Page 185 - North 40 Outfitters

"School of Tarpon coming towards us, Two o'clock!" Hearing your guide say that never gets old, but it was about the tenth time I had heard it the past few hours and I hadn't felt the tug yet. Nonetheless, I worked out some line and started false casting to a spot where I knew the fish would be moving through. This was a good school, eight to ten fish swimming near the surface, high and happy, which I later discovered meant they were more likely to eat. "Try to get your fly out past that lead fish so she doesn't see it, and then strip it in front of any of the other ones in the school." The first thing that went through my mind was, why the hell am I supposed to do that? The second thing that went through my mind was, how the hell am I supposed to do that, without lining her? Anyway, I tried to do as I was told and slapped the line on the ...

I've been hearing how people don't hunt ducks because they don't like to eat them since I could walk. So last year a friend of mine who works at for the Reno Fly Shop invited my girlfriend and I to stay at his cabin at the Canvasback Duck club near Fallon, NV. I was probably more excited than my girlfriend about the opportunity. This place is more than a standard duck club, these guys take waterfowl hunting to a different level. We stayed in a 400 square foot cabin with 7 black labs. There are decoy rooms, calls everywhere, duck boats, duck mounts, cleaning rooms, kennels--it is a duck hunting community of about 100 cabins. The streets are named after ducks. 4 am the sirens go off to meet at the town hall where we there is a Powerball that decides your duck blind fate for the day. Sirens then sound at shooting light and it's game on. Ho...

This week’s fly of the week is pretty special. Keaner Boyce is our guest tier with one of his favorite hopper patterns. Erik, KK, Savannah, Sam and everyone else who gets to chat with Keaner have learned a lot from him. I think this fly shows off Keaner’s experience in fly fishing by having a near perfect profile, color, floatability, and durability which are basically the four key features of any fly. Keaner has a lot of knowledge about fly fishing near Great Falls and has often hinted at Pike and Carp spots which supplement his trout fishing fever. You never know what you are going to learn on Saturday mornings at North 40-but we just want to thank Keaner for sharing his hopper pattern with all of us.

Since we had to be at the Outdoor Retailer show this last week anyways we decided to make the weekend out of it and float the Green for a couple days. Results were great!

Steve wake up! It's 4am and we'd arrived in Campeche at 1AM after a 2 hour drive from Merida to save money on the flight options (next time we may fly in to Campeche regardless). Of course, since we always make the best decisions, we had decided to check out La Iguana Azul and listened to a local Campeche, Mexico band full of very round shaped and unshaven band members sing traditional songs, while we ate BBQ shrimp on the open air terrace of the "Blue Iguana" restaurant until about 3am. After a hearty breakfast of bread, butter, and strong coffee, we met guides Sam and Hollywood down at the pier in the pitch black of an extremely early morning. Neither Sam nor Hollywood spoke much English, and some college Spanish courses were beginning to pay off as we chose flies and rigged rods on the ride out underneath headlamps. My fishing partner...

Really cool new video with Tom Bie from Drake Mag Tom's Tarpon: Fly Fishing For Tarpon from WorldANGLING on Vimeo.

Here's why high water is sweet. 1. For some reason larger fish are caught. 2. It's okay to fish the San Juan Worm. 3. Montana agriculture is prosperous 4. Encourages one to fish where they usually don't 5. The Smith and Sun will still be fishable in August 6. You don't see how many fish you actually are missing 7. Feel less bad about having to work 8. Fewer crowds on the river (people think the fish stop eating?) 9. You may actually use the seat in the front of your drift boat 10. Besides the water being higher&hellip' the rest of the experience is about the same! Recipes for High Water a.) Deep Nymphing: Thingamabobber placed where fly line meets the leader' followed by 7.5 8 feet of mono tapered down to 3x' blood knot with one foot of additional 3x ' 3 split shots above the blood knot ' San Juan Worm (disco worm, wire worm, eggs n...

It's a river that goes under the radar by many throughout the state, but it's a river that should be near the top of any trout angler's bucket list for Montana streams. The Dearborn River is viewed by many as a low water, small trout stream whose sole purpose is to feed the Missouri with rich, cool mountain water. Wrong. I began floating the Dearborn last year and was pretty skeptical about it to be quite honest. I've heard rumors/stories of really big brown trout that call this water home, but had only seen the water at highway 200 and 287 bridges, making me feel that the rumors I had heard were merely lies. My first floating experience was a good one as far as taking in the scenery, but the fishing was poor to say the least. We boated close to a dozen fish, none over 15" and tried every technique known to the sport of fly fishing (some...

When I stepped off the plane in Baja my initial reaction was extreme concern. I had invited 5 friends to come with me thinking I had picked an optimum time to catch Rooster from the beach but the heat was so intense stepping off the plane it seemed unfishably hot. I literally couldn't wait to get back in to the customs line where there was some AC. I would recommend May/June to anyone... not July in Baja... never again (unless grande Roosters were in shallow in which case I would Speedo up and purchase a handheld misting machine and go anyways). The next confusing issue once arriving in Baja happens 10 minutes after you cope with the heat. How do you get from where you are standing to the Sea of Cortez? Well... we sat on our bags and there is a beer stand to the left and a taco stand to the right (with my complaints of the heat you can ...

It's finally June, which marks the beginning of a special time of year for anyone who knows anything about anything. It's Salmonfly time on Montana streams'. The recent wet weather has delayed the emergence of these giant humming-birdesque bugs, but the first bit of warmer, dry weather will get um active, that you can count on. So here's a quick and dirty run down on the life cycle and effective techniques during the Salmonfly hatch. Life Cycle: Salmonflies (Pteronarcys Californica) in the nymphal stage are considered stoneflies and will not be considered a salmonfly until they have become an adult. Stonefly nymphs require highly oxygenated water to mature, so it isn't a big surprise that they're found in fast flowing, oxygen rich streams. During the colder winter months, the stoneflies burrow themselves deep into the bed of the stream to...

Since 1986 the American Rivers have been issuing this report. The link to the site is HERE

Here is a cool video shot on the Deschutes River. This will start getting you amped for the fall runs this year already. Even if Missouri River trout are sometimes as large as Deschutes steelhead, there is something about hooking steelhead on the swing that is different. I am not sure if it's the early morning takes, the traditional flies, the long fly rod, or the power from running from the Pacific...but it is in a whole different class of fly fishing and it is a worthwhile adventure. DRO from bryan huskey on Vimeo.