News On The Fly

Beautiful scenery and sea trout in this short film of fly fishing  one of Norway’s many fjords. Via Dry Fly Living.

Passing the Torch…In Ascension Bay

When my fly fishing boss hired me 22 years ago, I quickly identified him as one of the strongest men in the world. He slept a little, drank enough, wrangled mules and tourists, was in five places at once and still had time to write his congressmen.

Since then, I’ve tried to match his work ethic, knowing that his example would help me succeed. When I talked him into joining me to fish Ascension Bay in Mexico, I had to convince him it was for work. So, here we are, mentor and acolyte, working hard to manage line and spot tails for each other, sleeping a little, drinking enough, wrangling tarpon and acting like tourists.

original content Hilary Hutcheson with Darwon Stoneman
photo Steven Gnam

Meet Seamus and Finnegan
Photo by Paul and Marni Lee

Recently we received the following letter from Clark O'Neill, a guy with a big heart who knows a good dog bed as well as a good story...

The post A Tale of Love and Friendship: Who says an ill wind blows no good? appeared first on Orvis News.

We're giving away another $500 Orvis gift card to one random reader of the Orvis Dogs blog.. . .

The post Win a $500 Orvis Dogs Gift Card! appeared first on Orvis News.

Wednesdays are Tightline Productions days around here because that's when we put up the new tying video. For some reason, today I was reminded of Tim Flagler's hilarious entry in an. . .

The post Classic Video: Why I Need a Sling Pack appeared first on Orvis News.

The "ladle" formed by a dog's tongue fooled scientists into thinking they had the answer.
Photo via dogster.com

Anyone who has ever watched a dog drink—and witnessed the often messy aftermath—has wondered just what's happening with all that tongue lapping and lip smacking. Well, here's. . .

The post Video: Think You Know How a Dog Drinks? Guess Again appeared first on Orvis News.

Rudy's baths are medicinal, but they also sooth his soul.
Photo vis Facebook

The photos and video of Rudy lounging in a relaxing bath will bring a smile to your face, even if you don't know his history. But when you realize how bad off he was just a few months ago, . . .

The post If Any Dog Deserves His Spa Day, It’s Rudy appeared first on Orvis News.

Joanne George says Smiley, the service dog, has become a favorite therapy dog in her area.
Photo by Joanne George via abcnews.go.com

Here's an inspirational story from north of the border, where a beautiful Golden Retriever who was born without eyes is spending his life helping others. Smiley was rescued from a puppy. . .

The post Blind Golden Retriever Warms Hearts as Therapy Dog appeared first on Orvis News.

Québécois angler Alexis Pageau traveled halfway around the world to Tasmania to find huge brown trout. It took him several weeks of research and testing, but he finally found his quarry in. . .

The post Video: Tasmanian Titan appeared first on Orvis News.

Written by: Brian McGeehan, Montana Angler Fly Fishing

More proof of the "big fly, big fish" rule found on the Madison.
Photo courtesy Bill Buchbauer

One of our Montana Angler guides, Bill Buchbauer, landed this huge, early-spring Montana brown on Monday while stripping streamers in the Madison River. This is why people travel to. . .

The post Photo of the Day: Why You Fish Streamers on the Madison appeared first on Orvis News.

There are lots of ways to make dry-fly wings, but few are as cool as this one. The Wally Wing concept was created by Wally Lutz, of Alberta, Canada, and it can be used on all kinds of dry. . .

The post Video: How to Tie the Wally Wing Rusty Spinner appeared first on Orvis News.

Frontiers International Travel has announced the release of a new web site dedicated to sporting vacations to Iceland. Also, guides Barry and Cathy Beck will be hosting an exclusive brown trout fishing tour of Iceland June 11–19, 2015.

Read more in the press release below.

A growing coalition of more than 1,200 conservation-minded groups urged congressional leaders to enact a 2-percent increase in funding for conservation, outdoors and historic preservation programs for fiscal year 2016.

Read more in the press release below.

From HMH:

“Our immediate objective is to implement some improvements in form and function on our current lineup of vises while making some process improvements that will allow us to move parts through the shop faster and more efficiently”, says Larrabee, “but the vises will still be hand finished and assembled by hand, one at a time.” He adds, “We also anticipate resurrecting some of the earlier HMH products while we also design and build the next generation of HMH vises.”

