Travel & Leisure

Fly fishing for Grayling could be a little harder than fishing for other sorts of fish. That will help you, I discovered 9 essential tips and wish to share them below. So, do you know the 9 essential strategies for catching grayling having a fly fishing rod? The main tip for fly fishing for grayling will be patient and never hesitate to test something ?°odd?± or new. No fish is identical, and fishing for any new species may well be a little from your safe place. Don‘t hesitate and take a risk! For those who have never fished for any grayling, it may be very difficult. Even individuals with experience still find trouble in hooking their preferred catch. If you’re ready for more information and also to discover that special trip you've been searching for that will help you catch that elusive fish, Continue Reading! 1. Pick the Colorful Fly As the primary meal source of grayling is of course colored and is commonly camouflaged for their atmosphere, a fly with a ... Continue reading →

Fall is here now and winter is going to be rearing it's ugly mind before we all know it.  Anglers are chasing fall brown trout as you're watching cottonwoods morph into colorful pieces of art before littering the rivers with vibrant leaves when preparing for winter's harsh reality.  Using the cold temperature most anglers start looking for other pursuits to pass through time.  Hunting months are underway, the mountain tops are dusted with snow, and football months are here.  However, for some anglers, this works as a time for you to check out the damage completed to one's fly box from the season of fly fishing. Following a lengthy summertime of hard fishing, most anglers end up having a depleted fly box without any their most favorite patterns.  The winters short days result in lengthy nights and something way fly anglers fill time is as simple as sitting lower behind their vise sipping their preferred spirit and gradually refilling spaces made ... Continue reading →

I love fly fishing. Shortly after making my first catches, I decided that to truly enjoy the experience, I needed to tie my own flies. For me, tying flies, casting them, and fooling the fish into taking them is what life is all about. The first fly I cut my teeth on is a local to Northern Utah. Not sure if that is still the case. Let’s just say that outside of Utah, I’ve not yet run into a fly tier that's heard of it. The story as I know it is as follows. The fly was developed by a warden, Dave Thomas, that lived in the Uinta Basin in Utah. The fly is aptly named the Dave Thomas Special. The hook size varies. Originally tied on a #8 long shank, and developed for Brown Trout and Brook Trout. I believe the hooks I started on would have been in size 12 or 10. One of the reasons I started with this fly is its simplistic design. Much the same as most tiers that begin with Wooly Buggers and Gray Hackle Peacocks, the basic patterns are all about developing the muscle memory ... Continue reading →

Whatever you can easily afford, transport, and catch fish with assuming you have adequate technique to use it properly. That’s about it. With the exception of certain types of fishing where gear typically has to be very well engineered, large game saltwater for example, most people will have the same success with a decent $150 Cabelas, TFO, or other decent quality rod as they will spending $800 or more on a super high end sage or other brand. Unfortunately, fly fishing has become the epitome of a pretentious and unnecessarily expensive sport, and it’s just not necessary to enjoy and be successful at it. I have sold all my super high end sage and other rods for Cabelas 6 piece travel rods, and I do still have a nice 3wt G Loomis 4 piece that I got a great deal on, but I travel a lot these days and I have zero regrets for accepting that a $500+ rod and a $300+ fly fishing reel is a complete waste of money for me for the type of fishing I do. I’ve still caught more fish ... Continue reading →

Casting a fly line is different from spin casting or casting a lure, something most everybody is familiar with. Someone new to fly casting may bring with them some of the habits they have from spin casting. In casting a fly, it is actually the line that you are casting. Here is the way I do it. (I first practiced at a park). You take some line off the reel and let it sit near your feet. Start with a back cast but stop the fly fishing rod just past your head(If you head is 12 o’clock, you will move your rod between arc of 10 and 2. What this does as you line moves behind you is “load” the rod, i.e. the line bends the rod back and then as you cast forward, then rod accelerates forward. You can then lay the line down on the water(grass) or you can “false” cast and repeat the sequence remembering the 10 and 2 rule. Of course, when you are ready to put the line down, you will end your cast with the rod parallel to the water. Here are some tips I try and ... Continue reading →

