Articles

Simple nymphing: Part 2

Getting the drift

by Todd Tanner - Wednesday, May 24th, 2023

Photo: Todd Tanner

In Simple Nymphing: Part 1, I focused on several basic nymph fishing truths and then delved into the easiest and most effective way to set up a nymphing rig. To summarize those truths:

First, you need to present appropriate flies to a trout, or to likely looking water, at the right depth, and without drag or unnatural movement.

Then you need to detect the strike and set the hook before the fish expels your nymph.

That’s nymphing in a nutshell. We can make it far more complicated, of course, but there’s really no reason to add additional levels of complexity unless we’re looking for a challenge or we’re drawn to complexity for its own sake.

The Yucatan's best-kept secret?

Fly fishing Mexico's Chetumal Bay

by Chris Hunt - Wednesday, May 17th, 2023

Guide karma has its benefits (photo: Xflats).

It was a good idea. Or so we thought.

After a day spent chasing bones and tarpon on the flats of Chetumal Bay, instead of heading back to the lodge, Earl and I asked our guide, Alejandro, to drop us on the beach in Xcalak, a modest little Yucatan fishing village that fronts the Caribbean just north of the border with Belize.

It was somewhat of an usual request, but our plan to wander the friendly little community, find a cold cerveza and maybe a couple plates of tacos pescados to share was enough to entice

Feds to pour money into public lands projects—for now

In the short term, the government will make big investments in public lands infrastructure

by Chris Hunt - Tuesday, May 16th, 2023

Boardwalks overlooking Grand Prismatic Spring in Yellowstone National Park (photo: NPS/David Restivo cc2.0).

In August 2020, Congress did something remarkable. In the throes of a heated political campaign season and in the middle of a deadly viral pandemic that was literally killing Americans left and right, the nation’s legislative branch set aside its daily political rancor and passed the Great American Outdoors Act.

In Patagonia, spring is for dry flies

Perception isn't always reality

by Chris Hunt - Thursday, May 11th, 2023

A Rio Munoz brown trout (photo: Earl Harper).

Fly fishers tend to rely on perception. And that perception often becomes our reality. For many Northern Hemisphere anglers, particularly those who fish the high-elevation rivers and streams of the Rocky Mountain West, we spend the months of May and June dredging deep runs in cloudy water hoping to pull a big, belligerent trout off the bottom as we power through heavy, turbid spring flows. The folks out east may get to enjoy springtime dry fly fishing, but those of us who live where towering snow-capped peaks predominate the landscape, spring is runoff season.

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