Fly Fishing 101 with the Red Hat Society

All the Orvis Rod & Tackle folks were in New Orleans last month for the International Fly Tackle Dealer Show, which is one of the highlights of our year. Also in town—for its international convention, the 2011 “Big Easy Bash”—was the Red Hat Society, which touts itself as “the world’s most distinguished women’s organization.” Our two groups ran into each other. . .

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Picture of the Day: Between-the-Floods Brown

Between the Floods Brown

Shawn Combs took this 20+-inch brown trout on an olive-and-white bunny streamer.

photo by Tim Daughton

With water in southern Vermont and eastern New York a mess after hurricane Irene ripped up the region last week, Tim Daughton and I decided to go out and survey the damage firsthand on one of my favorite super-secret streams. We packed up our gear and his two boys and headed out on Saturday morning.

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Tuesday Tip: How to Avoid Hitting Your Rod with Your Fly

Welcome to our eleventh installment of “Ask a Fly-Fishing Instructor,” in which we answer readers’ questions about their biggest fly-casting problems. Reader Larry asked for help with this: Sometimes my fly hits the rod on the forward or backcast. How can I avoid that? In this lesson, I’ll explain why a smooth acceleration is so important to a proper casting motion. If you start a forward or backcast. . .

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Friday Film Festival 09.02.11

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’s collection features a bunch of trailers for films that are or will soon be available, featuring footage from exotic locations around the world. But there are also films of more humble waters here in the US of A, Europe, and our neighbor to the north. One of my favorites features the elusive mooneye, a species that I’ve never chased with a fly, even though it’s available. . .

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A Double Dose of John Gierach

It’s no secret that fly fishermen, as a whole, love John Gierach. He has served as the sport’s philosopher for almost 30 years, during which time he has published 16 books and countless magazine articles, yet he has never sought to become one of those fly-fishing “celebrities” who travel from sports show to sports show soaking up the admiration of the masses. Instead, he. . .

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Featured Video: Doc of the Drakes

Doc Of The Drakes, Short from Silver Creek Outfitters on Vimeo.

Here’s a video that is so good—moving and beautiful in ways that fly-fishing videos normally aren’t—that I want to feature it on its own, rather than as part of tomorrow’s Film Festival. It’s a story of an eager angler and his dedicated guide working together to overcome obstacles during the famed brown-drake hatch on Idaho’s Silver Creek. One of the entries in the Drake Magazine Five Minutes of Fly Fishing contest, held at the recent International Fly Tackle Dealer Show in New Orleans, this one is definitely worth the five minutes. (Warning: a bit of salty language here.)

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Searching for Gold in Colorado

Golden Trout in CO 1

Jonathan Hill with a Colorado golden trout, a fish that many thought had gone extinct.

photo courtesy Jonathan Hill

For the past eight years, I have been hiking in to some of the most remote high mountain lakes in Colorado. I am not saying that I’m a snob and I thumb my nose at the beautiful rivers we have here, but it is nice to get a little bit of exercise along with your fishing. It is also nice to get away from the crowds that frequent the Gold Medal fisheries that we are lucky enough to have across the state. This year, one trip in particular. . .

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