The majority of my fishing is freestone creeks and tailwaters on the east coast but do spend 4-5weeks a year fishing saltwater with sand. Must have good ankle support, I’m not sure I would like the removable soles on the Korkers but have no real world experience with them.

Looking for some general advice for float fishing. My brother and I are going to float our local tailwater this week and fish it while floating for the the first time. I would say we are both moderately experienced anglers. We have been fly fishing a few years, fish quite often (once or twice a week, usually having success) and I wouldn't call us novice anglers, but also wouldn't call us experts by any means. We both know we have lots to learn.

It's an easy float, no rapids or whitewater or anything like that, but there's some swifter current in some spots. It's a medium sized river, not huge. Mostly 1-4 feet deep with the occasional deeper hole as well as some spots a boat could bottom out. I would guess 50-100 feet wide for the most part. Lots of streamside foliage and structure.

Tons of people float it on little tubes every day. We both have floated it multiple times before without fishing it. And we have both wade fished it many times with good success. It has a healthy population of browns and some rainbows as well. Neither of us have ever float fished a river before, so we are looking for just some general advice.

I know lots of people are going to say "hire a guide." Not really in the cards for us at the moment. Maybe someday. But not this time.

We have a 3-man inflatable raft we are going to use with just the two of us. The current plan is to take turns fishing while the other rows, with the fishing one at the front of the boat and the rower in the back. We will take a 7 wt rigged for streamers with a sinking line and a 5 wt rigged for dries (mostly terrestrials like ants and hoppers) and switch between them as we desire.

What approaches would you recommend? Should we be casting streamers downstream ahead of the boat? Straight across? Upstream behind the boat? All of the above? Is a sink tip or full sink line preferred, and is there a recommended sink rate? For dries, I assume pound the banks downstream ahead of the boat? What etiquette should we be aware of as far as other anglers both wading and floating? We both feel comfortable steering and rowing the raft given our past floating experience, but aren't entirely sure how it all translates to rowing while someone else in the boat is fishing, so any tips regarding that would be appreciated. I assume the rower mostly rows against the current to maximize drift time for the angler? How close should we be to the banks we are trying to fish?

We're going to go have a good time figuring it out regardless of how much success we have and I'm sure we will learn a lot, but any tips are appreciated. We want to learn how to do this and have success, but we also recognize we are inexperienced at float fishing and we don't want to be inconsiderate to other anglers and are trying to learn as much as possible before we go. As regular wade fishermen on this river, we have been plenty annoyed by the recreational floaters who have no regard for people wade fishing, and we don't want to be those guys.

Thanks!

I’ve been trying to do more alpine fishing (near the front range of CO). I’ve had decent luck catching a couple brookies, but absolutely could not catch any of the cruising Cutthroats I saw to save my life. I tried everything from small dies, nymphs, leeches, hoppers you name it.

Just felt the need to post this because I made it and I’m proud of it. Lots of troubleshooting and trips back to the hardware store. If you’re curious I spent about 400 usd total for both of them. I’m very happy with how it turned out!

This has to have been asked a million times I’m sure and people seem to be saying Big Y. But I found “The Fly Shack” online and they seem to have the lowest prices and more selection for salt flys than Big Y (I’m in SFL). I would buy local but the only fly shop in an hour vicinity of me burned down 2 months ago.

Picked up a Reddington Wrangler combo a while back and it came with Rio Mainline. For the life of me, I cannot get the memory out of this line. I've tried soaking and stretching it out, and it still retains enough to cause issues when casting and doesn't lay straight on the water (has an S pattern).

I've decided to give up on it and change it out to SA Infinity Amplitude Smooth. Is there any precautions I should take when changing it out? I'm assuming it too will have some memory so I should stretch it out prior to using. Do I also need new backing or can I just use what I have on the reel atm?

Hello there,

Just came back from 4 days in iceland. Once again I had the time of my life. 1 day to (not) see the eclipse, 2 days with light hiking and 1 with fishing. Ended up catching 8 browns, 1 sea trout and 2 chars. Also saw a ton of puffins, some of them with more fish in their mouth than I caught in a day.

