As my five-year-old sits beside me this morning tying flies, leaving orange marabou, yarn and snippets of thread scattered around my desk, I remind myself that he got his organizational habits from me. I also make a note to myself to have him pick up a piece of trash when we go fishing today.

One can say that the anglers who fish the bounty of Alaska's Kenai also inherited their custom of leaving behind cast-off lead, flies, and assorted angling detritus. But the trash spun off by season of fishing is shocking. Jim Hasbrouck, regional sportfisheries research supervisor for the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, took only one hour on the banks of the Kenai to recover more than 3 pounds of fishing lead, bundles of monofilament, and more than 500 flies. "Extrapolated to cover both banks of the Kenai over the length of the river -- if anglers are losing as much gear in other intensively fished parts of the river as they are here -- the volume of lead accumulating in the river could easily reach to hundreds of pounds per year." Craig Medred in the Anchorage Daily News.

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Women are finding that life as a professional fly fishing guide can be both rewarding and surprisingly busy. "Marla Blair remembers the days in the early 1990s when she waded into the Farmington River in Barkhamsted, fly rod in hand. 'I didn't see another woman on the river,' she said. 'Guys would look at me like I had three heads.'" Steve Grant in the Hartford (Connecticut) Courant.

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Fishing the Pere Marquette with guide Jeff Hubbard, Howard Meyerson notes the main reason why streamers work on big browns in the spring: fish get big by eating smaller fish, not flies. In the Grand Rapids (Michigan) Press.

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Neill Waugh visits Jasper National Park and finds hunting for bull trout to be as challenging as ever. "My eight-weight fly rod was rigged with a brassy blond, Woolly Bugger tied with a conehead that my Bow River fishing-guide pal Barry White calls a Marilyn Monroe. Barry says it imitates the mountain whitefish that the big winter bullies key on." In the Edmonton Sun.

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On my first fly fishing trip out west, my "friend" -- owner of a well-known fly fishing shop -- loaded me up with $250 worth of his flies, saying "That's enough to get you started." Like Eric Sharp, I wondered how many friends like that I could afford to have. "Last week, I counted the flies that three experts said anglers should have in their vests for today's trout opener. When I added up the various patterns and sizes and figured you would carry about four of each, it came to 164." In the Detroit Free Press.

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"When insects are hatching big time, fish feed heavily. Wind direction, moon phase, air pressure, water temperature (to a certain degree) and angle of the stars mean nothing. Trout strap on feedbags and rods stay bent for those with the right fly and presentation." Ken Allen talks about the basics of fishing hatches on MaineToday.com.

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Alligator populations have been on the increase in Florida for decades, and it's not unusual to see 10-footers lining the backs of popular fishing spots. According to Sam Crutchfield of Fort Pierce, who was attacked Monday while wading in Lake Istokpoga, "'They've gone through the fish, and then they started eating smaller alligators. Now all that are left are the big ones. All I know is that I won't be back on Istokpoga for a long time.'" Fortunately Crutchfield was only badly bruised in the attack. Lorna Jablonski in the Okeechobee News.

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With the enormous amounts of precipitation that California has experienced so far this year, water managers are already trying to stay ahead of the game. Water being released at between 400 and 600 cfs from lakes and impoundments is threatening to leave many creeks and rivers unfishable for weeks or even months. "'The West Walker River will have some Class 5 [rapids] by July during the peak runoff and I suggest you hit this place in May, unless you are into whitewater rafting,' said Tom Loe of the Sierra Drifters guide service, in a preseason report to clients." Pete Thomas in the L.A. Times.

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Lefty Kreh picks Manitoba (pike), Narragansett Bay (stripers and bluefish), Los Roques (bonefish) and central Pennsylvania as his choices for best places to fly fish this summer. "Los Roques is a destination for expert fly fishermen. Situated about 80 miles off the coast of Venezuela, the island offers some of the best bonefishing in the world, and pretty good tarpon and permit fishing as well. It's mostly wading, so you need to be in good physical shape." (We concur, but offer fair warning to Venezuelan travelers: street violence continues to increase there, so we suggest taking the plane to Los Roques directly from Maiquetia airport and not making side trips to Caracas or elsewhere.) Ellen Florian Kratz in Fortune magazine

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"From almost the moment we launched in the first shallow pond, we began seeing black drum and redfish. They tailed and milled around on the bottom, and mudded when we inadvertently ran over them." Susan Cocking relates good advice about fly fishing for black drum in this piece about John Kumiski's secret fishing holes. In the Miami Herald.

