Driving With Your Fly Rods Rigged, Good or Bad?
I don’t know about you but I’m constantly driving from one fishing spot to the next with my fly rods pre-rigged.
It’s a routine I adopted early on in my guiding to save time having to rig up my rods so I could get to the best stretches of water first. It wasn’t until I had a couple of my fly rods break at the ferrules on back to back trips that the thought finally dawned upon me driving down the road with my fly rods rigged could be a bad idea. Particularly when I was driving long distances down bumpy gravel rods to my favorite trout water. When a rod breaks at the ferrule it’s usually because that rod section was loose. Here’s where I screwed up and how I could have prevented my fly rods from breaking.
If you’re like me and you like to travel with your fly rods pre-rigged, make sure you always check to see each rod piece is tightly secured at the ferrules after you get to the river and unload your rods. You should do this even if you have one of those fancy fly rod lockers. The constant vibrations of driving down the road can cause the rod to loosen up at the ferrules. At a quick glance everything looks fine, but in reality
Read More »Use Long Leaders for Flat Water
In the picture above, take a moment to view the disturbances the fly line and leader create on the water during a presentation.
The saying a picture tells a thousand words is true, particularly in this case, as a tool for me explaining how important it is to use a long leader when fly fishing on flat water.
Notice how little noise and footprint the leader makes when compared to the fly line. I was casting a Scott G2 5 weight rod with a 9′ leader and foam hopper, and I presented the fly as softly as possible. Anglers often don’t realize how much noise they’re creating during their presentations, and why so regularly they’re spooking the fish their casting to on flat water.
The fly line itself, creates the most noise during your presentation and is by far the biggest contributor to spooking fish. Try using a 10-12′ leader or even a specialty George Harvey dry fly leader, that’s designed to dissipate energy and lay out dry flies with slack. This will increase the distance between your fly and the start of your noisy fly line hitting the water, resulting in more hook ups and less spooks.
Read More »The UV Chocolate
HAVING AN EFFECTIVE SELECTION OF MIDGE PATTERNS CAN MAKE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A GREAT DAY OF TROUT FISHING AND A DAY OF SELF LOATHING.
Often days when the midge bite is at its best nothing much else seems to be happening hatch wise. That’s an important reason to know your midges. They can make the difference between catching a lot of fish or no fish.
It’s not uncommon to see great midge hatches on cold overcast days when other bugs stay home. The great thing about the UV Chocolate is that these are the conditions where it shines. No really, it shines. The the UV ice dub wing, which already reacts to UV light is also treated with Spectrum Responce for extra highlighting.
Trout’s eyes are highly sensitive to UV light and they use that sensitivity to find food on dark days or when water clarity is low. This flys highly reflective UV profile makes it a great tool on overcast days when midges are present.
Watch the video and learn to tie the UV Chocolate.
Read More »Catch And Release Is It’s Own Reward
By Louis Cahill
I SPENT A WEEK LAST YEAR AT THE PENLAND SCHOOL FOR CRAFT, TEACHING A CLASS ON BAMBOO ROD MAKING.
I was having dinner in the dining hall one evening with ten or so folks I’d never met. Eating with new folks every night is a sort of tradition at Penland and it’s a lot of fun. Every one was curious about fly fishing so I was answering questions and generally being the ambassador for all things fish related. It came up that I practice pretty strict catch and release. A woman at the table stated, more than asked, “what is it with you fly fishermen? If I’m going to go to all the trouble to catch a fish, I’m gonna eat it! What’s wrong with you?”
I am often honest to a fault and with out thinking I answered, “fish are, I think, the most beautiful creatures that live. Every one is unique. I think that’s the real reason I fish. Just to hold them and look at them. If I didn’t fish I’d never get to do that. I like to eat fish but I guess I just don’t have it in me to kill something that beautiful. ” When I stopped talking the table was silent and everyone was looking at the woman. It was uncomfortable at best. “Oh fine”, she exclaimed, “I feel just great now” and left the table. I didn’t mean to come down hard on her. It was a sincere answer and she did ask. Frankly it kind of shocked me that everyone else didn’t see it the same way.
Last year I had the pleasure of teaching my oldest friend to fly fish. He was so excited when he caught his first fish, a beautiful little brook trout.
Read More »Fly Casting Tip – Rely On Muscle Memory for Difficult Casts
Visiting Yahoo today to check my emails, one of the headline articles titled “Why We Choke When All Is on the Line” caught my attention.
As I read the article, it reminded me of a lesson I learned a long time ago as a guide, which was, most of the time my clients cast better in tough or high pressure situations when they’re relaxed, confident and keep their head (brain) out of the game. It’s really easy to think that the more difficult a fly fishing presentation is, the more we should be trying to focus and think about every detail of our cast during the execution. According to many neuroscientists and psychologists who’ve studied why professional athletes choke under pressure, most agree that thinking too much during a task, no matter how routine it may be, can actually decrease your chances for succeeding in high pressure situations.
Read More »The Bite Of The Venomous Brown Trout Or, Stopping Fishfinger
WE THINK OF TROUT AS PURE.
Perfect creatures born of virgin waters. Incapable of anything unclean. So, I wasn’t especially concerned the other day when a nice twenty-one inch male brown, from the Delaware, bit the ever living shit out of me.
