Tobi was our little dog who sadly left us recently after a good life of around 15 years. He was a cross between a toy Pomeranian and a baby polar bear. My wife, Belle, adopted him at a young age or more like he adopted her. The old lady who lived next door to Belle's [...]
I remember standing on the dam wall at Thrift, my eyes shifting to and fro between two things. One, a large trout milling over weed beds less than a cast away from me, and two, my mate Kyle bobbing about on his kick boat in the distance. Kyle was too far off for me to [...]
According to my knowledge, in fishing terms 'bloodworm' may refer to three different things: 1) Red midge larvae, 2) reddish coloured freshwater annelids (aquatic oligochaetes that are the freshwater analogs of terrestrial earthworms) including tubifex worms (sold as 'bloodworm' in frozen blocks to feed aquarium fish), and then 3) the well known marine bloodworm (a [...]
Mullet are suckers for a floating sand flea imitation. This is especially true along beaches where masses of sand fleas are writhing under every frond of decaying kelp. This was not one of those beaches. On numerous occasions when action was slow, schools of mullet had me wishing that I had a few mullet flies [...]
"I don't know how to put this but I'm kind of a big deal. People know me. I'm very important. I have many leather-bound books and my apartment smells of rich mahogany." Ron Burgundy There are many many reasons to read books, from expanding your mind to learning new things, escapism, making yourself smarter, better [...]
If you are new to fly fishing and fly tying or if you are simply rusty and you want to give yourself a fly tying crash course, the guys over at Orvis are running a FREE livestream series of classes hosted by Tom Rosenbauer, the revered mentor behind much of what Orvis does in terms [...]
Lockdown - I'm tired of hearing it and avoid the subject these days. But during the lockdown, my fly tying station was my psychologist. Years ago my tying desk was in something close to a cellar, the living space was two floors up. My wonderful wife, Belle, wouldn't have any of this so she bought [...]
For the past season or two, I have been obsessing over simplifying my fly tying. Of course, there are situations which demand high-spec, over-engineered flies like the JAM fly or the Game Changer. These flies take time to put together properly in order to get them to behave as they should. I love that challenge, [...]
Is there such a thing as a perfect fly? I believe there are many well tied flies that have a great 'strike rate' among different fishes - these, in my book, qualify as 'perfect' flies. When I say 'well tied' I don't mean 'pretty', but rather clever combinations of materials to create buggy flies that [...]
In the hidden Bulkhead Hollow Fleye, Conrad Botes discovers the fly of his salty dreams. Here’s why. The Bulkhead Hollow Fleye. Photo John Travis When it comes to fly tying, I’m a bit old school in the sense that I try to resist new fads and tying styles for as long as I [...]
