There are more than two or three wonderful quotes from Holly Morris's 1997 essay on fly fishing literature in The New York Times, but this may be my favorite: "While baseball is among the sports (some might include golf here) that inspire a certain devotion, even fanaticism, fly-fishing leads its lovers into fundamental connections, inviting a slow dance with the whimsy of the natural world, a love affair with line and rhythm and simplicity. Angling delivers the wily spiritual satisfactions that come with giving yourself to something that offers only intangible payback." The next time someone asks you "Why fly fishing?," send them this link and suggest they buy a copy of the Jeffrey Pill/AMFF DVD. If those won't hook them, nothing will.
Recently in Fly Fishing Videos Category
New on MidCurrent: George Anderson shares a video from his new knot-tying DVD "Terminal Tactics for Fly Fishing." He shows his preferred technique for tying the Bimini Twist, one of the more difficult knots to tie in fly fishing, but one of the very best at maintaining tippet strength. He also shows how to finish the resulting double line with a Surgeon's Loop -- an important feature for quick-change leaders in saltwater.
Excerpt: "I'm going to double over a loop in my hand and I'm going to make it about 18 inches long. I'm going to make 25 turns in this by just taking my fingers and rotating them around slowly. Now once I get the 25 turns in there, the tricky way to tie it is to put it over your knee. Now I'm going to grab the tag end, and the long end, and I'm going to pull on both of these and compress this so that the Y ends up down in here. But don't go too far, or you'll kink the leader."
This morning, Wall Street Journal writer Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg talks about the recently released DVD "Tarpon" in the paper's Weekend Journal section. Trachtenberg begins, "A recently restored film featuring a trio of writers fishing for tarpon in the early 1970s has started attracting attention in literary and fly fishing circles."
You can read the full article and watch an outtake here.
American Angler magazine spent the entire FFR show in Denver shooting interviews with top fly fishing manufacturers, and late last week they posted the results on their Web site. Here's K.C. Walsh talking about the new 360-degree lug Vibram sole that is part of Simms's aggressive move into felt-free soles for wading boots and shoes. From that link you can also see a variety of other videos covering the new product lines of Ross, Renzetti, Patagonia, Orvis, Flambeau, Sage, Winston, K-Pump, Mustad, G.Loomis, St. Croix, Hardy and Grey's and lots of others.
You'd be hard pressed to find a serious trout angler who doesn't have New Zealand on their life list. The brown trout there are legendary for their size and selectivity, and if sight-casting to big fish in complete solitude is your thing, there's hardly a better place.
This week we're showing a segment from theflyfishingDVD.com's new "Backcountry Trout," an example of the trend toward making downloads of high-quality fishing films available over the Web. Australian fly fishing expert Peter Morse, along with guide Nigel Birt, demonstrates how a careful approach, the correct fly choice, and observing fish reactions all make a difference on a bluebird day in the New Zealand lowlands.
In the Denver Post, Charlie Meyers talks about the "warm and fuzzy" reception given the new Patterson/Klug/Bie production "Drift," which was screened this last Tuesday at the Fly Fishing Retailer show. "'I wanted to take the Warren Miller formula of visiting familiar settings and showing the beautiful things about them,' [director Chris] Patterson said of a domestic selection that includes the Frying Pan, Bighorn, Green and Deschutes rivers. For a balance of the exotic, the movie visits Belize, Andros Island in the Bahamas and, as a fireworks finale, the rivers of the Kashmir sector of India. Patterson, a novice angler, came away surprised at the challenges."
You can watch the trailer for "Drift" on the Confluence Films Web site.
This week Joan Wulff demonstrates several advanced fly casting techniques, including changing directions, curve casts, and casts for weighted nymphs. While the techniques are described as "advanced," fly casters of all levels will appreciate her tips on dealing with the challenges of positioning and presentation on a trout stream.
Excerpt: "Right now I have deep water ahead of me, so a straight line cast would go over the rock, not in front of it. I'll do a curve cast, starting with a horizontal stroke to the target area. Then, as the line is unrolling I'll quickly move the rod sideward and pull it back in close to me in a curve, at the same time slipping line."
New on MidCurrent: Norm Crisp's video on "Collecting Stream Life for Better Nymph Fishing" is filled with tips for capturing subsurface bugs and improving your fly selections.
EXCERPT: "When you pull up that rock, if there is any current at all, as you pick it up and turn it over and move it around, suddenly those insects that were crawling around are going to be subject to far more current than they see in the stream and they're going to float away. You're not going to see what's really out there. So what we always like to do is to take a little kick net, put it down in the stream, reach upstream ahead of it, move the rocks around as much as you can, and let everything wash down into the screen."
