There is something about the first fish of the year that gets the blood pumping. Whether it’s an omen of the year to come I don’t know, but it always starts me anticipating a productive year of Fly Fishing. This year the first fish was especially exhilarating since not being able to brake out the long rod in two months. Saturday an opportunity for me to toss flies on a small Arizona creek arose and I jumped all over it. It’s a bit early in the season to expect much out of this stream but I could not help spending a few hours tempting the creek to give up a prize.

As would be expected in February the temperature was brisk. The clouds were struggling to decide whether to send down snow or rain and between the two it ended up a wet and soggy day.

It was not to far into the trip when the indicator sucked below the surface. I quickly realized how rusty my fishing skills were when I found myself with my rod tip to high and excessive slack in the line. Frantically I scrambled, striping slack out of my poorly managed line so I could set the hook. Despite the late hook set and the line tangled between my legs and pack I somehow managed a hook set and was rewarded with an orange flash, the tell tell sign of a Brown on the line.  Maybe it’s because of being inundated with stocked Rainbows with pail colors and mangled fins over the years, but I really get excited whenever I can get into Browns. Given the way he was taking line from my fingers he was a decent size for this Creek.  Somehow I managed to get the line untangled from my pack and legs just in time to feed him line as he ran. After a short fight the reward was a bold colored 15″ Brown and the 2010 fishing season is on.

I know I normally only talk about Fly Fishing. But considering all of my time lately has been spent launching our new Real Estate Brokerage I have not had any time to break out the fly rod.

With that said I am excited to announce that we are going to be opening the doors to our new office in Tempe, Arizona later this month.

We have also recently launched our TV advertising campaign with ABC15. ABC has also made us their exclusive real estate company for their website www.abc15.com.  So far the results have been through the roof with up to 400 users per day using www.BlueRoof.com to search for homes. We are thrilled by how excited everyone is getting about the site. I would love to get some feedback on our first TV commercial shown below. Please note that our advertising budget is not huge, but I think it turned out fairly well.

I have been meaning to post about my recent fishing trip through Utah but since I don’t foresee me having the time to write the post anytime soon, I thought I would at least post a little fish porn from the trip. Fished 3 days, 2 of the days were spent on different sections of the middle Prove, and a couple hours on the Sevier in Central Utah. Never saw another fisherman the entire trip, that could be because the temperatures were anywhere from 9  (yea, you read that right) to 30 degrees. I have often had my guides freeze up while fishing but this was the first trip I had to repeatedly thaw out my reel. It was well worth having the river to myself.

For Christmas this year my parents tracked down this old picture of a wonderful childhood memory that had previously been lost.

I caught this King on the second cast of my first fishing trip in Alaska when I was 15 years old. Although there were many other fish caught on this surreal trip to Alaska, none held a candle to this one. It’s nice to finally have the picture to validate the many stories I have told of this river running giant.

Spent Christmas week with the family, creek side in Oak Creek Canyon. We stayed for the week and I especially enjoyed not having any cell reception, TV’s, or internet. It’s often hard to get into the Christmas spirit in 70 degree weather and shorts, so it was nice to sit back and enjoy the cold weather with plenty of wood to burn in the fire place while 6″ of snow fell. I did not get a lot of fishing in however I did manage to sneak out for a few hours and land a few fish in while we were there.

Here is a picture I took while fishing the morning after the storm. The cabin we stayed in is on the left.

]]> http://theflyfishingbroker.com/?feed=rss2&p=1037 http://theflyfishingbroker.com/?p=1021 http://theflyfishingbroker.com/?p=1021#comments Fri, 18 Dec 2009 01:45:32 +0000 FlyFishingBroker http://theflyfishingbroker.com/?p=1021

Thought this was pretty funny. Don’t think this guy uses proper catch and release technique.

Click Here. (you may have to click it twice)

Fishing Dog

It’s a rare day that I can take off in the middle of the week for a fishing trip. This past week Steve, a Fly Fishing bud invited me to hit the stream mid week.  Given the amount of grief I have dished out to him over the past several months when he bails because of his busy schedule I figured it would be hypocritical of me to turn him down, at least that’s how I rationalized the trip it in my own mind. So mid week we were on our way to the beautiful Oak Creek.

With Fall colors setting in along with the crispness in the air it was a great day to be on the creek. We could see from the road that the water was running well, I found my self anticipating the first cast. The day started out a little slow. One brown, who was hiding under one of the many large Oak Creek boulders hooked up right off the bat, and just as fast he spit the fly. Despite the early hookup things were slow for the first few hours. As the afternoon set in we both started to hook up more and more. By the end of the day we both had landed several beautiful fish and had a great time away from the office. I wish that was the end of the story, sadly, it’s not. An hour or two before dark I decided to tie on a new fly, I unzipped my bag, and one of my biggest fears played out. My main fly box with 500+ flies, mostly tied by myself, was gone. I’m not sure where over the previous two miles it was lost, but it was clear my box had fallen out of my bag when I failed to re-zip it properly. It’s one of those lessons learned the hard way. After Steve and I spent the last couple hours searching, we relinquished the search and considered it a sacrifice to the river gods.

Lessons Learned-

Put your contact information in all your fly box’s.

Consider fishing with smaller fly box’s (don’t put all your egg’s in one basket).

And most importantly always make sure your bag is zipped up.

