Education Posts
June 27, 2025
Smallmouth Bass on the Fly
Of course, you can chase smallmouth bass on the fly year-round, but, for many anglers, summertime is synonymous with smallmouth on the fly. If you enjoy explosive visual eats, there is nothing better than watching a smallmouth inhale a topwate…
Sept. 3, 2024
HOW TO FLY FISH: FLY LINE ESSENTIALS WITH MAC BROWN
While anglers will often spend hours working on their casting and discussing rods, they rarely make a similar effort to understand how their fly line selection impacts their casting and fishing. To complicate things, in recent years, fly line …
Dec. 18, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: IT'S BETTER TO BE KNOTTY THAN NICE (PART II)
If you have mastered your basic knot system, here are a couple of knots to add to your repertoire:
Small Flies (Davy Knot)
While you can use the Davy Knot as your go to tippet-to-fly knot, it excels at connecting small flies to tippet. Its simplic…
Dec. 12, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: IT'S BETTER TO BE KNOTTY THAN NICE
As the first major snowstorm of the season departs the Southeast, many anglers have officially shifted gears to their “Winter” program. Sure, many of us still fish, but quite a few of us shift our focus to hunting or preparing for next s…
Dec. 6, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: PRINCIPLES OF FLY SELECTION
We have spent quite a bit of time studying the insects commonly found in a trout’s diet and the importance of matching the hatch. The next step is to convert this knowledge into selecting the appropriate fly. While it is tempting to search for…
Nov. 29, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: MIDGES (PART II): FISHING THE DRY
As a midge hatch progresses, the pupae finally make their way to the water’s surface. To fish your pupa imitation in the film, simply grease the end of your leader with your favorite liquid or paste floatant. If you want to take the guesswork …
Nov. 27, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: MIDGES (PART I): LARVA AND EMERGERS
Like the caddis, the midge’s life cycle has three parts: larva, pupa and adult. While midges are small, their abundance makes them a staple in the trout’s diet - particularly in the colder months and on tailwaters. The midge’s smal…
Nov. 15, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: STONEFLIES (PART II): FISHING THE DRY
As I mentioned in Stoneflies (Part I): Nymphs and Emergers, many of the mayfly and caddisfly techniques described in earlier posts apply equally well to fishing stonefly imitations. It always pays dividends to get current hatch information from your…
Nov. 13, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: STONEFLIES (PART I): NYMPHS AND EMERGERS
A stonefly’s life cycle has two parts: nymph and adult. Compared to mayflies and caddisflies, stoneflies require the highest water quality, and their presence indicates a healthy ecosystem. As with caddisflies, we can apply the fishing tactics…
Nov. 8, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: CADDISFLIES (PART II): FISHING THE DRY
As I mentioned in Caddisflies (Part I): Larva and Emergers, most of the mayfly techniques described in earlier posts apply equally well to fishing caddis imitations. It always pays dividends to get current hatch information from your local fly shop …
Nov. 6, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: CADDISFLIES (PART I): LARVA AND EMERGERS
A caddis’ life cycle has three parts: larva, pupa and adult. Unlike the mayfly, the caddis’ larval behavior varies by species. At the risk of oversimplifying things, caddis larvae roughly break down into three categories: free living, ne…
Nov. 1, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: MAYFLIES (PART II): FISHING THE DRY
When you think about fly fishing, you can’t help but think about mayflies. There are epic stonefly and caddisfly hatches, but mayflies have been at the center of our storied sport for centuries. While many mayfly species predominantly hatch in…
Oct. 30, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: MAYFLIES (PART I): NYMPHS AND EMERGERS
The mayfly’s life cycle has three parts: nymph, subimago (or dun) and imago. The nymph is the underwater stage that hatches into a sexually immature dun. Shortly after hatching, the dun molts into a sexually mature imago, mates and dies. Most …
Oct. 25, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: THROW THE CHANGE-UP: TERRESTRIALS
Since most of the Southeast hasn’t yet experienced a few hard frosts, terrestrials can still play a meaningful part in your Fall trout game. There are times when trout key on terrestrials such as grasshoppers out West or cicada or flying ant h…
Oct. 23, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: UP YOUR GAME WITH A BASIC UNDERSTANDING OF TROUT FOOD
Now that we have a basic understanding of trout behavior and requirements, we can apply a similar analysis to the insects and other organisms that make up a trout’s diet. By focusing on the intersection of trout and their forage, we can signif…
Oct. 18, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: GOOD THINGS COME IN THREES
In the Southeastern United States, we have three species of trout: brook, rainbow and brown. You can shift the fishing odds in your favor if you spend a little time looking at each species’ unique preferences. Brook trout are the only species …
Oct. 11, 2018
LAST BITE AT THE APPLE: TROUT VISION AND COLOR
Before we leave our introduction on a trout’s eyesight, we need to spend a few minutes on color. When we fish streamers and nymphs, a fly’s color in hand may not be its color underwater. As sunlight passes through the water column, the w…
Oct. 9, 2018
HOW A TROUT SEES: A BIT MORE SNELL'S LAW GEEKERY
In our last post, we spent quite a bit of time discussing how a trout sees, but we didn’t spend any time on how the same laws of physics affect how we see trout. We now know that, when light passes between air and water or vice versa, it bends…
Oct. 4, 2018
HOW A TROUT SEES: THE RULE OF SIX AND OTHER THINGS
In order to effectively stalk trout, you need to fundamentally understand how a trout sees. First of all, unlike you and me, trout have lateral lines that run down each side of their bodies. These lateral lines allow trout to feel vibrations in the …
Sept. 27, 2018
HOW TO FLY FISH: LET'S START WITH THE THREE FUNDAMENTAL NEEDS
All species of fish have three fundamental needs: suitable water quality, protection from predators and access to food. While these three fundamentals don’t change, it is important to remember that how they are satisfied changes based on daily…