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!  

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:

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!

We've been in a period of politically-charged posts recently, something I had not planned for this blog. It's important stuff, and the future of fishing and hunting and public lands are in serious jeopardy at the moment, but in this post, we're gonna step back and take a look at some pretty pictures. Keep fighting the good fight, but don't burn out. It's summer, take some time every now and then to get out to the places you love and clear your mind. Cutthroat Trout are usually gorgeous, but the slash on this one was particularly vivid! This toothy rainbow was all about the chironomids. Chunky. My dad and I stumbled on some grayling the other day. They are really interesting fish! None of the grayling were huge, but what a cool opportunity. Fish on! Crows are cool. Lavender in the park.

Greetings, internet outdoors-people! Long has it been since you've heard from Laegreid Outdoors, and I'm sure that you have been waiting with bated breath this entire time. I am truly sorry for the anguish and pain that you must have suffered every time you looked at your electronic device and saw that no, the blog had not been updated, but now you can rejoice, for it is returned! Since my blogging muscles have atrophied a bit, we'll keep this post short. My lovely wife Jodi and I are returned from Europe, and have begun a new chapter in our life in the states. We're in Laramie, Wyoming now, and have been enjoying the new scenery. Take a look, enjoy the photos, and let's see if I can get myself back into writing mode again. Trout out here are healthy! Grayling are pretty The Plains Lakes produce healthy fish Fall brings Elk season... ...Gorgeous mountain views... ...Duck season... ...And butter browns that slam skated drie...

The paintbrush, that is! Since I don't have the pictures ready for the post I had wanted to do this week, instead you all get to see my wee paintings. They are  wee, too, the longest being just under six inches. So, without further ado, here is the cream of the crop from my return to the wide world of watercolor: School of fish Spotty Bow Troot Head Eel (watercolor & pencil) Squad of Squid Chinook (watercolor & pencil) And that's that for now; next week will bring a post with some more meat!

I'm not sure where the superstition came from, but apparently bananas are bad luck while fishing. Try to bring a banana on a charter boat and you may well get tossed in the drink. You can imagine my reservations, then, about buying a vessel that looks like a ten-foot long, overripe banana: the Intex Explorer K2 inflatable kayak. As of yet, however, most outings in the banana boat have resulted in at least one fish brought to hand, so perhaps the superstition only applies to fruit. Lets run down the specs! Dimensions: 123 x 36 x 20 inches Weight: 36 lbs Seats: 2 Chambers: 5 total; the sides and floor that make up the body of the kayak, and the two seats are also inflatable. Comes with: 2 paddles, detachable skeg, hand-pump Pros: Easy to set up and take down. The pump that came with the package seemed flimsy at first glance, but is surprisingly efficient. Total set up time is between five and ten minutes, depending on how badly I want to get on the water Comfortabl...

Graphic in the way that flowcharts are graphics, of course! Instead of a photo-filled post, today's post is some fishing-related graphics I've done recently. I've already shared my Annual Fishing Goals graphic; let's dive into a few others. Note: If you follow Laegreid Outdoors on Facebook and Twitter you might have already seen these, but I think they're cool, so you get to see them again. Yay! The Salmon ID Flowcharts Salmon are amazing fish. They're strong, they're delicious, and in saltwater, they all kind of look the same. This is the issue my brother-in-law had when he moved from Oklahoma to Washington. With the regulations as they are in Washington, it is very important to be able to distinguish between the different species while they are in their ocean phase. The WDFW provides a nice pamphlet (from which I nicked the photos. Thanks, public domain!), but I felt it might be good to have a helpful guide to aid in identification.  There ...

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...

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...

I am one of those people who doodles. Doodling is like art, but quick and dirty and usually not shared.  It's a good way to pass the time in hours-long meetings or while on a flight with crummy movie choices. After not fishing for a while, doodling can be a quick outlet for fishing-frustration when you can't get home to fiddle with your gear. Meetings can be productive I do also create some art, which is slower and fancier and often shared, but obviously doodling happens more often. So Since I'm a blogger now I guess, you can look forward to more of my outdoorsy-type doodles and arts. Heck, I might even post some photographs every once in a while! For now, have fun with these few images, these introductions to my doodly, arty brain; hopefully they'll help you through a meeting or long day away from the water like they have for me. Steelhead! Squid! Brook Trout! Since you made it this far down the post, I hope you like what you've seen....

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...