During the month of June I was teaching a fly fishing class for Vaction Bible School sports camp at my church every Tuesday night. We covered fly casting, fly tying, flies, basic entomology and finished with a fishing trip at a local lake. The kids all had a great time and everyone caught a fish. For a couple of them it was the very first fish they had ever caught. One of the girls caught a small catfish on the fly! Here are a few pictures from the class and our fishing trip this past Tuesday evening.

Learning to tie a few flies.

Very first fish!

It does not matter how big or how small the fish are. They are fun to catch.

This was a really fun class to teach.

Today I went fishing with a friend of mine from the Montrose Marlins swim team named Nathaniel. It was his first time fly fishing so it was a cool thing for me because it was one more youth that learned how to fly fish. When we first got there the wind was blowing quite hard so it made it difficult to cast so we did a little site-fishing to a few greenies that were close enough that we did not have to do all that much casting. In the first five to ten minutes he had caught a fish and got a few photos then let the fish go. In about twenty minutes he had caught four fish and I had caught one or two! By the end of the day Nathaniel had caught about twelve to fifteen fish and combined we had around thirty fish. I caught the only bass of the day on a small beetle pattern. Even though it was small it was cool to catch it on top water. Here are a few pictures from today and I hope you enjoy them.

Rigging up.

Nathaniel's first fish on a fly rod.

My sister Vivian with a beautiful green sunfish.

My first bluegill of the day.

Our one and only bass of the day!

Yesterday I taught another kid's fly fishing class at Anlgers All in Denver, Colorado. It was a great class. All the kids had fun and were excited to be learning about fly fishing. We covered casting, gear, flies, entomology and of course the fish. I will be teaching one more kid's fly fishing class at Anglers All on Saturday August 15th. So if you live near Denver and know of kids that would be interested get in touch with the people at Anglers All to sign them up.

My sister Ava went with me and my dad on our road trip to Denver and she helped get the rods and reels ready for the class. When we were driving to Denver early in the morning the mountains looked so beautiful. We also fished some small ponds before we drove back home to Montrose. The fishing was slow but it sure was great to out on the water after talking about it all day in the class! Then on our drive home we saw a mother moose and her two young ones. These are a few pictures from my day. Hope you enjoy them.

Here are the mountains when we were driving to Denver.

Talking about the gear we use to fly fish.

Everyone having a great time learning how to fly cast.

Congratulations!!! Everyone did a great job and had a really fun day.

Thank you to Terry, Lori, Gary and Chris at Anglers All for helping to make these classes fun for the kids and for getting more kids into fly fishing.

My sister Ava fishing one of the ponds at Platte River Park.

Here is the mother moose and her two little ones. This was the first moose I have ever seen in Colorado.

While I was at the Fly Fishing Festa in Japan I met a new friend. His name is Gareth Jones. He is from the United Kingdom and is a member of the Welsh Fly Fishing Team. He competes at many fly fishing competitions. I got to fish with Gareth on Lake Akan and spent a lot of time talking to him about fly fishing in lakes which is his specialty. I learned some cool flies from him that I cannot wait to try out on some of the lakes here in Colorado. Gareth also did a program at the Festa and I got to take some pictures of a few of his fly boxes. He is a very good fisherman and great guy. I hope I get to fish with him again.

Gareth giving his presentation on lake fishing.

Here are a couple of Gareth's fly boxes.

Gareth with a nice Lake Akan rainbow.

Well, here are a few more pictures and stories from my trip to Japan last month. I got to fish with my friend Yugi at a place called Forrest Springs which has stocked trout lakes with some big fish. I started off fishing a small streamer and had a lot of fish follow. Then I switched to a bead head nymph and an egg fly patern with a strike indicator and did they ever like that! That is Yugi's favorite rig when he fishes there.

Here is Yugi and his dad Masa with a nice rainbow that yugi caught.

Here we are at Forrest Springs Fishing Park ready to go get after the fish.

Here is a pretty nice brook trout that ate a small mink streamer with a red conehead.

This is a cross between a brook trout and a whites spotted char. The Japanese call this an "F1". This fish took a yellow colored egg pattern fished below a strike indicator.

Here is one of the big rainbows we caught the day we fished there. I caught this one a size 16 Parachute Adams.

Keep checking back I have a few more stories and a lot more pictures to share from my trip to Japan including a few hours of carp fishing with a cane pole, bait and a small float!

On May 5th I taught a kids fly fishing class at Anglers All in Denver, Colorado. Since I left for my trip to Japan on May 6th I did not get to put up any pictures or talk about the class. So here it is!

This was the first of three kids fly fishing classes I will be teaching at Anglers All this summer. We had a great time during the class. First we learned what fly fishing is and the basic gear that is used in fly fishing. We also had a short question and answer time. Next the Anglers All staff served lunch to all the students. After lunch we went outside and we learned how to put together a rod, line up the rod, stretch out your fly line and leader and did a short demonstration of a basic overhead cast (back cast and forward cast). I also talked to the kids about a good way to hold or grip the rod. Then all the students got to practice fly casting for about one hour. The staff at Anglers All and my dad helped me out so we could work with each of the students to help them learn fly casting and make it fun for everyone. It was great!

After casting practice we did some fun fly casting games with targets and the kids won some cool fly fishing prizes. Then we headed back inside the shop and we learned to tie two flies. All the kids got to tie a San Juan Worm and a Woolly Bugger. We also talked about how different flies imitate the different bugs and food that fish eat.

The class ended with a short PowerPoint program about fly fishing and some fun trivia questions that the kids got to win some more fly fishing prizes.