I cannot catch fish for love nor money, so I understand your concern. I simply do not have the patience. I am one of those who equates fishing with lowering a fishes lunch into the water, one piece at a time, using with a ridiculously expensive gadget, the hook end of which is commonly lost in the process. But I enjoy going fishing with others. I can open beer, I can gut, scale and clean fish, and ice them down. I can offer congratulations when someone actually catches a fish, and commiserate when one gets away, agreeing that it was twice as long as it actually was. So, do not pretend, and I would not bother to buy gear. It will likely be the wrong type, anyway. Ask your prospective father in law to show you how to tie the knots, how to gut and clean. Find out what his favourite beer is, and buy that, instead of fish hooks. If he asks if you bought a fly fishing rod, or line, tell him you spent the money on flowers for his daughter. You should actually do this, of course. Go out to ... Continue reading →

As you approach the stream, take some time to observe the surface of the water and the air above it to see if any insects are presently hatching. If so, then capture one and choose a fly pattern to match it in size and color (called matching the hatch). However, if there is no hatch presently happening, matching the hatch is not possible. So, instead, try examining the streamside foliage (especially the undersides of leaves) to see what types of insects inhabit the stream you are fishing and again choose a fly pattern to match in size and color. However, since insect activity tends to lull during the period from mid-morning to late afternoon, then you might want to try prospecting with Attractor patterns instead. Attractors are fly patterns that imitate natural insects in size and shape but are tied in bright, non-natural, color patterns to attract the trout and convince them to strike. Dry fly patterns such as the Royal Wulff, Grizzly Wulff, Tennessee Wulff, Royal Coachman, Humpy, ... Continue reading →

For reasons that are not entirely clear, trout will sometimes strike a brightly colored May Fly, Caddis Fly, or Stone Fly pattern that does not closely resemble any fly that they are commonly used to seeing. Also, for reasons that are not entirely clear, tout seem to be attracted to and are enticed to strike by certain colors. Therefore, when choosing Attractor fly patterns, I use my "Three-Color Attractor System". As the name implies, this system consists of the three colors trout seem to be most attracted to and which consists of flies that are predominately red, yellow, or green. For instance, the Royal Wulff, the Carolina Wulff, and the Tennessee Wulff fly patterns are quite possibly the most productive attractor dry fly patterns ever designed. Each of these patterns is tied to resemble an adult May Fly in shape but, there are no naturally occurring may flies in existence that actually exhibit the color combinations presented by the dark green, iridescent, peacock hurl ... Continue reading →

Great Question, I contemplated this a lot before I tackled mine. I think you probably can get a list of materials pretty easily if you don’t already have that figured out - but the question is how much space do you need, how easy to reach and what are some good solutions for storage and accessibility? So I looked at a few versatile solutions that I really like. There are some “fly tying furniture” pieces out there that are pretty handy. A spool caddy/carousel is nice for visibility and access - I have a lot of spools but tend to use 5–6 more than others so I leave them on the bobbin and swap in/out of my spool storage as needed. I also use 2 fly box caddy boxes, they each hold 6 of the slim fly boxes one has all my hooks and one has all my weighted heads/beads. Small at the top, bigger at the bottom…easy to look through without opening and always within reach. I use a tool caddy on my desktop from White River so my most often used stuff sits in it on my ... Continue reading →

When most anglers think of fly fishing, their first thought is of big skies and big water with fellows in waders battling huge Bull Trout in a Rocky Mountain trout stream or of quaint British gentlemen fishing with bamboo fly rods on a quiet, English, chalk stream. However, let me paint you a very different picture. For instance, imagine a fellow standing in the bow of his bass boat, on his local lake, fighting a huge, female, Largemouth Bass he has enticed off of her bed with a Wooly Bugger (one of the most deadly flies ever invented). Or, imagine a fellow sitting in his kayak, tucked into a quiet, secluded, shallow, grassy, cove where boats with deeper drafts can’t go and who is absolutely elated after hooking and finally landing a carp seemingly as large as his kayak! Then, imagine a man standing in the surf on a pristine beach casting to a school of voracious Blues or ravenous Striped Bass feeding just beyond the break line as one suddenly slams his Streamer pattern and ... Continue reading →