than SW Montana and winds down a little earlier so mid-June, July, and August are usually considered as the "prime" season.

That part of the state is more prone to fires and being affected by low water/high temperatures than the waters around Bozeman. The good news here is that they have a really high snow pack over this year so we don't anticipate any significant issues in 2011.

Rick is available pretty much full time out of the Missoula area and we have a great network of guides in the area to draw from as well. Some of our Bozeman based guides are also available for multi-day group trips in the region. I am personally available for these trips from mid-September through mid-October.

Our rates are the same as here in Bozeman - $450 for full day - and includes flies, lunches, drinks, and use of rods/reels (waders and boots are NOT available on our Missoula trips). Just give us a call or send an e-mail if you have any questions or want to book something in the Missoula area for 2011.