The Epical 2025 Fishing Yarns and Photo Thread

**Rasputin** · 05-27-2025, 01:46 PM

Man this thread is hopping, I'm bummed to not be madly posting fishy pics, but currently I'm out of action, as I need to retread my boots, and the nearby rivers are cresting muddy again after our first warm weather in a while. I also don't use a smartphone, so Tapatalk pics won't be a thing for me.

I'll content myself to seeing the catches of you who are gettin' it done. Have at it!

**jpcm** · 05-28-2025, 07:49 AM

After a really solid day 1 of fishing with Swimmy, we sat around camp cooking dinner, patting ourselves on the back. Lots of chat about “cracking the code” and “stepping up to the next class of fish tomorrow”. Well day 2 came, the sun was out, and streamer bite was off….proceeded to get our teeth kicked in. The nymph stick kept us off the skunk, but we fished hard all day for a couple small rainbows. Funny how the fish gods do that to you right?!

Highlight of day two was photo slutting for Swimmy and pretty much having the river to ourselves. . Guy sure is good with the camera. These are his shots posted in lesser resolution

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**Rasputin** · 05-28-2025, 11:44 AM

Great pics swimmy, great um modeling jpcm.

Since I am in a fishing lull, until I get my wading boots resoled, I spent a bit of time yesterday educating myself with some recently released videos on how trout see, which have excellent information, though it spends a bit too much time focused on the guy's face.

https://www.youtube.com/@TroutWise/videos

**plugboots** · 06-01-2025, 04:01 PM

About 140 pounds.

**Mr. Mike** · 06-02-2025, 08:35 PM

So the nail knot worked?!?

**Mr. Mike** · 06-02-2025, 08:36 PM

Ditto that smile is perfect. Save that one to show at her wedding.

**The Reverend Floater** · 06-02-2025, 10:14 PM

Happy hatch season y'all!

**Phall** · 06-03-2025, 02:10 AM

Few more from Cape Cod.

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**plugboots** · 06-03-2025, 05:11 PM

Originally Posted by Mr. Mike

So the nail knot worked?!?

Yup.
That fish was on my 11 weight, so that is a nail knot that I then peeled back the coating on the fly line and throw a half hitch behind the wraps using the core. It would be pretty hard to back that out, (and then I coat it with glue). I’m more impressed with my 40 to 80 pound shock tippit slim beauty.

**plugboots** · 06-04-2025, 05:06 PM

Baby tarpon to test the 10 wt. nail knot.

**Rasputin** · 06-06-2025, 07:50 PM

I really like trying to fix things, so I often get into repairs with little to no prior experience, such as trying to repair my broken fly rod, which I was quite sure would last longer than the previous time I tried to repair it, but which quickly started to come apart. On the other hand, with much cursing and consternation I replaced the radiator on my Chevy truck, and that seems to be a success, so I know that I can sometimes do things adequately for my needs, and with this level of confidence, that I can usually get things good enough, I set myself to resoleing my wading boots.

The last time I was out fishing, one of the original felt soles came almost entirely off, and they were very well worn in to and heel, so I looked into my options. Certainly a financially comfortable angler would either buy another pair of boots, or maybe hire an shoe repair shop to properly sew on the appropriate wading sole. I however did not avoid the challenge of becoming an amateur cobbler just so I could have great results, no I got my hands sticky!

I did fine when I had the felt bottoms, though I did find them problematic on refrozen snow, and a real problem on Ponderosa Pine needles, the former of which led me to land heavily on my ass this winter, and the latter of which I encountered on my last outing on a steep bank down to the waterside, so I decided to go with a Vibram sole. Since the recommended Simms Freestone Q732 Vibram sole was twice as much as the 148 Vibram Kletterlift lug soles, I went for the less expensive, less purpose specific sole. I figured they could't be any worse than the treads of my old hip boots, which I'd fished a ton in.

I ordered the soles from Montana Leather company which were great people to do business with, as they freely gave advice of methodology so I wouldn't fail too hard. They are super nice folks (I initially ordered the even cheaper 108 Voyageur sole which was out of stock, and they immediately contacted me, which lead to deciding to upgrade to the Kletterlift). The guy I talked to seemed to think the Shoe Goo I intended to use would be sufficient. They sent the soles overnight from Billings to Missoula for only $6.50 shipping, and I had my soles the next day!

I got them Wednesday evening, trimmed down the sole to fit my boot (man those soles are tough), glued them on and held the soles in place by encasing them in Gorilla tape. This evening I opened them up, and after removing an inconvenient amount of Gorilla tape glue, first using lighter fluid, and then acetone, I smooshed more Shoe Goo into the voids around the edges. I figure they'll be ready in a couple more days. I fully expect the soles will come off long before they wear out, at which point I will just glue them on again. Hopefully I'll get at least a couple years out of them.

It has been agonizing to not fish the past couple weeks, but the river reports have me champing at the bit, and I feel like I have some good luck coming my way. Now if TGR's crack squad of TOP experts in the computery arts can fix the fish pic uploady tools for the non-tapatalker posting folks, I will soon burst forth with many a piscatorial pictorial.

**teleee** · 06-06-2025, 08:26 PM

Water has been high and cold here so far,which means fishing has been slow. Managed to get a few quality ones to the net though

**Rasputin** · 06-06-2025, 08:34 PM

Dang, nice fishes!

**BobMc** · 06-07-2025, 05:35 PM

Took our apprentice out fishing today, he hadn’t caught a fish in over 10 years. We put him on a few, he was stoked.

It was windy but we got em all day.

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**jpcm** · 06-07-2025, 09:27 PM

Found some pockets of big orange bugs and fish looking up for them. Sooo much fun throwing that big single dry fly!! Not a lot of snow up high, it’s going to be a short freestone season in my hood.

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**Rasputin** · 06-08-2025, 08:40 PM

Strong work jpcms! Wifey's fish is crazy beautiful!

My boots are ready, but I'll have to wait until Tuesday to fish, as a good friend asked if my truck was available to help him move, and I fully believe doing a good work will cause the God of fly fishing (and all the Heavenly Host) to smile on my next outing. I am excited at the prospect!

**Rasputin** · 06-11-2025, 11:52 AM

Testing:

Booyah!

**Rasputin** · 06-11-2025, 07:22 PM

I went out for the first time in three weeks, and gave my freshly resoled boots their first dunking, I'm quite pleased with them so far. It was much cooler with intermittent clouds today, and ridiculous persistent wind. Regardless I managed to catch a couple cutthroats. This was the bigger one.

I saw a few fisher birds, including an osprey which dove at a passing bald eagle, the eagle rolled and turned his talons upward to defend. I suppose they are just like fishermen in that hey don't like others fishing right on top of them.

On the way back to the truck I came upon a great blue heron, which let me get withing thirty feet and take a picture, usually they are more spooky than that.

**neckdeep** · 06-11-2025, 09:05 PM

**neckdeep** · 06-11-2025, 09:11 PM

**Rasputin** · 06-11-2025, 10:17 PM

Holy photobomb neckdeep, you caught some monsters this winter!

I too have been catching up on my pic posting, since Full Trucker gave the key to posting pics for the nontapatalk fisher-pic-er folks. I've been editing all my posts in this thread which were lacking the appropriate photographical documentation of my luck strewn forays of line-whipping hoping for the fish to bite.