In Pictures: A steelhead on a dry

Destinations/Species

Fish Camp's Entomology Course: Insect Life Cycle

Destinations/Species

Fish Camp's Entomology Course: Insect Life Cycle

Maggie Heumann of Trout Unlimited helps us understand how the aquatic insect life cycle and the different variables that affect when they emerge. Fish Camp's Entomology course makes entomology approachable and fun, showing how understanding aquatic insects can help you catch more fish. Maggie breaks down the fascinating world of entomology — the study of insects — and explains why understanding aquatic insects is essential for fly fishing success. You'll learn what makes an insect an insect, how their unique life cycles and adaptations influence fish behavior, and how this knowledge can help you better match your flies to what fish are naturally feeding on. Covering everything from basic insect anatomy to the key aquatic species important to anglers, this course will give you a solid foundation to read the water more effectively, choose the right fly patterns, and ultimately catch more fish. Whether you're new to fly fishing or looking to deepen your understanding of the bugs trout eat, this course will make entomology approachable, fun, and directly applicable on the water. Maggie is a passionate entomologist and conservation advocate, and she turned a childhood love of insects into a career focused on protecting wild places. Now based in Idaho and working with Trout Unlimited, she champions balanced stewardship to ensure future generations—like her two daughters—can experience the natural world as she has.

How-To/Techniques

Ed Jaworowski's Fly Casting Video Series, Video 4: The Backcast

How-To/Techniques

Ed Jaworowski's Fly Casting Video Series, Video 4: The Backcast

The backcast is fundamentally important, yet is so often ignored. It employs the exact same physics and mechanics as the forward cast, simply moving in a different direction. In one sense, however, it is even more important than the forward cast, because the forward cast directly depends upon it, and many forward cast problems stem from a poor or inadequate backcast. Despite this, too few anglers focus on the backcast. Many fly fishers fail to practice it, thoughtfully consider its importance, or even turn their heads and look at what is going on behind them. This is the fourth in a series of five articles examining the physics and mechanics that determine the outcomes of all casts, based on Ed Jaworowski's nearly 70 years of casting, testing, experimentation, teaching, and consulting with physicists, kinesiologists, and engineers.

Gear

Fly Tier's Bench: Shanafelt's 3 Mile PMD

Gear

Fly Tier's Bench: Shanafelt's 3 Mile PMD

Shanafelt's 3 Mile PMD can be fished under an indicator early in the hatch or on a dropper behind a bigger dry fly as things progress, letting it just sort of wallow around on or under the surface depending on where the currents move it. But once the fish start to key in on the hatching adults, he fishes the 3 Mile PMD as a single fly to rising fish. He achieves a drag-free drift into the trout's feeding lane, letting the built-in movement and motion of the CDC collar close the deal.

How-To/Techniques

Fish Camp's Indicator Nymphing: Mending

How-To/Techniques

Fish Camp's Indicator Nymphing: Mending

Zach Peyton from South Fork Lodge covers the often-confusing technique of mending in this segment. Mending is imperative for effective nymphing. He provides a review of when and how to use larger mends, micro mends, and related pointers. Join Zach for a comprehensive overview of Indicator Nymphing in this course. It explores the journey of discovering nymphing as a powerful and essential fly fishing technique, beyond the traditional dry fly approach. Through personal storytelling and practical instruction, it highlights how learning to fish below the surface opened up a whole new world of opportunity and understanding. Viewers will gain insight into tactics, gear, fly presentation, hook sets, and how to land fish efficiently and responsibly. Whether you're a dry fly purist curious about adding nymphing to your toolkit or a beginner wanting to catch more fish Zach's course will give you the knowledge and confidence to fish effectively below the surface. The course explores the journey of discovering nymphing as a powerful and essential fly fishing technique, beyond the traditional dry fly approach. Zach is a veteran guide at South Fork Lodge in Swan Valley, Idaho, where he's been sharing his passion for fly fishing since 2002. Born and raised in Pocatello, he's fished southeastern Idaho's waters since childhood.

Destinations/Species

Fish Camp's Trout Foundations: Where Trout Live

Destinations/Species

Fish Camp's Trout Foundations: Where Trout Live

Riffles, eddies, troughs and more...These are all prime areas of rivers that can hold trout. instructor Mike Dawes breaks down the different types of moving water that fly anglers should target when chasing trout. Dawes is the managing partner at West Bank Anglers and a lifelong fly fisherman with over 45 years of experience on the water. His passion for fishing began early and deepened after a life-changing medical event, inspiring him to dedicate his life to the sport. Fish Camps's Trout Foundations course breaks down the fundamentals of fly fishing in a way that is easy to follow, approachable, and fun. You'll learn what fly fishing is, how to get started, and the essential techniques and knowledge needed to be successful on the water.

