Moffit Angling System Expands Product Line

If you haven’t heard of or seen the Moffit Angling System by now, you’ve missed one of the year’s more controversial innovations. The Moffit System uses hookless flies that can be looped on and off the leader above a barbless circle hook, with the intended result of hooking fish in the outer jaw instead of inside the mouth or in the gills. The inventor, Pat Moffit, came up with the idea while searching for a system that would help reduce fish mortality. Moffit is a retired environmental scientist and lifetime fly angler and fly tier and designed his system specifically to reduce damage and disfigurement to trout. Why is it controversial? Because at first glance it is similar to rigs that are sometimes used to snag fish, and because some state laws that define what is “acceptable” terminal tackle may prohibit its use. There are also fly fishers who feel the system is too great a departure from the classic idea of the sport. (Of course there are also anlgers who, a century after a raging debate between icons of the sport, question whether fishing with a nymph is “real” fly fishing.) On the other hand the system has received endorsements from fly fishing experts like John Randolph and John Merwin, who’ve both fished the system extensively. Probably the easiest way to judge whether the Moffit System might be worth a close look is to watch their video on how it works.
Behind the scenes Moffit has been completing their product catalog and is about to update their Web site with new steelhead and trout flies.