Pro Tips

Stripping baskets are a necessity in a number of fishing situations. They allow you to get maximum casting distance, keep the line from tangling around your feet and keep your lines cleaner. No one basket will do it all, so check them out and find one that suits your style of fishing. What seems cumbersome at first will soon become indispensable.

I have never met an angler that hasn’t said out loud, or at least under his breath, “boy, I wish I had a good photograph of that HOG”. You can get “lost” in a good photograph, but you don’t have to be an expert photographer to take a compelling image. With a few tips in your vest pocket and a little practice you can get beyond the typical “grip and grin” photograph and bring home better images of your next fly-fishing trip. This is the first in a series of tips for high impact fly-fishing photographs. Practice and experiment with these tips and you will be on your way to super charging your fly-fishing photography.

Super charge those “grip and grin” photos

Okay, so you’re bored to tears looking at all those standard “grip and grin” photos you have in a worn out album lying on your fly tying bench. Here’s how to super charge photos from your next trip

First, when you look through the camera’s viewfinder train yourself to “see” in a different way. Be conscious of what will be in the image when you press the shutter button. What you leave out of the image is as important as what you leave in. For example, you don’t want the big tree in the background or a fly rod to appear as though they are protruding from your subject’s head. Those little details can really detract from an otherwise great shot.

A powerful technique is to get in close to your main subject so that you fill the frame with the main subject(s) while at the same time cleverly cropping out all the extraneous clutter from the image. Have your subject kneel down low in the water, momentarily lifting the fish only a few inches out of the water with a couple of fingers around its tail and the other hand gently supporting its belly. Don’t wrap your hands around the fish in a death squeeze ….you want a picture of the fish, not a pair of hands. Above all you want the fish to survive the experience. Minimize the time the fish is out of the water, a few seconds should do it.

In most “grip and grin” shots the angler is looking straight into the camera with that killer grin. You can give your photos another “look” which can make them more interesting by having the angler peer admiringly at the fish rather into the camera.

Another option is to avoid the grin altogether by zooming in on the star of the show–– remember you already have a drawer full of pictures of yourself. Get in tight, focusing on the fish’s eye and let the background simply be the river in soft focus or the anglers vest with dangling paraphernalia.

Another simple technique for high impact images is the environmental portrait. This “style” helps paint a vivid story not only of the angler and the fish, but also of your surroundings. Looking through the viewfinder there is an overwhelming urge to stick that angler smack dab in the middle of the frame. Resist the urge. Turn the camera a bit, placing the angler to one side or the other of the frame. Get in close so that your main subject fills about a third of the image, leaving two thirds of the image to complete the story.

Get out there and fish. Leave the fish where you found them, but bring home high impact images of your experience.

Mark Lance, a Scott Pro Staffer, is a freelance photographer, writer and fly-fishing adventurer from Centennial, Colorado. Visit his website at
www.riverlightimages.com

Planning your trip
Yellow Dog Flyfishing Adventures is a destination angling booking company that sends hundreds of anglers a year all over the world. Over the years of booking trips and fishing the world ourselves, we have learned one very important lesson about destination trips — especially those that involve international travel to distant waters. The more time you spend preparing for your trip prior to departure, the more you improve your odds for a successful and enjoyable saltwater adventure. If you’re planning any kind of destination adventure, the following thoughts and suggestions will help:


1. Do yourself a favor and create a detailed and well-thought-out gear and equipment list. Save this list and make it your “go-to” reference list whenever you plan a fishing trip that will take you far from home. The lists that we use and send to all of our clients are lists that we have spent years creating and fine-tuning. The lists are designed to ensure that our customers travel with the right type and the right amount of equipment that is applicable and relevant to their destination. Your “Go-To Gear List” list should include the following:
• All fishing equipment and tackle, such as rods, reel, lines, leaders, backup gear, spare spools, etc.
• Personal clothing items such as fishing shirts, warm clothes, rain gear, and head gear.
• Items of a personal nature, such as your toiletries, necessary medication, books, etc.
• The proper documents such as your passport, drivers license, and photo copies of everything.
• Sunscreen and insect repellant – don’t ever leave home without these things!
• Such optional items as binoculars, alarm clock, writing materials and other things.

2. Check your gear prior to leaving on a trip. Don’t wait until you arrive at a distant and remote lodge to discover that your rod tip is missing, your fly line is cracked, or your backing has mildewed and rotted. Preventative maintenance on your gear – before, during and after a trip - will add years to the life of your equipment.

3. Practice your casting prior to leaving for a trip! This is especially applicable if you are heading to the saltwater. Anglers who are proficient on their local trout stream with a 5-weight often times don’t realize that casting a 10-weight into the wind is a different game altogether. Practice casting with your saltwater set-ups prior to your departure. For best results, pick a stormy day at home, and practice casting both into and across the wind. For the best casting preparation, try casting at moving targets as well. That cat that your girlfriend brought home has got to be good for something!

