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The tonic of wildness
If you are active in the outdoors, it’s hard to beat living in the American West. That’s because all states west of the Great Plains have big swaths of public lands available for fishing and hunting. Except when big swaths of extraordinary wildfire shut them down. Right smack in the middle of Public Lands Month.…
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Tying a simple baitfish pattern
'Tis the season for baitfish patterns. Not only is it about time for brown to start their annual migration, but baitfish, come fall, are important for everything from bass that are fattening up for cooler weather and coastal predators like redfish and speckled trout that are starting to move into coastal estuaries and marshes. Below,…
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Tying the Franke Shiner baitfish imitation for migrating browns
Baitfish imitations work great in the fall, particularly where migrating brown trout are found. As these fish move out of lakes or upstream from big water to spawning habitat, they just get more and more aggressive. Giving them something substantial to chase — and something that looks like a dependable source of food, too —…
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Tying small dry flies using UV resins
I’ve been using UV resins on my flies for several years now, all with the intent of making flies last longer on the water
I’ve always been something of a ham-handed fly tier, and, generally speaking, the bigger the fly, the easier it is for me to tie. I’m a big guy at six-foot-five, and my hands correspond to my height. They just aren’t meant for detail work. But I live in eastern Idaho, and right about now, my…
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The Moonlit Lunar S-Glass is a creek freak’s fly rod
I love to fish glass. Love it. I love the slower cast, the softer feel. I love how glass gives smaller fish some heft. I love the bend in the rod that stretches into the cork. Glass fly rods, in my opinion, provide a more intimate, visceral connection with the fish we're all after
moonlitflyfishing.com, $179 I've been fortunate enough to be able to test and review a number of fly rods over the years, and I'd be lying if I told you that I didn't like some more than others ... or that I liked every rod I tried. But I've never gotten to test a rod in…
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The importance of quality partnerships
Across the country, Trout Unlimited takes pride in its long-standing partnership with the U.S. Forest Service (USFS). In many western states, enormous national forests containing many vital watersheds and trout streams are in desperate need of restoration to help prevent catastrophic wildfires and to protect those aquatic resources. The existing partnerships frame those challenges and opportunities. In Arizona,…
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Tying the Travis Para-Ant for later-summer trout
The first couple weeks of September are usually pretty great dry-fly weeks as things cool off a bit and trout look up for big bites of protein
Parts of the West got a taste of things to come this week — Colorado and Wyoming got some snow, and here in Idaho, a brutally cold wind chased summer away for a bit, littered the streets with broken branches and left thousands without power. But summer's not over just yet, and that means terrestrial…
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