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Everyone needs a tune-up
Most of us who have fly fished for years--decades, even--are likely self-taught casters who have learned the craft over many moons of trial and error. Casting becomes an intuitive activity, with alterations done to meet certain requirements on the water. Over time, it becomes much easier to get that caddis fly to drift right under…
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Set your fantasy fly lineup
‘Tis the season. Over the weekend, my buddy and fellow TU-er Kirk Deeter and I faced off in fantasy football. We’re both underachieving this year--it seems we both have the bad fortune to play the highest-scoring opponents in the league every week this season, so we both find ourselves in the middle of the standings,…
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Tying quill bodies
If flies were measured by their appearance, quill-bodied mayfly patterns would take Best in Show honors every single time. Sleek yet buggy, streamlined, yet high-floating, quill-bodied flies are stylish and functional. https://youtu.be/4dpdMZmfRYM Tim Flagler shows us how to tie the perfect quill-bodied fly. But they can be a bear to tie, especially if you've never…
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Guiding the guide
When the weather doesn’t allow the de Havilland Beaver floatplanes to fly at the lodge, we just hop in a meticulously-maintained, fully stocked, and (perhaps most impressively) clean jet boat to fish for trophy rainbows on the world-famous Naknek River. The guides carry lunches, complete with inventive sandwiches on fresh-baked bread, hot soup and a…
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Ode to the Olive
It's a tiny little bug, but it — and its many variants — might be the single-most important fly of fall. The venerable Blue-winged Olive, the vise-borne imitation of the tiny baetis mayfly, is the dry-fly king of autumn, even though it rarely materializes on the water in any form larger than a size 20.…
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Twist the fly when tightening
As anglers, we naturally spend more time thinking about the big stuff—where the fish might be and what flies they might be after—than we do about what makes the big stuff so rewarding. You know ... like ensuring our equipment is in good shape, our knots are solid and our hooks are sharp. https://youtu.be/GDfzCzWwp8U Above,…
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Conehead Bunny Leach
Brown trout across the nation are on the move—fall is when they're most active and most aggressive as they're preparing to spawn or defending redds. And, often, the best way to elicit strikes from big browns is to chase them with streamers. https://youtu.be/UzPxgE7yruw Step-by-step instructions. And there might not be a better leach pattern than…
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