My good friend, Jim Hagar, is a member of the Pere Marquette Rod and Gun Club in Baldwin, MI. He and his friend Tom McGraw hit the river over the past weekend to sample the early spring fishing. Saturday was hot—fishing wise, not temperature wise. Tom nailed the best fish of the day, with Jim […]
Harry Schoel, from Holland, and a mutual friend of Chuck Furimsky and mine, likes to arrived a week or two early for the International Fly Tying Symposium to spend time with Chuck, perhaps going to a football game at Penn State, but certainly trout fishing, weather permitting. And then, a couple of days before the […]
When we chased big browns in Chile, my guide, Claudio Ramos, told me to cast into the pocket water of the rushing stream and then mend as needed to keep the fly drifting broadside to the currents. “The big browns love to come up under the fly to take it as it drifts down.” We […]
The Polar Vortex rotated down over the US this year, giving Europe a very mild winter and early spring. Theo Bakelaar recently wrote that the daytime temperatures in Holland are near 70F, and the carp are moving into shallow water, seeking the warmth. Of course, that means carp fishing time. Carp are powerful brutes, and […]
I’m just back from a Saturday clinic with the Ozark Fly Fishers. My friend, Dr. Gary Eaton, was there, and we had a great chance to say “Hi” and get caught up a bit. He told me of a couple of big trout that fell to his “Skittering Anchor” tactic, and then sent me photos […]
Just prior to the International Fly Tying Symposium last November (23-24, 2013), Theo Bakelaar had an opportunity to fish with his Tenkara equipment on a private stream in Pennsylvania. The water holds some exceptional fish, and Theo was able to connect with a very fat, 9-pound rainbow, using a beetle imitation fished on his 4-meter […]
This weekend (Sept. 13-15) I am at the Clydehurst Christian Ranch on the Boulder River in Montana teaching fly fishing with my friend Marc Williamson. Today was a fishing day for us. In addition to the fact that it was fun, it was also a necessity because we want to be able to advise those […]
Opportunistic feed is when fish literally eat whatever the opportunity provides. This is often the situation during periods between hatches. Selective feeding occurs whenever there is a super-abundance of one food type—such as occurs during a hatch. Then there is Semi-Selectivity. This is a type of opportunistic feeding during which fish feed preferentially on organisms […]
Fishing for cruising browns and rainbows in the near-shore shallows of lakes, like fishing for bones on the flats, is one of the most exciting of all fishing experiences. One sees the fish, one sees the take, and the fight is always fast and furious as the fish heads for deep water. It’s a time […]
The day after the Project Healing Waters Fly Fishing event in Colorado, I was privileged to spend a day fishing. The weather was a bit on the cold and windy side—in fact, we awoke to snow showers. Still, fishing is fishing, and the four of us that had the day to fish bundled up warm […]