Geartalk

What Makes a Great Angler?

Anglers, especially beginning anglers, generally overvalue knowledge of spots, which basically amounts to knowing how to catch the same fish twice.

Skills

Reconciling Lefty Kreh

Lefty Kreh was a superb caster with efficient mechanics, just as the great casters of today are.

Skills

Allowing For Serendipity

Tunnel vision of the mind. I’ve watched friends succumb to the effects of this phenomena many times. They end up going fishing only under sets of conditions known to be optimal…

Drift boat and truck on a road in Wyoming.

Skills

Decoding The Madison River

It finally dawned on me that the only fish I was catching were those rising quietly. It was the explosion risers I couldn’t touch.

Skills

Fishing With Your Feet

Proper positioning–fishing with your feet–is an important part of skillful fly presentation.

Woman rowing a drift boat, a man casting in a western river. The photo is black and white.

Skills

Some Fly Casting Mistakes and Solutions

In a mechanically sound casting stroke, the elbow moves up on the backcast and down on the forward cast.

Two men fishing to a large, visible trout on the Bighorn River in MT.

Skills

An Observation on Observation

One of the acute differences I see between professional anglers and amateurs is in their respective approaches and entry to water they’re about to fish.

Colorado River brown trout ready for release from a fishing net.

Skills

A Brown Trout Quirk

Brown trout can take what feels like forever to come on to a hatch. Even then, they frequently give the impression that rising is something of a bother…

Three Dollar Bridge on the Madison River, MT.

Skills

On the Value of Observation

The water always tells us what our options are.