Ed Engle says the time is now if you want to hit the peak of the Mother's Day caddis hatch on the Arkansas and nearby rivers. "The key has always been that you want to get the higher water temperatures that will stimulate the hatch before you get the brunt of the runoff which raises, cools and dirties the water. It was beginning to look like we were going to have relatively clear water, but it was too cold for the hatch and by the time it warmed, the river would be high and muddy." In the Boulder Daily Camera.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 4:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As I was explaining tarpon behavior to Patagonia fishing product designer Steve Straqualersi earlier this week, it occurred to me that a hooked tarpon behaves very much like a certain presidential candidate. "Give a tarpon any amount of leeway," I suggested, "and they will fight forever. You need to fight them from the moment you get them on the reel, and make them think they don't have a chance."

Sue Cocking's recent experience with a large Key West tarpon had her wishing she had picked a less experienced fish. "For the next 20 minutes, the wicked fish alternately charged away on after-burner, or turned and aimed itself like a torpedo at the boat. A couple of times, it surfaced briefly to gulp air, but it never jumped again. 'Something tells me this fish has been down this road before,' I puffed to [Captain Tom] Pierce." In the Miami Herald.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:18 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Tom Pierce started guiding in Key West back when wire was the preferred material for tarpon shock tippets. His experimentation with knots for dissimilar lines led to many improvements in leaders, not the least of which was the Slim Beauty knot. And he's one of the most mentioned captains in the IGFA world record book. Through it all Tom has remained one of those guides that never boasts, never says an unkind word about a client, and would rather be fishing than doing anything else. The Miami Herald's Susan Cocking describes an example of the complex leaders that Tom has perfected over the years for catching large, fast, or toothy fish on fly rods. "The fly line was connected to a 12-inch butt section of 30-pound mono, which was fastened to a six-inch section of thin shock gum, which stretches like parachute cord. There followed another small butt section with a loop to connect to the two-pound, tournament-grade tippet which was fastened to a flexible wire-trace bite tippet. It seemed to me you could launch a fly shop with just what was on my rod."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

There are some situations where the only way to offer a drag-free presentation to trout is with a downstream drift. Deep, unwadable pools and runs with complex currents are examples. Morgan Lyle looks at the technique of fishing dry flies downstream, and though the idea is nothing new, he does suggest several reasons why those stuck on "up-and-across" presentations ought to consider a downstream drift. "When casting upstream, the fly starts coming back to you the moment it alights on the water. If your best cast is 50 feet, that's all the water you can cover. Downstream, on the other hand, you could theoretically let your fly drift for the combined length of your line and backing, although you'd have a devil of a time detecting the strike and setting the hook 500 feet away." On DailyGazette.com.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:23 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Trout are a lot more interesting than bugs." That's the launching point for Rosenbauer's excellent new podcast on reading trout water on the Orvis Web site. Rosenbauer has, of course, written extensively on the subject, but hearing him explain stream dynamics really brings the subject to life. Not to mention the fact that, if you prefer, you can download the the audio and listen to it on your iPod.

Here's a sample from the new podcast: "People have found that trout prefer to lie in water that's moving at about one foot per second. That's comfortable for them -- they're able to maintain their position -- and they won't exhaust themselves. And then they like to feed in water that's a little bit faster, because obviously the faster the water the more food that goes by their mouth. You may wonder Well, how do I find out how fast the water is moving? One of the ways you can do this is to put a yardstick down on the table and move your finger and count one thousand and one, one thousand and two, etc. and see how fast your finger moves when it travels one foot per second."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:27 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

Faced with the highest spring waters they've seen in years, many anglers in the U.S. will be floating rivers rather than wading this spring. Arkansas guide John Berry has some excellent tips on etiquette at the ramp and on the river, our favorite being "Just because you like Toby Keith [music] does not mean that everyone else does." In the Baxter Bulletin.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:26 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Runoff. No matter where you live, if you fly fish for trout that word conjures images of swollen rivers and unexpected challenges. And since big water is right around the corner for many of us, this is a great time to remind ourselves of safe wading practices.

This week on MidCurrent Dick Galland lists thirteen key bits of advice for wading safely and effectively, among them: "A wader belt is as important as a seatbelt," and "Don't die for your tackle."

Lean into the current. Always plant your staff upstream of your body, leaning into the current. Should you begin to lose your balance, the current will push you upright rather than downstream.