Catch Magazine (www.catchmagazine.net) is a new online publication run by Brian O'keefe and Todd Moen. According to the magazine site, they are "searching the world for the best fly fishing photography, film and video." There's quite a collection of great photography here, plus some interesting hi-def video by Todd Moen covering Oregon steelhead and "world" fly fishing, and the new trailer from Confluence Films's Chris Patterson.
New on MidCurrent, Gary LaFontaine talks about strategies for fishing big freestone rivers, reminding us that it's not always obvious where the fish or how to catch them. "The middle of the river will hold fish, but you should never ignore the current flows along the edges and the associated pocket water. The side channels, with slower flows, sometimes provide fish with easier meals and a place to rest. They're always worth at least a quick exploration. There are times when large fish actually congregate in places like this, so always be ready."
What techniques contribute to better timing and higher line speed? As Joan Wulff shows us this week in "Distance Casting," modifying shoulder and elbow position, shooting line on the backcast, and adding single hauls can easily help further your reach. At the end of the video she also demonstrates a handy trick for creating loops that will not tangle when shooting line while wading.
Excerpt: "There are two stances that will solve all of the problems you encounter between distance and accuracy. Accuracy is a little bit like throwing a dart. It doesn't matter how you stand, but your shoulders are square to the target, the rod is vertical, and your hand comes in close to your face. As that line lengthens, drop back your right foot and shift your weight, and that makes your stroke a little bit longer. And as we get more line, it gets to be more like a baseball throw: we change our stance from square to the target to sideways to the target by rotating at the hips, opening the shoulders backward, and angling the rod off vertical to about 1:30."
The publisher of Fly Fisherman, Guns and Ammo, Shooting Times, Florida Sportsman, and Game & Fish magazines and parent company of The Sportsman Channel announced yesterday that it had acquired video content producer Barrett Productions, which was started by John Barrett in 1989. "'After 18 years of building up an attractive niche in the outdoors television marketplace, the opportunity to join forces with a powerful and professional company like InterMedia Outdoors is a dream come true for us. Our combined video library and production and content creation skills will be unrivaled in the outdoors arena,' said John Barrett, President of Barrett Productions."
Ryan Peterson, who works in the travel department at California's The Fly Shop, posted a long and decidedly low-tech blog entry on a recent trip to Kamchatka. In tow were the crew from Felt Soul Media and Frank Smethurst, who spent some time false-casting in Red Square. Via Moldy Chum.
For most expert casters, a single haul comes naturally: they do it almost unconsciously, sometimes very subtly, adding it as one more motion that increases their feel for the line. The double haul, of course, contributes greatly to line speed and is commonly used to counter the effects of wind and to shoot line. But its use extends to even short casts and windless days.
This week Joan Wulff demonstrates an easy method for learning the Double Haul, using an overhead camera to show when and how fast to move the line hand during the casting stroke.
As Gary LaFontaine says, "most of the problem in fishing high mountain lakes is finding the fish. Once you've found the fish, then you've got a few basic food forms." LaFontaine's video on how to fish a "Small Mountain Lake" shows where to find trout in high mountain lakes and how to feed them.
Excerpt: "A fairly steep shoreline is always good. Shorelines naturally gather food blown by the wind. You can fish lakes from the shoreline alone, but a float-tube or boat is more versatile. Bays too are a great place to find fish, as are the shelves and drop-offs associated with bays. Other good places are submerged trees, large rocks, or weed beds in deep water."
This week on MidCurrent Joan Wulff demonstrates the "Reach Cast." It's one of a trout angler's most useful techniques, providing longer drag-free drifts. A few key pointers on timing and technique also make it one of the easiest casts to perfect.
Excerpt: "A dry fly fisherman has to be aware of what we call 'drag.' Drag is that motion that makes the fly look as if it is a water-skier instead of a free-floating insect, and it's caused by the currents that work on the line and leader. So we need affect that by doing what we call a 'Reach Cast,' which will put the arm and the upper part of the rod upstream of the fly, so that the fly drifts down first."
As we noted back in June, Jamie Howard's new project involves pitting fly fishers against hardware guys in a challenge to catch big bass somewhere in the western U.S. Well it turns out that that place is the California delta, which, as Howard says, "is one weird and remote place and there are some true monsters that lie in there if you can find your way around." You can watch the new trailer here.
The roll cast puts all of the basic fly casting principles to use, and so learning it is one of the first steps in becoming a competent fly fisher. It's also one of the most useful casts, giving you options when your back is against high bushes or trees, and helping you quickly lift line off of the water before a new cast.
