The Simms GT Tri-Comp Fishing Shirt
One of the coolest new products I saw at IFTD this year is the Simms GT Tri-Comp fishing shirt.
Apparently, I was not the only one who thought so. The GT Tri-Comp won best in show for its category. And it’s no wonder, it’s an amazing design.
The GT Tri -Comp uses three different technical fabrics for zone specific performance. Surfaces that are heavily exposed to the sun utilize Simms Solar-flex sun protection while areas that can constrict the motion of casting are made of stretch nylon. Cool control panels under the arms are infused with pulverized jade to pull heat away from your body. I don’t know whether to wear this shirt or fly it!
There are lots of other smart design features in the GT Tri-Comp, including one they’re calling the “Louis Cahill feature.” Watch the video to see what it is.
Read More »Fly Fishing Guide Referral Gone Bad
I’ve been very fortunate to have had the opportunity to guide lots of wonderful clients over the years. A large portion of those clients, that I now call friends, originally came to me through referrals from other fishing guides. When I get a client referral from another guide, I always make a point to take extra care of the client, and I do that for two reasons. First, because a referral by one of my peers is an honor, and second, it’s not just my reputation on the line, it’s also the reputation of the guide who recommended my services. The reason I’m bringing this subject up today, is because not too long ago, I had one of my favorite clients ask me to recommend a redfish guide to him for an upcoming vacation with his wife. The only two guidelines he gave me were that the guide needed to be based out of a specific city on the Georgia coast, and he only wanted to focus on fly fishing. I let my client know I’d be in touch with him shortly with a credible redfish guide.
The first thing I did was get on the internet and google redfish guides in the area. One thing that I made sure to steer clear of, were guides that marketed conventional tackle first, and fly fishing gear second. If you’re wanting to book a guide solely for fly fishing, it’s usually a good idea to search out a guide that focuses primarily on fly fishing. In the past, I’ve found out the hard way, that fishing guides that market both types of gear (especially in saltwater and warm-water lakes), sometimes end up keeping the fly gear locked up, and out of reach. I don’t mean this literally, of course, although I’m sure it happens, I just mean those guides tend to push fishing with conventional gear over fly gear, because it’s less technial and easier for them to put clients on fish. So keep that in mind next time you’re looking to hire an inshore saltwater or warm-water lake fly fishing guide.
Read More »Sunday Classic / Glass and Grass
This is a sight flats guides love. Those glassy calm mornings during the hot summer months when islands of floating grass stack up along the edges of current seams. When you see it you know something good is about to happen. It’s called a shrimp hatch.
Hatch is a misleading term. The shrimp aren’t actually hatching, they’re dying. Suffocating to be exact. Like a trout stream, the water in the ocean must be replenished with fresh oxygen for aquatic life to survive. The ocean however, does not have riffles turning out oxygen around the clock. Aquatic plants provide some oxygen through photosynthesis but not at night, so the ocean relies heavily on wind to oxygenate the water when the sun is down. This becomes even more crucial as water temperature rises. Since warmer water holds less oxygen it must be replenished more often.
On those still hot nights the shrimp are suffocating and leave the safety of the turtle grass to look for oxygen on the surface. There, they are an easy meal for all of our favorite game fish. The shrimp take cover in
Read More »Saturday Shoutout / Fly Fishers Inc
THIS WEEK IT’S COOLNESS FROM OUR MATES DOWN IN NEW ZEALAND.
Fly Fishers Inc is an awesome online mag with a different perspective. Grizzly bears and gear reviews, grand slams and give aways. These guys cover diverse topics you don’t see every day.
A couple of highlights are: Fishing for beautiful Iwana and Cherry Salmon in Japan and “The Shape of Things to Come” a great photo essay by Stu Hastie, winner of last years G&G fly fishing photo contest.
Check out Fly Fishers Inc!
Read More »Fly Tying: Flymen Fishing Company 2014 New Products & Video
I’ve been a fan of the Flymen Fishing Company from the very beginning, when they first hit the scene in 2008 with their Nymph Head beads. This innovative, forward thinking company is all about finding ways to design fly tying accessories that increase our efficiency at the vise, and make our finished fly creations more effective on the water. The Flymen Fishing company has taken home six major fly fishing product awards in the last three years, and they show no signs of slowing down. The thing that I like most about this company is they make a point to work hand and hand with some of the most professional fly tiers and guides around the country during product development. This year, at the IFTD show in Las Vegas, they introduced three new products that you’ll want to take a look at. Check out the product video below, with Martin from the Flymen Fishing Company, as he walks us through each new product for 2014.
