Don’t Keep Staring in One Place if You’re Seeing Nada
By Kent Klewein
My recent trip to the Bahamas, fly fishing for bonefish I got a chance to work out a bunch of kinks in my flats fishing.
From the help of my buddies, the helpful staff on hand and the fantastic bahamian guides, I eventually got to the point where I could respectfully hold my own on the flats. Despite me being in paradise there were a few times during the trip when I found myself hanging my head. The first problem I had was letting my mind get in the way of my fishing. That was to be expected though, since I’m most comfortable on the cold water streams and rivers, and it had been several years since I’d last chased the grey ghost on the flats. When I trout fish, I don’t have to think about my casts much these days and my confidence is through the roof. This is because I do it day in and day out. Take me to saltwater though, where I only make a few trips a year, and my confidence drops and the first couple days I find myself constantly battling my inner thoughts and nerves. I’m sure many of you out there no where I’m coming from. Anytime you’re lacking confidence and dealing with nerves you’re going to fish at half your potential. And there’s no place this holds true more than standing on the bow of a skiff on the saltwater flats. Lesson learned, if you want to fish more effectively and maximize your success when fishing locations that aren’t your norm, you have to stay relaxed, keep your confidence no matter what, and learn to let the bad casts roll off your back.
My next problem I had during the trip, and the point for writing this post, was learning how to quickly spot the bonefish my guide was calling out to me. I missed countless shots during the week because
Read More »Playground Earth Relay Episode #3 – Fly Fishing Owyhee River
Louis and I are proud to showcase with all of you today Episode #3 of the Playground Earth All-Terrain Relay sponsored by BFGoodrich, which documents an epic off-roading and fly fishing adventure to the Owyhee River in Oregon for trophy brown trout.
We couldn’t be happier with the final cut and we hope all of you thoroughly enjoy watching the brilliant work created by Camp 4 Collective. First, we’d like to thank BFGoodrich and The Martin Agency who believed in us and allowed us to participate in this once in a life-time opportunity. We’d also like to thank Camp 4 Collective for making us look top notch and Rob Parkins, our Lead Location Scout, who put in countless hours of his time to make sure our relay was a success. We couldn’t have pulled it off without these great partners.
Read More »Matt McCannel’s Neon Nightmare
By Bob Reece
When connecting a person and a fish is the foundation of your job, the fly that you use matters. The pattern design as well as the hook that it’s founded upon must both deliver. As a Sage Ambassador, Simms Ambassador, head guide for Rigs Fly Shop and Umpqua Signature Fly Designer, Matt McCannel has built a career out of successfully hooking clients into significant fish. During his journey to this point in his career, Matt has created several highly productive trout flies. One of his most recent creations is the Neon Nightmare Midge.
As a guide in Ridgeway, Colorado, Matt often works on technical tail waters. He needed a midge pattern that incorporated Pink and Orange. This motivation led to the creation of the Neon Nightmare. The incorporation of those colors into a realistic profile has proven itself at catching even the most finicky trout. Its foundation of the Tiemco 2488H hook makes it possible to land those same fish. I carry a dozen of each color in sizes 18-22 on all of my tail water trips. This simple and effective tie should be
Read More »Don’t Just Love Your Cold Water Fisheries, Be Good Stewards Also
Most fly fisherman are passionate about the protection of their trout and salmon streams.
Promoting catch and release, special regulations and protecting various wild salmonid populations, are among the most common conservation topics being fought for today in the sport of fly fishing. But even as important as all of these topics are, there’s another area of conservation that I feel like is equally important, and is being put on the back burner. Why is it, that we aren’t’ also hearing people talking passionately about the importance of protecting our trout waters tree canopies, stream banks and 50 foot buffers (native shrubs and foliage)? After all, they’re essential elements in the conservation pie, and without them, it’s very difficult for any trout water, regardless of its size, to maintain the proper water quality and habitat that cold-water fish species demand for their suvival.
For example, the past five years, chronic drought conditions, poorly managed river/stream buffer zones and the occasional high wind thunderstorm have uprooted and destroyed an alarming amount of trees and foliage along my trout streams in the Southeastern United States. It hasn’t helped that during this depressing period there’s also been a large amount of our native hemlock forests decimated by the “hemlock woolly adelgid”, a beetle brought over from China and Japan, that sucks the life out of the trees by feeding on their sap. Put all of these negative forces together and they’ve really dealt a punishing blow to the health of the trout water in my area, and their ability to sustain year-round trout fisheries. Stream shade and foliage have been reduced greatly in areas, long stretches of stream banks have become un-stabilized and week, and silt introduction by erosion and runoff have become a serious problem. Water temperatures are reaching levels higher than we’ve ever seen in the past, and natural reproduction of our cold-water species are at an all-time low. The fish haven’t been the only species effected by these environmental cotastrophies. The aquatic insect, amphibian, and crustacean populations have been effected as well, with some species being wiped out almost completely.
