In our Bold New World department comes a Salmon angler’s dream, an Atlantic salmon that eats year round, reproduces like a New Zealand Mud Snail and grows twice as fast as real salmon. The only problem is the damn thing has to be taught how to swim. You grab a gene from a Pacific Salmon, [...]

I can remember listening intently while it was explained that attractor flies have relied on the color red, as it was the color of blood and should excite any predator. The real truth has been revealed that anything in red is twice as seductive as other colors, and while fly fishing’s founding fathers insisted it [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

Fishermen have always put catching far above creature comforts as it makes the story twice worthy of the retelling. Breathable waders will be jettisoned in favor of the new “mummified” look – a return to leggings and the garb of yesteryear. Why? Because you’ll have the scent of a million smashed caddis tucked in the [...]

Peering into scientific research is a mixed bag – every so often your knees come together involuntarily and you find yourself siding with PETA or their insect equivalent. For fishermen all we need know is the next generation of mosquito repellants will be cruel and unusual – which is an appropriate punishment for something that [...]

The Daily Flypaper blog posted a fascinating video of the 1.3 million dollar fly tying system from Intuitive Surgical… … which is a bit misleading, it’s actually an Intuitive Surgical robot showing off what it can do. ISRG has been the darling of Wall Street for a number of years, considered best of breed for [...]

It was all in the timing. My latest read is about the spread of that most egregious invasive – how the Rainbow Trout has pillaged most continents (ably assisted by well meaning anglers) – enroute to world domination … … and up till now it’s been a source of interest, as my California streams provided [...]

UK scientists have unearthed a startling new trove of prehistoric angling gear, containing evidence that fly fishing may have developed in prehistoric times … UK and Chinese scientists are suggesting that the Confuciusornis fossil discovered in China, may have been a dinosaur with a Mohawk of ginger colored feathers running down its spine. … as [...]

Most of us anglers are oblivious to what goes on in all those streambed nooks and crannies. We’re content so long as it emerges at dusk and exists in enough numbers to keep fish fat and healthy. Like the dinosaur – scientists assumed that the biggest were at the top of the food chain and [...]