Keep your body sideways to the current. Facing directly upstream or down exposes you to the full force of the water and makes it difficult to maintain your balance.

Read more...

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:59 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Way back in 1987 (even before the advent of Tarpon Wear and before anyone knew what an Abel or Tibor was) Nelson Bryant recorded his observations on the "not-very-popular" sport of saltwater fly fishing in The New York Times. "Any decent fiberglass, graphite or graphite-boron fly rod capable of handling a No. 9 or No. 10 line is suitable for blues and stripers. The reel for these species need not be a costly custom-made job, but it should have room for at least 150 yards of backing plus the fly line. The venerable Model 1498 Pfleuger will do the job, as will the Martin Reel Company's new and similarly-inexpensive MG-9 reel. The Martin reel has an excellent drag and will hold a 10-weight line and 300 yards of 18-pound test dacron backing."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"'It works on little streams. It works on big streams,' [Skip] Morris said. 'Anywhere you have moving water or even still water, a nymph can be effective. Eighty percent of the time, if you really want to have great fishing, you need to fish a nymph.'” So said the Washington state author and fly tier at the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission auditorium last Monday. Bryan Hendricks on NWANews.com.

Morris's latest book is Morris on Tying Flies (Frank Amato Publications, June 2006, 112 pages).

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"At times like this, it pays to consider the nature of the rivers themselves. I have learned that different rivers turn on at different times in the spring. It could be that the Big Thompson will give up a few midge hatches, but there won't be any trout rising to them and they might even be unsettled about taking the pupa below the surface." Ed Engle suggests throwing aside old habits and paying attention to what the fish are doing this year. And it doesn't hurt to have a local who can keep you tuned in to the daily changes in activity. In the Boulder Daily Camera.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Bonefish & Tarpon Unlimited, an organization devoted to ensuring healthy populations of bonefish and tarpon, just released a new guide to handling and releasing bonefish. An excellent read for anyone new to the sport, the guide contains one bit of advice that may surprise those accustomed to using mechanical lip-gripping devices: don't. As the guide says, "If lip gripping devices are used, it's best to use them only to restrain a calm fish in the water while removing a hook; if the fish's weight is desired, cradle the bonefish in a sling and suspend the sling from the device.

You can download the new guide from the BTU Web site.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"In his later years, my grandfather often looked on as I fished there, pointing out the birds, whose Latin names he knew well but whom he referred to only by first name -- and that name was always Charlie. Whenever I hooked a fish, he exclaimed, 'Oh, by golly!' which was his way of commenting favorably on the universe.'" In The New York Times, Peter Kaminsky writes about the wonders of bass fishing on golf course ponds and lakes.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

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.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:50 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

More fly fishers are heading out in the last weeks of winter to fish tailwaters, perhaps encouraged by the absence of manic crowds, and the fact that the best fishing of the day happens either side of lunch. And while big fish are to be found feeding on midges, frigid conditions also require more observation of trout locations and feeding patterns, as Roger Wheaton notes in "Time for Tailwaters." "Learning to position yourself properly once you’ve discovered a feeding trout is essential. Lethargic winter trout are focused on conserving their energy and won’t move far to intercept your offering. Precise casts are required. My preference is to position myself to the side and slightly upstream as close to the quarry as possible. Try to minimize glare so that you can follow the fly and watch the trout’s reaction at the same time."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

A new interview in American Angler magazine with Jan Isley reminded me of the first moment of awe I felt when fishing on saltwater flats. Like Jan, I was mesmerized by the ferocity of a barracuda swimming and feeding in a foot of water. Gordon Lewis tangles with a big one on Fosters.com. "Off on a blistering run the fish goes as I sneak a peek to ensure that my line is not about to run out as the barracuda is doing his best to spool me. As I'm trying to stem his retreat I see the line streak skyward followed by the gleaming silvery green form of my fish rocketing out of the water."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Throwing a fly at a pod of steadily rising trout seems like such a easy proposition. The fish are happy, the target is big, and if one fish doesn't bite there's another fish waiting in line to commit. But if you've fished pods on rivers like Montana's Upper Missouri, where the number of targets is often not an issue, you know that getting a fish out of a big bunch -- even if they are actively feeding -- is harder than it looks.

