Page 153 - North 40 Outfitters

If you've been lucky enough to live during spring in the Northwest, then wherever you go you know how to look for those flashes of bright green and red, to listen for the hovering buzz barely heard over the breeze. What's the best practice for keeping these moveable colors at your feeders year round? Find out below. Get Prepped Early Expect the hummingbirds to come back to us here in the Northwest from mid-April to mid-May. Have your hummingbird feeders set up and ready for the return of the birds so they know early on where they can get the goods (this being nectar in the Stokes Select® hummingbird feeder, of course). In Washington you might even get lucky and keep Anna's Hummingbird through the winter. Here is a starter kit feeder you might use to bring you more hummingbirds. Double Down on Attraction Set up your Stokes Select® hummi...

Just got my NuCanoe this past week and finally had time to add a seat, fly rod Ram mount and anchor system to it so that I could get it out on the water in proper fly fishing regalia. I purchased the Frontier 12 so that I could add a seat if I wanted to use the boat with my wife, or to use as a mini drifter for some stealthy dry fly rowing in smaller water (hopefully more to come on that). Transporting the NuCanoe to the Water I have a short bed half ton pickup so I was a little worried about transport without a trailer.  However the boat hangs over my tailgate when it's down about 2-3 feet if I put the boat diagonally in the bed to maximize distance.  Since I have the 360 seat the seat bracket, it works perfectly to strap to my truck bed.  One ratchet strap keeps the boat very secure. Need ratchet straps? We have them for sale onlin...

North 40 fly shop is live in Belize and are loving the accommodations this year.  "Big improvement over past years," says Paul. I received a snapchat from Joe late after the first day.  I think he was trying to make me feel better with this... ...didn't work.  They were still taking shots at Permit all day.  This is Joe's first salt trip and the wind was a big challenge he told me. Terry Jenner and his dad Joe are also on the trip with us this year.  This always seems to happen but Terry landed his first bonefish (macabi in Spanish) on his first day, and his first permit on his second day!  AND... Terry's dad caught a permit too (palometa in Spanish).  Watch for tarpon (sabalo in Spanish) photos coming on day 3 with these guys winning streak. This not making me even kind of less jealous than before.  Now I'm on Kayak.com looki...

One of the best things about working in the North 40 Fly Shop is meeting other fly fishers and talking fish and fly fishing.  I call it the fishing flap.  Jeff comes into the shop from time to time and we usually get wrapped up in deep fishy conversations.  Jeff has been bitten by the spey bug and he’s been learning and working his technique on the Mo and other local waters.  We’ve had some great conversations about flies and runs and how the trout are eating and the best ways to get hook ups. I love being able to help anglers find the materials and tackle they need to keep their passion alive and I love sharing and trading information with hard core anglers like Jeff. We are incredibly fortunate to have some amazing trout spey opportunities here in Montana.  More and more anglers are discovering that to be true.  That said, th...

We're on our way to Belize and it started slowly-.very slowly. Denver's flight out of CDA was delayed and so was ours out of GF-so what do we do?  Joe and I busted out our fly boxes to compare what we tied-I think we are prepared. We dragged out our gear to see what we were missing if anything: not that it mattered since mostly everything was in our checked bag.  There was talk of future trips, best rods, reels-.The delays pushed us back to the point where we were going to miss our connection in Denver. We landed to numerous text messages from Denver telling us to hurry and get our butts to the gate.  We ran across the terminal and made the flight just as they were closing... See you tomorrow Belize.   --Paul Considine

The water is a fishy and buggy 44 degrees plus.  The flows are holding between 38 and 3900 cfs.  There are often swirling vortices of hatching midges covering the water.  Baetis are showing more and more, with strong hatches occurring closer to Cascade.  I fished a piece of water on Tuesday that was covered in tiny sails and trout were eagerly sucking them down.  They mistakenly slurped my tiny para BWO from time to time. Nymphs Try fishing a Green Machine in black, PT or Grey.  Other good choices include the JuJu Baetis, Pandemic May, Flashback Biot Nymph BWO, Indigo Child, Bruised Baetis and a variety of colored Zebra’s.  You can fish your tiny flies behind a good old Czech/scud/sow if you need to go deep or drop it off a dry fly in the shallows. Emerger / Soft Hackles Midges have been hatching prolifically.  Get after it in ...

