Nikko. This is why Anthony, Matt, & I traveled to Japan. A solid 2+ drive from Tokyo, this is where we’d be staying, and fishing, for the next four days. Our friend Hiro picked us up at our Tokyo hotel early Monday morning in his Toyota van. The plan was to drive up into Nikko, do some sightseeing in the morning, meet up with Hiro’s Nikko Tenkara partner Takashi Sakauchi in the afternoon, check into our hotel, and then have a “welcome” dinner that night ahead of our first day of fishing on Tuesday.

Wow. Saturday evening was an incredible, albeit slightly overwhelming introduction to Japan. August 30th, Let's Go! Sunday was our one full day in Shibuya, and it had to count. Anthony and Matt were going to be back in Tokyo after Nikko since they were staying in Japan for a few weeks, but for me, Shibuya was it. The NFL regular season was kicking off in about a week, which is when I earn my paycheck, so I'd be heading home shortly after Nikko. With that hanging over us, we ignored the jet lag, agreed to meet in the lobby at 8 AM, and Anthony & Matt kindly made a pact to try and squeeze everything I wanted out of the day.

Time to start the recaps of the Japan trip. I'll try to keep these readable, but I also really want to jot down my memories. I recently realized this blog has been around for 19 years, which is genuinely hard to believe, so if nothing else I appreciate it for the journaling. And I'd like to do these recaps proper. August 28 & 29: Jacksonville to Atlanta to Tokyo My Friday morning started early. I had a 7:00 AM flight to catch from Jacksonville to Atlanta, and K.C. was kind enough to drop me off at the airport.

So here's a bit of news. Labor Day weekend plans have changed. Dramatically. Those of you who read my earlier post about Lilly's summer at Bard College and our plans to visit the Hudson Valley know that an extended Catskills fishing trip was very much on the table this summer. And for a while it was. I've never spent any real time in the Catskills, and the idea of finally fishing some of that legendary water was really exciting. But life has a funny way of rerouting your plans, and I'm not exactly complaining about where this particular detour is taking me.

If you've spent any time on this blog you know I mention Chase and Aimee Bartee of Tight Loops every now and then. They make some of my favorite fly fishing films, and their work has a way of blending beautiful cinematography with genuine storytelling that a lot of people in this space try for but just don't do as well. When I heard they had a new series out, I didn't need much convincing to sit down and watch. The series is called Two in the North, produced for…

A new fly fishing show just appeared on my radar and I think it's worth putting on yours too. FLOW Fest Expo is a brand new event coming to Asheville, North Carolina on March 13-14, 2027. It's being built from the ground up by the Mauri family, who many in the fly fishing world will recognize from Mauri Flyfishing and their association with The Fly Fishing Show. Last week Emily Mauri announced that she'd left The Fly Fishing Show to launch this with her family and some collaborators, and the concept she's described sounds pretty interesting.

Good news out of Harrisburg that's worth sharing. On July 27th, the Pennsylvania Fish and Boat Commission voted to raise the statewide minimum harvest size for trout from 7 inches to 9 inches. It takes effect January 1, 2027, and it's the first time they've touched that number since 1983. Over 40 years! Better late than never, I suppose... This wasn't just some arbitrary change. Pennsylvania fisheries biologists spent the last decade sampling nearly 200,000 wild brook trout across close to 3,000 streams, and of all those fish, only about 6 percent were longer than 7 inches.

Yes, I'm in a bit of a spey rabbit hole right now. You know I've been a Redington Classic Trout guy for a while now. The rod, the reel, I own both, fish both, and have written about both more than once on this blog. So when I saw Redington announce on Instagram they were extending the Classic line into spey territory, oh, well that caught my attention... Meet the Classic Spey Rod and the Classic Spey Reel The rod comes in a range of configurations spanning trout spey, switch, and full spey models, from a 3-weight 11-footer all the way up to an 8-weight 136.

So, admittedly the following article is a little weird. I asked Ai to explain the difference between Skagit and Scandi spey lines. I sort of already knew the answer, but being a small stream trout guy who never spey fished before, I wanted a clear and simple explanation. Mostly so when I listen to steelhead podcasts, I know what the heck they're talking about. I don't take any credit for penning this information, that honor goes to Claude's big robot "brain" and whatever actual unattributed human knowledge bank it leeched this from.

