Meditations
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.
Latest
How To
Hands off, or hands-free?
Yet sometimes you have to get a little dirt on your hands.
Dispatches
This season's most essential piece of fly-fishing gear
The dirt-cheap wonder-tool any angler can use to become legendary.
Meditations
No drag, just drift
Striving to get even with the flow
News
The Intro to Fly Fishing class in the spotlight
A short video introduction to the Portland Community College Intro to Fly Fishing course, courtesy student-angler Nathaniel Chapman
CFS Update
Vivid indicators of life
Wading for caddis, fishing nymphs with suspenders
CFS Update
Fish on film
Roll cameras, because the Fly Fishing Film Tour came to town.
Industry
The Oscars: CFS' 2025 Fly Fishing Film Tour Awards
There are four questions a pretty good fly-fishing film has to answer in order to be considered truly great.
CFS Update
Rolling your own
If you wish to make a fly rod from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
Books
River reads, post-hibernation edition
Grand Canyon dreaming, communing with the fishes, Jackson County's finest, Tokyo shopping, and a great smallmouth bass learning opportunity
Books
Hibernation reads, 2025
When we can't fish and make stories, we read stories. Sometimes those are fly-fishing stories, and sometimes they're not. Here are three that rolled across the bedside table, from the Grand Canyon to the Mariana Trench to the Carhartteratti of Jackson Hole's Persephone Bakery.
CFS Update
Stand up and tell 'em! 📣
A gentle nudge to find your voice in conservation and activism.
Industry
Don't get GASed 💨
Snow Peak launches a fly-fishing line, avoiding GAS, we find the safest place on the Oregon Coast to be in a tsunami, and more.
CFS Update
Meanderings: Following the thalweg from the Willamette to the Seine
First flies, finding the thalweg, good eau in Paris, and some riparian art
How To
Leaky waders and slinky links
Here's another thing to do this winter: Fix your waders. And, while you're at it, get stoked with a visit to one of the fly-fishing film fests, and generally click your heart out with some buttery links.
Industry
Immerse yourself with Kwintesencja
Take fifteen minutes, and be transported.
News
Watersheds and watching flies
Zoom out to conserve, zoom in to observe, zoom over to the Grand Fir tonight to have a drink and a bite.
CFS Update
Creek Freaks and Trout Whisperers: Advocacy from the Deschutes to the Chattahoochee
100 subscribers, Maupin in May, the DRA's Deschutes fight expands, a new blueprint for anadromous activism, and a club report from ATL.
Meditations
A tale for the turn of the year
Wish 2025 an angler's welcome with some intention setting, saying goodbye to Jimmy Carter, summer meetup dates, and the anatomy of a fly-fishing rig
Books
Remembering Jimmy Carter, our greatest fly fishing president
Many presidents have fished, but few had the soul of an angler.
News
Maupin Meetup 2025
Come one, come all, to the 2025 Current Flow State summer meetup at TroutFest in Maupin, Oregon!
Books
Read By the River, 2024
Sometimes, literally. The five favorite (mostly) fly-fishing books I read this year
CFS Update
From runway to river
Fly fishing fashion icons, Joe Pera, final slots for winter classes, and more.
Industry
Fly fishing fashion: Streetwear goes streamside
Are kook fits in? Honestly, the only drip I know is when you're wading deep and you dunk your hat.
CFS Update
Finding your fly lab
Another critical element in establishing your home waters: having a place to test things out. Plus a new book from Robin Wall Kimmerer and the many (gnarly) faces of lamprey.
How To
Avoid this one mistake when buying your first fly rod
How's that for a clickbait title? CFS' first-fly-rod buyers' guide, Winter classes open now, and a push against crude fly names.
Dispatches
Ground yourself on our home planet
Establish The Big Here on the way to finding your home waters. Also, two fun fly fishing films, and registration opening for Winter term class.
Meditations
A time to mend
If you can manage your line, you can manage your life.
CFS Update
Some lines on knots
When it comes to fly-fishing knot tying skill, it's truly a tale of the haves and the have-knots. OK, ok. I promise not to get things too twisted up here, pun-wise at least.
CFS Update
So long summer, come winter's hope.
If you start summer steelheading earlier than October, does it get less bittersweet?
How To
Invest in your angling, and your community: Join a fly fishing club
There's a great new documentary out about the wonderful benefits of joining a club. Guess what? Joining a fly-fishing club is even better, and will make you a better angler.
CFS Update
Remembering John Gierach
Recalling the shaper of a Platonic fly-fishing reality, in his own words
CFS Update
High-torque and low-torque activities
Digging in on the progression from Aspen Extreme to Trout Bum (RIP John Gierach), Grant Petersen CFS GOAT, SalmonSuperHwy lauded by the White House, and more
Dispatches
Fly fishing in the Italian Alps Part 5: The Packing List
It's not the be-all end-all Ultimate Fly Fishing Destination Packing List, but it's what I wound up bringing to Italy, where the trout fishing is much like at home.