This week on MidCurrent George Anderson, one of the masters of making difficult fish eat a fly, offers 14 key bits of advice for "Fishing Pods."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Arkansas guide John Berry was first turned on to soft hackles by author and tier Sylvester Nemes, whom he happened upon in West Yellowstone pizza joint. He offers some commentary on their use in this morning's Baxter Bulletin.
"The soft hackle is most effective when used as a searching pattern. Use it to cover large sections of water, when you do not know exactly where the trout are. I look for broken water, particularly below rapids. I face downstream and cast downstream to the right at a 45-degree angle to the bank. As soon as the fly hits the water, I strip it back a foot or so to sink the fly into the film. I keep my rod tip low to the water and track it as it swings in the current."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

The deadly effectiveness of centrepin fishing tells us much about the importance of a drag-free drift. "In fly-fishing, if we can get 10 feet of drag-free drift, we're delighted. With a centerpin system, I've often let a lure run drag-free for 100 feet before stopping it, and in some rivers I could have let it go until I ran out of line. The long rod serves three purposes: It keeps the line off the surface, lets the angler use very light line (usually four- to six-pound test) for big fish that might be line shy and allows the use of terminal rigs with the float 10-12 feet above the lure." Eric Sharp in the Detroit Free Press.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ed Engle spends some time nymphing a long way from home (Long Island) and asks the question Is it better to throw big weight or to high-stick your way to success? This article includes the clearest explanation of European nymphing techniques that I have read.

"What most of these nymphing tactics have in common is that three (or sometimes more) very heavy, larger nymph imitations are rigged on six to twelve inch droppers from an untapered 3X or 4X nine-foot leader. When I say heavy I mean really heavy -- figure three or four times heavier than the heaviest weighted nymph of the same size you have in your fly box. The nymphs are specifically tied to be streamlined so they won't foul on the bottom." In the Boulder Daily Camera.

You can read more of Engle's thoughts on nymphing in "Small-Fly Freestyle Nymphing" on MidCurrent.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:11 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Ed Jaworowski -- a full-time classics professor and author of many articles and books on fly casting -- notes that good casting technique can be learned, especially if you remember a few key principles. Morgan Lyle offers a layman's interpretation of Jaworowski's instruction on DailyGazette.com. "The line can only go in the direction the tip is moving when it stops. Does your cast pile up on the water, short of the target? You may be stopping with your rod tip pointing slightly downward, and not even realize it."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:37 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Before you conclude that there's yet one more essential cast to learn, check out the photo accompanying this piece on the Kentuckiana Fly Fishing Show. Elbow pads, anyone? In truth, we've fished a few streams where this skill might come in handy.

You can read some excellent casting tips from Macauley on MidCurrent:

The Elements of Style
Beyond Competence, Part I
Beyond Competence, Part II

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:31 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Among the highlights of Bill Graves's billfish adventure was saving a large green turtle from death-by-longliner. "If and when a sailfish does appear, it’s the first mate’s job to keep pulling the teaser away from him, enraging the fish into more violent attacks. Once the teaser of interest is within casting range, the mate jerks it away and the angler casts an 8/0 fly about the size of a robin into the path of the hot sailfish." In the Bangor (Maine) Daily News.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Somehow the advice of an angler who earned money for his first fly fishing outfit by ferreting (catching rabbits with a ferret) carries more import. Welsh angler Moc Morgan recounts observations made while practicing for the world championships in Poland, where he had a chance to watch teams from various nations fish to the same trout. Turns out fishing down-sun wasn't making the difference, but fishing the "blur area" was. "I watched closely and realised the fish were only taking flies in one particular section of the river and I remembered reading once of something called 'the blur area' – that is the area between maximum glare and clear vision." From IcWales.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Among the odder target species for saltwater fly fishers, a sheepshead may be just about as hard to get to eat a fly as a permit. Given that they are so plentiful and love shallow water, though, they appeal to sight-casters looking for a good challenge. An article in the southwest Florida Herald Tribune describes the techniques used by Sarasota guide Any Cappar. "It's not a game to play if you just want to catch a few fish. In fact, fly-fishing for sheepshead isn't a game played by many at all. Sheepshead are crustacean eaters that are rarely fooled by artificials."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"That's what carp stories do to fishermen. They weigh on them for so long before driving the angler to confess every last detail of landing one. They're like a really bad blind date." Ed Zieralski says fishing for carp, and especially fly fishing for carp, makes you a real stand-up guy. In the San Diego Union-Tribune.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"You should learn the roll cast first. With, say, 50-feet of fly-line-belly, fly-line-taper and leader to a nicely decked out fly, give this a try. Start facing downstream and let the line flow down so the fly is fully extended in a straight line from the rod tip. This position, all Spey addicts know as the 'dangle', a term coined by the Simon Gawesworth, one guru of current Spey casting." Canadian writer D. C. Reid gives advice on learning to Spey cast, and suggests the order of learning, from roll cast to Snake Roll, Snap T, Circle C, Overhead and Perry Poke. In the Times Colonist.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:21 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"My clients frequently ask how a fish can see and be caught by such a small fly. You have to consider a full-grown man eating M&Ms. They are small in relation to his total body size but he eats several of them at a single setting. Midges are the most available food source at certain times and the fish eat a lot of them." Arkansas guide John Berry suggests a few different techniques for feeding trout one of their favorite wintertime foods. In the Baxter Bulletin.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Veteran steelhead guide John Nagy is releasing an expanded and updated edition of his Steelhead Guide: Flyfishing Techniques and Strategies for Lake Erie Steelhead (Great Lakes Publishing, December 2007, 320 pages). The 4th edition has 119 new and innovative steelhead fly patterns contributed by guides, fly tiers and steelhead fly fisherman from all over the Lake Erie region -- 44 tiers in all. Deborah Weisberg writes about the upcoming book and a couple of the hot patterns from the book's "Deadly Dozen," including Greg Senyo's Wiggle Stone, in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. "The Wiggle Stone is patterned after the stonefly nymph that abounds on Great Lakes tributaries, and gets its lifelike movement from its jointed construction. 'Stoneflies cling or crawl; they don't swim. When dislodged from rocks, they move frantically, trying to find something to grab onto,' said Senyo, whose Jag Fly Co. employs tiers in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Michigan."

