Introducing the "Doe Bug" Fly and the First Test Trip

 Las week I was doing some shopping at an online fly-fishing supplier when I saw a product called "biothread".  To me it looked like synthetic deer sinew, and I googled up some patterns tied with it.  The resulting flies looked really good as the material becomes translucent when it is wetted showing the colors of the body below.  The twisted-up thread makes a nice, segmented body.  I figured why buy that when I have a plenty of deer sinew that I have been saving from my past deer harvests. 

I began to experiment, and I really liked the results.  I liked the orange or pink under thread color for the body, and I added another of my favorite fly attributes the soft hackle of the starling.  Thes result if a fly I call the "Doe  Bug".  Made of natural materials it mimics the sow bugs and scuds I have prevalent on some of my streams at times.  I was excited about this pattern and tied up a supply with varying weights for the bead.

I wanted to try these out!  Saturday morning's deer hunt was thwarted by some Boy Scout obligations, and there were some breezy conditions expected.  I thought about an evening deer hunt, but decided to try to hit the stream instead and try out these flies.

The state had stocked some leftover brown trout several weeks ago, so I knew there should be some left.  The stream was low and clear and there were plenty of other fisherman giving the fish steady pressure. I found a deep fast run and set up a two-nymph rig with my Doe Bug on the bottom and a small frenchie midge on the dropper above.  

On the third drift I was greeted with a nice brown on the Doe Bug.  I landed him and was thrilled I had luck on my new pattern, and I might have the start of a good day!  

I spend the next three hours fishing hard but never had another hit.  I tried lots of patterns including mops, san juans, as well as traditional nymph patterns.  No dice.  I did give the Doe bug a decent opportunity, but the fish were just not feeding well.  I saw no one else land a fish.  The nightcrawler guy gave me his lone fish before he left which was kind.  I had enough for a meal for the evening...and it was good.

I really like the new pattern and will be tying more for the spring.  I now direct my full attention to the Rut.

2025 Public Land Bear and Deer Camp

Annual fall camp on public land in Western Maryland.  

This year I was camping from Tuesday through Saturday, and my brother Chris had drawn a bear tag and added my friend Evan and myself as co-hunters on the tag.  I would have preferred to camp at a more western WMA we frequent, but I had some obligations back home that necessitated a closer camp with good cellular access. 

The camp this year would consist of my brother's camper, fresh from our Idaho elk trip, and my 12x14 foot wall tent nestled against the backdrop of changing fall foliage. 

Attendance this year was light.  Camp attendees included my brother, Dan, and I.  That is all that could come.  Needless to say, I had plenty of food during the week!

The hunting pressure during the week was heavy.  I was constantly running into rifle toting bear hunters.  I walked up 3 feet from one fellow before I got his attention.  One morning I headed a mile in before light to get to the end of this road to hunt.  My bother talked to two older bear hunters that arrived later and they stated they were going to head down that same road.  My brother warned them I was set up all the way at the end.  Well, the one guy went ahead and set up there anyway.  Unbeknownst to me for most of the morning he was on the ridge about 80 yards behind me!  He would have quickly shot a bear out from under me and probably didn't see me.  I spotted orange when I was repositioning later and move smartly away.  Maddening, but that is public land.  

Despite the hunting challenges, it was still a fun camp.  I did have a nice doe pass within 50 yards of me one evening, but that is still a good poke with a traditional bow.  Dan and I enjoyed the campfire and thought about maybe moving to another area next year to escape the pressure. 

2025 Idaho Panhandle Elk Hunt

Three of us attempted to draw Idaho tags this year, my brother and I got our 3rd choice and were able to hunt together.  Our other friend Dave got the first choice and had to hunt alone.  We missed him.  

We had a little more luxury this year, as my brother decided to drive out his camper.  

Here a spatchcocked Cornish hen is nestled in a dutch oven with potatoes.

We had a few areas scout via maps and hoped to get into elk.  We were hunting the unit we had hunted numerous times before in the early 2015-2017 time period with the same scenario.  Elk were there but there were not many and there was lots of pressure. 

Some fresh sign finally after the first (and last) move of camp.

Here is a large shed I found one morning hiking up the mountain.

My only chance to fill a tag was on a pair of black bears I walked up on.  I was worried they were cubs with mom, so I only took photos, but looking back they were full grown and on their own.

My brother had an opportunity on a spike bull, but missed at approximately 45 yards.  I only see ears in the photo, but he says it had a velvet ball on one side and spike on the other.

I never saw elk until the last full day of the hunt.  I was climbing the mountain and glanced over to see two cows feeding near the top meadow.  I went after them and got above them, but not knowing how close I was to them, one caught me sneaking at around 20 yards and crashed away.  The thick brush prevented me from even seeing them close.

At the same time my brother was into a mature bull.  He was within 60-70 yards, but could not get close enough.  He tried some calling but the bull paid them no heed and wandered away. I tried to close and did some bugling but it was not meant to be. 

The clip below shows the fine bull my brother could only close to 60 yards from.

Oh so close!

It was another fine trip and try at elk.  Maybe next year will be lucky as it will be my 15th try for them.

