Kirk Deeter
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Articles by Kirk Deeter
15 of the West’s Best Hunting and Fishing Lodges
On horseback at Rawah Guest Ranch in Glendevey, Colorado. Many trout devotees consider the Henry’s Fork of the Snake River in Idaho the graduate school for dry-fly anglers. Epic hatches of insects such as brown drake mayflies and golden stone flies feed notoriously wily and hard-fighting rainbow trout that challenge even the most technically tuned fishermen.
AT News: Well, I’ll Be Dammed
Dam removal is a hot topic within fly-fishing and conservation circles these days, with very good reason. Dams block fish passage. That’s bad for spawning and recruitment. In some places, dams that slow current flows cause water temperatures to rise. That’s bad for cold-water-loving trout and the insects they eat, especially in an era of climate change. When you take out certain dams, the fish rebound can be dramatic and sometimes even immediate.
AT News: The Fly Fishing Show
We had a chance to pop into the Denver Fly Fishing Show over the weekend, which always serves as a true barometer for the state of the sport. Ben Furimsky, President and CEO of The Fly Fishing Show, Denver, CO. The Fly Fishing Show I often use the Fly Fishing Show as a bellwether of things to come for the season ahead. This year wasn’t all that different than last year, but I did take notice of a few signs.
How to Catch Trout During the Trico Hatch
This Nebraska Town Is Older Than the State Itself The town of Bellevue has a long history, one even predating Nebraska, the state it lies. Long before it became a trading post along the Missouri …
The Art of Fishing the Trico Hatch
Shortly after daybreak, on a hot, grimy Montana morning, Pete Cardinal and I stood knee-deep in the Missouri River and watched fies flutter by the thousands. Thick gray columns of the bugs wafted like smoke plumes over the foamy eddy upstream. The trout were already dialed in, swirling and gnashing at the surface, their mouths clicking and popping like castanets. An epic hatch was happening right before us—and I was feeling anything but confident.
Dispatch from the Dean: The Gear List
_We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn more › _ Okay, so some of you have asked me about the gear I am using as I fish the Dean River in British Columbia for wild steelhead. It’s a fair question that deserves some straight answers. Truth is, when you go this far afield, and you are on a “trip of a lifetime,” you don’t have any wiggle room when it comes to the gear you choose.
Five Tips for Sight Fishing on Cloudy Days
I just returned from an extraordinary flats fishing trip to Christmas Island , in the central Pacific Ocean. And though the fish were plentiful, the crazy El Nino weather pattern is in full effect, which meant plenty of rain and clouds throughout the week. By adjusting our approach, we were still able to catch many bonefish, triggers, and trevally under conditions that would have had many anglers bummed out.
Winter Trout Fishing Tips
Winter trout fishing is a funny thing. Some people love it because the crowds are gone, and they can bank on having long stretches of great water all to themselves. Other people hang up the trout gear in fall, often because they believe catching them in the middle of winter is just too much effort. They’re not entirely wrong: Winter trout make you work a little harder. But many anglers believe the biggest challenge is simply getting them to eat. It’s not.
F&S Classics: Carp Crazy
This story was published in the April 2008 issue. CARP FISHING is like soccer. The rest of the world is stark-raving mad about the sport “football” to the other 6.3 billion people on the planet), and the World Cup packs the promotional punch of three Super Bowls (the other “football”) and two Olympics combined. But in the States, soccer rates somewhere between bowling and cow tipping-or, for that matter, alongside carp fishing.
Mouse Traps: Trigger Explosive Strikes, Catch Trophy Trout
We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn more › Watching or hearing a trout hammer a mouse pattern on the surface is not only one of the most explosive thrills in flyfishing, but it will also change your perception of salmonids. Gentle sips? Soft takes? Not here. When browns and rainbows reach a certain size, they cannot survive by eating tiny insects exclusively.
