Early bird special from GTO outdoors

Early bird specials on our first production rods coming off the line. Our first release will be this 9 foot custom steelhead/salmon spin rod. This rod works amazing for drifting egg sacks and/or float fishing. GTO rod of choice to drift our custom jigs and eggs down the niagara river. Pair with a GTO outdoors float rig and custom maribou jig and its fish on. 

This rod will be listing on gtooutdoors.com in the upcoming weeks for over $225. Our early bird special is selling this rod at a bargain price of 174.99. Hand built, GTO designed and tested this is the rod you want in your hands when you've got a Great Lakes chrome monster on the other end of that line. Black graphite blank, with blacked out guides wrapped in black silk and perfectly hand epoxied, this rod is a work of art. 

To take advantage of our early bird offer simply message us on Facebook or twitter or email the company at gtooutdoors@gmail.com and we will get in contact with you to get a new GTO outdoors steelhead rod in your hands. To order through our website you currently need to email your orders to productpurchase@gtooutdoors.com.  Work is in progress to get a web based checkout up and running so stay tuned to be able to click and receive you order within days. 

We will be releasing more and more rods in the upcoming weeks and months. Keep stopping by the blog and gtooutdoors.com for more news and info

Thank you

Billy

Ps. No this does not count as one of my weekly blogs I owe all of you this year. Stay tuned I'm obsessed with steelhead right now 

Week number 2 and we're still blogging

Well it's the second week of the year and we are still living up to our promise of a blog a week. With that being said I am not quite sure what were going to tell you guys about. The weather in WNY has been brutal at best. We've had rain storms a three day blizzard and temps ranging from 50 degrees to -10 degrees. That doe snot take into account wind chill factors by the way. It's been cold and fishing has been all but impossible. We're headed out on Friday to try to drum up some new, fresh steelies but nothing since we've spoken last. 

What we have been up to though is taking GTO outdoors to the next level. We're expanding and it's exciting stuff. Www.gtooutdoors.com is live. Our very first website for our little start up company. Stop by to the site to see some team GTO pictures and videos or to purchase your favorite GTO products. Need a new fly rod or spinning rod built specifically for you by rod building professionals? Stop by www.gtooutdoors.com and we will point you in the right direction to get that rod for you. All our current products and a couple you might not have heard of from GTO are all up on the website. We have also got links to all of our social media sites on the website. Facebook, twitter, YouTube, blogger, you name it and we have a link to it so you can get your fill of team GTO. 

Did I say YouTube?  I sure did. Within the last week GTO has launched the team GTO YouTube channel. We will eventually be doing a regular web series on this channel and there is a trailer up for you all to see.  Also up on the channel catch a couple of our goose shorties from earlier this season.

YouTube up and going and www.gtooutdoors.com live and going strong. It has been a busy week in our small outdoors kingdom. This upcoming week should be even busier with new videos going up, new rods in development, and the design of new fly patterns and lures on the conventional fishing side.  On top of all that we will be filming three out of the next seven days. Steelhead steelhead steelhead we gots the silvers on the brains.  That's about it for this week. If I think of something I forgot I might make a special post for week number 2 of this 52 week adventure. 

Cheers

Billy

2/52

Missed deadlines

Yup we missed that 24 hour blog deadline, but you're going to have to understand people it's steelhead season, you're not the only ones getting short changed.  It was Christmas, it was New Years week, and oh yeah it was steelhead season, not to mention it was some great winter conditions for the last couple weeks here in WNY. we've experienced everything from a flood like river conditions to sub zero temperatures, with a lot of fluffy powder mixed in.  Great runs of fish and waters where we haven't gotten a tug in days, the highs and the lows, an emotional roller coaster.  Now you want a blog out of us too?  Hahahaha yeah I get it. 

On top of all this amazingness from Mother Nature we still have to grow the business and fill orders. Tying up flies and steelhead maribou jigs, while josh wraps a cool, custom 9' spin rod for steelie float fishing and a 9' 7 wt fly rod on deck, things are steady, things are growing.  I like it. If you're in the Buffalo/Niagara Falls area the weekend of the 26th of January check out the Niagara Fishing Expo and stop by the booth of Chuck Booker for a chance to win said fly rod.  Chuck will be giving this rod away with a paired reel to benefit the LOTSA pen rearing Program for the salmon and steelhead of Lake Ontario. This is not only for a great cause, but a chance to win an original GTO Outdoors fly rod. 

Also in the works we are still working on getting our website live for you all to enjoy. 

