Search Month: March 2022

Everything Has a Flip Side

What do you believe in? What can you fish hard enough and long enough to effectively convince a sluggish trout that it’s hungry? That’s the fisherman’s confidence. And it beats out the hatch chart, the guide’s advice and last week’s river stories every time . . .

Podcast: Secrets and Spot Burning — S3 Ep1

Season Three begins with a round-table discussion about fishermen’s secrets and what happens when we give up the most sensitive of them — spot burning.

Secrets are part of the legacy of fishing. Exploring and locating places that are special to each of us is part of what keeps us coming back. We like to think that we’ve discovered something that is uncommon or unknown. And we learn that sharing information with the wrong people or in the wrong way can easily destroy a secret by making the uncommon, common.

The Mismanagement of “Class A” Wild Trout

It’s time for the fish commission to truly protect, preserve and enhance our wild trout streams, whether that is easy, or whether it’s hard. Stop stocking over all Class A wild trout stream sections.

It’s the right thing to do. And sometimes, that’s where government policy should start . . .

The Easy Way to Release a Snag (with VIDEO)

Snags happen. I’ve fished with people who see every hang up as a failure — every lost fly as a mistake. But inevitably, that mindset breeds an overcautious angler, too careful and just hoping for some good luck.

Hang ups are not a failure. For a good angler, they’re a calculated risk — an occasional consequence after assessing probability against skill, opportunity against loss. We all hang up the fly sometimes. So what.

Now let’s talk about how to pop that underwater snag loose . . .

Welcome Back

Welcome Back

Every spring, after the relative solitude that I enjoy on the water for most of the winter, it takes me a couple trips before I adjust to the presence of other human beings in the same woods and water again.

I guess I re-calibrated yesterday . . .

What about the wading staff? Thoughts on choosing and carrying a wading stick

What about the wading staff? Thoughts on choosing and carrying a wading stick

I always thought wading staffs were for the retired crew, something to lean on as you wait for the spinner fall — a third leg, when the left one has knee issues and the right one has had its hip replaced. However, one of the hardest-fishing guys I knew at the time was a guide on the Yough. Twenty-something, athletic and a strong wader, he carried a ski pole tethered to the bottom of his fishing pack, and he waded whitewater like a Grizzly bear.

So the day before our pre-dawn, westward departure to the Yough, I cut a wooden broom handle down to about four feet, zip tied a long-and-strong shoelace to the top and looped it to a carabiner on my wading belt.

I learned two things on that trip — a third leg makes you a faster wader and more efficient angler. And a broomstick makes a lousy wading staff . . .

Splitting the Fly Rod (with VIDEO)

Splitting the Fly Rod (with VIDEO)

Pay with your time — now or late. Try this simple trick for splitting the rod in two, for easy transport through the woods or over the highways.

Fishing has taught me to do the simple things now, because it makes life less complicated later. I’m still learning that. As fishermen, I think we’re all reminded of it every day . . .

Eggs for Breakfast, Eggs for Lunch, Eggs for Dinner

Eggs for Breakfast, Eggs for Lunch, Eggs for Dinner

The old man and I spent a few more silent minutes together. We watched the growing cloud of energetic midges again, and he pointed out a few rises on the surface that I never saw. But I believed him. Somehow I knew he could see things that I hadn’t — that he understood things that I didn’t . . .

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Asking the Best Questions to Catch More Trout

Asking the Best Questions to Catch More Trout

Fly selection is important, but it’s one of the last questions to ask. There’s no denying that catching a few trout helps lead us to the promise of catching a few more. One trout is an accident. It’s just as likely that you found a maverick as it is that a single fish can teach you the habits of the rest. Two fish is a coincidence, but three starts to show a trend. And at a half dozen fish, there’s enough data about who, what, where, when and why to build the pieces of a puzzle.

To the die-hard angler, adaptation and adjustment to what we discover is one of the great joys of fly fishing for trout . . .

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