If you live near Denver and would like to sign up for one of the classes just check out the Anglers All website from the link below. The next class is being offered on June 13, 2009. I hope to see you there.

Click here to visit the Anglers All website and sign up for a class.

Having fun learning about fly fishing.

Eating some lunch before going outside to learn fly casting.

Demonstating how to line up the rod and stretch out the coils from your fly line and leader.

Cranking out some San Juan Worms in the fly tying class room.

The whole gang at the end of our fun fly fishing class.

I said I was going to put a few pictures up of some different flies I saw and collected in Japan, well here I am giving you all a few photos of some of the different. All these flies are tied by a couple of people that I met in Japan, Ken Shimazaki, and my new friend Moto. Keep on looking for new entries about my trip because I have many more things to tell you all about. I hope you enjoy these photos.

Here is Mr.Shimazaki's caddis fly life cycle. He tied these in his fly tying demo at the 2009 Fly Fishing Festa in Japan.

Here are some Pheasant Tail nymphs that Mr. Shimazaki tied.

Here are some flies and hand made pencil floats that my friend Moto gave me. Moto is a champion spey caster and he even doveloped his own style of two handed casting using shooting heads. He gave me a four and a half hour lesson on his style which was very exciting.

Foam Cicada that Moto tied.

A foam Beetle tied by Moto.

Moto's smelt pattern. There are many smelt in Lake Akan that the trout and char like to feed on.

Here is a Woolly Bugger that Moto tied. This was his favorite fly to fish on Lake Akan.

These are more smelt patterns that some of the other fisherman on Lake Akan gave me to fish with.

I got up at 5:30 this morning and went fishing with my dad. We fished a couple of local lakes and caught some nice bluegill with beadhead nymphs. I was using a size 12 Beadhead Prince Nymph with 2X tippet. They seemed to like it! The weather was great. Sunny and very few clouds. It was a fun 3 hours of fishing. Here are a couple of pictures.

This was a big guy!

It is neat to see so many different colors. Check out the colors of these fish.

I wanted to share some more pictures from my trip to Japan. So here are some fishing pictures, some of my friends from Japan and some of the different places I visited while I was there. I hope you enjoy these. I will post more pictures over the next few days from my trip. I have a lot more to tell you about.

Doing a little shopping at Sansui Fly Shop in downtown Tokyo.

Spending some time in downtown Tokyo.

SUSHI my favorite food!!!

Fishing at Tanzawa National Park with Masa and Gareth. We caught some nice Iwanna and Yamame this day. It is a very beatiful river.

Getting ready to fly to Kushiro from Tokyo with Moto and Gareth. Moto is an amazing caster that gave me some lessons on his techniques with double handed and single handed rods and shooting heads.

A group of school childern that I got to teach fly casting to. This was right after I gave them copies of my book. They were all very happy and we all had a fun time together.

Fly fishing on Lake Akan early in the morning. It was really cold on some of the days.

Moto with a Lake Akan Rainbow!

Setting the hook on a Lake Akan White Spotted Char. I was fishing a Rio Multi Tip line with the clear intermediate sink tip. This line worked really well for me for the lake fishing.

Doing one of my fly tying demonstations at the Fly Fishing Festa in Japan.

My good buddy Masa and Mr. Ken Shimazaki. Mr. Shimazaki designs all the Tiemco fly tying hooks. He also invented Shimazaki Dry Shake which dries and floats flies. We traded some flies. I will post some pictures of his flies in a day or two.

Moto giving me some double handed casting lessons on Lake Akan. He has his own style of two handed casting with shooting heads for lake fishing that is really cool. I need to keep working at it to get better! He was really nice to me and also gave me some very cool flies he had tied. I will take some pictures of them and post them in a few days.

On Monday (May 18th) I got to go fishing for Sea Bass with Gareth Jones from the United Kingdom and my friend Hiro Kanda from Japan. Our guide was Captain "K" and we fished on Tokyo Bay. We were fishing with floating fly lines and using a fly called the "Floating Minnow". It is a Mylar tube body with closed cell foam inside of it and a Melty Fiber tail. I will do a tying tutorial for these when I get back home to show everyone.

Gareth caught two Black Fin Sea Bass which are quit rare and I caught one common Sea Bass. It was a nice fish and was fun to see it eat my fly on the surface. We both hooked some other fish but did not land them.

Yesterday (May 20th) I got to go back Sea Bass fishing with Masa and my dad. We got up at 3:00 AM to drive to Tokyo Bay and meet the meet up with Captain "K". Masa caught one fish on the floating minnow. Fishing was pretty tough on the surface so we switched to a fast sinking line and baitfish streamers. Masa caught one more nice Sea Bass and few casts later I hooked up. At first I thought I was snagged on the bottom, but then my line started to swim. After a few minutes the Captain netted my fish. It was a huge Sea Bass! My fish measured 83cm (about 38 inches)!!! This is the second largest fish the Captain has had caught on his boat all year. He told me that he only has 4 or 5 fish caught each year that are over 80cm.

I hope you enjoy the pictures of my Sea Bass fishing. We are going back out this afternoon for one my try at the Sea Bass. I will write more later when I get back.

Gareth with a Black Fin Sea Bass.

My first Sea Bass on a Floating Minnow. Captain "K" helping me hold it for the picture.

My friend Hiro giving me a few pointers about how to strip the fly.

Here is Masa holding one of the Sea Bass he caught.

This is the monster 83cm Sea Bass that I caught. I still can not believe I caught such a big one. It was a great fish.

It was a super good day of Sea Bass fishing!