Articles

Buy a Shirt, Help Simms and TRCP Preserve Fish Habitat

by Ben Kryzinski - Tuesday, Aug 19th, 2014

The Simms Ebbtide fishing shirt.

Simms Fishing and the Theodore Roosevelt Conservation Partnership (TRCP) are teaming up in an effort to raise money to fuel efforts to conserve what the two companies call critical fish habitat. For a limited time, Simms will donate a portion of the proceeds from sales one of its best-selling fishing shirts to the TRCP.

Until August 28th, Simms will send a full 50 percent its revenue from sales of its Ebbtide fishing shirts (retail price $59.95) to the TRCP, with that money specifically slated for fish habitat conservation efforts. Regarding the partnership effort, Simms' president K.C. Walsh noted, “Helping conserve critical fishing habitat is something we are very concerned about at SIMMS. TRCP has always been at the forefront of assuring anglers will have great fisheries for generations to come.”

YETI to Offer Limited Edition Pink Coolers

by Ben Kryzinski - Wednesday, Aug 13th, 2014

The YETI Tundra 45 in pink.

YETI announced recently that it will be making a limited number of coolers available in pink, with the goal of supporting beast cancer awareness this October. This isn't the first time YETI has gone pink. The company auctioned off a one-of-a-kind pink Roadie last year, as part of a similar effort to raise money for the American Cancer Society. This year, YETI has added its most popular model to the mix and is making the pink models available to the public in greater quantities.

YETI will make both its 20 liter roadie and 45 liter Tundra series available in pink and will provide a donation to the American Cancer society. The donated funds will be used to help support cancer research and enhance patient support.

On top: 12 tips for catching more, bigger and more difficult fish on dry flies

by Todd Tanner - Monday, Aug 11th, 2014

Photo: Scott Berdahl

Over the years, I’ve had the good fortune to to fish some of the finest trout streams in North America, and to hang out with some of the most accomplished anglers on the planet. While I can’t share everything I’ve learned about dry fly fishing in one sitting, here are a dozen tips that will pay serious dividends if you take them to heart. (And as a bonus, they may have you humming along on the river.)

Bozeman Fly Fishing: The Making of a Reel

by Jesse R. Bussard - Friday, Aug 8th, 2014

Some time ago, I was introduced to several new products from an ambitious and innovative fly reel company from southwest Montana known as Bozeman Reel Company. Though Bozeman Reel Company has since expanded their offerings to include other fly fishing products and now goes by the moniker Bozeman Fly Fishing, their primary focus remains on their premium reels which are made entirely in Montana at their Bozeman headquarters. In early May I visited Bozeman Fly Fishing's headquarters to witness first-hand how their fly reels are made. Owner Dan Rice showed me around the machine shop, where we walked through the production process in detail from start-to-finish.

Attention to detail and high quality craftsmanship comes through in their production process – from the caliber of Montana-made materials they use in production to the careful inspection given throughout the entire process to ensure a consistent, superior finished product. And, as a fly reel company owned and operated by fly fisherman, Bozeman fly fishing knows very well how important a fly reel with a smooth, fish-stopping drag is to landing the big one.

Making a fly reel is complicated business. Each reel assembly is composed of 37 parts. According to Rice, eighteen of those, mainly major parts such as the spool, housing, drag knob, and handle, require some level of machining.

Review: Trout Magazine

by Steve Zakur - Thursday, Aug 7th, 2014

This past weekend I spent time camping along the Beaverkill nestled deep in a fold of the Catskills. With no cell phone service I had the opportunity to get caught up on my reading in between a little trout fishing, socializing and relaxing with the family. In the stack of dead trees that accompanied me was Trout magazine. Trout was fairly high in the stack, well above the well recognized "how to" periodicals. During the past few years I've come to have a keener appreciation for the writers who are closer to the literary end of the spectrum than the "hook and bullet" end. The Drake, Flyfish Journal and Gray's Fly Fishing issue (though I feel it's aging out) are my new staples. Trout's in that class too though that's a fairly recent development.

I first met Kirk Deeter in 2012 shortly after he was announced as editor of Trout Magazine. Kirk's vision for Trout, the in house magazine of Trout Unlimited, was to be of such high quality that folks would join TU just to get the magazine. That sounded awful ambitious.

A few months later I ran into Kirk again at TU's annual meeting. He handed me a copy of the latest issue just before it got dropped in the mail. It was the first copy that he had edited front to back and it was an interesting change of course most notably for the stunning front page - a black and white photo of a chinook salmon. But the changes ran deeper.