I took my first job after graduate school in Twin Falls, ID in 2013. I had never lived west of Oklahoma and was extremely excited to finally be near mountains. My then-boyfriend and I decided this would be a perfect opportunity to teach ourselves about fly fishing. From our first fishing trip in the Rocky Mountains, I fell in love with the challenge of getting a perfect drift, and the thrill and validation I felt when I was able to convince a trout to go after my dry fly. Every experience fishin
I fell into fly fishing by accident when I randomly signed up for a fly tying class one really cold day while I was living in Ann Arbor, MI. To be completely honest, I signed up for the class because it sounded like something different, and it was really cheap — like $65 for eight classes, and I didn’t need any equipment. I figured I had nothing better to do, and it was time to stop hibernating and get out into society again. I had no idea what fly tying even was. But from the moment I walked in
Forget the gym, the spin classes, and the yoga studio. There’s a new practice in town, and it’s called fly fishing. Formerly thought of as an old, white, rich man’s sport, the fly-fishing generation of today is as diverse as the species they target. The sport that at one time was considered male-dominated is now taking the world by storm as it quickly becomes the new yoga. Here are some reasons I think it should be just that. It’s inclusive. Like yoga, fly fishing is a sport that is available
Patience - Regardless of where you are on the spectrum from newbie to virtuoso, you have hired a guide not only to have someone hauling you around the water, but to impart some knowledge about their fishery, and work to give you a memorable day on the water. There is nothing worse than feeling like you’re on a boat for 6-11 hours with your angry dad, who is barking at you with frustration and disappointment, as you bumble a cast with a sink tip line. As Arnold Glasow smartly stated, “The key to
“Now you must understand that the hardest and most difficult thing in producing your tackle is the making of your hooks. In order to make these, it is necessary for you to have a set of sharp, thin and lightly beaten files, a seamy iron clamp, and a pair of long and small pincers, a somewhat thick and hard knife, an anvil, and a small hammer.” - Dame Juliana Berners When Dame Juliana Berners penned those words in A Treatyse of Fysshynge With an Angle in the late 15th century, the Angle she ref
Have you ever thought “I saw my fish swim away so it must be fine”? Unfortunately some of the catch-and-release science is showing that this isn’t always the case. Tropical flats are my happy place. I love nothing more than wading and looking for bonefish, or any other flats species for that matter. While catching a fish is the ultimate goal, a big part of my career has also been spent studying what happens to fish that are released. It doesn’t take a genius to know that releasing fish (as op
In my home, the safe holds no money, but it does hold many gazetteers. Years of accumulated info on where and how to access water, what the better fishing areas are and what species are around, with secrets to each area are scribbled all over my maps. Getting a state gazetteer is a great way to find new water in an old or new area. When fishing an area, mine never leaves my truck. These maps have helped me out of some very lost situations, and have also helped me find treasured fishing spots
There are round threads and flat threads. There are single and multi-strand threads. There are threads with texture and threads that stretch. There are even threads that are pre-waxed, and all come in every color of the rainbow. Telling them apart can be a nightmare. Understanding the difference will make picking the right thread for the right fly easy. In this edition we will talk about the different sizes of threads. Threads are measured in two main ways in fly tying: Denier and aught:
