Why the Yucatan Rules

One of the most common saltwater fishing questions that I get asked or that appears on The Drake message board is some variation of, "I have to go to some stupid/gay/waste-of-time/soon-to-be-divorced-anyway  wedding/business conference/family reunion down in Cancun. I'm

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Excuses

For those sad souls who can't get the angling monkey off their backs and have chosen to live well above the seasonal freezing line, winter can easily slide into a cornucopia spilling over with bountiful excuses. Much like the traveling charlatan preacher for whom the mind is willing but the flesh is weak - we want to fish, but all that whiteness, especially when it's traveling horizontally past the window, is a daunting thing.

Loop Tuft Emerger

Chuffer

Here's one for the quick and dirty set. My version of the Loop-Tuft Emerger. It's the bastard love child of the CDC Loop Wing Emerger and the Sparkle Dun, and it's a great fly for selective trout.

The Day of Days

6/14/07

There are two (silly, I admit) number goals that I set for myself each season.  I'm not a numbers guy (anyone who has spent any time at all guiding cringes at that term) but I do like having quantifiable accomplishments that I can get excited about.  I want to have a client catch a trout over thirty inches and I want to have a double that measures at least four feet combined.  Much of this is luck and if I do not reach these arbitrary benchmarks I do not lose any sleep.  But if nothing else, it gives me something extra to hoot and holler about on the river and getting demonstratively excited is one of the things that keeps me vibrant and upbeat throughout the long season.  Today both of those goals were attained in the span of an hour.