** NOTE** Video for the Craft Fur appears below. Some flies do one thing really well. Other flies are your workhorse on the water, lending solutions to river problems by being adaptable. These are the flies we reach for over and over. These are the flies we tie first...
 The Troutbitten Podcast is available everywhere that you listen to your podcasts. ** Note ** The Podcast Player, along with links to your favorite players is below. The longer we toss around streamers, the more we realize that it’s the most subtle changes in...
A few years ago, Bill Dell and I floated a favorite river from dawn to dusk. It was one of those great days with a friend, with no pressure to put fish in the net and nothing to prove. Everyone wants a fishing friend like Bill. Both of us are dedicated to catching the...
** NOTE** Video for the Blue Collar Worker appears below. Show up on time, do your job and have a little fun while you’re at it. Then go home and do it all over again tomorrow. That’s a blue collar worker. I grew up in western Pennsylvania — it was coal country, mixed...
. . . Let’s call it natural if the fly is doing something the trout are used to seeing. If the fly looks like what a trout watches day after day and hour after hour — if the fly is doing something expected — that’s a natural presentation.
By contrast, let’s call it attractive if the fly deviates from the expected norm. Like any other animal in the wild, trout know their environment. They understand what the aquatic insects and the baitfish around them are capable of. They know the habits of mayflies and midges, of caddis, stones, black nosed dace and sculpins. And just as an eagle realizes that a woodland rabbit will never fly, a trout knows that a sculpin cannot hover near the top of the water column with its nose into heavy current . . .
I had the pleasure of talking shop with Jason Shemchuk of the WadeOutThere podcast. It’s a tactical but casual conversation that digs deep. I probably talked too fast and too often, and I got excited about the material, as usual. But those who know me will tell you that this is about as much DOM as there is anywhere on tape. That’s a tribute to Jason, because he’s easy to talk with and steers an interview with grace . . .
The Troutbitten video series, Streamers on the Mono Rig continues with Episode Two, covering the unique possibilities and the demands of casting.
Fishing streamers on the Mono Rig offers anglers ultimate control over the direction and action of their flies — all the way through the drift. And while small streamers may need nothing more than a nymphing-style cast, mid-sized and full-sized streamers require a few changes in casting to get the most from the technique . . .
Want to get deep? Want to be sure the fly is low enough? Try the Touch and Go.
Sometimes, I don’t drift or strip the streamer all the way through. Instead, I plot a course for the fly, looking through the water while reading the river’s structure. And I look for an appropriate landing zone for the Touch and Go . . .
In collaboration with Wilds Media, the long-awaited Troutbitten video series featuring Streamers on the Mono Rig begins today.
Episode One is an overview of the tactics and an exploration of what is possible when fishing streamers with tight line tactics. The video also covers the Troutbitten Mono Rig and the functions of its three main components.
On a tight line rig, things are different. We keep line off the water — so it’s the rod tip that dictates the actions of the fly. Direct contact with the fly lends us ultimate control over every variable. With line off the water, it’s the rod tip that charts the course, the actions and all the movements of the streamer. And that . . . is a very big deal . . .