Featuring films like “A Backyard in Nowhere” and “The Costa Rica Challenge,” the International Fly Fishing Film Festival is a welcome addition to the film circuit. The film tour started in early January and currently has North America dates into July.
Fly Fishing News
Tippets: Nifty New Stove (Or is It a Charger?), Carpin’ in a Cicada Hatch, BTT Membership Drive, Crooked River Irrigation a Win-Win,
- Cook your stream-side dinner and charge your GPS at the same time all with twigs. If it works as advertised, that is exactly what the new BioLite CampStove will do.
- When David Knapp and a buddy went out on Tennessee’s Caney’s Fork they intended to catch large brown trout raising to dying cicadas. While they did catch a few memorable ones, it was his first carp on the fly that still sticks with him today.
- The Bonefish & Tarpon Trust is currently offering those who sign up for a new membership an opportunity to win a monthly drawing or enter to win a trip to Ascension Bay Bonefish Club. For those who are already members, renew and enter a drawing for a 6-night vacation at the Pesca Maya Lodge.
- By adding lining to irrigation canals in Central Oregon’s Deschutes River Basin, fishing and farming interest groups hope to prevent water from leaking from the naturally porous rock structure of the canals in order to save the secondary source of water, the Crooked River.
Tribute to Etta James: “The Right Place, the Right Time”
MidCurrent “Fly Fishing Jazz” columnist Kirk Deeter writes eloquently about the late, great Etta James: “Sometimes, no matter what you do to prepare, no matter how far you’ve trained that cast, and no matter how sexy those bugs you tied up over the winter are, it’s still ultimately about finding yourself in the right place at the right time.“
Video Hatch: “A Steelhead Family”
Andrew Hardingham’s film follows the Clay family of British Columbia. Bob, the father, is a bamboo rod maker, daughter Kateri, a guide, and son Jed, “the fishiest person” Kateri knows. Not to be outdone, the mother, Kathy, and one other daughter are quite accomplished themselves. It is fair to say this is a fishing family.
Tippets: Fly Reel Making Workshop, Frying Pan Sizzling, Redfish Debates, Geomagnetic Storms
- Fly rod making is a popular past time but rarely does one hear about making reels. However, Granite Staters will have the opportunity to learn how at a workshop hosted by Michael Hackney of The Eclectic Angler.
- Colorado anglers can fish their winter blues away at the Frying Pan which, as usual, is having a productive winter. Eggs, midges and, unique to a few locales, year round dry fly action.
- The increase in the bag limit for redfish in certain parts of Florida takes effect today. Seen as symbol of a recovered redfish population to fisheries managers, many disagree with the decision. Meanwhile, in North Carolina the debate over classifying redfish, trout and striped bass as gamefish, making it legal to only catch them by hook and line and illegal to sell, is heating up.
- A coronal mass ejection (CME), a magnetic force that penetrates the Earth’s magnetic field, that hit last week, along with disrupting navigation systems, flight plans, satellites and power grids, might also have disturbed the migratory systems of marine species, including trout.
Casting: Slowing Down on Salt
Faster action, lighter weight, quicker casting strokes. All are accepted as the formula for saltwater fly casting today, but it wasn’t always that way. Anglers may be missing out on nostalgic fun and even some practical advantages.
Tom Kerr, gives three reasons why slower action is worth a cast: better mending, better feel when night fishing, and less need to false cast. Not to mention harkening back to a time when life was just a little bit slower. In Fly Fishing in Saltwaters.
Tippets: Fires Help Bitterroot, NY Sues PA Driller, Rick’s Streamer, Great Fishing Photography
- Greg Thomas, editor of Fly Rod & Reel, checks in with the progress of the Bitterroot after devastating fires in 2000 and 2003 and finds the river in great shape.
- New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation is suing U.S. Energy Development Corporation over allegations that insufficient construction of roads leading to the company’s wells caused significant pollution in one of New York’s trout streams.
- Shrimp are integral to the Atlantic Salmon’s diet and Rick’s streamer sets out to imitate one. More importantly, unlike many of the elaborate flies used to attract the fish, Rick’s streamer is very simple to tie.
- Tom Rosenbauer got the chance to talk with Brian O’Keefe, owner of Catch Magazine, about taking more effective fly fishing photos.
Video Hatch: “Heart of the Driftless” Trailer
Third Year Fly Fisher, the company responsible for “Reverb,” will release “Heart of the Driftless” in March of 2012. The video is about the unique streams of the Driftless Area or, as it is said in the movie, “small versions of the famous British chalk streams.”
Introducing Raw Water Productions
Embracing a grassroots spirit, Adam Kryder, Lucas Carroll, Matt Smythe, have teamed up to launch Raw Water Productions. With quite a collective resume between the three, the group hopes to “enliven and inspire the fly-fishing industry, and the fly-fishing community as a whole, with educative voice and down-to-earth media.”
First up is this compelling video “Autumn 2011 Showreel.”
Tippets: America’s Rudest Rivers, Real Estate: South Africa Lodge, Youth Drawing Contest, Pebble Mine in the Legislature, Land & Water Conservation Fund
- Travel + Leisure might suggest that the rudest people are found in Los Angeles or New York, but the rudest trout can be found in the Henry’s Fork, according to Kirk Deeter.
- In case our readers did not find their dream property on the recent Forbes magazine list, perhaps an 850-acre luxury guest ranch in South Africa fits the bill.
- New Jersey’s Division of Fish and Wildlife, with Trout Unlimited, is hosting a native fish art and writing contest for New Jersey youth in grades 4 through 7.
- Opponents of Pebble Mine are taking their efforts to the Alaska legislature as well as the state courts.
- The Land & Water Conservation Fund, established in 1964, is an important part of conserving public land, resources, and fisheries but has been largely ignored, writes Mario Rivas.





