Tip of the Day

Do you ever find yourself in a position where there is great water that you want to fish, but there is some big obstruction that is presenting a spey casting challenge for you?  Maybe it’s a vertical bank or a bunch of trees that just doesn’t allow you to set up a good D Loop? With spey casting there are...

The open clinch knot has probably helped me hook more fish than any other knot.  Super simple to tie and strong, the open clinch knot does two big things - It gives your fly more action and keeps your fly from getting tangled up. Click on the video below to see how the knot is easily tied.  The big trick...

Do you sharpen your hook on a regular basis?   A fish's mouth is hard and tough.  Although steelhead often hit like a freight train, they can also take super subtly.  Just as light as a tip-tap is sometimes all you feel.  Take a look at Tip #1 here for clarification. A sharp hook can mean the difference between just getting...

Why do steelhead take a fly?  Becasue they are looking for food - Maybe?  Because they have instincts from their juvenile self from 2 years previously - Likely?  Because they are aggressive fish and just get pissed that there is this little nagging thing in front of them - Oh Yeah...... All of these scenarios are likely correct at some...

One of the easiest ways to loose a fish is to get so excited that you pull the fly right out of the fish's mouth.  This is no different for steelhead.  Next time you feel a pull of a fish from a swung fly, rememer to bow to the fish. What I mean is, instead of jerking the rod to...

When I started out swinging flies with a spey rod, my cast wasn’t great.  In fact, it pretty much sucked.  But, because mending the line with the spey is pretty easy (think length), I was able to turn a bad cast into a great cast. After I piled my crappy cast out there, I only needed to pick up and turn over...

Todays Tip of the Day comes from Jack Mitchell who made a great point when he discussed a great way to find steelhead holding water by focusing your time on the Heads and Tails of runs in certain situations. Click here and listen in around the 12 minutes mark when Jack describes this tip. In certain situations when you have a...

One of the things you will learn about steelhead fly fishing is that sometimes you can put in a lot of time for one shot at a fish.  That one pull that you put in 40 hours for.  You will likely be logging a lot of time and effort until you get that next hookup. I want you to be ready...

One nice tip to save you the potential pain of breaking your spey rod, is using electrical tape around the ferrules.  Pretty simple way to assure your sections don't separate.  Why tape? As opposed to single handed rod casting, which is a pretty straight back and forth type of motion, with spey casting, there' a lot of side to side...

It sometimes sounds like a good idea to get out in your boat and cover as much water as possible.  But Trey Combs noted in a recent interview I did with him that one of his biggest tips is to get to know one steelhead run so well that you can identify each pebble. So you can identify each boulder...