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Bead Head Baetis
https://vimeo.com/320057303 Now that the snow has fallen (in northern Michigan, at least), I start to turn my attention away from Google Earth and topo maps and toward refilling my depleted fly boxes. I have a handful of patterns that I always ensure to tie a few dozen in a few sizes. These are the flies…
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Grateful for fly fishing
While life has recently dealt me a tough hand, I still have much to be thankful for this holiday season. Cancer hits so many people, but as a 40-year-old, healthy, fit, active woman, I certainly didn’t think it would be me dealing with breast cancer. Luckily, family and friends top my thank-God-I-have-them list, and I…
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John Gierach: The Secret
A few years back, Gray Ghost Productions crafted a fly fishing film about Atlantic salmon. It was called "Turning Tail," and it featured John Gierach, the renowned author and angler whose books line the shelves of avid trout bums everywhere. The film was about the value of the Atlantic salmon and the tragedy that would…
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Fasten, buckle and clear
As fly fishers, most of us are gear junkies. We like the latest gadgets and we like to use things like sling packs, hip packs, chest packs ... whatever it takes to bring everything we need (or think we need) to the water. But all that gear can get in the way. It can get…
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Isonychia Parachute
I'm less than a week away from a much-anticipated trip to Argentina, where I'll be fishing the country's northern Patagonia region. When I arrive, summer will be on the horizon, and bigger mayflies will be in my fly box. Tim Flagler ties an excellent big mayfly pattern—size 12—in his Isonychia Parachute pattern, a dependable dry…
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Lake trout on the decline in Yellowstone Lake
National Park Service removed more than 280,000 invasive fish in 2019 Yellowstone National Park and its crews of contracted gillnetters removed 282,960 invasive lake trout from Yellowstone Lake this summer, a slight dip from previous years, and a likely indication that overall lake trout numbers are shrinking. Nevertheless, there remains work to be done to…
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Faith
I was driving home the other morning from my son’s school, where a prospective head of school had fielded questions from an auditorium full of parents. One father had asked how the candidate would promote critical thinking in an environment so well known for its “indoctrination” of our nation’s youth. He seemed to accept this reality, yet expressed hope that debate would be encouraged on controversial topics. One of them, no surprise, was…
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