Laegreid Outdoors

Hi everyone! It's been a crazy year, which means posting has been sporadic at best, but ice fishing season is in full swing and I've been bringing my cameras along! While I haven't taken the time to do a proper video, I have been shooting some little clips that I've pieced together for you all as a holiday surprise. I hope you enjoy, and have a Happy New Year!  

Two years ago, I wrote a post about how cool grass carp are, and how fun it is to fish for them. Well, all that still holds true, but this year I was able to catch one of these beautiful fish on camera! Even though the weather in Wyoming has been abnormally cool and wet, I stumbled on a few grass carp milling around in some very shallow flooded grass. They were tailing like bonefish on a flat, so I figured it was a good time to try to catch one. It took probably about 45 minutes to an hour to finally get a good hook-set (there were a few misses before that), and it was game on! This fish only took a few good runs, probably because the water was still so cold, but it's still a special feeling being connected to such a powerful beast. I hope you enjoy the video!

There are a lot of fish that I have a hard time catching (lookin' at you, steelhead), but most of the time I don't have an excuse for my failure. The gar, however, has eluded me my entire life because of their physical attributes. As you can see in the video below, gar have long, narrow, bony mouths that make them really hard to hook. So hard, in fact, that it took me almost twenty-five years * to actually land one. For some people, landing a gar is like landing a trash-bag with teeth, but I think they're beautiful in their own dinosaur-like way, and they're definitely fun on a 5-weight! Please enjoy the film, and next time you see a gar, take a cast and see what happens! *I didn't actually target gar that often, but I like being dramatic, so deal with it.

Fishing has been dang near impossible for me for the past few weeks, so to ward off the shack-nasties I've been tying some flies. This one is a must-have for the lakes around Laramie, or anywhere there are significant midge hatches. As a bonus, it's super easy to tie!

I've become a big fan of ice fishing this winter. Ice fishing gets me out of the house during the toughest part of the year, and it's really neat seeing the lakes I spend all summer on from a whole new angle. One of the other benefits of fishing the hard water is that I can tie flies and use them all year round now! Take a look at the video below to see an example of how to tie a simple ice jig that can be just deadly through the ice! Here are the ingredients: Hook: Daiichi 4647, size 12. Size up or down for your local fish. Bead: Black Tungsten Thread: 70 Denier Ultra Thread, White Tail/Body: Glow in the Dark Flashabou Collar: Hareline Dubbin, Hot Pink

I went out to the lakes near Laramie the other day and brought my camera along. It was a quick morning of fishing, but man was it fun! I hope you enjoy watching the video as much as I enjoyed making it: