Winter Term registration opens Wednesday
Sign up for Winter Term class, come tie flies on Friday, read CFS in the Financial Times, and watch two Swedish brothers bust chops while contemplating the good life.
What ho!
Did you see the Northern Lights this week? We even got a little show in Portland, which was fun. This week includes couple admin items about CFS movements around HQ, a great film pick, and your humble narrator appearing in everyone's favorite (favourite?) pink newspaper. All this along with the usual: Ten ideas to start the week with your fly fishing blood up.
Winter term registration opens this week
It's hard to believe 2026 is right around the corner, but the Winter Term catalog hit mailboxes Friday, and registration opens this week. If you're interested, please save the dates and register. Winter Term 2026 will be Tuesday nights, from 6-8:30pm. That’s four sessions, from February 24th to March 17th.
Winter Term classes open up for registration this Wednesday, Nov 19 at 7am. You can register at pcc.edu. We have 14 slots, and I expect them to fill up, so please register early if you're interested.
There was a slight misprint in the catalog; during Winter Term we don't fish outside. We will, however, have a casting session this winter, indoors, in the gym at the Cascade campus. So, we'll see how that goes.
We're tying again this Friday night
The second installment of our Pheasant Tail Simplicity tying night is this Friday, 7-10pm, at The Paladin's League on NE Fremont. We handled soft hackles last time, let's try nymphs and dries next. If you want to study up ahead of time, it'll probably be the tried-and-true Pheasant Tail Nymph and the Pheasant Tail Sparkle Dun, the latter so we can get some deer hair experience.
As usual, come one, come all, just register and let me know you're coming so I can plan accordingly. Bring your tools if you have them, but if not, we've got you covered.
Ten Foot Leaders ➰
Ten fishy links to start your week with trout in the tabs.
Mindset 🧘♂️
Trout Unlimited’s new tagline is “Every River Needs a Champion,” and you’d be hard-pressed to find a river that needs on more than the Los Angeles River. Commonly perceived as the concrete chute featured in Hollywood films like Grease and Terminator 2, further upstream the river actually supports wildlife and is navigable by watercraft. Melanie Winter has been fighting for the river for over three decades, and now, even as she copes with advanced lung cancer, she remains indefatigable. Tune in as her plan for ”unbuilding” the river and returning to natural processes picks up momentum. (link)
Environment ⛰️
There’s trouble in the Valley of the Hogs. Outmoded dam and hatchery equipment have created problems on one of the United States’ most storied trophy brown trout fisheries: the White River in Arkansas. With a low-quality water release from the reservoir killing next year’s crop of stocked rainbows in an important feeder tributary, every angler in the area is wondering how much the fishery will be affected. The official channels seem optimistic that emergency regulations will sort out the problem, but seasoned guide Steve Dally is much less sure. (link)
Tools 🎣
Montana fly shop Big Sky Anglers is selling its quiver of demo rods. These are shop rods that go out on guided trips, and are generally lightly fished. Sales like these are a great chance to get into a higher-end rod at a discounted price. The real smart move is to go on a guide trip with a shop during the season and try out a couple of different rods, then scoop up the one you like if it goes on sale later. (link)
Technique 🤺
📹 Our favorite film this week comes from Sweden, where Tomas Skoging and Markus Hoffman bring us ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MOUNTAINS. Two brothers, their guide, and one cool-ass dog find all the great ingredients of a fly fishing adventure—weather mysticism, droll humor, and, of course, fish—in a remote lake complex. High marks also to the filmmakers for a great musical score and fine writing and narration. This is the kind of fishing film I like to watch, realism over triumphant narrative, patient minimalism over rapid-fire cuts and action movie stuff. Pay special attention to the well-detailed fish-fighting and net work in this one. (link)
This week's film pick is great, give it a gander.
Rio interviews Hansi Johnson, a Minnesotan angler stalking Northern Pike in the boundary waters. I took a formative canoe trip in Quetico Provincial Park as a young man, and caught smallmouth bass but never pike. So this story of toothy critters (and adjacent news updates about threats to that uniquely unspoiled wilderness) had me feeling things. (link)
Is it the chill in the Oregon air? This story in Hatch didn’t help my pikey feelings. It's probably good we don't have Northern Pike in the PNW; they’re murderous to juvenile salmon. The only cache of toothiness are the musky lakes in Washington, so I have to keep my animal spirits at bay until I can visit. But this trip to a remote pike fishery in Manitoba trying to convince trout anglers toinstead at pike is enough to tide me over. (link)
Conservation 🌲
With the federal government shutdown coming to an ignominious end, Wes Siler totes up the damage to our National Parks and finds it less acute than previous shutdowns, but a scary harbinger of what’s to come as the current administration’s attacks on public land continue. (link)
Look ma, yer boy’s in the FT Weekend: My letter to the editor of the Financial Times about a missing detail in a recent article conceals a poop joke, yes, but also and sheds light on the complex truths around rural development and the disastrous results of top-down decision making for landscapes mistakenly thought of as empty. Read the article I’m responding to, by the FT’s data editor, Oliver Roeder, documenting the latest wave of changes disrupting desert ecosystems in Nevada. (link)
Lest my letter make you worry, I’m only a partial Luddite. One of the great benefits of solar energy is it can be incredibly distributed. The ecosystem effects of megaprojects like Greenlink North can be avoided with less concentrated solar, closer to the need, with a mix of rooftop and community installations. Of course, nobody’s getting rich off that, only the people who own the panels, who enjoy a great decrease in energy costs. I put panels on my roof just over two years ago, and have been overjoyed at the outcome. If you’ve ever got any questions about home solar, you can send them my way. And if you’re looking for a little bit more solar stoke, this latest film from Fossil Free Media does a great job showing positive impacts, macro and micro. (link)
Community 🏘️
Here’s a hobby I never knew existed: treasure hunting in the PNW in the form of searching for antique bottles. Over at Field Mag, Shane Auckland takes us along on his family trip to search abandoned mining claims for rare, fragile vessels. (link)
We may have yet to solve the mystery of how fish pics play on Bumble, but someone’s done some slightly more scientific research on Gen Z attitudes to hunting glory shots on social media. This study by hunting advocate Christine Fischer at Hirsch and Co found that overall trophy photos shared on social media cause net-negative attitudes toward the sport. It doesn’t seem like a stretch to conclude gratuitous fish photos would lead to similar outcomes. (link)
Events 📆
In upcoming PDX event news, Portland Fly Shop is hosting Todd Moen from Catch Magazine on December 6th at McMenamins Mission Theater. Todd will be screening a selection of films from Catch. Grundens will be there, too, printing and giving away custom hats. Tickets are $20, which is a steal. The shop is also having a pre-screening steelhead tips event with guides Jack Mitchell and Jason Osborn. (link)
More from Current Flow State
Here's more of what's been happening recently:
Nets are for protection. They protect two things: the fish, and the angler's ego. Read the CFS lowdown about net styles, the perils of netting fish for your friends, and why nets are an essential carry to make sure you've got it bagged up
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What do a legendary surfer, Hollywood director Christopher Guest, and zen archers have in common?
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Learning to cast a fly rod like Harry Potter uses his wand.
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Are Grateful Dead collabs the sign that outdoor brands have jumped the shark? A look at Simms latest, and the value of high-quality gear.
That's it for this week! Current Flow State is a weekly newsletter from me, Nick Parish.
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