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Tying the Travis Para-Ant for later-summer trout
The first couple weeks of September are usually pretty great dry-fly weeks as things cool off a bit and trout look up for big bites of protein
Parts of the West got a taste of things to come this week — Colorado and Wyoming got some snow, and here in Idaho, a brutally cold wind chased summer away for a bit, littered the streets with broken branches and left thousands without power. But summer's not over just yet, and that means terrestrial…
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How to tie the Yellow Humpy fly pattern
As attractor dry flies go, the Humpy is near the top of my list. Tied to imitate nothing in particular, but still incredibly "buggy," the Humpy is a great high-floating searching pattern for trout in backcountry settings. But, as with a lot of my favorite attractors, the Humpy can be a real pain to tie.…
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Last Chance Purple Haze
I spent a couple of days last week on the Henry's Fork's upper reaches, trying to fool uber-educated trout in the Box Canyon and Railroad Ranch stretches of the river. This time of year, those tailwater sections of the river are likely the most hospitable to trout — it's been hot (well, hot for Idaho),…
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One fly to rule them all
Hatch Outdoors is offering three great prize packs in the #OneFlyFitsAll contest.
Hatch Outdoors is running a contest through the end of the week (July 31) featuring the venerable Clouser Minnow and photos of all the fish it catches. The idea is simple: go fishing, use a chartreuse-and-white Clouser, post the photos of the fish the fly helps you catch on either Facebook or Instagram (#oneflyfitsall), and…
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Building a better ‘Bugger
Tim Flagler ties up his version of a 'better 'bugger' using weighted wire and a tougher construction
The Woolly Bugger might be the most-tied fly on the planet — for many of us, it was the first fly we ever tied. There's a reason for that, of course. It's among the easiest patterns to master, and, no matter how many times some creative vise-wizard comes up with the next great streamer pattern,…
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Hopper season
Fly fishing with grasshopper patterns can bring big trout to the top, even on small, backcountry streams
Every year about this time, grasshoppers start to show up on the banks of my favorite backcountry trout streams. By mid-July, a few warm days have managed to string themselves together, and, although not terribly big, the hoppers are now officially prolific. They’ll get bigger and bigger as summer progresses, but right now might be…
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Finesse Dubbing Part II
As we noted last week, applying dubbing can be a little tricky. But, as Tim Flagler showed us, there are ways to make it simpler. Below, in his second installment video on the topic, Tim shows us how to take the dubbing noodle we've created and carefully move it closer to the hook shank for…
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