Editor’s note: The following is exerpted from TU’s book, “Trout Tips,” available now for overnight delivery. If a trout misses your dry fly, or refuses it, move a short distance away. Give the fish a break; then go back with a different fly. That may be the one he’s looking for. — Dan Beistel, Oviedo,…
Editor’s note: The following is exerpted from TU’s book, “Trout Tips,” available for overnight delivery. On native trout water in some parts of the West, sometimes large chunks of water seem unoccupied, making you think that maybe the stream is completely barren. Not so. Cutthroat love to occupy certain stretches of habitat and leave other…
Remote sensing is being used to measure improvement in Lahontan cutthroat trout habitat in Nevada. By Dan Dauwalter, Kurt Fesenmyer and Helen Neville Have you ever assisted your local DNR biologist with a painstaking habitat survey on your favorite trout stream where you tediously measured the stream channel, substrates, wood, undercut banks, and so on?…
Editor’s note: The following is exerpted from TU’s book, “Trout Tips,” available for online purchase and overnight delivery. I recently took a long drive through Kootenay, Banff and Jasper national parks along the border with British Columbia and Alberta. Throughout the entire drive, delicious, glacial-tinged trout water paralleled my path. Trouble was, save for the…
Sometimes, you can learn an awful lot more about a river, and specifically where fish will be holding in a river, by looking at it from above, rather than standing in it. Granted, that’s not always that easy when you are fishing in flat terrain. But I know plenty of anglers who have been driven…
In New Zealand, where the waters are typically very clear, and the trout are always very smart, the exact spot where a fly lands near a trout can matter down to the inch. The Kiwis will tell you that as you are casting upstream at a fish’s position, it’s always best to miss to the…
Photo by Chris Hunt By Chris Hunt < p dir="ltr">There’s something primal about dark water shrouded by cypress. The color of strong coffee, these stained swamps of the South nurture mystery and offer refuge to critters that hang on in acid-tinged water filtered through layers of eons-old peat and sand. The gators come to mind…
The following is exerpted from TU’s book, “Trout Tips,” available online for overnight delivery. To enjoy fly fishing, the following tips have proven to be extremely helpful and true: take the time to learn how to cast, and practice, practice and practice. Practice is not for the day you go fly fishing! Similarly, take the…
How volunteers and staff are improving trout streams and helping reduce atmospheric CO2.
As noted in the video below, “cruising trout are feeding trout.” When we see pods of trout working certain stretches of the river, it’s tough to keep our cool sometimes. The prospect of an afternoon spent wandering a small stretch of river while catching several trout is pretty appealing, right? Video of How to Catch…
When I was a kid fishing with my grandfather on bigger water, the first thing he always did was flip over rocks as we walked along the river. He’d give each rock a good look, and he’d point out squiggly little bugs to me and my brothers and cousins. “See that?” he’d ask, pointing to…
Foam fly boxes float. If you want to see your flies again, make sure fly box floats, too. Several years ago, I was steelhead fishing on Idaho’s Salmon River. I’d spent the week leading up to the trip tying flies and gearing up. Steelhead on the Salmon were—and still are—a fish that came calling on…
Here’s one from the archives, and I picked it because a lot of fly fishers around the country are dusting off the gear and getting ready to hit the water for the first time this spring. It’s simple, really. Don’t forget to practice. Practice Casting Intro from Trout Unlimited on Vimeo. Ask Kirk Deeter shows…
Fishing in late winter and early spring, before runoff kicks in, can be pretty tricky, given short windows for dry-fly action, the likelihood that, even though the calendar reads April, an out-of-nowhere snow squall is certainly possible and the general finicky nature of cold-water trout. The solution, as Garrison Doctor of Rep Your Water describes…
By Chris Wood Some define conservation as overseeing loss. Loss of wetlands; loss of open space; loss of water quality; loss of species. Aldo Leopold harkened to this when he wrote in the Sand County Almanac that “One of the penalties of an ecological education is that one lives alone in a world of wounds.…
Many native trout species, like these bull trout, are rare or endangered. Photo courtesy of USGS. By Jack Williams Sometimes you need to take a step back to see the whole problem. Or in this case, a whole lot of steps because the problem is the decline of native trout across the entire Northern Hemisphere.…
Russ Miller of Fishpond joins Trout Tips this spring to offer some great advice on getting ready for the summer ahead. And the first thing Miller recommends is checking your gear as you prepare to head to the water. Trout Tips | Preparing for a new season from Trout Unlimited on Vimeo. As Miller notes,…
Volunteers plant trees along a small stream in the headwaters of the Chesapeake Bay. Healthy riparian buffers are important for streams. By Steve Moyer Healthy trees, in addition to Trout Unlimited members and mayflies, has to be high on a trout’s best friends list. That is why TU is applauding Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) for…
One of the biggest challenges for new fly fishers is learning water, understanding where trout might hold and approaching water with a solid fishing strategy. Trout Tips | Edit your water from Trout Unlimited on Vimeo. Above, Russ Miller of Fishpond does a great job describing how to approach a classic meadow stream, and offers…
This last week, I ventured high into the eastern Idaho backcountry to chase native Snake River fine-spotted cutthroat trout on a small mountain stream that clears early from runoff and sports some sizable trout for a stream its size. I’d scoped out a large bend in the creek that, I had calculated, would have me…
