There may be nothing more satisfying than watching a trout eat your fly. The visual reward of seeing a fish rise to a dry fly is the welcome completion of our efforts and anticipations. But to many of us, watching a large wild trout attack a streamer is even better,...
There’s a difference between missing a trout and losing a trout. As I wrote in the previous installment of this Troutbitten short series, missing trout on streamers is usually the fish’s fault. I believe trout reject our flies on purpose. They’re curious enough to...
I think most anglers walk to the river with a fly rod and a matching reel, strung up with a leader and tippet that they’ve never tested. In fact, I daresay they haven’t tested the rod much either. Oh, they’ve fished it, but most anglers don't know the limits of their...
Six years. From ‘03 to ‘09, I was in a rhythm. Rise early, fish into the afternoon, have dinner with my wife back home and then make money playing music. (I held steady gigs at many venues across the region.) I fished only weekdays and skipped the weekends. When I...
Midday. High sun and an overpowering heat. I stalked the banks of a large Montana river with my Border Collie at my side. I mirrored his shepard’s crouch: low, with my head forward, almost crawling through the dry sage brush.
We paused strategically under the thick Douglas Firs, not only for a break from the unrelenting sun, but for a real chance at deception. The large wild trout, it seemed, were at the moment, predictable — laying close to the banks (sometimes within inches), and waiting for the next overhead meal from a hapless hopper or any other random terrestrial occurrence. The evergreen limbs provided the shade for true cover — our only opportunity for real stealth.
The longer a trout tugs, turns and flips at the end of your line, the greater the chance you’ll lose it. We don’t need a study in probability theory to know this is true. No, we all have enough firsthand stories about the desperate emptiness that accompanies a long...