I’m fixing him with my best grizzled guide Mac Daddy look, hoping I resemble in betwixt pure menacing and and just plain ornery mean, while I snarl, “… and you think you’re ready for dry flies, eh?” “Sure, as you ain’t got a truck, I can drive us up to the woods and we can [...]

It’s bad enough that we’re forced to endure the obligatory cavity search when boarding the plane – thereby removing all the explosives, brass knuckles, shanks, and belt fed weapons common to fishermen, but our arrival may soon be far worse. I stumbled across a New Zealand document outlining their strategy in combating the invasive threat [...]

The only thing in short supply this year has been success. It’s part and parcel of a “too” year; where everything is too cold, too high, too soon, and then suddenly it’s too late. Shad came and went, and while there was no lack of trying, my entire season was a single hooked fish. Till [...]

Next time some old codger tells you, “they was thick as flies, big ones, not that little crap what’s in there now” … rather than nodding respectfully you can just backhand the old gasbag … … and while he’s recovering his dentures you can retort, “Yea, but they were dumber then, and you ate all [...]

It’s my contention that the only thing spurring innovation is the much reviled competition scene, every other rod maker is fiddling with weight and thinking they’re being creative as all hell. The idea is certainly clever, a fifth piece, lacking guides, that transforms a nine footer into a Czech nymph rod; but they might want [...]

The fly fishing brotherhood has always prided itself in dimly lit showrooms, fly-specked plate glass, and unshaven trolls rummaging through backrooms for Good Stuff … … if the proprietor doesn’t reach under the counter or fetch the item from The Back Room, we know we’re getting the “tourist” deer hair – or the Whiting neck everybody [...]

Singlebarbed reader “Ed” recently took me to task on my curmudgeonly stance to invasive species, outlining newly minted facts that was sure to change my mind, and those of my readers … On Saturday I was visiting a girl friend and we were using her kayaks which hadn’t been paddled in awhile.  We cleaned them [...]

Lands and sticks to any surface, carries seven times its weight and releases on command? Teensy little nano-soldiers that deploy needles to adhere – and they’re going to waste them on insurgents and forest fires? It’s my goddamn tax dollars at work, so how much to add a barb? I always knew dry fly fishermen [...]

I lack the Warden-aint-looking-Velveeta “rod holder”, the depth meter, but more importantly I’m missing that gracious and relaxed look that comes with consistent success. I was too busy sulking to notice. Fishing is five grabs – and if you’re lucky enough to hook most of them it’s a good day; sunburn hurts less, dinner tastes [...]

Everyone knows how fishermen simply open up to the polite inquiry of  a summer intern when statistics and national averages are involved. Notepad at the ready, some poor fellow interrupted in his watery reverie, glances up impatiently and answers, “anything large, but fishing’s crappy” – which immediately pads the numbers in favor of the warmwater crowd. The [...]