Great Lakes Coho on the Dry Fly

Great Lakes fly anglers have a history of treating salmon and steelhead different than their west-coast ancestors. For decades, third-coast anglers were convinced that steelhead would only eat egg flies bounced along the bottom until they made a commitment to using west-coast streamer tactics and were rewarded for their efforts. It’s not surprising that salmon…

Skinny Water Steelhead – Swing Control and Direction.

Swinging a fly on skinny water presents the down and across angler with a myriad of technical challenges. Like larger rivers, runs, pools and riffles occur through these small waters however, by virtue of the stream size, current speeds and transitions occur in small, compact spaces. While fishing a popular Wisconsin tributary recently I ran…

Ultimate Guide to Teaching a Kid Fly Fishing

I ran across a recent post on a Facebook fly fishing group where an angler was asking for helping getting his child interested in fly fishing and away from his youthful, digital lifestyle. As expected, the advice he received ranged from basic common sense to extreme beatings and violent disposal of his iPad and video…

Local Knowledge is Fly Fishing College

  Two years ago I decided to visit some of the local trout streams near Harrisburg, Pennsylvania where I was introduced to The Way of a Trout with a Fly (thank you G. E. M. Skues). Despite the advance of civilization, the drive was a refreshing tour past Amish farms and rural countryside that, it…

Old guys cast further, not wade deeper

An old TV show-which name I can’t recall- had the main character make a very profound statement on life which was “Find out what you don’t do well and then DON”T DO IT’. I have watched a lot of You Tube and Vimeo videos lately and have notice that a lot of the fly fishers…

Spey Me A River

Spey rods and Switch rods are new to me. In Europe I saw salmon fishermen with extra long rods and figured, “OK big fish, big rivers you need a BIG rod”, sort of like boat rods for salt water. Fast forward to today. Steelhead fishermen on the West Coast have been using Spey rods for…