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Phat and Phunky Pheasant Tail Nymph
If you nymph at all, chances are you have a few Pheasant Tail Nymphs already in your fly box. The venerable fly is a nymphing staple—it works, and it's an excellent all-around mayfly nymph indicator pattern that can work throughout the year in virtually any conditions. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RURof9qkhlA Above, Tim Flagler of Tightline Productions puts a…
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Mousing the Aniak
Oh, to be Brian O'Keefe for a day last summer in western Alaska. O'Keefe served as Todd Moen's fishing subject in Moen's new short film, "Alaska Fly Fishing with a Mouse," that's been crawling the interwebs with a vengeance over the last few days. And rightly so—the footage of massive Alaskan rainbows erupting beneath mouse…
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Loon tying tools help keep winter at bay
The drift hanging over the eves on the house this morning is quite impressive. And it's cold. Damn cold. The thought of sneaking off for an afternoon on the Henry's Fork is now more of a pathetic inside joke—fighting frozen guides, frozen fingers and frozen toes while the the wind whips snow around my wadered…
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The Leisenring Spider
There are few classic wet flies that I like to have in my fly box, particularly when I'm fishing some of the fabled waters of Yellowstone National Park. If I were to open my fly box, buried somewhere in the store room under all holiday detritus that has built up since I last visited the…
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Corded Midge Larva
Winter midge fishing is at its peak here in the West, and I'm always amazed at how big trout will take the tiniest bugs this time of year. In that spirit, Tim Flagler offers up his Corded Midge Larva, a diminutive midge tied on a tiny size 24 hook (which generally disqualifies me as someone…
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The passing of two giants
The calls came 24 hours after each other. I was driving down I-95 on New Years Day. Brian Cowden, a former Trout Unlimited employee, called to say that Rick Ege, a former chapter president and council chair had passed away. I last spoke with Rick a few years ago. Another New Jersey guy had mentioned…
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The Beetle, the Hare’s Ear, the old man and the cutthroats
Years and years ago, while attending college in western Colorado, I drove up the shoulders of the Sawatch Range between Salida and Gunnison as far as my old VW Beetle would make it on a road it had no business traversing. After reaching a stretch of two-track I could no longer navigate, I pulled the…
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