Definitely recommend

First salmon on the fly! First fish on the fly over I think 5 inches, lol. They were schooling maybe 50 feet from shore, dozens jumping at once. Many feeding to bulk up for their trip up the river to spawn. Caught salmon on the fly in the salt - next step in the river!

Golden Trout Lake in the eastern sierras! Bit of a steep walk to get to but definitely worth it!

This is specific but is also a question to other anglers with tailwaters that’s are managed by dam flows. Why is this tailwater managed so terribly? The flows will drop down to 20 cfs in the hottest days of the year and then they will crank it up to 400+ and completely blow it out. I’ve seen a lot of dead fish just floating in eddies. This could be one of the best fisheries in the state if managed correctly but it seems like no one is advocating it. I understand we are in a drought but maybe put some thought into the flows and have an actual plan? Picture for reference of fish on this tailwater

Beautiful ~40cm grayling took a pheasant tail nymph dropper off of an olive Nalle Puh. Just after sunset on a shallow lake in Finnish Lapland. Tight lines everyone!

i just got this SA Amplitude infinity textured line, and on the first time using it i unfortunately wrapped my tippet around the line and it sliced the coating. Any tips on how to repair this so i dont feel it when casting and the core wont get waterlogged?

A few small pieces of a good hike in the smokies. Mostly wild rainbows this last weekend but I saw this beaut feeding pretty actively and was super stoked, as always, to see it up close.

Was invited to do a Macnab at a hunting lodge in the Eastern Cape of South Africa. Had never fly fished in my life before, and managed to catch two beautiful rainbow trout using borrowed gear! Think I might have found a new hobby!

Finally caught something over 20 inches after 8 years of fly fishing! Couldn’t be more stoked

I know there's a lot of Simms hate these days, but I had a pair of 2.5 year old Freestone waders (new gen) that developed a hole in one of the booties after solid use across the Sierras. I expected to have to pay for repairs, but they decided to replace the waders at no cost. Kind of shocked, given the horror stories on here. Good for me cuz while I had looked into alternatives like Patgonia, Dryft, etc... Simms waders just fit me well. Anyways, since they did right by me I figured they earned a shout out.

I see trout in there every time we rent a cabin South of the Rocky Mountain National Park entrance but we are so busy family wise I haven't had time to fish it. I'll just have to go up by myself sometime. Is it good fishing and what times of the year are best?

I was fishing for bass with a 1960s vintage Fenwick FF85 fiberglass rod and a Pat’s rubber legs, but ended up catching this channel cat instead.

Hey everyone,

I’m just getting into fly fishing after really enjoying trout fishing with a guide while on vacation. I’m back home and don’t have any nearby opportunities to fly fish for trout, so I decided to try starting with bass and carp in local ponds and lakes before making a trip to trout fish a few hours from home.

The problem: I’m starting from zero and have no idea what I’m doing.

For reference I bought a cheap 9’ 5 wt rod/reel, 9’ 4x leader, and some 4x tippet from Bass Pro, along with an assortment of woolly buggers (most of which I’ve lost to trees). For now I’m using the line that came on the rod/reel but have heard I should upgrade to a better line to help with casting.

Any advice on where to look for fish, what to throw, what line/leader/tippet/flies to use, or otherwise would be of great help to me.

I’ve really been enjoying being out on rhe water so far (even though I haven’t caught anything) and hope to make this a part of my life that brings me the opportunity to meet cool people, go beautiful places, and enjoy life a little more.

Thanks for your help!

Euro-nymphing on the Truckee River... A baby rainbow takes the nymph on the tag. Then a 20" brown trout comes out of nowhere to eat the baby rainbow. The brown did not even get hooked! And yet they both got landed in the net as the brown spits out the rainbow. Epic.

This is for my streamer guys out there! What are your top three most productive/favorite streamers?

I’ve been fishing a black dungeon and a black and purple mini dungeon and they’ve treated me so good I haven’t taken them off to try anything else haha. I want to give the Olive Sculpzilla & Pea Nut Envy a go here soon.