Articles

RIO intros SlickCast, the 'most significant technology the fly line world has ever seen'

The longtime fly line maker has built what it proudly calls the slickest, most durable, longest lasting lines ever
Casting a new RIO SlickCast fly line (photo: RIO).

When you write about gear long enough, you learn to take with a grain of salt the "excitement" that comes with each new product release. Being exuberant, elated, or otherwise stoked about a new piece of gear is, after all, a marketer's job. And so, despite the regular churn of truly innovative products and technological advancements that the fly fishing industry produces, you develop a habit of reading past the ad speak and relying on your own impressions.

Review: Sage ESN fly reel

Sage's industry-first Euro-nymphing specific reel hits the mark
The Sage ESN fly reel (photo: Chad Shmukler).

High-sticking, Euro-nymphing, contact nymphing, tight-line nymphing, Czech nymphing, in-line nymphing, mono-rig nymphing, polish nymphing, and so on. It is possible that there has never been so many different ways to describe what is, generally, a single method of fishing. For our purposes here, less settle on Euro-nymphing which, much like flat brimmed hats and leather bracelets, has taken the fly-fishing community by storm over the past few years.

The West's far-swimming char

Will bull trout one day be the last of the natives?
Photo: Chris Hunt

Summer in the tall country of west-central Idaho is hot. Folks in the little river town of Riggins regularly watch the mercury climb into triple-digit territory, and more often than not, August skies are clear, but tinged with acrid smoke from surrounding wildfires. Some days, the sun looks like a distant orb — it’s easy to make out its edges thanks to all the haze its light must work through in order to reach the earth.

Review: Orvis PRO Approach wet wading shoe

Orvis' agile, warm-weather wet wading shoe is a no-compromise marvel
Photo: Johnny Carrol Sain

Three off-the-top-of-my-head advantages to living in Arkansas: Chocolate gravy over biscuits is a breakfast option. You can absolutely wear your cut-offs to the fanciest restaurant in town. Wet-wading season runs April through October.

You may have never even heard of such a thing as chocolate gravy, but it’s real, and it is spectacular. Admittedly it’s a broad stroke, but if you’re not in the cut-offs crowd, well, we probably won’t have much in common. And around these parts, waders are for duck hunting.

Grouse Creek

Places that aren’t easy are precisely the places brook trout and ruffed grouse are supposed to live
Photo: Rueben Browning

It’d been so long since I’d stumbled into a family unit of grouse that it took a moment for all the tumblers to click into place. I’d crossed the old hilltop farm field and come to the pipeline cut when, just as I reached the lip where the cut slopes down to the creek, a largish, brownish bird with thunder in its wings erupted from the shaggy grass, bore left, and vanished into the concealing green of the woods.

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