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This week’s lineup covers the range. Sea-Run Fly & Tackle’s beaded purple nymph is built for low-light, overcast days when high-contrast color is doing the work your visibility can’t. AvidMax walks through the GFC Fly, a spare midge-style pattern that excels in the clear, pressured water of stillwaters and tailraces. Root River Rod Co shares their go-to Driftless streamer—a pine squirrel jig that bounces the rocky bottom without hanging up,…

This week’s Tying Tuesday is a water-column master class: four patterns that collectively cover every feeding lane from the surface film to open water, giving you a complete toolkit as hatches begin to fire and predatory fish start pushing into the shallows. We start at the top with the Dyret, a buoyant Norwegian attractor tied with yearling deer hair that rides high in fast water and draws aggressive strikes when…

A settlement has produced an amended Environmental Resources Permit for a proposed rock mine in Florida’s Everglades Agricultural Area, clarifying the project’s approved scope and requiring new permits for any expansion—but the project survives, and Army Corps review is still pending. A February settlement among the Tropical Audubon Society, the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), and mine operator Phillips & Jordan has produced an amended Environmental Resources Permit for…

A landmark Colorado acquisition, a conservation follow-through in Georgia, and a sweeping federal access directive add up to a strong spring for angler access on public land. Image courtesy of Colorado Parks and Wildlife. In the span of a few months, fly anglers secured the promise of access to miles of previously private water, saw a multi-year mining fight around a storied Georgia swamp conclude with public access on the…

This week’s Tying Tuesday leans all the way into the surface, bringing you four patterns that cover the dry fly spectrum from classic to quirky: a soft-fur caddis built around a coyote mask, a foam hopper that’s as fun to tie as it is to fish, a CDC soft hackle emerger designed specifically for the March Brown hatch, and a Catskill-style dry dressed with one of the more unusual wing…

Wyoming’s effort to codify corner crossing into state statute is dead. Montana’s parallel push won’t reach the legislature until 2027 at the earliest. Together, the two states show how far the West remains from resolving a question that directly determines where anglers and hunters can legally go. Corner crossing refers to stepping from one parcel of public land to another at the single point where two public parcels meet diagonally—without…

Image by goodluz Nine months after a single brown trout photograph triggered one of northwest Montana’s most urgent fisheries investigations, Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks says eDNA testing found no trace of the nonnative fish—but the agency isn’t standing down. As guides and anglers return to the Flathead River drainage this spring, FWP is still asking everyone on the water to kill any brown trout caught and bring the fish…

Win a beautiful, limited-edition black 7′ 6″, 5-piece, 4-weight high-performance modern glass fly rod from Epic. This Epic Reference Series FastGlass 476 Packlight is an NFC favorite for larger streams and small rivers. When NFC was looking for a rod to present to founding member and National Chair Emily Bastian for her efforts, we chose the 476 Packlight for its uniqueness and versatility. Long enough to extend your cast a…

Scientists from Europe, Mongolia, China, Japan, Russia, and the United States met March 2–4 at the University of Nevada, Reno’s Tahoe Institute for Global Sustainability to tackle an urgent question: how to keep the world’s largest trout from disappearing. The three-day workshop at UNR’s Lake Tahoe campus focused on five species of giant trout in the genera Hucho and Parahucho, collectively known as taimen, freshwater apex predators that can exceed…

The Army Corps’ 2026 Nationwide Permits include the first-ever standalone permit for removing barriers to fish migration—but a parallel EPA proposal could limit states’ ability to protect water quality. Image by Roy Gilbert courtesy of USFWS The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ 2026 Nationwide Permits took effect on March 15, bringing with them a new tool for reconnecting fragmented rivers and streams. The Corps reissued 56 existing permits and added…

There’s a spectrum to fly tying that doesn’t get talked about enough. On one end, you’ve got the purists—tyers who want every fiber placed just so, every segment colored to mimic the real thing down to the lateral line. On the other, there are the tyers who mix two dubbings together on a whim, slap a name on the result, and dare the fish to ignore it. This week’s Tying…

Image by Wesley Aston A warm, dry February erased what little optimism remained for western snowpack recovery, leaving Colorado, Utah, and Montana facing some of the worst snow water equivalent readings in their modern records heading into March. For fly fishers planning summer trips to Rocky Mountain freestone rivers, the numbers point toward an early and punishing season of low flows, warm water, and fishing restrictions that could arrive weeks…

March is here, and with it comes that restless stretch where winter’s grip is loosening but spring hatches haven’t quite kicked off. The water’s still cold, the fish are still deep—mostly—and the best thing a tyer can do right now is fill the box from top to bottom. This week’s Tying Tuesday does exactly that, with four patterns that span the entire water column. We’re starting on the surface with…

The 2026 wading gear market has arrived with recycled fabrics, PFAS-free water repellents, and smarter sole technology as the expected baseline. Several major releases in the past few months—from Patagonia, Simms, Skwala, Guideline, and SITKA Gear, which just entered the fishing category—reflect an industry where materials science now pairs durability with a lighter chemical footprint. Waders: Recycled Shells and the End of Forever Chemicals Patagonia’s Swiftcurrent Traverse Wading Pants—part of…

This week’s Tying Tuesday bridges the gap between late-winter tying sessions and opening-day confidence. We’ve assembled four patterns that cover a wide arc of the season: the Welsh March Brown, a soft-hackle wet fly whose partridge and hare’s ear profile has been fooling trout on both sides of the Atlantic for generations; a PMD Cripple built with CDC and snowshoe rabbit that sits in the film exactly where picky summer…

The angler-funded fishing challenge has generated more than $130,000 for native trout restoration since its 2016 launch, with 95 percent of every registration fee going directly to on-the-ground work. Image by Steve Dally The Utah Division of Wildlife Resources and Utah Trout Unlimited announced on February 19 the selection of five new native trout projects to receive funding from the Utah Cutthroat Slam, a popular catch-and-release challenge that asks anglers…

The Berkshire Environmental Action Team is pressuring MassWildlife to end its stocking program, citing ecological harm to native eastern brook trout—and invoking the governor’s own biodiversity mandate to do it. The Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT), a Pittsfield-based nonprofit, has launched a statewide campaign called “Stop Non-Native Fish Stocking,” demanding that the Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife (MassWildlife) end the routine release of hatchery-raised trout into the state’s rivers,…

A flurry of legal rulings, agency declarations, and legislative pushes have converged on the question of where anglers and hunters can go in Big Sky Country—and the answer depends on who you ask. Montana’s long-simmering fight over public land and water access boiled over in February, driven by parallel developments that underscore how contested the state’s outdoor landscape has become. In rapid succession, two Montana legislators announced a renewed push…

Construction on a federally funded canal improvement near Del Norte, Colorado, dewatered 7.2 miles of the river, killing trout and native fish across all age classes in numbers too large for a nine-person crew to collect. Biologists say recovery will take three to five years. Images courtesy of CPW Colorado Parks and Wildlife has confirmed a “large-scale fish kill” along the Rio Grande below Del Norte after a river restoration…

In this week’s selection, Savage Flies revitalizes the iconic Adams by incorporating Jungle Cock feathers, blending tradition with premium aesthetics. Technical precision continues with Davie McPhail’s Cased Caddis, which utilizes drop beads for realistic profiles and weighted balance, essential for mid-column success. Meanwhile, McFly Angler tackles the controversial Squirmy Worm, a devastatingly effective pattern that challenges tyers to master a notoriously finicky material. Finally, the Panfish Wiggler by Dressed Irons…