Three Ways to Help Catch-and-Release Trout Survive
Being a “catch-and-release” trout angler doesn’t necessarily mean you aren’t having an impact on the resources. In fact, if you look at some scientific data, you’ll learn that a significant percentage of caught-and-released fish (as much as 10 percent or more) die anyway. Which begs the question, who is causing more stress on the fish population, the angler who catches and releases 50 fish in a day, or the one who pops two or three in the creel for dinner? Simple math suggests the former.
How to Run a Lever-Action Rifle
_We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn more › _ The right way to operate and shoot a lever-action rifle might seem pretty straight forward. But, as is the case with any firearm, there are some tips and tricks that can help you be safer, faster, more reliable, and maybe even more accurate with your lever gun. Just because we all have a little cowboy in us, does not mean we all come into this world knowing how to run a lever gun.
How To Hunt For Morel Mushrooms
| Morels can be hard to spot, and one of the most common mistakes among foragers is walking right past them. Flickr/George P. Macklin | For a lot of outdoorsmen, especially this time of year, “mushrooms” means “morel mushrooms.” Widespread, delicious, and easy to identify, morels are our best-known and best-loved wild mushroom. In many parts of the country, spring is the best time to forage and find morels.
Fish Recipe: The Best Fried Walleye Sandwich
Behold—the Lake Erie Monster Recipe: How to Make the Lake Erie Monster Melt Bar & Grilled, in the Cleveland suburbs of Lakewood and Cleveland Heights, has one specialty: grilled-cheese sandwiches. The menu presence of 26 variations on that humble childhood favorite—there’s even one stuffed with lasagna—is just one indicator of how far and wide owner Matt Fish is willing to take a grilled-cheese.
10 Traits of a Perfect Dove Gun
_We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn more › _ The author, ready for the dove field with his Beretta 391. Phil Bourjaily When my home state of Iowa finally got a mourning dove season eight years ago, I felt like playing catch-up to make amends for the previous thirty or forty doveless years. My now-departed waterfowl gun—a 12 gauge Beretta 391—got the nod as the gun I owned that would make the most efficient dove killer.
The Art of Fishing the Trico Hatch
Shortly after daybreak, on a hot, grimy Montana morning, Pete Cardinal and I stood knee-deep in the Missouri River and watched fies flutter by the thousands. Thick gray columns of the bugs wafted like smoke plumes over the foamy eddy upstream. The trout were already dialed in, swirling and gnashing at the surface, their mouths clicking and popping like castanets. An epic hatch was happening right before us—and I was feeling anything but confident.
True Cast - The Best Trout Fishing Places in America
By Kirk Deeter I once made the mistake of writing a story on “America’s Best Fly-Fishing Towns” for Field & Stream magazine. The story turned out fine, but then they put me on a radio tour, and one happy town heaped praise on me, while nine others grilled me on why I didn’t rank them first. I can tell you the truth now. The town that got ranked first earned that spot because our art director found a killer image that made for a good opening spread in the magazine.
Winter Trout Fishing Tips
Winter trout fishing is a funny thing. Some people love it because the crowds are gone, and they can bank on having long stretches of great water all to themselves. Other people hang up the trout gear in fall, often because they believe catching them in the middle of winter is just too much effort. They’re not entirely wrong: Winter trout make you work a little harder. But many anglers believe the biggest challenge is simply getting them to eat. It’s not.
Joe Cermele and Kirk Deeter Archives
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Gift Guide: 30 Items For Fishermen
It’s that time of year again when malls are zoos and servers are crashing as millions of hungry holiday shoppers log on to score the hottest deals on the Net. That’s why Fishing Editor Joe Cermele and Editor-At-Large Kirk Deeter want you to get a jump on purchasing presents for all the anglers in your life. Here are 30 fresh wares for fishermen, whether they’re into hitting the hardwater or casting flies.
