How To Posts

We are heartbroken by the devastation wrought by Hurricane Helene.  Many of the people and places we love so much have been deeply affected and will be for some time.  Currently, authorities are discouraging travel to Southwest Virginia, W…

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 …

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…

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…

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…

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 …

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…

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…

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…

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 …