Ben Kryzinski's blog

Nissan trashes a stream in new Frontier pickup ad

Corporations continue to teach outdoor goers the wrong kind of lessons
Screen capture from the now-pulled Nissan Frontier advertisement (Image credit: Nissan).

It would seem that the throngs of outdoor newbies aren’t the only ones in the woods who don’t have the first clue how to behave in the wild. Just this past week, Nissan, in its efforts to market its 2022 Frontier pickup, showed that it, too, is oblivious to the unwritten rules that govern the use of wild places.

Photo: The Orvis Company

Can you imagine fishing and hunting over 250 days per year? Having the drive (or the time) to be on the water and in the woods that often, year after year, is likely fairly hard to imagine even for most die-hards out there. But what about at 90 years old? For Leigh H. Perkins, who purchased The Orvis Company over 50 years ago and turned it into the expansive fly fishing, hunting and outdoor lifestyle brand it is today, more than 250 days a year spent hunting and fishing isn't hard to imagine at all—because at 90, he's still doing it.

Patagonia Photography and Fly Fishing Workshops: Mar 19-29

Up your photography game while visiting and fishing northern Patagonia
Taken on a small creek near El Salamontes Lodge in Chilean Patagonia (photo: Earl Harper).

Ever come back from a weeklong fishing trip excited to show everybody all of the wonderful photos you took, only to find that none of them look quite the way you expected them to? Don't worry, you're not alone. The ability to capture the moment on the water with your camera isn't about how fancy (and expensive) your camera is, it is about having the right skill set. Photographers make pictures, not cameras.

The fly fisher's recipe for Black Friday and Cyber Monday success

A simple guide for a fool-proof holiday weekend
Photo: Mike Sepelak

Black Friday and Cyber Monday, over the last decade or so, have evolved from above-average sale events to firestorms of buying and selling where store goers clamor for some of the best deals and prices of the year. They've become veritable consumer holidays, where all other pursuits are set aside and attention is turned almost solely to purchasing. But with the growth of these consumer bonanzas, the landscape has become increasingly crowded and difficult to navigate, and having a game plan before setting out can be the secret to success.

Is the Bahamas fly fishing economy circling the drain?

New release from the BFFIA confirms the worst of speculations
Photo: Trish Hartmann

Since late June, when word first circulated that the Bahamian Department of Marine Fisheries was considering a draconian proposal that would drastically limit or effectively end do-it-yourself (DIY) angling trips and concentrate power and governance over the Bahamas' almost $150 million dollar per year sport fishing industry in the hands of a few select individuals with entrenched personal interests, the assumption has been that — once the light of public opinion shined on what was afoot, once the potential i

Should Yellowstone eradicate trout in Soda Butte Creek in order to restore its native cutthroat population?

Drastic measures may be in store for one of America's greatest trout streams
Soda Butte Creek in Yellowstone National Park.

Soda Butte Creek in Yellowstone National Park is widely regarded as one of the most beautiful trout streams in the entire world. Throughout its reaches, anglers can fish for cutthroat and cutthroat-rainbow hybrid (cuttbow) trout, and its upper reaches holds brook trout that rise eagerly to dry flies. Soda Butte is a healthy, vibrant fishery. But the presence of brook trout, an invasive species, has many worried for the troubled, native Yellowstone cutthroat trout.

Is the Lily Camera your new fishing buddy?

Haven't seen the Lily camera yet? If your jaw drops, you're not alone
Will the Lily camera be coming along on your fishing trips?

For many of us, digital image capture has become an integral part of our outdoor excursions, whether to fish, hike, bike or what have you. This is due mostly to technological advancements that have made image capture cheaper, simpler and more affordable. And each of these technological these leaps has forever changed the way we record and share the memories we create when we're out in the wild. The latest of these -- even if it is more of a hop than a leap -- may be the Lily Camera which, since its introduction a few weeks ago, has made a massive splash.

If you're compulsive about filling out March Madness brackets and a fisherman, Cheeky Fly Fishing may have mixed up your all time favorite cocktail. Cheeky's fifth annual March Madness: Road to the Final Fish pits 64 different species of fish against each other in a college hoops-style bracket and gives entrants a chance predict which fish will end up in the sweet sixteen, elite 8, final four and so on down to the "final fish." As in past year, Cheeky will donate all proceeds from the event to benefit The Bonefish and Tarpon Trust and Casting for Recovery.

Up for grabs for the entrants with the best brackets is a horde of prizes from the likes of Patagonia, Sage, Fishpond, YETI, Post Fly, Kast, Loon Outdoors, Montana Fly Company, Kast, ARC, a whole host more and, of course, Cheeky Fly Fishing. Prizes range from big things like rods and reels to smaller items like boxes of flies and apparel.

For years, we've been building our own loops into sink tips via whipped loops, allowing us to hit trout and steelhead streams with sink tips of many different weights and lengths. Typically, we use different colored thread to help distinguish tips of different weights. The loops are relatively easy to build and when reinforced with UV knot sense are actually quite strong. While these loops have generally worked well, they often don't turn out as nice and neat as we'd like, and the thread wraps take a beating over time and have failed on us on more than one occasion. The alternative to whipped loops is welded loops which, while many anglers think can only be created by the manufacturer at the factory, can actually be made very easily at home.

A new video by RIO highlights the process and, with RIO's recent addition of colored (by weight) InTouch Level T sink tip material, has us a bit giddy about the idea of revamping our sink tip arsenal with vast array of color-coded tips in varying lengths with neat, manufacturer-quality welded loops.

Earlier this week, we announced via social media the prizes for the second week in our 5 Weeks of Fly Fishing Stocking Stuffers giveaway. For those of you that missed the details on social media, this week we'll be giving away a set of Goat Head Gear Sole Spikes to five winning anglers.

If you're not familiar with Sole Spikes, now is a particularly good time of year to remedy that. Sole Spikes are perhaps best though of as premium wading boot studs without the premium price tag and paltry stud count that typically accompanies packs of high-end studs. With winter conditions setting in across the country, wading conditions have become treacherous not only in our streams but increasingly so along their banks. So, if your boots aren't already studded up, they probably should be.

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