News

More than two dozen women participated in the first annual Beyond the Cast Women’s Fly Fishing Symposium at the 2023 Virginia Fly Fishing & Wine Festival. The 22nd annual Virginia Fly & Wine, held at the Farm Bureau Building on the state fairgrounds in Doswell on January 14-15, 2023, played host to the unique Beyond the Cast symposium, which was...

After a rock-throwing spat between a property owner and angler Roger Hill, the Colorado Supreme Court is taking a look at stream access laws in the state. At the crux of Hill's argument is that rivers and streams should be publicly accessible if they were used for public purposes when Colorado became a state. You can read more on this topic from The...

Orvis announced that they'll match all donations up to $10,000 made before the end of the year to the Guide Relief Program (GRP), according to Hatch Magazine. The GRP was started during the pandemic as a way to help guides pay their bills while sidelined from guiding. It has since expanded to also offer mental health services at no cost to guides. You can...

According to an article in Angling Trade, a new survey from Southwick Associates shows that fishing license sales actually declined in 2021 compared to 2020. For all the talk of the pandemic boom in fly fishing, fewer people went fishing altogether in 2021 than in 2020. While there was a decline, however, more licenses were sold in 2021 than before the...

Poaching is often thought of as a big-game crime, but illegally harvesting too many fish also falls under the definition of poaching. Recently, officers with the Michigan Department of Natural Resources busted a group of poachers who illegally harvested more than 460 pounds of fish from the Manistee River. You can read about the bust here.

Jeff Wagner has been named the new CEO and President of Mayfly Outdoors, the parent company of Ross Reels, Airflo, and Abel. Wagner was previously the general manager at the R.L. Winston Rod Company, and he also previously worked for Cabela's. Per a press release from Mayfly Outdoors, Wagner is excited to start working with the team based in Montrose...

Simms Fishing Products, one of the leading manufacturers of fishing waders, was sold to Vista Outdoor for $192.5 million, per Fly Fisherman Magazine.  Vista Outdoor is the parent company for 39 other outdoors brands, including Bushnell and Remington Ammunition. Vista says there are no plans to cut workers, and that Simms will stay in Bozeman, Montana. For...

The American Fly Fishing Trade Association (AFFTA) has announced a partnership with SaaS company TrackFly. The partnership will "revolutionize how the fly fishing industry collects data to provide the most accurate picture ever created of the industry," according to a press release from AFFTA. TrackFly is a software service that "provides data aggregation...

Arizona has some decent trout fishing, especially where the Colorado River flows through the state. On the section known as Lee's Ferry (downstream of the Glen Canyon Dam, upstream of the Grand Canyon), however, warming water levels are starting to threaten the trout. Lee's Ferry is a tailwater, since the Glen Canyon Dam sits just upstream. Normally, cold...

Alaska is no stranger to large wildfires, but the state is has already seen 1 million acres of land burned, the earliest it's happened in decades. This story from Anchorage Daily News highlights the issues facing Alaska and the serious threats posed by the active wildfire season. Read the story here.