Flies

"If you could only fish a handful of trout flies, which ones would you choose?" There isn't one perfect fly for every river, hatch, or season. But if I had to build a fly box using only five patterns, this is exactly what I'd carry.

In this video, Charlie Craven of Charlie's Fly Box talks all things craneflies : from size, weight, how to fish them, and "trivia knowledge" regarding this prime fish forage.

Want to add irresistible, lifelike movement to your fly box? Rubber legs are the ultimate trigger for hungry trout, but getting them to sit and splay correctly on the hook can be tricky. In this comprehensive guide, we break down the essential techniques you’ll need to know when tying rubber legs on a variety of fly patterns.

General Practitioner pattern in black and orange Fifteen inches of visibility at dawn, six inches by two in the afternoon — that's a documented daily swing on Washington's Klickitat, and it's the whole reason summer steelhead fly color is a moving target on glacial rivers. On a glacier-fed river you choose the swing fly by water clarity and time of day...

Screenshot from How To Tie Brett's Klamath October Caddis Skater A steelhead skating dry fly works because of the wake it throws, not how high it floats — so the best wakers ride in the surface film and push a steady V rather than skittering on top. Build it on coarse, spun deer-hair (body, rump, or belly hair that flares near 90 degrees), keep it sparser...

Screenshot from Bass Popper Fly Tying - Everything You Need To Know! Four upgrades turn a basic foam popper into a cover-fishing bass bug: a weed guard to ride through pads and slop, a rattle for stained or low-light water, action-tuned legs, and a belly color the fish can actually see from below. The catch is that each one has a cost — a weed guard for...

In this video, Brian Flechsig from Mad River Outfitters sits down with the late Flip Pallot to discuss one of the greatest saltwater flies of all time: The Prince of Tide. Flip Pallot talks about how he and others came up with the pattern to solve a problem: pesky weeds and mangrove roots when fly fishing.

Find the right tippet for fly fishing for bluefish Going heavier won't stop a bluefish from cutting you off, and fluorocarbon is usually the wrong upgrade. Blues shear leaders with conical teeth instead of fraying them, and a big one slices through hard 60-pound nylon as easily as 30. The fix is a short bite tippet — two to four inches of single-strand...

Fill your saltwater box with eight essential flies | Adobe Stock A beginner saltwater fly box for summer needs only eight patterns: a Clouser Deep Minnow, a Lefty's Deceiver, a half-and-half, a gurgler, plus a sand eel, a small baitfish, a crab, and a shrimp. Carried in a few colors and two weights, those eight cover striped bass, bluefish, and near-shore...

Screenshot from Hopper Fishing School // My Ten Best Tips for Fishing Grasshoppers When you fish a hopper, how it lands matters more than its color or size. A trout feels the splash through its lateral line before it ever sees the fly, so a hopper that hits the water hard pulls fish from feet away while a soft, pretty cast gets ignored. Color and size do...