You might be tempted to fish emergers with a subtle twitch. It sometimes works during a caddis hatch or during an emergence of large mayflies like green drakes, but most times you are better off fishing an emerger like a dry fly— on a dead drift. Any movement you can impart to your fly is far more overt than the diminutive quivering of the naturals.

We all know the Fonz was cool, but the actor who played him, Henry Winkler, is even cooler. Why? Because he’s a devoted, passionate fly fisher. As he puts it in his new book I’ve Never Met an Idiot on the River: Reflections on Family, Photography, and Fly-Fishing:  

      My heart lives in New York, where I was born and raised. My body lives in Los Angeles, where I do much of my work. My soul lives in Montana, where I fish.

Come meet Henry Winkler at his book signing for his new book at Orvis NYC, Monday June 27 from 12-2 PM.

Author Peter Matthiessen caught this
nice brown using Depth Charge line

Before a recent trip to Chile and Argentina, a friend who runs a lodge down there said “Don’t forget to bring a sinking line around 200 grains.” Naively, I made some comment like, “I’ll just bring a floater, that’s why God invented tungsten cones.” But at the last minute, I packed a 250-grain Depth Charge line. And I learned a lesson—never go trout fishing in big deep rivers without one. I’d always taken a Depth Charge when saltwater fly fishing but never on trout trips.

Twelve-year-old Bridger put aside his preference for dry flies and worked a deep nymph rig on the Missouri to great effect. photo courtesy Brandon Bodecker

Our excessive snowpack and torrential rains of May and early June have led to some challenging times for anglers and outfitters alike in Montana. I am usually guiding on the Smith River this time of year and don’t get to spend a lot of time with my family, so when my 12-year-old son Bridger said,. . .

If you think terrestrial imitations are only for summer fishing, you’re missing a great deal of dry-fly action. The normal thought is that trout ignore land-bred insects in the spring and early summer, until mayfly and caddisfly hatches dwindle with the heat of summer. They ignore terrestrials about as much as you ignore chocolate mousse when out to dinner.