Getting into the Swing of Things...

Amped would be an understatement. Winter and my last swings for lake run salmonids seemed like a distant memory but the thought of hooking into a chrome steelhead fueled a few weeks worth of anticipation and the straight five hour drive north. The icing on the cake was easily the autumnal peak that surrounded us around every inch of river...

Rhea Steelhead Muddler

For steel...

Over the years, the flies in my steelhead arsenal have gotten progressively smaller and I fish them in the middle to upper column. For the Salmon River, I've settled on flies in the 2-3 inch range as my preferred size because thats where I've had the most success. With that in mind, I am always tinkering at the vice with new patterns. This is one I am confident will produce this fall and winter. A little twist on a classic I'll call the Rhea Steelhead Muddler...

Stopgap

I've been jonesing to go to the Great Lakes tributaries to swing for some lake run fish for the past few weeks. Thankfully, I was able to resist going up for some salmon and my bank account officially thanked me for it. However, there was an empty hole inside of me that needed to be filled with something, anything to stave off the yearning for my first steelhead of the year...

Two Saturdays in September

River carpin...

Summer has a way of flying by, even for the teachers that don't have to work. My two months went by so fast, that I neglected a favorite river of mine and the many carp that call it home. Technically, my summer was over by the time I got to fish this body of water but I was able to eek out two Saturday outings with my girlfriend and her Australian cattle dog mix, Zoey. Fly fishing for carp from a SUP with your girlfriend and her lovely dog is not the best scenario, but I made it work nonetheless...

The Maryland Unicorn

Fly fishing offers an excellent case study in intermittent reinforcement. Your next cast might connect you with The One and at some level you always expect it to. But that only ever happens once if you're lucky. It's for the same reason that we cast and expect that causes some poor people to check their phones, email, Facebook or whatever hundreds of times a day. Sometimes there is a ping, but most of the time there isn't. Occasionally something awesome pops up, and that's more than enough to keep us coming back.

A Fly Rod's Greatest Hits

In memoriam...

The favorite fly rod I have ever owned recently met an untimely end. In a bit of nostalgia, I went back into the archive to relive my Loop AEG 696-4's greatest hits...

Thoughts on Fly Fishing for Carp

McTage's Trouser Worm

This summer afforded me plenty of opportunity to fly fish for carp. In recent years, that hasn't exactly been the case because of travel, weddings, and family gatherings. For the first time, I got to explore some local haunts in July and August. I've come away with several thoughts that have been ruminating in my mind over the years on carp, techniques, and gear...

Summer Sojourns

Delaware's Finest

There once was a time when Matt, Adam, and I ate fire cooked spam off a stick for an entire week. Fast forward a few years and Matt is attempting to relive that experience in the woods of western Maryland. I warn him not to do it, but he insists that its tradition. One bite is all thats needed before the entire block of spam is thrown into the embers where it turns black after an hour. Apparently, spam doesn't taste as good if its not your only option on a week long bone fishing trip. Matt settles for hot dogs and chili, before packing it in for the night. Another day of trout await him in the morning...

Tidal Carp

I've lived on the Delmarva peninsula for ten years now and have been carping most of that time. For the most part, my carping experiences have been in still water ponds and lakes and more recently creeks and rivers. In my experiences driving up and down the coast, I've always known that carp existed in the brackish waters of the many tidal creeks and rivers. Unfortunately, I believed that sight fishing in such turbid water would be nearly impossible. I was wrong…

Returning

Can your homewater be nowhere near your actual home? Can it be a place you've only fished a handful of times? What matters more: how a river has influenced your evolution or how many times you've fish it and how well you know it's character?

To Johnson City, Tennessee

Cornelius Vanderbilt, dressed for the occasion...

A road trip was scheduled to Nashville, Tennessee to meet up with a group of friends renting a house. The plan was to take two days driving south before spending some time day drinking with friends and listening to copious amounts of amazing live music. Along the way we'd camp and maybe fly fish a little around the Smoky Mountains…

Spawn

A little pre-Alaska carping send off...

Over the past few years of fly fishing for carp, I've come to realize that they can be caught during the spawning period. Carp spawn when water temperatures reach into the upper sixties. This can vary from body of water significantly and it can also span a few days to several weeks. The next time you reach your favorite body of water and find the multitudes of carp spawning, don't dismay, wrig up and look for carp on the periphery.

Here there be Tygers

My wife and I recently packed up the truck for a road trip through southern Africa from our home in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. We covered just shy of 5000 miles in a month, and blitzed through our home country of Tanzania before traversing Zambia, Botswana, Namibia and South Africa en route to Johannesburg and our flights home.

It was an absolute feast for the senses, for the mind and for the soul. We saw and experienced some unbelievable things, and an upcoming blog post will outline those.

the mighty Zambezi

Stress Release

A good friend of mine named Ben was set to get married midway through June. With two weeks to go until the big day, Ben was still busy working overtime and spending the precious free time he had planning for the big day with his future wife. Fortunately, I was able to break him free on a beautiful weekend day to provide some much needed stress free fishing…

Pre-Spawn

Late spring and the carp have snapped out of their winter doldrums. More active, they are exploring shallower water and putting their feed bangs on. All of this in preparation for the spawn, which depending on water temperature varies from body of water to body of water. This short period can feature some of the best carp action of the year before things shut down until the spawn is over…