Reading Trout Water (Part 2)
This article on reading trout water covers runs, banks and pools
hacking fly fishing
Reading Trout Water (Part 1)
Recall the old saying, “10% of the water holds 90% of the fish.” Finding the magic 10% is made easier through understanding the basic structure of a stream.
Inshore Fly Fishing 101
Here’s everything you need to know about getting starting fly fishing inshore.
Forceps Knots – The Kreh Loop
Using forceps to quickly tie a Kreh Loop Knot Since the clinch knot is a direct line-to-fly connection, the line may impart some unnatural motion to the fly. If you prefer having the fly swing independently of the line, use a loop knot. The most natural loop knot to learn and fastest to tie using …
Matching the Hatch Basics
It probably happened right after you picked out your first fly rod. The fly shop owner or your buddy immediately ushered you to a huge display case of flies; hundreds of them captured and prisoners in tiny compartments with confusing names like Royal Wulff, Chernobyl Ant, Mister Rapidan or Adams. “Don’t worry,” he said as …
Packing Heat! Hot Flies!
Not concealed weapons, but something infinitely more important and precious – hot flies! Just as a pistol requires a unique size holster, different flies require storage containers with specific characteristics as well as an overall organization strategy.
Filling Your Fly Box for the First Time
There they sit, quietly organized in small cubbyholes, full of muted promise. But is that fly designed to catch more anglers than trout?
Fly Type Basics (Part 2)
Part 2 of fly fishing fly types. This post covers emergers, midges, worms, and poppers.
Fly Type Basics (Part 1)
Before I took up fly fishing, I knew about black flies, horse flies, tsetse flies and vaguely remembered nymphs from Greek mythology. Fly fishing flies? Well, here is part 1 of the basics.
Fishing Bike Build – For Beach or Trail
With hard packed sand at low tide making it easy for a beach bike ride, I did a beach bike build to move quickly with my bike fishing rod carrier and accessories. I use a milk crate on a bike fishing rack with saddlebags for my bike fishing bag.
All about Floatants for Fly Fishing
Floatant? Trout feed below the surface 80% of the time and that statistic should push the rational trout angler to fish exclusively with nymphs to catch more fish. However, the excitement of a trout slurping a dry fly on the surface is compelling and is the visual pot of gold at a rainbow ending in a sparkling pool high in the mountains.
Solving Slipping Shot on Tippet (Part 2)
As hard it is for a new fly angler to achieve the perfect cast to the right position and manage the movement of the fly through the sweet spot with a drag free drift, nothing will make you want to scream at the sky more than seeing that all the shot slipped down the tippet to nestle up against your fly and ruined the entire presentation.
Using Split Shot for Fly Fishing (Part 1)
What’s more important? The split shot or the nymph? If you cannot get the nymph to the proper depth, the fish will ignore it.
Tips on Tippet
As a fly angler, you’ve already learned what tippet is. You know, it’s the stuff that breaks when you have a beautiful fish on. Thankfully, once you learn the ins and outs of matching the right type and size to your conditions, you will lose fewer fish.
Fly Line Basics
Been using the fly line that came with the packaged starter kit you either purchased or were given? Thinking about upgrading? While everyone has an opinion on whether the fly line or the fly rod is the most critical piece of gear to improve on-stream performance, I agree with the fly liners. I believe a …
Kayak Trolling Motor – PWM Fail!
Using a Pulse Width Modulator (PWM) is an excellent part of a kayak trolling motor setup. I installed one and it failed after a few months – check out what I found.
All About “Bobbers” (Indicators)
Bobbers? Yes, that’s what a normal person would call an “indicator.” Indicator is the fancy term fly anglers use to discuss the appliance that floats on top of the water… yeah… bobber. Unlike for bait fishing, fly angling has many different types. Here’s the rundown.
Tenkara Tips
A cane pole? Hardly! If you fish small mountain streams, stuffing a Tenkara rod into your backpack instantly levels the playing field and puts the new fly guy on equal footing with the most experienced fly angler.
Pick the Right Fly Fishing Reel
Considering the rod, line, and reel, the reel is the least important part of your fly-fishing outfit. Right? A good rod provides power to punch out a well-executed cast facilitated by a smooth, supple matched line. All the reel does is hold the line. Not so fast! While you may not need some elements of …
Rod Basics – Action vs Power vs Price
“If you know how many fly rods you have, you don’t have enough” was the simple, telling comment Dick Sherwood, my fly fishing mentor, made as he helped me pick out my first real fly rod at Bass Pro in Arundel Mills, Maryland. At the time, the truth (and warning) of this statement went in …
Spring Fishing Tips
By Loyal Brezny of The Hunting Mark Nine Things an Angler Needs To Know. When the fishing season starts in the spring (and I say this because opening dates can vary quite a bit from state to state), there are some things you need to know that are unique to this time of year. During …
Tie Flies? You Need this Free Tool!
