Welcome to another edition of the OrvisNews.com Friday Film Festival, in which we scour the Web for the best fly-fishing footage available. Can you believe that this is our fifth F5 of the month? The F5 came in like a lion and is going out like a boss.
This week’s collection is pretty salty, with entries from the Indian Ocean, Baja, Florida, and Montauk. For the first time in recent memory, we have nothing from Europe, but Australia and Africa pick up the slack. There is a remarkable number of great fish strikes and aerial displays to get you jacked up for this spring and summer. Remember, we surf so you don’t have to. But if you do stumble upon something that you think is worthy of inclusion in a future FFF, post it in the comments below. See you next week with a fresh set of films!
FFM 2012 Review – First Six Months from Fly Fish the Mitt on Vimeo.
Great stuff from a group of dedicated guys chasing fish and getting abused around the state of Michigan. This covers the first half of 2012, and it features glorious steelhead, trout, and smallmouths.
Castaway Films – Salt Water Fly Fishing from smith optics on Vimeo.
Here is some killer saltwater footage from our friends at Castaway Films, who previously brought us “Devil’s Gold,” about fly-fishing for golden dorado in the jungles of Bolivia, and “Equilibrium,” about the landscape threatened by Pebble Mine in Bristol Bay. The video above was shot in the Seychelles.
Fly Fishing with Double Up Outfitters from STARRETT ARTISTS, LLC on Vimeo.
Good stuff from Montana’s Bitterroot River, with John on the oars, Amy taking the shots, and Buddy entertaining eveyone. That is a helluva boat dog.
2 MINUTES OF BLISS with JUDAH OAKES from Mike McKinlay on Vimeo.
F5 regulars know that I enjoy a good fishless video if it’s done well, and this one fits the bill. Angler Judah Oakes works some water near Vancouver, and although he gets skunked, he looks good doing it.
Anford Country House flyloops.net fly fishing review from flyloops.net on Vimeo.
Not that you know where Mpumalanga is (eastern South Africa), but if you hadn’t been told at the beginning, would you have ever guessed that that is where this video was shot? This is not the Africa of National Geographic. The scenery and fish are much more familiar than that.
Camp 584 from Jason Atkinson & Flying A Films on Vimeo.
This is a gorgeous video about a group of friends spending time at steelhead camp. Aside from the beautiful fish, this really captures the fun and camaraderie of time spent on the water with buddies.
I don’t run across a ton of surf-fishing videos, so I enjoy a good one. This dude has laid into a serious yellowtail in Baja, and it takes a serious amount of effort to get it on the beach. The result is a killer trophy shot.
Striper fishing in Montauk from Bernd Ziesche on Vimeo.
Every fly fisher should experience this at least once: a full-on striper blitz. This video is just over half a minute long, but you get a sense of the excitement and awe of standing in front of a frothing mass in the midst of a feeding frenzy. Cool.
Changing Seasons from Nicholas Kneipp on Vimeo.
These Murray cod videos from Nicholas Kneipp in Australia don’t change much, but I just don’t seem to get sick of watching the savage strikes. With every cast, I get giddy with anticipation of a fish hammering the fly and bending the rod double. I wanna do this, badly.
This video has the longest intro and outro in recorded history, but it’s worth it for the scene that starts at 3:40, featuring an epic miss and a vicious take. Shot on the Indian Ocean islands of Alphonse , Bijouter, and & St. Francis, it also offers some great underwater shots.
We shared a shorter, lo res version of this on Facebook earlier in the week, but now you get to see it in glorious hi-res detail. Dave Jensen of Fly Fish Alberta tackles a big brown trout in a small New Zealand stream, and the battle is spectacular.
This is effectively a commercial for fly fishing in Tasmania, the island off the southern coast of Australia, but it features some great fishing action. I have been to Tassie, and it’s in my top five fishing destinations of all time. I’d love to go back and experience the Western Lakes in high summer, when sight-fishing to cruising 10-pound browns is a regular occurance.
We finish up with two great short videos from David Mangum of Shallow Water Expeditions. The first shows how much it sucks to be a baitfish, under assault from above and below. The second offers some sweet redfish action. Have a great weekend!