Spurky is back today with another guest post. Today's topic is numbers. No, he's not a mathematician or a bad CBS drama, he's actually talking about the number of fish caught. To some they mean everything, to others they're inconsequential.  What is it about the fetish with numbers when talking about fishing, especially on computer chat rooms & forums? I catch more fish than you do Now I am a fair trout fisherman, and do okay on the multi-species front, so why would I care about someone who continually claims up to 100 fish a day?

I had the pleasure of fishing with Spurky this past Saturday. When not posting pictures of bikini clad fishing women to my Facebook wall, he has been persistently texting & Facebooking me about fishing Valley Creek again, and last week he basically told me, "Valley on Saturday. Be there at 7 AM. What exit do I take again?" I guess he was telling, not asking, so I didn't have a choice... not that I'd say no anyway... Meeting in one of the larger parking lots we geared up and headed down to the stream, walking in a bit before starting to fish at around 7:20 AM.

A Guest Post by Jim Spurlock Never take your fishing trips for granted, because one day it'll all be done. I didn't even see the signs that were preparing me for a long time. First came a bad tremor in my dominant hand and arm, which I pushed off as a side effect of the medication I was taking for anxiety. Next came a speech impediment where I slurred my words and didn't talk loud enough. Then came the falls, which I blamed on my bifocals. Then came the apathy - excuses, really.

I recently took a trip to western North Carolina in search of something. Fish, sure… but perhaps something a little bit more. It’s not uncommon that when I make these quasi-spiritual journeys, they’re extremely last minute. I’m sure you know the type. You’re at work on a Wednesday, growing tired of corporate-speak and meeting after spreadsheet after PowerPoint. Thursday comes around and you’ve tuned almost everyone and everything out. Might as well be Charlie Brown’s teacher on the other end of that Zoom call. By Friday morning you’re like, “F*ck it, I gotta get away.” Zero planning, no time to make arrangements to meet up with friends.

I recently took a trip to western North Carolina in search of something. Fish, sure... but perhaps something a little bit more. It's not uncommon that when I make these quasi-spiritual journeys, they're extremely last minute. I'm sure you know the type. You're at work on a Wednesday, growing tired of corporate-speak and meeting after spreadsheet after PowerPoint. Thursday comes around and you've tuned almost everyone and everything out. Might as well be Charlie Brown's teacher on the other end of that Zoom call. By Friday morning you're like, "F*ck it, I gotta get away." Zero planning, no time to make arrangements to meet up with friends.

Man, this summer is flying by. I was traveling a lot for work last week. Jacksonville to Philly to New York to Boston and back to Jacksonville. I've seen more planes than fish lately, but this video by River Runs Through Japan snapped me right back to where I needed to be. First off, the video is magnificently shot. The brown at the end is absolutely gorgeous. It also has an interesting message, debate, (whatever you want to consider it) as its central theme. It's definitely worth your time.

In today's world, where keyboard jockeys can be brutal to retailers via reviews and social media, nitpicking and complaining about any perceived inconvenience, I thought I'd do the opposite and send some flowers Orvis' way. One thing I didn't mention about my Driftless trip: on the last day, in addition to catching a bunch of nice fish on my Orvis Superfine Carbon rod, I snapped the tip by the ferrule at the very end of the outing. 100% user error. I used Orvis' online warranty tools to send the rod in for repair, and now that it's back in my hands, I'm happy to report the process was extremely easy and essentially painless.

Let's give out another ASTTDSC award. I think this one is extra cool, and I know you will too. Leigh Smith (Finfollower.com) has been referenced on the blog before, he was even the subject of a "Catching Up With..." interview a few years back. But recently, I learned through Leigh's Instagram that he's hosting a fishing show on Connecticut public access television called On The Fly. See what I mean, this isn't some Zoom interview. This is actually face-to-face in a TV studio. How cool is that?

