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Fly Fishing Techniques

Tips On Fly Leaders – More Important Than Your Fly Rod Yet Often Overlooked

Umpqua Red Hot Power Taper - Tapered Leader

Fly Leaders are the most important piece of tackle there is yet is is not thought about enough! So when Umpqua Feather Merchants launched one of the hottest fly fishing tippets we have ever seen we have been desperate for stock. We took our Red Hot Tapered leaders, played with them and loved the results.  This is by far the most innovative Fly Tippet or tapered leader we have ever seen. My eyesight used to be fantastic in my youth, however as my hair gets more and more grey my eyes get weaker at the same time and all too frequently I find I lose the fly as it floats down the river or I miss bites due to missing gentle and  subtle takes. Since fishing with the Red Hot Tapered Leader I have found I miss less fish and see more bites due to its innovative colouring of the butt section on this stunning tapered leader. However, this made us think how under-rated the most important piece of tackle a fly fisherman uses is! Typically we all take tapered leaders and leader material for granted however next to the fly it is more important than even our fly rod, [...]

Truly International

We are delighted to have customers from all around the world.  For us at The Essential Fly, it feels like we travel the world every day!  Just a quick look around the site to see who is on just now showed customers actively on the site now from, UK, Ireland, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Australia, Germany, The Netherlands, America, Canada, Sweden, Finland and Denmark!  Wow that was a quick worldwide tour. These customers buy flies from us, but also accessories and tackle. Our fly tying materials seem pretty popular too! Its really not a problem for us to ship internationally.  However we are delighted too to receive emails/calls from anglers around the world with their news/stories/photographs and experiences – we can all learn so much and of course dream for a moment that we were there too….. Happy fishing everyone From all of us at www.theessentialfly.com

Tip – an easy way to learn or practice your casting technique!

Tip – an easy way to learn or practice your casting technique!  On a sunny day, practice your fly casting in the bright sun. Stand in such a way that you can see your own shadow (ie the sun is to the side of you). Then start casting and watch your shadow. Whilst this may not be an ideal way, it means you can study your casting on your own if you don’t have a teacher/buddy to help. Of course, if you really want to check your casting thoroughly set up a video camera!

Fly Fishing Tip – How to use a wading staff

A wading staff is a very important part of a fly anglers equipment.  Safety is of course very important! But when you are in fast moving water, as well as safety, a wading staff gives you an extra piece of confidence and reassurance.  Just pass the loop over your wrist so that if you need to use that hand in a hurry you are not going to lose your staff! Importantly however is to remember never to lift your wading staff up until you have both feet firmly planted. A wading staff gives you a third leg and you should always be sure that 2 of those 3 legs are solidly planted at all times. If you can, use a wading staff in the upstream hand to give you maximum benefit and support!

New Buzzer Fly Fishing Mobile App Released

We have today released our mobile app for Android phones to help you with Buzzer / Chironomid Fly Fishing. The app is downloadable from the Android Marketplace directly on your mobile phone. With details on midges life-cycle,different types of buzzer flies a variety of buzzer rigs and how to fish them plus other tips and techniques. The Mobile Fly Fishing App is available for purchase for just £2.99 and includes a special 15% discount voucher for your next puchase so you should end up with the Application costing nothing if you use the voucher wisely! This is the first dedicated App for buzzer fishing we have released and have more in the pipeline. We are intending for our apps to be released for both iPhone and Android markets.

10% Discount On Fly Fishing Flies

There is an Independence sale running from Monday 4th July to midnight Thursday 7th July where you can get 10% discount with a minimum spend of £15 on fly fishing flies at www.theessentialfly.com. This is on all trout flies, salmon flies, grayling flies, saltwater flies and pike flies.

