Being a western guy with roots in the Rockies, my angling experience in the mountains of New England is pretty limited. I did spend a great afternoon several years ago chasing fat rainbows in Connectictut’s upper Farmington River before being chased away by a rainstorm, and I got to fish some Adirondack streams for native
Want to cast better? Maybe a little further, maybe a little straighter? Who doesn’t? I know I need work. Practice is the key, of course. And before you shell out the bucks for a spiffy new fast-action fly rod, take 10 minutes to do the one thing that will improve the cast you have, with
Who doesn’t like catching fish on top? With poppers, no less. Several years back, while fishing with a great group of guys on Alaska’s Tongass National Forest, I was introduced to the fact that pink salmon—yes, pink salmon—will hit poppers just as they’re reporting for spawning duty from the saltwater. We spent one glorious afternoon
From the Stop Feeling Sorry for Yourself Department, I offer you this: A new Orvis film about a remarkable woman who had polio as a child and now goes fly fishing … with her feet. Video of ORVIS Presents: Toe to Toe Mary Loudder is pretty pragmatic about her disability. She’s lived a lifetime with
Last week, about 300,000 farm-raised Atlantic salmon escaped from a Cooke Aquaculture net pen near Cypress Island in Puget Sound. The fish are not native to the Pacific and there are a host of really good reasons for anglers to get out there are try to catch as many of these fish as possible, not
Over the last couple of years, I’ve learned a lot from Tim Flagler, fly-tying extraordinaire. Not only has he, through his video tying series that we feature each Friday here on the TU blog, helped become a better fly tier, but I really enjoy some of the simple little tips he shares to make my
Want to feel small and insignificant? Take a look at this film below that follows a single trickle of water as it rises from vapor in the Pacific Ocean, moves west as part of a cloud over the Kitimat Range of northwestern British Columbia and then falls as a single snowflake high in the mountains.
Russia’s Ponoi River might be the last, best place on earth to catch wild Atlantic salmon on the fly in appreciable numbers. And the river’s fish are incredibly resilient, largely due to the fact that their habitat is largely intact. The river is home to three runs of salmon (hence the title of the video
I love fishing trips with a purpose. Here in the West, particularly in our backcountry streams, fly fishers can target specific species of trout and char just by choosing a destination. Wild rainbows? Try a great little creek that flows west off the Gallatin Range near the town of Ennis, Mont. Browns? Hit the Bear
Small flies can be tough to tie on to tippet streamside using some of the more traditional knots, like the improved clinch knot, simply because, when completed, the knot is too big. I started using the Davy knot as a substitute for small flies a few years back, and I’ve never had one fail in
Blue-winged Olives might be the fly fisher’s best friend in the mayfly world. No, they’re not big. They’re not terribly enticing to tie a the vise. But, damn, on any blustery day, they could show up and quickly move up the menu for feeding trout. I love to fish the South Fork of the Snake
Don’t get any untoward ideas. This fly gets its name from all the wood duck materials used in the tying process, and not from, well, anything else. And, it’s a great wet attractor pattern for all kinds of mayflies, ranging from green drakes to sulphers. Video of Major Woody As Tim Flagler shows above, it’s
We’ve all been there. Our leader has been cut back so many times that even trying to rebuild it with various tippet weights is futile. Or perhaps we’ve managed to achieve that awesome, couldn’t-do-it-again-if-I-tried wind knot that’s pulled so tight near the top of the leader that the only option is to simply start over.
Dave McKenna is a fly tier after my own heart—he travels a lot for work, so rather than diving into a fly shop to buy local patterns every time he hits a new river, he’s come up with a host of flies that seem to work generally everywhere. It’s a great notion, that of having
Not too long ago, the Sacramento River Delta was almost exclusively a salmon and steelhead fishery—kings would stage in great numbers before taking to the river and running throughout the system. Same with chromers. Today, the delta is likely better known for its striped bass and smallmouth bass fisheries, as well as for its carp,
The tell-tale bootprint in the mud. You’re not the only one with the inclination to fish this stream today. Imagine yourself on a great backcountry trout stream. Conditions are ripe. Fish are active. Bugs are everywhere. These are the glorious days of summer when some lonesome fishing is exactly what the doctor ordered. Then, as
About us Orvis Endorsed fly fishing lodge and a guide service, in southwest Montana near the town of Twin Bridges, in the beautiful Ruby valley. Our lodge has 9 clean and comfortable guest rooms with a Lodge capacity of 18 guests, door-to-door fly fishing guide service, and all meals created fresh by our chefs. We
Your Trout Unlimited membership includes great core member benefits like TROUT magazine, and entitles you to a number of discounts from hotel and car rentals to retailers like Office Depot and a variety of fly fishing and other outdoor retailers. See the complete list of Member Benefits and Member Discounts below. Member benefits include Car
Trout Unlimited in Pennsylvania has partnered with Costa and SweetWater Brewing to run a special “Kick Plastic Cleanup” here on Bushkill Creek. We will meet at 1 p.m., parking at Lafayette College at 901 Bushkill Drive to work together to clean trash out of the creek and have a great time doing it. The cleanup
I’m not ready to give up on summer just yet—hoppers are flitting about and occasionally slapping the water here on our western trout streams. But the media world generally moves about a month ahead of schedule. So I wasn’t surprised when I saw that Orvis had uploaded a video featuring Tom Rosenbauer and this favorite
