Fixing Line Twist: Video

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A day floating the river can turn into frustration when your running line starts to tangle.

There are lots of reasons fly lines get twisted. The most common is being rolled under foot in the bottom of the boat. However it happens, it’s a mess of tangles and knots that make fishing frustrating. There’s nothing worse than landing your fly just short of the strike zone because your running line is tangled.

Fortunately there is a simple trick to fix line twist. I learned this trick from my buddy Zack Dalton of ROI Products and it changed my life. I promise you will love it.

WATCH THE VIDEO AND NEVER SUFFER WITH A TWISTED LINE AGAIN.

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Flynn’s Stonefly Nymph: Video

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I HAVE SAID ON MANY OCCASIONS THAT, I DON’T CARE TO LIVE IN A WORLD WHERE TROUT DON’T EAT STONEFLIES.
My good friend Dan Flynn shares my obsession with the noblest of insects. Dan is a great tyer with an impressive repertoire of classic patterns. I have always admired his meticulous stonefly nymphs. I’ve also spent many days watching him crush trout on them.

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Keep your thirst quenched without the baggage

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It’s late spring and everyday we’re moving one step closer to summer.

Air temperatures are climbing into the 70s and 80s on most days and will soon be even higher. These conditions make it extremely important that anglers are staying properly hydrated while they’re on the water fly fishing. I really enjoy hiking into remote locations to fly fish for trout. The only problem with me doing this, is I’m constantly fighting to quench my thirst and stay hydrated. I used to utilize packs with internal bladders for storing my drinking liquids, but there were quite a few disadvantages that came along with using them. First, when filled to full capacity, they become quite heavy and take a tole on your body lugging them around all day. Secondly, if you’re using them during the warm seasons and you’re doing some aggressive hiking and fishing, eventually that cold liquid you filled the bladder with in the morning will eventually warm up and end up tasting like bath water. Thirdly, internal bladder systems require maintenance and cleaning to keep them from building up bacteria and mold. Five years ago, I decided to ditch the internal bladder systems in exchange for a light weight water filtration bottle, and I’ve never looked back. Doing so, I eliminated the three negatives I mentioned above with using internal water bladders, and I no longer have to ration my water intake during the day. This product will keep you fresh during your time on the water and you’ll have far less

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Perfect Moments, Bahamas Edition

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OUR RECENT TRIP TO SOUTH ANDROS BAHAMAS WAS AMAZING FOR MANY REASONS. GREAT FISHING, MAKING NEW FRIENDS AND SEEING OLD ONES.
Fishing cool new rods and tying great new flies. We even had a couple of bona fide adventures. We laughed until it hurt, ate until it hurt and, yes, drank until it hurt. I came home with a head full of snapshots that will not soon fade. It got me thinking. Since we practice catch and release, what is it that we bring home from a fishing trip?

In “Swimming To Cambodia” Spaulding Gray talks about having a perfect moment. An experience so culminating, that nothing else seems to exist but that moment. He can’t leave Thailand until he has one. He finally does and it involves Thai stick. I like that idea of the perfect moment and ever since Spaulding made me aware of it, I keep my eyes open and try to spot them.

I thought I found my perfect moment about mid week of the Bahamas trip. A subset of perfect moments that I’m fond of is “perfect shots.” By shot I mean shots at fish, not photos and I had one on Tuesday. Several things go into the making of a perfect shot. Most important, it has to be visual. I have to see the whole story unfold. I have to perform to the best of my ability. There’s no compromising on that one. The fish has to do his part, mainly eat the fly but he shouldn’t be a pushover. Of lesser importance but still of value

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The Myth of Manual

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IT’S A COMMON MISCONCEPTION THAT “REAL PHOTOGRAPHERS” ONLY SHOOT IN MANUAL.

It’s not true. Certainly not for me. I grew up using manual cameras. Cameras that didn’t even have light meters. In fact I’ve spent as much time looking at the ground glass of a view camera as through the lens of a DSLR. I’m perfectly comfortable with it but I recognize that the automatic features of modern cameras offer benefits that can improve my work and I see nothing wrong with using them.