This week Joan Wulff, in her typically clear teaching style, demonstrates the mechanics of roll casting, breaking it down into steps and showing just where the hand and arm need to be during each stage. She also shows how a small shift in arm position allows fly fishers to deal with wind coming over the casting shoulder.
According to movie site Cinematical.com, William Hurt and Amber Heard will star in the adaptation of David James Duncan's philosophical novel "The River Why." Production, under the direction of Matt Leutwyler, will begin in Oregon early next month. "A coming-of-age fishing tale, the film will focus on 'a young man named Gus Orviston (Gilford) and his quest for an elusive rainbow trout, which is a metaphor for the man's internal search for self-knowledge.' Heard plays the object of his affection, 'a tomboy fly-fisher,' and Hurt plays his dad."
New on MidCurrent, watch R. A. Beattie's artful clip on fly fishing for small- and largemouth bass from the arid shoreline of Lake Powell.
This week on MidCurrent, Gary LaFontaine shows us how to best position ourselves for fishing attractor dry flies on a freestone stream. It's another segment from the DVD "Successful Fly Fishing Strategies" (Jeffrey Pill, producer), in which LaFontaine and former major league outfielder Dick Sharon demonstrate a wide range of situational strategies. LaFontaine tells why he favors the across-and-down presentation with attractors, and he even shows how to hold a trout without having it jump out of your hand.
"The videography is sensational. The landscape is dramatic. It's not often we get a look at such an exotic locale, nor the culture that resides in such vast and remote lands. But the Fish Bums might have done more -- and better. If the film suffers a significant shortfall, it is the absence of clarity about who is talking when, and to whom." Howard Meyerson on MLive.com.
It's been a long time coming -- thirty-four and a half years, to be exact -- but UYA Films has finally released the commercial version of the film "Tarpon." The re-mastered and color-corrected film is out on DVD, and having watched a bootleg copy of the original about 100 times, I was surprised by the quality of the new digitized version. Sure, there are a few "newsreel" scratches in the opening frames, but the scenes that matter most to me -- the young Tom McGuane talking with Richard Brautigan, Jim Harrison sitting in a hammock "coming to terms" with the fish, and especially the magnificent tarpon jumps -- are even more mesmerizing.
Some quick backstory for those who've never heard of the film: "Tarpon" was filmed by Christian Odasso and Guy de la Valdene in Key West in 1974. They were inspired by the top guides of the era -- Woody Sexton, Gil Drake, Steve Huff and others -- to make a statement about what fly fishing for tarpon was really like and at the same time illustrate what threatened the fish and their habitat. The result was what Carl Hiaasen calls "a work of art."
But the best way to get a sense of what the film is all about is to watch the trailer, which we're happy to be able to show for the first time this week.
Trophy lake bass act like their saltwater cousins, busting bait and smashing plugs and flies, in the new HowardFilms project that follows the efforts of a fly fisher and a conventional angler to outfish one another. HowardFilms just put up a new trailer for "Bass: The Movie", and Jamie Howard himself sent me this comment after finishing the most recent shoot: "The interesting news is that the fly guys kinda won round 1...May have been right place, right time...but wow...it was a sight. They worked the shad conditions very well. The conventional guy did fairly well but could not compete with the depth control of the fly guys (T9...11...etc) Quite a thing to watch."
Those who have been lucky enough to see a bootleg copy of the movie "Tarpon," filmed in Key West in 1974, have seen a glimpse of what fly fishing for tarpon was like in the early days. The film never made it to market in the U.S. and the original footage sat in a barn in the French countryside for 35 years. Recently, Guy de la Valdene and UYA Films went back to the original footage and produced a re-mastered DVD of the original. Starting today, you can purchase "Tarpon" (UYA Films, 53 minutes, $34.95 plus shipping) from The Book Mailer in Helena, Montana: order online, call 1-800-874-4171, or email orders@thebookmailer.
Besides including some of the only footage of Richard Brautigan, the cult 60s poet and novelist, "Tarpon" also features commentary by legendary guides Woody Sexton, Steve Huff, and Gil Drake, as well as Page Brown, an ardent Keys conservationist. Thomas McGuane and Jim Harrison are also featured in the film, and Jimmy Buffet composed the music. Many consider this film to be the first of the modern fishing films.
Tom Brokaw recently said of the film: "'Tarpon' is a timeless and beautifully executed film about life, sport and culture. You'll be moved, amused, outraged and, most of all, entertained." The film's message about the importance of releasing fish was far ahead of its time and prescient in highlighting the increasing pressure on fish by sportsmen, tourists and boaters.
