Interested In Fly Fishing?

Here Are The Important Factors That You Should Know

by: Lane Cantore

Many look at fly fishing a sport or a hobby, while others consider it an art form. Whatever you call it, fly fishing is a pleasurable pastime built on the companionship of the fishermen themselves, the oceans, lakes and rivers they fish, as well as the stunning fish they pursue. Several fishermen go fishing at the end of the week, very happy to run into a fish or two during a vacation fishing adventure with other family members. Others are just big time trout bums, who allot most of their days to be able to tie flies and dissect the hatches and underwater traits of their favorite spot to fish.

Choosing your Idaho fly fishing lodge is also essential in ensuring success in fly fishing, trout fishing or Idaho steelhead fishing. In fly fishing, it’s necessary to consider the factors listed below:

Species. Most fly fishermen put their focus on the pursuit of trout, although fishermen fly fish for everything from largemouth bass to big-game saltwater species like marlin, tarpon as well as sharks. You’ll find a large number of species of saltwater and freshwater fish, and the International Game Fish Association watches world records for a majority of the game species. Fly anglers in America spend their time most in pursuing trout, rainbow trout in particular. Other types of trout include the lake, golden, brown, brook and steelhead trout.

Locations. There’s no wrong location or time to make use of a fly rod, provided that the current national and state rules and regulation are strictly being followed by the fishermen. You can fish anywhere, the open ocean or backcountry lakes and creeks. Many fly fishermen practice their craft at home in fact, to hone their skills in casting on the front lawn or at the local park. Fly fishing has captured the hear of many from all over the world, be it fly fishing during a road trip through and America’s National Park like Yosemite, pursuing peacock bass in the Amazon River, or hunting for carp in Europe. Yes, angling for carp is big in Europe, which exhibits just how complex the sport of fly fishing can be.

Gear. Fly fishing equipment is often innovating, though in fly fishing the reels, rods and lines have always been a staple. Fly anglers are also infamous for a lot of of different knots they use, most of which correlate with the type of fly line, head and tippet they count on. Fly fishing is not a cheap hobby, with typical fishing rods and reels usually would cost you more than a hundred dollar per piece. Fly fishermen, however, may be able to find a bargain if they know the right place to look.

Strategies. Fly fishing strategies may change from season to season, fishery to fisher, and even hour to hour depending on the hatch and when different insects are present on and in the water. In general, river trout, the most famous game fish of fly fishers, feed in four zones but is found on or close to the base roughly 75% of the time. Which makes nymph fishing – below the surface with bottom-dwelling insects and sculpin motifs like the Muddler Minnow – a common approach. However, if temps escalate, some insects stay at the surface – dry patterns then is perfect.

Planning. Fly fishing strategies change, and every angler has their own style or method of fishing, so be patient in honing your skills would be the greatest advice for novice fly anglers. As the saying goes, practice makes perfect, especially when working on your casting. Additionally, to ensure that your next fishing adventure will be a successful one, work on tying flies and preparing your fishing equipments during offseason.

Shepp Ranch offers the best Idaho fishing lodges. For more information about Idaho steelhead fishing, rates and amenities, visit http://sheppranch.com.

Fly Fishers Serving as Transports for Noxious Little Invaders

By FELICITY BARRINGER  Published: August 15, 2010

Caleb Kenna for The New York Times
For fly fishers who pride themselves on a conservationist ethic, it hurts to discover that they may be trampling on that ethic every time they wade into a trout stream. Blame their boots — or, more precisely, their felt soles. Growing scientific evidence suggests that felt, which helps anglers stay upright on slick rocks, is also a vehicle for noxious microorganisms that hitchhike to new places and disrupt freshwater ecosystems.

That is why Alaska and Vermont recently approved bans on felt-soled boots and Maryland plans to do so soon.

“If you were trying to design a material to transport microscopic material around,” said Jack Williams, an expert on invasive species with the environmental group Trout Unlimited, “felt on the bottom of someone’s boots in a stream would be as close to perfection as you could find.”

The response among fishermen threatened with the loss of soles that cling to slippery rocks parallels the five stages of grief.

There is denial (the science is wrong), anger (why should I fall on my tail for the good of the planet?), bargaining (I will wash them, I will disinfect them, I will dry them), depression (I cannot afford new boots) and, finally, acceptance (I will go feltless if I must).

John Berry, a fishing guide in Cotter, Ark., switched to studded rubber-soled waders this year, after the streams near his house, by the White River in the Ozark Mountains, became infected with Didymosphenia geminata, or didymo.

A single-celled organism also known as rock snot, didymo has done as much as any invasive species to prompt calls for a ban on felt soles.

“I first thought it was toilet paper or something,” Mr. Berry said of his first encounter with the algae, which resembles soggy tissue. “I wondered, Is someone upstream having a problem with their water treatment? Then we started hearing about didymo.”

Didymo is native to British Columbia. Scientists say that its smothering blooms had been discovered on Vancouver Island by 1989 and then headed south and east, crossing the Rocky Mountains and hitting Plains states like South Dakota before arriving in Vermont in 2008.