Since 1975, HMH fly tying vises have been giving tyers years of dependable service, longer than any other brand. The original HMH vise revolutionized vise design incorporating components precision-machined from the highest quality materials, and design features never before found together in a fly tying vise, including 360-degree rotation, an exclusive disc drag rotary tension adjustment, and quick-change, hardened, interchangeable jaws. HMH vises today still adhere to the same principals of simplicity, elegance, and power in its expanding line of fly tying vises and accessories. HMH currently manufactures five models of vises — the

From Backcountry Hunters and Anglers:

T. Edward Nickens, Mike Schoby and Dan Martel have joined the national board of directors of Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, bolstering the leadership of the rapidly expanding sportsmen’s group. The new board members were announced at BHA’s annual rendezvous, which took place in Spokane, Wash., March 6-8.

“At Backcountry Hunters & Anglers, hunting and fishing isn’t what we do; it’s who we are,” said BHA Executive Director Land Tawney. “Renowned sportsmen, experts in their chosen fields and leaders in our community, BHA’s new board members personify this philosophy. I am honored to have them join our ranks, and I look forward to all they’ll bring to BHA.”

For more than three decades, T. Edward Nickens has reported on conservation, the outdoors and rural culture for some of the world’s most respected publications. He is editor at large for Field & Stream and a contributing editor for Audubon magazine. His work has appeared in Smithsonian, National Geographic Adventure, Men’s Journal, Garden & Gun, Shooting Sportsman, Sporting Classics and many other titles. His two books for Field & Stream have sold more than 250,000 copies. His works have been collected in a

Orvis-TU 1,000 Miles Campaign
Photo by Trout Unlimited

This week, the Orvis Company announced the four recipients of its annual Customer Matching Grant program. Targeted to raise $360,000 or more, these grants are the cornerstone of. . .

The post Orvis Announces 2015 Customer Matching Grants appeared first on Orvis News.

Here’s a beautiful story from outside Cleveland, about a deaf dog in need of a home and a deaf six-year-old boy who wanted a best friend. Zoey, a deaf Pit Bull, had languished in Berea. . .

The post Deaf Dog Finds Perfect Forever Home with a Deaf Boy appeared first on Orvis News.

If you've ever wondered why anglers obsess over muskies, this killer new video from Austin Green provides some answers. I mean, when you hear a woman compare landing her first musky to. . .

The post Video: Diaries Of A Musky Addict appeared first on Orvis News.

Photographer Seth Casteel offers up some of his tricks. . .and the results are impressive.

Photographer Seth Casteel burst onto the scene back in 2012 when his series of "Underwater Dogs" photos went viral. Casteel has used his newfound fame to promote dog rescue and . . .

The post Video: How to Take Better Dog Photos, for Adoption or Otherwise, with Seth Casteel appeared first on Orvis News.

Prime dry-fly season is not too far away for many of us, and there are probably blue-winged olives hatching on a river near you already. As the video above demonstrates, you can learn a lot . . .

The post Classic Tuesday Tip: What You Can Learn from Watching Trout Rises appeared first on Orvis News.

The Tenkara and the Steelhead

I spoke with Bart Bonime, Fishing Director at Patagonia last spring.  They had just introduced the Tenkara fly rod in a package including rod, line, leader, flies and a book on the subject co-authored by Yvonne Chouinard and Craig Matthews.  Tenkara has Asian roots on small streams and consists simply of a limber pole, sans reel, that you tie a line onto the end of.  I had a trout/steelhead float trip on the books for that summer on the Deschutes and thought it might be a good spot to give the Tenkara rods a shake.  Bonime sent out a pair of them, one for trout, another for steelhead, and we packed them aboard the raft.

I was drawn to Tenkara by way of its touted simplicity.  Tom Sawyer simple with a tech spin.  Rod, line, done.  Chouinard put it thus:  “… simplicity leads to a richer and more satisfying way of fishing—and more importantly, living.”  Considering the specialized limb fly fishing has crawled out onto over the last couple of decades, simple was a good thing.

We were an eclectic company of eight, including a hippie photographer, a county exec, an arborist and a geologist, and a cute young island woman (and her big boyfriend), as cook, and put forth an eclectic fleet that morning, including a couple of large gear barges, a nimble, mid-sized cat, a pair of IKs and a pack raft.