We're very glad the producers thought the film worthy of the effort and expense it took to color-correct, clean and digitize the film, and we hope you'll support their decision to distribute the DVD. "Tarpon" is a slice of time and a piece of art, but it's also a message that concerned anglers can make a difference in protecting our resources. After more than three decades tarpon fishing continues to be a fantastic experience for fly fishing experts and novices, in part because the artists and anglers of the day recognized the growing threats to the fish and their habitat.
"The Lost World of Mr. Hardy" (TrufflePig Films, DVD, 97 minutes), by Andy Heathcote and Heike Bachelier, documents the remarkable history of the people and inspiration behind the hand-made rods and reels that established Hardy's as the first high-end fly tackle manufacturer in the world. As founder J.J. Hardy said at the end of the 19th century, "Only the best is good enough for fishermen." You can watch several out-takes and the trailer on MidCurrent.
Gary LaFontaine gained wide notoriety for his sparkle pupa series of fly patterns and for his classic book Caddisflies. But to the people who were lucky enough to know him, he was more than just another very knowledgeable fly fisher. He was, as one friend told me, "the kind of guy you could sit down and have a beer with, and come away with some bit of knowledge you'd never considered before." The fly fishing world lost one of its great mentors when LaFontaine died of Lou Gehrig's disease in 2002.
This week we're happy to begin a series of showings from the DVD "Successful Fly Fishing Strategies," in which LaFontaine and former major league outfielder Dick Sharon demonstrate a wide range of situational strategies. Besides being another example of Jeffrey Pill's truly fine filmwork, the DVD is packed with tips on how to handle everything from small stream pocketwater to undercut banks. This first segment covers "Deep Water Nymphing" and shows how indicators and weight are effectively employed in high water.
As we noted last month, "Red Gold," a film about the controversy surrounding the building of a mine in the middle of a critically important Alaska watershed, was to hold its premiere at the prestigious Telluride MountainFilm festival. Now the votes are counted, and Travis Rummel's and Ben Knight's work came away with both the Festival Director's Award and the Audience Award, which, as the MountainFilm site notes, is considered by some distributors to be "a much better harbinger of success for a film than a juried award."
Watch the trailer for "Red Gold" on MidCurrent.
This week on MidCurrent, guide and filmmaker R.A. Beattie shares his terrific short film on the relationship between Alaskan guide Mark Rutherford and his daughter Kate, who is also a guide. Not only does the film showcase the young filmmaker's talent, it's a teaser for a larger story, which Beattie introduces here:
"In July of 2006 Mark Rutherford, of Wild River Guides, and I were dropped at the headwaters of an un-run tributary of the Upper Nushigak River in Bristol Bay Alaska. We were strangers. We had only spent the last 20 hours together before this point, but had created enough trust during a winter of phone conversations to attempt a dangerous endeavor: a first descent of a virtually unknown river. Our trip was a monumental success, but did not come easy. We struggled through a twelve-hour portage from our landing pond to the headwaters, fought hypothermia during viscous storms, sustained almost entirely on salmon (which were sometimes difficult to find), and managed to capture some astounding footage."
It's been a long time in the making, but Felt Soul Media's documentary on Alaska's Pebble Mine controversy is finally going to be unveiled at Telluride's Mountainfilm, the outdoor adventure film festival that this year runs from May 23 to 26. Felt Soul hopes to have Red Gold on DVD in late June, and a limited edition Blu-Ray DVD later in the summer. Both should be available at www.feltsoulmedia.com.
Apparently it is still not to late to support the "Red Gold" project. As Travis Rummel noted, "We are wrapping up the credit list in the next week and we could still use any support you can contribute to the effort. All donations are tax deductible and if you donate over $500 your name will appear in the credits of Red Gold, but please hurry as we are almost all wrapped up."
If you haven't yet seen the Red Gold trailer, you can watch it on MidCurrent.
The Hare's Ear nymph is one of those patterns that belongs in any trout fisher's fly box, in almost any season. The folks at The Hollywood Casting Couch demonstrate -- in a decidedly un-classic atmosphere -- the key steps in tying and finishing this useful pattern. This tying clip is from "Fly Tying: The Beginning" (The Hollywood Casting Couch, 2007, 2 hours and 35 minutes), a two-DVD set that teaches several classic patterns, including the Black-Nose Dace, Hare's Ear Nymph, Hendrickson, Caddis, and the Black Leech. As Fly Tyer editor David Klausmeyer said in his review of this DVD set: "If I were giving away awards for the best fly-tying DVDs, then 'Fly Tying: The Beginning' would walk away with the trophy for Learn While You Laugh...."
