Articles

Gear we love right now: January 2024

What's working on and off the water, right now

by Hatch Magazine - Sunday, Jan 28th, 2024

Photo: Hatch Magazine.

Fly anglers are overloaded with gear choices—rods, reels, boots, waders, lines, packs, bags, boxes, vests, apparel and more. It seems harder and harder to know what's worth coveting and what's worth ignoring. Gear reviews are a great way to explore in-depth what might be right for you, but not every piece of gear is suited to a full-length review and, even if it were, there's simply too much of it to get to. With that in mind, we periodically showcase what's working for us right now, to hopefully offer more helpful feedback on gear that's worth a second look.

The sound of thunder

Lessons learned at the School of Hard Knocks

by Tim Schulz - Tuesday, Jan 23rd, 2024

Photo: Uncredited.

Time was a film run backward. Suns fled and ten million moons fled after them.
—Ray Bradbury, A Sound of Thunder

The sign on the wall caught my attention the way a Mepps silver spinner sometimes catches a trout’s:

Ignite Your Day With the Sunrise Burrito

Conservation groups clash over how to save Alaskan king salmon

With Chinook salmon populations continuing to struggle, is it time to list king salmon under the Endangered Species Act?

by Chris Hunt - Saturday, Jan 20th, 2024

Chinook salmon (photo: USFWS / cc2.0).

A conservation non-profit is asking the National Marine Fisheries Service to list a host of Gulf of Alaska Chinook salmon populations — known more commonly as king salmon — as “threatened” or “endangered” under the U.S. Endangered Species Act, and to designate critical habitat for dwindling king stocks in southern Alaska waters.

The truth about false casting

The conventional wisdom you've heard about false casting may not be particularly wise

by Todd Tanner - Friday, Jan 19th, 2024

Photo: Todd Tanner

If you spend much time reading about fly fishing, or hanging around with other fly fishers, you’re likely to run across a common theme in our sport.

“We false cast too much. Stop it.”

That admonition to limit or curtail our false casting is frequently followed with a bit of home-spun angling wisdom. “You won’t catch fish with your fly in the air. False casting is a waste of your time. Get your fly in the water.”

Sounds like great advice, doesn’t it? Stop false casting. Make sure you fly is on, or in, the water. Catch more fish.

New fly fishing gear: January 2024

What's new on the water this month

by Hatch Magazine - Wednesday, Jan 17th, 2024

Skwala's new Backeddy waders (photo: Skwala Fishing).

The weather may be screaming winter, but gear and soft-goods manufacturers are busy launching their spring lineups in anticipation of warmer weather and anglers getting back on the water in the weeks ahead.

This month, we’re shining some light on two new pairs of feature-packed waders, new rods and reels, hard-working apparel, and more.