Favorite Memories from 2024 on RiverKeeper Flies

This is my final post for the year and I’d like to share some of my favorite memories from 2024 on RiverKeeper Flies.

The image above is from the Kaldakvisl River in Iceland. We took a photography tour in May, coinciding with the bird migration and ended our trip with a couple days fly fishing for Arctic Char.

A tributary flowing into the Kaldakvisl River.

I mentioned the Iceland bird migration. The puffins really touched me and I found myself taking numerous pictures of these magnificant birds. I think they are a cross between a penguin and parrot!

We had many unforgettable moments in 2024. One of the handful I won’t forget is this series of images I took on my home waters of the Metolius River. Dancingtrout and I were sitting on a log along the river, watching Green Drakes hatching and waiting for fish to rise. We observed one frequently rising and I timed the moment perfectly as the fish rose and ate the fly. This sequence happened in less than a second!

Before I go on, I’d like to invite any fly tyers here to join the Central Oregon Fly Tyer’s Guild Zoom meeting on Thursday, January 2 at 5:00 pm (Pacific). I’ll be teaching several ant patterns, including Arrick’s Parachute Ant, Harrop’s CDC Ant, and a Flying Ant.

Here is the link – https://us02web.zoom.us/j/7963775593?pwd=c1F0a0JwMHRHR3lydDJMMnNZOWh5dz09

Meeting ID: 796 377 5593
Passcode: 7RxFew

You might recall I keep track of the flies I tie. This year, the grand total is approaching 1,100 with a couple more days to go until the new year. The total includes flies I use, donate to Casting for Recovery, 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 2024, namely for me. I can go back each year and check my progress.

• Page views – 204,583 (average of 17,048 per month)
• Number of sessions – 128,965 (average of 10,747 per month)

The top pages for last year continue to be popular:

• Fly Patterns
• My Home Waters, The Metolius River
• Fly Tying Hook Conversion Table
• Links to Free Old Fly Fishing and Fly Tying Books

My most viewed posts in 2024 were:

• Fly Fishing the Green River below Fontenelle Reservoir
• How to Carry a Landing Net
• Fly Fishing Idaho’s Kelly Creek and North Fork Clearwater River
• The Perfect Fishing Net

I created 7 new videos for my RiverKeeper Flies YouTube channel this year. I was quite surprised at the popularity of my How to Tie Consistent Parachute Flies video, which has almost 5,200 views. Here are the three most popular videos I published in 2024.

And my latest video I published a couple of days ago.

We continued our fly fishing road trips this year. In January, we returned to Argentina to fly fish at Chochoy Mallin with SET Fly Fishing and travelled to Chile to fish for a week with Rumbo Patagon. Here are the posts about our trip in case you missed them.

Argentina

• Images from Argentina
• Fishing Blanco Spring Creek with SET Fly Fishing in Argentina
• Fishing Ñireco Creek and Rio Buraleo with SET Fly Fishing in Argentina
• Fishing the Rio Trocoman with SET Fly Fishing
• Fly Fishing Around Trocoman House

A few of my favorite images in Argentina:

Fly fishing at Chochoy Mallin with SET Fly Fishing is a unique experience. I don’t know anywhere else where the modes of transportation can be SO DIFFERENT!

Chile

• Images from Chile
• Fly Fishing the Rio Tres Pasos with Rumbo Patagon
• Fly Fishing the Rio Penitente with Rumbo Patagon
• Fly Fishing the Rio Baguales with Rumbo Patagon

Here are a few favorite images from Chile:

Travelling to South America the last couple of years is something I don’t take for granted. I am grateful we are able to experience fly fishing in their summer months and look forward to the people we meet.

Our annual summer fly fishing road trips found us back on the Madison in Montana and into Wyoming to fish the Grey’s and Green rivers.

Montana

• Madison River – Early July 2024
• Madison River – Mid July 2024
• Bitterroot River – July 2024

We found the fly fishing on the Madison River a little slower this year compared to previous ones. It seemed there were fewer fish willing to rise to our flies. Perhaps the hot temperatures over 90 degrees at an elevation over 6,000 feet had something to do with it.

Even though the catching was slower, we did land a few memorable trout.

I’ve been writing this blog for over 10 years now. In addition, I post images on Facebook and Instagram. I’d seen someone “like” one of my recent images on Instagram and noted he lived in the Bozeman area. I contacted him and we agreed to try and meet on the river one evening.

Nick met us below $3 Bridge around 7:30 that evening. He is a pleasant young man who started a website and blogs occasionally…sound familiar? You can read his work on The Curious Angler website or his Instagram HERE. I encourage you to check it out. The fish gods smiled down on us that evening and we all caught several nice trout.

Wyoming

Trying to escape the summer heat found us back in the high country of Wyoming.

• Green River – July 2024
• Grey’s River – July 2024
• Green River – September 2024

We fly fished the Grey’s River for the first time back in July 2021. This year, we drove up from Alpine about 15 miles and fished more in the lower river. We were able to land beautiful Snake River Cutthroats.

They readily took a Purple Haze dry fly.

We ventured further upstream and found this nice looking run.

To our surprise, the fish were rising to Green Drake Spinners!

What surprised us more were the moths floating downstream. The trout couldn’t get enough of them!

Here is the moth and a fly I tied along the river.

It worked! We landed quite a few nice Cutthroat.

We continued our trip east, further into Wyoming and fly fished the Green River below Fontenelle Reservoir for the first time and managed to find a few willing trout in the evening.

I must say, the tremendous thunderstorm we survived with large hail is something I won’t soon forget!

The forecast was for multiple days of mid-90 degree highs. Since we knew hoot owl hours were in effect for multiple waters in Montana, which was our next destination, we decided it was time to head home.

I enjoy taking my Nikon camera and lenses with me and found myself taking many more images while on the water, especially when the fish weren’t rising! My observation skills have increased, and I can capture insects floating in eddies along with other scenery. I decided to share the images, which evolved into a new series of posts called Images from the Water.

Here are a couple Green Drakes in flight. I can’t begin to describe how difficult it is to finally get a couple of “keepers”. I end up deleting a lot of images.

And a few more I hope you enjoyed this year.

The next set of images are a combination from our home waters and those I found during our travels.

I’ve really improved my images the last couple of years. It’s something I enjoy and hope you do as well.

We had so many wonderful memories of the places visited and the beautiful fish we were fortunate to fish for and land.

It was an unforgettable year!

Wishing you a prosperous and happy new year!