Currently browsing… True Cast
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The True Cast – Just knowing they’re in there
My friend David’s house was right on the river. He was kind enough to let me park there and fish the big bend out back. And often times, he’d come out on his porch to chat with me as I made some casts. I remember one evening in particular, when a burst of hatching mayflies…
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The True Cast – Poise
Even now, If I could earn any one word, it would still be “poise.”
The tallest one-word compliment I ever got in my life came from a high school English teacher, Bill Schoff, who was tasked with providing one word to describe a student upon their graduation from Germantown Academy in Fort Washington, Pennsylvania. Mr. Schoff was a magnificent writer who contributed to The New Yorker and many other…
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The True Cast – Hope
The beauty of trout fishing is that it inspires hope. Plain and simple. That’s where it all starts and ends. Think about it. Every cast you make ignites a tiny little episode of hope. Hope is what keeps bringing anglers back time after time You drop that cast right near the spot where you saw…
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The True Cast – Is Eight Enough?
Capping the number of caught-and-released fish could solve a lot of problems… and bum a lot of people out. I’m just back from a couple of weeks in England, where I got to fish some fabled chalk streams, like the River Itchen and River Test. It was an interesting trip that got my mind spinning…
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The True Cast – Does Angler Pressure Affect What Trout Eat?
I absolutely love fishing with streamer flies. After all, streamers elicit a predatory response, particularly when trout fishing. Streamers are what turn a trout’s instinct dial from meek and mild dun sippers and nymph inhalers to full-on carnivorous beasts. And mouse flies! It’s one thing to hear a trout crash on a fly at night,…
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The True Cast – Secret Spots
The best “secret spot” story I can share involves a place (I still can’t say where, other than somewhere in southwestern Colorado) a good friend (D.)
As a writer of fishing stories, one thing I wrestle with most is whether to divulge the places where the stories take place. That’s not a new dilemma. Legend has it that when Ernest Hemingway wrote about the “Big Two-Hearted River,” he wasn’t really writing about the actual Big Two-Hearted River. I admit to doing…
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The True Cast – That bug thing… how do I pick the right fly?
If you told me I could only pick six patterns to fish for trout anywhere in America, these are the patterns I’d pick.
Fly fishing for trout encompasses many challenges, which I think is much of the appeal of the sport in the first place. It is, as my friend Monte Burke so eloquently explained, all about puzzle solving; How do I make this cast? How do I know where a trout will be in the river? How…