We could feel the heat building early in the day at the boat launch at Beavertail, but it was only a patch on temps the week before when the mercury topped 114!

We floated deep into the heart of the roadless canyon and pulled ashore late in the afternoon at a favorite old camp.  The Pick Pocket Camp was so named years ago when Ken Morrish and I hiked up here in pre-dawn darkness to nail three steelies in front of a snoozing driftboat camp.  It was a true desert oasis, on a cool sand bar under a grove of white alders beside a running river.  And was surrounded by exquisite steelie runs.  We pretty much threw out our anchor here for the better part of a week.

I set up the little 8’ 6” Tenkara with a short line and a little Hare’s Ear and leaned it in the crook of a tree on the bank in front of camp.  People would grab it to fish rainbow and mountain whitefish in front of camp, and it was a gas … light as a feather—hook-play-swing-release—indeed, it doesn’t get simpler than that.

As for the bigger rod and the steelhead, it was a mission I undertook myself, and while everyone else fished conventional tackle I hung with the Tenky (as we had affectionately taken to calling the rods).

I shortened line and leader enough to be able to turn over a #6 Mack’s Canyon and hiked up to a favorite run above camp that fished fast and close into shore.  It was the prefect venue for short line fishing and I spent some time there getting familiar with the new stick.

I found the upside right off.

A finely tapered flex made a smooth transition to line and fly.  Mending was subtle and the feeling of connection throughout the swing was tangible.  The distinction between rod and line felt seamless, which took a little getting used to.

I fish a short line whenever I can, so I was used to that.  What I didn’t like, was the constant pressure on my wrist.  Without a reel as counterweight, it was a continual effort to keep the rod at a bit of angle in anticipation of a strike. 

I can see how fishing Tenkara in the vertical plane, though, i.e., high sticking nymphs and fishing dries, mitigates the issue, and the smaller rod was light enough not to make the effect as pronounced as it was when I was swinging his bigger brother.

I fished steelies with it exclusively the first couple of days, and I was fishing just above camp late the second day at the edge of a big suckhole, when it happened.My swing was slow as molasses and I threw I single mend to perk it up … and UNNNGH!

The rod yanked toward the water and I hauled back hard to try and catch a bend.

It was a large fish and boiled heavily in front of me!

The next few seconds were high mayhem of thunderous thrashing and mighty surging and felt about like I’d stuck my finger in a light socket! 

I was a short distance from camp and let out a whoop, hoping against hope to get a camera on the scene, but the roar of the river drowned me out.  And so I held on for, what, short of electrocution or orgasm, were the most viscerally intense few moments of my life.

Then, suddenly, it was off, breaking fresh, fifteen pound test monofilament!

A short ‘fight’ as we fishermen like to euphemize, but the reverberation of what I felt in those high voltage moments stayed with me for the remainder of the trip (even now, here at the desk as I write this, the memory remains cellular).

Later that night, I found myself sitting alone by the river in the dark.  Everyone else was in the sack but Dave and I could hear him strumming his guitar in the kitchen.  The river murmured in melodic baritone as it swept past on its way to the Columbia, then on to the ocean, I realized, up to the skies, onto the John Day Mountains, and voile, right here, yet again.  I lit my pipe (which pipe is that, you ask) and sat back to reflect on the extraordinary experience earlier that day.

When we hook a fish on a line tied to the tip of rod, the fish isn’t going anywhere, unless, of course, fate intervenes.  For those of us who enjoy enacting the role of classic predator, there is no flee, no chase.  For ambush predators who prefer the life or death struggle all in one fell swoop, it might be ultimate sauce. 

But hook a big fella on a short line and conventional tackle and it’s off like a shot.  Fly reel is spinning like a top and the rod is bucking a relatively (to a Tenky) elegant staccato of impulses.  When a fish runs off like this, I slip on my predator shoes and get after it.

Over the last couple of decades my fishing has been mostly multi-month, wilderness kayak treks, or (as I am wont to think of them) moveable seafood feasts, where our predator flags are flying free.  I even one-upped the Tenky, once, by landing a big king without a reel or a rod, on a hand line and a bucktail.  Not my favorite way to fish, but fun takes a back seat to a protein imperative on expedition.  And even then, the hand-line has some give and take as line slips through gloved fingers.

