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When you’re fishing small streams with a lot of overhead tree branches and streamside vegetation, casting can be a problem. In this video, Charity Rutter of R and R Fly Fishing in East Tennessee shows Brian Flechsig how she manages her rod tip and line to ensure that the fly gets to the fish. They keys are to employ a roll cast as much as possible and to keep your…

What compels a person to willfully introduce bass into a classic trout or salmon fishery? Is it a revenge crime, a payback to the Fish and Wildlife Department for some wrong — real or imagined? Do these individuals, in a moment of deluded thinking, fancy themselves as some kind of fishing activists hell-bent on transforming Maine into their own fantasy concept of a diverse fishery? The state of Maine is…

  [Interview starts at 40:00] Tom Rosenbauer’s guest this week is Joe Cermele, whom you may know from his podcast, “Cut and Retie,” or from his work over the years at Field & Stream as a writer and videographer. Joe loves hunting big trout, and one of his favorite ways of fishing for them is night fishing with mouse flies. Joe is always fun and informative, and you’ll surely enjoy…

Photo: Charles Hildick-Smith Calling All Freshwater Anglers in the US and Canada. Have you noticed threats impacting your fishing experience? A team from the University of Massachusetts Amherst is conducting a survey to understand the threats and potential solutions facing freshwater recreational fisheries, and they want to hear from YOU. If you fish in freshwater and care about the future of the species you target and the streams, lakes, and…

In this week’s Tying Tuesday, we’ve got three cool surface patterns for trout and panfish that are ideal for late summer. We kick things off with an ingenious PMD imitation that mimics a crippled dun, stuck in the surface film. Trout know that these cripples can’t fly away and make for an easy meal. Next up is an ant pattern with plenty of fish-attracting features and enough foam to keep…

Many fly fishers have a casting trajectory that is low in the back and high in the front. This means that they have to make a radical change on the delivery stroke, eliminating the loop and causing the fly to follow a high curved path to the target. The cast often falls in a pile, failing to reach the desired distance, and the slightest breeze can knock it off course….

  [Interview starts at 36:05] Tom Rosenbauer is a liar. There aren’t 15 tips here; there are more. Tom gets a lot of questions about fishing emergers, so he put together this podcast on how to identify when fish are taking emergers and how to fish them. Not only that, world-famous and beloved fishing guide and author Pat Dorsey gives us his favorite fly patterns for fishing emergers including a…

The victorious USA Fly Fishing Women’s Team celebrates after the victory in Idaho Falls. Earlier, we posted about the US Youth Fly Fishing Team winning their third gold medal in a row at the FIPS-Mouche world championship. They were not alone in celebrating, as the US Women’s team also took top honors. It was the the first ever gold medal for our female anglers, led by gold medalist Tess Weigand…

The North Platte is renowned for big fish and lot’s of ’em, which is why it is such a popular destination for fly fishers and other anglers. Unfortunately, that very popularity has led to an increase in injuries to fish, which the the Wyoming Game and Fish Commission is trying to address. As a result, a slate of new regulations has been agreed to, pending a public-comment period: Only single…

Smallies have a dark side. Photo: Joe Cermele Smallmouth bass are very popular among anglers because of their willingness to take flies, their acrobatic leaps, and their fighting spirit. Although the species is native to North America, its original range was limited to the Great Lakes and St. Lawrence Seaway drainages—stretching from southern Quebec and New Hampshire to North Dakota—as well as the Mississippi River drainage as far south as…

In this week’s Tying Tuesday, we’ve got four great patterns that will work in a wide variety of situations, for lots of different species. We kick things off with a sedge imitation built with lots of elk hair, creating a bushy, buoyant pattern that still sits low in the water. You can dead-drift it, swing it, or even pop it along the surface to draw strikes. Next up is a…

Last week, the 22nd FIPS Mouche World Youth Fly Fishing Championship was held in Idaho Falls, Idaho, and for the third consecutive year, the U.S. team came out on top. And it wasn’t even close. Over five days of fishing, the young U.S. anglers caught 130 more trout than the second-place Polish team. In addition to the team gold, Lawson Braun—the team captain, from Waynesville, North Carolina—earned individual gold medal…

This gorgeous brookie ate a caddis emerger imitation at the tailout of a plunge pool. All photos: Charles Hildick-Smith The northernmost town in New Hampshire, Pittsburg borders Canada, Vermont, and Maine, but more importantly, it’s at the headwaters of the Connecticut River. The river rises just 300 yards from the Canadian border and flows through a series of lakes, between which are gorgeous stretches of freestone water, each with its…

Written by: Kubie Brown I’m a bit of an Intruder fly addict. I love fishing them for steelhead, salmon, and trout. There’s just something about the enticing way intruders wiggle in the water and the way that they feel on the swing that gives me confidence every time I tie one on. However, what I think I love most about intruder flies is tying them. Unlike other swing-style flies, where…

  [Interview starts at 31:35] Tom Rosenbauer’s guest this week is one of fly fishing’s best writers and storytellers, Monte Burke, whose stories you may have seen in Garden & Gun, Forbes, or The Drake—or perhaps you’ve read his books, Lords of the Fly and Rivers Always Reach the Sea.  To discover who Monte, and many other people (including Tom) consider the finest fly-fishing guide who ever lived, you’ll have…

Casting for Recovery offers a unique retreat program for breast cancer survivors that harnesses the therapeutic benefits of fly fishing. Founded in 1996 in Vermont by a breast-reconstructive surgeon and a fly-fishing guide, the activity was recognized for its potential as physical therapy to help with scar tissue following radiation and reconstruction. Participants, such as the 14 women at the Front Range Colorado retreat in this video, are in various…

Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks (FWP) has confirmed that a non-native brown trout has been caught in the Flathead River, which is one of the last strongholds for native westslope cutthroats. Because brown trout can outcompete the native fish for resources, the state is asking anglers to kill every brown trout caught in the watershed and to bring the fish to an FWP office, so they can study it. Click…

One of my favorite things to do this time of year is to watch the incredible action taking place at Brooks Falls in Alaska’s Katmai National Park. Watch sockeye salmon attempt to leap the falls, as well as the many brown bears who gather to gorge themselves on these anadromous fish. The camera is live twenty-four hours a day—although it’s powered by solar and occasionally goes dark—so something different is…

For many fly fishers, summertime is terrestrial season, so here are three great patterns that will catch fish—trout or warmwater species—that are looking up for land-based insects. We kick thing off with a cool hopper pattern from Matt O’Neal of Savage Flies, which starts with gluing together sheets of inexpensive craft foam. (Please heed the warnings about glue fumes.) Once you’ve got the body cut, the tying process is ridiculously…

The Circus Peanut was one of the patterns that ushered in the age of articulated streamers, and a new video from Montana Fly Company features Russ Maddin’s recollections of how the pattern came to be. A guide based in Traverse City, Michigan, Maddin describes what it was like to tie and fish these large streamers back in the day. In the video below, Maddin shows you how to tie the…