Technique
Swinging wet flies and soft hackles
Try out one of the most straightforward presentation styles, for both trout and steelhead
Technique
Fly fishing techniques to learn that will help you get the most out of your time on the water, including casting methods, presentation skills, mending, achieving a drag-free drift, and advanced tactics. Photo by Carl Heyerdahl / Unsplash
Casting
Making your first fly rod casts: It's not all in the wrist
Whether you're an absolute beginner or recovering gear angler, wrist control is critical to learning to load and cast a fly rod properly.
Technique
Go beyond the bobber
Challenging yourself to become a better angler, a book club rundown, and upcoming events.
Technique
Do you want the wire worm?
Knowing what you like, and sticking with it.
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.
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.
Learn
Pillar 4: Technique
Casting, fly presentation, dry flies, nymphing, streamers and more.
Technique
No drag, just drift
Striving to get even with the flow
Environment
Vivid indicators of life
Wading for caddis, fishing nymphs with suspenders
Learn
Rolling your own
If you wish to make a fly rod from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
Learn
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
Learn
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.
Weekly Update
Read By the River, 2024
Sometimes, literally. The five favorite (mostly) fly-fishing books I read this year
Weekly Update
A time to mend
If you can manage your line, you can manage your life.
Weekly Update
Fly fishing and problem solving
Moving beyond the engineering mindset, and trying to embrace frustration as a key function of learning
Weekly Update
Fools rush in: on finding, hooking, and losing a trophy trout
Reflections on an epic face-plant, remembering Bill Walton
Technique
You could just roll cast your entire life
Whether it's the first cast you learn or the second, the roll cast is a hard-working and versatile arrow in your casting quiver.
Technique
Fly-fishing with indicators: When and how to use them
All about indicators, floats, suspenders—whatever you call the thing every other angler calls a bobber.
Technique
Fly presentation and drag-free drift
You've rigged up your rod, landed your cast in the right place, your fly is on the water...and, it's waterskiing. Tactics and tips to maintain a drag-free drift that's irresistible to fish.
Technique
Streamers and triggering trout aggression
Here are two examples of videos depicting the most visible and dramatic types of eats you'll ever get: territorial brown trout going after streamers.
Books
CFS Chat: George Daniel on Dynamic Nymphing
We were lucky enough to get some time with George (in between the Green Drake blitz, even!) and had the chance to ask him a few questions about his approach to the book.