By Dylan McGregor It may be difficult to pull yourself away from the elk grounds or the upland bird slopes this weekend, but there’s a very good reason why you might do just that. This Saturday and Sunday the 13th annual Clearwater Spey Clave takes place at its accustomed site—the Lenore rest stop along Highway 12 (at mile marker 27.75) just north of our North 40 shop in Lewiston, Idaho. Put on by the Red Shed, this clave draws some of the most dedicated and talented steelhead anglers and speycasters on the planet. So, if you’ve ever dreamed of catching a steelhead on a spey rod, or you just want to mix and mingle with like-minded anglers, this is the place to be. The gathering actually gets started Friday night with the showing of Our Two Hands, a film about salmon and steelhead made by Bloodknots Media of Salt Lake City, Utah. Yo...

When I am asked if the Rio Gallegos waders are comfortable and worth the money, I often say, “It feels like you are fishing from a house.” There might be a little bit of an exaggeration with that response, but you catch my drift. Patagonia did an excellent job of offering innovative features on a tremendously durable wader, and here is what those features are. Buckle up there are a lot. The upper wader is made of 4 layer 100% polyester microfiber high-density taffeta, and complimented with a 4-layer 100% polyester microfiber high-density double-weave taffeta lower. Since the lower is high-density DOUBLE-weave taffeta, it is twice as durable as the upper. The wader is also self-healing. I know this sounds like witchcraft, but it’s true. Unlike GORE-TEX where you would have to locate the hole, and patch it with aquaseal, H2 no barrie...

For stealth situations, you can’t beat these indicators. By Dillon Given Chuck, duck, CRASH... and the fish is spooked. There is nothing more frustrating than fly fishing with a hefty indicator on a gin clear river. The most perfectly presented cast isn’t good enough if the fish is spooked from your indicator. If only there were an indicator that is light so it doesn’t disturb the water, and is buoyant enough to hold heavy nymphs. But wait there is! Alright, I’ll drop the salesman pitch. The New Zealand Strike Indicator is currently my #1 indicator when spooky trout is the name of the game. I’m sure most of us by now have seen what quality of trout and water New Zealand has to offer. In order to catch those spooky rainbows and brown with nymphs in NZ’s crystal clear water, it calls for a light indicator that doesn’t create ...

Skagit casting with single hand fly rods. By Fred Telleen Skagit casting combines Spey style casting techniques with short Skagit shooting heads. When trout anglers think about Spey casting, they are likely to envision long two handed rods designed for salmon and steelhead. While two handed rods have their place on big rivers for large fish, lines have been developed to allow anglers to Spey cast with their standard length single hand fly rods. To avoid confusion, we are going to replace the word Spey with the word Skagit and refer to the method as Skagit casting Why would a trout angler want to Skagit cast? Who has not been caught up in the bushes on their back cast? Who has not been in a situation where a standard roll cast could not deliver the fly where it needed to go? Who has felt like they’ve thrown their arm off while false cas...

By Sam Wike Just over a week ago I was sinking my teeth into a bacon cheeseburger at the Bar S in Great Falls, Montana with Paul Considine, North 40’s fishing buyer, and our longtime friend and walleye fishing guru Dale Gilbert. As you would guess, we were talking about fishing. And why wouldn’t we; Gilbert is a veteran of the Professional Walleye Tour (PWT) and now, in his retirement, he guides and teaches walleye tactics across Montana. He is, for sure, one of the most knowledgeable and effective walleye fishermen we know. At the Bar S we discussed educational videos and some of the new baits that Considine and I are bringing into our stores in 2018. Gilbert was interested in the video discussion—because he may be the featured attraction in those—but he really perked when the conversation turned to those new...

The bad news is the days are shrinking fast. The good news is that shorter days concentrate prime fishing hours into a reasonable window. Banker’s hours. Gone are the days when you have to get up at 4 dark thirty for the pre-sunrise bite. I’ll be home after dark is now well before 11 pm. Through the compressing daylight hours of fall, the fishing is pretty darn good. Trout know their window of daylight feeding is getting smaller and they want to eat just as much as they did during the longer days of summer. This means they get a bit less picky. Advantage to the angler. On Top Dry fly opportunities may dwindle a bit, but they never go away on the Mo. Right now, the midge and pseudo are key players, but they are very small. You can definitely find fish feeding on them if you want to play the tiny dry fly game. A few caddis are out and ...

Coeur d'Alene River: So great news, the rain we received in the last couple of days has made tremendous improvements for the CDA. Cooler water temps and higher flows mean good things this time of year. The CDA is at 457 cubic feet per today. If you have the next few days off, by all means get out there.This will be banner fishing. Bwo's, mahogany's, October caddis will be the players. Streamer fishing will be good too. The hopper and terrestrial fishing will slow down with the cooler temps. Small x-caddis trailed with a small flying ant will be a great rig, think 16-20 on the caddis and 18-20 on the ant. St. Joe River: Man, what a god send! The St. Joe went from a trickle at 350 cfs up to 726 cfs in two days. This is awesome stuff here guys. You will see best fishing mid-day now with the cooler nights and mornings, the bugs really won’...

Tiny in stature, these little bugs get big eats on the Missouri. By Fred Telleen Pseudocloeon At least that was their name. Insects are constantly being reclassified as we learn more about them. I believe they are now in the Baetis family. Pseudo is still the name they are regionally recognized as, so I’m going to keep using it until someone gives me a better one. For an angler, exact identification of an insect is not as critical as matching the bugs they are finding on the water while fishing, or at least the bugs (or the stage of those bugs) that the fish are feeding on. If we understand how these bugs live, hatch, mate and die, we can develop fly patterns to imitate them and strategies for fooling fish into eating them when we encounter them. Most anglers are familiar with BWO’s or Blue Winged Olive mayflies. Pseudo...

Since we were first introduced to Livetarget at its inception in 2007, a couple of things have stood out about the company.  First, they are one of the most innovative product companies in the business.  Secondly, they strive very hard to realistically “match the hatch” as our North 40 Fly Shop crew would say. This year’s new product releases compliment both of those qualities and we are very excited to be carrying them in the upcoming season.  Many things stood out, including their 2017 I-CAST Best in Show Hollow Body Mullet, which I would have died to have a few times standing on the beaches of Baja. However, in our geography we narrowed it down to 3 key baits that our largemouth and smallmouth bass community is going to be pumped about.  We sat down with Ted Moody, our Livetarget representative to go over these new editions. ...