by Kirk Deeter

John Merwin's blog post the other day referenced a book by Pat Dorsey (Tying and Fishing Tailwater Flies). So I thought I'd follow up with an "On The Spot" interview I did with Pat at the recent International Sportsmen's Expo in Denver.

Pat and I are old friends. In fact, back when we were in our early thirties, I was co-authoring a book on fishing guides, and Pat was one of our first "volunteer" subjects. He showed me Cheesman Canyon, the Williams Fork, and Dream Stream section of the South Platte in South Park. And he did it for gas money, despite the fact that we didn't have a publisher committed or anything (it was an excuse to go fishing). The book turned out to be Castwork, which boosted my outdoor writing career. It's out of print now, but you can read excepts at MidCurrent.
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by Joe Cermele

While cruising the aisles at the Somerset Fly Fishing Show in New Jersey this past weekend, I stumbled upon the booth of artist Jeff Currier. Jeff's awesome work has appeared on many a Simms T-shirt, but he also sells custom-painted fly boxes and coffee mugs featuring his many fish designs on his website. What caught my eye on his table, however, was this pair of canvas slip-ons all markered up with a nice hook-jaw brown trout. I will admit that in my younger days, I rocked a pair of Vans checkered slip-ons now and again. While I like them, I don't think I have it in me to wear slip-ons anymore, but how about you? Can you see a couple brown trout on your feet, or is this just too hipster for your taste?

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by Joe Cermele

Here's the deal. You are on a gorgeous trout stream with 7 extremely beautiful women that happen to be competing for your undivided attention. However, you have to teach them to fly fish. None of the them know how to fly fish or really care to learn. Oh, and these gals all hate each other, too. Now that you have the facts, do you see the situation in the clip below as a dream come true or a nightmare?

Note: I could have given you the whole 14-minute segment of this video from the "The Bachelor," but this edited version is far more enjoyable. Have a great weekend.

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by Tim Romano

This weeks caption contest proved to be a very popular one with 264 captions being written. This in turn made it difficult to pick a winner for the tickets to the Fly Fishing Film Festival, Fly Fishing Film tour (in the city closest to him or her), a gift certificate for ANY Scientific Anglers fly line he or she wants, two F3T and Upslope Brewery Pint Glasses, two Film Tour hats and a Scientific Anglers Waterproof System X fly box.
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by David Draper

Last Friday, at McCarran International Airport in Las Vegas, while waiting for the weekend shift of working girls to deplane, I picked up a bottle of water and some reading material for my flight home. On the rack, there were the usual periodicals that often make their way into my carry-on: The Atlantic (which my swollen head couldn’t fathom at that moment); Surfer (not really the inspiration I needed for a trip home to Nebraska), and Esquire (didn’t want to be seen reading a magazine with a picture of Bill Clinton on the cover).

What I did find was a copy of Saveur, a food magazine whose Jan/Feb issue annually lists their Top 100 people, places, and ingredients for the food-obsessed. The Saveur 100 issue serves as great inspiration in the kitchen and fuels many a daydream for food-related road (and plane) trips should I ever win the lottery. It’s the kind of best-of list where you’ll find meatloaf next to something called mugua ji, or a treatise on the Czech Republic’s microbrews matched with Frito Pie.
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by John Merwin

One of the hot “new” things in flyfishing is chasing muskies with a fly rod. I highlight the word “new” because, as I’ll show you shortly, there’s nothing really new about it. First, though, as to the musky in the photo. Back in June of 1998, I fished some Wisconsin musky rivers with Scott Bestul (our Whitetails columnist and Whitetails 365 blogger) and guide Ron Gehrke. That state has some 711 musky lakes, most of which are pounded hard by musky fanatics fishing from larger boats.
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