2015 Top Twelve Days on the Water

-- First fish of 2016 --

I'll open this long overdue post with the first fish of 2016. A sweet native Massachusetts brookie from a stream with no name. We are now three months into 2016, but I'd like to look back on a personally successful 2015 fly fishing New England waters.

I use the phrase "occasional blogger" in my Instagram profile for a reason. It's hard to provide relevant content to the blog on a regular basis. It's been 11 months since the last post and I hope you'll enjoy this one.

Low Tide in the Salt Marsh

 - Early Season Schoolie Hunt - 

Got out with my striper buddy, Mark, on Saturday looking for the first striped bass "schoolies" of the season. It was a beautiful day exploring some old and new water in Rhode Island. Also met some new fly fishing friends as well.

Water temps were 50 degrees, but the schoolies were not interested. We started at place where I had luck last year with my first striper on the fly and fished the tide change from high to low.

Instagram Fly Swap III

- Instagram Fly Swap III -

Finally finding time to put up this post about the 3rd Semi-Annual Instagram Fly Swap hosted again by Morgan Kupfer of Tight Line Tales of a Fly Fisherman. Also check out the 1st and 2nd Instagram Fly Swaps.

The call from Morgan went out on the @tltff Instagram feed back in March this year and flies were mailed to the 10 tiers the first week of May.

The popularity of this swap is way up from the first time. It took about 5 minutes to fill up after Morgan's initial post!

As with the previous two swaps, we had a great, well rounded group of excellent tiers including some celebrities. The theme of the swap was streamers - one salt and one fresh pattern.

For each set of flies below, there is a link to the tier's Instagram profile, pics of the flies and names/recipes if they were provided (for those who didn't send in names/recipes - it's never too late. Comment below and I'll add it to the post).

All the flies are "Bad Ass" and those with no names have that name for now. On to the flies...

First Striper on the Fly

-- First Stripah on the Fly --

Four times a charm, or something like that. Last weekend, a good buddy, Mark, took me to his "spot" in Rhode Island to chase some pre-dawn schoolies on the fly. This was my 4th outing ever to chase stripers.

We went to this same spot last year with no luck, but this time the tides were right and the week leading up to our outing had ideal temps and weather conditions.