By Tim Romano

Imagine you're driving to your favorite river for a day of float fishing. It's an hour and a half drive from your home. It's spring and the weather and water flows (CFS) are temperamental. The problem is you forgot to check the conditions before you left. In the past you would have kept driving and crossed your fingers.

Now, there's an App for that. All you have to do is pull out your Iphone, and viola realtime data at your fingertips. At last count there were close to 360 fishing applications over at the Apple "App" store. Granted, most of these are simply games, but many others compile real time data helping you decide where to fish, what to fish for and the best way to do it. There's information from tidal buoy's, gaging stations, and weather stations. Forgot how to tie a surgeons loop? There's an app for that. Curious about matching a hatch on a specific river? There's an app for that.

By Kirk Deeter

As much as I'm enjoying watching the Winter Olympics, I must admit that I think "bonus curling coverage" is an oxymoron. That's not a sport. That's a game. Anything you can do while you drink beer should not qualify as an Olympic sport. But if the Olympics want curling in the mix, why not fly fishing?

I wonder who would win medals in the various fly fishing disciplines. Not just that dopey Euro-nymph stuff they do at the fly fishing world championships. Also some exciting, made-for-television events:

Long distance casting into a wind machine... Gotta think the team from the Bahamas would dominate. Maybe Argentina would win silver. Belize takes bronze.

Following up last fridays post on farmed salmon I couldn't resist this story from New York Times reporter, Michael Tortorello about a growing trend in the do-it-yourself gardening realm called "Aquaponics".

Here's how it works in a nutshell.  You build a fish tank and fill it with anything from tilapia to trout. You feed the fish. The fish naturally have to make waste.  Fish waste and and water is pumped from the fish tank to what's called a "flood tank" - much like the holding tank on the back of a toilet. The nutrient rich water from the flood tank is fed to a small garden or grow bed of pea gravel and whatever type of edibles you'd like to eat. The plants use the water and nutrient-rich fish waste to grow.  The oxygenated and cleaned water is then drained back to the fish tank as clean water, starting the process all over again. Check out this slide show on the process. Or you can watch a video here.

By Joe Cermele

In fishing there are rules that apply to all species in all bodies of water. Know what's behind you before you cast. Never reel against the drag. Keep constant pressure on the fish. We seem to have no problem following most of these fishing commandments, but there are also many that slip through the cracks more often than not. They are the rules that should absolutely become habit, yet they are overlooked in the heat of the moment. Here are the three no-brainer rules that I disobey most.