Today we hear from Bruce Chard – legendary guide in the Florida Keys and teacher of our bonefishing schools at Andros South – about why he prefers hand-tied leaders for fishing on the saltwater flats. Bruce Chard on Saltwater Leaders I have seen a lot of leaders break in my days – unfortunately – but…
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Gear
The Intruder
Warning: this is a very technical post about fly tying. If you’re not interested in the subtleties of tying one of the most influential modern steelhead and salmon patterns, click here to look at a bunch of pictures of fish. Jerry French may not have a household name in the world of anadromous angling in…
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Purple Chubby Chernobyl
Our team at Chile West recently spent some time on a spring creek that has been fishing well. This creek has an abundance of dragonflies and they seem to be the staple food for these fish. While there are some beautifully tied dragonfly patterns, they are often not aerodynamic and thus hard to cast. As…
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Switch Rods – Different Uses
We’ve told you before that we think you should try out a switch rod if you haven’t already. We’ve also told you that we tend to think of switch rods as basically being little spey rods. They definitely can be fished like little spey rods and that’s maybe the use that’s most applicable in our…
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Most Popular Posts of 2010, So Far
Our team of mad scientists recently spent some time in our evil lair at the top of the Space Needle, poring over copious amounts of data related to our web site. We came to this scheming conclusion: you like reading about gear. Here are our 5 most read posts of the year so far. Ross…
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Airflo Bonefish Ridge Line Review
Airflo’s Ridge lines are pretty popular in the freshwater fishing world. We’ve been hearing about their bonefish line for a while now, and last month we got the chance to try one out at Andros South. Let’s start at the very beginning. What’s A Ridge Line? It’s a fly line made by Airflo that has…
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Favorite Steelhead Rod Roundup
Early last week we asked our loyal readers about which rods you like to fish most for steelhead. Just like we did with our polls about trout rods and bonefish rods, today we’re here to give you the results. Single Handed or Double-Handed? You guys like fishing two-handed rods! Note: there was one switch rod…
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Tube Fly for Barracuda
If you’ve hung around our blog much, you know that lots of different flies work for barracuda on South Andros. Today Matt Hynes walks us through tying instructions for a ‘cuda fly that comes from a slightly different angle – it’s tied on a tube. Barracuda Tube Recipe Hook Stainless saltwater hook, size 2/0 to…
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Simms Headwaters Sling Pack Review
When You Want A Sling Pack If you’re fishing for bonefish or steelhead or salmon, you don’t need to bring 42 different gizmos out on the water. You need a fly box, a few spools of tippet, your pliers and maybe just a few other gadgets. You’re also going to spend most of your time…
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What’s Your Favorite Steelhead Rod?
Way back when we had some great discussion on our blog when we asked folks what their favorite rods were to use when fly fishing for trout and bonefish (err, not at the same time, of course). In fact we felt like we learned enough that we should write up some conclusions for each, which…
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