Read More »The Perfect Doomsday Preppers Fly Fishing Rod
“ONE THING THAT I FIND TOTALLY HILARIOUS AND AT THE SAME TIME AGITATING AS HELL, IS IT APPEARS THAT NOT A DAMN ONE OF THOSE SURVIVALISTS OR DOOMSDAY PREPPERS ON TV, AS FAR AS I CAN TELL, KNOWS THE FIRST THING ABOUT HOW TO FISH.”
I’m a sucker for the Discovery and National Geographic channels, more specifically all the survival shows, and yes, even the Doomsday Preppers spin-offs. I don’t think this country is in serious risk in the immediate future of total economic collapse and widespread turmoil, but I’m also not dense enough either to completely rule out that at some point, we may experience and have to weather some level of difficult times down the road. Quite frankly, if I had to choose whether to be somewhat prepared if the SHTF (Natural disaster for example) or go walking around in never, never land thinking all I need is my credit card and my iPhone, there’s no question, I’d rather be the dude prepared. Before you go off stereotyping me as crazy and deranged, I’d like you to know that I haven’t dropped two grand on a pallet of freeze dried food, and I don’t plan on buying an underground bunker. That being said, I have made the decision to keep a few extra resources around the house that would provide me some comfort, God forbid, I did find myself in a position to need them. After all, I do have a wife and three kids to think about. Ten years ago, when I was still a young bachelor, all I worried about was how much Hamburger Helper I had in the pantry, that my pickup had enough gas for me to make the 45-minute round trip drive to the beer store, and where I was going to hit the water next with my fly rod. A lot has changed since those bachelor days, minus one thing. I always have my fishing gear close by my side.
Read More »Fighting The Wader Funk
DO YOUR FRIENDS TWITCH THEIR NOSES LIKE RABBITS WHEN YOU SHOW UP TO FISH?
Do they have to rub camphor under their noses like Quincy just to run shuttle with you? Does your dog roll in cow shit before before he jumps in the truck to go fishing with you?
You might have wader funk.
It’s nothing to be ashamed of. Millions of anglers…well, lots of them anyway, suffer from wader funk. It’s not you making those G-4s reek. It’s bacteria growing in them and it doesn’t just smell. It’s silently killing your waders.
The primary cause of wader funk is storing your waders wet. It happens to me. I travel with waders, sometimes for months at a time, waded up in a plastic bag in my luggage. It’s sometimes tough to get them dry. Before you know it those tiny black spots start to form on the inside and it smells like a badger crawled in there to die.
Fortunately, there’s an answer. I discovered a
Read More »Sunday’s Classic / Bugs, Bugs Everywhere, And Not A Fish To Be Seen
BUGS, BUGS EVERYWHERE, AND NOT A FISH TO BE SEEN
Have you ever thrown a party, sent out the invitations, bought the onion dip, and in the end it’s just you and your onion dip? Now imagine the river is the party, the bugs are the onion dip, and the trout are your ungrateful, good for nothing, no-show friends. If you spend enough time on rivers, you have either seen or will see a situation where the hatch is out in force, yet not a single one of our finned friends is so much as poking a nose up to say hello.
Read More »Saturday Shoutout / SCOF ISSUE#9, Waypoints Trailer & Showings
This week’s Saturday Shoutout we spotlight the fly fishing magazine, Southern Culture on the Fly (Issue #9) and the fly fishing film WAYPOINTS (and it’s upcoming Colorado Showings).
Read More »Korkers Boots 2014: More Durable, More Technical, More Effective
KORKERS 2014 – “MORE DURABLE, MORE TECHNICAL, MORE EFFECTIVE”
If you talk with the Korkers team about their 2014 product showcase, you’ll find out real quick they’ve been busy finding ways to improve the performance of their boots from top to bottom. In my opinion, one of the greatest improvements Korkers made for 2014, was deciding to do a total overhaul on the BOA LACING SYSTEM used in their boots. The new and improved M2 BOA design works flawlessly and is significantly more powerful than the old version. No longer will you have the feeling, “I wish I could crank it down a little tighter.” I’m proud that Korkers realized that speed isn’t everything, and that it’s not the end of the world if it takes an angler a few more seconds, and a couple more turns of the BOA knob to boot up for the day. What matters to me, at least, is starting my day on the water comfortable, and secure in my wading boots.
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