Short Casts for 12.11.13

Worries that big floods may have adversely affected fish populations in the Big Thompson seem unfounded.
Photo by Ben Swingle via coloradoan.com

[Editor’s Note: “Short Casts” is a regular feature that highlights great fly-fishing content from around the Web—from how-to articles, to photo essays, to interesting reads.]

• Writing in Men’s Journal, fly-fishing guide Callan Wink describes a remarkable day on the Yellowstone River with authors Jim Harrison and Peter Matthiessen. Hearing about the the great, long-lasting friendship of these two literary icons—and listening in on their drift-boat chatter—is a pleasure, and Wink’s writing is up to the task.
• On the Fly Talk blog, Tim Romano highlights the plight of the greenback cutthroat trout, of which there may be just 750 left in the wild. He links to the Indiegogo campaign being run by The Greenbacks to do restoration work to ensure we don’t lose these unique gems.
• The Fly Fishing Shop, in Welches, Oregon—hosts of the annual Sandy River Spey Clave—offers up a useful video primer on steelhead flies for the Pacific Northwest.
• While most winter fly fishers stick to nymphs and midges, an article on the Deneki Outdoors blog gives 5 Reasons to Swing for Trout This Winter. There first—”It’s Warmer!”—might be all you need to hear.
• Biologists in Wisconsin have confirmed that New Zealand Mud Snails have been found in Black Earth Creek, one of the iconic streams in the Driftless Area. These invasive gastropods are tiny but can wreak havoc on a trout population.
• In better stream news, electrofishing surveys on Big Thompson Creek, which was devastated by  floods in September, show that trout populations are healthy. The number of brown trout is virtually unchanged from a study in 2011, but there are more rainbows, which were flushed out of Lake Estes by the flood.