Didymo has also been found (and felt-soles banned) in New Zealand, possibly introduced by a North American angler’s gear, scientists suggest. Once its pioneer cells are established, clumps of the algae bloom first on rocks, then cover river bottoms with a fibrous mat that can choke out the insect life that is trout food.

“We people are clearly the vector for its spread,” said Jonathan McKnight, a wildlife biologist with the Maryland Department of Natural Resources who is trying to protect streams like the Youghiogheny River from didymo, whirling disease and other aquatic invaders.

“It’s fly fishermen who are doing it,” Mr. McKnight said. “The people who love and appreciate those rivers the most have got to be the ones protecting them.” He said his department planned to ban felt soles this fall.

Bans or no bans, it can be a challenge to separate an angler from his felt soles when he believes the alternative is a bath in an icy stream. Fishing the Duchesne River in Utah while wearing rubber-soled boots about three years ago, Arvey McFarland, 56, a musician from Salt Lake City, took a hard fall.

“In all these years, the number of times I’ve fallen wearing felt soles, I can count them on one hand,” he said. “When I’ve tried various rubber and pleated soles, I’ve opened my right elbow and dislocated my shoulder. No more for me.”

Gerard Haines, 48, of Wyoming, Minn., who manufactures construction equipment, said that after wearing felt-bottomed soles for almost 20 years in the Brule and Kinnikinnick Rivers, he switched last spring. He worked on a river-cleaning project in waders without felt soles, he said.

“It was hard to negotiate the stream bottom,” Mr. Haines said. “The streams I’m fishing are not dangerous water, but you still want to keep your balance.”

Wildlife biologists and local and national fishing groups like Trout Unlimited have spread the word about the threat of didymo and felt. On fishing blogs, anglers persistently debate the merits and drawbacks of the new rubber soles and the felt bans approved this spring by Vermont’s Legislature and Alaska’s Board of Fisheries. (Vermont’s ban takes effect next April and Alaska’s in January 2012.)

Orvis, the fly-fishing retailer, has switched its boot lineup from 80 percent felt-soled to 80 percent rubber-soled over the last two years, said Tom Rosenbauer, the marketing director for the company’s rods and tackle.

“We are not going to stop selling a couple of styles of felt soles for the near future,” he said.

Still, the store’s Web site urges, “Change your boots and help fight the spread of invasive species.”

Another national fishing retailer, Simms Fishing Products, has eliminated felt-soled boots from its product line entirely.

George Anderson, the owner of a fish and tackle store in Livingston, Mont., said he doubted that changing soles would solve the problem. “People think it is this magic bullet — I don’t,” he said of the bans.

“These invasive species are being carried from one stream to another on many other pieces of equipment,” he said. “If you don’t have felt-soled boots, you’ve got the fabric on the boots, the laces on the boots.”

Unless everything is thoroughly disinfected, he said, microorganisms will move with the fishermen.

Indeed, the spread of didymo from areas like British Columbia to the waterways of New England, New York and Tennessee has continued.

Lawton Weber, 37, a fisherman from northern Vermont, recognized the telltale signs of didymo on the Connecticut River in Vermont two years ago. This year he spotted it on the Gihon River not far away.

Still, he hopes the shift away from felt soles will at least slow the algae’s advance.

“It’s sad but true that most rivers that have the biochemistry to harbor and breed didymo will get it,” Mr. Weber said. “But if it takes 20 years for us to spread the stuff around instead of two, that’s a victory.”

A version of this article appeared in print on August 16, 2010, on page A9 of the New York edition.

Top 5 Trout Fly Fishing Tips

Top 5 Trout Fly Fishing Tips

Trout fishing is probably close to the most popular types of fish. This is mainly because almost wherever they are! But there are different types of trout, which occur in different geographical areas and each habitat.

For example, brook trout in Labrador all the way west to Saskatchewan, while the other hand, the fish named Rainbow Trout habitat is located in an area of the Pacific Ocean between California and Alaska.

Trout has recently begunmove into habitats that are not native too. They have actually moved into areas of the United States. The only countries that have not yet spawning trout are Florida, Georgia, Arkansas, Tennessee, Mississippi, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Dakota, Texas and Oklahoma. Trout are also found in many parts of Canada. Yes, as you can see, finding the fish is not a problem when it comes to trout fishing.

Despite the abundance of fish, you will still need a plan – it is very thinfish! Here are some things to consider when fishing for trout.

1. Not the head of fat. When it is greased, and stations can cast shadows on the fish that would have scared away. Do not worry, it will sink far enough to cause real problems.

2. Trout must be taken in both streams and pools. While the flight to sink or sleep can cause, it will be worth your effort, using this trick.

3. Run the unit of experience. Youshould you throw on the river, so that the flight would only float on the prey.

4. Fish always swimming pools lower in the first place, regardless of where the trout seem to be. Make your first cast your best. Trout eat before they liked, as long as it is in their territory.

5. There is no single most effective way to fish for trout. I am very picky fish, and their minds to change often, so you may need a different type of aircraft, use every time you go fishing.You know what the trout will be in the mood for ever.

If you try to use these tips and your fishing experience, hopefully to be both rewarding and fun.