Cold Blue Nights (Fly Fishing Film)

Top Ten Guide to Fly Fishing (Lyons Press)

One of the most accessible guide books on the market, this guide not only provides all the information beginning and intermediate anglers need in order to start catching trout, the information is also presented in a quick and easy, highly-browsable format of top-ten lists.

Curious how to tie and use the ten best knots and rigging techniques? Ever thought about the ten most essential things to look for when selecting a new fly rod? What are the top dry flies for trout? What mistakes do most new anglers make when learning to cast?

A fun conversation starter and a set of streamside tips rolled into one, this lighthearted look at a serious sport will give beginners the value of solid instruction while more seasoned fly-fishers will enjoy quibbling with the author’s rankings and choices.

"I've never seen so much good advice in one place. All how-to fishing books should be written by people who work in fly shops." --John Gierach

Order A Copy Today!

Dumb Shit Asked At The Fly Shop (2012)

He who said "There is no such thing as a dumb question" has very obviously never worked in a fly shop. I love talking to those who love to fish...it is my job and I look forward to it every day. The things I enjoy the most are the questions. I never know what I am about to get. I take it as a challenge to have the answer. Like playing "Stump the Band". Often I am clueless, and I will admit defeat (instead of lying or making something up) but more often than not I am able to help, or redirect the fisherman and that gives me great satisfaction. But sometimes I am left speechless...  This past year was an exceptionally good one. I collected (verbatim) all of my favorites! Enjoy!


"I heard animals act weird when there is a lot of smoke in the air. Do you think the trout in the Big Thompson are being bothered by the smoke from the High Park fire?"

"Do you guys sell salmon fly midges?"

"I want to stick a couple flies in my hat. Are there special flies for that?"

"I'm constantly loosing flies. Do you have flies that don't keep coming off?"

"This leader is new! I've only been fishing with it for a month or two!"

"When you say this bead-head fly will sink...what does that mean?"

"Is this Colorado fishing license good for other states?"

"Hey, will you guys honor a $100 Cabelas gift card?"

"I need a new leader. My last one was junk...it had one end that was really thick and the other end was really skinny."

"If my dry fly is dragging on the surface, does that mean I have on too much floatant?"

"So...the dry fly hooks you sold me. I tested them at home and they all sink."

Woman pointing to photo of a tigerfish hanging on fly shop wall: "Is that a snapping turtle?"

Favorites from past years:

"Why do you guys sell a snowshoe rabbits foot...for good luck?"

"I'm fixing my septic system. Do you guys rent waders?"

"What fly should I put the floatant on? The dry fly or the leech?"

"Why is it so important that waders be waterproof?"

Best of all time!

Dude: "Excuse me, this may be a dumb question..."

Me: "Aw hell, dude...I guarantee it won't even make top three of the week! Shoot!"

Dude: "Is this the Frying Pan River and am I in Basalt?"

Me: "Uh...no. That is Boulder Creek and you are in Boulder."

Dude: "Oh shit. I was supposed to be at my buddies wedding in Basalt ten minutes ago."

Me: "I take back my previous statement."

Dude: "But...I was in Aurora, typed it into my phone and Google sent me here."

Carp Pro Online Magazine!

Read It Here!

Sunday Morning Movie

The View From Coal Creek (Reflections on Fly Rods, Canyons and Bamboo)

ABOUT THE BOOK

Noted blogger and fly fishing writer Erin Block just had to make a bamboo fly rod from scratch. As she writes:

Although I couldn't put my finger on just why, exactly. This, unlike most emotions regarding fly rods, wasn't a want, it was a need. To find out for myself why people fish bamboo, and why when they do, it verges on a religious experience. And also, to discover why, in a society that measures worth from profit and efficiency, do people still build bamboo rods. Bamboo rod makers appeared to take the long way around -- putting more miles on the odometer, so to speak...But as I came to find out, they also happen to have very rich eyes, and very full hearts. And as George Black writes.."Once they've put down roots, they tend to become trees."

What resulted is a personal, passionate, and unique journal of not just how a bamboo fly rod is made, from culm to varnish, but the motives of the people who make such works of art. The View from Coal Creek is a reflection on fly rods, fishing, and life seen from the vantage of a canyon in Colorado, but these are props in a larger story about life, love, and tradition. Erin Block is a young, powerful voice carrying the torch and passing on lessons, values, and history of this great, literary and vibrant sport.

