Staying the Course with the Dry Fly Through the New Normal of Low Expectations.
Guide Gossip #8: Rod up or rod down?
The idea behind these Guide Gossip articles is to help you along your journey and allow you to understand your style and why you do what you do. Some anglers just fish a certain way because it feels good, or you have seen it before, maybe a guide told you to do so. This may help you expedite understanding of what fishing a “soft rod” means and or why you might choose to fish this way.
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.
Guide Gossip: Does the Fly Matter?
It’s the question we think every time we open our fly box; the question we think of when you have been fishing all day with nothing to speak of; the question we think when your buddy hooks a fish behind you; the question we all lucidly dream about: Does the fly matter?
Leap Year
What Happens When a Steelhead Season is Lost? Derek Botchford, owner of the Frontier Steelhead Experience, says it best: “Similar to good health—we tend to take it for granted until it’s gone.”
Guide Gossip: What Fly?
“A skater, unless the zombie apocalypse is happening and I need to eat, then a dirty black leech with an orange cone head.” -Dax Messett
Guide Gossip: To Fish A Loop?
I asked fourteen EXCEPTIONAL 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.
The Forbidden Fruit
Superstitions and fishing go hand and fin. Some anglers have a lucky fishing hat that has been worn for years; others never wash their lucky fishing socks afraid to fade the mojo clean off. A long-time guide on the Rogue once told me that he would grease up his gunnels on the ol’ woody for good luck – so the fish could just slide right in.
Paris in Summer
Over the years I have received pieces of fly fishing advice that seem to combine both time-tested truth and a devilish elusiveness. Near the top of this list is: “Always be ready for the moment when a fish takes your fly. It can happen any time your fly is in the water, even when you […]