Fly Tying? You want me to tie a fly? No way. I can’t even darn socks. I knew I had enrolled in a fly fishing school, but I never thought about the fly tying aspect that would accompany my studies. School started and there I was, my instructor persuading me to give it a try. Reluctantly I went to the tying area. With a heavy heart, I tried my hand at tying my first fly, and managed to make a large and splendid bug. That disheveled fly went on to startle many fish, but one showed interest; all was
Oman … the name alone conjures up images of the desert, sand dunes and camels. This is the place that I now call home and where my husband and I have started our fishing business: Arabian Fly Sport Fishing. Most people’s first reactions are “Oh yeah, I saw the movie Fly Fishing in Yemen. Is it like that?” Well we haven’t built our own river and stocked it with wild salmon, that’s for sure. Our business is saltwater fishing. Oman has over 2000 kilometers of coastline - from rugged, unforgiving cl
Laurentian Great Lakes steelhead are a complex stock of fish. The population is a mixture of hatchery-released and wild, naturally reproduced fish originating from many different streams. Knowing the natal streams of the fish is important to best managing this species, as it allows for targeted conservation and management to the areas that are the major contributors to the total lake population. Fortunately, we may be able to determine the natal stream of a fish by looking at its otolith. Otoli
"All women are b**ches and liars." Those were the exact words out of an older man’s mouth a few years ago when my partner and I were fishing on a famous Lake Ontario steelhead river. When this man first approached us, thanks to our completely gender-neutral appearance, he just seemed a little jealous that we had been out-fishing him and he wanted us out of “his space,” but when he figured out we were women, he began blurting out a rant about how horrible women were, including his own mother. Thi
My earliest memory is learning how to draw a house with perspective. Since then I’ve been hooked on art of many kinds. From taking courses while I was in college in printmaking, glass forming, pottery and sculpture to fine art, graphic design and jewelry making, art of all kinds has always inspired me. I graduated with a Bachelors of Fine Arts in Illustration from the Rochester Institute of Technology without the clear sense of personal style that many of my peers had evolved. I could draw anyt
I have water in my veins, a common thread, starting from when I was a young girl growing up on the shores of Wild Fowl Bay, off of Lake Huron’s thumb of Michigan. It was a great place to explore woodlands, wetlands, fishing, sailing and swimming. You could not keep me out of the water then and it continually pulls be back now. As an adult, I am constantly being pulled back to the need for water, sort of a “Fish out of Water.” I have lived in a suburb of Illinois, not far from Chicago and the
Sliding down cellar doors, slapping a hand ball against cement stoops, drawing on steamy, black asphalt with chalk bought at the corner deli…these were my day-to-day adventures growing up in Queens, New York. Any sign of greenery was sparse: four sycamore trees that lined our corner row home, a 10’ patch of “grass” in our tiny yard, and the occasional dandelion that found its way into the cracks of the endless sidewalks. Skies rarely brightened beyond a smoggy, pale blue and the only likeness o
This fly was created for the Great Lakes, but is at home in the saltwater, a bass lake, a smallmouth river, swung for steel or in a trout stream. We tie Ice Wing in like EP for an EP style baitfish. A little tricky to get the hang of at first, this fly is worth the mess it makes. Tie one on today! American Shad - Ice Shad from Dun Magazine on Vimeo.
My husband and I are fly fishing partners and owners of an antique fishing tackle business called Angling Artifacts. We reside in and operate our business in Los Angeles and we find it a challenge to locate beautiful, unique and productive fly fishing spots nearby where we live. For that reason, the majority of our fly fishing trips have been in the Northwest part of the United States, however, we feel fortunate to have fished beautiful waters in the Adirondacks of New York, the Rocky Mountains
My mother grew up on the water. As a little girl, she played at its banks, watched the water change with the seasons and celebrated spring’s return. As she grew, she recognized the animals that depended on the river for food, those that flew overhead, hopped about and that swam in it. She grew stronger swimming in the river’s current like the very fish that she caught and fed her. She was the girl that became the woman who taught her girl Who became the woman who taught her girl to love the wa
Like all anglers I have my bucket list of place to fish. What describes your bucket list? Is it a certain size of fish? Is it a species? Is it a destination? For me the bucket list focuses more on destination and type of fish than the size of fish. I am always interested in catching a new species in new waters. In 2008, unbeknownst to me, I happened to stumble upon a perfect bucket list destination. Two new species: West Slope Cutthroat and Bull Trout. I discovered these two species were fou
Hi. My name is Isabella, but everyone calls me Bula. I’m seven years old and completely in love with fly fishing! I started with short walks with my mommy and daddy looking at the water. I love water and swimming. The best part about it was seeing all the really cool stuff in nature, deer, turkeys, beautiful trees, flowers and Brook Trout on our many trail walks. I’ll never forget the first time I saw my daddy casting and placing a caddis dry fly on the water, at the right spot and saying to
Thinking outside the box can come naturally to anyone. You have to allow yourself to come up with many ridiculous notions to let the scintillating schemes come forward. The trick is to recognize the ridiculous from the possible. One fall day, many moons ago, I brushed by some milkweed plants ripe-n-ready to dispense seed on the trail to my favorite section of wild brook trout waters in the White Mountains of NH, the Wildcat River. I was so eager to see those fiery bellies of the males in ful
There are waters — deep and wild and holy — that guides here refer to as Fight Club. To understand Fight Club is to learn to embrace the raw hours of the early morning, the minutes and seconds and moments between bar close and the time when sensible people would be waking for their morning commute; the time reserved for insomniacs and murder mysteries. You don’t talk about Fight Club, that’s the number one rule (yes, I’m breaking the rule)— it’s a time and place defined by ethereal moments, buz
Most women you meet in the Fly Fishing Industry are beautiful, petite badass women who work hard & photograph great ... I am far from petite, I have a cricked smile, my boobs are too big, and I only look good in pictures when I am holding a fish. It has taken years for me to accept me as I am. I’ve never quit pushing forward to do what I want to do in this life. I have been told I was too fat and too old to be a guide by a fly shop owner. I had just been offered a shop job by his manager, that
