Experts

I've never caught a 24-inch brown trout on a fly. I've put a few 23-inch fish in the net, and more than a handful of 20-inchers. But I have yet to cross the 2-foot mark with salmo trutta, even though I'm surrounded by tailwaters supposedly full of fish near 25 inches. I reckon a lot of anglers fall into that same situation, which is why this recent story...

I was speaking with some beginner fly anglers recently, and one of the questions I heard was about how to retrieve a streamer. "There's not really a right or wrong way," I replied. "You just have to figure out what the fish want." In my experience, that's been largely true. Dom Swentosky, over at Troutbitten, has a slightly different take, however. I think...

Who couldn't use some help with their cast? Even the best anglers I know are always willing to look at ways to improve. And if you're like me—avid but decidedly average—you're happy to get all the help you can, especially with casting. Mac Brown has a five-second casting fix, over in Fly Fisherman Magazine, that'll make a big difference in how well...

Lake trout are an underrated fish to target on the fly rod. It makes sense, though, since they live so deep for most of the year. Unless you're fishing in Canada, catching them on a fly rod outside of a few weeks in spring and fall is just about impossible. If you want in on the action, though, you need to listen to this podcast from Joe Cermele. Joe sat...

In a recent episode of the Quick Strike podcast over at Outdoor Life, Joe Cermele sat down with Miles Nolte to talk about the "fall feedbag myth" they say permeates fly fishing. Now, Joe and Miles are two very accomplished anglers, and both know what they're doing. According to them, the modern belief that fall is the best time to target big trout is just a...

Louis Cahill has a great tip for fooling picky trout that don't seem to want anything else—try fishing a floating nymph instead. "Big educated fish who have seen a lot of flies don’t come to hand easily," Cahill writes. "Kent and I were in exactly this scenario just the other day and were able to turn it around using a simple but often overlooked...

Dom Swentosky has a recent post over at Troutbitten that will prove valuable to anyone looking to hone their skills at reading water. Specifically, Dom looks at how your tactics for reading water change as the seasons do, especially from summer to fall. What worked all summer long likely won't once the mornings become crisp again, and it takes a keen eye...

Fighting and landing big fish on a fly rod is a skill many anglers hone over time, but they often learn it the hard way. There are a few things you can do to make landing big fish more effective, which is especially important now that we know so much more about how fish recover from catch-and-release. That's why it's important to read this story from Kent...

If you've followed Dom Swentosky over at Troutbitten, you know how fond he is of his leader setups. His take on the mono rig has a ton of devotees, and it's hard to argue with the results. And if you've ever had questions about how to utilize a lot of those techniques when fishing smaller water, then you need to read this recent story Dom published. He...

Situational awareness is one of, if not the most important skills for a fly angler. Regardless of the fish you're chasing, you absolutely have to be aware of what bugs are hatching, what the water is doing, or what food sources are available at a given moment. There's a ton of information to process, and the best anglers are the ones who can take all that...