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In these days of ultra-rigid composite materials, there's something quite pleasant about a softer, quieter ride in wood. Some Grayling, Michigan students recently built a cedar-strip craft based on decades-old blueprints. "AuSable riverboats historically were made from pine planks and used for fly-fishing on Michigan's AuSable and Manistee rivers. The boats were first crafted in the 1800s during the lumber boom and used to move supplies along shallow inland rivers." Sheri McWhirter in the Travis City, Michigan Record Eagle.

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Small flies and being in the right spot at the right time are keys to fly fishing for early seasons striped bass in the U.S. northeast, as noted by Chris Henson. "Early in the season the tides will have a lot to do with water temperatures. If you can find an outlet of a bay or river that has flooded on the high tide, it's a good bet that stripers will be waiting for the tide to change that will bring the warmer water from the bay out with plenty of baitfish." Dick Pinney on MaineToday.com.

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Richard Twarog's interest in fly fishing grew after he spent time photographing sweaters in the Peruvian Andes. Turns out the indigenous people there thought $800 was plenty of money to last for the rest of their lives and stopped working once they had earned that amount. Which led Twarog to think about his own priorities.

"San Juan River is a lush portrait -- a combination love story and professional photo album -- of the river carved out of the rough-hewn desert. It's also a story about the people who love the river, from fishing guides and restaurant owners to longtime anglers and proprietors of hole-in-the-wall fly shops." Henry Miller in the Salem, Oregon Statesman Journal.

On Amazon...

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If the show is anywhere near as good as the advanced billing, it will keep a lot of anglers home on Sundays this spring. Here's what Brendan McCarthy, one of the featured guides sent us: "Created by Capt. Brendan McCarthy and Jason Puris, the series chronicles the day to day life of 5 fly-fishing guides, living under the same roof, during the 'Fall Run' off Montauk Point. Besides great fishing for Striped Bass, Bluefish and False Albacore with their clients, the guides also sit down with some well-known fly tyers, cook with some famous chefs, chat and fish with people like Ted Jurasik of Tibor reels and even participate in a RedBone Tournament. The Chefs include the likes of Tom Collicio of Bravo's Top Chef, Kerry Heffernan of 11 Madison Park-NYC and Colin Ambrose of Estia's Little Kitchen-Sag Harbor NY. Fly Tyers like Tim Borski and Dave Skok participate and Howell Raines and Peter Kaminsky, writer of The Moon Pulled up an Acre of Bass, come and fish as well. Gretta Gaines, Snowboarder, Singer/Songwriter and ESPN personality even sings a few songs for the cast back at the 'Guide House.'"

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"We have black stone-flies, blue-winged olives, Hendricksons, and a few caddis. Water levels are great. And everything, including the South Branch (Au Sable) is fishable." So says Steve Southard, owner of The Fly Shop, in Grayling, Michigan, on the Lower Peninsula.

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North Texas guide Robert Woodruff leaves the deer hair at home when fly fishing for the big largemouth bass in Lake Fork. The reason: the big fish just tear it up. "'The most important thing to me is from the time my fly hits the water, I’ll have the top guide of the rod in the water so that there isn’t any slack in the line,' Woodruff said. 'As soon as I detect a strike, I’ll jerk the line straight back towards my body.'" Lynn Burkhead in The Herald Democrat.

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Fraser Coast, Australia fishing guide Paul Dolan came up with an interesting way to add action to saltwater flies recently: using floral wire and foam to create a fly that rises on the strip and sinks in between pulls. The DK Dancer was first tied by Lionel Kemp for impoundment barramundi, but looks like it might be a good pattern for many other species. Just a tip: tie your leader to the fly eye, not the floral wire. (Thanks to reader Randall Bryett for this link.)

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Charles Kuralt, the inveterate American travel journalist, once said: "Thanks to the Interstate Highway System, it is now possible to travel from coast to coast without seeing anything." Traveling fly fishers have all experienced what I'll call the Star Trek Transporter Effect: you spend weeks trying to gather your thoughts about an upcoming trip, then suddenly you are rematerialized in some far-flung place where everything is at least partly different than you imagined. We don't, if the truth be told, spend enough time getting to where we are going.

