Guiding on the Big Thompson River

Posted on April 26, 2010 by c_richter12
Recently, I landed just about every fisherman’s dream job; guiding. I took out my first trip last weekend and river was on fire! Browns and Rainbows in the 12″ range were caught frequently using a size 20 ray charles. Lucas, my 16 year old customer, landed a total of 12 fish within a four hour trip. What a day!

I will be guiding all summer on The Big Thompson and high mountain stream and lakes within Rocky Mountain National Park, so let me know if your ever headed out to Colorado. Kirk’s fly shop is a first class operation and the shop can put some great trips together. Click HERE to check out Kirk’s website and all our fly shop has to offer.
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Spring River Cleanup!

Posted on April 15, 2010 by a_rosati18

Here is a great link that Milwaukee angler Karsten sent me today. http://www.milwaukeeriverkeeper.org/civicrm/event/info?reset=1&id=48

Milwaukee Riverkeeper.org is sponsoring the 15th annual river cleanup. This is a great chance to lend a hand and improve Milwaukee area waterways.
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Pike/Bass Bleeding Bunny

Posted on April 14, 2010 by a_rosati18

Here is a step by step for an easy pike, bass, and saltwater pattern that might be a nice addition to any warm water anglers fly box.

Start with a large hook and position your thread at the rear of the hook shank.

Tie in a good deal of flashabou of the rear end.
Take a 5-8 inch piece of rabbit strip (favorite colors: White, Black, Chartreuse) and tie off the back of hook leaving about 3 inches of rabbit strip in front of your thread wraps. Then position your thread about mid shank.

Wrap the leftover rabbit strip forward and tie off.


Tie in two pieces of saddle hackle(match color of rabbit strip).


Wrap both pieces of hackle and secure with thread. Take some red marabou and tie onto the bottom of the shank in front of the hackle.


Last step is to build up a head with thread and add eyes. Eyes are an important element of streamer construction. Predatory fish use eyes as a target when they strike. I Prefer big stick on eyes with a little flash. Unfortunately, I have none, so I painted some on. Use a hard clear epoxy finish to make the head of the fly extra durable.

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Baby Bow

Posted on April 12, 2010 by a_rosati18


Here is a nice little streamer pattern I tied up recently……. I call it the baby bow. It should be a great spring and early summer streamer considering that the rainbows spawn in the spring and the weeks following there will be an abundant amount of rainbow fry in the rivers.

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Right Place at the Right Time

Posted on April 12, 2010 by a_rosati18

I guess the driftless area is hit or miss right now depending on where you’re fishing. I had limited time to fish this past Friday so I headed for some new places in the southeast part of the driftless area closest to where I live. Fishing new water is always exciting and can be very challenging. The curiosity of what lies around each bend in the creek sometimes distracts me from the good looking pools and pockets right under my nose. The day started off strong, landing a beautiful brown and missing another within the first twenty minutes. Both on a woolly bugger. Unfortunately, those were the only two bites I had in the few hours I was able to fish. I did get a nice photo of the chunky little brown…

Left my wet wading boots in the back of the truck…..oops!


Justin headed farther west than I this weekend and found himself in the middle of a thick caddis hatch. A simple tan elk hair caddis with a good presentation was producing fish all day long. Those are the moments that trout fisherman dream of….. casting dries to a pool boiling with rising fish. From my experience, the insect hatches on the small spring creeks in Wisconsin seem to be fairly isolated to specific spots on the creek. There could be flies hatching in one riffle like crazy, but you might not see them anywhere else on the creek. Where as some of the larger western rivers I’ve fished you’ll see the same fly hatching along most of the river. Sometimes in Wisconsin it’s just a matter of being in the right place at the right time.
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Boulder Creek-10 Minutes From My Door

Posted on April 7, 2010 by c_richter12


Living in Boulder can be a great thing sometimes. After work the past couple days, I had a chance to see if my novice fly tying skills were finally up to par. A simple San Juan worm and what I call a “shortstack” olive bugger were the ticket the past few afternoons. It’s nice sometimes to get away after a long day, listen to the river flow, and maybe get to bring a fish to hand.

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