Local WNY talent spotlight 2

This month’s fly fishing profile goes to Jordan Ross of JP Ross Flyrods.

An Oatka creek brown trout rests next to a JP Ross nine foot four weight Blue Line seires rod

Details like this are just too cool!

Jordan has been a friend of mine for a while now. In fact I first met up with him at his old shop in New York Mills right around 1996. I would come in and talk fishing for a while during my lunch break, and every now and then he would even let me sit down and tie some flies. For me it was a place to expand my knowledge of fly fishing, share stories, and spend some of my hard earned money.

One of the many stickers that will accompany the box of your new fly rod.

But it was more than just a shop. It was also a workshop where he built custom made fly rods. His goal then was to be able to build and sell his own rods at reasonable prices, so that everyone could get into the sport without spending an arm or a leg.

The shop days are now gone, and I have moved to the Western part of the state, but I still keep in contact with Jordan, and he still is in the business of building custom fly rods. 

He can build anything you want from a ten and a half foot switch rod, to a seven foot three weight glass rod, and everything in between. And it goes beyond the cork grips, reel seats, eyes, wraps, and rod blanks. He makes each rod truly unique and takes the time to make it right for each and every customer. And for me, the personal inscriptions and drawings he uses on the rods and rod cases are the kind of details that put his work over the top!

A gorgeous wild Oatka brown trout caught with the help of my JP Ross Beaver Meadow

I have several of his rods and fish them all the time. And I consider them all a piece of artwork. But for me, his specialty, his crowning achievement, is his custom made small stream light line fly rods – The Beaver Meadow! These rods are designed for small streams and tight quarters where flinging small flies to wild Adirondack brook trout is the name of the game. And they are absolutely perfectly suited for the job on every level. But I have also used mine to catch panfish on ponds and lakes, trout on my local spring creek and even small bass. But it can also handle larger fish too. I have landed seventeen inch wild brown trout from a local freestone trout stream, sixteen inch smallmouth bass, and countless other large spring creek trout that have made its short seven foot length bend and creak with the strain of their weight. It is truly one of the best rods I have ever fished!!!

For more information on his custom rods please check out his website jprossflyrods.com where you can check out blogs from local writers, ongoing specials at his online store, and the “build your own fly rod” page!

Summer fly fishing in WNY

Last week the kids and I had the chance to meet my good friend Lucas Carroll and his daughter at a local inland trout stream to feed the trout. And if any of you have ever taken more than one child out fishing at a time, then you know things can get a little dicey from time to time - Especially when it is the first time this summer that all three kids have been out fishing together. But I must say, even with a more stressful environment, it worked out just fine, and the fishing wasn’t too bad either.

There were no fish steadily rising, save a very select few that would take something off the water we couldn’t see off the far bank. And even those few trout only rose once, maybe twice, the whole time we were there. So that meant if we wanted to get into fish, it would have to do it while prospecting with a nymph.

Small pheasant tail nymphs in size #18 and midge patterns in size #20 proved to be the best flies of the day. We fished these under small indicators with light tippets and a few small shot to keep the flies in the feeding zone. We even were able to sight fish to some, which provided a bit more excitement than the blind fishing we would do in the pools.

Jonathan managed a few nice trout on his new JP Ross 8 foot 5 weight Blue Line fly rod fishing a small midge pattern, while Luke and I hooked a few fish using small nymphs. This went well for a while until Luke decided to break out his Sage TXL-F 000 and went to dry fly fish a nice stretch of broken water just upstream from our pool. And within a few minutes he hooked a nice fish on a stonefly pattern and landed it. We took a few photos and sent it back home. That one fish was the only dry fly caught fish of the day!

The day ended well with flurry of nice fish caught in the last hour, including a gorgeous deeply colored 16 inch male brown trout caught by Lucas. I also had a blast catching a good number of fish on my JP Ross Beaver Meadow 7 foot 2 weight. I had not fished that rod for a while, but a fly line from Lucas, and a quick set up job on-stream got me right back into the ultra light fly fishing game. And boy was it fun!

For more photos, make sure to check out Lucas Carroll’s photo page here!

Post-Dentist fishing trip with Ethan

With my ability to bite into my favorite grilled foods restored, I now feel whole once again. It's funny how the intense pain of an infected tooth can turn a grown man into a something far less than what he thinks he is. Especially when he can't tear into his favorite hunk of burnt meat!

So after getting shot up for the last time with Novocain, and having the dentist poke, prod and pull my tooth for what I hope is the last time, Ethan and I decided it would be a good idea to treat ourselves to a celebratory fishing trip. Besides, the stream we wanted to fish was on our way home and it looked primed for some good fishing!

Irondequoit creek is a very well known popular small stream that has a good resident trout population all year long, with the added bonus of lake run trout and salmon that start to run it's course in late fall through spring. It does receive generous stocking from the NYS DEC every spring, but also has plenty of holdover fish and a few wild trout thrown in for good measure.

At first the fishing was slow, as I tried a few dry flies and Ethan threw some spinners with his spin cast rod. But a change to a #16 BH pheasant tail nymph proved to be what the trout wanted and I quickly brought 4 fish to hand in a matter of minutes. This prompted Ethan to want a fly rod of his own, so a quick trip back to the van to pick up rod number two was in order.

With two rods now at the ready, rigged with nymphs, Ethan and I walked a good three to four hundred yards or so of the stream fishing every little pocket, pool, and riffle. I am happy to report that we picked trout out of every little spot we stopped at - Small stream fly fishing at it's finest!

Ethan worked hard at trying to get his own fish on the fly, but it wasn't until we neared the end of our little trip did he finally hook up and land his very first trout on the fly. We stayed at this spot for a while, both of us hooking fish after fish out of a nice riffle section with Ethan pulling a good 3 fish out for himself. Every thing else was now a bonus!

With several dozen fish already brought to hand, we ended our day fishing a large pool below a small water fall. I could see at least 30 fish holding in the tail out and pool and decided that it was time to try and take a fish on a dry one last time. Well, it worked - sort of! With no sign of any bug activity at all, I tried an emerger pattern. Several fish made a move toward the fly, but in the end refused. So I decided to add a little movement to the fly and began to strip it just under the surface. This worked wonders and I began to get a few of those trout to not only follow the fly, but take it! I then worked the tail out of the pool fishing down and across like you would when fishing to Atlantic salmon or steelhead. And as the fly darted across the stream just under the surface, several nice fish would come up off the bottom to investigate. In the end I took several fish using this method, but was it really dry fly fishing when the fly is submerged? This is why my "dry fly" attempt sort of worked. I know I can't really count those fish as "dry fly" caught fish, but at this point, I'm taking what I can get!