The eye does amazing things. With our vision alone, we can discern and identify a dazzling array of variables. You can see intricate vermiculation lines across the back of a brook trout, unique spot patterns on a mountain cutthroat, or a shimmering azure cheek of a wild brown trout. And while that counts for a …
No – not that kind of record. While you are more than welcome to try to catch the largest fish in a particular line class, I’m talking about record-keeping. What kind of records, you ask? Well, I have four that I discuss on this episode of the podcast. Whether you have a fancy Moleskine journal …
Cast after cast; nothing. I added weight, I took weight off. I lengthened my leader, I brought the fly closer to the indicator. I tried just about everything. Everything, except tying on a small cream-yellow caddis nymph. Probing some familiar water in the early spring, a hare’s ear nymph was a pretty safe choice. Fishing …
What would you say if you were told that you owed every fish you caught an apology? How about that you actually needed to find a fish, confess your sins, and atone for your angling? Recently a seminary (I use that term loosely) shared that they held a service where students prayed to plants. What …
There are more fish out there that you can’t catch than you can catch. Let that sink in for a minute. The statement, although hardly profound, is true at a number of levels. Firstly, you’re not going to catch all the fish in any given river. Perhaps in a small creek you’d be able to …
When is a fish native? When is it wild? Can it be both? And what about stocked trout? In this episode, I give a very quick overview of this topic. I look at the historic range of the three major American trout/char species, and talk about why knowing this information can be helpful. Oh, and …
When it comes to conservation and environmental issues, politics matter. But arguing about politics on social media doesn’t do a lot. If those two sentences seem contradictory, keep reading. You could classify me as a cynic. By and large, I see the bipartisan status quo of the USA to be very much like a game. …
I’m currently in the middle of a family vacation / cutthroat expedition. (Note: the backslash above represents an immense chasm.) But I have an amazing wife, and she’s humored me as I’ve driven, run, and climbed about the Rocky Mountains in search of native fish. More content from the trip will be coming in the …
Most Fridays on Casting Across are devoted to other people’s contributions in the fly fishing community. Articles, pictures, social media accounts, videos, podcasts, products, and more will be featured on The Last Cast of the Week. Today, I’m sharing items from Wooly Bugged, Orvis, & PBS. If you’d like to be featured in the Last …
I just want to say this up front: I don’t know if coelacanth is singular, plural, or both. For the sake of this post I’m going to assume that the obscurity of this fish is going to hide my ignorance. Imagine catching a brook trout in an urban waterway in New York City. That would …
