Tutorials

Tailing loops are the bane of both novice and experienced casters, and they can almost all be traced to problems with the timing of the casting stroke. A tailing loop is one where the front of the fly line and the leader cross below the plane of the cast as the forward cast rolls out, often causing a tangle in the line or a wind knot in the tippet or leader.

Anglers who wish to tie or purchase the best fish-catching flies need to understand trigger mechanisms. A trigger mechanism is a fly pattern component that makes a fish choose to eat it. Many times a trout has swum beneath my dry fly, looking at it, but refusing to eat it. Those flies did not have good trigger mechanisms for that fish on that day.d

Although the Woolly Bugger can be fished anywhere in the water column, it probably is more often fished close to or down on the bottom. That’s why most people tie them weighted. How much you weight a fly determines how quickly it will sink and how well it will stay down in a current.

One of the most confusing parts of fly fishing when you are first starting out, is without a doubt, knots. Not only do they vary for each connection on a rig, but often, there's multiple knots you can use for each one. A beginner doing his early stage research will come across dozens of articles debating which one's to use in which situations, each one with a different take. The result, is an overwhelmed novice.