No one really expects a specialty museum in a town like Manchester, Vermont to get into the film business, much less invest a lot of time, money and effort into producing something unique. But that's just what the American Museum of Fly Fishing did when they hired Jeffrey Pill to produce "Why Fly Fishing," which in the short time it has been out has become the sleeper hit of the season.
Not only were Pill and the Museum able to convince key folks to participate, they got the story, delivery and production just right. The result is a half-hour film that actually inspires, rather than simply excites. This week we are glad to begin a series of showings of segments from "Why Fly Fishing," starting with the film's introduction, which features Flip Pallot, Joan Wulff, Diana Rudolph, John Gierach and others.
The WWW (Woven Wire Weevil) is an extension of the Jeremy Davies "Evil Weevil" pattern from Alberta Canada. With the addition of tungsten and a woven wire body, the pattern takes on a whole new look. Substituting yellow/black wire produces a convincing bee/wasp imitation, and by using a chartreuse/olive combination the fly becomes a capable caddis attractor.
Since the pattern will ride hook-up in the water, it's a super-durable bottom-bouncing fly -- perfect for any Czech nymphing and tight-line arsenal.
New on MidCurrent.
There are two reasons why "Joan Wulff's Dynamics of Fly Casting" has outsold almost every other fly fishing DVD that's been made to date: Joan Wulff and Jeffrey Pill.
Joan Wulff hardly needs an introduction. She dominated international casting competitions at a time when only men were winning medals, and she became a pre-eminent teacher of fly casting techniques. Director and producer Jeffrey Pill, on the other hand, should be a household name. His work in developing Joan's instructional video, his earlier production of "Successful Fly Fishing Strategies" (with Gary LaFontaine), and then the later "The Art of Spey Casting" set standards that few fly fishing filmmakers have approached. I suppose we should expect as much from someone who is a former senior producer of "20/20" and series producer of "In Search Of" with Leonard Nimoy. You won't find many glory shots in Jeff Pill's videos, but you know after watching them that they will be just as valuable in 50 or 100 years as they are today.
This week we're pleased to show you a biography of Wulff that Pill produced for "Dynamics." It's a cool bit of video about a remarkable woman. New on MidCurrent.
Dave Whitlock is the focus of a well-written biography in this morning's Billing's Gazette. Fortunately the writers also took time to film an interview with Whitlock and here the celebrated instructor and tier talks about fishing the Bighorn by canoe in the years before it was officially opened. The article itself is a good read too: "When he was a child, Whitlock contracted rheumatic fever and polio. The polio partially crippled him in one leg, and for a while he was confined to a wheelchair before graduating to leg braces. 'But I decided like Forrest Gump that I was going to break free of that,' he said in reference to the Tom Hanks movie about a brace-legged boy who one day runs free of the devices."
By the way, the Dave's Hopper is still a killer fly on the Bighorn in the windier, warmer days of summer.
We just got wind of a new HowardFilms project that is due to be completed this summer. We even saw a rough cut of what they are working on. "Bass: The Movie" is Jamie Howard's take on the sport (cult?) of U.S. bass fishing. From what we've seen, there are both flies and high-speed boats in the script -- an interesting assembly of images. I wonder if Howard isn't aiming to make the profane sacred again, at least from the fly fisher's point of view. These guys are known for capturing saltwater panoramas and big tarpon clamping down on little flies. Are they going to take the Mr. Bucketmouth concept back to its roots? Should be interesting, especially since fly fishing for bass is probably more popular than saltwater fly fishing, even if it is less talked about and filmed.
Want to critique the casting style of Nikki Taylor, Liam Neeson, or Les Claypool? Pick up the two-disc DVD set "Fly Fishing the World," which comes out today. You'll also go to the Bahamas with Huey Lewis, New Zealand with Henry Winkler, and Argentina with John Havlicek.
In northern climes, those of us who have been trout fishing all winter are ready to say goodbye to the midge and hello to a nice, fat mayfly. But anyone who fishes spring creeks and tailwaters will remind you that midges make up an important part of the trout's diet throughout the year.
This week on MidCurrent we add a new video for anyone wanting to add midges to their fly box, Charles Meck tying the Zebra Midge. It's one of the simplest ties there is, but in the past decade or so the Zebra Midge has proven itself in all sorts of water, in all kinds of conditions.
