You’re not going to catch it. Wait. Let me make it even more plain and simple: you’re not even going to be able to get your fly in front of it. I know you can see the fish. I know that you haven’t spooked it, that you’ve been catching trout all day, and that all …
The last thing any fly fisher wants to think about in the early spring is Christmas and the weather that generally accompanies it. But really, is there any time where Will Ferrell, dressed up like an elf, isn’t funny? I’d say “no.” More than his trademark humor, I think there is something that the fly …
You know how every parent thinks that their baby is the most beautiful thing in the world? I feel that way about my children, too. But I certainly don’t feel that way about everything I write. Sometimes posts go up and I think to myself, “there it is – the post that will remove all …
The river was wide. Wider than any eastern trout river I had ever been in. It was so wide, that I had to turn my brain off to the fact that I wasn’t going to be able to fish every pool. Not every pool in an upstream/downstream manner, mind you: I wasn’t going to be …
As fall turns to winter, and with winter comes the cold, dark days, loneliness creeps in. Not loneliness from people, mind you. You’re going to be surrounded by people. Office parties, community events, family gatherings: you’re going to be sick of people by the time the holidays are over. Loneliness from being apart from fish …
There are places that respectable anglers don’t venture near. These forbidden locations are just on the edge of everyday life. The normal places that one might pass on the way to go fly fishing. What keeps grown men and women away is fear. The kind of fear that stems from the oh-so-familiar knowledge that what …
Back in the spring I was paddling the shallows, casting into likely spots to see what kind of fish I could get into. This pond – a slow part of a river, actually – holds largemouth, smallmouth, chain pickerel, yellow perch, stocked trout and salmon, and a handful of other species. I had already landed …
I was looking at reels for a long time. A long time. Across the counter, he couldn’t have been more than three feet away. Not once did he look away from the computer monitor. Now, I shouldn’t have been surprised. When I walked in, I didn’t get a “hello” or even a head nod. When …
Recently, I witnessed some truly atrocious fly casting. No offense, but it was awful. Splashing on the forward cast, snapping on the back cast, whipping the water into a froth awful. It wasn’t just one guy, or even two buddies out having fun on the trout steam. It was angler after angler. Maybe I fish …
On a beautiful spring morning with bluebird skies, I took a few hours to explore a new stretch of river in search of bass. The water had just come down to a reasonable level after a drastic amount of rain, and the color was about where it should be. I found my way into a …
