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Knowledge is power, and in the case of the fly fisher, the greater your ability to identify the insects that trout feed on and choose the correct fly pattern, the more successful you will be on the water. The adult, or dry life cycle, of aquatic insects is brief. Mayflies will spend 6-12 months [...]

The question was first voiced several hundred years ago when the grandfather of fly fishing pulled the first roughly-tied fly from the jaws of his primitive vice and mused, “Now what is this fly supposed to imitate and when should I fish it?” Echoing across the centuries, this same question can still be heard [...]

(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 [...]

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 [...]

Exhale.... You've done it. You've successfully escaped the office. You've tunneled under the suburb's privacy fences, and the incessant drone cell phones and email notifications are fading into the distance behind you. In front of you lies a day without obligation and a river full of potential with the promise of [...]

I'm not interested in simply filling your head with scientific bug names and entomology facts. While we took an in-depth look at the characteristics that will enable the fly fisher to identify stonefly nymphs and adults at a glance in last month's article, The Rise of the Stonefly, that information won't do you any [...]

Ask any fly fisherman and they will tell you that the season to fish dry flies is never long enough. As the bugs start to fly over the water and the trout rise to meet them, the fly angler needs to be able to quickly identify the family of invertebrate and [...]