Elk Hunting Arrows - Two builds This Year

Elk season this year is fast approaching for me.  My brother and I will be hunting in Northern Idaho again this year.  This year will be a little different as my brother plans on driving out his camper, while I fly in to meet him.  He also promises to bring his Chesapeake Bay retriever, which will be interesting for him to deal with. I am packing in preparation for a solo hunt should something happen, or if I need to bivy out away from his camper.  Being Prepared is always good but the area we are in is crisscrossed with roads, trails, and accesses.  This will be no wilderness hunt, and we will need to contend with the ATV hunting crowd. 

In preparation I began building some hunting arrows.  My first plan was to use a group of very straight bamboo I had culled from a lot of 100 shafts.  These were the straightest and all spined around 65 pounds.  I had mostly white fletching and already had some white rustoleum so my color scheme will pretty mush guarantee some snow on the ground!  The finished arrows with ace broadheads weighed about 600 grains.

Meanwhile, I was eying up 2 dozen old lodgepole pine shafts I had in the corner from a ways back.  These were 23/64th diameter and spined 70-75.  With both of my 60-pound hunting bows I have been drawing about 28 1/4 inches and liked to touch my finger at full draw with the back of the broadhead.  This meant a 29 BOP arrow was most comfortable currently.  That length was requiring a stiffer arrow so I decided to make up some of the pine shafts and see how they performed.

I used my angle iron jig to tail taper them down to 11/32 diameter from about 8 inches, then I point tapered them similarly forabout4 inches, ending in a barrel tapered arrow retaining as much spine as I could preserve.  These shot superbly and I even decided to splice some yellow into the cock feather. Pointed with Ace standards the finished weight is around 650 grains.  More importantly, the feel was appealing.  They seemed to have a little more "life" in them than the bamboo.  

The knife in the photo was also a little gift Nate Steen sent me.  He found some old stock case yellow knives like Mr. Hill used to use.  I told him I would use it to butcher an elk should I be lucky enough to get one this year.  I am hoping that will be the case. 

I took a little trip the last week of summer to Hershey Park, and spent some time ogling a huge bull and cow they had.  More importantly I tried to imprint the smell.  The season is upon us and soon the arrow will lie beside the bow in anticipation of our quarry.  

Susquehanna River Blue Cats and some Bonus Striper

My brother and I went out on the Susquehanna river Saturday morning.  The cats were a challenge on the fly rod as I had trouble getting the large chicken bait deep enough unless we were drifting with it.  Yes, I was using bait with a fly rod and sinking line.  I just wanted to catch some big blue cats and they are not receptive to the fly.  I managed to catch 3 or 4, 5-6 pounders in total on the 8wt though but none of the big ones.  We got into the stripers in one pool.  Saw the gulls working the surface and despite it being 1230pm, I caught 2 on my tied chartreuse and white deceiver after fishing most of the morning with the "game changer" fly I tied.  Lefty knew something about that fly!  It was a heck of a battle to catch a 22-inch striper on the 5 wt trout rod I can tell you!  

So, we limited out on stripers again.  I hooked up a nice sized (4 pound smallmouth as well I released).  Great fight again.

Then we were finishing up on the last deep hole before our take-out spot.  Chris was on the phone with his friend Dave giving him an update when a "big un" hit Chris's spin bait.  He was fighting that and I was trying to work the net free when another 5-6 pounder picked up my fly line on the 8 wt.  There we were spinning downstream with a double on each side of the canoe!  We managed to get both in the net without losing them. The cooler could fit no more fish at this point and we were done!

What a day.  I spend Sunday trimming and processing catfish for the freezer.  Had a great blackened striper lunch.  Yum.  What a time on the water.

Fly Fishing Stripers on the Susquehanna River

I took a vacation day off on Friday to head to the Susquehanna River below the dam my grandfather helped construct to try for stripers.  The season is winding down as the water temperatures rise, and the regulations allow one fish between a narrow slot limit of 17-24 inches.  My goal was to hook up a striper on the fly.  Luckily my brother is a local to the river and knows all the deep holes where these fish hang out.  This was his first trip of the year for him as well, due to the amount of upstream rain and water conditions that have kept the river high and chocolate for most of the spring.

I arrived at my brother's house at 7am and planned to launch canoes and float and fish downstream. My brother and I were in one canoe and only used fly fishing gear, while Chris's friend Dave was solo in a second canoe using spinning equipment.   I had my 8 wt rod with sinking line, about a 4-foot tapered leader ending in a 10-pound test mono tippet as the water was still a tinge off color.  I was mainly using unweighted Lefty Deceiver patterns in a chartreuse green large variation approximately 5 inches long with a 1/0 long shanked hook I tied.  Here are some replacements I tied after the trip as I lost 3 flies to snags.  Lefty used to joke on a few videos I saw of him striper fishing, "If it aint chartreuse, it aint no use" and that was true again today.

The weather started out overcast as we began fishing and I missed a hit that swirled the top not long after I started casting.  Chris was doing all of the paddling leaving me to fish.  We rounded the bottom side of an island and I was casting slightly upstream and across when I got a hit.  Having a bit of upstream slack in the line I didn't get the Hook set I wanted but I was fighting a good-sized fish for about 10 or 12 seconds ending in the fly pulling out.  

