About Current Flow State Fly Fishing

Spend more time in the flow

It can be tough to connect deeply with a new passion, especially one as complex as fly fishing.

Current Flow State is designed is to explore fly fishing as a creative practice and a lifelong hobby. It’s more than just a tutorial or series of steps. My goals are to help people just like you find simple meaningful ways to develop a fly fishing practice, so they can:

• build skills and feel more confident angling
• access tools and techniques to explore and grow
• be inspired by creativity happening around the sport
• unlock a lifelong way to beat stress and magnify wonder in the world

How do we do it?

Well, my goal is to offer you and other curious anglers, whatever your level, a convenient way to tap into the many subcultures of fly fishing, and connect with a supportive community of fellow curious souls.

Current Flow State is here to fuel your fly-fishing obsession, and give you the support you need to transform into the angler you want to be, whether you're a pro, or just getting started.

About Nick Parish

Current Flow State is me, Nick Parish, a Portland, Oregon-based writer and editor. My work has appeared in New York Magazine, the New York Post, Advertising Age, PennStater, Contagious, Creativity, Flaunt, Slam, and more. I’ve written about fly fishing here for over ten years.

I've fished most of my life. I've helped dozens of people, young and old, catch their first fish on a fly. Nothing gets me more excited than helping others find their passion for this wonderful sport.

For the past several years, I've been leading fly fishing instruction in Portland Community College's community education program.

Sharing my obsession

I'm not a member of the fly fishing industry. I've never been a guide, despite how The New York Times described me. My goal, as an instructor and coach, is to understand what each individual angler I work with needs to move forward on their path, and what I have in my toolbox that might help them in that direction.

"I have taken another fly class through a fly shop and although the instructor was very knowledgeable, he did not have training on how to teach. If you don't know how to teach people, your knowledge will not be effectively delivered."

— Juli A., Intro to Fly Fishing graduate ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐

Part of the reason this works when it does (it doesn’t always) is because I'm always hungry for more learning and growth. This is all here because I’m trying to make fly fishing a bigger part of my life. This space is where I capture all the enthusiasms and anxieties I have around the sport, where I celebrate the wins and rent my garments at the ones that got away.

This is all here because I’m trying to make fly fishing a bigger part of my life.

I want to share that enthusiasm and exposure with you. My ever-evolving philosophy on fly fishing and life is captured here on Current Flow State, in essays, trip reports, our library of teaching notes and how-to learning Pillars, and more. Subscribe to get the latest and greatest in your inbox every week.

Everyone was a beginner once

Fly-fishing can be incredibly frustrating, and downright daunting to the newbie. It's still a sport with strong elements of elitism. There's a rightful perception of some big barriers to entry. Cost, a high learning curve, and access to the outdoors all get in the way.

I had a lot of help when I first started out. Family, friends, and clubs helped me gather knowledge to work around those barriers.

I caught my first big trout at age eight from a rowboat on northern Michigan's famous Au Sable river. Shamefully, it was on a nightcrawler, not a fly. But it wasn't long before I discovered the challenge and reward of fly fishing.

These days, I've got a career and a family of my own. There are thousands of hours, and half a continent's worth of distance from that moment. But I still reach back to that first sense of joy, and work to help others experience it themselves.

Current Flow State is my attempt to share that knowledge with a wider audience. To help you find your feet in the sport. And maybe experience a few fewer tangles and dead-ends along the way.

Join us

I hope you'll subscribe to the free newsletter, which goes out every Monday. You can read previous editions of the newsletter here.

Membership benefits

If you're eager to get even deeper more, become a member of our paid tier, the Explorers.

Who are the Explorers? We're the ones who show up with snacks to share. The ones who are always OK to get home a little late due to an unplanned detour up a promising dirt road. We're the ones who aren't afraid to fail for having tried something new. Our community is a vehicle to inspire and equip people all over the world to make fly-fishing a bigger part of their lives.

Supporting creative fly-fishing projects

By becoming an Explorer you're supporting the creative projects you see on the site, past, present, and future, and enabling me to take a peek down those dirt roads and report back, exploring what creativity might mean in the world of fly fishing.

Your membership creates the funding and encouragement to pursue creative projects, wherever they may lead. Knowing that folks out there are eager to learn what I find out. And while the creative projects are the heart of it, Explorers also get some practical benefits along the way.

Special perks for Explorers

Explorers get access to some great perks:

• Event and product presales and discounts: First dibs on CFS programming, along with a standing discount. Explorers also get exclusive eyes on any discounts authorized by partner manufacturers. One recent example: A members-only manufacturer's discount for waders at 60-70% off.
• Access to "The Fishcord," the CFS Discord: Ask anything in our private Members-only chat. Find fishing friends, coordinate on trips, buy and sell gear, watch videos, commiserate over blown casts and bad weather.
• Scouting Sessions archive and request form: Launching soon, Scouting Sessions are where I walkCFS Members in-depth through my method of researching step-by-step to find places to fish, from licenses and parking to reading water. Explorer requests drive what Scouting Sessions cover. Going to Whitefish, MT this summer? Let's scout it out together.
• Annual CFS Check-in goal-setting workshop: We're all here to build our fly-fishing practice. The CFS Check-in is a tool to build your relationship with the sport. This 1:1 workshop is only available to Explorers.
• Member updates, and input on future projects: This is a member-driven community, so expect quarterly "Board notes"-style updates, with behind-the-scenes details on what's working (and not).

Membership benefits will help you get even more fulfillment from your time spent angling, and introduce you to a like-minded community of fellow fish-seekers.

All the work you see here is member-supported. There is no sponsorship or advertising. (Read more on our editorial policy here.) Memberships give me the necessary encouragement I need to create and share this material more widely, and help pick up the bills for site hosting, class supplies and special project materials.

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