Nope, there’s no gaudy beads or feelers, no articulated body parts or rare materials to keep you from owning these killers immediately … … although there is that trust thing … Nor will I mention the hair extensions you’ll have to tear out by the roots, or the groans of the feminine members of the [...]

I’m reminded how much of the skill is in the hands of the tier, and how much of the finished look is in the materials he selects, and for many flies the mechanical attention to proportions simply cannot fix a bad choice of materials and their effect on the final look. Which is why we [...]

As SMJ so eloquently reminded us Monday, “… where them fuggin antz at?” I have the luxury of fleeing the fishless and flooded creeks in my area for our traditional twice yearly pilgrimage to Manzanita Lake. It’s become ritual at this point; once to mark the opening of the season, once in the fall to [...]

At some point we all flirt with the individual fibers, knotted legs, and artificial or synthetic everything – mostly because the flies look much too delicious to ignore… … about our third fly we begin to wonder about synthetic reality and whether something that takes forty-five minutes to tie can outfish something made from a [...]

There’s the fellow tasked with bringing all the cooking implements, the canisters of propane, the lanterns and mechanical vestiges of civilization, if he forgets something it’s a round of good natured ribbing and a bit of improvisation, like beans warmed in the can. Then its the guy tasked with the victuals; the ice chests bulging [...]

It was so much easier when I lived on the banks of Hat Creek and could fiddle with the fly before throwing it at the same fish I’d thrown it at the night before. If they ate it, it was success. If they didn’t, we kept fiddling with it. With no fish visible last night [...]

It’s the simplest of all games really, each Saturday evening I sit down at the vise to invent the next great dry fly series that will revolutionize the surface game, and make everyone forget them ancient fuddy-duddies like Skues, Halford, or Ronald McDonald … Rules are simpler yet; it has to be as fast or [...]

The problem with fly tying is that it’s so blasted untidy that it’s impossible to sit down with something in mind without being lured by something bright or shiny, and the result is a handful of something entirely different. Most new tiers never see it coming, as the “Shoe-Box” phase, when everything they own can [...]

I’ve oft wondered at all the toil and expense for the rod maker to remove a sixteenth of an ounce and whether all that engineering and measurement made enough difference to matter. Likewise for that disc drag and aircraft grade titanium that the reel maker boasts is so much more sturdy and durable, and whether he [...]

I’d come across them many times, and while always cognizant of their presence, I’d always considered landlocked salmon more of a novelty fishery rather than something you spent a lot of time pursuing. Naturally that all changed if I was camped on the bank, in which case its bright red meat was a delicacy, and [...]