Friday, May 22, 2015

Get Rid of Monofilament


When you find two dying baby geese wrapped up in monofilament, you must help the baby geese.

When you must help the baby geese, you run around like a mad man on a mission.

When your a mad man on a mission, you put your fly rod on top of the car.

When you put your fly rod on top of the car, you forget your fly rod on top of the car.

When you forget your fly rod on top of the car, you run over your fly rod.

When you run over your fly rod, you get really upset about fishing too much.

When you fish too much, you forget to re-register your domain name.

When you forget to re-register your domain name, some dude in Korea gets your domain name.

Don't forget to re-register your domain name...and please discard your monofilament.


Friday, May 8, 2015

Shad Appeal


That fly's got shad appeal...

Nothing ushers in springtime like warming temperatures, budding vegetation, and great fishing. For fly fishermen, spring might mean zeroing in on a particular event. It could be early black stoneflies or blue winged olives enticing wild trout to the first dry flies of the year. Some of us might target the first carp entering the shallows, mudding aggressively, and easily falling for the first fly they've seen in months. Maybe it is fall back steelhead on the Great Lakes tributaries and swinging large streamers to hungry fish hoping for that giant slab of chrome. For those that live near the Delaware or Chesapeake Bays, springtime often means the shad run and all the other anadromous fish pouring into freshwater drainages. For some, it might mean all of the above.

The shad run is a main event of the spring season on the Delmarva peninsula. Hickory and American shad pour into both bays and anglers from all over line up to catch them en masse. Hundred fish days are not uncommon and the fish are pretty aggressive, especially when they are still in the larger waters of the Susquehanna and Delaware rivers. I prefer swinging flies with a light two handed rod because it is easy to cast and cover a lot of water. Plus, even a hickory's take on the swing in 80,000 cubic feet per second feels like a steelhead sometimes. For flies, I was always told that it needed to be flashy and they'd eat it. Over the past three years I've only used one type of fly which I've come to name: Shad Appeal. Why may you ask? It has the prerequisite characteristics that capture a shad's attention and it downright works and works well.

Tuesday, May 5, 2015

The Reel Winder Review & Kickstarter Campaign



As one falls farther down the rabbit hole that is a lifetime pursuit of fish on fly, we tend to accumulate a tremendous amount of fly lines. The more species targeted in fresh or saltwater leads to a greater variety of specialty lines for a host of different species. More often than not, those lines only find themselves on a few different reels and spend most of their time on spools waiting to be used again. Depending on where and how you fish, you might use one reel for several different applications in the same month. For example, one might be chucking streamers to Allegheny River browns with an intermediate line one weekend, throwing lasers with a skagit the next, and then dredging an inlet for stripers with 450 grain sinking line. In times like those, changing lines can be a pain in the rear end. Until now, there have only been a few gadgets and spools out there that do a mediocre job at swapping lines on the fly. Enter the Reel Winder. A product of three Michigan fly fishermen, the Reel Winder offers a portable, efficient, and fast method of switching fly lines both on and off the water.