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All across the United States there are many beautiful, exciting places that are excellent or fly fishing. The following article just highlights a few of them.

Sitka, Alaska is a major stopover for salmon heading to British Columbia, Washington, and other Alaskan waters. Fly fishermen at Sitka, have a higher fishing catch rate than any other marine area in Southeast Alaska. June is the best month for fishing this area.

The Colorado River at Lees Ferry, Arizona, is one of the best fly fishing spots for rainbow trout. The fish are comfortable all year round in a 15-mile stretch of cold water that flows from the depths of Lake Powell between Glen Canyon Dam and the upper end of the Grand Canyon. Fly fishermen can also book a guide and go flats fishing for 25 pound carp.

Saltwater fly fishing is at its best at Montauk Point, New York. Montauk Point is the easternmost point of Long Island and is best known for striper fishing. Fly fishermen have miles of beautiful shoreline in which they can cast their fly.

Gunpowder Falls, Maryland, is an excellent place to catch cold water trout. A deal was struck by the Maryland state authorities and Trout Unlimited to start cold water releases from Pretty Boy Dam. This has resulted in a combination of wild and stocked brown, brook, and rainbow trout. Most of the fly fishing is in Gunpowder Falls State Park.

Fishing Creek, Pennsylvania, is one of the states top wild trout streams. It generally stays cool throughout the summer. There is a five-mile stretch called the Narrows, near Lamar, that is a very popular area for fly fishing.
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“Do I really need a guide?” is usually one of the first questions asked from anglers going on their first fishing trip. It’s impossible to accurately answer that question with a “yes” or a “no”, but we can give you the information you need to know to answer the question by yourself.

Guides can be worth having as long as you know exactly what you’re getting. For example, most people don’t realize hiring a guide is no guarantee you’re going to catch a trophy fish. The guide will take you to the places known to have fish, but catching them is still up to you.

If you don’t know what you’re doing, the guide can only help you so much. However, if that’s the case, a guide may be well worth it to you. Since you will be arriving at a lake you’ve never been on before, and you only have a few days to catch fish… a guide can really be a big help. Without a guide, you could spend days just trying to find out where the fish are.

Most guides are great anglers themselves. They spend all spring and summer on the lake and know what works and what doesn’t. Here are some things to discuss with any potential guide so you can see if you want to hire him:

-The type of fish you want to catch
-Whether you’re looking to catch lots of fish, or just trophy sized fish
-Has the guide ever fished for the species you’re after?
-What technique will the guide expect you to use?

This is what you’ll typically get when you hire a guide:

-Expert advice on the best locations to fish
-Expert tips on how to best catch your fish
-A well prepared, delicious shore lunch

You must decide if the above is worth paying the price for a guide.

Not to be overlooked is another option to considered. You can hire a guide for just a day or two (be up front about this) and then use his (or her) advice on what to do the rest of your fishing trip. This will save you money and still get you that expert advice you’re looking for.

Now, if you’re going on a fly-in fishing trip to a lake that you know (from your research and talking to others) is full of fish… you probably don’t need a guide! There, I even answered your original question for you. That’s because lots of the remote lakes have so many fish that even a beginner couldn’t help catching all they want.
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Why practice Catch and Release Fishing? The fish population, and the size of the fish caught, have been on a steady decline for a number of years. This is due to the advancement of ice fishing technologies. Gadgets and advancements to other ice fishing equipment are making it much easier to catch fish in everyday ice fishing spots. However, we are seeing more and more anglers returning the majority of their catch to the water. While no one can deny the fact that a nice hot fish dinner after an ice fishing trip is very rewarding, most fishers are enjoying fishing for the sport, not for the food.

Another common practice used in combination with catch and release is called ‘selective harvest.’ This is the practice of minimizing the waste of fish, and providing a diverse opportunity for fishing while preserving fish conservation. The easiest way to do this is to practice catch and release. Only keep what you will definitely use. While catching and keeping the fish as a prize can bring you great joy, so can the release of the fish. This ensures that there will be fish for you to catch in the future. Releasing smaller fish also helps ensure there will be large fish in the water for spawning. Using the catch and release techniques means the fish will be in peak physical condition, and size, when you decide to keep a catch for food in the future.

All fishermen should keep the conservation of fish at the tops of their minds. Whether you fish for food, pure recreation, or for sport, when the fish are gone, there’s no more fishing. And with an increasing number of anglers reaching both highly accessible and more remote areas, conservation is becoming increasingly important.
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Beyond a doubt the best fly fishing rod material is good bamboo properly selected, cured, split, glued, and correctly proportioned. It possesses strength combined with lightness, resiliency, pliancy, power and balance in greater degree than either steel or solid woods.

Formerly anglers and rod makers could draw fine distinctions between male and female Calcutta and Tonkin ” canes,” but under present conditions good Calcutta is very rare and the word ” Calcutta ” is be¬coming merely a trade term. Good bamboo of all kinds is more difficult to obtain and a good piece of Tonkin is better than an indifferent one of Calcutta. Male Calcutta, however, is supposed to be superior to either the female or Tonkin. The cheapest split cane is known as steel vine or African cane. It is light colored and makes up into good, inexpensive bamboo fly fishing rods.

Six Strip and 8 Strip Bamboo Fly Fishing Rods

We assume that you know that bamboo is split and then glued together in order to utilize the hard outer enamel and reduce the diameter of the pieces. Some rods are made of bamboo split into six sections (hex¬agonal) and some in eight (octagonal) but the six strip construction is more often used. Some makers claim that the eight strip, being more nearly a true cylinder, possesses better action but this seems to be more theoretical than practical, while the tiny tips of an eight strip rod are likely to be ” soft” due to the comparative amount of glue necessary to hold the pieces together. Eight strip rods cost more than the six strip and if the angler wants a round bamboo fly fishing rod they are preferable to the six strip planed down as planing certainly must injure a rod. As a general rule a well-made six strip rod leaves little to be desired.

Special Feature Bamboo Fly Fishing Rods

A novelty in bamboo fly fishing rod making is what is known as the ” double built ” rods which are made of two layers of split and glued bamboo, one within the other. They are heavier and strong, and it is claimed, hold their shape better, than ordinary rods and are popular for sea and salmon fishing but unnecessary, I believe, in single hand fly rods. An English innovation is the steel center rod which consists of a fine piece of well-tempered steel running as a core through sections of regular split bamboo. The makers claim this construction gives a rod of superior casting power with only of an ounce added weight. Friends who possess rods of this kind are enthusiastic admirers of this construction for heavy fishing.

An American maker supplies a rod of ” twisted bam¬boo ” which he claims equalizes the strain and pro¬duces better action. I have never tried a rod of this type so am unable to pass on its merits, but Perry Frazer, in his ” Amateur Rodmaking,” speaks well of it.
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