Respected casting instructor Jeff Putnam delivers the goods when it comes to solid video instruction on Spey techniques. But who makes an automatic connection between Spey techniques and single-handed fly rod casting? In "Single-Handed Fly Rod Casting Using Spey Casting Techniques," Putnam shows how the roll cast, switch cast, snap-t cast, and snake roll cast all fit perfectly into single-handed fishing techniques.
We've long felt that the best way to demonstrate and teach many aspects of fly fishing -- knots, casting, fly tying, even presentation -- was with video. Now that coaxial cable runs into most urban and suburban households, plenty of clever and imaginative fly fishers are taking the medium and using it to showcase their talents. We've included many of those artists in our new Fly Fishing Videos section on MidCurrent.
For a complete list of all videos on the site, just go to our Videos index page. Or if you just want a sample of some of the ground being covered, check out "Fish Bum Volume I" ((Mongolia), "Red Gold" (Bristol Bay), or "Tying a Snowshoe Trico Spinner" (fly tying). We'll be adding many more videos in coming weeks and months, so be sure to check back often.
Late last week we were treated to a copy of the new film "Why Fly Fishing" -- funded by The American Museum of Fly Fishing and created and produced by Jeffrey Pill (the former senior producer of 20/20 and creator of "Successful Fly Fishing Strategies," "The Art of Speycasting" and "Joan Wulff's Dynamics of Flycasting") -- and were frankly blown away by the quality of the production and the care with which its content was assembled. The 31-minute DVD, introduced by former FFF president and Trout Unlimited director Gardner Grant (who was a generous contributor to the project), includes the first filmed interview with John Gierach, who talks from his office ("What I like about fly fishing is its insidious nature") and catches a few fish. Joan Wulff puts the sport in perspective by explaining its essentials and instructing a young girl on casting, while Flip Pallot, Keith Fulsher, Diana Rudolph, the Revel Brothers, and James Prosek offer personal insights on how fly fishing has shaped their lives. There's also a great segment with Nick Lyons noting the places of McGuane, Gierach and other authors in the literature.
If you are looking for something to inspire you to pick up a rod and get a jump start on a new season, this DVD is it. We'd also highly recommend it as a gift for anyone who might consider fly fishing, since it offers clear, succinct insight into why so many fly fishers become enraptured with the sport. $25 of the $30 purchase price is a tax-deductible donation to the Museum. You can buy "Why Fly Fishing" from The Bookmailer.
The Angling Exploration Group starts an expanded schedule of stops in major U.S. cities this year, beginning with their visit to Patagonia headquarters in Ventura, California tonight. This year's tour will screen at over 95 venues to over thousands and thousands of fly fishers and has grown to become the biggest fly fishing film event in the country. For the complete schedule and to find the nearest showing location, check out the AEG schedule page.
Starting last Saturday, Versus begin airing the several "Chasing Silver" segments that have only been shown once on regular programming. Now every Saturday through February 16th you can watch the series at 1:30PM EST.
The folks who brought you The Offbeat Angler (see our excerpt) continue their tradition of out-of-the-ordinary fishing exploits with this video, which takes a bored office worker to fish the magical mulberry hatch for inner-city carp.
After falling victim to some last-minute schedule adjustments by Versus this fall, Howard Films's latest installments of "Chasing Silver" will finally air two days before Christmas. The final two episodes will appear back-to-back, at 2:00 and 2:30 PM. From what Howard told us, these segments will be true "reality" pieces: "The program will feature the toughest conditions we ever had to face -- a season of cold fronts and prevailing winds and an early migration."
Tightline Productions has just released a new DVD set on building graphite rods that is one of the more interesting instructional videos of the year. In it, Russ Gooding, a recognized master of classic bamboo rod building, takes his cane rod aesthetic and applies it to the modern graphite blank. There is a ton of great instruction here -- 213 minutes total on two DVDs -- as Gooding takes viewers from A-Z, starting with the differences between approaches to classic vs. high-tech materials and taking aspiring builders step-by-step through the process of building a 7'6" 4-weight rod. Gooding is an engaging and intelligent instructor, and the video work is top notch. If you are looking for a way to spend a few very enjoyable hours over the holidays, or just want a little rod-building inspiration, "The Graphite Rod" is a great choice. You can buy it directly from Tightline Productions by calling 800-338-9052. We understand that it will also be available next week on Amazon.
The folks who brought us the Trout Bum Diaries I & II and the concept of a fly fishing film tour have launched a smartly designed new Web site to promote their stuff. AegMedia.com hosts three blogs and a handy index to the many podcasts AEG has produced recently.
