Hey Guys,
Just wanted to introduce myself,my name is Tyler and I am sure I have seen some of you at LMF in the past month. I have just been getting back into fly fishing and have been trying out LMF with varying degrees of success. Reading the posts on this thread make me realize I have a lot to learn and re-learn.

I was up there this last Monday and only caught 4 smaller ones, and lost two more due to poor hook setting.

Most of my success has come on red zebra midges size 20. Also have had luck on size 20 micro egg and beadhead red collar pheasants.

Hoping to go up this weekend, so if you see me feel free to say hey and chat.

This guy was on a red zebra midge.

Man it is amazing you caught anything wearing that gawd awful Tea-Sip hat LOL.

Nice fish and congrats. We were up there Dec 15th-20th and went back this last Monday also, not much luck Monday. We met Golfer Jeff Monday without knowing it and might have crossed your path, but I think I would remember that gawd awful hat. If you would have seen me you would have remembered because I am 5'6"-250lbs and wear camo neoprene waders, it is tough to get that image out of your mind, but I do wear a pretty MAROON jacket under there.

I wouldn't call that one smaller. It's a nice looking fish. It seems LMF is getting a bit "fished out" between stockings this year, so you picked a poor time to go, as did I (Saturday). I, too, have my best luck on midges, usually. There's been pretty good hatches in the afternoons, however, on mayflies and caddis. Good to have you around. My "home" stream is the Little Missouri River at Murfreesboro, AR, but I love to fish the LMF whenever I get the chance because it's a great trout fishing stream.

Nice fish / Bad hat

With the assistance of the ODWC, the fishing at the LMF was great this weekend. Good hatches of BWO's, midges in morning fog, and some early caddis on spillway creek. I had a novice buddy along this time and he had a great time. He caught 8-10 in Spillway Friday (and missed about a hundred more!) and followed that up with a decent day Saturday. Sunday was too darn cold and windy to fish, so we returned to DFW. Being barely above novice myself, it was interesting to 'teach' someone how to fish the LMF. We had a lot of fun trying some new areas and meeting some good peeps.

Flies for the weekend included chartreuse eggs 12-18, red or black midge droppers, BWO emergers (I had RS2's), and yes, even Olive Neer Deeres. Anything fished bumping the bottom on the drift (eggs) or rising in the water column on the swing (RS2's, soft hackles) worked well. The bigger fish loved the Neer Deere's.

Park was pretty crowded, especially after it warmed up each day. Jostling for position on Spillway and Evening hole was pretty standard. You had to move downstream to find some open water. I did not see any instances or 'run rage', but I could see some frustrated fly fisherman.

On a side note - my fishing partner introduced me to several 'firsts' this weekend. Mock me all you want (i am an easy target), but I did all of these things for the first time: Kept a stringer of trout (i Had to catch 15 just to get a stringer of 6!), ate a trout (a 19" rainbow), made a campfire, drank single malt whiskey, smoked a cigar streamside, and helped a little kid catch his first fly rod trout (More on that later). It was a great weekend, even with Sunday being an ice-out. Catching large numbers of fish sure didn't hurt.

On the little kid story..... I know Carey and other guides probably have several of these kinds of stories, but this was a first for me. I am fishing the white pipe in Spillway Creek, having great success and catching a fish about every other drift. This little kid and his dad are in the corner, tossing some heavy tackle in a little 10 foot window. Little dude is having fun, but I think he may have caught only one in about 2 hours. They were being very mindful of my drift zone, so I thought I could have little fun with the kid. I asked the dad if his son would like to catch a fish on a fly rod. He said, "Sure, I bet he would love that!". So I rigged up a hares ear and an egg, set my rod aside, waded across the stream, talked to the little kid (name was Harry), and asked him to come with me to fish the fly rod. He was a little hesitant, but his dad told him to go ahead and try it. So I carried him across the stream (dad took video), plopped him down on a midstream rock, and showed him how to cast and drift. He picked it up pretty quick. Together we cast the flies upstream and got a great drift over the hit zone. With four hands on the rod, we watched the indicator bobble and weave. we set the hook and FISH ON! I gave the rod to Harry and he tried to reel it in like a Zebco... so I quickly explained how to bring in a fly rod fish. he did great and about 2-3 minutes later we landed a nice 15" bow. We CPR'd (Catch, photo, release) the fish and hi-fived. Dad was grinning the whole time. The bite was still on, so we tried it again. This time Harry did the casting. I sat back and watched this little guy handle the rod with ease. He cast a 2nd time and got a really nice drift. Indicator goes completely under and screams downstream, hook set, FISH ON! Harry handles this all by himself, plays the fish for a minute or two, then I net it for him. 10 minutes, two fish. CPR again and Harry is lit up like a Xmas tree. This was the result (i hope the pic uploads). . I know he doesn't have it held properly, but I did what I could. Harry released this one on his own. Rig down, fireman's carry across the stream to dad, sent the photo's to dad. It was really cool to see the kid enjoy himself and dad seemed appreciative too. Maybe a fly-fishing convert someday

Made my day complete........ Thanks for indulging and reading!

Can't wait to get back....... hope y'all had fun this weekend!

Hope you enjoyed the story, here are a few more pics from the weekend.




The Brown was a nice surprise - before dawn. My first campfire was fun too.

Jeff, that was a great story and photo with the youg man. I bet that is something he remembers for a very long time.

What it is all about!

Jeff, are you sure you are not atleast Mark Zona's brother?

Third photo down Jeffs brother Mark

OK, I admit, kinda looks a little like me. I am grayer and maybe a tad thinner. No sponsor either

Well, I was stuck at Vegas airport for 3 days. Worst experience I think I have had. My socks felt like they had catfish slime in them. Our bags went to dallas three days before, so no cloths. The snow storm up north was backing planes up for hours up to days. We were flying stand-by, tickets from parents for free due to they work for American Airlines. So, we kept getting bumped down in the order. We had two options left, otherwise the ticket agent said we might be there another 4 days. 1- go to Chicago then Dallas and hope the storm settles down, 2- a buddy was in Vegas for work and we could drive to San Diego where he lives( 4 1/2 hours) and try there, with the option of staying with him if we got stuck there.

We got there to san diego with the last flight out to Dallas, 22 mins to spare and two seats open. We finally made it to Dallas!

Our friend is still stuck at the airport. He has been there for 5 days and expected to sit there for another 4-5 days. He decided to stay in Vegas and and try to get on later flights. Horrible. Sorry if the mess affected you too. Seeing it on the news is one thing. Experiencing it, is another. There was a line 300 yards long, outside the airport before even getting inside to check in. The line started 3 hours after we got there the first day. Good thing we were inside already before that mess started. Took those people almost 5 hours to 8 hours, just to get to their gate, then to find out they are stuck there, with us. - ok, I'm done.

Buy new clothes, free tickets are not always good tickets, must be a fast [censored] car to do Vegas to San Diego in 4.5 hours, congratulations on getting home, the LMF was awesome even without you, and how is this relevant to this thread

Welcome back Carey!

It's revel net to the thread cause I missed 3 trips and had to reschedule, and some fly orders may be a bit late as well till I catch up.

Well thank goodness you cleared that up, because I was thinking you were going and try and sell us some stink bait made out of your socks and not so tidy whities.

Think of the peeps that are still stuck after 8 days now!