Keystone Fly Fisher

The right fly can produce a banner day. The wrong fly can leave you fishless and frustrated. A few years ago, I was having a rough outing...

Hopper fishing defies the most basic rules of fly casting. No need for those elegant, wistful casts, and nobody cares about the perfect,...

Bass thrive almost everywhere in the United States. Here in Pennsylvania, we’re fortunate to have generous populations of both largemouth...

Earlier this spring, I purchased several brands of fly floatant to use in an experiment to see which ones worked best is specific...

Emergers and cripple flies are terms used to describe several types of fly patterns that aren’t meant to ride hide on the water’s surface...

Clouds of Grannoms filled the morning air. They came out of the water in waves, one huge flurry after another. There were so many...

I wish I had discovered the effectiveness of tiny flies when I was younger and had younger eyes instead of only within the past five...

There are so many variations of Wooly Buggers available today that sometimes it’s hard to keep track. As new materials are developed and...

With only half a day to fish last week, I opted for home waters. I was due to pick my two kids up at daycare that afternoon, so I didn’t...

Masking hatches are “usually” a large fly that’s emerging about the same time as a smaller fly. The smaller fly is usually less obvious,...

I can match almost any hatch, but the “no see ums” are the toughest of all. To me, the term “no see ums” describes any insects that are...

The first fly lines ever used were made of woven horsehair and, eventually, woven silk fibers. I imagine many a fly fisherman back then...

Fly tying is a craft, and like any craft, you don’t start out an expert. It takes plenty of trial and error to improve your skills. And...

The arrival of my first fly tying kit opened up a world of possibilities for me. Not only did I get to feel the joy associated with...

Last week, I posed this question on the Keystone Fly Fisher Facebook page: If you were to give someone new to fly fishing one piece of...

Blue lines on a map typically represent streams or some other type of water, but to anglers they mean much more. In modern vernacular,...

I used to be a dedicated one-fly nympher, always fearing I'd spend more time untangling two flies on my leader instead of actually...

The traditional way to fish streamers and wet flies, and perhaps most common, is to swing them. This is probably how they were originally...

A mid-January warm front got me thinking spring. And by “warm front,” I mean that for the first time in almost two weeks, daytime...

I’ve been fortunate to catch many big fish on a fly rod in my lifetime. Even still, for as many that have found the bottom of my net,...