Fly Fisher, fly fishing, salmon, trout and my life
Guest Blogger (Fly Fisher)
Who is Fly Fisher?
My wife is from Sibu, but we live in Southern Oregon in the U.S. We have a house in Sibu that my wife’s family lives in. We built it new in 1997. We go back to Sibu every few years, when we can. We both enjoy reading Sibuian and Malaysian blogs to keep in touch with all things Malaysia. As you can imagine, life in Southern Oregon is very different from Sibu. As in all towns, it some ways better and some ways not. Sibu has better food, for instance. We used to live in San Francisco, where the Asian food is fantastic.
Life on the Rogue River
We live on the Rogue River, so much of our life revolves around the river, and for me, fly fishing. I even taught fly casting once in Sibu. We live in a very rural area, kind of in the middle of nowhere. Here is a picture of the back of our house that faces the river.
During the summer, I keep a boat out back. I have a 16 foot jet boat, and also a small zodiac. I mostly use the zodiac, with a small 8 hp engine. My fly rod is in the front. I actually have about 15 or so fly rods.
This is the jet boat. It has a jet engine in the back, and can run low water and is good for rocky rivers. The Rogue has lots of rocks and runs very clear.
This is the view heading up river in the boat.
The Rogue is a cold water river (average temperature about 10 C., with two kinds of salmon (King and Coho), steelhead trout, and also rainbow and cutthroat trout. Salmon and Steelhead can get quite big (up to 40 - 100 lbs) but mostly average around 10 – 15 lbs. Rainbow and Cutthroat trout can get as big as 20 lbs, but are mostly around 1 – 2 lbs. Here is a small rainbow trout, about a pound.
Here I am with a much bigger King Salmon, about 25 lbs.
I also tie flies, which I tie to imitate small insects to catch fish. This is a typical fly.
The “fly†is held in a vise, and you tie or create it with thread, feathers, and yarn. This is a very old style fly, in that the style is about 150 years old from England. It is called a “soft hackle†and represents a mayfly that is emerging from the bottom of the river, soon to be a flying insect. Fish rise to the surface to eat them in the “filmâ€.
I guess that is all for now. If this is at all interesting, let me know, and I’ll write more about Southern Oregon, the Rogue River, and Fly Fishing
Bengbeng | Fly Fisher, Guest blogger
great hobby you got there FlyFisher, my boss’ son used to flyfish too many years ago but has since given up..like the rest of his ‘phases’. Now he just play online pokers..& not even with money at stack! hope to see you again here at Bengbeng’s blog.
That salmon is definitely a great day catch! BB, interesting that you can always find guest to write in interesting articles
hi this is a very interesting post. please write some more about ur life there. i never knew u can flyfish for salmon. Hope u enjoy eating it as much as u enjoy catching it. flyfishing is a mystery to me. what is it exactly? i have seen it on tv, because flyfishing is popular in uk too,though i have never seen them catch such large fishes. but i dont know the rationale of it. is the fish fooled into thinking it is a fly hovering over water? the fish must have got v good eyesight to overcome the refraction of water and a speeding small object. is flyfishing v difficult to master? somehow i think it is, though i have never done it.
i enjoy reading your posts. please feel free to guest blog any time
The house looks situated in a quiet and peaceful environment. Good for short vacation stay.
You reminded me of good days in Bay Area. I miss Sunnyvale so much!
Fly fishing is so cool! I would love to try it one day. Your life looks so much relaxing and fun.
*dreams*
Hi Fly Fisher, nice meeting you! Hope to read more of your fishing stories here.
Fly fisher, you were tagged! lolz…
*gasp* Breathtaking landscape! *drool*
Thank you for the kind words.
Anthony, yes you can catch salmon on a fly. There are different types of flies (just as there are different types of insects, small fish, crayfish, etc). You tie a “fly” that imitates something that a salmon might eat, like a small fish, or a nymph. A nymph is really a “bug” that will become a flying insect, but is a crawling insect. One, called a stone fly is quite big and a good fly to catch a salmon on.
Salmon require a bigger fly rod, like a 9 wt, or a spey rod. For salmon, you use a sink tip, which makes the line sink (the salmon are usually near the botton of the river).
- Fly Fisher
Interesting on this fly fishing thing… I wonder how do you do it? “Fly”?
On the next post, I’ll go into more detail about how you do it.
Fly Fisher