We're on our way to Belize and it started slowly-.very slowly. Denver's flight out of CDA was delayed and so was ours out of GF-so what do we do?  Joe and I busted out our fly boxes to compare what we tied-I think we are prepared. We dragged out our gear to see what we were missing if anything: not that it mattered since mostly everything was in our checked bag.  There was talk of future trips, best rods, reels-.The delays pushed us back to the point where we were going to miss our connection in Denver. We landed to numerous text messages from Denver telling us to hurry and get our butts to the gate.  We ran across the terminal and made the flight just as they were closing... See you tomorrow Belize.   --Paul Considine

The water is a fishy and buggy 44 degrees plus.  The flows are holding between 38 and 3900 cfs.  There are often swirling vortices of hatching midges covering the water.  Baetis are showing more and more, with strong hatches occurring closer to Cascade.  I fished a piece of water on Tuesday that was covered in tiny sails and trout were eagerly sucking them down.  They mistakenly slurped my tiny para BWO from time to time. Nymphs Try fishing a Green Machine in black, PT or Grey.  Other good choices include the JuJu Baetis, Pandemic May, Flashback Biot Nymph BWO, Indigo Child, Bruised Baetis and a variety of colored Zebra’s.  You can fish your tiny flies behind a good old Czech/scud/sow if you need to go deep or drop it off a dry fly in the shallows. Emerger / Soft Hackles Midges have been hatching prolifically.  Get after it in ...

Temperatures are warming up in the town of Sandpoint, ID.  With the warm weather, the river's and creek's blow out is shutting down any fishing opportunities we have...except one. One really big important one that I have been chasing for 10 years now with marginal success. Each year the temperature warms up and I look for the first 3-4 consecutive days where it gets over 65 degrees.  When this happens, trillions of flying black carpenter ants descend upon Lake Pend Oreille and the fish turn on. Lake Pend Oreille can be extremely intimidating with it's 111 miles of shoreline and 1200' depth, but each year we head out trying to find groups of feeding fish in the afternoons. The game plan is to find the shaded areas of the lake, find scum lines, turn on the electric motor and start cruising and waiting for fish.  It is more like hunting ...

There are 1763 cool places to fish in Montana, and I've been lucky enough to fish a percentage of those spots (absolutely no information given so far).  This past weekend I spent on the Bitterroot near Darby and then down by Stevensville, a very well known spring skwala hatch, and surprisingly we had very little company on the river and lots of skwalas.  It was great: read about it there. Last night, Brian (our distribution manager) and Alfonso (our Field Marketing person) slid out of work 15 minutes early and headed towards our favorites sections of our local Great Falls water.  Within about 20-30 minutes you can be on 3-4 different trout streams from our work parking lot.  Great Falls gets a tough reputation from people who don't know, and I suppose I should want to keep it that way.  People say its so far from the mountains, and ...

As we celebrate Earth Day by planting trees in a local area affected by last year's massive wildfire, we are quickly reminded how it has only been seven months since fires were engulfing the Methow valley-Carlton Complex. In July 2014 lightning strikes sparked four wildfires across a rather large area that would very quickly merge into the largest wildfire in Washington State history.  Leaving in its wake 256,108 acres of burnt land and destroying 300 homes. At one point there were over 3,000 firefighters actively working to contain the fire.  The National Guard was even called in to help efforts. I remember riding the bus to work and seeing convoys of military Humvees with Red Cross painted on them, driving through downtown like a parade.  People would, including myself, stare in speechless terror as they start to realize that this f...

We love when we can sense spring coming and we start thinking about the skwala hatch and Mother's Day Caddis and F3T and IF4, and everything else about warm weather fishing... BUT we like fall just as much. After lots of sun, weeds, and hot weather we are stoked for swinging steelhead, stripping streamers for browns, and October Caddis hatches.  To match the stoke of spring, we decided we need a film fest to pump us up going in to fall fishing season, and we're calling it Fall Stoke. This is the official call to submissions. All submissions are welcome but below you will find our guidelines, rules, contest, and other information for our first ever tour.  Please send us your submissions and we hope to see you at one of our tour stops this fall!       Event: North 40 Fall Stoke Fly Fishing Fest August - October 2015 Event ...

My wife and I fished the Bitterroot this weekend from Darby all the way down to Stevensville (her birthday/her choice).  It was awesome, I always hear how it's such a zoo and not worth it.  I guess wind, rain, and snow scares the crowds off in Missoula because we didn't see hardly anyone all weekend. Lots of skwalas on the water right now but certainly many more down lower by Stevensville.  Although they were still eating the skwalas up higher just fine.  Probably equally as good of a hatch was the march browns literally all over the place, as well as some BWO's down low.  Maybe this weekend there will be more skwalas up near Darby? The best skwalas patterns were the standard bullet head in a size 10 and the Big R Bug skwala (only in North 40 Fly Shop in Great Falls).  For the march browns, honestly anything reasonably close to ...

This intruder pattern can be tied in various sizes and colors. It is very easy and quick to tie and still maintains a great profile with lots of movement in the water. This is my go to intruder for many of the steelhead rivers in the Northwest when I need to create flies quickly. Fly Tying Material List: Senyo Laser Dub Black 210 UTC Black Copper Flashabou Olive/Black Barred Marabou 30# Fire Line Senyo Articulated Shank Brass Eyes

That is a great question. What does a "lifetime warranty" mean? What does it entail? For Liberty Safe and Security Products, Inc., that means a lot of things. When you purchase a UL Rated Liberty Safe, those safes are backed by their Lifetime Warranty. That means if you ever experience a fire or attempted break-in on your UL rated safe and there is a need to repair or replace your safe, Liberty will repair or completely replace your safe at no cost to you. Basically, when your safe does what it is supposed to do and gets damaged, you'll receive repair or replacement service for your safe for free. Not a bad deal. Their Warranty States: "Liberty warrants that each new safe will be free from defects in material and workmanship for the lifetime of the original purchaser. If there is a defect in either materials or workmanship during your li...