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
Our home waters are the wild trout streams of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Ian has been a guiding fly fishing since 1995. I have been a full-time fly fishing guide since 2002. Together we own and operate R&R Fly Fishing guide service in Townsend, TN and have created the online instructional series called RISE Fly Fishing Advice. The fishing in the Southern Appalachians can be difficult, but it's in one of the most beautiful places on earth! Our mountain stream trout can prove diffi
Be Stealthy We’ve all seen the images of anglers belly crawling to sneak up to the river bank. We are not recommending that you do this when you approach every trout fishing situation, but there are a few simple things you can do to spook fewer trout when getting to the river. Watch your shadow. Fish are always looking up. Death from above is a real danger for trout. Birds and small mammals will routinely come from above and grab a lazy trout. For this reason, when approaching a stream it
The natural home of a fly rod is the river setting, but fly rods should not be limited to river fishing. They are also great tools for warm water species in lakes. When you start targeting lakes, you open up a whole new set of fishing opportunities and challenges for catching fish. There are literally lakes everywhere, and in states where poor access laws can be an issue, lakes provide an excellent way to get out and fish while not having to worry about trespassing. Certainly, we would never
I’m standing in the middle of a river. The water flows indigo blue, with a gentle current. It bends and twists through ancient fir trees and wild grasses. The air smells of tree sap and a wisp of campfire smoke. Instead of taking in the beauty of this place, I’m focused on the tiny fly I’m trying to attach to my fishing line. The eye of the hook is so small I have to squint to see it. I’m annoyed because even once I manage to tie it on, I’m pretty sure it won’t catch any of the fish in this riv
Each year in early May, The River’s Edge and SIMMS Fishing Products host a women’s fly-fishing event in Bozeman – Chica de Mayo, an annual gathering that has evolved into the largest women’s fly-fishing event in Montana, the United States, and well, probably in the world! This event celebrates women in fly-fishing and offers educational clinics, phenomenal speakers, prizes, a cocktail party and networking, and much more. The upcoming 2019 event will mark the 11th Annual Chica de Mayo – a labor o
My Tribe, My Invisible Net Running. That was the original connection. I am a fortunate woman to have lived in two, now three, different communities and developed an amazing tribe of women in both. The cherry on top is that they are now integrated into one big tribe supporting each other across three states. We all met pursuing a common interest, running. From there, coffee, and our affinity for donuts, grew into running and breakfast, which soon turned into happy hours and shenanigans. It did
Some time ago, when I first started toying with the idea of a trip to Patagonia to fish for trout, a good non-angling friend asked me an interesting question. “Why,” she wondered, “would someone spend thousands of dollars to travel thousands of miles to catch the same kind of fish that could be caught in rivers much closer to home, and then, after all that effort and expense, release those fish back into the water?” What seemed absurd to her seemed entirely sensible to me. “Because,” I replied,
Each autumn I lose my husband to an overseas work assignment, fishing in the Brazilian Amazon as owner and fishing manager for a mothership-based operation. It’s probably natural for people to raise an eyebrow at this. If given the choice, I might not have chosen a work assignment that took him away from family for so long. However, we’ve set our minds and hearts toward his success. I look forward each year to joining him on my week in the jungle, with our son in tow. The stories along the way f
Part of running a charter boat is knowing when to cancel trips because of weather, but last summer the tables were turned on us just hours before the trip of a lifetime. Sometimes Mother Nature makes it easy to cancel with vivid reds, yellows, and even purples showing on the radar map for everyone to see and understand. Other times, my smartphone radar app feels like a magic 8-ball that I’ve already shaken three times and gotten three different answers before the 4:30 am pot has finished brewing
I was born in 1984 in Bilbao, a city that belongs to Basque Country, which is a small region in Northern Spain, west of the Pyrenees Mountains, and made up of three provinces: Bizkaia, Gipuzkoa, and Araba. It is a region with its own language called Euskera, where talking about food, wine, and fly fishing is almost a religion. Cuddled by the Cantabrian Sea, Basque is a mountainous and very green country due to the abundance of rain. The terrain suddenly gathers height from the sea inward toward
My flight had been delayed, so I was hurried as I drove down the winding, two-lane Highway 191. I wasn’t able to fully take in the freestone river interlacing its waters through the forest and the perfume of the fresh air. Yet, my shoulders began to relax with the lack of massive billboards with mile markers alerting me to the next hotel with free continental breakfast. I suddenly had a sense of the days of Pete Karst, bringing “dudes” to Yellowstone by stagecoach from Bozeman in the early 1900s
Fly fishing duo Aimee and Chase (Tight Loops) travel around North America in their VW Campervan, exploring the wilderness in search of rare species of fish. Their recent adventure took them into Montana’s Absaroka-Beartooth Wilderness in search of the elusive California Golden Trout—a fish with a history. An advocate of women in fishing, we caught up with Aimee to understand more about their expedition and why she thinks more women should get involved in fishing. Fly fishing can be seen as quit