Temperatures are warming up in the town of Sandpoint, ID.  With the warm weather, the river's and creek's blow out is shutting down any fishing opportunities we have...except one. One really big important one that I have been chasing for 10 years now with marginal success. Each year the temperature warms up and I look for the first 3-4 consecutive days where it gets over 65 degrees.  When this happens, trillions of flying black carpenter ants descend upon Lake Pend Oreille and the fish turn on. Lake Pend Oreille can be extremely intimidating with it's 111 miles of shoreline and 1200' depth, but each year we head out trying to find groups of feeding fish in the afternoons. The game plan is to find the shaded areas of the lake, find scum lines, turn on the electric motor and start cruising and waiting for fish.  It is more like hunting ...

There are 1763 cool places to fish in Montana, and I've been lucky enough to fish a percentage of those spots (absolutely no information given so far).  This past weekend I spent on the Bitterroot near Darby and then down by Stevensville, a very well known spring skwala hatch, and surprisingly we had very little company on the river and lots of skwalas.  It was great: read about it there. Last night, Brian (our distribution manager) and Alfonso (our Field Marketing person) slid out of work 15 minutes early and headed towards our favorites sections of our local Great Falls water.  Within about 20-30 minutes you can be on 3-4 different trout streams from our work parking lot.  Great Falls gets a tough reputation from people who don't know, and I suppose I should want to keep it that way.  People say its so far from the mountains, and ...

As we celebrate Earth Day by planting trees in a local area affected by last year's massive wildfire, we are quickly reminded how it has only been seven months since fires were engulfing the Methow valley-Carlton Complex. In July 2014 lightning strikes sparked four wildfires across a rather large area that would very quickly merge into the largest wildfire in Washington State history.  Leaving in its wake 256,108 acres of burnt land and destroying 300 homes. At one point there were over 3,000 firefighters actively working to contain the fire.  The National Guard was even called in to help efforts. I remember riding the bus to work and seeing convoys of military Humvees with Red Cross painted on them, driving through downtown like a parade.  People would, including myself, stare in speechless terror as they start to realize that this f...

We love when we can sense spring coming and we start thinking about the skwala hatch and Mother's Day Caddis and F3T and IF4, and everything else about warm weather fishing... BUT we like fall just as much. After lots of sun, weeds, and hot weather we are stoked for swinging steelhead, stripping streamers for browns, and October Caddis hatches.  To match the stoke of spring, we decided we need a film fest to pump us up going in to fall fishing season, and we're calling it Fall Stoke. This is the official call to submissions. All submissions are welcome but below you will find our guidelines, rules, contest, and other information for our first ever tour.  Please send us your submissions and we hope to see you at one of our tour stops this fall!       Event: North 40 Fall Stoke Fly Fishing Fest August - October 2015 Event ...

My wife and I fished the Bitterroot this weekend from Darby all the way down to Stevensville (her birthday/her choice).  It was awesome, I always hear how it's such a zoo and not worth it.  I guess wind, rain, and snow scares the crowds off in Missoula because we didn't see hardly anyone all weekend. Lots of skwalas on the water right now but certainly many more down lower by Stevensville.  Although they were still eating the skwalas up higher just fine.  Probably equally as good of a hatch was the march browns literally all over the place, as well as some BWO's down low.  Maybe this weekend there will be more skwalas up near Darby? The best skwalas patterns were the standard bullet head in a size 10 and the Big R Bug skwala (only in North 40 Fly Shop in Great Falls).  For the march browns, honestly anything reasonably close to ...

This intruder pattern can be tied in various sizes and colors. It is very easy and quick to tie and still maintains a great profile with lots of movement in the water. This is my go to intruder for many of the steelhead rivers in the Northwest when I need to create flies quickly. Fly Tying Material List: Senyo Laser Dub Black 210 UTC Black Copper Flashabou Olive/Black Barred Marabou 30# Fire Line Senyo Articulated Shank Brass Eyes