Christine Penn

Mia and the gang at oregonsteelhead.com have a great post about some very cool and small steelhead flies fished in the film with a greased-line technique. The proof the technique works is in the video above. Check out their site for more about the technique, photos of the flies, and other jaw dropping videos for steelhead junkies and all fly anglers to enjoy.

A few months ago I flew out to Colorado on business and was able to tack on a day of fishing. I talked Tucker (Fishing Manger at the Orvis Park Meadows store) into sharing his ‘spots’ and chauffeuring my co-worker and I on his day off. We opted for starting the day at the South Platte on the ‘Dream Stream’ section. After a few hours on the road (and a quick stop to photograph pronghorns), we arrived at the parking area where two vehicles’ worth of anglers were already gearing up. We pulled on our waders, strung up our rods, and made sure to give the other anglers a wide berth. We dodged gopher holes and navigated our way over to the water. Tucker put me into a stretch he knew to be fairly successful and suggested a two-nymph rig on 7x tippet ending in a black size 22 midge.

Okay, so it’s the height of summer and the post I am sending you to is more than a year old and takes place in the winter. But you know, it’s still a great post about learning a new way of fly fishing, getting help from other anglers, and getting out there on your own and getting after it. It’s written by Emily Neiley, and appeared at bloodknot.net. It’s called Learning Winter Fly Fishing. In it, Emily shares her adventure of fly fishing under cover of darkness to learn skills without being seen.

Volunteers from Kelly Creek Flycasters instructed a group of women on how to fly cast, and then brought them out onto Kelly Creek to try their luck with their new skills. The enthusiasm for the sport and for nature, as well as passing that enthusiasm along to their kids and grand kids, is clear and encouraging.

A wood carving by master carver Ellen McCaleb

In years past, when fly fishers wanted to commemorate a fish-of-a-lifetime, they often had to sacrifice the fish itself for a skin mount. In more recent times, catch-and-release has become the common practice, and anglers now rely primarily on wood carvings, fiberglass molds, and photos to recall that day and show the fish to other anglers. But many of us are not very good photographers, and, frankly, many wood and fiberglass mounts don’t bring the fish to “life” as much as one hopes.

Ok, so the video isn’t the best quality we’ve ever seen, and the narration is in Italian. But we all know the language of fly fishing the flats and that surge of a bonefish when it takes off and the reel sings.

A version of this article was previously published in Fly Fusion magazine and appeared on author April Vokey’s website, Fly Gal Ventures. April is a British Columbia steelhead guide, a Federation of Fly Fishers (FFF) certified casting instructor, co-host of Fly Nation TV, and founder of Fly Gal Ventures. She is also so addicted to steelhead fly fishing that her writing about the sport is, well, addictive. So I am posting her great article here. Check out her site when you get a chance.

There are very few things in this world that I love more than the West Coast steelhead.

Dazzling, sleek bodies arcing wildly, broad tails smashing, and a mystique second to none… these majestic beauties captured my heart at first sight.

“Fin”

In a continued effort to put the spotlight on gifted women artists whose subject matter involves fly fishing and other realms of the natural world, I could not let it pass without sharing Diane Michelin’s work. Diane has been a professional watercolor artist for more than nineteen years. Among many other awards and recognitions, she was the Trout Unlimited Canada 2009 Artist of the Year. Born in Montreal, she currently resides in Nanoose Bay on Vancouver Island, British Columbia. Not a bad area for fishing, at all.

Joan Wulff is a legend in the fly fishing industry – she blew away her competition in fly casting tournaments starting at the age of 11. I had the opportunity to watch Joan cast at the Graceful Rise Women’s Symposium held at the American Museum of Fly Fishing back in June and was simply awed by how effortlessly, and precisely, she casts. Check out this video for some shots of Joan’s tight loops!