Rumble in the Jungle: Catching Huge Arapaimas on the Fly in Guyana
May 23, 2012 Mountain climbers have Mount Everest. Fly anglers now have the arapaima. These fish are often called "swimming dinosaurs" because they are the world's largest freshwater species with scales. Native to jungle rivers in South America, they've been over-harvested to the point that wild populations are extremely rare.
Which Trout Species Is Most Beautiful?
Cookie Settings Many products featured on this site were editorially chosen. Field & Stream may receive financial compensation for products purchased through this site. Copyright © 2021 Field & Stream. A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
Fly Casting Tutorial: Brian O'Keefe on the Double Haul
October 6, 2011 The "double haul" is when you use your non-casting hand to pull (and release) the fly line on the forward and backward casting strokes. Doing so adds flex to the rod, which builds line speed. Faster line speed creates more distance, as well as ability to bust through the wind. Here, casting guru Brian O'Keefe shows that the best way to learn to haul is by making some casts with the rod parallel to the ground.
F&S Classics: Carp Crazy
Cookie Settings Many products featured on this site were editorially chosen. Field & Stream may receive financial compensation for products purchased through this site. Copyright © 2020 Field & Stream. A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
The Best Midge-Cluster Fly Patterns for Winter Trout
_We may earn revenue from the products available on this page and participate in affiliate programs. Learn more › _ Stuff your winter fly box with these midge patterns. Travis Rathbone More than 50 percent of the average trout’s diet consists of tiny midges, and it’s these microscopic insects that you’ll most likely find flying above local streams this month. But don’t knock yourself out trying to tie a size 28 bug to hair-thin 7X tippet with frozen fingers.
Flies: 3 Best Midge-Cluster Patterns For Winter Trout
These are the most effective bunched-up midge bugs for cold-water browns and rainbows Updated: December 3, 2020 Stuff your winter fly box with these midge patterns.Travis Rathbone More than 50 percent of the average trout’s diet consists of tiny midges, and it’s these microscopic insects that you’ll most likely find flying above local streams this month. But don’t knock yourself out trying to tie a size 28 bug to hair-thin 7X tippet with frozen fingers.
The 8 Most Exciting Fish to Catch on Topwater Flies
Cookie Settings Many products featured on this site were editorially chosen. Field & Stream may receive financial compensation for products purchased through this site. Copyright © 2020 Field & Stream. A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
What Makes a Great Fly-Fishing Hat?
Cookie Settings Many products featured on this site were editorially chosen. Field & Stream may receive financial compensation for products purchased through this site. Copyright © 2020 Field & Stream. A Bonnier Corporation Company. All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in part without permission is prohibited.
To fish or not to fish during the outbreak
Trout streams are calling our names ... but is it safe and smart to go fishing? Photo by Chris Hunt. Editor’s note: The following first appeared in Angling Trade magazine. Admittedly, things are moving fast and my own opinions have evolved quite a bit in the past several days especially. But one thing that really sticks out and absolutely warms my heart is the sheer class and integrity of the many people in fly fishing with whom I have talked this issue through.
"Bill Curtis" | MidCurrent
EARLY ON A HOT March morning, we find ourselves standing outside the Miami Dadeland Marriott hotel, waiting for the odyssey to begin. Our friends had told us we should start this book project with Bill Curtis. They said most of what we would see in the coming months had been, at least in part, created, improvised, explained, or experienced by Curtis. He is, by unanimous account, one of the fathers of saltwater flats fishing, and one of the last living legends of this game.
The Hidden Caribbean: Paradise Found – Garden & Gun
It would not be unreasonable, or particularly original for that matter, to think of Culebra as a sort of twelve-square-mile blank slate—a tropical destination stripped down to its essentials: baking sun, iridescent clear shallows in ravishing shades of turquoise and cerulean, silky white sand…and not a whole lot else. Like its better-known Puerto Rican sister, Vieques, Culebr a was a bit of a late bloomer.
