Who knew that saddle hackles could singlehandedly re-start the British rock invasion? Is there an entire untapped market here? Just wait until Fly Fishing Retailer in September… (It is this kind of thing that causes me to get behind on my e-mails.)

Sorry for the continued “radio silence” lately, I’ve been a bit buried with my new project in Washington and have gotten behind elsewhere. The following is a short piece on the skills on “Triple Shooting,” which covers three ways to lengthen line during an aerial cast. I hope that you find the post to be of use in your fly-fishing endeavors.

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Triple Shooting is a name used to describe a sequence of three shooting-line skills made consecutively as a cast progresses. As a whole, Triple Shooting consists of Slip Shooting, Back Shooting and Front Shooting, in that order. Triple Shooting allows line to be lengthened very rapidly and can help to cut down on false casting.

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Apologies for the lack of posts over the last week, but I’ve been on the road, finally ending up in Washington state (Woodland area). I’m doing some work out here, and will have more about that soon.

I’ll try to get something interesting up on the blog in short order. Thanks for your patience…

With California and Oregon now suspending the salmon harvest, I have been thinking about how my own life has been intertwined with salmon since my earliest years. I caught my first salmon (a modest pink) when I was a kid, but it captured my imagination, and I have pursued Pacific (and Atlantic) salmon with a fervor ever since.

Hearing the unsettling news from the West Coast also got me thinking of how such a once-vast resource was not only the center of various cultures, but also ecosystems, here in the lower 48. My mind often wanders, wondering what it would have been like to see the salmon runs that stretched so far south, and so far inland. Alaska certainly offers a modern glimpse into those days, but in some ways it seems to be its own special place, apart from the geography that defines much of what we think of as the “West” here in the U.S.

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The answer to the stream I.D. contest from April 5 is…Slough Creek in Yellowstone National Park.

Slough is famed for its meadows (First Meadow, Second Meadow, etc.) and native cutthroat, and is one of my personal favorites for dry flies. The initial vertical on the trail isn’t exactly a walk in the park (well, technically it is, I guess), but when the cutts are looking up and doing that classic, slooooooow slurping rise, I’ll scale a sheer wall to get a shot at them.

Thanks to all the FF & W readers who gave the contest a go, and a copy of the Equilibrium DVD will soon be on its way to the randomly chosen winner.

More contests coming soon, with more chances to win some tasty prizes. Keep watching!

(Update 04.11.08) The winner was Stu Sharpe. Congratulations, Stu, and enjoy your DVD.

A quick link (from the front-page of CNN.com): http://www.cnn.com/2008/US/04/07/salmon.collapse.ap/index.html

May not be surprising news to some FF & W readers, but I figure that it’s worth a read to those anglers not focused on the West Coast…

Look familiar? Name the stream, win a DVD.

I am sometimes asked where I got the Jack Unruh illustration that I use for my JB.com/FF & W blog headers. It came from my involvement with a company called Streamworks back in 1999 - 2000 (not the current company by the same name). As part of their dealer PR, the company commissioned Jack to do a series of fishing portraits of people involved, including Gary Loomis, my father, and me. The photo above (gotta love those early 90’s neoprenes!) was used as the basis for Jack’s portrait. Streamworks was sold a short time later, and the portrait passed to me as a gift.I have always admired Jack’s work, and count him as one of my long-time inspirations in illustration. It is a real treat for me to own one of his pieces, and I’m pleased to be able to use it on my Web site. (more…)

Puffer on the fly — The ultimate saltwater angling adventure! The fish shown here is only an average specimen; larger trophies await the prepared angler. The fly in the upper right is a Pink Boggle Head, unbeatable on bigger fish. The background has been removed and the angler masked to prevent possible ID of the ecologically sensitive location.

The saltwater world has been longing for a new angling challenge. Well, that challenge is here, eagerly awaiting those anglers with the skills and desire to pursue something new — trophy puffer on the fly.

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I recently spent a day in Chicago with my wife, Kelley, taking in the Homer & Hopper dual exhibit at the Art Institute. The Homer exhibit encompassed a significant piece of museum real estate, and had a sizable number of his “Adirondacks” and “Tropics” period paintings. And while his angling works were not the center of attention (I missed this exhibit in 2003), there were still enough of them to keep me focused as we wandered from room to room.

Among my favorites were Homer’s “Leaping Trout” (1889), “Two Men in a Canoe” (1895), “Life-Size Black Bass” (1904), and some of his preliminary efforts toward the famous oil, “The Gulf Stream.”

