by Jeff | Sep 13, 2024 | 1 Comment
I got home from my Spokane tour yesterday in time for dinner as hoped. Granny and I chilled on the back porch well past sunset. This week has drained me to the hilt. Nevertheless, I couldn’t wait to get on the water with Bob to a favorite haunt. We met at 6 AM....
by Jeff | Sep 11, 2024 | 16 Comments
Everyone experiences highs and lows. I’ve been fortunate for more highs than lows. But some lows were bad. In 2020 I lost my dad. He’d been ill a longtime and was suffering. That eased my pain, but he was still my dad. Probably harder was many years back when I...
by Jeff | Sep 9, 2024 | 0 Comments
Looks like a fishing mission but no, it’s the start of the 2024/25 speaking tour. Tomorrow night I’m presenting “Trout Bumming the Lakes in and Around Yellowstone” in Spokane, WA to Inland Empire Fly Fishing Club. Then Wednesday night its “Streamer Tactics for More...
by Jeff | Sep 6, 2024 | 4 Comments
We experienced a drastic temperature drop the last 24 hours. It plummeted enough that Bob Butler and I put down our smallmouth 6-weight rigs and broke out the 9-weights. I put on an SA Toothy Predator leader and clipped in a big black Brush Fly that goes with on...
by Jeff | Sep 2, 2024 | 2 Comments
Matt (Howie) Norton and I couldn’t have asked for a more perfect day to chase smallmouth bass on Chequamegon Bay of Lake Superior. The morning was cool and crisp and as the sun rose so did the thermometer. But it never got too hot. The thermometer touched the low...
by Jeff | Aug 28, 2024 | 3 Comments
Labor Day weekend always triggers a little stress in my life. First and foremost, my summer fishing feels like its going away. Its really not. The best is yet to come with fall. But it’s a natural instinct I can’t control. Then there’s the approaching show...
by Jeff | Aug 26, 2024 | 2 Comments
Early morning departures for fishing aren’t so early anymore. I had an old college buddy, Danny Zilker, swing through Hayward for about 20 hours. The short visit consisted of a nice dinner with beers at the Anglers Bar last night and today a full day on the water. ...
by Jeff | Aug 25, 2024 | 7 Comments
Mom’s surgery went well and I’m happy to say I returned home from New Hampshire this weekend. Mom is 82 and needed her carotid artery cleaned out. Too many whoopie pies I’m afraid! Having such a surgery at 80+ is risky. Lucky for us, mom is a healthy active 82...
by Jeff | Aug 14, 2024 | 8 Comments
I was wading a flat at Cosmoledo Atoll in the Seychelles during November 2021 and found myself fighting a large bonefish. As the bone tired and I had him near, not one, but two Indo-Pacific permit showed up attempting to steal my fly right from the bonefishes mouth. ...
by Jeff | Aug 8, 2024 | 0 Comments
Indeed it was an outstanding trip to the flats of Texas. But I love it all. I could not wait to get back on the Wisconsin smallies and I didn’t delay. After a couple days catching up on things, Granny and I headed out on a three day two night float trip with Bob...
by Jeff | Aug 2, 2024 | 4 Comments
It’s been quite a week here in Texas. Thank goodness I took Brian Iannacchione’s offer to join him with longtime friend and guide extraordinaire, Jako Lucas. The fishing this week has been a true eyeopener. I’ve seen great jack crevalle fishing, bull redfish like...
by Jeff | Aug 1, 2024 | 2 Comments
I was a little groggy this morning for no particular reason. Then I realized it was August 1. This is when it always hits me. I’ve been up early and fishing hard through the extra-long days for three months straight. They don’t call August the dog days for...
by Jeff | Jul 31, 2024 | 1 Comment
I’ll never forget the first jack crevalle I caught. It was April of 1989 in Belize. The fish was part of a marauding school of crevalle a few miles up in the brackish waters of the Sibun River. I’d not seen such carnage. I remember the cast, the startling smash on...
by Jeff | Jul 30, 2024 | 3 Comments
Last November I was invited by once Seychelles client now good friend, Brian Iannacchione, to join him in Texas to saltwater fly fish with another friend, legendary South African now American and world renown fishing guide, Jako Lucas. As much as I wanted to join...
I started fly fishing at age 7 in the lakes and ponds of New England cutting my teeth on various sunfish, bass, crappie and stocked trout. I went to Northland College in Ashland, Wisconsin, where I graduated with a Naturalist Degree while I discovered new fishing opportunities for pike, muskellunge, walleyes and various salmonids found in Lake Superior and its tributaries.
From there I headed west to work a few years in the Yellowstone region to simply work as much as most people fish and fish as much as most people work. I did just that, only it lasted over 20 years working at the Jack Dennis Fly Shop in Jackson, WY where I departed in 2009. Now it’s time to work for "The Man", working for myself that is.
I pursue my love to paint fish, lecture on every aspect of fly fishing you can imagine and host a few trips to some of the most exotic places you can think of. My ultimate goal is to catch as many species of fish on fly possible from freshwater to saltwater, throughout the world. I presently have taken over 440 species from over 60 countries!
