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Photo by Mark Jessop of Troutfin Studio“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of 100 battles…” Sun Tzu, The Art of WarWhat is fly fishing if not a childlike game of war? We maneuver and position, count off our successful campaigns in [...]

(This article is a follow up to a previous article titled “Take a Moment and PAUSE” published first in July of 2016 and describing the 5 places around and in the river to identify what foods trout are most likely eating. If you haven’t read that article, take a moment to do so on [...]

Photo credit to Mark Jessop of Troutfin StudiosOften times, the angler who catches the most fish is the one who can best detect and swiftly respond to the lightning quick strikes or subtle takes of trout as they sip a passing fly from the current. The trout we pursue on the fly are a [...]

Tying into a big trout can be like jumping out of the gates on the back of a rodeo bull. White knuckles wrap around the cork of our rod as we hold on for dear life as the battle commences. Sown into every fiber of the trout’s body and reinforced over thousands of [...]

Photo by: Mark JessopFor many of us, “Keep your rod tip up!” summarized the entirety of our instruction in how to fight and land fish. In my youth, I would snap to Marine-like attention as this familiar call would fire across the river, and redouble the bend of my rod while straining against the fish [...]

The importance of the mayfly in the diet of trout cannot be overstated. In my work as an aquatic biologist studying and sampling trout waters across country, I've seen populations of Blue Winged Olive mayfly nymphs crowding Rocky Mountain streams topping numbers of 1,200 nymphs per square meter, slow moving herds of green drake [...]

Available for most popular trout lakes and rivers with a quick Google search, hatch charts can provide an angler with the basic knowledge of which aquatic insects will be present in a specific water and when the adult insects will be active. While all fly fishers love to fish the dry fly patterns highlighted [...]

Coast to coast, year in and year out, this is probably the question we receive the most from fly fishers. When our go-to fly patterns don't produce fish, and the hot patterns sold by the local fly shop don't get the fish to rise, when do you know it is time to change out [...]

There was a time in each of our fly fishing journeys that we were green anglers, uninitiated, uneducated, and stumbling down the riverbank. Whether the introduction to fly fishing was a recent event as you accompanied a friend to a local river or at the side of your mother as was my experience more [...]