You can pre-order a copy of Nagy's new book from his Web site.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:28 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The first thing I do is change flies. Try a different size of the same pattern. Try a different pattern. If you are fishing small nymphs, try a huge San Juan worm. If the tiny Adams fails, try a Dave's hopper. Mix it up." Arkansas guide John Berry offers a few bits of advice about coping with difficult fish and difficult conditions. In the Baxter Bulletin.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Guide Ray Travis talks about a variety of tactics for effectively fishing the fall steelhead run in Lake Erie tributaries. He covers water flow and prospecting, using the proper amount of weight, and even gear and tippet selection: "'I always use the lightest tippet fish will let me get away with,' says Travis, who usually fishes a 10-foot, 6-weight rod. 'I use 3X and 4X [tippet] a lot. It's a rarity when I have to go to 5X. If the fish are there and they look at the pattern, but [there are] no takes, I'll drop down in my tippet and maybe drop down a fly size, too.'" Deborah Weisberg in the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Included in Joe Zentner's article on bonefish fundamentals in All At Sea magazine is some clever advice on how hard to set the hook on these explosive fish: "... just enough to pull it from a blade of grass should it be caught." "The fly-fishing drill goes thus: you stand on a small deck at the bow of a skiff while your guide poles the craft across the flats, where the water may be from six feet maximum to six inches deep. You’ve stripped off 20 or more feet of line, which is lying in loose coils at your feet, and you’re holding the rod in your casting hand and the fly in the other. When your guide spots a group of bonefish working their way across the flats, he points them out to you."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

It's spooky how effective dropper flies and tandem rigs are for catching trout. Even many experts who slammed the technique for not being "classic" fly fishing (the ghost of Frederick Halford moans in the distance) have come to appreciate its effectiveness.

But there are many more ways to design effective tandem rigs than the simple dry-and-nymph combination. In his new book Tandem Fishing Flies, Charles Meck explores the many different non-traditional setups for dropper flies, among them rigs that employ two dries, multiple nymphs and -- the latest in trout candy -- sunken spinners. This week we excerpt Meck's new book on MidCurrent.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:44 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Charlie Meyers notes that whitefish aren't the only fish that don't jump: take a look at bonefish. "Find a good whitefish hole, tie on a nymph with an egg pattern dropper beneath an indicator and wait for the fun to begin. There can be no better way to introduce a youngster to the sport. The fact that whiteys continue to bite throughout the winter wherever there's open water adds to their charm." In the Denver Post.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:40 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

