Fly Tying

• Scandi-Style Trout Tube
  Recently shifting a lot of my tying focus to Trout Spey, I realized that I still had an abundance of fur in the 2.5-3-inch range; perfect for the trout flies I desired. And the Scandi-style was the perfect recipe for a decent-sized, lightly weighted fly that would still cast easily on any light trout rod…
• The White-Winged Akroyd
  In Eric Taverner’s Salmon Fishing (1931), when discussing the merits of the Akroyd he is quoted as saying, “This is a hard-wearing and killing fly, especially if pains have been taken to dress it neatly and sparingly, so that the body has the appearance of slimness, lightly clad with luminous filmy robes. I would cheerfully…
• The Heisenberg
  Heisenberg” as a blue fly name should make sense to anyone who has seen Breaking Bad. If you haven’t, “Heisenberg” was the alias of the high school chemist turned meth cooker, Walter White. His meth was the best, and it was also blue. According to Brian Clemens, a northern California guide who spends a lot…
• The Night Terror
  Don’t be fooled by this fly’s simplicity. Designed for movement, the Night Terror undulates and pulses in the current without losing bulk and profile – and to top it off, it is easy to cast!

Atlantic Salmon

• The Last Salmon
  I sometimes feel as if Angler #1 (Dry Fly Guy) is perched on my left shoulder and Angler #2 (Bottom Ranger) sits on my right shoulder. Angler #1 whispers quietly in my left ear, “Dry or die!” Angler #2 mumbles simultaneously into my right ear, “Go deep or go home!”
• Terminal Thinking
  Terminal thinking seems especially prevalent as we contemplate the changes to our lives in a post-COVID-19 world. It’s a tough time to be a swinger of flies. On the West Coast, steelhead guides and fishermen lost a good chunk of their season due to the closure of rivers and non-essential businesses. Here on the East…
• A Handful of Flies from the Kola Peninsula: Part I
  The Belousiha River Lodge is a small fishing camp on Russia’s Kola Peninsula.

Great Lakes

• Sink-Tip Leaders
  How long should the distance be between the end of the sinking tip or sinking leader and the fly?
• Book: Matching Baitfish by Kevin Feenstra
  Matching Baitfish is so much more than what the title lets on. In fact, I'm not sure any title could do justice to what lies within: incredible photography, an education on baitfish you won't find in a lifetime elsewhere, innovative techniques and tactics for the swung fly angler, and one of a kind fly patterns.
• Webinar: Getting Ready for Great Lakes Spring Steelhead
  Watch the great recorded presentation by Rick Kustich here!
• Down and Dirty
  "I call this scenario the “Down and Dirty.” If you can wade the river safely without going for a swim, you can still hook steelhead on the swung fly. The first thing you will need to do is change your gear. You’re going to need to fish the fly as slow as you can and…

International

Brought to you by:

• The P.T. Slow Swing
  So simple and so effective, I cannot say how often it‘s saved my day, from my rivers at home, to along the classic rivers in England, where Frank Sawyer invented and published it in his book Nymphs and the Trout in 1958, to the wide rivers in Montana, like the Bighorn and many more.
• The Green Machine and the Rio Grande
  Last January, Michael and I finally stood on the banks of the Rio Grande in Tierra del Fuego. Like always, we booked on a relatively short notice, but we made it. We even man-aged to fill our fly boxes with all kinds of differnt flies, from Wooly Buggers to tube flies, rubber leg nymphs and…
• Skjern Å: A Real Life Fairy Tale
  Like the ugly duckling from Hans Christian Andersen’s famous fairy tale, there is a hint of metaphor in my small story about a “ditch” that, after many years of mishandling, turns into a prolific and beautiful salmon river.
• PHP: The Dream Team of Flies
  Admittedly, the effectiveness of a fly relies principally on the confidence that the fisherman has in it, but it also has to be recognized that the nearly-doubled rate of success kills any prior prejudice; the PHP flat-out works.

Spey Casting

• Kruk’s Spey Casting Secrets: The Forward Stop
  Kaptain Kanudia is backwith the next installment of his Spey Casting Secrets!
• Kruk’s Spey Casting Secrets: The Lift
  Bruce Kruk has some of the most technically pure spey casting you'll ever see, which is why I asked him to film this video series. Particularly, on the single spey, Bruce's methodology allows for remarkably consistent casting. Pay close attention to this one: the lift!
• Coming Next Week: Bruce Kruk video series begins
  We'll launch the first instructional episode of the Bruce Kruk series next week, Aug. 11. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S0SoZ1emsJc
• Coming Soon! Bruce Kruk’s Spey Casting Secrets
  Bruce Kruk shares his secrets to Spey Casting success in this coming Swing the Fly video series produced by Tightline Films.

Trout Spey

• Hatches: Spotted Sedge
  Spotted sedge (Hydropsyche), with at least 25 sub-species in the West, as well as Midwestern and Eastern counterparts (all very similar), could be considered one of the most important, if not the most important, insect to practitioners of trout spey and swinging wetflies.
• Opening Day: An Ode to the Firehole
  Of all the famed water available in Yellowstone, the Firehole is just about as pleasant as fly fishing gets.
• Salmonflies: Swinging the Hatch
  The memory of a Henry's Fork rainbow cartwheeling multiple times over a waking muddler in the glow of a May sunset still has me grinning years later. And I can almost feel the warmth of the June sun as I recall working a flooded willow bank. The plump brown trout that I eventually landed nearly…
• The P.T. Slow Swing
  So simple and so effective, I cannot say how often it‘s saved my day, from my rivers at home, to along the classic rivers in England, where Frank Sawyer invented and published it in his book Nymphs and the Trout in 1958, to the wide rivers in Montana, like the Bighorn and many more.

West Coast

• Don’t Hang Up Your Waders: An Open Letter from Mia Sheppard
  ice. Isolating yourself from these places is not the answer. Staying connected – as hard as it may be – is how to be a part of the solution.
• Guide Gossip #7: What to do when you flub your cast?
  What do you do when you flub your cast? Fix it with a mend, strip in and re-cast, or do nothing?
• Guide Gossip #6: Player Fish
  If you have a ‘player’ fish what are your first steps to your approach to get it to come back?
• Guide Gossip #5: Superstitions
  I asked fourteen EXCEPTIONAL spey guides from the most infamous West Coast steelhead rivers the same questions. Every guide was given the task of answering sixteen questions, some with a specific river in mind and others just as a general guide of steelhead tactics.