Currently browsing… fly tying
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Tying the Steelhead Coachman
If you were to look in the box of a seasoned steelheader on the banks of the Snake, Grande Ronde or Clearwater chances are good you'll find.
I can distinctly remember the first few flies I started fishing with. As I would imagine the case is with many people, that selection of a dozen flies was a 'who's who' of the classics. The Adams, Elk-hair Caddis, Muddler Minnow, Pheasant Tail, and Royal Wulff seem almost like names from scripture in the pantheon…
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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…
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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…
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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…
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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 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…
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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…
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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…