Salmon Fishing Fly Selection

Salmon Fly Colour & Size Recommendations By Season

So you are going salmon fly fishing, what a superb sport but the problem is what salmon flies do you use? Well it is not like a trout where we can see them rising to flies and eating from the surface, with salmon we are triggering the predatory instinct as they cannot eat once they enter fresh water. If you speak to Finnish fly fishermen they use small sparsely dressed flies quite often traditional patterns like Hairy Mary salmon fly, Willie Gunn tube fly, Stoats Tail green butt known in USA as Black Bear green butt, or a Blue Charm salmon fly. Speak to a Norwegian they more modern hairwing salmn flies like Monkey tube flies and Sunray Shadow tube flies talk to a Scot and you will get yet another answer. These are the same salmon species yet everyone fishes for them with different flies. Flies like Ally Gowans Allys Shrimp range have proved to be superb for Atlantic salmon from Scotland to Iceland and as far as Russia. So what salmon fly do you choose when you go salmon fly fishing? Well there is no magic answer, without doubt modern hairwing flies create stunning movement and account for an [...]

Light Penetration In Water Types For Fishermen for Fly Fishing or Lure Fishing

One of the most mis-understood areas in fishing is what happens to light in water. To see a colour we need that colour within the spectrum to be visible on the object we are viewing because we see colour as it is the relection of light on an object. So what is the issue? well different colours disapear at different depths according to the colour of the water and particles suspended in the water. However if we use a green and black coloured lure 5m deep in muddy waters we will see a totally black lure, however if the same lure is used at 5m deep in a green or blue coloured water we will see a green and black lure which is totally different to the same lure in muddy waters. Light Spectrum White light we see from the sun is not white but a series of colours blended together called the visible spectrum, is is part of the overall electromagnetic spectrum. The visible part of the spectrum is shown below is between 400nm and 700nm (nm is a metric unit of length equal to one billionth of a meter). Much of what we see is controlled by the [...]

Czech Nymphing – The Essential Technique

During 1990 World Fly Fishing Championships the The Style of Czech nymphing was introduced in the UK. The Czech team beat the UK International teams at the Welsh River Dee catching grayling in numbers from places that were thought impossibly deep & fast previously. Czech nymphingsent shockwaves throughout the world of fly fishing. The technique is today now considered an essential part of every grayling anglers armoury………………….

The Science of Casting

Unlike other casting methods, fly fishing can be regarded as a method of casting line instead of lure. Non-flyfishing methods depend on a lure’s weight to pull line out of your reel throughout the forward motion of the cast. By design, a fly is simply too light for being cast, and thus simply follows the unfurling of a properly cast fly line, and that is heavier and tapered and therefore more castable than lines used in other forms of fishing. The physics of flycasting can be described through the transfer of impulse, the product of mass and speed through fly fishing rods from base to top and from the transfer of impulse with the fly line all the way to the tip of the leader. Because both the rod as well as fly line are tapered the smaller amount of mass will reach high speeds when the waves in rod and line unfurl. The waves that travel with the fly line are called loops. Determining factors in reaching the very best speeds are the basal frequency of a rod and the transfer of the speed through the tip of the rod to the fly line. In the mean time the [...]

New guide to fly fishing with buzzers available from www.theessentialfly.com

“One of the best indicators of recent buzzer activity is to look for floating shucks or adult buzzers on or near the water. Certain areas will hold fish and buzzers, these being the obvious places to start. “

Pike Fly Fishing

The notion of fly fishing for Muskie fly fishing or Pike fly-fishing isn’t a new one. Books written in the course of the 19th century, and in fact earlier, explain the concept of catching our principal freshwater predator by means of hooks dressed with a variety of of fur along with feather. A bit more recently fly-fishing for Muskie or Pike has matured in acceptance, not just in its place into the customary methods utilized by Muskie or Pike fishermen, but additionally as being a spanking new challenge to an mounting quantity of sport fly fishermen emerging from a more established game fly fishing background……………..

Fly Fishing for benefit your Health and Mental Stress

When did you last take some time out for you to ‘stop smell the roses’ as they say? Have you taken stock of your local countryside, river bank or lake? We are blessed with some amazing countryside all around us and for people who live in towns/cities there are often hidden gems nearby such as a restored canal or country park. You would be amazed if you knew what nature was around you – under your very nose – if you simply looked……………