Articles

Tips for tandem flies

Doing it right when doing it together
Photo: Joey Guzman

What do Batman and Robin, Jagger and Richards, Butch and Sundance, and Simon and Garfunkel all have in common? It’s simple. They’re famous collaborators where the sum of their partnership is greater than the individual parts. And that same symbiotic energy is evident in fly fishing, where two flies that work together will consistently outproduce one fly on its own.

Finally, Washington bans salmon farms

By 2025, Atlantic salmon will be gone from Puget Sound
Photo: Earl Harper / Harper Studios

This past September, residents from all over Washington formed the 'Our Sound Our Salmon' flotilla in the waters off Bainbridge Island to send a clear message: end net pen farming of Atlantic salmon, an invasive species anywhere in Pacific waters, in Washington and protect the state's wild, natural, and native salmon runs. The event was prompted by an August escape of as many as 200,000 Atlantic salmon from Cooke Aquaculture's Cyprus Island farm in Puget Sound.

Teaching trout

Tips on being an effective instructor on the water
Photo: Chad Shmukler

Once we’ve been fly fishing for a while, most of us find ourselves in a position where we know a fair amount about angling. We might not all be experts, but we’re still pretty comfortable with the subject. We talk about it on a regular basis, we read articles and watch videos and share opinions with our friends and fishing partners until one day, pretty much out of the blue, someone actually asks for our help.

What are they biting on? What fly should I use? How did you just make that cast?

Boyd Hill

“OK, old dog. It’s time, and there’s no point in waiting any longer.”
Photo: Todd Tanner

The squalls rolled across the valley floor like wagons hitched to the wind, each one a separate sheet of rain running to the east. Young Wes Turner stood on the porch and listened to raindrops on tin, a thousand little fingers drumming on the roof while the dogs slept at his feet, cool for the first time in weeks. The porch steps were pine, weathered and gray like the clouds, like the rest of the porch, like the house itself, which drank in the dim evening light with the same thirst that the land held for moisture.

As it had for years, the porch roof leaked.

Save big on baggage fees on your next fishing trip

Hiding in plain sight is a policy that can save you hundreds of dollars the next time you fly
3 checked bags + 2 carry-on bags = no fees (photo: Chad Shmukler).

These days, when I travel to fish, I've become accustomed to eating huge airline baggage fees. In fact, I've simply been trained into factoring $150-$300 extra in baggage fees into my travel budgeting. For anglers like myself and most others with whom I've slogged my way through airports, the usual setup goes something like this: a rod + reel case, a gear bag (boots, waders, flies, lines and other misc gear) and a duffel or suitcase with your clothes and toiletries.

Pages