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Today was a good day

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Yesterday a buddy and I headed to the famed South Platte river in Cheesman Canyon. This section of the South Platte is a very popular fishery because of the beautiful scenery, large trout and the proximity to Denver (just an hour drive). The downside to being so popular is the pickiness of the trout. I have read on many fishing websites and blogs that say “if you can catch a trout in Cheesman, you can catch one anywhere.” By using this logic, I cannot state with confidence that I can catch a trout anywhere.

Yesterday I was skunked. No hits, no fish on, no trout breaking off. This was my first trip to the canyon and I learned firsthand how particular these fish are.  Before I went I read all the blogs, all the shop tips, everything I could on how to catch one of these finicky fishies. For the first hour or so I didn’t see any fish, but once the sun peaked over the canyon walls we finally saw a nice looking trout just chillin in a somewhat shallow run. I casted my stonefly with a top secret midge trailing to him several times and he was not interested. I then tried to get a little closer to get some video but that scared him off.

We continued up stream searching for some more fish. We found this deep pool that had two pretty good size trout just hanging out.  I was excited to get another crack. Maybe that previous fish already had breakfast. So I cast my rig right over the top a bunch of times. Nothing. Not even a flinch. I began switching flies to find something they might want. I tried the stonefly, top secret midge, zebra midge, red brassie, rs2, griffith’s gnat. And my buddy, who is not a fly fisherman and just came to hang out, had is spinning rod with him and tried a couple lures just to see if they would even look at it. Nothing. We offered everything but a steak dinner to these trout and they were completely disinterested.  It was a little frustrating to watch fish completely ignore the flies that are put right in front of their faces!

At this point we were getting hungry and decided to call it a day. We hiked back to the car packed up our gear and headed back to town. On the way home we talked about how crazy and frustrating it was to be ignored by those picky little fish! While driving I saw a sign that read “Today is a good day.” And I thought to myself “even though we didn’t catch those fish, today WAS a good day!”

 

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I Love Trout

Besides my lovely wife, I love trout. I love how slimy they are. I love how spooky they can be or how tolerant they can be. I love how they sometimes eat on the top of the water and sometimes they eat on the bottom. I love to watch them jump out of the water. I love to watch them swim up to my fly and then swim away. I love big 20 inch rainbows. I love little 6 inch brookies. But most of all like the feeling of them tugging on my line. To celebrate my love of trout on this day of love I am sharing a coupon code, ILOVETROUT, for 14% off shirts.

Happy Valentine’s Day

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Super Snowy Weekend Sale

Normally on Fridays the work day goes by extremely fast because I am super excited to go fly fishing. In the spring to the fall I try to go every weekend and hopefully I will be able to go more in the Winter if it’s nice. I also get pretty excited on Fridays during football season because I love watching the NFL on Sunday. Today is a little bit different. I am still excited for the weekend but today the weekend started early when this morning I found out that the office was closed due to the intense snowfall we are experiencing. SNOWDAY!! I am not going to be able to go fishing this weekend but I do have the biggest game of the football season to watch. And in honor of this super weekend I am having, all my  t-shirts will be 20% off when you use the code SUPERWEEKEND.

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Barren Winter Day

I haven’t done any fishing in a couple months and have never done any winter fly fishing. So I thought what better day to go than one when the temperature is in the 50s? There are only a few places you can fly fish in the winter here in Colorado because much of the water is frozen. The South Platte has a few sections of nice tailwater that isn’t frozen, Cheeseman Canyon and The Dream Stream below Spinney. I probably should have chosen one of those places to go to but instead I opted to stay in town and fish the South Platte below Chatfield. The spot that I started was pretty low and I didn’t even see a fish. As I went towards the dam it was all ice. I am not going to complain too much because I got to wear one of my Fly Shirts for the first time while fishing, but I would have been satisfied with just seeing one of my aquatic friends.

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Buttons up for Grabs


We thought it would be fun to pass out some buttons. The very same ones you get when you buy a shirt! We will give away one of each so you have three chances to win.

  1. Twitter – Follow @theflytrout and tweet the following: I just entered to win a fly button from @theflytrout http://theflytrout.com/2012/01/buttons-up-for-grabs #TheFlyTrout This will be a drawing. Every tweet counts as an entry.
  2. Facebook – Like us on Facebook and post on our wall where you will stick your button if you win. The best post wins (we’ll be the judge)
  3. This blog post – Comment on this blog post you’re favorite fish you like to catch. This will also be a drawing and just one entry per person.

Official Rules
Giveaway starts January 20th, 2012
Giveaway ends January 27th, 2012
Winners announced January 28th, 2012

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And the winner is…

After over a million entries (just a bit of an exaggeration) we have drawn a winner for free t-shirt.

Congratulations Andrew Nevins, all of your hard work paid off!  Email us your address and the shirt you would like and we will send you your winnings.

To say thanks to everyone who participated in our giveaway, use the coupon code FLYDRAWING for 20% off your next t-shirt order.

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The Making of a T-Shirt

It’s actually just the printing of a t-shirt. I thought it would be cool to show you how these fly shirts are printed. Some day I will show you how the entire process works from the beginning when the design is crafted. But for now here are just a few pictures of the ink on the screen and after the ink as been applied. Every shirt I ship out includes a fly that I tied myself and a cool little button. So I thought I would show that too!