Our Favorite New Brew!

Team Fish dog has a new favorite brew. From Thirsty Dog Brewing Company out of Akron, OH, check out their Labrador Lager. It is a great warm-weather refresher and particularly good if you have just been retrieving Frisbees or tennis balls. Check it out and tell them the Fish Dog sent you!

Doc Hangs A Hawg!

Long time dog friend, Dr. Fred Brindle, shows a Lake St. Clair smallie that hit the magical 5 lb. mark. This fish took a white on white Half and Half streamer. Doc and JD spent the day dodging the wind with Capt. Brian Mezaros.

Lake St. Clair is a perfect place for warm water fly fishers- 3 species of bass, pike, muskie, drum, carp, perch and other panfish are all available. The average depth is around 10 feet and it is loaded with gravel bars, rock piles, weed patches, and other fish holding structure. American Angler magazine listed Lake St. Clair as one of the "Top 50 Fly Fishing Destinations" and there is almost always a place to hide out of the wind and still catch fish.

Back On The Big Water!

It's that time of year to shift gears and start to pursue some of the other opportunities the Great Lakes area offers to fly anglers. Did an R&D trip with Capt. Brian Mezaros of Great Lakes Fly Fishing on Lake St. Clair to test out my Arctic Wiggler tube fly on warm water. Managed to add white bass, largemouth bass, and a number of sizeable smallmouth to the species list.

A Tiger By The Tail

Here is a good shot of a seldom seen hybrid. This is a tiger trout, a cross between a brook and brown trout. To my knowledge, this does not occur naturally and must be done in a hatchery. This fish was caught by Bill Gill at Rockwell Springs Trout Club. Thanks Bill for sharing the photo with me!

The Lakers Are In!

No, not the lakers from LA or the the ones that are trout (actually char!). These are lake-run smallmouth bass that ascend Lake Erie tributaries to spawn, and then drop back into the lake to grow big, fat, and fiesty. This little-known phenomenon occurs around the end of April and into the first week or two of May every year. There is often a short overlap with dropback steelhead and the opportunity to catch both on the same day.

These fish take a swung fly well, and provide some additional opportunity to fish switch and two-hand rods.

Photo courtesy of Jim Linehan

Team Castapalooza

Here is the rogue's gallery of cast-addicts that helped make the first Northeast Ohio Castapalooza a succes. From left to right- top row: Jim Linehan, Wael Dardir, our Canadian buds- Neil Houlding and Julian Van Gorder. Bottom row- Jeff Liskay, the Fishdog, and JD.

Not pictured- Spey professor, Will Turek.

Thanks very much to all you guys for helping out and thanks to everyone who attended!

Next years event is tentively scheduled again for the last Saturday in April and there will be additional Castapalooza events throughout the region. The next one is June 12 on Presque Isle near Erie, PA. On August 28, we will be at Leeper Park in South Bend, IN, on the St. Joe River.

Thanks again to Jim Linehan for the photo.