Author: William Luscombe

The Pacific Northwest is blessed with a plethora of sport fish species, both fresh and saltwater. Fly-fishing for them is exciting and productive, but to be consistently successful you need to know what flies to use and when to use them. This takes a knowledge of the fish you are pursuing and a knowledge of the foods they eat and how to imitate them. So rather than just tell you about my 10 favourite flies for the fish around here, I will do the reverse, I’ll start with each fish species and then give you a fly that works consistently.…

Here in the north, this time of year means no fly-fishing unless you brave the cold and chase sea-run cutthroats or open ocean salmon. Much of the time your eyelets freeze as you retrieve your line anyway and make it practically impossible to fish. That leaves us in a period of ice fishing, reading fishing magazines and watching reruns of our favorite outdoors shows on the tube. It’s also the perfect time to pull out your gear and do your annual gear maintenance and checks. Of course, you don’t have to live in a northern clime to do gear maintenance.…

Owning a fly vest is a personal choice. You don’t really have to have one to fly-fish. You can still go fly-fishing with a rod, reel, line and a few flies and in truth that is all you really need. As we mature into the sport though we tend to collect “stuff”. This “stuff” consists of everything from lengths of once-used monofilament leader and torn up old flies on still-good hooks, to extra spools of specialty fly lines that we only actually use once a decade but still insist on carrying with us at all times. Packing all this paraphernalia around in the pockets of our fishing jacket just doesn’t work after a while and that’s when we finally decide that we should invest in a fly vest; after all, what good is all this great stuff if we can’t find what we need when we need it?

Summer brings the fishing doldrums to most freshwater areas of British Columbia, including here on Vancouver Island, except for the bass and pike waters. It is a time for most fly-fishers to put away the rods, pack up the family and hit the beach. On the West coast though, fly-fishers still pack up their rods, only to throw them into the truck, then head out in pursuit of pink salmon. At this time of year, every fly-fisher and spin-caster capable of raising a rod is headed for the river mouths. Wading off the beaches and estuaries of the rivers, sometimes…

Every time I teach someone to fly cast, they struggle with distance. There are many reasons why that’s the case—from the rod being used, to the type of line being cast, or simply poor form. I’ve found that the main reason for these difficulties happening after learning the basics well is a struggle with the double haul. The double haul is a method of fly casting that is designed for distance. Paired with a weight-forward line and a rod with a good bottom end, the double haul can add a great deal of distance to your cast. The reason this…

Regardless of the type or the number of flies you want to pack around, you need a place to keep them. That means you’re going to need a fly box, and probably more than one. Over the years, I have progressed from one box for all my flies to one box apiece for my dry trout flies, my wet trout flies, my dry mayflies, my chironomids, and my Pacific salmon flies. When I go out to fish, I only take the boxes I need for the species of fish, the type of water, and the time of year when I…

Now that we’ve got our rods and lines altogether and we are ready to go fishing, we need a bunch of “stuff” to help us fish efficiently. This is where some of the real fun happens. Getting your “stuff” is like being six years old and turned loose in a candy store again. Obviously, you are going to need flies to fish with, but we will deal with those in more detail in other articles. Right now, we are going to talk about what we need to pack around with us routinely to make life easier while out on the…

Fly lines are generally around 25 to 30 yards long. That might seem like a pretty good distance, but believe me, it’s not very far when a fish wants to run away from you when it’s hooked. In addition, because the tip of the fly line is far too thick to tie a fly to, there needs to be another option. So, what to do? That’s why fishermen use backing, leaders and tippets. Backing A mistake many self-taught fly anglers initially make is tying the butt end of the fly line onto their reel arbor. That’s a bad idea. The…

Many people, especially beginners, find it baffling when they start looking at lines and rods and reels in combination with one another. It’s not all that complex once you understand the elements that control how they all fit together. The type of rod and reel to buy is dependent upon what “weight” of line you’re using. Line weight and function controls everything in terms of the rest of your tackle. The vast majority of fly lines are about 75 feet long, and they come in various weights, tapers, functions, and colors. Depending upon where you are fishing, what you are…

“How do I pick a fly rod?” It’s certainly a valid question, and although experienced fly-fishers often look at beginners who ask this with a wondrous eye, it is probably the first really good question that beginners ask. Fly rods are not complicated pieces of equipment. Like any other rod, they have basic components: the blank, butt section, tip section, ferrule, handle, guides, and reel seat. They also come in various “actions”— slow, moderate, and fast, as well as different lengths and weights. The rod blank is the rod itself without the handle, guides, or anything else. The blank can…