Www.gtooutdoors.com is slowly but steadily becoming a reality. You'll be able to view videos, check out photos of team GTO in the field or on the water, shop for original GTO products, and set up trips with our company. A lot of information to get out to you with a lot of roll outs in the coming weeks and months. Exciting times in the GTO kingdom indeed.  So with all of this said we will try to at least write a blog once a week this year and keep you all updated and in tune with our lifestyle. 

So until next week or maybe even before I bid you tight lines and good fishing my friends 

Billy

Blog 1/52 for 2014

Winter Steelhead

With a Little bit of Work Winter Steelheading can be Really Rewarding

Most of the challenge of chasing steelhead during the winter, especially Great Lakes steelhead, can be getting past the weather. Getting yourself out there in the snow, the ice, the freezing temps.  Getting past all this can lead to a very rewarding experience.  Usually you can be blessed to be the only one on whatever piece of water you choose to fish.  Less people on the water gives you the angler room to play these winter chrome monster correctly. Swinging big, colorful steelhead flies is a great choice in our opinion.  With fewer and fewer fish in the waters as the season goes on, swinging flies for steelies can become a game of numbers, very low numbers but, but rewarding numbers.  Even fewer fish will give in and take your swung fly. With the odds already stacked against you, you cannot afford to miss sticking your fly right in front of the fish's face. These fish are on the move so you need to be methodical, graceful, and technical with your swing.  You need to know it can happen at anytime and it will.

When you really think about it you're basically searching the water on a concentric circled pattern, a grid pattern search if you will.  Pick an area to begin, cast across the current as far as possible making sure to not miss any holding waters, and let your fly swing down and across till it directly below you.  Now strip some line in take a big step down stream and repeat. Swing the fly across all holding waters and eventually you'll place that big, colorful pattern right under steelie's nose.  Keeping up on the swing can produce a great day on some winter steelhead waters, but what if the simple swing is not enough?

What if while swinging through a nice pool you get a timid, little tug that you're sure was the silver monster you've been after?  Immediately bring in your line change out that purple, black fluffy Duffy to a pattern different in action and color, I prefer to change color the most. If you're swinging purple, tie on pink, pink tie on white, black tie on orange. You get the point.  Now move back upstream and begin your swinging pattern again.  Steelhead are on the move remember so moving back upstream and beginning our swing pattern is key. If you get the same timid hit this time through change it up again. Find the color that really enrages that fish that's timidly checking out what your swinging by him.  You'll find that color and before you know it you'll have a great winter steelhead on and he'll be emptying your reel to the backing as he fights to get back downstream. Bringing that fish to hand that you had to put time and effort into is so much sweeter than the rest of them. 

Good luck out there chasing winter steelies. This is one of our favorite times of the year going after these great fish. Have fun and be safe.

Cheers

Billy

Cooperation

When everyone or everything works in unison incredible things can happen. When variables decide to work against one another like oil and water, disaster is eminent. This week at GTO was a week dependent upon cooperation. Cooperation of schedules, cooperation of conditions, presentations, fish activity, you name it things had to line up like Jupiter and the fifth moon from Saturn for us to land a fish.

We were supposed to have three team members attack to niagara again this week, but come Monday morning we were down to two. Josh and myself made our way to Niagara Falls early on in the day so we were sure not to miss a feeding or any high steelhead activity. A deep freeze had moved into the WNY area late last week and was supposed to have moved on by Sunday before our trip, but here we were lugging our gear down into the niagara gorge in a balmy 20 degree temps with 15-20 mph winds making it feel like 10. As we started our decent we quickly realized ice was going to be a contender today. The river was filled with ice chunks breaking off the falls, but was clear, real clear. The current wasn't too bad and we only had one guest with us today. No boats to contend with, we had 200 yds of the bank to ourselves....

And we casted and we floated and we quickly spent the entire today switching setups and hoping and praying and casting.

We were skunked again, but not only were we skunked the three other guys we seen fishing that day were skunked. I witnessed one fish, a lake trout of ok size was caught by a gentleman during the morning on a huge white and pink buck tail jig. That would be it for the entire gorge that day as we talked to more than a done anglers, from multiple access sites along the gorge. The whirlpool and devils hole were full of ice making any sort of fishing impossible and all the way to art park had no action. Zero. Notta. Not a single fish. Plenty of stories of good strikes, but no one landed a fish but one gentleman? Were we all horrible fisherman? I think not,but if we could we would definitely appreciate some more COOPERATION from all factors involved next week in GTO land.

Sunday schmooze

Tomorrow we take to the river that flows from the Niagara.

We skunked once 7 days before, shame on the conditions.

Silver headed ballet battle is what we strive to achieve.

Run of the drag,

screech of the reel.

Addiction is a disease some say. GTO hopes there's no cure for such a disease.

Afflicted....