Currently browsing… Fly fishing

  • Fishing Featured

    A day on Yellowstone’s storied Firehole River

    The Firehole River above Firehole Falls was once a fishless ribbon of water sourced largely from hot springs, geysers and primordial seeps that pushed to the surface from the bowels of the planet.

    An angler fishes the Firehole River in Yellowstone National Park.

    Words by Chris Hunt, photos by Sam Davidson and Chris Hunt Two centuries ago, before European-Americans pushed west and started displacing indigenous people and indigenous wildlife, the rivers and streams of the Rockies teamed with trout, char, whitefish and grayling. Sam Davidson drifts a nymph through a fishy run on the upper Firehole River. But…

  • Community Featured Fishing

    Blues and fly fishing: two intertwined pursuits

    How are the blues and fishing intertwined? Check this out

    An angler fishes the salt off of Vancouver Island.

    I have been a lifelong musician and fisherman, but it wasn't until I really  seriously started fly fishing that I realized how closely the two pursuits are intertwined.  Becoming a blues musician has been a lifelong learning process that never seems to end. I can say the same for my fly fishing life. By the time I…

  • Featured Trout Tips

    Tying the Sweet Pea

    This time of year, I really love to fish double-nymph rigs, using a heavier bug as the lead fly and trailing behind it a smaller fly, but maybe something a little more impressionistic than what I might expect to see in the river. For instance, with lower flows here on the South Fork of the…

  • Voices from the river Featured

    These hips don’t lie

    Crawling around small creeks was an exercise in bad yoga, as I dragged myself to standing by grabbing branches and logs. When I finally had the hip examined, I was told what I already knew

    The John Muir Wilderness in California.

    Two summers ago, I agreed to join a backpacking trek with some friends I hadn’t seen since college.  Our mission -- honoring the life of a mutual friend who’d passed away -- took us deep into the Sierra Nevada range, a 54-mile journey filled with golden trout and jaw-dropping views of ice-etched peaks and verdant hanging valleys. As…

  • Trout Tips Featured

    Tying the Black and Tan jig

    Tying the Black and Tan jig.

    Fall across North America generally means low and clear water, particularly on freestone trout streams where flows aren't manipulated by upstream dams. And that means wary trout in skinny conditions. Chasing fall trout during low water can be a lot of fun for sight-fishing, but fish are also on high alert for predators and, in…