We didn't cross paths with Norm Zeigler's Rivers of Shadow, Rivers of Sun, which came out in 2004, until last year. But it immediately reminded us of Negley Farson's 1942 classic Going Fishing: part autobiography, part ethnography, and part travelogue, as much about the getting there as the ultimate arrival. This week's excerpt, "Monte Perdido," reveals the end-story of Zeigler's experiments in Pyrenean gorge fishing.

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As mentioned in yesterday's post, here is part two of Howell Raines's story about hooking a large blue marlin on a fly rod. In Field & Stream.

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"At that precise moment, an astonishing blue-and-silver creation came out of the top of a Pacific wave that loomed above our puny boat like a hillock of cerulean jelly. There is something impressive about looking uphill at a fish that seems half as long as your boat." Howell Raines tells the tale of a big saltwater streamer trolled from the back a Christmas Island skiff and the blue phantasm that decided it was good enough to eat. This is the first half of a story that will be continued tomorrow in the online edition of Field & Stream.

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Finlay Wilson counts the wild, loch-bound brown trout as one of Scotland's national treasures, and Stan Headley's new book The Loch Fisher's Bible (Robert Hale & Company, December 2005, 272 pages) as a must read. "By his admission, he is a fisherman who needs to write, not a writer in search of a subject, and this is certainly not prose in the vein of Negley Farson or Thomas McGuane. But what does leap from the pages is Headley's passion for his chosen speciality and his deep appreciation for wild trout, the lochs where they have lived for millennia, and for Scotland." In The Scotsman.

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Chico Fernandez would rather fish out of a canoe than any other type of boat. Tim Borski likes a hybrid, probably best typified by the Gladesmen, made by East Cape Canoes of Orlando, Florida. The remarkable thing about these long, narrow-beam vessels is that they ride in a chop well while still getting into ultra-skinny water. Check out East Cape Canoe's new video on their boats and you'll get a sense of how versatile they are.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Take away the soldier’s carbine and replace it with a flyrod and you have a pretty good idea of what Trout Boy looks like when he assaults a stream to wage war on the indigenous trout population." I came across this new (?) blog on fishing written by Nick Mills on MaineToday.com (registration required) and was impressed by the fine writing. Only a few entries so far, but good reading for sure. Today's subject: keeping it simple.

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"Gentle and yielding at times when there are big bugs on the water, and the wary and reclusive brown trout loose their senses and feed like mountain cutthroat." Neill Waugh fishes Alberta, Canada's North Raven River, where two is a crowd and more fly fishers than you can count have been whipped by the overhanging willows. In the Edmunton Sun.

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Ever seen a 15-pound bonefish? It looks more like a silver football than a real fish. Carl Navarre recently submitted one that he caught in Islamorada for the new IGFA 20-lb. tippet record. Meanwhile, down in Key West, Dr. Martin Arostegui landed an enormous lemon shark while fishing with Ralph Delph, who has done much to pioneer release techniques for large fish. In the New York Post. (Thanks to reader Thomas McGuane for this bit of news.)

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:58 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Every once in a while we like to note what Sisters on the Fly is up to, not only because they are all about fly fishing for women, but also because the co-founder's son, Austin Lowder, is one of the better fishing guides we've ever run across. Debra Dennis did a short piece on Maurrie Sussman, Lowder's mother, in today's Dallas Morning News, describing qualifications for membership in her girls-only club: "'We do not ask race, religion, political views or sexual orientation,' said Ms. Sussman. 'We don't talk about work or men. We talk about flat tires and fishing. The purpose is to cowgirl up. We can do everything and anything.'" (BTW, if you are thinking of fishing southwestern Montana for trout or southwestern Florida for redfish, snook or tarpon, you can connect with Austin via his Web site, Sea and Stream Fly Fishing.)

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Susan Cocking has two hours to spare in Great Exuma and happens to find the perfect guide. "We arrived at a deserted, sandy beach fringed by red mangroves. Getting up on the bow, I scanned the transparent shallows for a moment and immediately picked out a large, silvery-gray shape heading directly toward us." In the Miami Herald.

