Welcome to another edition of the OrvisNews.com Friday Film Festival, in which we scour the web for the best fly-fishing footage available. This week, we travel from New Zealand to Iceland, and from Florida to Kiribati. If you’re interested in the ways that fish feed, we’ve got a couple of gems for you—featuring some extremely hungry tarpon and trout. Small-stream lovers have plenty to enjoy here, as well, as we follow some Appalachian blue-liners in search of mountain trout and a pair of German anglers sight-casting to monster browns in meadow streams. Every week brings a new crop of angling delights, impressive camera work, and gorgeous locations. Remember: We surf, so you don’t have to. Enjoy!
Casting At Shadows – Christmas Island Trailer from Ben Marlow on Vimeo.
We kick things off with a very cool trailer for a DVD about fishing at Christmas Island (in the Republic of Kiribati, for you geography buffs). The camera work is wonderful—including a final shot reminiscent of the end of Truffaut’s “The 400 Blows”—and the shots of various species on the fly are riveting.
New Zealand Spring Creek Bonanza from Gisle Helgesen on Vimeo.
We go from a very slick production to the quintessential amateur home movie—this one shot by a couple of German anglers on holiday in New Zealand. There’s no fancy editing, camerawork, or soundtrack here; it’s just a couple of guys fishing a small stream in a foreign land. But, oh my, the trout they land! It’s all in German, but you’ll have no problem understanding the emotions behind what they’re saying.
Blue Lines and Banjos from Bent Rod Media on Vimeo.
Keeping with the small-stream theme, here’s a short video from the guys at Southern Culture on the Fly about blue-lining in the southern Appalachians. Stalking through the rhododendrons and climbing up steep, rocky streams is a lot of work for fish that don’t get much bigger than 6 inches, but the beautiful colors of the trout and the knowledge that they are true natives make it all worthwhile.
Wild brown trout from Gavin Parsons on Vimeo.
There’s no fishing in this video, but every fly angler will be mesmerized by this short clip of a brown trout in its natural environment. To see the fish holding in the current with just a minimum of effort is to realize how incredibly well they are adapted to this biological niche.
Poons of June from Scott Crippen on Vimeo.
If you like watching tarpon take flies, then this is the video for you. Guide Scott Crippen, who works the Treasure Coast region of Florida, offers up some hot ‘poon action, with plenty of jumps, breakoffs, and lots and lots of great “eats.” If you’re not a fan of Irish-American hip hop, you might wanna turn down the sound.
The Complete Mayfly from Dean Hodson on Vimeo.
Speaking of feeding fish, here’s a different edit of a trailer we featured last month, which offers multiple shots of trout eating mayflies. My favorite sequence starts at about :33, when you can see a tiny trout tracking a mayfly across the surface before leaping out of the water to snare its meal. Oh yeah, and there are a couple guys fishing, too, but they seem secondary to the real action.
Finally, what would an FFF be without Rolf? It seems we’ve featured this young man every week since winter, and for good reason. Here’s an older video of Rolf stalking brown trout in Iceland. He sneaks up to the water’s edge to cast a streamer in a very clear pool, and he is rewarded handsomely. As he puts it, “Iceland! Baby, baby!”