RiverKeeper Flies Turned 11 Years Old

A couple of weeks ago was a milestone for me. Know why? RiverKeeper Flies turned 11 years old on March 5! That’s right, I’ve been at the keyboard writing these posts for 11 years. It’s hard for me to believe where my journey has taken me.

It may be difficult to see, but this is an image of me with a satisfied look on my face after landing a beautiful Rainbow in Argentina. I haven’t told the story of fishing Rio Codihue yet, but it will be soon.

Before I go on and reminisce about the last 11 years, I wanted to share links to the last post for my subscribers. It turns out my Mailchimp automated email for last week’s post didn’t go out to you for some reason…and I have no idea why. So here is the link if you’d like to backcast and catch up my our Patagonia adventures:

• Fly Fishing the Rio Malalco with SET Fly Fishing

If you’ve been around for awhile or from the beginning, the following post will be familiar. It was my first one and began with only a one paragraph post and no photograph:

The moment was a milestone for me. I spent countless hours learning about websites and I finally hit the “publish” button. I’ve come a long way since then!

I had no idea where this journey would take me. Part of the impetus was to create a repository for my fly pattern sheets which were scattered all over the place. I created categories of Mayflies, Caddisflies, Stoneflies…well, you get the picture.

Over the years, I added many more fly patterns. Today, you’ll find over 320 fly pattern sheets! Some of them were added as I shared older fly patterns in my Throw Back Thursday Flies. There are around 430 of those TBT posts.

I’ve created a lot of content in those 11 years. Since we’ve travelled more the last few years, I shared our experience of new places. For me, it’s a journal where I look back to see where we fished, conditions, flies that worked, and hopefully a few beautiful fish pictures. You can find Fly Fishing Road Trips closer to the top of my homepage now under the Popular Posts section. It’a an easy way to search a river or lake you might want to fish and find more information about the water.

There is a treasure trove of content for you to search as well. All of the tips and techniques I’ve shared are still there. Interested in MARCH BROWNS of KNOTS? Use the SEARCH function located at the right side of the top menu bar with those keywords and you’ll be rewarded with several posts about the subject or fly pattern sheets.

YouTube

I began creating fly tying videos in 2020 and have published 43 to date on my RiverKeeper Flies YouTube channel. Last year, I added 10 new videos. Here is a link to my most popular video with over 5,500 views.

I plan to continue recording fly tying videos as time allows, so you might consider subscribing to my RiverKeeper Flies YouTube channel.

Photography

The biggest change in the last couple years have been my photography. Here were the cameras I used back in 2020.

I don’t use any of this Nikon equipment as it’s been replaced with mirrorless cameras and new lenses. The Olympus TG-6 still gets an occasional trip to the water, but now I use a Nikon Z 6iii instead and generally carry another lens or two in my backpack.

I’ve spent a lot of time improving my images of fish, insects and scenery. Some might say I got a little carried away with more cameras and lenses, but it seems to be a passion. Especially capturing insects in the vegetation or floating down the river. I enjoy learning more about framing and settings to achieve my desired image. I hope you’ve seen improvements over the years and enjoy them as much as I do.

You may have seen these before, but I’ll begin a favorite 4-shot set of images I took last year. All were captured in less than a second of a Metolius Rainbow rising to and eating a Green Drake floating downstream. The Green Drake is visible in each fish image!

Fish

Essence of Fish

Insects

Scenery

Future

I stopped posting every week like I used to. Mostly because we have been travelling so much. In the last year, we went to Iceland for a photography tour and added a couple days fly fishing for Arctic Char, enjoyed our annual road trip in the van, and were grateful to return to Patagonia. In fact, you’ll continue to see a few more posts of our experience in Argentina.

Lastly, thanks to all of you who continue to read these posts and offer a Comment on occasion. I spoke to many followers at the NW Fly Tying & Fly Fishing Expo recently in Albany, OR. I appreciate your positive Comments.

Enjoy…go fish!