The “Leaping Trout” is one of Homer’s signature brook trout scenes, with the fish airborne in pursuit of an insect. Of all the pieces in the exhibit, it was perhaps this one that would be the most recognizable to the “man on the stream.” There is little mistaking the famous flying brook trout!

My favorite Homer painting at the exhibit was “Two Men in a Canoe.” It was a piece that I had not seen before, and its sense of reflected light was so “on” that I felt Homer truly embodied the angling moment as it would shine from memory. The scene is fairly straightforward: Two men in a canoe, seen in profile, on an Adirondacks lake. A feeding trout is hinted at by a single, nearby rise-form. The way Homer treats the afternoon light glinting from the rise, the canoe’s wake, and the general glare of the lake’s surface, speaks of a man who truly knew — and lived — such scenes.

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This announcement is also repeated on the front page of JB.com, but I wanted to post it here until the issue is resolved.

All Nature of Fly Casting books ordered with a check at the Minneapolis Great Waters Expo ‘08 have been shipped. For those who paid cash at the event (there were perhaps four to six people), please contact me (contact e-mail link is in the menu on the left)! The list of cash-only names was misplaced at some point (show staff was unable to locate it, either), and I want to be sure that you all get your books in a timely fashion. If you paid with a check, your book should be to you soon. Thanks, and my apologies for the trouble.

My personal copy of one of George’s texts, courtesy of George. Note the 1976 price…$1.50.
To me, it’s invaluable.

I received word that George Harvey passed away earlier this week at age 97. His life was one of great significance to many fly fishers, and his work on fly presentation and leader design gave rise to the widely used term “Harvey-style.” His long-term, direct education of thousands of anglers and his continued appearance at shows until quite recently, made George a living legend.

I first met George when I was kid, and when my father introduced me, George gave me a copy of his then-recent book, Techniques of Fly Tying and Trout Fishing (1976). I remember the moment, and George signed something very kind to me in the front. The book has been a cherished part of my library since that day.

George will be missed by many people, including me. I hope that future generations of anglers keep sight of who he was and what his name meant to the sport throughout so much of the 20th century (and beyond).

I think I’ll tie up a few “Harvey-style” leaders in George’s honor, and fish them with a Black Ant secured with a Harvey Dry-Fly Knot. I do believe he’d appreciate that…

As a quick note for those who have been interested in the Tarpon Cay teasers here on FF & W, the full video is now up on YouTube. We had a great time shooting the video, despite some rather tough weather (including the approach of Hurricane Dean). No really big fish (didn’t expect any), but plenty of “baby” and “junior” action. Enjoy.

Hey, if you can’t make it good, make it red, right? Photo #1 was indeed straightforward in its composition (and used red), but when you’re a kid, selling anything to a real magazine is pretty exciting.

This year’s early season appears to have put me in a nostalgic mood. First there was Trout #1, and now there is Photo #1. This is the first photo (1980) that I ever managed to sell (to illustrate an article by my father). It was taken on a northern Wisconsin stream that has been a family haunt for many years. The angler (note the classic Seal Dri rubber waders!) is my father (GB). Growing up with GB meant many things, among them an education in f-stops. I never really pursued photography like perhaps I should have, but at least my early “real-world” schooling gave me the ability to illustrate articles and slide shows through the years. My wife, Kelley is the real photographer, and still shoots (mostly) film, despite the temptations of digital (we’ll see how long she can hold out).

Maybe I’ll see if I can re-use Photo #1 in an article this year, just for old time’s sake…

I promised to bring more art to FF & W, so here it is. Starting this week, there will be a new category on FF & W called “The Gallery” This category will be dedicated to my own art created in various media. I’ll try to keep it as regular a feature as I can. Some of what you see will be available for purchase, and will be sized for easy framing. For example, the fish below is sized at 8 X 10-inches, and a variety of inexpensive, pre-made frames are available from craft stores in that size. If you are interested in a piece, let me know via the e-mail link in the left-side menu. Thanks, and enjoy the “The Gallery.”

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The start of early trout season here in the Driftless Region of Wisconsin has me thinking both forward and back. I got my angling start in the Driftless Region, some three-and-a-half decades ago. One day, on a stream near Madison, my father hooked a tiny brown trout and handed me the rod. I was not even two, and had no idea of what was going on, but my father tells me that when I saw the fish, and then realized that I was attached to it, my eyes lit with a fire that has not abated since.

The following summer, in Montana’s Gallatin River drainage, I made a flailing, two-handed “cast” with a little fiberglass rod and a Red-Brown Nymph, and something pulled back. Much screaming ensued — some of which may have been my own — and soon my father was winding and clicking his way through a whole roll of Agfachrome. It was Trout #1:

Gallatin drainage, August, 1972: Boy meets ‘bow.