How to Perfectly Mend Your Fly Line
Wait until your line is even with your position to mend. Casting is crucial, sure. But what happens after your flies hit water—the presentation—is more important. You want to avoid the drag created by currents pulling on your line, which will cause your bugs to drift unnaturally. Mending, the lifting and placing of your fly line upstream from your flies, negates that problem. As a rule of thumb: Mend when your fly, or strike indicator, is even with your position in a run, and not before.
Flyfishing Made Easy: 10 Tips for More Trout
Flyfishing for trout isn’t a complicated, difficult sport. A close look reveals that a successful flyfisherman has mastered several basic abilities: casting smoothly and accurately, knowing how to select a fly that trout will eat on a given day, presenting a fly in a manner that is enticing to trout, and fighting and landing hooked fish. It’s all about problem solving, one step at a time.
How to Start Fly Fishing, 10 Tips
Flyfishing for trout isn’t a complicated, difficult sport. A close look reveals that a successful flyfisherman has mastered several basic abilities: casting smoothly and accurately, knowing how to select a fly that trout will eat on a given day, presenting a fly in a manner that is enticing to trout, and fighting and landing hooked fish. It’s all about problem solving, one step at a time.
How to Add 10 Feet to Your Fly Cast This Week
One of the keys to great fly casting is developing the ability to feel weight transfer. Your line is, of course, weighted, and you must be able to sense exactly when the rod loads. Granted, that “weight” looks like a 90-foot-long piece of spaghetti. But unlike conventional fishing, in which the weight is concentrated in the lure (or the bait) and the line itself is virtually weightless, in fly fishing, the flies weigh very little, and the line itself contains the mass.
Are Beavers a Fly Angler's Friend or Foe?
You're going to hear a lot in coming months about beavers, and the debate over whether they are good or bad for fly fishing habitat. I don't think any of the presidential candidates will be picking that one up, but fishing writers will. I'm one of them. No doubt, beavers change habitat. Sometimes for the better. Sometimes for the worse. On the good side, they'll back up creeks like this one, creating deeper ponds.
Announcing the Winners of Cabela's Guidewear Coolcore Shirts
We're going to keep this short and sweet. The winners of the Cabela's shirts who best summed up why fishing is "cool" in one sentence are... ADeaver, who wrote, "Fishing is cool because in one sport, there are thousands of variables and extreme differences, but then it is all profoundly the same.
How to Land a Massive Trout in Two Minutes or Less
How you handle fish after you catch is critical to their survival. If you're going to be a catch-and-release angler, you must do it right. But science tells us that how you fight a fish—specifically, how long it takes—is also a key factor in whether it survives after having been caught. The longer the fight, the more lactic acid builds up, which can be lethal for a fish.
The Golden Rule of Choosing the Right Fly
You’ve picked your fly, read the river, and figured out exactly where to drop that fly. You then make a cast to the spot you've chosen, but here’s the kicker: You might be only halfway there, because presentation is half of the entire game. How your fly looks to trout in the few seconds after it hits the water is as important, if not more important, than all the things you did to choose the pattern, figure out where to put it, and then get it there.
How to Generate Line Speed for a Better Fly Cast
Keep your rod tip high on the back cast. The trick to casting a fly rod well is generating plenty of line speed. Line speed not only adds distance to a cast, but—with the fast-action, quick-recovery rods most anglers use these days—it is also the key to accuracy. If you're not generating enough line speed, you simply aren't using a fly rod to its full effect. It's a pretty simple deal if you focus on the three basic steps. 1. Start the backcast with the rod tip low to the water.
Win a New Cabela's Guidewear Coolcore Shirt
It's hot out there! But the fishing has been great, and I have been comfortable, because I've been wearing the new Cabela's Guidewear Coolcore shirts that feature chemical-free, moisture-activated technology, which reduces the fabric's surface temperature and doesn't wash out. Click the link for more product details, but the main feature is that Coolcore shirts wick moisture away from the skin and disperse it throughout the fabric's surface, where regulated evaporation produces a cooling effect.