If you love fly fishing, bamboo fly rods, and the long way home -- you will love this book.

December 2012, Hardcover, Limited Edition
$44.95 Retail Price -- SPECIAL $39.95

December 2012, Softcover
$21.95 Retail Price -- SPECIAL $17.50

Sunday Morning Movie

Sunday Morning Movie

Big Thompson Mid-November

Erin Block, David Goodrich and I fished the Big Thompson River yesterday. David came up from Colorado Springs the day before and spent a half day fishing the Thompson directly below the dam at Estes Park. He had a good day, so we went into our day with a fresh and reliable fishing report. Small stuff below the surface. Water way low…17 cfs. David had stayed up high, so I figured we would mix it up a bit and drift farther down the canyon (along highway 34). It would prevent a boring repeater day for David and possibly avoid other fishermen.

We spent the majority of the day on the water, and it was low and cold and the trout wanted the smaller stuff sunk down to them. For the brief period during the day when the sun was reaching the water a nice cloud of midges appeared over the pools, but I only saw two trout rise. Two different fish, neither one came up a second time, which would have possibly tempted me to discard my nymph rig. The water was a tad off-color, due—according to rumor—some construction going on in or around Estes Lake, so a midge pupa with a bit of flash seemed to work better.

Demons and Promises

Not long ago I was asked if I believed someone could be possessed by a demon. I shrugged and wondered where exactly the conversation was going and if there was enough wine left for me to get drunk or if I was going to have to move along. There was enough wine so I stayed for the story that followed the question. A spooky, first-hand account of a young man suddenly jumping to his feet and yelling during a Sunday school lesson. I guess the lesson was being conducted in an old, remodeled trailer and the room had gotten suddenly chilled before the outbreak...all poltergeist like...and the man's voice was deep and sinister and not his. It was a chilling story and I think I said something dumb to ruin a perfectly great ghost story, like most atheists do...did he have tourette's or something?

I then promptly forgot about the story. As most drunks do...

I forgot because I had to move on. I had a promise to keep. To take a friend out to catch her first carp on a fly rod. We had made vague plans earlier in the summer but, because her and her husband were busy running a well-known meadery in town, we just danced around the idea for so long that summer turned into November before we locked down a date. Friday morning. The day before a whopper snow storm was scheduled to slam into Colorado, so it was then or never...or, at least next spring, that may as well be forever away. But I had already hung up my carp gear for the year, at the end of October before the last bout of cold weather hit us. And I waited a bit too late the night before to go down into the basement to resurrect my carp rod and find my box of carp flies. I couldn't find it and I was tired and impatient and in a hurry and got tangled up in a pile of loosely-tied bags for recycling and next thing I know I'm curled up in the fetal position with my right leg sticking out at an odd angle.

My right knee has haunted my entire adult life. As I squirmed around on the cold, concrete basement floor trying my best not to pass out/scream like a dying rabbit/chew my own leg off...I had one of those movie montage flashbacks. My last year in an Army airborne unit, when I successfully convinced everyone around me that I was healthy, when I had only one knee. The right one had no ACL or meniscus left. I stayed drunk as much as I could and when I couldn't be drunk I would act so crazy no one noticed when I sprawled out under a log obstacle or on a darkened drop zone writhing around and making horrifying animal noises. It was just "Zee" and that fucker's crazy! Neither I nor the Army new any better and they let me back out to try to make a go of it in the civilian world as...basically a one-legged, violent drunk. My temper wrecked any relationships I made. My drinking destroyed my pickup truck and an innocent ash tree. And my intolerance for idiocy caused all of my G.I. Bill to get wasted on classes that meant nothing to employers. I did manage to survive, make enough money to eat, ending up in strange places with odd jobs. A carpentry gig for a log home company... hoisting 20-foot logs, hoping my legs would hold. Sometimes they wouldn't. Kodiak Island on a fishing boat, where I would have to tie myself to the gutting table to keep from being thrown from the fish-slimed deck into the Gulf of Alaska and a sure death.  And remote villages along the Yukon with one-armed native postmasters and dark-eyed meat thieves... guiding moose hunters.

Standing beside the Kateel—

rod in hand, wool hat on head

and chilled through to the core.

Crunchy tundra underfoot.

Snow dressed domes of beaver huts.

Frozen chunks of river foam.