What “real photographers” do, is understand their exposure choices. How a photograph is exposed has an enormous impact on its emotional content as well as its clarity and color palette. The proper exposure for any given image is a highly subjective thing and possibly the most important choice the photographer has to make. Whether in manual or automatic mode, there are choices to be made and good choices are never made blindly. The key is in understanding what your camera sees and knowing how to control it.

UNDERSTANDING YOUR METER

The first issue is understanding how your light meter works. There are two components to this. First, how the light meter judges a scene and second, how that judgment is influenced by the meter mode selection. First we will look at what your meter sees.

No matter how advanced your light metering system, it is still a dumb machine. That holds true for use in manual mode as well as automatic. This is where novice photographers go wrong in switching to manual mode. The meter functions in exactly the same way and the user either understands that functionality, or they don’t.

To put it simply, the camera doesn’t know what it’s photographing. It is only able to judge tone. To some extent modern cameras know about highlight and shadow but what they really see is the middle of the tonal scale. A value that photographers call

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Fishing The Mangroves

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by Rod Hamilton

“My fish is in the mangroves, now what do I do?”

One of the great things about having a website and blog is the interaction I have daily with fisherman from around the world. Sharing ideas, learning about the occasional secret spot and passing on tips (always learned the hard way) makes it fun to be a participant in the industry.

A couple of recent questions from subscribers about how to land fish when they are in the “bushes” had me reflecting on my own trials and tribulations regarding this common DIY scenario;

Their confusion about what to do in that situation originated from the same place that it had for me. They had received conflicting instructions about how best to fight a fish once it was in the mangroves.

I wasn’t with them and each situation tends to be a little different, but I can assume the tactical fighting advice ranged from “put the boots to it” to “give it slack and let it run.”

Before I tell you what I do, let me set the stage and walk you down the path I took which eventually led to a substantial increase in landed fish.

I started the same place we all did. On the front of a boat with a guide expertly poling me along, pointing out fish that I couldn’t see. But the reality was I seldom fished in tricky mangrove areas, its just not where guides take you. Mostly we were fishing flats in relatively open and benign areas.

Occasionally the guide would pole along a mangrove edge and the fish would elect to panic, swimming at warp speed back into the mangroves, but usually it stayed where the battle did not include obstructions.

I describe this typical scenario to point out that I, like most boat guided anglers, didn’t have that much practice extracting fish from deep in the mangroves. So it’s no wonder we tighten up, get anxious and are not sure what to do.

But for a walk and wade DIY guy it is just the opposite. I fish along edges and deep inside creek systems probably as much as on open flats. I mean how many flats are there where I can walk, bike, drive or kayak too?

My partners and I do not fish where guides and others go so edges, creeks and the “middle of nowhere” are much more the rule than the exception.

Since the tough places make up at least 50% of the locations, it became obvious I needed to get much better at, stalking, casting and landing fish in the mangroves. These became mandatory skills not just one-offs.

My usual fishing buddy and I made the decision to figure out how to increase our “landed” ratio and win the jungle battle. If you ask us now what percentage of fish we land, we can comfortably say fifty percent. In fact, he just returned from North Andros, went into the sticks the last afternoon and ended up with four of six. Which seems about right.

AFTER EXTRACTING OUT OF THE MANGROVES A FEW HUNDRED FISH BETWEEN US, HERE ARE THE THREE METHODS WE USE.

Yank and Crank
The title says it all, but let me explain. When I know I’m going deep into a creek system and am surrounded by roots and branches I make three significant equipment changes. I snip off my #12 tippet and tie on #20 pound. I tighten my drag to about as tight as it will go. And switch to a larger, flashier fly. What we have found is that deep within the protective cover of the mangroves the fish are not the least bit leader shy. No need for delicate presentations with small flies on light leaders. So I go with flies they can see, that make a splash when they hit and attach it to as strong a tippet as I have in the bag. Normally these are short pinpoint casts into tiny holes and pockets. When the fish hits, strip strike and then literally fight the fish right where you hooked it. It’s a hell of a battle, but you just don’t let it run. I’ve never landed a fish larger than 4 1/2 pounds doing this but then that takes into account 90% of all the fish you will see.