With baetis hatches beginning to wane in most parts of the northern hemisphere and midges becoming the food of choice as cold weather truly grabs hold, it's probably worth brushing up on some bug science. Check out TroutNut.com's pages on baetidae, or blue-winged olives, and chironomidae, or midges. Or skip past the science and heed Neuswanger's advice: "The number of genera and species is hopelessly huge for angler entomologists to ever learn, and the identifing characteristics often require slide-mounting tiny parts under high-powered microscopes. Even the most Latin-minded fisherman must slip back to the basics--size and color--to describe his local midge hatches."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Brave man that he is, Field & Stream's Kirk Deeter suggests that "playing a bass usually involves about as much action and drama as the Spinks-Tyson fight did in 1988. Jump, shake, fall down."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:25 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"Fly-fishing means eliminating all the variables — what fly you choose, what cast you make, how you approach — until you solve the single, irreducible event that is happening in front of you: the head of a trout taking a mayfly from the water’s surface. For me there are no variables left. I am no longer up to problem-solving. The cold has reduced me to a single hypothesis, which the trout are now rejecting." In The New York Times, Verlyn Klinkenborg decides that becoming "one with the fish" is not the only reason to cast flies. (Thanks to reader John DeVault for this liink.)

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Veteran Arkansas fly fishing guide John Berry lists the errors he encounters most often when helping anglers cast to and hook trout. The thing that tops his list: fly fishers who seem to think that the more line they cast, the better. "This is my pet peeve. I see fly-fishers fighting their line all day to try and consistently cast 50 or more feet. I find that they are usually going past feeding fish to reach sterile water. With that much line out they can't see or detect strikes. In addition, they have difficulty setting the hook. If they should hook a fish, they begin the fight with 50 feet of line out and if the trout takes a 35-foot run they are already in the backing." In the Baxter Bulletin.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:39 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Charlie Meyers's summary of the lessons demonstrated by the winners of this past week's U.S. National Fly Fishing Championships includes an astute observation from the winner: "For every public-water fisherman who finds himself hemmed in by angling pressure, the advice of gold medalist George Daniel of Lock Haven, Pa., might be equally precious. 'It's all about time management and strategy' Daniel asserted. 'I try to figure out how to fish the water completely without having to go through it twice, to get the most out of it on that first pass.'" In the Denver Post.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, from this research we can take: limp fly lines tangle more, as do fly lines that are not confined to small spaces. Further, we may even predict that the next generation of stripping baskets will involve coiling line. "Two physicists used string-tumbling experiments and mathematical models to create a step-by-step recipe for knot formation and determined which factors cause the knottiest knots. Their research, published online this week by the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, sheds light on an everyday phenomenon about which little was known beyond the madness it incites." Jeanna Bryner of LiveScience.com.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As Gary Lewis points out, it's not just about cast, swing and take two steps downstream. Here are several tips he's learned from watching expert steelhead anglers who seem to always beat the odds. "Depth, distance, leader length, knot and fly. They're all important, but not nearly as important as delivery. Here's where it all comes together, or falls apart. Make that downstream cast, throw the quick upstream mend and then let it swing. Don't shuffle your feet, don't lower or raise the rod. You'll telegraph to the fly and the fish." In the Eugene, Oregon Register-Guard.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:24 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As an example of how the situation and not the fish determines gear choice for some fly fishers, Casey Cox goes after an eleven-pound fish with a 15-weight, trying to break the Texas state red snapper record. Even the hook is carefully considered: "It's basically a super fine wire circle hook with a very long shank that makes it easier to tie material to. It doesn't take much force to get a good hook set with this hook, and that's important when you have 90 feet of line out." Ray Sasser in the Dallas Morning News.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:56 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"It's like a very hungry person sitting at a table in front of two platters, one mounded with raw celery and carrot sticks and broccoli heads and the other with shelled Maine shrimp accompanied with melted butter. Even though the veggie pieces are much larger, most of us would start on the high-protein shrimp to satisfy our hunger and pop them into our mouth one at a time, each morsel dripping with butter." Ken Allen explains why the superabundance of tiny bugs during a blue-winged olive hatch makes trout key in on the small but nourishing flies. In the Kennebec Journal.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"Here the problem is that you often see the trout approaching. The idea is to patiently wait until the trout rises and actually takes the fly, closes its mouth and begins its return to the bottom. I call this the longest second in fly fishing. The tendency is to give in to the adrenaline kicking in and set the hook as soon as you see the fish." Guide John Berry lists the four different ways hook setting can be done wrong: not setting the hook at all, setting the hook too late, setting the hook too quickly, or setting the hook too hard. In Arkansas's Baxter Bulletin.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 8:09 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In response to a question about why it took Joe Brooks 42 minutes to land his world record 29-pound striper and three-and-a-half hours to land a 65-pound tarpon, Lefty Kreh delivers a short but interesting history lesson on Dan Blanton's bulletin board: "Anyone who has fought big saltwater fish with bamboo knows that it really deforms the rods, putting a serious curve in them. To straighten the rod we would attach it for a few days to a warm pipe that fed steam to a radiator used to heat our home. This is one reason that Joe took so long. Bamboo taught you not to place too much strain on the rod when fighting a fish. When fiberglass came along Joe at first applied this fighting technique to what he always knew."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:07 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