Be Good Stewards of your trout water by giving back
Last year, to help combat these issues, I volunteered a day of my time to plant 150 eastern cottonwood trees on a private section of property along a trout stream I regularly guide on. The landowners purchased 8-14″ cottonwood tree cuttings from
Making a Living on the Flats
By Owen Plair
Lately it seems that everyone thinks guiding is the dream job.
Every day someone who likes to fish buys a brand new boat, pays for a website, posts fish pictures on Instagram, and calls themselves one of the top guides in the area. They usually have a full time job doing something else. From Internet videos and social media, people think guiding is all glory, easy, and something anyone can do. You have to start somewhere but you cannot create a career with a fancy boat, a website and some good photos on Instagram. You make a career with experience on the water and by sharing with anglers your passion, experience, and knowledge of your fishery. Many people soon find that guiding is not for them, which is why guides are a select few.
“You are living the dream.” I hear that all the time, or “You have the best job in the world,” or even better, “You have the easiest job!”
There are so many people who think that being a fishing guide is the easiest way to make money and the dream job. Some people even have the audacity to say its not a real job… That’s like saying being a doctor isn’t a real job. Yes, it’s an amazing feeling creating a career in something you are passionate about, but it is far from easy, and always work. Imagine poling a skiff or rowing a drift boat 8 hours a day, 200 days a year. That physical labor is the easiest part of the business. That should give you a taste of just how much is involved with being a full time guide.
If you really like fishing and own a boat you could be a guide, right?
Not even close to true.
Read More »The Guy In Brown
By Brian Kozminski
From a distance, whether mowing the lawn, tending to the animals, or cutting wood, I can recognize the “Fa-Thump, Fa-thump, Fa-Thump” amplified rotation of the tires and diesel engine working up the motivation to travel up the long hill a mile away from our house. A sudden increase in my heart rate, eyes get dilated, hair stands on end, my senses are alert, vision sharpened and hearing more acutely than ever as the big Brown truck makes a rounded left hand turn on our dirt road kicking up a dust cloud common in northern back roads. I can can usually tell in a split second if he is about to accelerate or coast in order to make the wide turn into our driveway.
What could be in the big box? The possibilities are endless. There is a chance they could be new curtains or bedspread for my daughter’s room, but I am hopeful it could be a new slew of rods from TFO or a replacement net for my broken Brodin wooden Guide net. My wife is privy to my game. She knows I have a secret code with the guys clad in pooh brown to store boxes inside of my garage door so I can intercept before she gets home. It’s all in good fun. Is it a genetic disorder? My father had a serious problem ordering online and getting things he really need needed, like shark fishing rods, fish finders, ice-augers and other miscellaneous items from Cabelas that I inherited. Do we as males have an inherent ability to bond with other males in this delivery secret ritual or is it more?
Jump back two decades and I was living in a much larger metropolis where I would drive to the mall or one of several fly shops to purchase the majority of fly tying materials or a much needed new line from Scientific Anglers. I simply could not fathom living a life “Up North” where one didn’t need to drive across town to actually pick up a rod or feel a pelt of deer hair prior to purchase. My brother-in-law bragged about how he would accomplish all of his holiday shopping from the comfort of his EZ chair online. Inconceivable. Now days, I see the virtue in compiling of list of tying materials and making a bulk order to Feather-Craft for my Sex Dungeons and Hog Snares, along with guide flies from Catching Shadows and Anglers Choice Flies for next guide season.
As I was roto-tilling the garden last spring, standing amid the fresh aroma — a nitrogen rich potpourri, compliments of goats, sheep and chickens wafting through the promise of fresh spring air — I quickly shut down the tiller to say “Hello” to my local driver. I had the idea of “getting to know” my UPS and Fed-Ex guys. Why not? Really, they know me, and often ask how the fishing is. These guys know more about you than perhaps some guys at the office. For instance, he knows I prefer getting camping equipment from Sierra Trading Post, and on a more personal level, my monthly prescription for Humira injection for my psoriasis needs to be chilled and kept in the shade. So I had prepared a set of questions for my driver.
What is your name? How old are you? How many years have you been delivering packages for UPS?
Read More »Protect the Head of Your Nymphs with Thin Skin
The more durable a fly, the more fish you can catch on it and the longer the life of the fly will be.
