Fly Fishing Show Pleasanton California 2011

Glenn Fair at the Fly Fishing Show.

Great to see Jay and Glen Fair at this year's show! Jay continues to amaze given the health issues he's had to deal with. He and Glen appear to be spinning up some new tying material. I believe it's called Translucent Swimming Hackle. Super-light and has a very nice "swim" quality which Glen demo'ed in a small fish tank. Comes in may of the colors Jay likes to fish on Eagle including buggy olive and burnt orange

Glen puts swimming material on wiggle tail

Glen wraps the swimming hackle on a wiggle tail nymph that he tied up for me. You would be extremely hard-pressed to find a kinder spirit than Glen Fair. He and his dad have always been a pleasure to spend time with and love to share their knowledge of flies, techniques, etc.

The finished fly - burnt orange wiggle tail

If you do any still-water fishing in the west, than wiggle tails like the one pictured above should be standard equipment. This one probably won't stay "good-n-bushy" for long.

Evidence of usual snow storm hitting San Francisco Bay Area.

Walking back to my car I came across a small stream of water running from the back of this pickup. For a brief moment I flashed-back to thoughts of winter in Lake Tahoe. But snow has become a reality the past 3 days in the greater Bay Area. A small dusting happened in San Francisco south to Santa Cruz.

New Textured Mastery GTX.

I'm generally a fan of Scientific Anglers' flylines. Besides the sticker-shock, I heard mix reviews on their Sharkskin lines with the noise and lost of finger skin being the biggest negatives. So, out comes their new Textured lines. Besides good engineering, SA also listens to their customers. These lines are now only listed at $79 (a bargain right) and use much of the fundamental technology of the Sharkskin lines. I wanted to demo the line before buying, but sadly Scientific Angler was absent from the show's floor this year. Apparently, the event organizer pissed them off and they refused to buy any space.

New flylines from SA are labeled with line type and size

One last comment on SA. I think most of us fly anglers truly appreciate the attention to detail. We tend to have an eye for the small stuff. So, when I saw this "small" change (photographed above) with the 2011 Mastery lines I broke out in a smile. Just a small, simple thing to print the line type and weight onto the tip. Makes it easier for trout to know what weight your fishing, and equally easy for the angler.