I was bummed, but excited as I was getting the action on the fly.  Our spin fishing friend missed one as well by this point I believe.

Chris was using a smaller clouser and was hooking up on rocks a good bit, but shortly he had landed the first fish.  It was a keeper at 17 inches so we put it in the cooler.  

We were taking our time picking our way along the bottom of rapids where Chris knew there were deeper holes.  I snatched up a decent sized smallmouth that hit the big fly.

We caught up with Dave, who was not having any luck besides a couple pound catfish he caught on a spinner when Chris put us in a known hotspot he knew.  He was paddling us up in while I was casting across until the canoe speed pulled the fly.  I was dragging my deceiver just about to lift for another cast when it was sucked down in a swirl.  I set the hook and the fight was on.  I landed it in short order, and the tape said just above 17 inches.  We could have kept it but already had a keeper in the cooler and this would be it, so we decided to release it in the hopes of a bigger one.

I was thrilled!  

We decided to go back up and float that hole again.  Shortly I was hooked up again!  This one gelt a little bigger and had bigger shoulders.  It was a battle but I had him in to net.  This one taped out to 20 inches and we put him in the cooler.  We were now fishing for fun as everything from then on must be released.

As the morning moved to afternoon, the sun came out and the fishing slowed.  Still Chris managed to wrestle another undersized striper before we hit the pickup point.  

We came out pretty well and had a blast.  This was one of the few trips where the flyrods out fished the spinning gear as we had 4 stripers to one blue catfish landed.  

Kayaking Bass in Deep Creek Lake and Side Trip to the Youghiogheny River

New lake. Different kind of bass.

This year for my annual family vacation to the Deep Creek Lake area, we switched and got a house lakeside.  I was excited I could not launch and fish at will from the lake instead of being a 20-minute drive from the water.

It would be fly fishing only this year I decided, and I would bring my kayak. Getting there on a Saturday, I found the edge of the lake muddy and choppy from the wake of all the weekend boaters.  I tried a few casts from the dock but mainly decided to hit it early in the morning with the boat. 

I got up at 5:10am with first light and fished along the docks and edge structure for several hours.  I was on the sunny Western side in a back cove when I finally had a largemouth streak in from the weedy bank and take my foam bodied popper fly.  He was a good-sized fish just an inch shy of the 21-inch trophy status for Maryland.  I decided to bring this one back and eat it.  I also decided to fish the shadier side of the lake from now on.  There was about a 3-hour window before all the water-skiers and watercraft churned the lake murky again.

The bass was filleted and served with some grilled shrimp.  I had dredged the fillets in seasoned flour and them an egg wash before being coated in panko breadcrumbs to fry.  It was a hit!

By the third day I had settled on my pattern here.  Get up around 5am and paddle the double ocean kayak out and try to find some structure to fish.  Usually no one is on the lake at that hour.  Then by 9 am the traffic starts.... more like a regatta.  The power boaters and water skiers roar up and down.  The banks get muddy with the wakes of all the boat traffic and fishing is useless.

I come in and cook breakfast for the families, then lunch, maybe a short cat nap if I am lucky.  Then, I have about 30 minutes in the evening to fish, but the water is churned up along the shores by then.

Yesterday I scored that big largemouth.  Today I got a 17 inch largemouth and a 17inch smallmouth.  The tale of two fish there.  That largemouth was probably half the age of that small mouth but fought twice as hard.  It pulled my kayak around!

 I was tempted to keep both today but decided the little guy and the old salt needed to go back.

I am glad I am here.  The feels like temps at home are 106 right now back home.  It is 86 right here lakeside.  

All fish have been caught on topwater bugs and flies so far.  Nothing has touched the deceiver or clouser.

Today the fish were hitting well.  I got up at 530am and paddled across the lake and fished the far shadier bank.  I am starting to figure out where these fish like to hang out.  They like the mixed weed beds near 2 points I found.  I caught about 7 total fish this morning.  All but one were smallmouth. Caught another good sized one that pulled my kayak around a bit.  Mabe 17-17 ½ inches.  I took a picture with the tape but it apparently didn't take.  The other fish was a largemouth 17.5 inches.  

Fly fishing from the kayak is a frustrating thing!  As soon as you put the paddle down and pick up the rod you drift.  Then, you have to try to adjust.  So hard.  The struggle is real!  The inlaws got the same house next year so I will be back.  I may bring my small flat bottomed boat and a electric trolling motor next year!  I need one of those new high tech lithium lightweight marine batteries but they are expensive.

I picked up two more of each bass species this morning. 

Tomorrow morning I’m heading to a top catch and release trout stream. Water is drawn off the bottom of the lake and keeps the river cold.  I’m excited for a change of pace and casting a lighter rod. 

Got 4 trout and w bunch of small smallies this morning. 

Those trout were hitting the sculpin micro jig streamer mostly.

Another decent smallmouth fell to the white Lefty deceiver. 

Cold front today no there wasn’t as much action but had some casting practice in the wind. 

Here are the flies I’ve been using here mostly: