Friday Fly-Fishing Film Festival 05.24.13

Welcome to a new edition of the Orvis News Friday Fly-Fishing Film Festival, in which we scour the Web for the best fly-fishing videos available. We have a killer selection this week, fifteen videos that will take you from the trout waters of New Zealand, to a rooster party off the coast of Mexico, to the chilly waters of Finland, as well as many places in between.

For best results, watch all videos at full-screen and in high definition. Remember, we surf so you don’t have to. But if you do stumble upon something great that you think is worthy of inclusion in a future FFF, please post it in the comments below. And don’t forget to check in regularly at The Tug, the Orvis online video theater. See you next week with a fresh set of films!

Peter Christensen of Kokkaffe Media is at it again, this time filming in the New Zealand backcountry. At about the :30 mark, you’ll see something that will get your blood flowing. Oh, and our old pal Rolf makes an appearance.

From France comes this cool look at brown trout that hug the banks and hide in bushes. It takes all an angler’s wiles to get a fly to the fish and then to keep it from running right into the tangled mess of roots and branches. There are some great takes in this one.

Meanwhile, in Finland, these guys are living the dream. There aren’t a ton of fish here, but the videographers capture the angling lifestyle pretty well.

Cory from Fly Out Media sent me this great video of bonefishing in Mexico, which includes some excellent underwater scenes.

This is a gorgeous look at a two-month New Zealand sojourn, with plenty of big trout taking dry flies. Such a trip is the stuff of dreams; the video starts off with a bang and never lets up.

There are plenty of killer dry-fly eats in this video from northern Patagonia, near the town of San Martin de los Andes, Argentina. I dig the slo-mo shots of fish coming to the fly.

Permit, permit, permit. I want one, and this video from Punta Gorda, Belize, makes it look like catching one is easy. But I know from experience that it isn’t.

The annual hatch of huge salmonflies brings even the biggest trout to the surface. Here’s a look at how things are heating up when Pteronarcys californica start coming off on the Deschutes.

Here’s another from Peter Christensen, this time from the flats of Cuba. I dig the cool tilt-shift effect at the beginning, as well as the underwater views of the bonefish and the flats.

This is apparently a promo piece for a company that makes camping gear and surf/skate-wear, but it features some cool scenes of steelhead swings, misses, and hookups. That guy may have a fancy hat, but he still needs a wading belt.

Marc Crapo—a.k.a “The Beard”—heads south to Baja, where he finds a rooster party in the waters off La Paz. Looks like a good time was had by all. . .except for maybe the roosters.

We don’t give largemouths enough love here on the F5, mostly because there aren’t many quality videos featuring bucketmouths, so here’s a fine shorty from Texas’s Comal River.

Luke Bannister’s videos have a unique, serene feel—it’s just a man and his camera—that we dig. This one’s longer than most, as he waits out an early spring hatch that finally pays off.

Ronnie Goodwin calls this an “experimental piece,” in which he’s simply playing with lighting and camera angles. But it turns out to be 30 seconds of pure fly-fishing gear worship.

Finally, here’s another great episode of “The New Fly Fisher,” in which host Colin McKeown works the coast of northern Lake Superior for big “coaster” brook trout, among other species. Have a great weekend, and we’ll see you next Friday with more video goodness!