News

Winter is coming, but don't worry, some of the best fishing action of the year is about to kick off!As the leaves begin to change each fall, a switch is flipped in the little fishy brains of the brown & brook trout, and landlocked Kokanee salmon across the US. It is spawning time, and [...]

In the original manuscript of JR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings, a Beadhead Flashback Pheasant Tail is the coveted "Precious" and is the One Fly to Rule Them All!The dominance of the pheasant tail nymph in all of its many forms comes from three things:It can match more mayfly, stonefly, and damsel species than any [...]

Over a lifetime on the water, you are going to own a number of fly rods, but as your arsenal of rods grows, your first fly rod will always hold a special place in your heart! While decades have elapsed since I purchased my first fly rod, I remember keenly the anticipation and vast [...]

(This article follows up the previous article titled “Do You See What I See”, published in April of 2014. For an introduction to understanding and exploiting trout vision, take a moment and check out the previous article at http://ascentflyfishing.com/blog/do-you-see-what-i-see/)The world of trout is constantly changing from month to month, and sometimes even from hour to [...]

(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 [...]

It could have been witnessing your first Hex hatch covering the Great Lakes like an armada of small boats, a brown trout rising to the Spring's first Sulphur mayfly on an Appalachian creek, or late summer Green Drakes bringing the river to a boil as every fish in the river seemed to be rising right [...]

There are times on the river when a little excess and doubling down can turn an average day on the water into one for the record book! Double dry fly rigs, double indicator rigs, and double beadhead nymphs can enable the fly fisher to go all-in on a hot hatch, detect the light strikes, [...]