2025 was a great year for me, especially in terms of days on the water. But there were also some firsts – my first year where I fished 75 days, for one! Having fished 65 days in 2024, adding ten additional days was a major accomplishment! Of course it was made possible by another first, my first full year of retirement!
Learnings
Every day of every year in my 25 year long fly fishing journey, I learn new things. If you don’t learn new things, you don’t get better, and if you aren’t getting better, then what is the point? In summary, I will outline a few things I learned in 2025. Some of these things were likely relearned concepts from prior years and perhaps I am just getting better at refinement.
2025 marked my first full year of fishing while retired. Sure, retirement does free up tons of time, but the past five years have had me in semi-retirement, working only 10 hours a week. Still, I only managed ten days more on the water than in 2024. One of my learnings had to do with setting a goal of 80 days on the water. I realized that the push to get to 80 created an a motivation that was unnatural for me. What is important is the quality of the time spent on the water, not the quantity. Also, a few years back I made the conscious decision to only fish on days where I was fully engaged, ready and excited to go. Several times in the past year I backed off my plans to fish simpy becasue I was not willing to just go through the motion. I’m either “all in” or finding something else to do. Here are a few other guiding principles:
- *. Numbers are no longer that important
- * Size still matters, but I’m clear that I’m not always targeting size
- *. It’s OK to quit while you are ahead, or just having a rough day
- * Size still matters, but I’m clear that I’m not always targeting size
Salt water – fishing the everglades
- The Everglades are an amazing fishery. Huge and expansive, but not totally unique however. The ecosystem is a combination of shallow water flats and mangrove jungles. Fishing the mangroves, primarily for snook, but also tarpon requires a lot of skill and here are some of the things I am learning:
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- *. Snook lay back under the mangroves and being able to skip a fly under branches will increase your chances of an eat
- * Sometimes, the snook are not only found in the mangroves, look for current.
- * Your first strip has to be immediately after the fly hits the water. It’s unnatural for a baitfish to be stationary, even for a second!
- * The 9wt rod is the right tool for the job. I also learned to make relatively effortless casts with it.
- * Your first strip has to be immediately after the fly hits the water. It’s unnatural for a baitfish to be stationary, even for a second!
- * Sometimes, the snook are not only found in the mangroves, look for current.
- *. Snook lay back under the mangroves and being able to skip a fly under branches will increase your chances of an eat
Dry Fly Fishing
Fishing the dry fly continues to be my favorite form of fly fishing. In fact, now even more so. Here are some of my learnings
- * Fish two flies – dry dropper, or two dries
- * Fishing the dry/dropper is a good idea, even when they are eating on top
- * The emerger is an excellent choice as the second fly
- * Change flies often, even if you have had some success
- * When fishing dries, an eat is almost as good as getting the hookset
- To elaborate on the second point above, I began practicing fishing the dry/dropper on the Greys in Wyoming, even when the fish were eating on top. Magically, I was getting two to three times as many eats below, as i was getting up above. However, if after an hour fish are exclusively eating on top, I take the dropper off.
- * Change flies often, even if you have had some success
- * The emerger is an excellent choice as the second fly
- * Fishing the dry/dropper is a good idea, even when they are eating on top
Swinging soft hackles and throwing streamers
My second favorite form of fly fishing is swinging flies. Swung soft hackles fish well in spring and fall and chucking streamers in fall and winter. My number one learning when streamer fishing this year – change flies often! My fishing buddy John taught me this. We had two long floats last summer on the South Fork in the canyon section. John was changing streamers often, mostly to determine what color was working that day. I also learned that on a fall day, yellow and white were working well. Two colors that I rarely fished before.
Also, there is a legend that is propagated by streamer guys that big streamers catch big fish. Well, that legend has made Kelly Gallop a lot of money given how popular his big articulated patterns have become. The one time this approach has real validity in my experience is fishing in the fall just before the big browns get on the redds. They are clearly looking for the big meal at this time of year. However, I regularly catch big fish on leeches and other single hook flies at other times of the year.
Movement is key. Whether swinging or stripping, you have to give the fly life. The best streamer fishermen I know use the rod tip to impart movement and often erratic movement.
The main changes made to my soft hackle game this year has been tying flies that can reach different parts of the water column. Big beads, small beads, tungsten beads and brass beads, and of course no beads at all. I often cover my bases when I’m trying to locate where the fish are in the water column, fishing a heavy fly in front that gets down and a lighter fly behind that rides higher in the water column. Once I see which fly they are hitting, I can adjust accordingly.
I’m also tying smaller flies. My go-to in summer has always been a 14 or 16, occasionally a 12. In the fall, especially during aa fall baetis hatch, an 18 is much more appropriate.