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"Recalling that Vladimir Nabokov, whom I once accompanied on a butterfly chase in Arizona, maintained that Salvador Dali was Norman Rockwell's twin brother, who had been kidnapped by Gypsies, I decided to write a facetious article stating that Joyce and Jennings had been separated at birth." Robert Boyle postulates that James Joyce's Finnegan's Wake was, after all, mostly about fly fishing. Funny stuff. From the Web site of the Finnegan's Wake Society of New York. (Link via MoldyChum.com.)

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"According to standard sermons fish writers preach to runoff victims, your choices are two: Stay home and pout or join the huddled masses in tailwaters below dams." Ed Dentry offers some not-so-gentle counsel when it comes to dealing with the spring runoff in Colorado: Get over it. In the Rocky Mountain News.

For a few more ideas about runoff fishing, catch Chuck Stranahan's article on fly fishing for trout in high water.

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"We have the tools, the knowledge, and the resources prevent extinction. The Endangered Species Act is our promise to do so." Bud Lilly addresses the recent trend among politicians to attack the Endangered Species Act as too costly. Lilly, a science teacher for 25 years, opened one of the first fly shops in West Yellowstone. In the Billings (Montana) Gazette.

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Ron Kowalyk recommends sinking lines to help get shrimp and minnow patterns down to the bottom when fishing for these smaller cousins of permit. "The first pompano show in early autumn along the lower Florida Gulf Coast, and we continue to catch them until late spring. We’ve found schools of the fat and sassy 'yellow bellies' skipping along the surface on many of the hard-bottom flats and the pothole patches in the bays and passes." In Florida Sportsman.

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We're not saying that sending mom to fly fishing school for Mother's Day would be a gift without risks. For example, what happens if she becomes obsessed?

"'I think if you asked a man about a "guys’" trip, they would say it has own club feeling. The same goes for the gals,' says Lori-Ann Murphy, the [Reel Women's] co-founder, who says the women’s expeditions attract anglers ages 25 to 85." Teri Goldberg on MSNBC.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:13 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

T.U. wants to extend the success of partnering with corporate sponsors like Tiffany & Co. to help cleanup abandoned mine lands in Utah, and plans to launch new projects in places in Colorado’s Snake River drainage and on Mores Creek in Idaho’s Boise River system. "In Colorado, acidic and metal-laden runoff from the old Pennsylvania Mine on Peru Creek, a tributary to the Snake River in the Blue River system, has rendered Peru Creek a dead stream. Water quality in the Snake River itself it questionable."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"'Chowder for breakfast, and chowder for dinner, and chowder for supper,' wrote Melville, 'till you began to look for fish-bones coming through your clothes.'" James Babb and fly fishing friends are dragged out of bed to experience what may be the death throes of a famous pastime: codfishing off of Maine's coast. In Gray's Sporting Journal.

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"The Hendrickson fly hatch has already started on the main stream of the AuSable, and blue-winged olives, little black stoneflies and various caddis flies are popping up on many rivers." Eric Sharp notes that for those who can afford to wait until mid-day to start their fishing, early-season fishing on the AuSable is already a happening thing. In the Detroit Free Press.

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"I feel as if I have wandered into an Ernest Schwiebert story because the hardwood forests along the bank look more like a setting for one of his classic, fly-fishing essays than what a typical Maine fly rodder ever sees." Ken Allen describes Maine's Pleasant River, an oft-overlooked tributary of the Presumpscot, on MaineToday.com.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Of one Times editor who criticized him in public but was friendly in private, Raines writes, 'What is it about this place that has given this good man the soul of a bushwhacker?'" Associated Press writer David Caruso previews Howell Raines's new book, which includes a revelation about Raines's departure from The New York Times: he didn't resign, but was fired. Nonetheless, the book is almost entirely about fishing, according to Caruso.

Here's more about the new book in The Book Standard: "Raines also tosses off asides on everything from baseball to the Bushes. Whether writing about fishing near Christmas Island or in Russia, he always returns to issues of pain, gain and loss, probity and mendaciousness, friendship and love."

It's not all bad for Mr. Raines, who, besides apparently having a team of highly skilled publicists at work, just sold a $3.5 million townhouse on West 11th Street in New York City.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:30 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

New Orleans fly-fishing guide Mark Brockhoeft shows Peter Kaminsky that the human disaster around New Orleans was not recreated in the Louisiana wetlands. "'You don't have to keep shooting the banks,' Brockhoeft said as I cast his 9 weight to the shore of the grassy island ahead. 'The fish could be 30 yards out. Cover the water until we find the depth they like today.'" In The New York Times.

