Something about pulling a fish out of a big body of water makes you feel heroic.

Walking up to a big body of water, so big that your cast doesn’t even cover a fraction of the water, can be daunting and even downright discouraging.

You almost feel nervous to make your first cast. Where do I start? How do I tackle this water without a boat?

But when everything comes together and you hook into that fish, you feel like you won the lottery!

Here are a few things to help make swinging your fly rod feel a little more like fishing and a little less like… flailing.

How do we get new fly anglers introduced to the sport of fly fishing?

We hear this question over and over again.

The answer might be sitting in front of us and we don’t even see it. This magic bullet is also a hell of a lot of fun for the seasoned angler as well.

What is it, you ask?

It is Lepomis macrochirus, more commonly called a bluegill.

No matter where you live, there are probably some of these little gems swimming in a pond or lake near you.

Let’s face it, trout fishing can be hard and often a barrier to getting new fly anglers off to a good start.

There's nothing better than the humble bluegill to ensure a new fly angler has a great experience and gets put on the path to success.

Everyone has their own style of fishing whether it be with a spinning rod or a fly rod.

Those of us who choose to pick up a fly rod also have our little own niches in which we choose to stick with.

Unfortunately, we tend to put our streamer boxes aside during this time of year and stick to more traditional approaches.

Yes, it’s exhilarating to watch that giant brown trout come to the surface and take your size 18 dry fly as you fish a tail out of a pool or a nice steady run, but what is more heart pumping than watching that same giant fish chase your 4” to 8” streamer from bank to bank and demolish your fly on the strip or the end of your swing?

Catching a pickerel, pike, or musky on a fly rod is an intense experience that translates into obsession very quickly.

There are only a handful of fish that I can say I’m obsessed with targeting on a fly rod.

Trout are at the top of my list, but any of the fish within the esocidae, or esox, family come in at a close second.

Spring and fall are the typical seasons when big pike are most vulnerable to a fly angler, but I can’t help but target them all year long, summer being no exception.

These tips will help you dial in summer pike within your local system.

Water temperature will tell you a great deal about where smallmouth bass are and what they're up to.

The first thing to do when you get on water you haven’t fished all winter, or even in the last week, is finding the right water to fish.

As conditions underwater change, fish swim to find a comfy spot that suits their needs.

Learning to read water and pay attention to the finer details will enable you to identify holding spots quickly and increase your chances of being in the right place at the right time.

A quick breakdown looks like this:

Continue reading

Your fly is the most critical part of your setup.

It doesn’t matter if you’re throwing it on your new $500 rod, or fish scale print reel, or in the newest wading shoes.

If your fly doesn’t fish, the fish won’t eat it.

That being said, a fly is only as good as its presentation. Your fly might be the best-looking, most lifelike imitation ever tied. It might perfectly match the hatch, down to the exact shade and color; however, it's only as good as the angler throwing it.

My aim is to give you some perspective on how I fish a streamer and why, hopefully increasing the effectiveness of the flies already in your box.

HSM '16 was dominated by Flymen guide program members showing their chops.

Blane Chocklett, Chris Willen, Mike Schultz took the overall win of total combined inches with a 41.5", a 36", and a 40" musky at the two-day event on the Collins River near McMinnville, Tennessee. Continue reading

Sight fishing for bonefish, permit, or redfish is one of my favorite things in life.

It combines many of the visual pleasures of fly fishing with some of the toughest technical challenges, creating a scenario in which so much needs to come together perfectly to be successful.

Travelling to a beautiful tropical location and searching for an almost invisible, elusive quarry among endless sand flats, palm trees, mangroves and crystal clear water is incredibly relaxing.

Then add the heightened sense of anticipation, the sudden jolt and adrenaline rush as you first sight the fish – heart pounding, panic setting in, and of course the pressure! Pressure from your guide, your buddy, and yourself to put together the perfect cast at the perfect time to deliver your fly to the perfect spot in the hope (or prayer) that you'll be rewarded. 

So much fun!

The idea for the Fish-Skull® Shrimp & Cray Tail™ first came to me during one of these trips to the Bahamas in late 2014. Out on a flats boat in the middle of nowhere, but somewhere between my fourth bonefish and third Kalik of the day, the idea formed to create an alternative to the established fly tying method of using bead chain eyes or small dumbbells to weight shrimp or small crayfish patterns. Continue reading

Forget the Squirmy. Forget the egg flies. The Mop Fly is the most sinful fly of all time.

When I graduated college in May of 2015 and shared with my peers that I was going to be working for a non-profit conservation organization to work with college fly fishing clubs nationwide, I got a variety of responses ranging from, “Whoa, that's sick,” to, “What are you doing with your life?”

Many of my peers in college viewed fly fishing as an old guy sport, with their closest mental image being Brad Pitt “shadow casting” on the banks of the Bitterroot in A River Runs Through It.

Little did they know, fly fishing is actually a growing sport in the millennial generation.

As a woman, when you gain a little weight you have 3 options:

1. You can lose it.
2. You can just deal with it and not do a thing.
3. You can buy one of those horrific sucker-inner-things that make you look 10,000 times thinner but make you cry trying to imagine how to pee out of it.

