[-G-]

This mashafacka has a half day today and thus will be visiting the post office.

[Adams]

aren’t GL fish skamania strain, aka summer fish?

Skams are gay. Great lakes skams are all pellet heads that are stocked to keep smiles on the faces of shit heels from Indiana and corporate retreat types that keep the charter captains in business. The OG great lakes steelhead were stocked in either the PM or Little Manistee I dont remember which sometime in the late 1800's and they were McCloud winter fish. The story goes that it was an accident, they thought they had resident rainbow trout eggs but then all the smolts disappeared... for 3 years or so. That stock of fish has since spread up and down the northwest coast of the lower peninsula and is the only significant naturally reproducing population in the great lakes. (The rust belt dudes are gonna hate that, maybe GS or Pibber can prove me wrong). There are wild winter fish elsewhere, in Lake Superior and probably a few in Lake Ontario but the MIDNR runs its entire hatchery program off the egg and jizz take from wild fish in the Little Manistee river alone and that stream still returns thousands of wild fish every year. Idk anyplace else where that goes on.

Ironically that means that the only place wild McCloud steelhead still exist is in northern Michigan. Those genetics have been muddled some, but with the northwest in the condition it's in, I will wager these are the finest steelhead left in healthy numbers in the country. Or maybe I just think that because its the only place I can catch them.

WiDNR - we have zero natural reproduction on the SE tribs in Wisconsin. Due to industrial/commercial/residential use, the temps in summer on the tribs are too high. So stocking is all we get. And McClouds are pipe-dreams. Most of what we see are chambers IIRC, with the occasional errant Arley...but those are not stocked by WiDNR. We supply a lot of the squeezers from a few "steelhead facilities" we have (Root River, as an example) - mostly the Chinooks that we share with IN and MI. Again, fucking Chinooks...


Shit, we've started seeing more pinks lately too...

Aren't the Brule's rustheads from McCloud stock?

[-G-]

Flies are out. For those that didn’t send a Plano box or a bunch of little weed baggies I couldn’t bring myself to use more plastic for every individual fly so paired a few up together. For mine feel free to add junction tubing to desired length, I often just run a smaller loop knot though without junction. Everyone’s flies turned out great, much thanks to everyone for taking their time and making it matter. SLSS’s fly is also thee shit.

[pbrstreetgang]

Niceness

[yard4sale]

Year of the Beauly Snow.

[pbrstreetgang]

Hey - should G get the new swap started right about now?

[-G-]

Hey - should G get the new swap started right about now?

Hahah.. only if your talking about the 2022 swap. We’re already way behind for next year

[Woolybug25]

Flies are simply on point. Ricks fly I can’t even look at without wanting to quit my job.

On another note... ever get so high and post about how nice the flies are and realize days later when you actually receive them that you were looking at last years flies?

Nah, me neither...

[LTFI]

Props to swapmaster G and the rest of yous .

The rust head bugs have given me some new ideas to mess around with.

Count me in for 2022.

[LTFI]

On another note... ever get so high and post about how nice the flies are and realize days later when you actually receive them that you were looking at last years flies?

Nah, me neither...

Now this...., this is impressive. Edibles or dabs? I was wondering how you had gotten your flys before yard had even mailed his in.

[yard4sale]

Got mine and they are great!

I love that captain bamboo fly has a synthetic fishnet stocking cone hidden in it.

I’m glad somebody sent an even smaller fly than I did. That little guy will kill it here mid-Columbia this summer.

The group I fish with thought ourselves geniuses for adding copper flash to chartreuse wings. Guess we weren’t the only ones.

Never fished a beauly fly but I added peacock to every trout fly I ever could. Time I get that going into steelhead flies and these will get me down that path.

Thanks Gents.

[Woolybug25]

On another note... ever get so high and post about how nice the flies are and realize days later when you actually receive them that you were looking at last years flies?

Nah, me neither...

Now this...., this is impressive. Edibles or dabs? I was wondering how you had gotten your flys before yard had even mailed his in.

I have a buddy that just started making his own cookies. Knowing my penchant for edibles, he gave me a few to try for my opinion. My advice... buy a mixer dude. Some bites would apparently have no butter in them, others had all the butter. They are like Russian roulette. That night one was in the chamber. Ha.

The group I fish with thought ourselves geniuses for adding copper flash to chartreuse wings. Guess we weren’t the only ones.