Rick Wallace sent me a link to his awesome online search tool that allows the user to search for equivalent hooks across all the different manufacturers. The tool (linked here) is so simple and easy to use! Just enter the brand and model of the hook you would like to use and the tool finds …
Casting on a Tight Stream
Why do fish always shelter in the most challenging spot to cast to? Apparently, they do it to make our life as anglers miserable as opposed to their need to stay alive! The first problem is trying to cast with tight, overhanging cover preventing the normal casting motion. The second is when your casting arm …
Hatch Chart 101
Typically, experts develop hatch charts through years of observation, and different people may see different things based on when they are on the stream; resulting in small differences.
3 Quick Fly Fishing Tips
Here’s a collection of tips that don’t fit into any category and will make your journey into the sport of fly fishing more straightforward – a few lessons from my personal school of hard knocks.
How to Break Your Rod… and Other Dumb Stunts
Beyond the standard, broad topics easing your introduction into fly fishing, some things are only learnable on a hit-or-miss basis through the school of hard knocks. This article aims to save you some of the tuition with a few costly personal confessions. Stupid thing #1: I drove to the Conway River in Virginia, and the …
Fly Fishing Vest Selection
Fly anglers are easy marks for every widget and gadget any expert claims will be the difference between catching enough fish to make their arms sore or being skunked. It’s easy to see who has fallen victim to the siren song – their fly fishing vests are so overloaded they look like a Sherpa hauling gear for an expedition. As always in these articles, let’s get back to basics.
Selecting Waders
Anglers have many choices since manufacturers produce waders from rubber, canvas, PVC coated nylon, neoprene and breathable material. Of these, most trout anglers use neoprene or breathable. Rubber, canvas, and PVC coated nylon are durable, but also stiff, horribly hot and damp as the sweat from normal streamside exertion turn them into a mobile steam bath
Wading Boots Basics
We can be successful fly fishing with rods and reels ranging from a $25 Walmart starter kit to a $1,000+ custom setup, but neither will ever see a fish unless we can walk to the stream, and, once there, safely negotiate the challenges of the streambed.
Fly Fishing – Dress for Success
No, this is not about haute couture. No need to eyeball models in boots and waders clumping down a runway in Paris or Milan to see what is in style. A Kardashian might care about fashion; new anglers with limited budgets must pay closer attention to function when purchasing the first set of boots, waders, and vest.
Fly Rod Bass Rig
Frustrated yet? It’s the tail end of summer. All the experts warn about fishing the small mountain trout streams that have probably warmed to the threshold of terminal stress for the sensitive brookies. “Fish someplace else,” they say. Where? For most of us, “someplace else” means the stocked trout water that is also terminally warm – nothing there but… bass!
Dollar Store Fly Hacks!
In my endless effort to find ways to avoid costs in what can be an expensive sport, I wandered through the Dollar Tree (aka “Dollar Store”) looking for bargains and found some! The Dollar Tree, as opposed to Family Dollar, prices everything at a buck. To find fishing gear, turn your brain sideways while looking cross-eyed at the products on the shelf and voila! Savings!
Stocked Trout Strategies
Stockers have been driving fisheries professionals insane for years with their central questions being the same as ours, “What happened to all the fish? Were they caught? Did they die? Did they leave?” Understanding the answers is crucial to their mission to provide a good angling experience that, in turn, stimulates license sales supporting hatchery programs.
New Fly Guy – Pin Trick
Anyone else out there bugged by hooks with plugged holes from sloppy tying? I am. Over the last several years, I was frustrated trying to clean these up using the available tools – clipper end and even the Orvis forceps. I finally hit on sewing needles and pins as an easier to use alternative. Not …
New Fly Guy – The Davy Knot
The Davy Knot (created by Dave Wotton) is amazingly simple to tie. Follow this link to the instructions. It is much easier to tie than a clinch or improved clinch I normally tie using my forceps. Now…. the website with the instructions claims that the knot retains almost 100% of breaking strength based on the fact that …
New Fly Guy – Easy Droppers
As I rapidly approach 60 years old, I have to put pride aside and admit my eyeballs are not as precise as they used to be. The immediate problem this presents for fly fishing is the ability to thread a barely visible tippet through the invisible hole that exists on teeny tiny size 20 and …