Nymphing/Euro Nymphing
The Gasolina Perdigon is one of the best things that happened to me this year. A friend of mine from my fly fishing club began promoting the gasolina. So, I decided to use it as my dropper on the Greys, and it worked extremely well! Then, one day when I was fishing the Duschene with my friend Ron, we were both fishing the Gasolina under our hoppers. We both had a lot of action on it. Then again, fishing it this past summer on the Snake below Jackson, under a Chubby Chernobyl, I also had a lot of eats. Not sure why it works, but it just works!
The Euro rod did not get that much action in 2025 and on days when it did, it was not that productive. I still feel like a total rookie when using it though. I plan to make some rigging changes this year and will continue to fish it, but I’m somewhat perplexed when people talk about how productive it is.
The first two days of 2026
The Orange Asher
Both days fishing were on the middle Provo and the intent was to fish a hatch. However, on the first day, the hatch never came. Undeterred, I still fished the orange Asher, a fly I validated last year. The best way for me to describe the orange Asher, is that it doesn’t really match the hatch, its more like the midge equivalent of a stimulator. In my experience, I have never seen an orange midge or midge cluster. The Asher is very similar to a Griffith’s gnat in terms of profile, but, the body is a bright orange.
In any case, if the fish are looking up expecting a hatch, but the hatch hasn’t started yet, that’s when the Asher fishes best. On my first day, even though we never got a hatch, I had several fish come up to eat the Asher. I had a similar experience the second day. Eventually, there was a bit of a hatch on the second day and the Asher worked to but not during the hatch.
The Blindside Midge
The Blindside midge is a pattern designed by Jon Easdon of Colorado. Jon fishes really technical tailwaters like the South Platte. Very similar to the Middle Provo in many respects. Both fisheries are technical due to fishing pressure and gin clear winter flows. It results in very picky fish that are very skittish. When tied small, like 22 or 24, the Blindside fishes a lot like a small soft hackle emerger. It otherwise looks a lot like a zabra midge. In a 22 or 24, the bead is super small, a 1.5mm. The only bead I had that small was in black. It could be tied beadless too, but due to the hackle, it probably needs the bead in order to sink through the film. It would be worth my time to validate that. On this fly, the thorax is a hot spot, tied with shell pink ice dubbing, very similar to Egan’s Frenchie.
Conditions were right to fish the Blindside midge the second day. I had a few eats on top with the Orange Asher and decided the add the Blindside 18″ behind the dry fly. I also decided to use Trout Hunter 8X fluorocarbon tippet, knowing it would sink along with the fly. Because the hatch was not very robust, only the smaller fish were focused on it and I knew I would have no trouble landing them with my Scott G2 3wt.
The Blindside Midge resulted in several eats. The midges up on the surface were extremely small. You know, like size 32! I knew the Asher was not a match, but I also tried the Morgan’s MIdge which was another adult midge that is shedding its shuck. No eats. Same with the go-to fly, the no-see-um, which has been brilliant during hatch the past 3 years. So I stuck with the Asher in front. As with other emergers, detecting the eat can be a challenge as well. At times, I didn’t know there was a fish on.
Ostrich Herl
The Blindside midge works as a soft hackle emerger, largely due to the hackle, which is ostrich herl, which was new to me. I use a lot of peacock herl but I had to buy some ostrich at my local fly shop. Let me tell you, it works beautifully! The fibers were fine for my size 22’s, but they would work down to a 26, which is truly amazing! It is really hard to find hackle that works on hooks that small! Anyway, the Ostrich herl is something I will be tying with a lot in the future.
Conclusion
2025 was solid year. Not only did I get in a lot of days, but some were truly memorable. My Everglades trip featured the most quality snook ever! Plus my biggest tarpon! Ice off at Strawberry was fantastic! I fished new places like Echo Reservoir and Huntington Lake, fishing ice-off there as well. The Three Amigos had a great fall trip! We caught some big fish on streamers and lost even more! Plus my best day ever on the Teton River with a grand slam (rainbow, brown, cutthroat and brook) and over 30 fish in the boat. We had a few excellent days on the Greys as well. Mel and Matt’s excellent adventure was amazing! Including a great day on the Salt!
The 2026 snowpack in the Rockies is sorely lacking depth at the moment, but we still have February, March and April to make up for lost time. If the pack remains light a cool spring could slow the melt. If we have a warm spring, we will have an early run-off and warming waters come summer. Then, we have to focus on cold tailwaters and higher elevation rivers and lakes. My point is, even with a light snowpack or early run-off, we can make adjustments.
2026 will be a great year for fly fishing as well!