The Best Species for Popper Flies
Pike fishing with popper flies is like flying a kite in a thunderstorm: You never know exactly when the lightning is going to strike, but when it does, the jolt is a spectacular natural explosion. This is why I'm spending this week at Arctic Lodges on Reindeer Lake in northern Saskatchewan/Manitoba, satisfying a pike and popper habit that's gotten way out of control, but that’s a good thing.
10 Things to Know About the New Sage X Fly Rod
Sage introduced its newest fly rod today at the European Fishing Tackle Trade Expo in Amsterdam. I was fortunate enough to receive one of the first production models (9-foot 5-weight) about a month ago, and I have been fishing it ever since—on rivers and lakes, and with dry flies, streamers, and dry-dropper rigs (any setup where an angler must cast).
I Want to Fish Like Gordie Howe Played Hockey
A few years ago, while en route to fish pike on Lake Athabasca, in Northern Saskatchewan, Chris Hunt and I made a side trip during our layover in Saskatoon. We visited a statue honoring one of my greatest sports heroes—“Mr. Hockey” Gordie Howe. It strikes me as oddly ironic that on a day the world remembers "The Greatest of All Time," we've lost another sports icon who blended finesse and skill, with sheer grit and seemingly superhuman ability.
Why Carp Fly Fishing Is Fundamentally Communist
I finally figured out why some anglers are so repulsed by the notion of fly fishing for common carp: It's a purely communist endeavor, and I have no doubt that Karl Marx would have been an absolute carp freak. First of all, carp are everywhere, and everyone can fish for them. You don't have to pay to be in a fancy fishing club, and you don't have to jet off to some exotic location to find world-class action.
What's the Real Number of Fly Anglers in the United States?
One of the more interesting debates in fly fishing revolves around a simple question: Just how many of us fly anglers are there? A recent report by the American Fly Fishing Trade Association pegs the number at right around 4.5 million. To arrive at that number, researchers looked at U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service data and factored in fishing license sales, which increased 5.8 percent between 2011 and 2015.
Thoughts on Montana’s Bighorn River
I have a love-hate flyfishing relationship with the Bighorn. I've been fishing the river (the tailwater stretch that flows from the Yellowtail Dam by Ft. Smith, Mont.) every few years since 1989. It's an old friend. But the type of friend that can get on your nerves, sometimes make you feel uneasy, and maybe even embarrass you. But just when you're about to tell that friend to take a hike, they do something incredibly kind to lift your spirits, and, in the end, you can always count on their loyalty.
Catch Big Trout by Casting Streamers Over Logs
It's a common situation: Trees fall in rivers and get pressed against or near banks. Those logs slowly rot away, and as they do, they create great holding cover for trout. The angler—whether walking the river or floating downstream—instinctively casts flies near these logs. But what is position A? Where should the first cast go? Well, in my experiance, bigger fish tend to hold on the shore side of the log. So casting over the log with a dry fly is the way to go.
Which Trout Species is Most Beautiful
You'd be surprised how long (and heated) a conversation about "which trout species is the most physically beautiful" went on the other night among fishing friends at Casa Deeter. As is often the case, beauty is in the eye of the beer-holder. We stalemated on three species: the brown trout, the rainbow trout, and the brook trout.
Fly Fishing Cuba: Orvis Now Offering Charters
Like many other American anglers, I yearned to someday fish in Cuba. The forbidden fruit. The Hemingway lore. Pristine natural resources and willing bonefish, tarpon, even permit. My dreams danced with the possibilities. But I never acted on it. Oh sure, I knew how to get there through the side entrance—flying through Cancun and tucking a twenty in your passport so it wouldn’t get stamped. But I didn’t test the embargo—not so much out of patriotic obligation, rather because I was chicken.
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