I remember my first fly fishing experience really well. I was working
construction in the Jemez Mountains of New Mexico. After awhile, I
became bored catching trout on spinners and salmon eggs. I purchased a
fly rod, reel, fly line, leader and some wooly buggers. After work one
day, I ventured over to the East Fork of the Jemez River and tied on a
wooly bugger. The fish were jumping all over that wooly bugger, but I
could not catch any of them. When I explained my situation to the owner
of the cabin, he asked me, “Did you set the hook?” I had to reply in the
negative as I had expected the fish to hook themselves as they did on
spinners and salmon eggs. We got a good laugh out of that one.
My family and I moved to Alaska in 1976 and we took our first Alaskan
vacation to Montague Island. I took all kinds of fishing gear. I was
curious to see if I could catch a salmon on the flies that I had tied.
Well, the flies worked really well and I managed to catch Dolly Varden
and pink salmon without any problem on the flies that I tied.
I was looking for ways to increase my fly tying skills, so I joined up
with the Alaska Fly Fishers. This turned out to be a great opportunity
as they were great fly tying instructors. So, I started tying patterns
for red salmon as they were pretty simple and easy to tie.
We moved to Valdez, Alaska in 1987 and I thought I had died and gone to
heaven. The ocean was ten minutes from my house and the mountains and
glaciers were all around us.
I began tying flies for silver salmon as these fish are extremely feisty
in salt water and good eating as well. After considerable
experimentation and field testing, I finally was able to tie up some
flies that caught these fish consistently. The Gold Creek Special in
pink and purple is my “go-to” silver salmon fly. The other version of
this fly is tied with a fuchsia tail and a black body. When the fish are
deep and stubborn, I tie on the Purple Death with the dumb bell eyes.
Hang on because hey hit this fly sometimes when it is going down.
Now that I am back in New Mexico, I find myself tying those tiny flies
for trout again. What fun.