And your poor fly has to worry about the same thing. Well, not the peeing part.

You have 3 choices when tying your fly:

1. It can lose the weight and sacrifice action.
2. It can stay big and bulky and sacrifice appearance.
3. You as a fly tyer can conceal the weight.

Here are my favorite techniques to conceal weight in a fly without sacrificing appearance, or running up a Nordstrom card on some fly spanx. Continue reading

Over the last 20 years of streamer fishing I've encountered many different situations.

I've fished fast Western rivers, Southern tailwaters with variations of speed based on dam flows, and slow Midwestern streams and lakes.

One of the most important factors I have found to maximize fly action is having the correct weight for each situation. Continue reading

I swear to fish the hatch and the whole hatch.

To most fly anglers, fishing the hatch means fishing dries, spinners, or maybe emerger patterns to actively feeding trout.

For more years than I can remember, I've spent time sitting on the bank waiting for the “hatch” to happen.

Then about 15 years ago it hit me when a guide client asked me, “what were the bugs doing before they hatched?"

Bam! Light went on.

Why I hadn’t thought of this myself? Continue reading

This fly is effective on pressured fish who need a little more reason to eat — especially in slow moving water when pressured fish have a long time to look at flies before they commit to eating. 

Just as The Sexy Walt’s and The Frenchie are simply tied patterns, so are these quill-bodied bugs.

One of the hallmarks of these simple flies is that there’s not a lot of junk on them to keep the fly from cutting through the water on its descent to the bottom. All that extra junk on flies can also spook fish hooked too many times for their own comfort. Continue reading

If you’re an egg-slinger and don’t have a box full of Jeff Blood’s Blood Dot Eggs, you might want to rethink your inventory. 

This egg style is the single best I’ve encountered.

This fly is especially productive from October through January and March through May – or whenever the fish in your neck of the woods are spawning and eggs make up a substantial portion of the edible biomass in the water. Continue reading

It doesn't matter what happens in the fashion industry – when it comes to fly fishing, there's no new black.

We've all heard it!

"Orange is the new black," or "purple is the new black," or even that olive would be the new black.

Don't get me wrong – I know there are a lot of colors that are really effective in different types of flies. I love throwing white deceivers to snappers and other saltwater species, and big olive flies to pike, not to mention fishing a banana-colored zonker for salmon or a big gray articulated streamer for trout.

There are so many colors that are important when it comes to flies and fly tying, but none more important than black. Continue reading

Angler overcrowding and fishing pressure aren't limited to just weekends. Any given weekday can look like a Saturday during peak salmon season.

With this overcrowding comes the question of how close is too close to fish next to someone?

Here are 6 easy things to consider when someone is occupying water you think holds fish. Continue reading

The Sexy Walt's is especially useful on highly pressured fish in slow to moderately fast-moving water.

Here’s the deal with this fly, I think. My dad has this theory – no matter how much you’ve had to eat, when you go to the bar and they pass out the peanuts, you’re going to have a handful of peanuts.

Fish are the same way. Over time, especially after a season (short or long) of pressure, fish start rethinking their meal choices. But give them a peanut, and they’ll eat. There’s no other reason midges work!

This is a peanut fly, and fish eat it up. 

There’s nothing to scare fish away – no crazy rubber legs, no funky dubbing… Just simple. Continue reading

by John Zimmerman
I don’t know if the story about this fly is true or not, but this is how I first heard it and have heard it several times since. 

A young French kid was kicking butt and taking names at a world championship event a number of years ago. 

Not wanting to be "that guy,” no one asked him what was affixed to the end of his tippet during the event, but everyone wanted to see his fly box upon the event’s conclusion. 

Expecting immaculately-tied, realistic patterns, most were shocked to see a fly box full of simply-tied bugs that were essentially bare-bones pheasant tails.

Continue reading

by Steve Dally
Big streamer fly fishing often gets labelled as a young person’s game – all brawn and no subtlety, just “banging the banks.”

Real streamer fishing is visual – from the dance of the fly to the buttery flash of a drive-by – and intellectual – requiring analysis of the flow of current around and over structure to find the honeypots.

Streamer fishing, particularly when the flies are 6” and bigger, is mentally and physically challenging, requiring fast-twitch decision-making and slow-twitch endurance.

Knowing your game, as well as the fish's, is way more important than a booming cast and no brains.

If you want to streamer fish longer and better, here's how.

Continue reading

by Brita Fordice
You sat up late last night tying the perfect baitfish pattern in hopes of finally hooking the elusive beast that's been refusing all your fly patterns to date.

You tie your fly on, throw your first cast, and strip, strip...

“What the ^*%}?!”

Your fly is swimming like a belly up version of the goldfish you won at the fair in 5th grade.

What went wrong? 

Here are the top 3 reasons why your baitfish pattern is swimming wrong.

Continue reading

If you love musky and musky fishing, then you MUST see this epic Flymen-sponsored film featuring Flymen guide Michael McNaught with Jay Newell, Chris Pfohl, and Kim Rood as they chase musky in Canada.

Catch the whole film at the 2016 International Fly Fishing Film Festival – IF4.