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!

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:

Every good brand has a unique, recognizable logo, right? Well now Laegreid Outdoors has one, too! I've wanted a logo for a long time, but could never settle on a design until now. I present to you, dear reader, the new Laegreid Outdoors logo: It's simple, clean, and focuses on what Laegreid Outdoors focuses on: fishing and being outside. I hope you enjoy it!

Hey, stranger. It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, I'm glad you're still here, because I've got some things to show you. 2018 is gone, but it will be a long time before I forget it. Here are a few highlights from the past year: You may remember this bruiser from the Platte that chomped on an itty-bitty chironomid pattern. Pre-runoff fishing can be tricky, especially on little streams. The annual Nebraska pilgrimage paid off to the tune of hundreds of panfish. Exploring new places proved fruitful! We caught crate-fulls of colorful cutties. Sometimes the scenery was spectacular. Hella enjoyed herself. Jodi took me to Puerto Rico, and the little fish were hungry! Baby barracuda are cool. I played around with my GoPro and learned how to do some cool things, too! Here's hoping that your 2019 is everything you hope it to be and more!

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...

It's finally getting cold here in Wyoming, after a pretty darn warm autumn. Many people are moaning about the weather, but some of us have been waiting to take the coats out of mothballs. Here are ten of the reasons that you should rejoice at the return of the cold! Reason 1: Hot Drink Season I've got a thermos. It's great. It's a Stanley. It's been sitting in a closet for months. Now that it's cool, it can be free from its prison and join me for icy adventures and white forest wanderings, always ready to provide a toasty, gut warming, life-sustaining beverage. This is the beginning of a season where drinking hot coffee at noon is not crazy; where wanting tongue-scalding cocoa doesn't get you weird looks. This is the season of hot beverages, and I love it. Reason 2: Cold Weather Wearables T-shirts are fine, and shorts are ok, but nothing compares to sweaters, vests, coats and wool. Even the footwear is great; the wife loves her wellies, and I have my s...

Tonight is our last night in the cold little town of Reykjavik, Iceland. Tomorrow we take a short flight to Oslo, and begin the second leg of our crazy little trip. This first bit was fun. A little rough, but fun. Our main enemy has been jet lag; we lost a few afternoons to some hardcore napping. Other than that, however, we've been pretty darn lucky. Here are a few highlights: The most exciting thing that happened here was the show that we were treated to by the Aurora Borealis. Both Jodi and I had always wanted to see the Northern Lights, and Iceland is a good place to do so. I had my concerns about the weather, though, as it had been forecasted to not only be cloudy, but with a bright, full moon when the skies were clear. It was not an ideal setup. On the 28th, however, our German roommates from Kex Hostel rented a car and offered to take us out with them in search of the Lights. We were going to leave at around 11 that night, but at about 8 someone came ripping through the ha...

Though it may seem like I've fallen off the edge of the earth, I've actually just been really busy! The holidays were good, and I hope yours were as well. As this will probably be my last post of 2014, I'll do two things real quick. First is to wish you a happy, outdoorsy, and fruitful New Year! The second thing I'll do is leave you with a cliffhanger! There is a big announcement coming soon; what it is will be revealed on my first post of 2015!  Have a safe New Year's Eve, dear readers; I look forward to seeing you next year!

Oh wow, hey everybody! It's been a while since I've posted, but it's been a busy busy time. I am now a happily married man, and all the work that my lovely wife did along with our family and friends culminated in a spectacular, wonderfully simple wedding; it was the perfect start to a long life of love and adventure. To keep this post on an outdoorsy theme, here are some of the boutonnieres I made for the men in the wedding, groomsmen and I wore blue, the fathers of the bride and groom got the orange ones: I wore this one! For those of you thinking about tying your own boutonnieres, I recommend it. Not only do they look great (we got lots of compliments), but they will make you appreciate tying flies on hooks that don't have a sharp bit hiding on the side you can't see. So! Coming up soon from this wee blog there will be: 1: A review of the Intex Explorer K2 inflatable Kayak 2: Night fishing for Salmon in Puget Sound 3: A review of the ...

It's that time of year again. Baby salmon are swimming out of the rivers en mass, the days are getting longer, and Sea-Run Cutthroat trout (SRC) are reappearing in Puget Sound. This past weekend I was able to connect with one of these feisty fish on a beach in Marine Area 13 , also known as the magical South Sound. There are a few great things about this fishery; the first of which is the quarry. The SRC's are amazing trout, powerful for their size, aggressive, gorgeous, and elusive. They provide one of the Northwest's most unique fishing experiences, and oh man am I glad to be able to take advantage of it. Image borrowed from the Washington Dept. of Fish and Wildlife , since I have yet to take a good picture of one. The second great thing about the SRC fishery is the location. I love Puget Sound, from Deception Pass to Budd Inlet, but good SRC beaches are my absolute favorite. They are full of life, from weird little crawling things scooting between barnacle-cove...

Laegreid Outdoors has covered squid jigging, and we've covered fly tying, so I figured, what the heck, let's mash 'em both t ogether. This was the result: Do squid like fuzzy things? This one looks highly effective. Now I don't know about the semantics, so I'm not sure if we can call these squid flies until they've been fished off of a fly line; for now they are squid jigs. Someday (when I acquire a boat) they will be fished off a 5-weight and a sink-tip, for now they'll be riding fluorocarbon into the Salish Sea.   There are a few reasons I tied these: I've had most of my squid-success on small jigs; these are smaller than my small jigs. We shall see if that makes a difference. There are some instances where fish will hold on to a lure longer if it feels more natural. Since my squid jigs were all hard plastic, these will let me find out if that holds true for squid as well. I like making weird things. So these little guys are...

There is something good about creating a physical thing. As a marketer I get to make things like mailers and posters and the like; feeling the actual object is the best part of it.  I know I've done something, it looks good, and it's in my hands. While that is a nice feeling in the workplace, it is blown out of the water by the feeling of completing a really nice fly. I've tied flies since the age of ten or eleven; my father was kind enough to show me how, and he started me off with a woolly bugger . That first night I tied some respectable flies under his guidance, and since then I've been addicted to it. Woolly Bugger The first years were good fun.  While the flies I tied with my dad were nice, the ones i tied on my own were little monstrosities.  There was no pattern, just my wee brain looking at bugs and crabs and minnows and trying to make imitations out of a box of hat-feathers and some materials filched from my dad's tying desk. They were all unique, th...