Currently browsing… Fly fishing

  • Trout Talk

    A clean fly line makes for a clean cast

    When I was younger, I put myself through college mowing lawns. I worked for a great guy who built a solid business trailing lawn mowers all over the Denver suburbs and unleashing a team of college and high-school kids to get the work done.  But every Monday morning, instead of meeting at some Cherry Hills…

  • 20 Questions

    20 Questions: Mark Melnyk

    Editor’s note: Every so often, we’ll put movers and shakers in the fly-fishing world on the spot with our version of the Proust profile questionnaire. We’ve asked our subjects to be brutally honest and as forthright as they choose as they answer questions that might make them think, reminisce and look forward in their lives. And, honestly, some of these…

  • Trout Talk

    Winter blues, cabin fever and Appalachian envy

    April is the cruelest month, breeding Lilacs out of the dead land, mixing Memory and desire, stirring Dull roots with spring rain. —T.S. Elliot It’s still cold and gray here in the steppe country of eastern Idaho. Snow still covers the yard. Snow is still in the immediate forecast. Winter’s not done yet. Not even…

  • Trout Talk

    Bumping fists with trout

    So I finally shook off the COVID blues and decided to go fishing one day last week.  Yampa River, northern Colorado, and admittedly it might have been a better day to ski, but I just couldn’t take it anymore. I needed to fish.   So I trudged through the snowpack to a prime spot, and the sun…

  • Voices from the river

    The gift of the skunk

    One learns not to expect much when fly fishing during the winter months. At least around here, or if you’re me. Regardless of the season, sometimes you step into a river and just know something’s off. The water’s not moving right, or the sound of the wind rings particularly empty and distant. I envy steelhead die-hards their familiarity with this feeling, the impending, inevitable void, and how they march into it undaunted.   A guy I know…

  • Featured Trout Talk

    AFFTA’s Bulis steps down

    It may not be considered remarkable news when the head of an industry trade association steps down, but for fly fishers across America, this one's different. Ben Bulis, president of the American Fly Fishing Trade Association for the past nine years, announced his resignation this week. Bulis helped rejuvenate AFFTA, working to first save the…