Until recently, Simon Perkins—Senior Manager of Sporting Traditions—sat right next to me here at Orvis HQ, where we spent a lot of time talking about fly-fishing videos. My interest stemmed from my weekly curation of the Friday Fly-Fishing Film Festival here on the blog, and Simon came at the subject from the perspective of a filmmaker. So it was pretty exciting news when we learned that Simon took. . .
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Video: The Way It Began
Here’s a beautiful video of Kami Swingle dry-fly fishing in Shenandoah National Park for wild brook trout and talking about her love of the sport. Along with her husband, Nick, Kami is TwoFisted Heart Productions, which produced the great Urban Lines earlier this year.
Read MorePhoto Essay: Catching the West Coast Hex Hatch
Written by: Tom Evenson, Western ELOG Program Director
Guide Chris Renzullo hoists a fat trophy rainbow that fell for a Hex imitation just before dark.
Photo by Doug Best
The Hex hatch was going off on the Williamson River when my colleague Doug Best and I were traveling through Oregon. The guys from Tailwater Fisheries called and said, “You have to check this out!” We also fished the nearby. . .
Read MoreMy Favorite Dry Fly for Mountain Brook Trout
This fly has had most of the tail eaten right off it, a tribute to its effectiveness.
Photo by Phil Monahan
The best brook-trout waters near the Orvis HQ in southwestern Vermont are fast-flowing freestone streams, which feature lots of pocket water, so I need a high-floating fly that I can see even in frothy, turbulent water. In creating the Hi-Vis Coachman back in the late 1990s, I copied/stole aspects of the traditional Royal Coachman, the Hi-Vis Royal Wulff, and the. . .
Read MoreVideo: How to Tie a Simple Foam Beetle
As the story (perhaps apocryphal) goes, someone once asked the British scientist J.B.S. Haldane what we could infer about the Creator from studying nature, and Haldane replied, “I’m not sure, but he has an inordinate fondness for beetles.” Haldan’s point was that beetles make up some 40% of known insects. And since trout eat insects, it’s only logical that trout share this inordinate fondness for such readily available sources of. . .
Read MoreTuesday Tip: How to Tie and Fish Tandem Rigs
The classic “hopper-dropper” is but one option for fishing two flies in tandem.
Photo by Phil Monahan
Although multi-fly rigs have been around for centuries and have always remained popular in Europe, fishing more than one pattern was nearly a forgotten science in this country until about 20 years ago. In fact, even when angling magazines flooded the market with tandem-rig stories, many anglers outside the Rockies took a long time to catch on. For instance, my older brother, Brian, has been fly fishing since the. . .
Read MorePro Tip: Don’t Wait Until Summer to Fish Terrestrials
A Hi-Vis hopper is easy to see, even in rough water.
Photo via orvis.com
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. . .
Read MoreVideo Tuesday Tip: Learning by Watching Trout Rises
Most of us are in prime dry-fly season now, so enjoy it while you can (or after runoff ends, depending on where you are). You can learn a lot about how to present your fly by watching rises for a few minutes before jumping right in with. . .
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