We've got our hands on this new DVD and hope to review it soon, but we were impressed by the amount of expert information communicated in the short segment we've already watched. Janet Urquhart writes about the new film in The Aspen Times: "Seattle-based filmmaker Eric Rafoth has produced 'Fly Fishing 411,' capturing five fishing guides as they work sections of the Roaring Fork and Fryingpan rivers in a 27-minute instructional DVD that is now available through amazon.com."
"Fly Fishing 411
Think you've seen the worst? Jimmy Kimmel -- who must be a fly fisher to have scripted the subtleties here -- produced this skit lampooning fly shop service. If this reminds you of your last visit to your local rod and feather merchant, you might want to consider shopping in the next county over. (Warning: Adult humor here.)
If you are just getting into fly fishing now, you might think that we're all a bunch of handycam-toting, YouTube-surfing Emmy-award-winner wannabes. There's little doubt that digital media has moved the focus from away from still images -- just ask the folks who have been making a quasi-living selling fly fishing photos.
But it wasn't always that way. Twenty years ago you couldn't find a film that touched the subject of fly fishing for tarpon. Scientific Anglers tried to remedy that with their "Challenge of Giant Tarpon" series in the late 1980s. But to be honest, the techniques it portrayed seem dated now, and Billy Pate's fanaticism has spread to thousands of anglers, all with different opinions about how to best big tarpon. The sport has matured, and we look wistfully at ninth-generation copies of "Tarpon" -- the Key West film funded by Guy de la Valdene that never made it to market -- and wish someone could translate that magic into a modern setting. The best we have, for that purpose, is Jamie Howard, who is succeeding in finding new ways to capture the essence of the sport.
This week on MidCurrent, David Dalu, who won last spring's Don Hawley Tarpon Tournament in Islamorada, reviews Howard's new "Location X."
We see a fair number of fly fishing videos each month, and after a while we become a little numb to the endless repetition of cast-hook-shout-and-release segments that pass before our eyes. This month was different though, because we had a chance to see a master angler talk about fishing a river in a way that made you realize his is far from a momentary infatuation. In reality, Craig Mathews has been fishing the Madison — month in and month out — for far longer than many of us have been fly fishing. Perhaps that helps explain the notion I got as I listened to the narration that Mathews sounds a lot like the river, or at least like a person who has spent a long time in conversation with it.
Read the MidCurrent review of "Fly Fishing the Madison River with Craig Mathews."
Felt Soul Media's Travis Rummel and Ben Knight are keeping a journal on their newest project, a documentary about the proposed Pebble Mine project in southwest Alaska, near Lake Iliamna. Tons of excellent photography and fine writing here, as might be expected from the filmmakers who produced "The Hatch" and did the shooting (I think) for "Running Down the Man."
Introduced at ICAST in Las Vegas last week, Costa Del Mar's "Channel C" hosts a variety of outdoors films that cover everything from surfing in the Galapagos to Nile crocodiles to Rick Murphy tarpon fishing in the Florida Keys. Of course Costa wants the wider audience, so you'll find only nominal amount of fly fishing here, but I have to say the platform looks nice. Check out the Trout Unlimited video in the Conservation tab for a little inspiration. Also check out the 1946 footage of lift-pole tuna fishing off of the Galapagos, in the years before long-lining became the commercial fisherman's dream.
Pro snowboarder Mike Wier became a movie maker when he realized that fly fishing didn't have films that approached the quality and excitement that snowboarding movies did. Scott Thomas Anderson profiles Wier and notes that there is more to Wier's movitivation than simply trying to make cool videos. "'I only do catch-and-release fishing, both in my movies and as a tour guide. There's an incredible diversity of life in these remote places, which is being threatened now, and over-fishing in general is going to be a factor that affects the world in the coming decades.'" In the Amador, California Ledger-Dispatch.
18 cities through its national tour, the Fly Fishing Film Tour rolls into two Florida locations this coming week. The first is in Tampa, at Bill Jackson's Outdoors, 9501 19 North Pinellas Park on April 10 at 7:30 PM. Then the show to the IGFA in Dania Beach (300 Gulf Stream Way) at 7:30 on the 12th. Tickets are $12 and can be purchased at the door or from a local fly fishing retailer. Sponsors, including Patagonia, Costa Del Mar, Sage and Reel Pure, are giving away some cool stuff at the shows.
Films included in the show are Jamie Howard's "Chasing Silver," the rollicking "Run Down the Man" from Felt Sole Media, and the Angling Exploration Group's latest, "Trout Bum Diaries: Volume II." We've seen them all, and if you haven't had a taste of what "new media" is doing for fly fishing, this is worth a drive. More information can be found on the Tour's Web site.
