Newsletter
Floods, anarchy, and river gods
The season kicks off with a rush of fun, with the TroutFest agenda dropping, a little soliloquy, a report from our book club, and my first significant fish of the new season.
Nick Parish
Forever seeking flow.
TroutFest 2025
TroutFest 2025: The schedule drops
We're just over a month away from TroutFest 2025 in Maupin, OR, and the Deschutes River Alliance has released the first schedule of events.
Read by the River
Read By the River: James C. Scott's In Praise of Floods
Saving dolphins, propitiating river spirits, and the future of history
Newsletter
Fish around and find out
Ten ways to make fly-fishing a bigger part of your life
Learn
Pillar 1: Mindset
Start here. Why do we fish? How do we venture boldly into the outdoors?
Learn
Pillar 2: Environment
Where do fish live? How can we find them? All about watersheds, rivers, and all those who live in them.
Learn
Pillar 3: Tools
What stuff do I need? Less than you think.
Learn
Pillar 4: Technique
Casting, fly presentation, dry flies, nymphing, streamers and more.
Learn
Pillar 5: Conservation
How to steward these gifts for the next generation
Learn
Pillar 6: Connection
Building your support network inside the sport
Learn
Take your time: Ten ways to make fly-fishing a bigger part of your life
We have a motto around here: "Make fly-fishing a bigger part of your life." Here are ten ways to work in more time on the water, and time spent feeling fishy.
Newsletter
Hands off, or hands-free?
Yet sometimes you have to get a little dirt on your hands.
Writing
This season's most essential piece of fly-fishing gear
The dirt-cheap wonder-tool any angler can use to become legendary.
Newsletter
No drag, just drift
Striving to get even with the flow
Learn
The Intro to Fly Fishing class in the spotlight
A short video introduction to the Portland Community College Intro to Fly Fishing course, courtesy student-angler Nathaniel Chapman
Newsletter
Vivid indicators of life
Wading for caddis, fishing nymphs with suspenders
Newsletter
Fish on film
Roll cameras, because the Fly Fishing Film Tour came to town.
Writing
The Oscars: CFS' 2025 Fly Fishing Film Tour Awards
There are four questions a pretty good fly-fishing film has to answer in order to be considered truly great.
Newsletter
Rolling your own
If you wish to make a fly rod from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
Newsletter
River reads, post-hibernation edition
Grand Canyon dreaming, communing with the fishes, Jackson County's finest, Tokyo shopping, and a great smallmouth bass learning opportunity
Writing
Hibernation reads, 2025
When we can't fish and make stories, we read stories. Sometimes those are fly-fishing stories, and sometimes they're not. Here are three that rolled across the bedside table, from the Grand Canyon to the Mariana Trench to the Carhartteratti of Jackson Hole's Persephone Bakery.
Newsletter
Stand up and tell 'em! 📣
A gentle nudge to find your voice in conservation and activism.
Newsletter
Don't get GASed 💨
Snow Peak launches a fly-fishing line, avoiding GAS, we find the safest place on the Oregon Coast to be in a tsunami, and more.
Newsletter
Meanderings: Following the thalweg from the Willamette to the Seine
First flies, finding the thalweg, good eau in Paris, and some riparian art
Newsletter
Leaky waders and slinky links
Here's another thing to do this winter: Fix your waders. And, while you're at it, get stoked with a visit to one of the fly-fishing film fests, and generally click your heart out with some buttery links.
Newsletter
Immerse yourself with Kwintesencja
Take fifteen minutes, and be transported.
Newsletter
Watersheds and watching flies
Zoom out to conserve, zoom in to observe, zoom over to the Grand Fir tonight to have a drink and a bite.
Newsletter
Creek Freaks and Trout Whisperers: Advocacy from the Deschutes to the Chattahoochee
100 subscribers, Maupin in May, the DRA's Deschutes fight expands, a new blueprint for anadromous activism, and a club report from ATL.
Newsletter
A tale for the turn of the year
Wish 2025 an angler's welcome with some intention setting, saying goodbye to Jimmy Carter, summer meetup dates, and the anatomy of a fly-fishing rig
Writing
Remembering Jimmy Carter, our greatest fly-fishing president
Many presidents have fished, but few had the soul of an angler.
Newsletter
Maupin Meetup 2025
Come one, come all, to the 2025 Current Flow State summer meetup at TroutFest in Maupin, Oregon!
Newsletter
Read By the River, 2024
Sometimes, literally. The five favorite (mostly) fly-fishing books I read this year
Newsletter
From runway to river
Fly-fishing fashion icons, Joe Pera, final slots for winter classes, and more.
Writing
Fly-fishing fashion: Streetwear goes streamside
Are kook fits in? Honestly, the only drip I know is when you're wading deep and you dunk your hat.
Newsletter
Finding your fly lab
Another critical element in establishing your home waters: having a place to test things out. Plus a new book from Robin Wall Kimmerer and the many (gnarly) faces of lamprey.
Newsletter
Avoid this one mistake when buying your first fly rod
How's that for a clickbait title? The CFS first-fly-rod buyers' guide, Winter classes open now, and a push against crude fly names.