New Fly Guy

I’ve been doing some reading in a few books and will do a book review on them later.  You can only get so much from the text and static pictures, so I was thrilled when my friend, Dick, offered to loan me his videotape of “Lessons with Lefty”. Even I have heard of Lefty –

By this time of year, you are far enough into the fishing season where you realize your casting leaves something to be desired.  That was certainly my problem and I found a quick, free review that was very helpful on Dusty Wissmath’s website.  In addition to the 4 videos below, he has additional content on rod

When you are a new fly guy, the tendency is to overspend, and get one of everything.  Since that included a whole bunch of flies, I immediately assumed a large box was better.  There are a thousand fly choices that cry out to be matched to a hatch… somewhere… and all need a home. So,

Now that I have all this fly stuff, what’s the best way to haul it around? In a previous post, I commented on the type of bag I used for spin gear.  I’ve been using the pouch system shown at the bottom of that posting for the last 6 months with great results.  It’s perfect to

Up until 2006, if I had to wade, I’d just jump in and wet wade.  I guess getting older, that has become more challenging in the colder waters.  Based on the advice of some friends, I purchased a pair of Simms Chest Waders in 2006.  They have given me great service and I have certainly

This is a quick one that came to me as I fought with the trees behind me. I’m a new fly guy.  No doubt about it.  Even after more than 40 fishing trips last year armed with a long rod, I am far from being even an intermediate beginner.  So, I have casting “issues”.  One

Just a quick comment as we head into the serious smallmouth bass season. A bad habit I tend to fall into in my excitement to hook up with big smallies is to both overweight my line and overpower my cast. It’s a pretty well-known fact that to catch big fish, you need to use big

Where do people learn to fly fish?  In a class? On the lawn practicing? Or through the school of hard knocks? I’m sure most folks would agree that it ain’t book learning that moves you up the competence curve – it’s applied experience.  But, fly fishing is much harder to learn and master than spin

It’s been three months since I started fly fishing, what have I learned about strategies, flies, and the proper fish attack weapons? Here’s where I am (and welcome advice): Rods:  On small water that is covered with trees (Big Hunting Creek, Accotink, Morgan Run), use a 7 foot, 4 wt rod.  On the bigger water

Update: I tried to do this.  It turns out that “floating trout worms” don’t really float like a popper.  They drift in the middle of the water column and do not give the effect I envisoned.  I still need to try this with spin gear using the Gulp floating worms. I even tried cutting out

“Really honey, it was THIS big!”  Who has not exaggerated the size of the catch? After all, fishing is one of the areas where, for many of us, size does matter. The reason we all have such a poor reputation for honesty is that none of us has eyeballs that are calibrated with anything approaching