I knew I was likely to get a piece of those gnarly teeth when I stuck my thumb in his mouth, but the fish was bleeding a little from the hook and I needed to pour a little Coke down him to stop it. (Yes, it works. Read more HERE) This fish surprised me though. He clamped down with a vengeance. I applied alcohol generously, internally of course, and forgot about it.
The truth is that fish, even pure wild trout, carry lots of things that are not so nice. Bacteria, parasites, man made pollutants. Many of them can cause the malady known as fishfinger. Known well by Alaska guides, fishfinger is the infection that sets in after an open wound is exposed to fish bacteria. It’s often a result of mishandling a knife while cleaning fish. It’s nasty stuff. Very unpleasant.
So, I wasn’t exactly surprised when I woke up in the middle of the night with my thumb bright red and throbbing. When I pressed it against my forefinger, blood spurted from the wound. I knew I had to do something fast or the next days fishing would be torture.
Fortunately, ever since my life-threatening brush with
Read More »Careful Where You Point That Thing
TOOTHY AND GENERALLY ILL TEMPERED, BARRACUDA ARE A BLAST TO CATCH ON THE FLY.
Their vicious attack is almost unbelievable to watch. My buddy Andrew Bennett holds a nice one here for a sub-surface hero shot.
The Bahamians eat them. Barracuda are generally not edible because they eat poisonous reef fish and store the toxins. Eating one in the Florida Keys will kill you. The cuda that live on the flats can be safe, but it’s a risk. The Bahamians have a test.
Read More »The Snap-T Cast With 2-Hand Rod: Video
The Snap-T cast is an essential for any 2-hand angler.
You really only need to know a couple of casts to be an effective angler with spey or switch rods. One of the casts you just can’t live without is the Snap-T. This easy and powerful cast lets you launch the fly when the current is off your casting shoulder. It generates the power needed to cast heavy sink tips but works equally as well with light dry lines.
WATCH THIS VIDEO TO LEARN THE SNAP-T CAST FOR 2-HAND RODS.
Read More »Fishing The Woolly Bugger
By Louis Cahill
There are a lot of “right ways” to fish a Woolly Bugger.
I know, I know, this is super basic but after we published the article “The Woolly Bugger Isn’t all that, Or is it?,” I got emails asking how to fish the Bugger. I’ve joked about writing this article plenty of times and now I think I was being a jerk. We obviously have readers who want the info, so here is is.
One of the emails I got asked specifically if the Bugger should be fished on a nine foot tapered leader or a five foot level leader. My immediate reaction was, “It depends on how you’re fishing it.”
The reason the Woolly Bugger is possibly the greatest fly pattern ever tied is that there is almost no wrong way to fish it. It’s one of those rare patterns that looks like so many different types of food, it’s hard to make it unappealing. And not just for trout, I firmly believe you can catch anything that swims with a Woolly Bugger. I regularly wear out bonefish on a tan bugger.
For the purpose of this article I’m going to focus on techniques for trout fishing. The Bugger can be fished as a nymph or a streamer and even an emerger. If you figure out how to tie one that will float, I guarantee it will work as a dry under the right conditions.
Let’s look at some techniques for fishing the Woolly Bugger is some of these different roles.
FISHING THE WOOLLY BUGGER AS A NYMPH
It’s hard to beat a dead drifted Bugger for catching trout. Sink it with a split shot or build weight into the fly to get it down to the strike zone. Fish it under an indicator or high sticked on a tight line. Whatever approach you prefer, with the right amount of weight, a dead drifted bugger will produce.
Some of the food items a bugger can pass for, when fished in this way, are stonefly nymphs, helgermites, craneflys, damsel and dragon flies, mayfly nymphs (in appropriate sizes), crawfish, leaches, baitfish, and tadpoles. The dead drift will almost always work but if you think about that list some other techniques become obvious.
Remember I mentioned emergers?
Read More »How To Get New Fly Line For $5, Or Pretty Close
Think you need a new fly Line? Spend $5 First.
I was out fishing with my buddy Scott the other day. He broke off his rig while I was on the oars so I handed him my five weight to fish. Scott took one cast and asked,
“What fly line is this? I’ve got to get one!”
What Scott didn’t know was that I had fished that same line just two days earlier and it had been miserable. The line stuck to the water and the guides. It felt like you could barely pull it through the guides, let alone shoot it. It was filthy.
“It’s a RIO Gold,” I told him. “But what you like about it is that I dressed it last night.”
It’s such a simple thing to clean and dress a line, but so many anglers don’t do it. At least not regularly enough. I’m guilty too but at least I know how to fix the problem. And now, so do you. Before you spend $90 on a new fly line try this out. I’ll bet it solves a lot of your problems.
HOW TO CLEAN AND DRESS A LINE
Start by cleaning the line. Putting line dressing on a dirty line just makes a slurry. It’s best to clean your line often and so I keep it simple. I use finger wipes. The kind you get at BBQ joints. Individually packaged, alcohol towelettes. I bought a case of 1000 of them for $7 years ago. I keep them in my boat bag so I can clean my line any time. It takes seconds.
Mucilin-Silicone-Green-1Once the line is clean
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