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.
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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: James C. Scott's In Praise of Floods
Saving dolphins, propitiating river spirits, and the future of history
Fish around and find out
Ten ways to make fly-fishing a bigger part of your life
Pillar 1: Mindset
Start here. Why do we fish? How do we venture boldly into the outdoors?
Pillar 2: Environment
Where do fish live? How can we find them? All about watersheds, rivers, and all those who live in them.
Pillar 3: Tools
What stuff do I need? Less than you think.
Pillar 4: Technique
Casting, fly presentation, dry flies, nymphing, streamers and more.
Pillar 5: Conservation
How to steward these gifts for the next generation
Pillar 6: Connection
Building your support network inside the sport
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.
Hands off, or hands-free?
Yet sometimes you have to get a little dirt on your hands.
This season's most essential piece of fly-fishing gear
The dirt-cheap wonder-tool any angler can use to become legendary.
No drag, just drift
Striving to get even with the flow
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
Vivid indicators of life
Wading for caddis, fishing nymphs with suspenders
Fish on film
Roll cameras, because the Fly Fishing Film Tour came to town.
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.
Rolling your own
If you wish to make a fly rod from scratch, you must first invent the universe.
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
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.
Stand up and tell 'em! 📣
A gentle nudge to find your voice in conservation and activism.
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.
Meanderings: Following the thalweg from the Willamette to the Seine
First flies, finding the thalweg, good eau in Paris, and some riparian art
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.
Immerse yourself with Kwintesencja
Take fifteen minutes, and be transported.
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.
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.
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
Remembering Jimmy Carter, our greatest fly-fishing president
Many presidents have fished, but few had the soul of an angler.
Maupin Meetup 2025
Come one, come all, to the 2025 Current Flow State summer meetup at TroutFest in Maupin, Oregon!
Read By the River, 2024
Sometimes, literally. The five favorite (mostly) fly-fishing books I read this year
From runway to river
Fly-fishing fashion icons, Joe Pera, final slots for winter classes, and more.
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.
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.
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.
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Ground yourself on our home planet
Establish The Big Here on the way to finding your home waters. Also, two fun fly fishing films, and registration opening for Winter term class.
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A time to mend
If you can manage your line, you can manage your life.
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Some lines on knots
When it comes to fly-fishing knot tying skill, it's truly a tale of the haves and the have-knots. OK, ok. I promise not to get things too twisted up here, pun-wise at least.
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So long summer, come winter's hope.
If you start summer steelheading earlier than October, does it get less bittersweet?
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Invest in Your Angling, and Your Community: Join a Fly-Fishing Club
There's a great new documentary out about the wonderful benefits of joining a club. Guess what? Joining a fly-fishing club is even better, and will make you a better angler.
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Remembering John Gierach
Recalling the shaper of a Platonic fly-fishing reality, in his own words
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High-torque and low-torque activities
Digging in on the progression from Aspen Extreme to Trout Bum (RIP John Gierach), Grant Petersen CFS GOAT, SalmonSuperHwy lauded by the White House, and more
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Fly-Fishing in the Italian Alps Part 5: The Packing List
It's not the be-all end-all Ultimate Fly Fishing Destination Packing List, but it's what I wound up bringing to Italy, where the trout fishing is much like at home.
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Fly-Fishing in the Italian Alps, Part 4: Nude beaches and remote reaches
In Piemonte, on the Sesia and Mastallone rivers, anything is possible with the right attitude.
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Fly-Fishing in the Italian Alps, Part 3: Young marble giants
Searching for slabs on the Passer river in Südtirol / Trentino Alto-Adige, part of our five-part series on fly-fishing in Italy
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Fly-Fishing in the Italian Alps, Part 2: Blowouts, high water, and mystery trout on the Swiss border
Can you help identify this strange trout variant? Salmo truta helvetica?
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Fly-Fishing in the Italian Alps, Part 1: Decoding access
The first in a series on fly fishing in the Italian alps, on getting licensed in Italy, and the main differences between fly fishing in Italy and the USA.
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What we give up fly fishing
On Adam Phillips, and finding, and re-finding our identities as anglers
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Hot weather and trout fishing
A few top tips—and one essential piece of gear—can help keep fish safe when the temps get high.
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How to not look like an idiot when you first start learning to fly fish
Three ways to conquer the self-consciousness that comes with beginning fly fishing and start building your fly fishing practice
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Fly fishing and problem solving
Moving beyond the engineering mindset, and trying to embrace frustration as a key function of learning
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The Five Permissions: How to be a great fishing friend
Take me fishing. A simple request, a schmaltzy commercial, a pivotal role. Here are five permissions you can give yourself and your fishing friend to create space for connection.
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Forest fires and fly fishing
Do forest fires hurt fly fishing? An update from the Clackamas river fire zone.
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Fools rush in: on finding, hooking, and losing a trophy trout
Reflections on an epic face-plant, remembering Bill Walton
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Opening days
Opening up, setting intentions for the new season
Writing
The best fly-fishing books ever written
Books that will improve your fly-fishing. A definitive list of all the best fly-fishing books, from beginner to technical methods, from entomology to romantic lore and conservation. And, of course, great writing.
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Signs of summer: Salmonflies are on!
It's big bug time on the Deschutes, the most wonderful time of the year.