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"The earliest fish hooks were probably carved out of wood more than 30,000 years ago by Cro-Magnon man. Other cultures throughout history have used animal bone, horns, shells, steel and even the thorns of hawthorn bushes." Oh, and did we forget to mention deceased anglers' thigh bones? Forbes editors name the fish hook one of the top 20 human inventions of all time.

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In addition to becoming FFF's newest spokesperson, Nicklaus agreed to join the board of directors. "Dr. Ron Cordes, incoming Chairman of the FFF Board of Directors, added, 'The participation of Jack Nicklaus in furthering the efforts of a non-profit organization such as the FFF, the success of which is based upon the support of a vast number of volunteers, cannot be underestimated. His presence alone will send an important message to individuals and corporations alike whose potential support is critical to the FFF.'” Press release on PR Web.

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"'The essential benefits of Spey casting are one: It's a very successful way of casting with any obstruction behind you whether a single-handed rod or two-handed rod,' Gawesworth said. 'And two: It's the fastest most efficient change of direction with a fly line. Much more efficient than an overhead cast, so even if you have nothing behind you, you can do a snake roll and change direction instantaneously.'" Wally Zimmer in the Jackson Hole, Wyoming Star Tribune.

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Almost 40 customers of Hell's Bay Boatworks stared in disbelief as no buyers appeared to purchase the boat company's assets on March 29. Now any liability for deposits paid by those buyers is gone with the wind, as Riverside National Bank of Orlando, which had loaned the company $2.7 million, gains ownership. "Hope had grown nearly into an assumption that a group of wealthy investors would ride in, buy the company, and pledge to finish building the boats that were promised to customers." Ben Ianotta in The Keys News. (Thanks to reader David Dalu for this story.)

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

What David Foster of Morris magazines says about confidence in fly fishing — specifically believing that you will catch fish — is readily applied to shooting or a multitude of other pursuits. We'll choose a modest fishing companion any day of the week, but spend lots of time with lots of different fisherman and you will also find that folks who lay the groundwork for failure almost never have spectacular days. As Foster notes, "As in every other human pursuit, confidence is the primary ingredient for hunting and fishing success. It may be clichéd, but if you believe you will succeed, and you combine this confidence with your knowledge and experience, then you likely will succeed." In Gray's Sporting Journal.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:16 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tom Behrens covers the South Platte, Arkansas, and the Colorado Rivers in this annual review of prospects for Colorado anglers in Rocky Mountain Game & Fish magazine. "Habitat improvement has coaxed cutbows to make spawning runs upriver from Elevenmile Reservoir. 'Twelve- to 18-inch cutbows used to run up the river in a spawning run. Whether or not they were very successful at spawning -- probably not -- they were thinking they were going to do that.'"

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Nick Karas writes of a recent expedition to float the Ponoi River, on Russia's Kola Peninsula, and of the big, slow river's startling fecundity. "The Volga’s position in the international imagination has been usurped by the Ponoi and its fantastic largess of Atlantic salmon. Measured by sheer numbers of fish, the Ponoi is probably the best salmon river in the world." In Gray's Sporting Journal.

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Britain's Environment Agency, the official watchdog for that country's environment, allowed the poisoning of trout by a contractor working on a flow-monitoring station on the Exe river. "The private prosecution was brought by Ian Cook, who owns a mile of salmon fishing rights on the Exe, near Exeter. The agency and May Gurney both admitted causing cement waste to poison fish." Richard Savill in the U.K. Telegraph.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:46 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

This week Phil Monahan, editor of American Angler magazine, writes about swinging wet flies, or, as most of us know it, streamer fishing.

Whether you're sweeping seams, dead drifting, or "banging the bank," streamer fishing can be more than a fall-back strategy: it can catch fish that other techniques never will. Check out Phil's rundown of the ways swinging a wet fly adds to your repertoire.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Gordon was something of a recluse. He moved from the big city to escape the cacophony of modern life to a small cabin on the Neversink River where he lived until succumbing to tuberculosis." Gregory Rummo talks about Theodore Gordon, the American Civil War's impact on Catskills brook trout, and how modern "water lords" are determining the fate of rivers. On NorthJersey.com.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:51 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"'You want to know what that fish wants before the fly ever leaves your hand,' Mill said. 'Tarpon want to be caught. You just have to understand the languag