4. Check your passport and travel documents to make sure that everything is valid and up-to-date. Don’t wait until you arrive at the airport to find out that your passport is expired!

5. Whenever a flight is involved, try to carry on your rods, reels, flies, sunglasses, a pair of shorts, sunscreen, and other important items that will allow you to fish for a day or two in the event that your checked luggage is lost or delayed.

6. Make sure that all of your checked and carry-on luggage is labeled with your current ID information. Use luggage tags on the outside, and include identification on the inside as well, in the event that a luggage tag is yanked off or destroyed.

7. Aside from the right rod and reel set-up, polarized sunglasses are perhaps the most important piece of equipment you’ll bring with you. In many situations (especially saltwater!) spotting fish in the saltwater is crucial and can make all the difference in the success of a trip. For this reason, you should buy the very best polarized sunglasses you can. For lenses, light amber or brown will work well in most situations. We prefer sunglasses that shape to our face and block out as much peripheral side and top light as possible. Bring a second pair in case the first one breaks or is lost!

8. If you’re like most anglers, you will probably want to bring your camera gear along with you on the river or in the boat. If so, then you will want to be sure that it is protected at all times. A good waterproof camera bag or hard-sided box is a must, as salt spray and/or water are constant factors. Be sure to bring lots of extra film, extra memory, spare batteries, and a soft lens cloth and solution for cleaning. If you still shoot film or slide film, remember that any film packed inside your checked baggage will be ruined by new baggage screening devices. Carry on your film and camera equipment, and request a hand-check if you have any doubt about the carry-on screening process. If you are shooting slide or print film, then we recommend a “leaded” film pouch that will protect your film from screening devices.


Have a great trip, and know that through the right amount of preparation, planning and practice, you have set yourself up for a successful and enjoyable angling experience!