Fly Tying

Jake Villwock on the “Godfathers” of bass, favorite flies, and why bass turn black

Fly Tying

Jake Villwock on the “Godfathers” of bass, favorite flies, and why bass turn black

Fly tier Jake Villwock grew up the son of a commercial fisherman, and is now a Pennsylvania fly-fishing guide for smallmouth, Great Lakes steelhead, and spring creek trout. Jake is also a fly-tying innovator and author of the book Smallmouth Bass Flies Top to Bottom. Jake and Fly Fisherman editor/publisher Ross Purnell debate the age-old question, “What's better, bass or trout?” They talk about frog patterns for trout and bass, the “Godfathers of Bass” (Clouser, Kraft, and Whitlock), and dive into the creative process behind Jake's match-everything baitfish pattern called The Roamer. Listen to the end and you'll learn some unusual secrets about how to catch muskies on small flies, how to target mudding carp, and why some smallmouths turn black.

Gear

Fly Tying with Natural Shade Tapered Brushes

Gear

Fly Tying with Natural Shade Tapered Brushes

Northeast Ohio Angling's Matt Redmond walks us through using Just Add H20's Natural Shade Tapered Brushes when tying Game Changers. This material amounts to a cheat code for getting a naturally proportioned taper, which is so crucial to our flies. These brushes, tapered from two and a half inches down to half an inch, can do the job of three separate, uniform-length brushes, creating a fully tapered body with little or no trimming required. They were specifically designed to allow tiers to create a full Game Changer with a single brush without trimming each successive segment to length. Incorporating high-quality synthetic products like Natural Shade Tapered Brushes can improve both our tying and fishing experience.

Destinations/Species

A Classic Pennsylvania Sulphur Hatch

Destinations/Species

A Classic Pennsylvania Sulphur Hatch

This dense sulphur hatch in Pennsylvania demonstrates why the sibling hatches of Little Sulphurs and Pale Morning Duns get fly anglers excited from coast to coast. There are good reasons these mayflies are important to both sets of fly fishers. (Dennis Pastucha video)

How-To/Techniques

André Brun Demonstrates the Backhand Snake Roll Fly Cast

How-To/Techniques

André Brun Demonstrates the Backhand Snake Roll Fly Cast

This is an instructional film on how to do the backhand snake roll including an air mend at the end, to get a drag free drift. This film is done with Brun's regular 5 weight rig for brown-trout dry-fly fishing with a delicate fly line, suitable for presentations to spooky trout in clear water.

Fly Tying

Tim Cammisa

Fly Tying

Tim Cammisa

Tim Cammisa has been a guide on the Delaware River, a professional fly tier for 30 years, and his hundreds and hundreds of videos on YouTube and other social media platforms have reached around the globe with more than 17 million views and counting.

How-To/Techniques

Fly Tier's Bench: Bakko's Phat Azz Hopper

How-To/Techniques

Fly Tier's Bench: Bakko's Phat Azz Hopper

Kyle Bakko is a new Umpqua Feather Merchants signature tier, and his patterns stand out for their practicality and creativity. Bakko's use of multilayered foam bodies and foam cutters, and his eye for accuracy and proportion, make his flies stand out in the increasingly crowded new-fly world. His Phat Azz Hopper has an incredibly creative head, and while designed to suspend heavy droppers, trout also smash it on top. But we could have just as easily run his unusual Big Sky Hopper pattern, which is tied on a jig hook. In fact, we could have blindly chosen any one of his new flies for the Fly Tier's Bench. Bakko does a lot of float fishing, and his usual method includes a dry/dropper rig on rivers like the Stillwater, Shoshone, and Yellowstone. Big droppers like Pat's Rubber Legs or crayfish imitations require a buoyant dry to hold them up, and Bakko was unsatisfied with previous offerings, so he set about to create a magnum foam hopper that would do the job.

Ed Jaworowski's Fly Casting Video Series, Video 3: Critical Angle

The "critical angle" in fly casting, defined by Ed Jaworowski as the angle between the rod and the line at the start of the cast (assuming no slack), is crucial for determining how efficiently the rod loads. Ed talks about how a wider angle, approaching 180 degrees, maximizes mechanical efficiency, loading the rod deeper for greater energy storage and longer casts with less effort, whereas a 90-degree angle is less efficient, loading only the tip, suitable for shorter casts. This is the third in a series of five articles examining the physics and mechanics that determine the outcomes of all casts, based on Ed Jaworowski's nearly 70 years of casting, testing, experimentation, teaching, and consulting with physicists, kinesiologists, and engineers.