Laegreid Outdoors

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!

I've been an angler for as long as I can remember, but saltwater fly-fishing was injected into my blood when I moved out to Washington state a few years back. The cold, fertile waters of Puget Sound were my playground, and I chased the trout and salmon with wild abandon. The climate up in the PacNW, while mild, was only warm for about three months out of the year, and the saltwater was always pretty chilly. That was the extent of my experience with saltwater fly-fishing until this December, when my family decided to take a little trip to Sayulita, Mexico. Sayulita is a little town about 45 minutes north of Puerta Vallarta. It's more popular for its surfing and yoga than its fishing, but that wasn't going to stop me from trying! Our first full day in Sayulita, we went swimming at Playa de los Muertos, a smaller, less crowded beach on the South side of town. As we were floating in the surf, we noticed bait busting around us. I waited until I couldn't stand it anymore...

There's a lake that I like to fish that is great for rainbow trout, but it also has a hidden gem of a species that nobody seems to chase: grass carp. I tried a few times last year to land one of these beasts to no avail. I will say this: grass carp are not an easy fish to target. Their diet is weird, their eyesight is amazing, and their lateral line, the sensory organ that detects vibrations and changes in pressure, is incredibly sensitive. I've dropped flies just a hair too close, which puts them down. A cast that lands over a fish can cause the whole pod to explode in fear. Sloppy wading, the wrong fly, a tippet that's too heavy, tippet that's too light, there are hundreds of things that can screw up your shot at a grass carp. Not to mention that if you hook one, they can bend your hook like it's a wet noodle or snap your tippet with very little effort. Sometimes, however, the stars align and you can get hooked up to one of these beasts, and when that happens yo...

So wow, it's been a while! I apologize for my absence, dear readers, but I will say that it has been for a good reason. I have been busy and sick and busy, but was able to land the most amazing catch of my life recently at Westport, WA. My girlfriend and I had decided to do a little getaway to the sleepy town at the edge of everything. I like to fish off the jetty there; it has a variety of fun and unusual fish like rockfish, ling-cod, surf-perch and greenling. In the days running up to our trip it was a little disheartening when the weather report said wind and rain for the whole weekend, and it was downright depressing when we got there and the forecast was correct. The wind was pretty intense, which made the rain rather unpleasant, but we had the hotel booked and were going to make the best of it. If you've never been to Westport, it is a small fishing town on the Washington coastline, right at the mouth of Greys Harbor. During the salmon season, Westport is a busy place, ...

Happy new year, dear readers! Last year I decided that fishing was too much fun, and I needed to give myself some goals to strive towards. This ended up being even MORE fun, and I recommend it to anyone who angles. So, on this first day of the New Year, I've decided to share last year's goals and results, and tell you what I'll be chasing this coming year. First: The old! Gooooooooaaaaaaaaal! Well, I got a few of the fish, and a good portion of the places and other goals. I'm blown away that I didn't make it to the ocean once; also that I couldn't catch a shark. Dogfish (sharks) are known as a nuisance to people who catch them while salmon fishing and don't realize how neat they are. I never even tried for the chum or sockeye salmon, so no surprise that I didn't catch those guys. Those goals that weren't met this year get to go on to... My goals for 2014! The new colors are luckier. Probably. So we've seen a few of those goal...

One of my more successful casts. The day before Christmas, Christmas Eve-Eve, if you will, my father and I decided to chase after the wily Steelhead trout. Armed with my 13' fly rod and a burning need to try it out, we ventured forth under gray skies. After getting our eat on at the Mountain View Diner in Gold Bar, we started to drive, trying to find a place to fish. Unfortunately, the river was high, fast and muddy, and while we were driving, the weather set in. Now, when you go fishing in the winter in Washington, you expect to get rained on, so when it started to rain a little we weren't too concerned. We became worried when the rain got heavy, and then downright concerned when the hail and lightning started. The one bit of luck we had then was that we hadn't gotten out of the car yet since we hadn't found castable water. So we drove around a bit more, marveling at the hail and high water. This is a chart depicting river flows. We fished the day highlighte...

It's happened. I've lived and fished in the Northwest long enough and have heard enough testimonials to have finally entered another part of the fly-fishing world: that of the two-handed fly rod. For those of you who aren't aware, most fly-fishing is done with a single handed rod, using some variation of the standard cast. The rods are anywhere from six to ten feet, and are, obviously, held with one hand. This is what I assume a majority of people think of when they hear fly-fishing or casting: Two handed fly rods are a whole different ballgame. Ranging from eleven feet to fifteen on average, these rods are big. There are rods that are even longer (twenty feet!) but we won't go into those today. The two-handed rods originated on the river Spey in Scotland, and the technique of casting them is called Spey Casting.  Spey casting doesn't require as much space behind the caster as regular, single-handed casting does, so in places like Washington, where there is...

Life is full of firsts.  Some are important; first car, first house, first steelhead, first fish on a fly, first day of hunting season, and so on.  This is the first post of the Laegreid Outdoors blog, which is a big first for me. I am Peter Laegreid, an avid angler and semi-competent artist; I pose as a marketer during the work week. That last name, by the way, is Norwegian in origin, and I pronounce it lay-Grade. Others pronounce it la-Greed, lag-reed, I've even heard it pronounced LaGreen. You can call me Peter. Now that we're on a first-name basis, I should probably tell you that this blog is going to be just chock-full of outdoorsy stuff. I'm based in the Greater Seattle area, so if you don't like hearing about anadromous fish, you may want to check out some other blog.  If you are looking for a place to hear about salmon and trout and steelhead fishing, weird bottom-fish I accidentally hook, squidding, hiking, environmental issues, and maybe even some hunti...