By Kirk Deeter

Most fly anglers devote a lot of time and energy into honing their casts, as they should. The cast is what allows you to play the game in the first place. Without a good fly delivery, your chances of hooking a fish are minimal.

But the effort and focus shouldn't end as soon as that fly hits the water. In fact, I think that's when the real attention to detail should begin. How you drift your fly (presentation) is as important as how you cast your fly, and mending the line (moving the fly line upstream or downstream of your flies, depending on the currents, in order to eliminate drag) is the key to making that happen. [ Read Full Post ]

By Chad Love

I've always wondered what it would be like if one of those giant tanks full of fish you see at Cabela's and Bass Pro Shops were to break. Maybe someone testing out a rod might make an errant cast that hits the plexiglass just right, or perhaps some small structural issue suddenly becomes a large structural issue, or something completely unexplained occurs to precipitate a localized Bassageddon. That's exactly what happened recently at a Florida casino when a 13,000-gallon saltwater tank containing hundreds of fish - including a couple sharks - suddenly emptied.

From this story in the South Florida Sun-Sentinel: 

A little crack can cause a mighty mess — and a heap of disappointment. "The casino's closed today," Lucille Sfalanga told customer after customer Monday outside the Gulfstream Racing and Casino Park. A mysterious chink in the casino's floor-to-ceiling fish tank caused a deluge around 12:15 a.m. Sunday, forcing the two-story casino to close even while the village's shops, restaurants and racetrack remained open. On Monday, dehumidifiers and fans were at full blast, removing moisture from soggy carpets on both floors. Engineers were still trying to figure out what caused the leak, said Mike Couch, director of gaming at Gulfstream. [ Read Full Post ]

By Kirk Deeter

Our pal and frequent Fly Talker Koldkut recently sent me an interesting email about some problems associated with getting new people into the sport of fly fishing.

He pointed out that many people are intimidated by the prospect of going into a fly shop to learn from square one, even when those shops are offering free clinics and Fly Fishing 101 classes. I can tell you that many of the people who make and sell fly fishing products are doing their best to recruit newbies. (Though we can always do better. And please, spare me the "I don't care if more people fish because I want my space in the river" chatter because there's nothing wrong with getting people off the sofa and in the outdoors where, with luck, they'll learn to actually care about oceans, lakes and rivers.) [ Read Full Post ]

By Kirk Deeter

The American Fly Fishing Trade Association (AFFTA) recently commissioned the market research firm Southwick Associates, Inc., to do a study on retailers in the fly fishing industry. The results provide a clearer picture on the sport than we've had in a long time. Here are some tidbits you might find interesting:

- Total sales of all fly fishing products amount to just under $750 million, marking fly fishing as a niche endeavor. (For example, some brands of candy bars sell more than the whole fly fishing market combined.) [ Read Full Post ]

By Kirk Deeter

My favorite business stories in fly fishing are the ones that go something like this: Person genuinely loves fly fishing and realizes a need or an opportunity to make something cool, based on their experiences. Person then goes "all-in" with an investment to chase that goal. Person doesn't compromise their values, manufactures in the United States, and maintains a focus on innovation and the interests of the customer. Person's company is successful.

I'm pretty sure that's how the script is going to play out for Vedavoo, maker of slings, packs, bags and the like for anglers. Vedavoo is a small operation, but it made a strong impression a couple weeks ago at the International Fly Tackle Dealer trade show in Reno. (The name Vedavoo is an alternate spelling of “Vedauwoo”--an outdoor park with notable natural rock features in southern Wyoming; company founder Scott Hunter attended the University of Wyoming.)
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By Chad Love

A 28-year-old woman fishing a tournament in Hawaii reeled in a massive half-ton marlin that would have won the tournament and broken records in the process. But as it turns out, neither happened, thanks to good, old-fashioned honesty.

From this story in the Washington Post:

A 5-foot-9-inch woman tournament fishing in Hawaii waters fought a 12-foot marlin more than four hours before getting it on her team’s boat and weighing it at more than a half-ton — a would-be world record. But 28-year-old Molly Palmer is missing out on the glory and thousands in tournament prize money for one pesky reason: Her team’s honor code. Cheating would have been easy and tempting. The Big Island Invitational Marlin Tournament runs in part on an honor system and Palmer, her captain and crewmates put up roughly $9,000 to enter last week.But the Kailua-Kona angler said it wasn’t a question of whether or not to cheat — her team just wanted to reel in the big catch. So they disqualified themselves and Palmer’s crewmates helped pull the monstrous fish aboard.
[ Read Full Post ]