Member drive
Two new Explorers stepped up. Will you be next? 🎯
We're rolling in our September Member Drive!
Nick Parish
Forever seeking flow.
Mindset
Go beyond the bobber
Challenging yourself to become a better angler, a book club rundown, and upcoming events.
Read by the River
Read By the River: Nature's Best Hope
Our river nerd book club turns to trees: backyard conservation, native plants, and creating habitat that supports the food web.
Member drive
Announcing the CFS September Member Drive
Let's fund a Photarium—and find this mystery fish—for fly fishing education
Technique
Do you want the wire worm?
Knowing what you like, and sticking with it.
Learn
Back to school: Six Tips to Start fly fishing from George Daniel
One of the greatest educators in the angling world offers a roadmap to building your skills in the sport.
Travel
Let's hit the road
What if the secret to life's problems is just getting better at evading them?
Safety
Seeing salmon, seeing snakes, and tying simple flies
Facial recognition, but for fish, our first buzzworm of the year, and a new PCC fly-tying class for Fall Term
Environment
Salmon Vision: The AI revolution comes to salmon conservation
Bringing the power of artificial intelligence to bear on monitoring anadromous salmon populations for faster and more efficient counts, toward more resilient watersheds
Community
How to make your kids hate fishing
Re-writing the old tired playbook of fishing as achievement and productive time in favor of something more curious and explorational.
Learn fly fishing: CFS' complete beginner's guide to getting started
Whether you're completely new to fly fishing or looking to improve your skills, this directory of all the main articles from Current Flow State has everything you need to learn about fly fishing, and be successful on the water.
Community
CFSQ&A: What I Wish I'd Known Before My First Guided Float in Montana
Impressions, insights, and lessons-learned when an Intro to Fly Fishing alum takes her first guided float trip in Montana.
Published Elsewhere
Profiling fly fishing educator George Daniel for PennStater magazine
From inspiration and ideas to executing a feature story, it takes a team, trust, and a little bit of good timing. Sounds like a successful fishing trip, too
Read by the River
Fix your yard, help a fish?
Join us for a discussion of backyard ecology in our Summer edition of the Read By the River book club.
Safety
Pain, pressure, and one hard pull: Hook removal done right
If you stick yourself rather than a fish, know how to get it out.
Conservation
Salmon without fish: Lab-grown seafood earns FDA approval, and a spot on the menu at Portland's Kann
With recently-granted FDA approval and a summer slot on the menu at Portland hotspot Kann, lab-grown salmon is in the spotlight. I talked with Justin Kolbeck, co-founder of cultivated seafood startup Wildtype.
Conservation
Leaders: Wisdom never expires
It's the June edition of Leaders, our links roundup, featuring the big public lands battle, the wisdom of guides and land-watchers, gear reviews, technique primers, and more.
Community
Skate or Fly: How two outsider sports foster the same creative flow state
From boardslides to redsides, meet a few notable skaters who fly-fish, and identify the big areas the sports have in common, built around getting into the flow state.
Events
TroutFest 2025, debriefed: We came, we saw, we fished...we won the trivia contest!
Here's what went down at the first-ever Maupin Meetup during the Deschutes River Alliance's TroutFest.
Technique
Tap into the Wisdom of the Guides
Gleaning advice for taking your first guided fly-fishing trip from legendary fly-fishing guides and a tome that's stood the test of time.
Mindset
Nirvana on the Deschutes: The salmonfly hatch with no hookups
Deciding to fish the salmonfly hatch on the Deschutes with hookless flies
Learn
30 micro-lessons for the fly-curious to learn to fish
We're off and running on a marathon of Bluesky posting to kick off this year's trout season. Try one every day, and in a month you'll be an angler!
Tools
Rigged for spring
it's the May edition of Leaders, our links roundup, featuring a bevy of great PNW events, primers on fish handling, and an intro to Trout Spey.
Learn
One of the best ways to improve your fly fishing: Download our free fishing log template
All the theory, workflows, and downloadable tools you need to build one of the most important habits of a fly angler.
Read by the River
Floods, anarchy, and river gods
The season kicks off with a rush of fun, with the TroutFest agenda dropping, a little soliloquy, a report from our book club, and my first significant fish of the new season.
Events
TroutFest 2025: The schedule drops
We're just over a month away from TroutFest 2025 in Maupin, OR, and the Deschutes River Alliance has released the first schedule of events.
Books
Read By the River: James C. Scott's In Praise of Floods
Saving dolphins, propitiating river spirits, and the future of history
Mindset
Fish around and find out
Ten ways to make fly fishing a bigger part of your life
Learn
Pillar 1: Mindset
Start here. Why do we fish? How do we venture boldly into the outdoors?
Learn
Pillar 3: Tools
What stuff do I need? Less than you think.
Learn
Pillar 2: Environment
Where do fish live? How can we find them? All about watersheds, rivers, and all those who live in them.
Learn
Pillar 4: Technique
Casting, fly presentation, dry flies, nymphing, streamers and more.
Learn
Pillar 5: Conservation
How to steward these gifts for the next generation
Learn
Pillar 6: Community
Building your support network inside the sport by connecting with like-minded people.
Learn
Take your time: Ten ways to make fly fishing a bigger part of your life
We have a motto around here: "Make fly fishing a bigger part of your life." Here are ten ways to work in more time on the water, and time spent feeling fishy.
Tools
Hands off, or hands-free?
Yet sometimes you have to get a little dirt on your hands.