Trout are conditioned to the availability of eggs in a river system, and egg flies are the perfect pattern for a good part of the fishing season. It’s a high-protein meal that drifts predictably and can’t swim away, so trout eat eggs readily when the presentation is...
Turn into the fly shop and strike up a conversation with the dude behind the counter, and he might tell you the Olives are hatching around noon on most days. That’s nice. And if he really has his ear to the ground or feet in the water, he’ll know that those Olives...
There’s a world unseen below the surface. The riverbed weaves a course and directs the currents, giving shape to its valley. Water swirls behind rocks. It moves north and south against submerged logs. The stream blends and separates, merges and divides again as...
I meet a lot of anglers who used to fish. Some of them were die hard, passionate and persistent, often for many years or even decades. But somehow and in some way they gave it up. Maybe fishing was pushed aside for other interests or responsibilities, or maybe they...
[There’s no doubt we are in the golden age of information — for fly fishing too. Never before has it been so easy to open a browser and click a couple links to learn where the trout are and how to catch more of them. A third of what I know about fishing came from...
There are two sides to every fisherman: one that simply enjoys being on the water (hoping to catch a fish), and the other that desperately wants to know how to put more fish in the net. These two parts find an internal balance inside every angler I know . . .
The other day, my friend, Austin, mentioned something about me being a calculated fisherman. I guess I come off that way. The truth is, my planning and plotting and theory building mostly happens while I’m not fishing. When I'm on the water, a lot of that...
Whether tight lining, nymphing with an indicator or fishing dry-dropper, the most critical element for getting a good dead drift is to lead the nymph through one single current seam. Remember, the nymph is always being pulled along by a fishing line. Even on the best...
Sunup to sundown.
There’s nothing as simple and yet so full of variation as a full day on the water. The diversity of situations challenges the will of a fisherman: Exhaustion from the forces of water —  its speed, its numbing cold, the pressure of its depth. Weariness from the weather — the endless wind, the heavy rain, and the consuming heat of the sun. We soak in all the stages and moments that one single day brings, and we are alive through each one.