At The Vise
At the Vise: A Better Hopper
It’s been some time since I did any serious hopper fishing. But when my old pal Peter Syka…
July 4, 2024
At the Vise: Amiocentrus
I remember the humiliation as sharply as yesterday. The river was becoming my favorite. I…
June 1, 2019
At the Vise: Baja Baitfish 9.9
Some problems don’t change. Ideas for imitating baitfish in Baja go back as far as the…
October 1, 2023
At the Vise: Balanced Peacock Bugger
As you settle into your winter tying season, you might want to consider doing yourself the…
December 1, 2021
At the Vise: Big Jelly
My buddy Joe Kelly is a hunter, noted within a small circle of friends as the guy who finds…
December 1, 2019
At the Vise: Blowfly Humpy
I’ve always called them “attractor patterns.” Dave Hughes, on the other hand, in his…
April 1, 2023
At the Vise: Claret and Hope
It’s hard to know what to say about steelhead flies anymore. With a number of runs this year…
February 1, 2022
At the Vise: Czechish Nymph
An old acquaintance of mine, Gary Davis, was kind enough to give me a place to crash for a…
August 1, 2019
At the Vise: Gledswood Shrimp
The good news is, we still need steelhead flies. This time last year, I wasn’t so sure. Runs…
December 1, 2022
At the Vise: Grey Duster
If you’re restless, like I am, and you feel life’s too short to quit looking around trying…
October 1, 2019
At the Vise: Hen and Harelug
Fires in my neck of the woods knocked out a little stream that has always been a good place…
April 1, 2019
At the Vise: Jingler
I’m overseas, fishing a famous river for sea-run fish, when a scatter of resident trout…
October 1, 2022
At the Vise: Kinky Muddler
I’m not sure anybody needs another baitfish pattern. If you’re like most saltwater fly…
February 1, 2023
At the Vise: Light Cahill Wet Fly
Has there ever been a lovelier material for tying flies than lemon wood duck flank feathers?…
October 1, 2020
At the Vise: Liquid Wrench
Anyone who glances at this column with any frequency knows that I’m the last angler in the…
October 1, 2021
At the Vise: Little Foam Beetle
I’m not sure who first introduced me to the idea of fishing beetle imitations. Probably that…
June 1, 2022
At the Vise: My Mullet
We had seen the mullet when we first walked up the beach as we were stalking a fringe of…
February 1, 2019
At the Vise: Neo-Freschi Bulldog
I rarely write about stillwater fly patterns in this column. My attention rests on flies I…
August 1, 2020
At the Vise: Peanut Envy
Don’t blame me. I didn’t make up the name. Funnier still, in Chile, where guides and anglers…
April 1, 2022
At the Vise: Perdigón
In a scene almost identical to one I wrote about in these pages last year, I was tying flies…
June 1, 2020
At the Vise: Rusty Rat
Few things capture the spirit of fly fishing quite like the school of thought that directs…
April 1, 2020
At the Vise: Shad Darts
The question, to begin with, is whether a shad dart should actually be considered a fly.…
June 1, 2023
At the Vise: Silver Sedge
I’m not an expert on anything — except maybe postures of self-deprecation — so when an…
June 1, 2021
At the Vise: Smallmouth Something
The river was out of its banks, dark as peanut butter, and though I liked seeing the water…
August 1, 2021
At the Vise: Snowshoe Hare Emerger
With trout season in full swing and many of us tempted again to reach for another iteration…
August 1, 2023
At the Vise: The Albertino
Pay attention. In the wake of devastating fires throughout California and so many of our…
August 1, 2022
At the Vise: The Alder Fly
When my fishing buddy Joe Kelly shot a turkey last spring, I felt complicit enough to lay…
February 1, 2022
At the Vise: The Muddler Minnow
If you haven’t done this lately, let me remind you what you’re missing. You come out of the…
April 1, 2021
At the Vise: The Surf Shrimp
I always hesitate before offering up ideas about surf flies. More than any other sort of…
August 1, 2020
At the Vise: The Zug Bug
I’m standing at the open tailgate of my brand-new seventeen-year-old fishing pickup, pawing…
December 1, 2020
At the Vise: Waking Caddis
Of claims both bold and implausible made within certain West Coast steelheading circles,…
October 7, 2024