A blurry, out-of-focus photo of a haphazzardly tied bendback on a bass hook. I guess it’s more aptly described as a weedless, but whatever, they’ve worked well for bass. I’ve been tying them to use on my northern pike trip next week. She ain’t pretty but she gits it done.
Tagged: benback, Fly Fishing, fly tying, northern pike
Everyone’s seen the hero footage of noble saltwater fly anglers matching wits with silver kings, but thefin.com has two short clips showing what fly fishing for tarpon is really like, a lot of the time.
Tagged: Florida Keys, Fly Fishing, tarpon
Longer days make late afternoon sneak-aways easier to come by. Fish the hour before dusk and see what happens. I wish I could better remember the ones I caught today, but thoughts of those are being pushed out by the all-consuming cinder block hook-up. The one where the rainbow with shoulders explodes upon contact with your fly, crashes back to earth like a cinder block, leaps again, falls back down and then disappears. It left me standing in the stream with a slack line, a rushing sound in my head from the adrenaline spike, and nothing more to do but throw up my hands and cuss. “That was a monster,” I heard the guy upstream from me yell after I lost it. I think he was…
Tagged: Fly Fishing, rainbow trout
This evening’s post is sponsored by the color brown.
Tagged: brown trout, Fly Fishing
I read somewhere in a magazine, maybe ThisIsFly or something, about the artsy scenic shot being a sure sign someone got skunked. To that, here are some Artsy Skunk Shots from the beach… Low Tide Jellyfish Match the hatch… Rod in Dead Tree Shot
Tagged: beach, Fly Fishing, long island, striped bass
(Photo from Carp on the Fly.) Why have I declared 2008 the year of the carp? (For me anyway; Eric Byrnes of the AZ Diamondbacks has declared it to be “The Year of the Mustache.”) Because when I check out other blogs like the DayTripper and read stuff like this: There’s an age old question. What happens when an unmovable object is hit with an unstoppable force? I don’t know about all that physics stuff, but what I do know is that when you take an unmovable object and combine it with an unstoppable force, you get a Carp. I don’t care if you’ve got a 10wt and 50 pound test, you aren’t going to make one of these fish do anything they don’t…
Tagged: carp, Fly Fishing
Never fish Central Park during a school holiday. I headed up to the Park and met up with Randy Kadish and Matt Stansberry’s brother Nate to try for some bass. So did about 800 other people. I guess when you’re in a city comprised of millions, expecting to find fly fishing solace on a 70 degree day in the Park when school’s out is not realistic. For every ten feet of water I worked, a guy with a spinner and a soft plastic rig would be working ahead of me. Sloppy seconds doesn’t get the bass. Kids were throwing rocks in the remaining heretofore undisturbed water. We were lucky to get a couple of bluegill and crappie. Still, there’s something gratifying about clicking through the…
Tagged: bass, bluegill, carp, Central Park, crappie, Fly Fishing, New York City
You might call it desperation, but I’ll choose to call it casting practice. All this self-inflicted striper talk prompted me to try this morning. I fished the falling tide on a beach where the stripers typically show up first each season. I stepped into the water amid a dense morning fog that burned off as the sun rose. It felt good to be wading in saltwater. But I felt no need to strip strike as I never got close to anything resembling a follow. As the sun climbed higher I felt too hot in my layering and for that (and the fact that I could see a distinct shadow from the brightness) I felt pretty happy. In a month’s time I’ll be doing this by…
Tagged: Fly Fishing, striped bass
Matt Stansberry’s comment of his brother’s schoolie success led to a few phone calls providing confirmation that the shorts are around. Time for the little guys to stand up and be counted.
Tagged: Fly Fishing, striped bass
I got out of work early and took advantage of the increasing length of days. Today, I decided to hit a different stream than normal, one that is smaller, colder, faster flowing and more technical, with fewer and tinier fish. Variety is something something…Anyway, here’s to little brook trout.
Tagged: brook trout, Fly Fishing
