Articles

Bozeman Fly Fishing: The Making of a Reel

by Jesse R. Bussard - Friday, Aug 8th, 2014

Some time ago, I was introduced to several new products from an ambitious and innovative fly reel company from southwest Montana known as Bozeman Reel Company. Though Bozeman Reel Company has since expanded their offerings to include other fly fishing products and now goes by the moniker Bozeman Fly Fishing, their primary focus remains on their premium reels which are made entirely in Montana at their Bozeman headquarters. In early May I visited Bozeman Fly Fishing's headquarters to witness first-hand how their fly reels are made. Owner Dan Rice showed me around the machine shop, where we walked through the production process in detail from start-to-finish.

Attention to detail and high quality craftsmanship comes through in their production process – from the caliber of Montana-made materials they use in production to the careful inspection given throughout the entire process to ensure a consistent, superior finished product. And, as a fly reel company owned and operated by fly fisherman, Bozeman fly fishing knows very well how important a fly reel with a smooth, fish-stopping drag is to landing the big one.

Making a fly reel is complicated business. Each reel assembly is composed of 37 parts. According to Rice, eighteen of those, mainly major parts such as the spool, housing, drag knob, and handle, require some level of machining.

Review: Trout Magazine

by Steve Zakur - Thursday, Aug 7th, 2014

This past weekend I spent time camping along the Beaverkill nestled deep in a fold of the Catskills. With no cell phone service I had the opportunity to get caught up on my reading in between a little trout fishing, socializing and relaxing with the family. In the stack of dead trees that accompanied me was Trout magazine. Trout was fairly high in the stack, well above the well recognized "how to" periodicals. During the past few years I've come to have a keener appreciation for the writers who are closer to the literary end of the spectrum than the "hook and bullet" end. The Drake, Flyfish Journal and Gray's Fly Fishing issue (though I feel it's aging out) are my new staples. Trout's in that class too though that's a fairly recent development.

I first met Kirk Deeter in 2012 shortly after he was announced as editor of Trout Magazine. Kirk's vision for Trout, the in house magazine of Trout Unlimited, was to be of such high quality that folks would join TU just to get the magazine. That sounded awful ambitious.

A few months later I ran into Kirk again at TU's annual meeting. He handed me a copy of the latest issue just before it got dropped in the mail. It was the first copy that he had edited front to back and it was an interesting change of course most notably for the stunning front page - a black and white photo of a chinook salmon. But the changes ran deeper.

Road Trips

by Todd Tanner - Wednesday, Aug 6th, 2014

Back in the spring of ’92, Tim Linehan and I spent a week bouncing around Montana and Idaho, hitting a different river every single day for six days in a row. We started on the lower Henry’s Fork and then moved on to the Madison, the Big Hole, the Yellowstone, the Bighorn and the Missouri. We couldn’t maintain that kind of pace forever, so on the seventh day we rested up in a bargain motel right off the interstate in Helena. I don’t know that a cheap bed and a hot shower ever felt so good.

Most of us who’ve been kicking around the sport for a while have a handful of epic road trips to our credit. That particular jaunt started with melting snowbanks on the river in Island Park and then moved right into the Mother’s Day caddis hatch on the Yellowstone, a bunch of native grayling on the Big Hole, and a bent trailer tongue on the Bighorn.

There’s a bit of a story with that last one. I was still learning how to maneuver a drift boat trailer at the time, and Tim, who was an old hand by that point, damn near laughed his pants wet when I jackknifed my rig below Afterbay Dam and bent the trailer tongue. We had no idea what to do next, so we took a big chance and jackknifed it again in the opposite direction. Amazingly, our maneuver worked. You could still see a little shimmy in the tongue, but it never seemed to affect the way the trailer tracked behind my truck.

One of the best things about road trips is that you can typically expect something unusual. I’ve seen some pretty wild things over the years, from dancing coyotes to massive grizzly bears to a gorgeous Native American gal – she bore a remarkable resemblance to a teenage Angelina Jolie – thumbing a ride on the outskirts of Hazelton, British Columbia. (Nope, we didn’t stop. My fishing partner and I were both married, and nothing good was going to come from inviting that young lady into the truck.)

Book Review: Top of the Flood - Halfway Through a Fly Fishing Life

by Mike Sepelak - Tuesday, Aug 5th, 2014

One of the great joys of reading is being transported to far away places where you can participate in new experiences and meet characters unlike those that you’ve encountered before. Equally enjoyable is reading about the warm and familiar – seeing what you already love from another person’s viewpoint and re-living your own adventures as they parallel those of the author’s. When you find that rare book within which you can do both, it’s hard to stop turning the pages. Tosh Brown’s Top of the Flood: Halfway Through a Fly-Fishing Life hit me square in that sweet spot.

“The rods, reels, flies, and fish are a big part of what we do, but over time I’ve begun to see them more as tactical elements in a much larger scene… we travel, we cast, we catch fish, we lose fish, we laugh, we meet new people, we witness extraordinary things, and we create memories.”

I have to admit, right up front, that when I first heard of the upcoming book, I was skeptical. There was to be no photography. Tosh’s images captivate me and for years they’ve inspired the average fly fisherman and neophyte shutter-puncher in me to try more, reach farther, and see the angling world from different perspectives and in different lights. His new publication was supposed to be placed on my coffee table, not on my bookshelf.

Bob's Bass

by Steve Zakur - Thursday, Jul 31st, 2014

Photo: Chad Shmukler

When I first came to the pond, I was probably four or five years old. A ball of bread on a large hook dangling from a bit of string tied to a branch allowed me to catch what the locals called Horned Pout, bullheads to the rest of you. I don't recall catching these ugly brown fish but I've seen faded black and whites of catfish swinging from a tentatively held stick.

Years later I returned to the pond as the indentured servant to a great uncle's fantastical home improvement projects. The one solace was the adventures that could be had with an old fishing pole, worms and a row boat. Most evenings I could get away and do some fishing though it was more for solitude than sport. It was my first introduction to trout and largemouth.

My great uncle's neighbor, Bob, sometimes took pity on me and took me out on his motorboat. It was an unremarkable dinghy with a fifteen horsepower motor that managed to get us around the hundred acre pond quickly and efficiently. Bob showed me the way through the rock garden on the western bank so that we could access water shaded from the late afternoon sun. Largemouth congregated in those shoals. Back across time I can recall seeing rising fish. Of course at the time those were just bullseyes for lures to hit. You could do well with a Rapala or a Mepps.