Currently browsing… Fly fishing
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Off Season
We all have a passion in life, even if, like my kids, we haven't really figured out what it is yet. For fly fishers—real, die-hard, rather-fish-than-eat anglers—our passion is simple. A rod, a line, a fly and some water are all it takes to ignite the lamp in our souls and put our passion to…
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The lowly whitefish
The mountain whitefish native to the northwest U.S. There’s trout water, and then there’s trout water that also holds mountain whitefish. The latter is likely healthier. Whitefish (Prosopium williamsoni) are often greeted by anglers with the same enthusiasm they might afford a creek chub or a sucker. The slightly downturned snout may not be as…
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Dry fly floatation
It's dry-fly season. Well, it's what I like to call "hopper season," especially here in the West, where big trout will look up for terrestrial bugs that will occasionally end up in the water, thanks to a timely wind gust or just dumb luck. But fishing hoppers and other terrestrial flies isn't about dumb luck.…
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Sage Trout LL fly rod
When you find a fly rod that's essentially made for the kind of fly fishing you like to do—and makes that fishing markedly better—you hang onto it. That's why I'll likely never part with the new Sage Trout LL rod. I'm a walk-and-wade stream-fishing junkie. I like the intimate feel of water running around my…
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Small-stream tactics in the age of non-native invasives
Native Rio Grande cutthroat trout. Contrary to many conservation-minded anglers, I am one who believes that, along with cockroaches, coyotes and Siberian elm trees, brown trout will survive the apocalypse. They possess many of the traits we Americans admire most: they are intelligent, confident, adaptable, rugged, ambitious and breathtakingly handsome. And for the time being…
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TU’s diversity, equity and inclusion opportunity
At the Trout Unlimited Annual Meeting every year, we have a tradition of putting the senior staff on stage to answer questions on the fly from the audience of 250-plus volunteer leaders. Last year, someone from the audience asked each of us to state the three most important areas of focus for TU over the…
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Hopper-dropper fishing
With terrestrial season coming on strong throughout the country, it's an obvious time to start flinging a hopper-dropper rig. But what's the best way to do it? What knots make the most sense? How far below the high-floating hopper should the "dropper" nymph be? https://youtu.be/Nz7QQFOPemU The hopper-dropper rig. Here's a great short video from the…