Making a point to tie and purchase your flies with durability in mind will save you time at the tying bench and keep a little extra cash in your wallet. Nymphs in general are the work horses in our fly boxes. They’re constantly getting beat up from banging against rocks on the stream bed during our drifts. One way I increase the durability of my nymphs is to finish off the heads of my flies by folding over and super gluing down a piece of thin skin. This tying technique covers the vulnerable thread at the head of the fly and makes a nice looking nymph wing case. In some cases, like with my rubber-leg copper john version above, I use
Read More »Joel vs The Shark
Max Pressure Photo by Louis Cahill
MY GOOD FRIEND JOEL DICKEY WAS NOT RAISED BY WOLVES, BUT YOU MIGHT NOT BELIEVE IT IF YOU’VE EVER SEEN HIM ANGRY.
With hair the color of a new penny and bright blue eyes that can be uncomfortably intense at times, the ruddy sun scorched complexion of a Bedouin, the build of a boxer and two gold hoops, one in each ear, Joel looks half Viking, half pirate. Born of a long line of Tennessee moonshiners and snake handlers, he has a great southern brogue that’s so deep you can hear the chicken frying when he talks. He has a heart as big as the Florida sky, and a temper to match. He caught his first rattle snake at age six. Joel has no fear. Fear is an important emotion. As humans, our fight or flight response has served us well, in evolutionary terms. Joel somehow missed out on the flight part of that, as well as the fear. He’s all fight. Any other person finding themselves face to face with a fifteen foot hammerhead shark might back down. Joel on the other hand…
The heat there in the Florida Keys that day had been like penance. So had the fishing. It was a perfect day for tarpon. The weather was hot with just a little wind, not a cloud in sight. It was mid May. The peak of the season. The tarpon that had been everywhere just a few days before had vanished. The few we saw had no interest in a fly. This was exactly what we had been waiting for. There was a huge falling tide in the evening and it had been unseasonably warm. We had been looking at the calendar and the tide apps on our phones for six months thinking that this was the day and now the fish were confirming our theory. All those tarpon that had been high and happy for weeks were lurking reclusively in the deep water. Staging up, preparing, for the worm hatch.
If you’ve been lucky enough to see a palalo worm hatch, you may have pinched yourself to see if you were dreaming. It’s hard to believe that a fish of a hundred pounds or more can get so worked up about a three inch worm, but when there are literally
Read More »There’s No Right Answer
I have some bad news for you. You’re not doing it right.
I was reading an article on fishing streamers and the author was pressing the importance of neutral buoyancy. The idea being that the fly neither sinks, nor floats. His assertion being that, when fished with a drift and twitch presentation, these flies more accurately imitate an injured baitfish. I have a good friend who is a master of this technique and, after watching him coax some very big fish out of cut banks, I started using it a fair bit myself, but here’s the thing. It’s not the right way to do it.
I was out on the river one day tuning up my spey cast in preparation for a steelhead trip. When I was done, and headed back to the truck, a woman who had been watching me asked,
“Are you some kind of expert?”
“Ma’am, this is fly fishing,” I replied, “we’re all experts.”
Each of us, regardless of our level of expertise, is largely a self-styled angler. We learn by trial and error which techniques will catch us a fish and when. Generally, in our own minds, we know the right way to do it. Or do we? I know this is kind of an esoteric fishing tip, but my point is this.
There are no right or wrong answers.
Dead drifting streamers is a great technique. So is jerk stripping heavy patterns, and fishing floating flies on a sinking line. All of those techniques, and many more, produce fish at the right time. They are all equally right and equally wrong. The question is not, “What’s the right way to fish the fly?” The questions is, “What’s the right time to fish in that way?”
I have a good friend who has been learning to fly fish the last couple of years and this is something he has really struggled with. He will ask me for advice on fishing in a given situation, and when he gets it, he’ll frequently point out that it contradicts something I told him before.
“Yep,” I’ll tell him, “but that was then, this is now.”
Most of us, especially when we are learning, want the “right answer” that’s going to work all of the time. The truth is, it just doesn’t exist. Conditions change constantly as does the mood of the fish. It’s our ability to adapt to that change which makes
Read More »Tie the Chard Choker Permit Fly
Permit fishing is as exacting as it gets.
When asked to list the top ten reasons permit will refuse a fly, Bruce Chard listed, among other things: a butterfly in Indonesia flapped its wings and because that’s what they do.
Getting a shot a a tailing permit is a test of an anglers resolve. Everything must be done perfectly. Even if everything is done perfectly there’s no guarantee of an eat. The first thing the angler must do is choose the right fly.
For tailing permit in shallow water the Chard Choker is a good choice. Check out the video to learn to tie this killer permit fly.
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