Pheasant Feathers for Fly Fishing

By Nick Simonson This year, it seemed that every pheasant was a trophy.  Whether it was those early birds on opening weekend with half-colored feathers, or that lone rooster coming late in the season, each one provided a welcome warm meal and a new crop of pheasant feathers for fly fishing.  With one season behind [...]

Downstream Mentality

Our Outdoors: Downstream Mentality By Nick Simonson Each spring, the banks of area lakes and rivers are littered with pop bottles, chip bags, Styrofoam cups, plastic containers, beer cans, and my personal pet peeve, spent fishing line. The snow that lines the gutters of city streets and highway ditches slowly gives way to reveal plastic, [...]

Spring Steelhead Fishing

By Nick Simonson As my offering drifted around in the pool eddy, I hoped that my brother would see a fish caught – if not by me, then by another angler, or maybe himself – and he would experience the finned allure of the north shore of Lake Superior beyond the lichen-covered bluffs and pine-shaded [...]

Lightning Bugs – Pheasant Tail Nymphs

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson Of all the game birds sportsmen pursue, none is more colorful than the ringneck pheasant. Which makes it a pretty odd fact that the most popular fly used by outdoorsmen is the generally drab looking pheasant tail nymph – or simply, the PTN. Of course, trout, bluegill and other fish don’t [...]

Fall Trout Fishing Time

By Nick Simonson With all the hunting opportunities around us, it’s tough to set the shotgun or the bow down for an evening and pick up the fishing rod. However, fall provides an excellent chance at some fast trout fishing, particularly in those deeper pits and ponds where agencies have stocked trout for put-and-take fishing. [...]

Fall Success Provides Great Fly Tying Materials

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson Fall not only represents a time to return to the field, but also a time to restock fly tying and lure making materials for the winter. From partridge and grouse in the early season, to ducks, pheasants and deer as cold air sets in, the bounty of nature on the wing [...]

North Shore Steelhead Initiation

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson     Though the weather is an element that is always out of my control, I try not to let it dampen the spirits of a fishing trip; particularly when that trip is my first of the season and my first to a new place. Despite highs in the forties, rain [...]

Tying Egg Flies

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson In my quest for steelhead knowledge, I have found some interesting patterns, from complex streamers to simple nymphs. Stocking the fly box has been both rewarding and exciting as my arsenal takes shape for my trip to the shores of Lake Superior this spring. The most enjoyable box to compile has [...]

The Woolly Bugger

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson In my journeys into fly fishing and fly tying, I have not found a more enjoyable fly to put together on the vise and put under the water’s surface than the woolly bugger. The beauty of this streamer comes from its simplicity, both in how it is tied and how it [...]

Partridge Patterns – Tying Fly Patterns for Panfish

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson As hunting season hits full stride and the first few birds are placed in the pouches of my upland vest, I can’t help but plan for two things – dinner, of course, and the number of patterns I will tie with the feathers attached to the birds I harvest. With the [...]

Fly Fishing Tying – Terrific Terrestrial

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson The Fourth is behind us, and summer is in full swing. If swarms of mosquitoes weren’t a sure sign, the vast numbers and array of other insects present during the day and at dusk is a definite reminder. The table is set for summer’s great binge, and every fly fisherman needs [...]

Fly Swap

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson Quilters have their bees and bakers have their cookie exchanges. At these events, the artists in their respective hobbies get together to exchange patterns and recipes, adding a little more to each other’s experience, each taking away something new to try. The equivalent for fly anglers, the phenomenon that is fly-swapping, [...]

Hoppin’ & Poppin’ – Tying Flies

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson     The exciting thing about tying flies and fly fishing is trying out new patterns. Questioning whether a fly looks edible, how, when and where it should be fished and more are part of figuring out the grand puzzle. The trial for every tied fly comes in two phases; first, [...]

Time to Start Tying Flies

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson Over, under, around and through, that’s the way to tie…a fly? Well, that’s the way I finish them at least. Another great start to a fall bird season and the switch to daylight standard time has dashed my hopes of anymore after-work hunting trips. But once again those pre-standard time hunts [...]

Fly Fishing for Beginners

By Doug Leier At this stage in my life I feel satisfied with what I’ve bagged, tagged and caught, including deer, birds and a few lunker fish. A 40-inch pike is a favorite memory because of the light rod and tackle I was using and my struggle to boat the fish. It was a classic [...]

Sorting the Fly Box

Our Outdoors Nick Simonson What’s in a fly box? Flies, obviously, but it is the stories those flies tell of a winter gone by and the promises of an upcoming season that make the arrangement special. Monday night, after a particularly frustrating evening of fishing current rushing by at 1300 CFS, I called it quits [...]

Fly Tying Kit Becomes the Gift That Keeps on Giving

By Nick Simonson I couldn’t even cast a fly rod last year at this time. In fact, my only experience with longrodding was a lame attempt a few summers ago on an Idaho stock pond near a hotel we stayed at while my dad attended a conference. After awkwardly whipping the rod through the air [...]

River Smallmouth

By Nick Simonson     As the last few inches of ice fade from the shorelines of area rivers, it is next to impossible not to think about springtime fishing. It is even more difficult not to think of the hundreds of bronze flashes from springtime fishing trips in the past. In the land where [...]