by Patrick Blackdale A glide is a river feature which occurs downstream of a riffle but before the tailout of a run. Glides are often perceived as featureless parts of a run, lacking the obvious structure that typically holds fish. Due to this perception, glides are frequently overlooked as areas to find feeding fish in a trout stream. In fact, glides can be one of the most productive features in a river system, if fished appropriately. Here, we’ll look at three ways to fish a glide effectively, resulting in many more fish to hand. Be Stealthy Fish residing in glides can be spooky, requiring a ..read more

Learn how to tie Hilbert’s Salmon Fly Bugger In this week’s episode of Tying Tuesday, watch as Brian Hilbert ties his Salmon Fly Bugger! This salmon fly pattern may look a little daunting, but Brian does an excellent job of walking us through the pattern. He even shares several tips and tricks that will come in handy when tying up a ton of other patterns. Brian has fished this devastating salmon fly pattern all over the Rockies, and his favorite way is to fish it like a streamer. He uses a floating line, tosses it at the bank, and twitches it slowly back to the boat. He has also tried it under ..read more

Learn how to tie Garrison’s Flexy Stone Check out this stone fly!!! Holy smokes this thing is a beast, and at first glance it appears a little intimidating to tie up…but, it’s not as difficult as you think. Garrison Doctor does a great job of breaking down all the steps, and explaining the motions so you can tie up this effective stone fly on your own. By using the body tubing you can create these really sexy wing cases, that also create these bulging segmentations, and because the tubing is hollow this thing rides really nice in the water. Something to note, Garrison does use a dab of glue on ..read more

by David Meleski “Make me an offer for the shirt” said the gruff trout fishing guide to my wife at the Colorado Fly fishing symposium in January. I grumbled a bit as I was impatient to get out the door and get home to dig through all of the stickers, tying material, and other treasures I had purchased at the show. My wife eyed and thought through the worth of the tank top that laid there on the table.  “I guess I’ll take it for $30” she responded. Thank God, that could’ve be worse, was all I could think. The guide, a gentleman by the name of Pete, smiled and said “I appreciate doing busin ..read more

Learn how to tie the Peach Bomb This heavy-weight fly is a solid sinker! With it’s tungsten jig-back bead, it’s a solid fly for deeper water when you need that additional weight to get down fast. Tying this fly up is super easy, the jig-back bead does a lot of work building up a lot of the body taper for you. The tricky part of this fly, is the bead can be slippery as you are laying down thread; so use some Solarez Bone Dry to create a sticky section near the tail so you can get solid touching wraps. https://youtu.be/0dQVQ7CWTV0Ingredients & Recipe Hook: Umpqua X Series Jig Hook Size 14 ..read more

by John O’ Bryan “Wade in the water. Wade in the water children.  Wade in the water, the Lord’s going to trouble the water…” only it wasn’t the Lord it was me.  I had waded into the water, and I was troubling it with a vengeance and an eleven-foot switch rod.  “I used to be a world class athlete!  I have excellent hand-eye coordination!” I screamed at my guide as I flailed the rod back and forth onto the surface of the river, the fly line whipping side to side as the poor fly piled up into a cute little wad of tippet and feathers.  There is nothing intuitive or fun abo ..read more

Learn how to tie the Pale Ale Midge This simple, but extremely effective midge pattern is lights out on Colorado tailwaters during the Winter and early Spring. With it’s segmented body and slim profile, this midge larvae is a great offering on a two rig fly setup. I have had great luck fishing small offerings like this under an indicator on a solo rig, and off a dropper tag with a larger attractor fly below or above. On a recent float trip on the Lower Colorado, we fished size 22 midges just like this as our lowest fly on the line and it was fire in the morning. Give this one a try, tie some u ..read more

The Trout Trickers Difference As we head into another busy fishing season, I find myself reflecting on past years and the passion I have  brought to this sport, and my career. Us guides run hard during the busy months of spring, summer, and fall and one can easily lose sight of what is important. Sure, we are “fishing guides” and want to catch fish,  however I like to emphasize the “guide” part of that title. There is so much more to the experience that we  are hired to provide, the reason our guests at Trout Trickers come back year after year.   It could be easy to na ..read more

Learn how to tie the Davidson’s Chubby Cubby Kevan Davidson is one of our favorite Umpqua Signature Tyers, and this week he is back in our studio to tie his “Chubby Cubby!” This pattern is a variation of his beloved ant pattern the “Cupboard Ant.” After some angler feedback on the visibility of the original, he went back to the vise and crafted the “Chubby Cubby!” This hi-vis ant pattern has a “chubby style” wing and can be tied up with several household items, including the soft rubber material you might have lining your cupboard right now! Ingredients & Recipe Hook: Umpqua X series Stu ..read more

By Drew Schneider I wondered that question myself just a few weeks ago and happened to stumble across the answer. The winter has been very mild-mannered here in West Michigan. At the moment, the upper peninsula doesn’t have an inch of ice to stand on, let alone in the southwestern region of the lower peninsula where I live. Typically, my free time right now would be spent setting tip ups and jigging crappies. These (un)fortunate set of conditions led me to pursue alternative options. I mean, can I fly fish in the winter? I came to the decision to spend the day on my favorite trout stream just ..read more