After weeks of sitting at home agonizingly watching fall set in while temperatures dropped as I could only  dream of Brown Trout the color of fall leaves, I finally had an opportunity to break the rod out and run for the hills. Between family vacations, Halloween, and work, I was beginning to worry that the hallowed fall fishing season was going to pass me by. That was until last week when I had a Friday that managed to stay open on my schedule. Quickly I attempt to round up someone willing to drop everything to chase frisky fall Browns with me but was reminded of how out of whack my friends priorities are… just teasing guys.  Turns out it was a great chance to meet a new fly fishing pal, and me and my new bud Travis from www.azflyandtie.com where heading to the White Mountains to see how the rivers and streams were fishing. Over the two days we fished four three different rivers. The results seemed to be the same. Fishing was dead slow up till 3:00 pm when everything seemed to turn on. Despite the freezing nighttime temperatures we where still able to get a few fish to rise to a Stimulator while most were taking small nymphs. Most of the fish seemed to be on the small side although, as we where pretty far off the beaten path all were stream breed. We did manage to land a couple nice sized fall Browns and one good sized Apache. Suprisingly, although we spent most of our time fishing a fairly large river the two biggest fish of the trip (one landed and one lost at the net) were both caught in a small tributaty roughly 5 feet wide. All and all it’s hard to thing of a better way to spend a weekend.

Sorry I know this has nothing to do with Fly Fishing but I had to share what happened to me today.

Today while I was at home working on my computer when someone knocked on our door. I didn’t answer it because I was “working”. On the third knock I began to get suspicious. Then I looked out our kitchen window and saw someone unlatching our RV gate from the out side. As I continued to watch he came through and started coming towards our window. When I realized what was happening I ran to our bedroom to get my shoes a the baseball bat I usually keep near by. When I could not find the bat I grabbed the only thing I could find which was a wood rod we use to stick in our door (to prevent this very thing from happening). Along with my dog, pumped full of adrenalin I ran out our back door and around the side of our house just as they (now two of them) where trying to break into our home.

One ran back through the gate and the other jumped over. I was able to catch up to the one jumping over and when he landed he was surprised by a few bashes from the rod I grabbed. While fighting he dropped his backpack. He then ran after his buddy. I chased them down the street where they got into a car driven by a third guy. Luckily as this was happening one of our neighbors (who I am very grateful to) stopped and called the police. I was able to get their license plate number and between me and the ladies who stopped we were able to make out a pretty good ID. Thanks to our great police department who was on the scene in minutes they were able to catch up to the burglars and had them in cuffs no longer than 15 minutes from the call. Turns out when the call went out from the dispatcher the burglars were driving right behind an under cover officer, nice. I was able to make a ID and they are now sitting in Jail. The backpack that was left behind had a tire iron as well as some additional empty bags which I assume were going to be used to load up my families belongings. The Police mentioned that because of the use of the tire iron they think these guys may be tied to several burglaries in the area.

It turns out my wife (who had just left 15 minutes prior to the break in) saw the Green Minivan as she was backing out of the drive way. She remembered it because it was driving suspiciously. We are assuming that when they saw her leave they assumed everyone was gone. I am just grateful that on this day I was home and not my wife and son.

Just an average day in the life of a Crime Fighting Real Estate Broker….

My family and I just got back from our annual (soon to be semi annual) trip to X-Diamond Ranch. While there are several great places to fish in Arizona if I was forced to name favorites I believe X-Diamond Ranch would have to be in my top three.  Not only is the fishing fantastic, the opportunity for a hog Brown Trout a possibility, but the ranch is a wonderful place to bring the entire family.  My family and I have stayed in 3 of the 7 cabins available. While each cabin has it’s own charm they are all spectacular and have everything you need for a great vacation.  I enjoy the ranch because I can fish 3 minutes from the door step of my favorite cabin (The Beaver Lodge).  My wife and son enjoy it because they can come down and fish with me when they want and head back for naps and nature walks when they choose. 

Not only does this section of the Little Colorado River contain some monster Brown and Rainbow Trout but Wink the very hospitable owner has 3 ponds that are a lot of fun for the little ones.  While my son is only 2 he talks about fishing all the time and enjoys manning the net. The ranch is a great place for him as he can fish with me along side the river or the banks of the ponds while I catch, and he nets several of fish, or in the words of my son “Baby Fishies”. 

The water was 58 degrees and off color due to the heavy rains passing through this past week. Despite the murky water the fishing was the best I have experienced in the past 3 years of vacationing at X Diamond.  It took me a some time to figure out what the fish were hitting on. However when I narrowed in on the right fly the weekend instantly turned from a good fishing trip to a great one.  Do to the murky water most all the fish were caught sub surface. I did manage a few fish on a dry and there were a few small hatches coming off the water in the late morning and afternoons.

One of the great things about fishing X-diamond is not only can you catch a lot of fish, the average fish size is much bigger than most other moving waters  in the state.  Like many fisherman I have been known to exaggerate when it comes to fish size but I would estimate the average fish of the 50+ fish landed this trip were in the 13-14 inch range.  I personally would rather catch larger fish than more fish, but you sure can’t argue with that constant tug on your line. I had one big brown break off after running me 20 feet down the shore. When I tried to stop him from running into a pile of sticks he broke off like I was fishing with thread. I landed another that was the most beautiful brown I have landed all year, bright colored and full of fight. I would estimate that 75% of the fish were Rainbows the rest being Browns.

If you are looking for a great place to take the family with incredible scenery, cool weather, and fly fishing, or if you need a base camp as you hit many of the great waters the White Mountains have to offer I would highly recommend you cal Wink at X Diamond Ranch. (but don’t wait to long, they tend to book up fast).