If you missed the first airing of HowardFilms's "Location X," a film about fishing a red-hot secret tarpon spot, you can catch it again this Wednesday night at 9PM on Versus. Here's what the new press release says about the film:
"CHASING SILVER: LOCATION X on the Versus Network, March 21, 2007 at 9pm EST
How do you follow up the award-winning mini-series that's garnered popularity at home and abroad? Well, we weren't sure ourselves. So, we spent many months researching the world's fisheries for a sequel.
Chasing Silver: Location X (a one-hour film) is the culmination of that work. 'LX' as we've come to call it, was an angling expedition that involved some faith on the angler's part (Where am I going and why?) and some faith on our part (Where are we going and why?!) We selected three anglers from the southernmost, easternmost and westernmost points in North America and flew them to our tarpon grounds. And we all hoped this tarpon Shangri-la would really have tarpon that ate close and often. (They did!) And as always, when fly rod and tarpon meet -- it was pure mayhem."
By the way, you can now place an advance order for the "Location X" DVD, which is due to go on sale in June, over on the HowardFilms Web site.
As we mentioned back in December ("Angling Exploration Group Back with New Film Tour") the team who produced "Trout Bum Diaries: Vol. 1" is launching a Fly Fishing Film Tour that starts at the Patagonia world headquarters in Ventura, California on Friday (January 12). One thing these guys are not is boring, so if you are near any of the 25 cities where the tour lands and need an adrenaline boost, check out their screenings of some of the best new fly fishing cinematography going.
"A newly minted DVD by Colorado Springs angler Landon Mayer performs swimmingly on both counts. Titled 'Landing the Trout of Your Life,' the 70-minute production features Mayer and noted Boulder fly designer John Barr in spectacular fish-catching sequences." From the Denver Post.
The talented bunch who produced "Trout Bum Diaries: Vol. 1" are highlighting the presentation of their next film, "The Trout Bum Diaries, Kiwi Camo," with a U.S. winter tour that includes screenings of new films from most of the top fly fishing filmmakers. The Fly Fishing Film Tour will happen in 30 U.S. cities, beginning at the Patagonia world headquarters in Ventura, California on January 12 and ending in Anchorage, Alaska at the Performing Arts Center on March 23rd, 2007. They're giving away a ton of stuff to folks who appear at the screenings. You can read more about the tour at the tour Web site. (Read our review of "Trout Bum Diaries: Vol. 1" here.)
The Charlottesville Daily Progress hosts a video -- or actually a series of stills in a multimedia presentation -- about a recent Project Healing Waters visit by 8 wounded vets to the Rose River Farm in Madison, Virginia. Some very pretty water here, and a chance to hear from a vet about what learning to fly fish and tie flies means to someone going through physical therapy. You can read more about Rose River Farm on their Web site.
Sporting Fly Productions is coming out with a new high-definition Kenai River fly fishing video this week. Hosted by Dave Long, the video focuses on the Kenai's giant rainbows. The Kenai film will be followed by the second volume in the series, a DVD about the Fremont River in Utah, due to be released at the end of December. Both of these DVDs will be available online for $29.95 at www.sportingfly.com.
The U.K.'s Sunday Times excerpts another portion of Charles Rangeley-Wilson's dialogue from the new BBC series "The Accidental Angler,' this from Bhutan: "When trout were brought here from Kashmir, they were seeded into streams in the west of the country and only gradually taken east, finally as far as the Tang Chu, a remote and sacred river that is also the best trout stream in Bhutan."
Howard Films let us know yesterday that their new film on fly fishing for tarpon will air on Versus/OLN on December 1st at 7PM and 11PM EST (8PM Pacific), not November 16 as previously reported. Apparently the network is pretty excited about the film and wants more time to promote it.
On the heels of their announcement that "Location X" is coming to TV (November 16 at 7 PM on Versus), Howard Films has released "Chasing Silver" on DVD. "Chasing Silver" video segments were serialized and shown on OLN (now Versus) last spring and got a reception that surprised the ratings wonks, and the quality of Jamie Howard's cinematography is surely the reason. As Jim Bartschi, president of Scott Fishing Rods commented, "The bar has been officially raised for fishing entertainment."
Jamie Howard, the filmmaker behind "In Search of a Rising Tide" and "Chasing Silver," is finishing up work on his new film about fly fishing for tarpon. "Location X" airs on Versus (formerly OLN) on November 16 at 7 PM. All we know about the film so far is that it features a secret location where a couple of lucky anglers fish for a large population of aggressive tarpon. Should be worth putting this one on the calendar.