It was a Northern California ritual, get a whiff of the dairy outside Redding, then slam on the brakes for the obligatory “The Fly Shop” pilgrimage. The excuse being to replace aging tippet which quickly morphed into fondling most of the upstairs plumage. While I was never able to exit the premises without blowing that extra hundred [...]

As a means of belittling us fly fisher-types who have spent  a couple lifetimes studying flies and imitating their every move, pop-star Beyonce trumps our ”Teddy” Gordon by getting a horse fly named in her honor … According to the Australian National Insect Collection researcher responsible for officially ‘describing’ the fly as Scaptia (Plinthina) beyonceae, [...]

I expected most of the angling world to be in mourning, yet nary a mention of the possible demise of Wonderbread and the Twinkie, two of angling’s last remaining superfoods … Hostess and fly fishing have an enormous amount of shared lore which has been lost on recent generations due to their insistence on healthy streamside [...]

It started out as simply a shoulder shrug, but on a whim I was quickly transported from avaricious angler looking to impress his fishing pals to investigative journalist, then onward to devout PETA flag waver … It should have been a no brainer, how I was going to impress fishing pals by serving the remnants [...]

  As it’s not Mssr. Pitt and a bevy of nubiles, it’ll be under the radar of most. But with Woman & Home giving it a thumbs up, how can it miss. Contains rod-fu, salmon-fu, and droll UK humor, the perfect recipe for a chaste run at the Oscars. Technorati Tags: salmon, yemen, movie, ewan [...]

Bobbing away in some nameless lake last summer, I’d attributed my lack of success to a poorly designed floating midge imitation, and if I combined the air intake of an F-18E Super Hornet with a bit of deer hair, I could  produce a better imitation that could showcase the body color to best advantage. … [...]

We’re safe for the moment because there’s still an occasional Field & Stream mixed in with People and National Enquirer in the dental waiting area, and it’s inappropriate to hold us Sons of the Greatest Generation accountable for our Poppa’s fixation with archaic blood sports. … then again, all that could change in the blink [...]

I’m giggling while Science chides me about noise pollution and fish –hoping to make me feel bad. I suppose if I owned a boat I’d feel worse, but the article concludes that even short bursts of noise can distract fish while feeding, and they’ll make more errors in judgment and ingest things they shouldn’t … [...]

You get to make quite the scene forswearing candy, the remaining quart of egg nog, and the last slices of fruit cake enroute to recapturing your High School physique. Like all religious zealots, the Monday after the last bleat of festive horn becomes so much more important, given you’ve sworn never to eat sweets again, [...]

Yesterday’s post suggests a combination of poor economics and seasonal excess have woken you to fly fishing’s retail malaise, where you’re prepared to let the vendors auger in under the weight of pricey zipper-front waders, multi-thousand dollar fly rods, and titanium imbued vest accessories, featuring trout shaped drink openers … Given that bleak economic outlook, and if [...]