Laegreid Outdoors

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...