Walk the Dog
This one is crazy, it shouldn’t work and goes against all your instincts, but the results will surprise you. Use

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C&R Tips & Gear for Musky & Other Toothy Critters

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I’ll never forget the first musky I landed on fly.

It was an extremely proud moment for me, but it quickly turned into a stressful situation after I got the musky to the boat. I had serious problems removing the deeply hooked fly. The musky had its mouth slammed shut and would not open it more than a couple seconds at a time. After a few minutes without making any progress, I became desperate, and used my hand to pry the mouth open (dumb I know, but the health of the fish was more important to me) and I ended up badly cutting my hand on the razor sharp teeth. The entire hook removal process took far too long, and that made it extremely difficult for us to revive and release the fish. It was an organized team effort to say the least. I held the fish in the water, Louis stabilized the net, and Murphy ran the trolling motor upstream to keep water running over the gills until we got the musky green again. Talk about a bummer that ended up overshadowing a proud angling moment. That’s not how I wanted my first catch and release of a musky to go down.

If you’re planning on going fly fishing for musky or any other toothy critters for the first time, I highly encourage you to read over these organized catch and release handling tips and gear recommendations. They’ll keep you and the fish safe, and you’ll greatly decrease the chances of ruining a great moment on the water like I did.

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Don’t get ripped off!

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By Louis Cahill

The only thing worse than paying too much for your fly fishing gear is having it stolen.

I woke up this morning to a pile of glass by my truck. One of the worst things about living in a big city is the constant presence of crime. Car break-ins are common and, in the scheme of all the horrible stuff that can happen to you, really just an inconvenience. Don’t waste your time telling me that I need to move to Montana. Believe me, I already know but my wife has the best job of her life and is very happy, so we are here for a while, and while we are, we will have to deal with this kind of thing.

You would think that with the ever-present threat of robbery, I would have better sense than to leave thousands of dollars worth of fly fishing rods and reels, and various photo gear in my truck. You’d be wrong. There were at least a dozen fly rods, half a dozen reels and some photo gear in the truck last night when I, and everyone else on the street, got hit. Hear’s the part you might not expect. It’s all still there.

I leave that stuff in my truck for a reason. It’s the safest place I have, because I have a Truckvault.

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The First Ten Seconds

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Chaos and panic are good words to describe what goes through many anglers heads during the first ten seconds following a big fish hookup.
The decisions you make during those first seconds of the fight will often determine whether you or the fish wins the battle. There’s lots of ways to lose a big fish and sometimes it’s completely out of your control. But one of the worst decisions you can make, specifically when a fish is making a screaming run upstream or downstream of you, is deciding to stay put and not follow. When this happens you better be ready to kick it into high gear and move your ass fast in pursuit. Otherwise, you’ll quickly find yourself with no leverage to apply adequate power to fight and steer the fish. It’s like trying to drive a car on a curvy road without a steering wheel, it’s just not going to work.

Big trout usually only have a couple really long hard runs. If you can stick with them during the blitzing runs and keep good tension, you’ll often find the hardest part of the fight is

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Regarding The River

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WHAT CAN I TELL YOU ABOUT HER? THE ONE THAT I LOVE.

The one with whom I have left my heart. Dark and lovely. Moody and sullen, she gives little away. Sometimes capricious, never predictable, she keeps me in wonder, in awe. She keeps me for herself. She heeds no man. Selfish, she takes what she wants and wastes not the time to covet. She seeks out the low places, the dark and shady places. She keeps their secrets. I look into her face and I see only the sky.

She knows me. She washes over me, runs through me. She thrills me, frightens me. She gives me peace, makes me whole. She asked nothing from me and she receives it. I have given her my life and she has returned it. I enter her and she remains inside me when I go. She owns me and of her, I know almost nothing. She carves the earth in her image. She carves my soul.

I see her, sometimes when I least expect her. She takes

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