I’ll fish any fly. Really, I’ll fish anything. I have zero hang ups about synthetic materials or fluorescent colors. I don’t care if the fly is fur and feathers or nylon and silicone. If a plastic minnow caught more trout than a Pheasant Tail nymph, I’d fish it. But the Pheasant Tail is better. Trust me. I’ve fished a lot of nymphs and too many plastic minnows.

Killing trout is easy. The actual act, at least. I use a four-inch Mora knife for all my trout work, and even its light birch handle has plenty of heft for the job. For a hand-span length trout, one or two sharp raps above the eyes triggers that electric death-shudder, the final sparks of current, and the trout is perfectly limp in hand for the rest of the cleaning process. No twitches, no gill movement, nothing. If I’m lucky there’s some wild mint along the streambank to wrap the fish in before sliding it into my creel.