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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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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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Use dubbing to make a solid base
Certain materials, when tied to a hook shank, just don't take well to being secured with thread. The lack of friction between the material and the metal of the shank makes it very easy for some tying materials to spin, even after multiple wraps and efforts to tightly bound them to the shank. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2hV1KNILIhM Above,…
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Terrestrial bugs offer great dry-fly fishing on small creeks
Late summer and early fall offer some of the season's best dry-fly fishing on small creeks in the east. This isn't hatch-matching fishing. It's terrestrial season
Most years, Virginia’s small mountain trout streams have become unfishable trickles by August. This year has been a bit different. Massive rains in May and June meant the streams were in great shape heading into summer’s peak, which was a good thing because July brought record heat and a strange lack of the almost-daily thunderstorms…
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Fly fishing doesn’t have to be hard
I love to cast a long line, but it doesn’t happen often. If I do, it is ideally with no false casts. The longer my fly is in the air, the more likely it will be caught by a bush. Fewer false casts also means my fly is in or on the water in front of fish longer
By Jim Strogen I loved "A River Runs Through It." I had been fly fishing about 30 years before I saw the film, and appreciated the artistry in Jason Borger's casts -- Borger was the "double" for Brad Pitt, and he's the one casting in the movie. When I see new fly fishers getting started,…
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