I was watching the river last week, waiting for bugs to hatch and fish rise and began thinking about this week’s post. What topic should I write about? I finally noticed a couple of subtle rings from trout sipping insects. I wonder what they were eating? I tied on a dry fly that didn’t work…
If you’ve followed my RiverKeeper Flies posts for a while, you know my fishing partner and I fish a lot. You might interpret today’s title of how to select where to fish as one river over another. Or perhaps it might resonate with you to mean a summer fishing trip to a different state and…
Can you believe September is almost half over? I wish the calendar would slow down a bit. But the days are getting shorter, and it means Fall is almost here, with winter not far behind. Let’s get the most out of our fly fishing and ensure our September fly boxes are filled with imitations we…
Have you ever waited with anticipation for a hatch to begin and see the first few Mayflies or Salmonflies float down the river without a fish eating it? If I were an aquatic insect, I’d choose to be one of the first bugs to hatch. Why do you ask? Because I’d have a greater likelihood…
This week’s Throw Back Thursday Fly is the Olive Bloa. I found the fly pattern in Edmunds and Lee Brook and River Trouting (1916) on page 20. Click on the link for a FREE download. It’s one of my favorite classic books for the history of fly tying and fly fishing the old English flies….
I’m always amazed when I return to our home waters, the Metolius River. I love this river! I fished it for the first time in seven weeks when I ventured out last week. We are fortunate to fish many different waters on our fly fishing road trips and catch some amazing fish. But returning to…
I hope you were able to follow us on our three week adventure on the Madison River. If not, I’ll provide links to the posts below. During our time in the Madison Valley, we were able to get an introduction to Hebgen Lake gulpers from our friend Dick Rohrbaugh who lives on the river during…
We’re in our third week of fly fishing the Madison River. If you had asked me a few weeks ago if I thought we would be here this long, my answer would have been no. I’m sure you have experienced the heat wave. Our plan was to head West and fish the Beaverhead, Big Hole,…
We finished our second week fly fishing the Madison River and have noticed changes in the insect activity and our fishing. On our first week, we fished many more caddis imitations. These included an X Caddis, Iris Caddis, and Parachute Caddis. In fact, this 21″ plus Brown Trout ate a size 16 Parachute Caddis as…
The next stop on our fly fishing road trip was fly fishing the Madison River in July 2022. By the time you read this post, we’ve fished the Madison a little over a week. It’s a river we’ve been returning to for many years. Our weather has been interesting. We’ve had several days of afternoon…
