Currently browsing… fly tying

  • Trout Tips Featured Fly tying

    Tying the Jimmy John Perdigon

    The Perdigon-style nymph has become a fly-fishing staple over the last several years. Popularized by European competition fly fishers, the nymph is a fast-sinker and a proven fish-getter. As a trailer fly either fished with the high-stick Euro-method or under an indicator, the Perdigon helps drag a bigger fly down a bit and keep it…

  • Fly tying Featured

    Tying the Tailout Sculpin

    With low, clear water in most free-flowing trout rivers across America, it's a good time to throw streamers that resemble sculpins, a common food source for big trout when the fish are concentrated in main river channels during late fall, winter and early spring, before rivers rise during runoff. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f-6BOPGqn2U Above, TU's Nick Halle ties…

  • Fly tying Trout Talk

    The easiest mouse pattern you’ll ever tie

    I asked my long-time fishing buddies what flies I should be tying for this sure-to-be-epic adventure in the Andes, and I got back a single-word reply from one of them: "Mice."

    A quick-and-easy adaptation of the Morrish Mouse. All photos by Chris Hunt. I'm headed down to Chilean Patagonia early next month — I'll leave the chill of Idaho's autumn for spring in the Southern Hemisphere, all for some trout fishing based out of Magic Waters Lodge. I asked my long-time fishing buddies what flies I…

  • Trout Talk Featured

    Fishing the pegged bead

    It's the pegged bead — the target of much derision from the purist crowd, but an oft-used technique to catch big trout and char when salmon eggs are in the water

    A Dolly Varden caught on a pegged bead.

    A nice Dolly Varden that fell for a pegged bead. Chris Hunt photo. The ethics and the logic examined Fly fishing is a craft that appeals to the purist in all of us — the notion that fooling a fish by casting something that resembles that animal's natural food source without resorting to bait is…

  • Trout Talk Featured

    Starting over before an Alaska fishing trip

    What to do when your fly box looks like the dog coughed up a flamingo

    A rebuilt fly box for a trip to Alaska. When the old fly box just won't cut it anymore When I booked a place to stay in Southeast Alaska for this coming week, I still had eastern Idaho carp on the brain. Like a lot of anglers, I have a running "fishing calendar" — a…

  • Trout Talk Featured

    Starting over before an Alaska fishing trip

    Rather than an orderly collection of streamers, Gurglers and Egg-sucking Leaches, it looked, as I explained to my friends on a group chat as we planned out the week ahead, like the dog had coughed up a flamingo

    A rebuilt fly box for a trip to Alaska. When the old fly box just won't cut it anymore When I booked a place to stay in Southeast Alaska for this coming week, I still had eastern Idaho carp on the brain. Like a lot of anglers, I have a running "fishing calendar" — a…