I love fly fishing for bass, panfish, and all the other warmwater species that swim with them. While a lot of progress has been made within fly fishing culture for the acceptance, appreciation, and celebration of this side of the sport, there are still plenty of people who see it as a second-tier option. Is …
The average post on Casting Across runs around 600 words. That isn’t a lot. That is like a few pages of a book. (Books are like websites that people have printed out and stapled together and you don’t need wifi to read.) Why keep it short? Well, I don’t spend a lot of time reading …
I understand why bad pictures get the black and white treatment to make them more interesting. (I’m guilty of that.) I can tolerate people using Snapchat to make their faces slimmer and their eyes brighter. (I’m not guilty of that.) I’m opposed to using filters on brook trout. This isn’t some sort of crusade or …
I had three offers to go fishing today. That’s right, I live a pretty privileged life. Offer #1: float a large, super productive trout river. Offer #2: chase the swelling population of stripers off the beach. Offer #3: spinning rods, bluegill, and not a whole lot of fishing myself. Can you guess which one I …
Do you fly fish? If you answered “no,” then the next question is “why not?” If you answered “yes,” then there are about 100 questions to follow. The reason being the remarkable amount of diversity within fly fishing. One angler might primarily pursue trout on spring creeks while another’s quarry is whatever happens to be …
To catch a fish, all you need is a cane pole, some line, a hook, and a worm. To cook meat, all you need is a pan and some heat. Those approaches will get the respective jobs done. Fishing or cooking like that could be considered doing things the easy way. Straightforward methods work, but …
In the summer of 2015, I decided that I wanted to write something for public consumption. Two topics immediately came to the forefront of my mind. What was actually the second, fly fishing, won out. Casting Across was launched in the fall. The first topic was barbecue. Why write about food? More to the point, …
You know something that everyone who fly fishes is able to do? Smile. Sure, in fly fishing some people like to be super serious. Go to a fly fishing show or Trout Unlimited meeting and you’ll inevitably see a guy who looks like he’s just broken the tip of his favorite rod. There are always …
Have you ever taken the time to look through some of the more thorough resources on leaders? Some anglers have spent a lot of time intricately thinking through the dynamics of material diameter and length. You can really fall down the rabbit hole. There are individual formulas for every weight of fly, depth of water, …
Imagine watching a movie dozens of times but never seeing the beginning. Assuming the story isn’t too complicated, you’ll probably get the gist of things. And if it’s a good flick you’ll enjoy the experience regardless. Up until this past week, that was kind of my experience with Shenandoah National Park. Since the earliest days …
