Favorite Memories from 2022 on RiverKeeper Flies

This is one of my final posts for the year and I’d like to share some of my favorite memories from 2022 on RiverKeeper Flies.

You might recall I keep track of the flies I tie. This year, the grand total is approaching 2,200 with a couple more days to go until the new year. The total includes flies I use, give away, and tie for my customer orders. I’d like to give a special “thank you” to my customers who purchased my flies. I hope they created wonderful memories for you.

I like to include a few statistics about RiverKeeper Flies for 2022, namely for me. I can go back each year and check my numbers.

• Page views – 190,984 (average of 15,900 per month)
• Number of sessions – 109,200 (average of 9,100 per month)

The top three pages for last year continue to be popular:

• Fly Tying Hook Conversion Table
• Fly Patterns
• Links to Free Old Fly Fishing and Fly Tying Books

My most viewed posts were:

• Fly Fishing Idaho’s Kelly Creek and North Fork Clearwater River
• Fly Fishing the St. Joe River ID
• Using Wood Duck, Mallard, and Teal Feathers for Fly Tying

I created 17 videos for my RiverKeeper Flies YouTube channel this year. While I initially didn’t believe I had much to add to the fly tying video world, I try to focus on teaching techniques and proportions, hoping it may help my viewers create better flies.

Here is a link to my latest video. I had a little fun with this one. I was filling the provider box with Iris Caddis and decided to turn on my Nikon Z 6ii and see how many flies I could complete within the 30 minute maximum time per video. I sped up the timeline 600 times and ended up with a video of 6 minutes and 40 seconds. Turns out, I can almost complete 11 flies within the 30 minute limit!

We continued our annual fly fishing road trip this year. I feel very fortunate we’re still doing these trips each summer.

On the way to the Madison River, we stopped at the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River. We were hoping for Brown and Green Drake hatches just like last year. However, do you remember the floods in Yellowstone Country? It caused us to delay our trip a little and we arrived a couple weeks later. Even then, the water was higher and colder than usual. If you’d like to see more detail, here is a link to our July Fly Fishing the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River.

Most of our fly fishing road trip this year was spent on the Madison River. It wasn’t the original plan, but between forest fires in Idaho and western Montana and high temperatures, we found the Madison River Valley our best option. So we stayed put and continued catching fish!

Judging from some of the comments I received, many of you fish vicariously through these posts as they bring back fond memories of your own trips. Others utilize the information provided to plan their own adventures.

Here are a couple images from our time on the Madison.

I’m beginning to think about where to fish next summer. I hope the weather is a little different.

Besides the normal flies I traditionally tie every year, I was pleased to tie a few new-to-me flies. It’s a benefit of being a customer fly tyer. People contact me to ask if I can tie a fly for them they aren’t able to find.

Here are a few of them.

The first one that comes to mind were some EP Fiber Streamers. A customer contacted me for flies he wanted to use in Baja. Later, he sent me a picture of a fish he caught with my fly in its mouth!

On the other end of the spectrum, were flies in sizes 20 and 22 seen below. I shared an image of a smaller fly too, a size 28 I tied. I don’t tie these small flies that often. In fact, my wife reminds me of a statement I made many years ago. It went something like this… “if I need flies smaller than size 18, I’ll buy them at a fly shop!” Well, that has changed.

I have a good customer who orders lots of flies from me every year. Here is one of his orders from earlier this year. Yes, he fishes quite a bit!

I delved deeper into the photography black hole by purchasing more camera gear this year. It’s something I really enjoy and I’ve seen much improvement in many of the images you see on RiverKeeper Flies.

Here are some examples.

I spent more time trying to capture insects seen on the water and along the shore. For some reason, I’m really intrigued by them.

Here are a couple action shots of bent rods.

I’ll leave you with a few more favorite images from 2022.

Wishing you a prosperous and happy new year!

Enjoy…go fish