Techniques

Maybe you’ve been attending fly fishing shows and were inspired by some of the demonstration tiers. Maybe you’ve been fly fishing for a couple of years and now want to “customize” some flies because the local shop only carries black and white wooly buggers but your friend who ties has more success with olive. Whatever the reason, a month before...

A member of the USA Casting Team, 38-year-old Audrey Wilson has found her way on a journey to the World Champion of Fly Casting in Norway this August 2022. Growing up in Roy, Utah, where she fell in love with the outdoors as a small girl while camping, hiking and canoeing with her parents and brother, Wilson initially became intrigued by fly fishing after...

Choosing Flies Size Matters When choosing trout flies, the relative importance of fly characteristics in your selection, in order, should be: size, shape, color, and action (for stripped flies). In saltwater, action is often more important than exact size and shape. Dropper Flies or Tandem Rigs Dropper flies are a trout angler's secret weapon. A simple...

What would you say if you turned on the 2022 Winter Olympics and the majority of the men and women competing in the slalom were using skis designed in the ‘70s and ‘80s? How would you react if most of the world’s top skiers eschewed modern skis, boots and bindings, and relied on equipment that most of us would consider either dated or irrelevant...

Tailing loops are the bane of both novice and experienced casters, and they can almost all be traced to problems with the timing of the casting stroke. A tailing loop is one where the front of the fly line and the leader cross below the plane of the cast as the forward cast rolls out, often causing a tangle in the line or a wind knot in the tippet or...

When the water level reaches the perfect depth, I call this “The Magic Window.” This is the period when there’s the right amount of water for the corbina to feel comfortable to do head stands and tail over the sand crab beds. This amount of water is between a foot and two feet. They slide in, reach the edge of the bed, dip down or head plow, then...

It’s hard to jump the gun on a bass and panfish pond. Spring starts early in the ponds — even in Wamic, Oregon, which is nestled in the mixed forest of Ponderosa Pine and oak trees just a short drive from the still-snowy eastern slopes of Mount Hood. A sunny, 60-degree day pours heat into the muddy shallows of my favorite 30-acre farm pond. Nice bass...

The classic big fish photo — a happy angler in a red shirt gripping a big, dripping trout and grinning at the camera — decorated fly-fishing magazine covers shot for decades. So, anglers got used to taking their own hero shots during their fishing adventures. Walk into any fly shop, and you’ll see sun-bleached shots of grinning anglers holding big...

There are two schools of fly anglers: Those that believe in matching the hatch — and those that worship the weird and wonderful. The hatch matchers are usually serious trout anglers. They carry flies tied to imitate a specific bug at a specific moment in its life. These anglers carry boxes crammed with flies that imitate hatching bugs, egg-laying bugs...

John Juracek, former owner of Blue Ribbon Flies in West Yellowstone, Montana, could easily pass for an ex-Marine.   He stands tall in a crowd of unkempt fly fishing experts.   And when he speaks, it's with a certain natural authority that folks of his kind seem born with. "All right," he intoned on a cool morning on the banks of what is by any measure...