As the final installment of MidCurrent's essential fly fishing tips, we've collected 42 Fly Fishing Strategy Tips. They cover fly selection, approach, presentation, and landing and releasing fish, and we hope you'll find an example or two of clear thinking about common challenges.

To get you started:

Size Matters When choosing trout flies, the relative importance of fly characteristics in your selection, in order, should be: size, shape, color, and action (for stripped flies). In saltwater, action is often more important than exact size and shape.

Dropper Flies or Tandem Rigs Dropper flies are a trout angler's secret weapon. A simple dropper rig can be made by tying a small nymph onto 14-18 inches of tippet material tied to the bend of a dry fly. If the trout takes the nymph, the dry fly serves as your indicator. Nymphs can also be tied in tandem, enabling you to find out which nymph is working better.

(If you haven't read our other tips, you can find them here: Fly Fishing Gear Tips and Fly Casting Tips.)

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:42 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Arkansas guide John Berry discovered that the same techniques used for drag-free nymph presentations are surprisingly effective for fishing dry flies of all sizes. "You make an effective presentation by just flicking the fly up stream for a soft landing. Since there is nothing touching the water except the fly it is easy to achieve a perfect drag-free drift. With this method, you can easily deal with complex currents. The shorter line enhances line control because you can easily set the hook at any part of the drift since there is no slack in the line." In the Baxter Bulletin.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:52 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The best part about brook trout creeping has been the departure from commerce. There are no guides working the high-and-brushy, no fly shops. There are no fishing tournaments, no book signings or seminars, no angling celebrities with funny hats and sponsor patches quoting into video cams." Ed Dentry writes about what makes the hunt for brook trout in streams no wider than a shower stall so maddeningly addictive. In The Denver Post.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:00 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I saw a thousand permit caught on live crabs before ever throwing a fly to one. Does it help? Yep. Andrew Steketee confirms the teaching value of fishing with bait in part three of his series on young Keys guides on Gillraker "I even muster the humility to inform Eric of my newfound respect for spin and bait fisherman, to which he responds: 'The best fly-fishermen I know still throw plugs and bait, because it teaches them hundreds of unseen variables. I’ll never tell a client, or myself, that we can’t learn more. Most fly-fisherman who step foot in my boat are horrible anglers, because they’re close-minded. My job is to correct that.'”

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:38 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The first thing is small hooks require small tippets. The weakest link in your tackle is not the small tippet but the knots in the tippet. Carefully form your knots and lubricate them with water before pulling them tight. Test them to ensure that they will hold." Guide John Berry offers four or five good tips on equipping yourself properly to fish for big fish with small flies in the Baxter [Arkansas] Bulletin.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:32 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

We get our casting knowledge from a variety of sources -- friends, guides, videos, books and magazines, and Web sites -- and it doesn't always fit together neatly. No one is whispering in our ear as we practice, typically, and telling us that knowing the roll-cast pickup is more important than learning to haul. Here are 28 simple tips to help you cast more accurately, farther, and with better results once your fly hits the water. Read "Fly Casting Tips" on MidCurrent.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I remember the first time I saw someone -- in this case one of the great trout fisherman of our time -- use a stomach pump on a trout. My reaction, if I remember correctly, was to swallow the word 'gross' as it started out of my mouth. Somehow it grated against my sensibilities, and it still does a little. But there's no question that, short of killing a fish, using a stomach pump is the only foolproof way to find out what a trout is eating. John Berry describes the right technique in Arkansas's Baxter Bulletin: "To pump the fish's stomach, I fill the pump by inserting the tube in the water and squeezing the rubber bulb. Then, while securely holding the fish, I gently insert the tube down the fish's throat as far as I can. I take particular care not to injure the fish during this process. I gently squeeze the rubber bulb, forcing the water into the fish's stomach. Then I gently remove the tube from the fish. The suction created by the pump extracts the stomach contents."

