Articles

Fly casting 101

Before you can become an advanced caster, you need to master the basics

by Todd Tanner - Tuesday, Aug 16th, 2016

Photo: Jeremy Roberts

Most fly fishermen would like to become better casters. Very few of us throw the perfect loops that we all aspire to, and even fewer anglers boast a full repertoire of casts, starting with basics like the single haul and roll casts, and moving on to double hauls, reach casts, curve casts, bow and arrow casts, puddle casts, etc. I won’t list them all right now, but there are a dozen or more casts that can make your life a little easier when you’re out on the water. If you’re serious about your fly fishing, it makes sense to have at least a few of them in your arsenal.

Middle Fork magic

Fishing through flood and fire

by Kris Millgate - Monday, Aug 15th, 2016

Photo: Kris Millgate

I’m rafting Idaho’s undamed and untamed Middle Fork of the Salmon River. My plan is to fish all 100 miles of it with a small, telescoping tenkara rod. At the first alarming yell of ‘bump’ on day one, I know casting is not in the cards. We’re braving a late-season 6-day run. Ideal water level is three feet. We have well under two.

“This is the lowest I’ve ever ran it,” says Gary McDannel, Middle Fork rafter for 30 years. “It is nasty, but this trip is still top of the list.”

The legend of Ol' Hickory

A combination of cunning and brawn make the perfect creek predator

by Johnny Carrol Sain - Thursday, Aug 11th, 2016

Photo: Johnny Carrol Sain

I don’t recall the year, but it’s been several since that day. A steamy, late summer afternoon found me waist deep in the cool waters of the Illinois Bayou somewhere north of Hector, Arkansas. Cicadas buzzed in the hardwoods and the barbaric cackle of a pileated woodpecker occasionally echoed through the hollow. Sol was still an hour away from sinking below the hills, and the theory of an inverse relationship between sunlight and bass fishing was again proving true. As light waned fishing success waxed.

Boy scout

Where preparation lacks, adaptation thrives

by Chris Hunt - Wednesday, Aug 10th, 2016

Photo: Chad Shmukler

Preparedness was never my thing. There’s a reason I made it to Webelo, but didn’t matriculate farther through the Boy Scout system. You can only show up at the den meeting without your little scarf slider so many times before it sinks in.

This just isn’t for me.

Choosing your fly

How to pick the right fly at the right time

by Todd Tanner - Tuesday, Aug 9th, 2016

Guide Santos Madero pores over his fly selection on Patagonia's Limay River (photo: Earl Harper).

I was talking to the editor of a fly fishing magazine the other day, and he mentioned that he was going to do a story on a fellow who had an awfully large fly collection. The exact number didn’t stick in my head, but it seems to me that it was somewhere along the lines of 73,000 flies. Good Lord, assuming that you could only fish a couple at a time, where would you ever start?