The meat pole is standing bare.

The canned beans have long been had.

And the grayling won’t bite anymore.

Stuck alone with a wall tent

somewhere north of Galena—

closer to Russia than home.

It was at the end of the last moose hunt that my right knee finally ended my run. The freeze had come earlier than expected and we had to pack up camp into a couple boats and journey down a remote Alaskan river in search of a straight enough and deep enough piece of river to safely call in a float plane. In a day or two we did, but when hauling the boats up into the tree line above the high water line, to chain them to trees for the season, with the sound of our ride out getting louder and louder...my knee gave out. That demon reared its horrid head and shook me until I swore my leg had been torn completely off. As the float plane could only handle half our gear, the pilot and one passenger, I was forced to be on the first flight out, limping into the swift, frigid river with nothing but a two-piece fly rod tube for support. I was drenched, hypothermic and in total agony. But the pilot still had to taxi down river a ways, turn around and blast off back up the straight-away. It was when he tried to turn around that the floats got caught on a shallow gravel bar. He did his best to erratically gun the engine, rocking us back and forth to free us. But to no avail. The pilot turned to me and did his best to clearly explain what the situation was. It was simple; I get out of the airplane, unload gear on my own until we were light enough to rev off the sand bar…and then reload all the gear. Accomplishing this by crawling from the float plane to shore with loads of gear because I could not walk. Or I could real quick learn how to drive a float plane. He was serious. He was prepared to teach me to operate his cab. Right then and there. I considered it, but seeing as I had larger balls than a brain and that the effects of hypothermia had already begun to effect my hearing and other acute functions (and, the last time I drove I wrapped the vehicle around an ash tree) I elected to face the ice-cold river on my wounded knee. My memory of the event becomes blotched at best from this point forward. I remember being dropped off at a dock somewhere and low crawling down a dusty gravel road. And I remember attempting to bathe myself in a sink before catching a ride in the bed of a truck to the village tarmac. And being hit on by a native girl at the Anchorage airport. She was tending bar, but apparently was willing to do anything for a box of moose meat. I had no moose meat and doubt I could even understand English or Athabaskan at that point.

I, again, did learn to survive. With help. The VA hospital in Cleveland spent seven hours on my knee and sent me back out into the world with crutches and a bottle of pills. But they had exorcised at least the one demon.

That was nearly a decade ago.

I remembered all of these things lying on the cold basement floor…once again not able to stand. And it terrified me. But I had a promise to keep. A girl and a carp. And some lost box of flies somewhere on some shelf to find. Because, through agonizing trials comes perseverance. And endless tribulations comes stubbornness. And the best way to deal with promises is to keep them. And the best way to deal with demons is to, well…deal with them.

Madoka Myers with her first carp on the fly! 

(Helped only slightly by her gimpy guide on crutches.)

Sunday Morning Movie

Sunday Morning Movie

Sunday Morning Movie

Tip of the Week

Your fishing partner already knows how "amazingly pretty" these little wild rainbows are...trust me. Now back your ass out of the pool she is trying to fish!

The Last October Carp?

Last carp for the season...maybe? Last ones for the month of October, for sure. For me. And last aggressive fish in the shallows willing to turn on a fly and strike it like a bass. Being aware of what loomed on the weather forecast (snow, ice and cold) it was tops on the docket for the last day off before the cold front. Squeezing a few more in before the snow comes down.  

The water was low and clear and not as warm as what the sun on my neck suggested it could be. And the carp were spooky and not as stoked about a presumably easy to catch meal as I hoped. Not at first, anyway. But as the morning progressed and turned into the afternoon the sun warmed the water and the cold-blooded carp enough to boost their appetites and lube them up socially a bit. Like a generous swig from the Stranahan's bottle. Which...as I write this now (glancing out the window at a pile of snow) sounds really, really good.

The Park is Still Burnin'

The Rocky Mountain National Park (Fern Lake Fire) hit 1000 acres last night. Getting very close to my favorite part of upper Forrest Canyon...come on rain and snow and all you hard core fire fighters!

Learn More

Sunday Morning Movie

Tip of the Week

When showing a friend that nasty line burn you got from your new Sharkskin fly line...be careful how you present it.

Sunday Morning Movie

Tip of the Week

As tempting as the warm, black asphalt can be after a cold morning on the water...do your best to abstain. You can cause some serious damage to someones front wheel alignment.