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A Slidable Dry Dropper System

A friend of mine once described a truly slidable, easily movable, dry dropper as the Holy Grail of fly fishing. I suppose it depends on where your goals and interests lie, but if you like fishing nymphs under a dry, then you’ve surely wished the dry fly was easily re-positioned without tying more knots. There is a way . . .

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Turnover

In short, turnover gives us freedom to choose what happens with the line that’s tethered to the fly. How does the tippet and leader land? With contact or with slack? And where does it land? In the seam and partnered with the fly, or in an adjacent current? By having mastery of turnover, we dictate the positioning of not just the fly, but the leader itself. And nothing could be more important . . .

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Find Your Rabbit Hole

Understanding the ideas of other anglers through the decades is how I learn. It’s how we all learn. The names change, but the process remains. We build a framework from others. Then we fit together the pieces of who we are as an angler . . .

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Fly Fishing in the Winter — Ice in the Guides?

Nothing about having a winter system or using a specific nymphing rig makes any difference if the guides of your rod are frozen. And every fly fisher who has stepped into a winter river with the air temps below, let’s say, twenty-five degrees has dealt with some kind of trouble. Every angler has his own advice about eliminating guide ice too. And here I guess it’s time to give you mine . . .

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Regarding Classic Upstream Nymphing

Classic upstream nymphing feels a lot like fishing dry flies. The challenge of making precision casts is there; it can be employed at extra distance if necessary, and it’s most often performed with tight loops and light flies than don’t change the cast.

While pure tight line nymphing is performed with no line on the water, classic upstream nymphing does the opposite.

Then there’s the induced take and floating the sighter . . .

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The Case for Shorter Casts

Find water you can fish close up, and work on deadly accurate casting. You’ll find that, when fishing shorter, you can fish harder. Instead of hoping a trout eats or wishing for a strike, the kind of precision possible at short range lets you make something happen with intention . . .

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Smith and the Tree

Right on time, Smith’s signature worn-out ball cap crested the hill on the north side of the gravel pull off. When his full frame came into view, I motioned to the propane grill and smiled with a nod. It was preheated. Resting on a large chunk of limestone, I had the portable grill ready for meat. When Smith approached, I handed my friend a beer without a word. Glass chimed and we nodded again.

This is what I like about Smith: We planned for noon, and he’s so reliable that I knew it was worth lighting the propane at 11:50 . . .

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When Drifting Low Isn’t Low Enough

The next time your beautiful dead drifts are ignored in the strike zone, consider getting dirtier. Sure, you’ll stick some rocks and tree parts down there. You’ll lose more flies and waste more time retrieving snags. But you may quickly find more trout in the net too. Live on the bottom for a while, and see what happens . . .

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THE STACK LOGO

The trouble with the word Troutbitten is its length. It fact, it’s too long to be readable in a small sized square. And early on, I was often forced to use a square or circle when representing the company brand. So the words had to be stacked.

Luckily, it was an easy fix. And I rather like the forced pause when Troutbitten is broken into two words.

The lines in the design are a color I call Troutbitten Gold. That color (and all the other colors on the site) are pulled directly from a favorite image of a big brown trout. It was a Whiskey.

 

STACKED

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