Bruce Richards

Bruce Richards has taught fly fishing and fly casting for 40+ years, and he helped develop and run the FFI Casting Instructor Certification Program. With Scientific Anglers 3M from 1976 until 2007, Bruce was responsible for new product development and process improvement, as well as fly line taper design.  Bruce is the author of Modern Fly Lines (Odysseys Editions, 1994) and was Fly Rod & Reel’s 2006 Angler of the Year. He also co-owns CastAnalysis, LLC, maker of the electronic fly casting analyzer. Bruce lives in Ennis, Montana, where he teaches fly casting and hunts/fishes as much as possible.

Author Articles

Choosing a Fly Line

How to Choose a Fly Line GIVEN THE CHOICE between having a very good fly line and an average rod, or a very good rod and an average line, nearly all experts would choose to have the better line. And for good reason. The line is what actually carries the fly to the target and delivers it. It's easy to adjust your casting stroke to accommodate differences in...

The Double Haul

A recent discussion of the double haul with Gordy Hill, Dayle Mazzarella and Walter Simburski was very interesting and caused all of us to take a very hard look at what we know, and what we don’t. The following are my thoughts on double hauling. I think the other guys would agree with most, but not all, of what I write. Hauling is normally done to...

Fly Line Memory and Stretching

ALL FLY LINES have memory — they “remember” the shape they are stored in, usually coils on a reel or on a storage spool. The reason is simple: most lines are made with nylon cores and PVC coatings, and both materials tend to hold and retain their shape. But memory in these materials is also temperature dependent, and the colder the line, the stiffer...