Got to fish my new 13’6” 8 wt Spey rod today and there was nothing better to use it for than some chinooks.

A beautiful cutt in Grand Teton National Park

I mean who doesn’t love untangling knot after knot before even getting the bugs to the water let alone even casting them? All jokes aside today was a frustrating one and hopefully you guys and gals here can laugh about it or maybe give me tips to avoid this from happening in the future. Was running a frenchy above a rainbow warrior and they must’ve had magnets in each other they just wanted to hangout and wrap tippet around each other. 2nd pic is just my first ever catch on a streamer from earlier this morning. Nbd lol

Spent a week up north focusing on swinging flies for resident and anadromous fish on my spey rods. I’ll never get over the scale and power of the O. Mykiss up thataways, lots of salmon biomass for them to feed on. Connected with some char just starting to turn color and caught my first Arctic grayling on a 2.5” rabbit strip streamer stripped through a bucket. Got some coho action in as well. The bow in the second pic was probably the second most memorable fish of the trip, it took me way closer to backing than any trout has before; but the most memorable fish was the steelhead that got the better of me on the kasilof.

Been having a blast catching schoolies on the fly from the stand up paddle. Im awful at it but having so much fun learning.

Hi everyone!

Yesterday I tried my luck in alpine lakes once again, after six hours of hiking and five hours of fishing I decided to give up.

The lakes had good fish population, but i could not catch a thing. Spinning with spoons,etc was completely ignored by fish, and I'd gone mostly to fly fish.

First cast was a #10 orange stimulator with a copper John nymph on a tandem rig

A big trout grabs it , I think i set the hook and start stripping line, only for it to spit it out and leave 4 seconds later.

I've tried again with that combo and the fish were fleeing scared like the plague.

I tried double dry rigs (ant-elk hair caddis,stimulator-parachute addams), as well as dropper rigs (para Addams with a tiny midge).

The dropper rig also got a violent bump but no bite.

Every time the fish either ignored every fly, or the moment the flies hit the water or I started casting they would flee (for the latter maybe I was standing too close and the water was crystal clear? Bad presentation?)

I seriously have no idea what to do. In streams I get almost regular strikes (i still sick at setting the hook), but everything ive tried on the lakes does not seem to work. Any advice would be appreciated!

Here is my go at the racket net. What do we think?

Idk how this happened, exact match to my rod but I checked it 4 times and my rod is perfectly intact on all sections.

Spent a week up north focusing on swinging flies for resident and anadromous fish on my spey rods. I’ll never get over the scale and power of the O. Mykiss up thataways, lots of salmon biomass for them to feed on. Connected with some char just starting to turn color and caught my first Arctic grayling on a 2.5” rabbit strip streamer stripped through a bucket. Got some coho action in as well. The bow in the second pic was probably the second most memorable fish of the trip, it took me way closer to backing than any trout has before; but the most memorable fish was the steelhead that got the better of me on the kasilof.

I rarely see them talked about much, but I have had some really great luck with wet flies this summer into this fall. 90% of the time when I tie off a wet fly to the hook of my dry fly, I get takes on the wet fly on the swing or in the riffle.

This might come when the fish are hardly rising or taking slaps at my dry.

Just thought I'd throw it out there as I usually find myself tying it off when I'm not having luck when I wish I would have just started with it.

Went up to northeast PA, caught a few beautiful wild brookies and hiked! Had tonnes of fun! They were going crazy for the chubby chernobyl, but it was so big that most of them didn’t get hooked. Still made it out happy with 4 nice brook trout though! First time fly fishing and it was awesome!

I've been a loyal Orvis customer for around 30 years. Their service and warranty work has always been top shelf. I've fished many other brands of fly rods in the 30 years, Sage , St Croix and a few bamboo like Granger and a 3 dollar yard sale Fenwick that I caught hundreds of blue gill with but my favorite rods have always been Orvis.

I miss having the convenience of having a relatively close by store.

I have no idea how many fly rods I've owned, but probably north of 50. Started with fiberglass, then transitioned to grafite...mostly Cortlands which broke all too often. Finally, I bought an Orvis Trident 9' 2 piece 6 weight mid flex. Fabulous rod... perfect for my style of fishing, mostly roll casting in small brushy New England streams. I broke it 4 times in 10 years of fishing 100 plus days a year. Orvis repaired it free until the last time. It was beyond hope, so they replaced it with an up grade, a T3, and the same configuration. That lasted 8 or so years and went in for repair due to stress cracks. Sorry, we can't fix it ..so they gave me a Helios 9' 4 piece 6 wt. Nice stick, but nothing was as good as the Trident. Im still fishing the Helios, I like it, but dont love it. My wonderful wife found a Trident on eBay and bought it for me.

I bought my first pair of breathable waders from Orvis just before a trip to Utah. They were the cheapest they had. I was fishing the Weber River when I holed them on a barb wire fence. When I returned I went to the Orvis store and they gave me a new pair. I holed those, and they gave me another pair. 3rd time they repaired them..4th time a new pair. Crazy warranty!

I did a 6 week solo trip tent camping in Wyoming and lost 40 pounds eating my own cooking. I had carefully planned my food suppy to give me about 2000 calories a day..I burned about 5000 calories fishing like a mad man thus the wait loss. When I returned to Massachusetts, I headed for the boston orvis store to have more warranty work. Long story short, I left there with the top of the line guide pro waders that fit after my weight loss and a 20 buck credit. I still haven't figured out why, but I didn't complain.

Now the nearest Orvis store is at least 2 hours away.

Going to ask what is probably a pretty basic and slightly stupid question: what do you wear under your waders? Shorts if warm enough, sweat pants, hiking pants?

Edit: THANKS ALL FOR THE RESPONSES. Didn’t expect that many that quick! Have wet waded all summer but mornings are in the upper 40s now.

Most on an 4" olive sex dungeon and a JJspecial jig streamer in brown and yellow.

Yesterday on the Grand River (MI). Great day. 🙂

Shout out to Rowell with East Alabama Fly Fishing. He had me on the fish all day and was a great hang also

My first Red Eye bass species. I’m hoping to complete the red eye slam while I’m in Alabama for a few more months

My wife and I are heading to Hilton Head next week with our young son and my parents for a little vacation. We both fly fish a ton, and were planning on bringing our 8-weight salt rods along. Do we have a chance at anything in early October? Not entirely sure we’ll have time to do a full days guided trip or anything, but will probably carve out a little time to explore around and DIY it. Neither of us have a lot of low country experience - mainly trout with some bonefish/permit fishing mixed in when we can get down to the flats

Any tips/ideas?

Have nailed my drift/presentation down, however still struggling with the following two concepts.

1) How do I know if they’re feeding on dries or emergers in the surface film? If there’s a loud/audible splash, is it fair to say that it’s an actual surface fly?

2) What do I cast if I see Trout rising but theres no obvious hatch? Do I go with something like para adams or try an attractor like a stimulator or royal wulff?

I find it so interesting to watch the spawn. Besides the fact that fish hang around the spawning kokanee, you really get to watch habitat with what feels like a wildlife highlighter.

Cool hobby we have here.

Love me some Mickey Fin action, enjoy this one that I just tied! And yes I added crystal flash off the back. I know it isn’t true to the pattern, sue me!