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Skills: Making your own spool tenders
If you fish for trout, you likely have at least half-a dozen spools of tippet constantly at the ready, just in case you need to add length to your leader, change the tippet strength to throw bigger flies to larger fish or to rebuild a diminishing leader. And, if you're like me, you despise the…
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Video spotlight: The Breach
Earlier this month, the EPA and the Pebble Limited Partnership announced that the court case between the two entities will be settled, and that the PLP will be able to move through the permitting process and potentially develop the world's largest open-pit copper and gold mine in the headwaters of Bristol Bay, Alaska. This oft-maligned…
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Fly tying: The Adams
It's almost summer, which means it's almost time to get out on the small waters here in the West and prospect for wild and native trout. There may be no better "attractor" pattern for trout than the venerable Adams. First tied in 1922 by Leonard Halladay to imitate a basic mayfly, and first fished on…
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Video spotlight: Sage MOD
A decade or so ago, I got a Sage Z-Axis as a birthday gift. It was, at the time, the most expensive fly rod I'd ever touched, let alone fished. In those 10 years or so, that fast 7-weight has been all over the world and helped me catch fish ranging from steelhead to tarpon.…
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Skills: Counter-wrapping intelligence
Fly tying is always an exercise in patience, at least for me. While I enjoy tying flies, I'm good for about a half-dozen at a time. Then I get antsy. So, the less time I spend at the vise and the more time I spend actually fishing the flies I tie is important to me.…
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Video spotlight: The Owyhee River with Chad Brown
Fly fisher Chad Brown is a unique guy—a former sailor who left the military in a state of depression and confusion, it's likely that rivers and fly fishing saved his life. Today, Chad devotes much of his life working with veterans and inner-city youth, using fly fishing as a healing endeavor for people in need.…
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Voices from the River: Still water and the scourge of competition
By Sam Davidson If given the choice between fishing while standing in water and fishing while sitting in it, I nearly always go for the upright option. Maybe that’s because I didn’t spend much time in boats, rafts or other flotation devices as a kid, wher eas I spent plenty of time wading in rivers…
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