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Boating magazine interviewed me a couple of weeks ago for their FishBoat blog and released the podcast this morning. The interviewer wanted to know about techniques for fishing for heavily pressured fish and the resulting 4 minutes of talking on my part includes some very general tips about how to get difficult fish to eat. You can hear the streaming podcast on the FishBoatMag site, or download it from this link (3.9MB).

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:48 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

There's some pretty interesting work being done on fish vision by Andrij Horodysky, a PhD. candidate at the Virginia Institute of Marine Science. Horodysky is studying not only the affects of different light conditions on fish's ability to see potential prey, but on how various combinations of color stimulate feeding behavior. For example, striped bass see and respond differently during bright daylight hours than they do at night. "His studies of striped bass found that during the day they need light and shallow, clear water. They can see blue, chartreuse (green-yellow) and even some red. At night, striped bass become 100 times more light sensitive and adjust their eyes to diminish the amount of red colors absorbed, which means they focus more on the blues and greens." Horodsky also happens to be a contract fly tier for Umpqua. Norm Wood in the Hampton Roads, Virginia Daily Press.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:04 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

In the New York Times, Harry Hurt gives an honest assessment of his fit with the sport of fly fishing. In spite of the deluge of information brought forth at Orvis's Millbrook campus, even a 10-foot cast is Sisyphean: "Unfortunately, I was too clumsy to tie a basic clinch knot, much less a barrel knot, a perfection loop, or a loop-to-loop connection. I was even worse at basic casting. The trick was to move the rod back and forth with your forearm and a couple of flicks of your wrist without adding bicep or shoulder thrust. When done properly, your fishing line shot out on the water in a straight line about 10 yards long." (Thanks to reader John DeVault for this link.)

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 7:36 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

The stars finally align for Bob Gwidz, fishing the hex hatch late one evening on Michigan's Pere Marquette. "It was a steelhead, the biggest rainbow trout that I'd ever taken (by far) on a dry fly. An armchair fish biologist would have dubbed it a Skamania (summer-run), as it was as sleek as a torpedo and shiny as a freshly minted coin." On MLive.com.

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

In an article about anglers' odd obsessions in London's Times Online, author Brian Clarke explains how his research for his book The Trout and the Fly led him to discover the reason that surface insects are easily visible to trout at night. "We had our answer at once. It was that wherever part of a fly — feet, body, wings — touched the surface tension, they dented it slightly. This distortion, when viewed from below, acted rather like a lens — it gathered and concentrated any light remaining in the night sky. The result was that, from the position of a trout looking up, each fly on the surface was brightly outlined against the darkness all about it."

The Trout and the Fly on Amazon.

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

Eventually -- if we aren't lucky enough to have an expert coach -- we'll end up reinventing the most practical techniques. That was certainly true for me when it came to throwing big flies and casting with a strong right-hand wind. Someone taught me to water haul. Then I began adding a sidearm backcast. Then I realized that if I moved the rod tip high over my left shoulder on the forward cast, I further reduced the chances of whacking myself in the back of the head with a big bug. A casting instructor, wincing at my progress, would note that I had, in fact, learned the Belgian cast.

Luckily, there are folks around who can save you from having to reinvent this very useful cast. Master instructor Macauley Lord makes it all quite clear in his lesson on "The Belgian Cast." New on MidCurrent.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

Fly fishing guide John Berry offers some excellent advice on teaching the next generation to fly fish, including a couple of tips on easily overlooked gear: bring a big net, and a camera. "Keep things simple. I have found a simple roll cast or high sticking technique is very effective. I generally use larger tippets than I normally would, so when they hook a fish, they have an easier time landing it." In central Arkansas's Baxter Bulletin.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:17 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The perfect conditions for fishing dry flies is overcast, drizzle and no wind. The bugs in this case -- Pale Morning Duns, Cahill's, and Pale Evening Duns. This is the way it works: When the bugs come to the surface to hatch and the humidity is high or it's raining, it takes them a long time to dry their wings and fly off; they drift hundreds of feet struggling to get airborne." Randal Sumner describes catching the perfect hatch -- sans clients -- in the Yakima Herald Republic.

