Currently browsing… fly tying
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The easiest mouse pattern you’ll ever tie
I asked my long-time fishing buddies what flies I should be tying for this sure-to-be-epic adventure in the Andes, and I got back a single-word reply from one of them: "Mice."
A quick-and-easy adaptation of the Morrish Mouse. All photos by Chris Hunt. I'm headed down to Chilean Patagonia early next month — I'll leave the chill of Idaho's autumn for spring in the Southern Hemisphere, all for some trout fishing based out of Magic Waters Lodge. I asked my long-time fishing buddies what flies I…
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Fishing the pegged bead
It's the pegged bead — the target of much derision from the purist crowd, but an oft-used technique to catch big trout and char when salmon eggs are in the water
A nice Dolly Varden that fell for a pegged bead. Chris Hunt photo. The ethics and the logic examined Fly fishing is a craft that appeals to the purist in all of us — the notion that fooling a fish by casting something that resembles that animal's natural food source without resorting to bait is…
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Starting over before an Alaska fishing trip
What to do when your fly box looks like the dog coughed up a flamingo
A rebuilt fly box for a trip to Alaska. When the old fly box just won't cut it anymore When I booked a place to stay in Southeast Alaska for this coming week, I still had eastern Idaho carp on the brain. Like a lot of anglers, I have a running "fishing calendar" — a…
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Starting over before an Alaska fishing trip
Rather than an orderly collection of streamers, Gurglers and Egg-sucking Leaches, it looked, as I explained to my friends on a group chat as we planned out the week ahead, like the dog had coughed up a flamingo
A rebuilt fly box for a trip to Alaska. When the old fly box just won't cut it anymore When I booked a place to stay in Southeast Alaska for this coming week, I still had eastern Idaho carp on the brain. Like a lot of anglers, I have a running "fishing calendar" — a…
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The Gurgler: The under-utilized foam fly
I'm headed to East Texas this week for some bass and panfish fishing in some of the region's swampier areas, and I've done some tying over the last few days to make sure I'm armed with "all the right stuff." But I didn't feel like I was ideally equipped until I tied up a handful…
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Tying the After Hours Stonefly
It's later in the season, but not too late for stoneflies. Below, TU's Nick Halle ties his After Hours Stonefly, a solid "tweener" of a bug that could be seen by trout as either a smaller Yellow Sally or even a larger, nocturnal stone. Even more likely? This pattern, at least this time of year,…
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Tying Jake’s Blackout Stone
One of the earliest stonefly hatches is likely about to start on some fabled trout streams in the West. The skwala stoneflies — a dark, greenish-gray bug — should be about ready to pop in rivers like the Bitterroot, the Blackfoot and others in western Montana, and other rivers throughout the region can claim hatches…