In summary, without the ability to yield line and abstract the violence of a big fish—make the operative keyword here: transform that violence into our pleasure—without it, it was pure knife-fight-in-a-phone-booth cliché, leaving me battered and rattled from a mega dose of frenetic energy, and dispelling all doubt as to why the fly reel was invented.

On the other hand, the little trout rod was a delight on the river for ‘bows and whitefish.  The springiness of the rod is well matched to the size of the fish.  I’m heading into the mountains with it in a few weeks time to do some stream fishing, which I expect is its highest octave.

original content Rob Lyon
photo Robyn Minkler
Duct Tape Diaries

One of the happy, healthy residents of Fish Creek
Photo by Trout Unlimited

Check out this amazing timelapse video of the repair of a wildly dysfunctional culvert on Fish Creek, UT. For more information on how Orvis is partnering with Trout Unlimited to. . .

The post Video: A Cool Timelapse of How a Culvert Project Creates More Trout Habitat appeared first on Orvis News.

Written by: Kip Vieth, Wildwood Float Trips

It's been a long hard-water season for Bucky, who is glad to be getting wet again.
Photo by Kip Vieth

Well, baseball has its spring training, so we thought we would do a little of our own. Temps here in Minnesota finally got above 40, and Bucky the duck dog had a serious case of spring. . .

The post Photos of the Day: Spring Training appeared first on Orvis News.

Meteetse students work on a diversion project to keep trout from being sucked into irrigation systems.
Photo courtesy Meeteetse Schools

The electronics giant Samsung is running an education contest called "Solve for Tomorrow," as a way to promote science, technology engineering, and math (STEM) education in American. . .

The post Wyoming School Kids Try to Win National Contest by Saving Yellowstone Cutthroats appeared first on Orvis News.

From Simms Fishing Products:

Simms Fishing Products is aiming to help protect anglers from the perils of sunburn.

The company is launching its campaign, Trip Protection, featuring the benefits of selecting the right fishing-specific sportswear.  The story was crafted in December on a trip to Blackfly Lodge on Abaco Island, Bahamas.

“Anglers associate Simms gear with keeping them on the water longer in all types of conditions,” says Matt Millette, Simms Sr. Director of Brand Marketing. “Sometimes that notion is lost in warmer climates like the Bahamas, but great gear is just as crucial there as anywhere else in the world.”

Increased exposure to the sun while angling is a long-battled obstacle while flats fishing.  Simms’ line of sun protection sportswear is

Jane Sobel Klonsky (left) meets Laci and Sister Electra.

By now, you're accustomed to seeing the wonderful photographs of older dogs by Jane Sobel Klonsky, which are part of her Project Unconditional. Jane’s daughter, Kacey, has been. . .

The post Unconditional Stories #3: Laci and Sister Electra appeared first on Orvis News.

This 16-pound beauty was one of more than a dozen carp taken on the day.
Photo by John Montana

John Montana, of the Carp on the Fly blog, is pretty much our only product tester who is an ineterate carp fanatic. As you might have guessed, he puts his gear under a lot of stress. He sent in these. . .

The post Photos of the Day: Carp Season Kicks Off with a Blast appeared first on Orvis News.

We've posted tons of photos and videos of dogs in snow during this epic winter of '14-'15, but few capture the majesty of the situation like this slo-mo video of a Golden named Buddy. Set to. . .

The post Video: Snow Day with Buddy appeared first on Orvis News.

This is a horribly misnamed video, as there are more rainbows than browns on display, but it still offers a great look at a fun day on North Carolina's Davidson River. (Actually, it's a. . .

The post Video: Birthday Browns, Part II appeared first on Orvis News.

Marissa and Scout, 14-week-old a Border Collie/Blue Heeler mix.
Photo by Theron Humphrey

Photographer Theron Humphrey has embarked on an ambitious project to focus his lense on shelter dogs across the country. The result is a series of images that show the day-to-day. . .

The post “Why We Rescue”: 50 Rescue Stories from Across America appeared first on Orvis News.

The post Podcast: The Ultimate Streamer Episode, with Mike Schmidt appeared first on Orvis News.

This short film features the beauty of fly fishing in British Columbia, Nunavut and the Yukon territory. Via Inveterate Film.