Daily Fly Fishing News

Most of us think of terrestrials only when most of the early- to mid-summer hatches wane, making it easy to forget that unique opportunities can arrive in almost any warm weather. Case in point: a carpenter ant "hatch" that provided lots of action in Estes Park waters last week. As Mike Oatley notes: "Excess queens leave colonies, fly off and drop their wings, with the intent of starting a new colony. For a few days, maybe a week or so, these big, black ants are everywhere, and the trout gorge on them." In the Estes Park Trail-Gazette.

Tom Rosenbauer's latest podcast covers reading high- and low-water conditions in trout streams, saltwater tide conditions, food availability and current flows. "When the water is really low, you want to look for the main flow in the stream, the thalweg. If you trace the main flow of water through the stream. And you can find that line by looking for a debris line or foam line -- all the bubbles that trace a line down the thalweg. So the fish are going to be closer to that current because that's where the food is."

Rosenbauer's recent revision of his classic Orvis Guide to Prospecting for Trout goes into great detail on all aspects of trout hunting.

An article in the Redding, California Record Searchlight notes that The Fly Shop -- a virtual institution in northern California and one of the largest online retailers in the business -- has partnered with Signature West Properties Inc. in real estate marketing. Why does it make sense? "Less than 3 percent of The Fly Shop's retail business" starts in their local area, says The Fly Shop owner's Mike Michalak.

Of course Orvis has been in the real estate business for some time, and Cabela's Trophy Properties is another extension of their brand, but those businesses service worldwide locations.

Is real estate the ultimate high-ticket item for retail businesses that can claim absolute knowledge of a locale? Why not?

In this week's MidCurrent ask-the-expert column, Phil Monahan suggests eight simple ways to protect your fly rods from accidental breakage. "Some of these rules might seem obvious," he says,"but you'd be amazed by how often otherwise savvy anglers break them...and their rods."

"Riffles are fly factories; mating mayflies seek them out as the place to lay their eggs, and the riffles are where many aquatic insects live most of their underwater lives, mostly clinging to rocks or burrowed in silt but sometimes drifting or swimming, at their peril." Morgan Lyle talks about the pluses of the babbling brook. From DailyGazette.com.

The Fly Fishing Film Tour has entered into a new marketing and content delivery relationship with the Outdoor Channel. From yesterday's press release: "Under the partnership, Outdoor Channel and FFFT will deliver popular fly fishing content to enthusiasts while partnering with each other for cross-promotional opportunities on air, on tour, through video-on-demand (VOD) and online to give Outdoor Channel's viewers and affiliates access to an expanded, best-in-class variety of fly fishing content that includes the widest range of fly fishing activities."

The Federation of Fly Fishers' (FFF) 44th annual International Fly Fishing Show and Conclave lands in Loveland, CO this year and runs for five days beginning July 28. The Conclave schedule will include more than 80 workshops and clinics on casting, fly tying, on-water fishing techniques and other topics, and features exhibits with the latest in gear, outfitters, conservation information and other topics such as outdoor art and books.

Get complete information at the FFF Conclave Web site.

Charlie Meyers reports in the Denver Post that an unusually wet year has Colorado anglers scratching their heads and throwing big, ugly flies later in the season than usual. "Persistent rainfall, lagging snowmelt and uncertain reservoir releases have caused indecision on most major streams. 'We haven's seen a flow of 5,000 cubic feet per second on the Colorado River at Pumphouse in a long time,' said Drew Musser of the Fly Fishing Outfitters shop in Avon,"

When we first heard of "Once In A Blue Moon" last fall, we thought it was going to be just another pretty fishing video. Well, in fact it is a pretty fishing video, but with some obvious extras: clever scripting, a unique story, and some of the most gorgeous camera work we've seen in a fly fishing DVD.

"Once In A Blue Moon" follows an attempt by some New Zealand fly fishers to track down what can be loosely called a "mouse hatch." The idea of hitting the timing just right -- when an explosion in the rodent population puts the biggest trout on the feed -- leads to landing some very nice fish on big mouse patterns in stunningly beautiful surroundings. As a bit of early-summer escapism, we're happy to show you a lengthy clip from the DVD, which is just now available for sale in the U.S.

Keys fishing captains are nothing if not resilient. But a drop in tourism has all but the top-tier guides wondering where the next booking might come from. Case in point: the 65-year-old Bud 'N Mary's marina in Islamorada, one of the original magnets for Keys anglers, where owner Richard Stanczyk -- who turned down a $25 million dollar purchase offer three years ago -- may go back to offering his own guiding services to make ends meet. "After 63 years and at least 25 skin surgeries, he's put off retirement at the landmark Islamorada fishing hub and sent in his eighth set of renewal papers for his captain's license." Douglas Hanks in the Miami Herald.

This May, Drs. Jerry Ault and Jiangang Luo of the University of Miami got into SCUBA gear, grabbed some high-def cameras and went deep under Bahia Honda bridge, an important staging point in the migration of tarpon through the Florida Keys. The resulting video gives a great perspective on how these big fish travel.

"'And then this guy from Ireland peels off his waders. He has a wet suit on underneath and he starts swimming with his rod up in one hand. He's one of those guys who was a force to be reckoned with. He won that competition.'" That's U.S. Youth Fly Fishing Team member Zach Bearden describing the type of thing that can happen at international competitions. Kelly Bostian writes about Bearden in the Tulsa World.

"An estimated 2 million alewives returned to the river on their annual spring run this year, according to state officials. Other sea-run fish returning to the previously impounded 17 miles of river between Augusta and Waterville include American shad, striped bass, sturgeon, and a few Atlantic salmon." Keith Edwards reports on the remarkable comeback of fish populations on Maine's Kennebec River, ten years after a major dam was removed by order of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. In the Kennebec Journal.

Environmental writer Doug Peacock gives kudos to John Holt's new Yellowstone Drift (AK Press, June 2009, 275 pages), after first delivering a suberb history of "Elk River" country. Peacock says Holt was the perfect writer for this book. "Hovering over the 671-mile journey is Holt's own thunderstorm of a life; the man is not hesitant taking a stand, whether it's a rage against the livestock-centric insanity of killing free-ranging bison that wander beyond Yellowstone Park's boundary or quietly summoning the 500-year flood that would wipe out all the garish trophy homes littering the river's flood plain."

Yellowstone Drift: Floating the Past in Real Time on Amazon.

According to Colin Moore of ESPN: "In late March, the crew of the ship that transported Jose Wejebe, host of ESPN2's 'Spanish Fly,' and his film team to the Seychelles Islands off the east African coast were waylaid and taken hostage by Somali pirates." After half the ransom was paid, the pirates released the crew, but burned the vessel.