The last time she and I fished together I learned a new fishing strategy. I remember because she wore a bikini top in the bow when the sun came out, and I became distracted because that is one of those things I really like, bikini tops in the bow of fishing boats. I also remember this day because she caught more fish than I did, using a technique I had never really considered up until that point. Not one that she had invented, but one passed onto us by the lucky guide oaring the boat down the Snake River, who I suspect was enjoying the bikini as much as I was from the stern.
An outfitter friend had procured a deal for us on a guided trip, where he ate the cost, paid the guide, and we got a deal. I jumped on the offer, thinking how nice it would be to un-tie my own tangles, be the client for a day, and not have to concern myself with artfully constructed compliments on my girlfriend’s casting and tactful suggestions about how to do this or that. That was the guide’s job, and we both felt that her receiving instruction from another guide rather than me would be one of those good things for couples, like going to a marriage counselor, or doing what you do after making up after a bad quarrel.
However, that morning at the ramp I began to reconsider our decision when the guide opened up the one box he had, which was packed with the same fly, in the same color and the same size, all red Chernobyl ants and nothing else. Then he told me how she needed to fish this fly.
“Katherine,” he said, “cast this thing at the bank, then mend it, but I mean big mends, and don’t stop mending it.”
The effect of course was that of a bass popper, and though I secretly doubted it at first, I soon realized that she was catching the hell out of the fish, and that I was becoming increasingly jealous over the fact that this other man’s ploy had worked so well making him look like the hero while her saggy-ass boyfriend sat with a limp rod in the stern, a pupil to his own ignorance.
Regardless, it worked. The large degree of terrestrials on the bank, beetles, hoppers, ants, and the like, would on occasion fall into the water and in a desperate attempt to get out make such a ruckus that the fish had become accustomed to this popping motion, and apparently craved it. While this may not be news to everyone, it was for me, the consummate Colorado-dead-drift nymphs-and-dries-and-everything-else fisherman. I mean really, how often do you see boats working banks by ripping big foam things through the water as if they were floating streamers?
The day ended, and she hammered fish until her arm was sore, and though I had not come up with the witty tactic that had brought so many trout to the net, she assured me later on that I was indeed still her hero.
Life’s lesson number one: When fishing with a significant other…GET A GUIDE! You can be the hero later on, when it counts.
I recalled the popping of the foam the following summer, and tried with minimal success on my home rivers with clients and friends. They all looked at me like I had just asked them to remove their trousers and fish the next bend naked when I suggested they throw larger mends and make that bug move. It didn’t work so well, not like that day on the Snake, so I forgot about it like so many other fishing tricks that I have learned over the years.
I still happened to be with the same wonderful woman, and though we had been too busy to fish together things were going great and as far as I could tell I was still the hero I wanted to be, until that following spring when I told her I would be guiding in Chile next winter. So began the slippery slope of the break up so common to those who have a hard time staying in the country while beautiful significant others wait at home for them. She was not about to wait, and as I eventually learned, had grown quite tired of my angling lust making my four month disappearance to Chile the final straw.
It ended and I became just another single fishing guide that summer. I made attempts at popping the foam, but it brought back more memories than hooked fish, so I again quit this tactic citing emotional reasons. That is until I met my new boss several months later in Patagonia, Chile.
“You do what?” I asked rhetorically.
“Yep, we pop it. And I mean fast. The faster you move that Gypsy King across the surface, the bigger the fish I say.”
And he was right. The first time we went out, he suggested I tie on the big, black foam thing with hair known as Rance’s Gypsy King. I threw it at the bank, and made over exaggerated mends as my now ex-girlfriend had done before, giving the fly an injured limp across the surface.
“No.” My boss said, “Move it faster.”
So I made bigger mends and more of them, and the fly retained its injured limp motion, only quicker now, like an old man in a walker trying to out run a pit bull chasing him down the street. I looked like an idiot.
“No, faster, damn it!” A snarl came from the oars, “Make it kick some water.” And with that he jumped up, snatched the rod and began sweeping setting the foam fly across the surface, which no longer looked like a man in a walker outrunning a pit-bull, but like a Hemi truck running down a pit-bull in a snowy field. That is when the giant brown trout erupted from the clear water in a shotgun style leap, slamming the Hemi truck fly into the air and down its gullet.
Over the season, I analyzed this technique, and found other ways to pop the foam. I was feeling better about my ex-girlfriend, and the popping of the foam, which soon became almost therapeutic, like anything that catches fish. However, it wasn’t just that this pop, pop, pop, caught fish, but unlike the grabs my ex got from the cutthroats on the Snake, these fish absolutely exploded out of the water, launching into the air Shamu style with the foam treat hooked into their lips.
Here, again, I found myself in a terrestrial fishery. But unlike those in rivers in the states know for their hoppers, this one had larger more obnoxious bugs to present. First of all, the lack of aquatic insect life meant that the fish relied more heavily on what came from above. Beetles and hoppers and dragonflies (though I am not sure this exactly falls into the terrestrial class). Second: that many of the beetles and dragonflies didn’t just plop in the water and wiggle their ass. They moved like Cale Yarborough down the speedway. My boss would tell me stories of trout chasing the flying dragonflies as they zipped over the water’s surface, so intent on the moving bug that they would swim through your legs, and eventually you would see the fish explode into the air and eat the dragonfly a foot or more above the surface.
I eventually deduced that the popping of the foam worked so well in Chile because percussion sound travels better in water than in air, so when a fly splats on the water and then raises hell moving across the current, the fish can pick up on that movement, that excitement, perhaps better than a silent string leach moving by.
And in order to create this noisy attraction, I drew upon the lessons I’d learned from the bass pros when fishing top water baits. Lower the rod tip until it almost touches the water, then strip and sweep low, this will drive the buoyant fly down, creating a bigger splash, more noise, and hopefully more fish.
However, it doesn’t work so well on rivers where fish don’t need to chase their food, or when they do it is the plentiful smaller fish stupidly gorging on drowned tricos that they chase. But I have had big looks by big fish on the Yellowstone and the Madison with this same approach, though it seems to work best…well, in Chile. However, this angling ploy serves as a reminder of a more poignant point. That tricks and tactics are products of their environment, they work well in the situations that are most conducive to that particular trick or tactic. So, when learning new schemes to catch the wily trout, don’t just learn the moves, but look at why the moves work, look at the environment around the trick. Or something wise like that.
Which brings me to life lesson number 2: Fish are predators and like things that move. Women, however, don’t.

“Double Haul Camp Coffee” AKA “Rotator Cuff Coffee”

Ingredients needed: A little cold water, a lot of centrifugal force, and a splash of faith.

Forget the eggshells, mule spit and all those other secret tricks that are said to settle the grounds in a pot of camp coffee! Get your calisthenics and caffeine at the same time.

1) Throw away that basket thing that comes with the coffee pot
2) Boil 2/3 full pot of fresh spring water
3) Remove from heat at least 30 seconds before adding coffee or you will have a boiling volcano of coffee grounds
4) Add twice as much ground coffee as you would at home.
5) Set pot half-on half-off the burner. The water will “roll” up one side and down the other creating the perfect brewing conditions.
6) Let brew for about five minutes and remove from heat
7) Swing pot by the handle up over your head (quickly) - Use the force, Luke….centrifugal!
8) Hat is recommended to minimize burning in the event of a malfunction, although a large brim will get in the way of swing path.
9) Let sit while you take a couple of Advil, and your shoulder will be ready to cast all day.
10) Grounds will completely settle to the bottom. Just don’t have the last cup.
11) Best enjoyed out of the tin cup you were drinking whiskey out of the night before.