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

"The great fly fishermen are not generally conventional strivers. They are interested in a kind of excellence that no one ever sees, like an artist whose work you only catch a glimpse of once in a while. You know he's painting but the work is hard to find." An astute observation about the nature of fly fishers from Randal Sumner, in his sideways glance at commencement speeches. In the Seattle Times.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Big bonefish have a way of getting a person's dander up. They snub their noses at perfectly good presentations, reject the flies that work so well on their smaller brethren, and generally succeed in baffling the slickest fly fishers among us. Why bother? you might wonder after a morning of throwing flies to fish whose response to your perfect casts has been to move ten feet to the right and start tailing again.

Well, the reason is simple. A bonefish over ten pounds is an awesome fish.

This week Tim Mahaffey, who is the only angler in history to win all of the major fly fishing invitational tournaments in the Florida Keys, shares his secrets on flies, gear, and presentation for approaching and landing big bones in "Targeting Giant Bonefish." His tips are useful not just for tournament-level flats anglers, but for anyone who enjoys sight-casting in saltwater.

You should also check out Tim's terrific fishing blog, "Tournament Tails," which he regularly updates with advice on advanced saltwater fly fishing techniques. Good stuff.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:22 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

OK, if fly fishing is not so much like golf (hey, the hole moves), then could it be like surfing? Scott Willoughby thinks so: "Surfing demands far more patience than you might expect, waiting for the right waves as you might wait for a fish to strike. You might spot a potential lunker now and again, and then it comes down to placement, just like casting, before you can set the hook. Then that sucker takes off like a tarpon, a wild animal that you still have to land, even play." In the Denver Post.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:01 AM | Permalink | Comments (3)

"The only possible cast was from where we were standing, high on the bridge directly above the trout. A cast from here would have no cross-current to drag the fly aside. But the fish could not be fought from here." While defending fly fishing as a non-boring sport, Brian Clarke inadvertently lays the parallels between fly fishing and golf in the U.K.'s Times Online.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:35 AM | Permalink | Comments (2)

Dave Wolf makes an interesting suggestion in his coverage of the frenzy surrounding the annual green drake hatch in Pennsylvania: watch for the concurrent hatch of smaller bugs that will often be the target of the bigger fish. "Last but not least be vigilant for a 'masking hatch,' a smaller sized fly like the sulphur that is hatching at the same time the drakes are. If you want to take a trout on a drake imitation, keep on fishing. If you want to take more trout and large trout, switch over to the smaller pattern." In Pennsylvania's Lebanon Daily News.

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

"I smirked as Lori tied on the Big Ugly and cast toward the blow down. The gargantuan fly was all but too much for her delicate rod. It hit the water with a loud kerplunk and drifted downstream about two feet." John Berry fishes Buffalo Ford in Yellowstone National Park with his wife and discovers that even smart fish with plenty of insects to choose from will fall for an outsized, inelegant pattern. In Arkansas's Baxter Bulletin.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:57 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"In early June, this colorful member of the char family hangs around pond shallows next to inlets and outlets and over gravel bars and dark-bottomed coves, which warm first and activate forage items such as invertebrates and baitfish." Ken Allen advises brook trout fanatics to fish hidden Maine waters with two rods ready: a 6-8 weight with a fast-sinking line, and a 4-5 weight with a floater. On MaineToday.com.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:47 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

"The day I spent in a classroom listening to this master fisherman was also a day spent thinking about what kind of angler I want to be. That’s where I came up with a season’s worth of resolutions: be a smarter, quieter, stealthy, experimental and accurate fisherman." Gene Koppy describes a thought-provoking seminar by Ed Engle, who says "Make your first cast your best cast." In the Great Falls [Montana] Tribune.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 5:43 AM | Permalink | Comments (1)

"The water is stained as well as high, the product of a couple of days of heavy rain, and it probably will take several days to drop to normal levels. So what's a fly angler to do? Fish streamers, of course." Eric Sharp gives advice about fishing off-color runoff water in Michigan in The Detroit Free Press.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:03 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

Learning the double haul is one of those pivotal events in a fly fisher's life. Suddenly, as increased line speed makes timing more obvious, all those little adjustments in casting technique seem to make much more sense. It's addicting.

On MidCurrent this week Tom Rosenbauer uses some very nice illustrations by Bob White to explain exactly what steps a beginner should use to learn the double haul. He even includes our favorite bit of advice: practice by letting the line fall to the water/ground after each haul. If you know someone just getting into fly fishing or looking for a little extra distance, this piece may help them lose their hesitation about learning one of fly fishing's most important skills.

Posted by Marshall Cutchin at 6:15 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)