Blog

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…

California Golden Trout are celebrated everywhere they’ve been transplanted across the West, but the native range of these beautiful fish is limited to the headwater meadow streams of the Kern River watershed high in the southern Sierra Nevada backcountry. Today, these populations are struggling. Generations of habitat loss and hybridization have limited Golden Trout to a tiny fraction of their historic range and numbers. A new film from Trout Unlimited…

Are you in the market for a drift boat, inflatable kayak, or some other fishing watercraft? Small Craft Sales, a new online hub dedicated to small, specialty watercraft, is taking the headache out of buying and selling boats online. Designed for anglers, rafters, kayakers, wooden-boat enthusiasts, and day cruisers, the platform offers a scam-free alternative to cluttered classifieds like Craigslist and Facebook Marketplace. “Boat geeks know exactly what they want,…

The annual “No Fish Dry July” campaign from Keep Fish Wet is an attempt to give game fish a break during the hottest month of the year. The concept is simple: “No Fish Dry July encourages anglers to ask themselves ‘do I really need a photo of my fish?’ and challenges them not to take a single fish photo during July. ” Instead, you’re encouraged to take photos of everything…

  [Interview starts at 25:56] We’ve recently won a big battle for public lands, and Tom Rosenbauer’s guest this week, Joel Pedersen of Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, fills us in on what we’ve won and what we need to keep an eye on for the future. But the podcast is much more than that. Joel educates us on the differences between the major classes of public lands—National Forests, BLM land,…

  [Interview starts at 25:56] We’ve recently won a big battle for public lands, and Tom Rosenbauer’s guest this week, Joel Pedersen of Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership, fills us in on what we’ve won and what we need to keep an eye on for the future. But the podcast is much more than that. Joel educates us on the differences between the major classes of public lands—National Forests, BLM land,…

Although some fly tiers revel in creating elaborate, complex flies at the vise, most of use prefer to focus on patterns that are easy to tie but still catch fish. This week, we’ve got three patterns that fit the bill to various degrees, ranging from a cool larva imitation that uses just two materials to a saltwater baitfish that looks more difficult to tie than it really is. We kick…

Photo: Chad Shmukler How do you become a better fly fisher? It’s a question we all wrangle with in our angling lives, and Todd Tanner—writer and founder of School of Trout—has some definite opinions about it. Skills—the ability to cast accurately, or to get the exact drift you need, or to tie a perfect fly, or to read a river like a book—don’t just happen. They certainly don’t appear at the…

 A new documentary called “Rooted Waters” showcases New Mexico’s Indigenous and Hispanic Youth Fly Fishing Camp, where fly-fishing becomes a way to create a powerful connection to nature, heritage, and culture.  The post New Documentary Spotlights a Fly-Fishing Camp for Indigenous and Hispanic Youth appeared first on MidCurrent. Source: Fish2

A Madison River brown trout. Photo: Phil Monahan A couple weeks ago, we posted about “hoot owl” restrictions in western Yellowstone National Park, and now you can add stretches of the Madison River outside the park to the same list. Here’s the announcement from Montana Fish, Wildlife & Parks: Hoot owl restrictions (fishing prohibited 2:00 p.m. to midnight) are in effect for the Madison River – from Hebgen Reservoir to upstream most…