Here’s a cool, ruminative video from Wesley Johnson that ponders the question of why fly fishing is so important to so many of us. As the video features beautiful shots of the water, birds, and anglers, the voice-over gets at the heart of the matter: “We say, ‘It’s the fish we didn’t catch that brings us back.’ No doubt, it is. But it’s everything else, too.”Written By: Phil Monahan...
For quite some time, we have been huge fans of Nerijus Rupciauskas and Vaidas Uselis, a. k. a. Black Fly Eyes. Both are from Lithuania, bu they live, work, and fish in Norway now. Last summer, they traveled back to their home waters and made this gorgeous film. Here’s how they describe it: A short story about a man who many years ago left Lithuania, traveled around the world and finally took advantage of the opportunity to return to his native place where still remaining natural habitats for mayfly and wild brown trout. I think you’ll agree that the film is both gorgeous and profound, and it includes the kind of astonishing cinematography that we’ve come to expect from BFE....
Written By: Phil MonahanBig brown trout like big flies, especially in the fall. Photo by Shawn CombsWhen the nights start to cool and leaves start to change colors, the thoughts of brown trout turn to procreation. To build up energy for the spawning ritual and to put on weight before the lean winter ahead, even big trout start to feed more aggressively, abandoning their notorious wariness in the process. Because spawning can be extremely competitive—as the fish battle for prime beds and mates—browns also become more territorial, attacking anything that invades their staked-out home turf. The combination of these behaviors makes fall the prime time to cast big streamers, which the trout see as both high-calorie meals and alien invaders. And, as many streamer fanatics have discovered, throwing two streamers together not only catches more fish, but the tandem rig will often draw strikes when a single fly won’t. Twice as Nice When...
Here’s the latest video in our series featuring Pete Kutzer of the Orvis Fly Fishing Schools, in which he offers some important tips for maintaining accuracy at longer distances. When you’re casting to a rising trout that’s barely in range, you want to ensure that the long casts you make delivers the fly in the right spot. Otherwise, you might spook the fish, or it might never see your fly.Here, Pete discusses proper tracking, which ensures that the energy the casts is focused in a straight line, as well as good timing, which helps you maintain a tight loop.Written By: Phil Monahan</I...
When the hatch is over and you’re no longer seeing bugs on the water, one way to prolong dry-fly fishing is to find those places where crippled and spent insects collect. As they say, “foam is home”: scum lines and foamy eddies draw trout looking to gorge themselves on the smorgasbord. In this video, Joe Rotter from Red’s Fly Shop shows us a scumline full of feeding trout, and he explains why it can be tough to catch them: you can’t see your fly. So next time a mayfly hatch peters out on you, start looking for holes in the foam.Written By: Phil MonahanThat black circle at the tip of the arrow is a trout feeding on cripples and spent flies....
Written by: Darcy Toner and Timbre Pringle, Faceless Fly Fishing MediaHow would your fish want its photo taken? Because a fish is an aquatic creature, one would assume that it would want to stay in the water. Many fishermen, including me, are inclined to take a quick hero shot with their catch of the day. However, if you consider the safety of the fish first, then think about taking a portrait of your fish while it remains in the water or close to the water. For this reason, I am going to share a few tips on how to properly execute this style of photo. First, let’s begin with a few “don’ts.” Never hold the fish out of the water longer than a few seconds, and try to keep its head underwater whenever possible. Do not mishandle the fish by squeezing or applying any pressure, as this will cause frantic movement...
Based on what you see when folks are trying out new fly rods at a consumer show, you might believe that fly-fishing requires super-long casts all the time, but that’s simply not true. Sometimes, the fish are quite close to you or the boat, and you have to make a quick and short cast. For instance, when you’re fishing up one of the mountain trout steams we have here in Vermont, you rarely have more than a couple feet of fly line out beyond your tip top guide.One of the keys to making a good short cast is actually counterintuitive: to load the rod, you have to make a slightly more aggressive “flick” or “pop” on the forward cast than you would if you were casting more line. Second, a shorter, more compact casting stroke will help get the line to roll out. Finally, make sure you’ve got a nicely...
Once you’ve chosen the right prepackaged leader (click here to see a video on how to do that), then you have to get it out of the package and onto your fly line. That first step sounds deceptively easy, though, and many anglers manage to create tangles or knots in the process. In this video, Dave Lovell of Trouts Fly Fishing in Denver, Colorado, shows us a simple trick to unravel the leader cleany, with no tangles.This is the way I do it, but with one change. I find it easier to undo the butt-section wraps before I put the coils over my fingers. Tomayto, tomahto.Written By: Phil Monahan...
It's August and in just a couple of short months we'll be trading in the short sleeve shirts for hoodies and light jackets. Fall can be some of the best fishing all year. The weather is cooling off and bugs will continue to hatch.Here are some tips on how you can make your fall fishing the best it can be.1- Streamers. Start tying your favorite streamers. Browns will be aggressive this time of year pre-spawn. Some streamers we really like for fall are:Matukas, Orange Blossom Special, Muddler Minnow, Clouser Minnow, Sex Dungeon and other various meat.2- Dress appropriately. After fishing all summer it can be hard to pack something warm when out fishing in cooler weather. Once the sun goes down in the fall the temps can drop. Make sure you have something warm to make your fishing more comfortable.3- During the spawn be careful of where you wade in...
When you've been guiding the same waters for 20 plus years it's hard to find areas that haven't been explored before. Falcon's Ledge guide, Bryan Eldredge had been studying google earth in search for new water for weeks. He saw a stretch of rive that we never thought about fishing and had an idea that we should go look into it.We headed out to this river talking about what we could expect from this stretch of new water. Based on previous experiences fishing much higher upstream that we could catch brook trout, rainbows, browns and cutts. When we finally arrived we saw a great run and immediately Bryan hooked into a rainbow. Our next six or seven fish were rainbows. This was unusual for this to happen. We mainly catch brown on this river but it was great to see so many bows.The higher up we got on the river...