The last two or three weeks have been quite the blur. There's a lot going on at the moment, yet I'm having trouble focusing on any of it. I'm generally good at multitasking, but there's just something "off" at the moment, and I can't quite put my finger on it. Perhaps all that social media induced brain rot that folks talk about has finally set in. I don't know. That being said, I figured I'd sit down today, Sunday, and write a new "musings" post. Not totally fishing related, although there are a few fishy themes, just sorting some things out in my head in a way that makes sense to me.

Arizona's state fish, the Apache trout was officially delisted from the federal Endangered Species Act in September 2024, making it the first sportfish and the first trout species ever to be recovered and removed from the list. Now, the brand Native Instinct, who makes some really awesome fishing-themed apparel, have released a limited Apache Trout Recovery Drop to celebrate and further support exactly that effort. The tagline is "Recovered. Not Finished." which I think is just about perfect. Because while the delisting is worth celebrating, the Apache trout exists wild in exactly one place on earth: the cold headwater streams of Arizona's White Mountains. 

Figured I'd do a bit of a photo dump from a recent trip to and from New York. Drove up over the weekend and dropped the kid off at her summer theatre gig in the Hudson Valley. Was supposed to have a work meeting in NYC on Wednesday, so I was going to stay in Hudson, NY for a few days, work remotely on Monday & Tuesday, take the train into the city for the meeting on Wednesday and fly home. The meeting got cancelled, so I cut the trip a little short. Beautiful region of the country, can't wait to return once Lilly's show wraps up...

In Episode 35 of the Level Line Podcast, Tenkara Angler panelist Amanda Hoffner takes the hosting chair for an all-women conversation featuring four incredible anglers from across the country: Auna Kaufmann (Wyoming), Caitlin Costa (Connecticut), and Haley Beaupre & Victoria Hussey (North Carolina). Together, they cover everything from rod selection and fly tying to women-only tenkara events, conservation policy, mental health in the outdoors, and what makes the tenkara community feel different from the rest of the fly fishing world. A change of pace and genuinely entertaining, this one is worth the full watch & listen.

Exciting times here in the Troutrageous! household. I'm a day away from a road trip with my daughter up to the Hudson Valley of New York where she'll spend the summer doing theatre related things. This isn't the potential fishing trip I referenced in an earlier post, but rather the beginning of her summer adventure. But I love a good road trip, so I'm excited. Northward bound! Anyway... In my ongoing homage to the now discontinued Orvis News blog (R.I.P., most of the old URLs don't even work anymore) and its…

K.C., Lilly, & I went out to get some Mexican food last Friday night. Lilly picked the place, La Nopalera, a local chain of restaurants around Jacksonville. Anyway, it was a lively "start the weekend" atmospthere, the food was great as usual, and there was even a most interesting doorman to greet us upon arrival and departure. As we were walking back to the car after the meal, I noticed a face staring back at me in the SUV parked directly across from ours. It was dangling on a string from the rear view mirror.

Let's raise a glass to The Fly Fishing Show for bringing back their stop in "Atlanta" for 2027. Huzzah! If you don't live in the Southeast, you may not have been aware that the Atlanta date was unceremonious cancelled for 2026 due to a bit of a scheduling spat with the prior venue, the GAS South Convention Center in Duluth, GA. The Atlanta Fly Fishing show always served as a fun way to start off the new year's fishing season, one I looked forward to with anticipation. Having it cancelled was a bummer.

Bonus Track! Not actually a song, but a mashup of the video footage I took during the 2026 Driftless trip. Warning, this video is rated LDR, for excessive long distance releases! Tracks on the Driftless 2026 Album: Track 1 - Ride Like the Wind Track 2 - Rockin' Down The Highway Track 3 - MacArthur Park Track 4 - Paradise Track 5 - We're Not Gonna Take It Track 6 - Cruisin' Bonus Track!

Smooth Like Smokey Track 6. My final day in the Driftless. Some days are just so smooth and effortless, just like this Smokey Robinson classic. Press "play" to get into the vibe. The Last Day The morning started with a series of goodbyes. Dave packed up and left straight from the farmhouse. We all bid the pig adieu. Anthony & I met a few friends for breakfast, but then he departed as well. I was now by myself, which as an only child, is something I'm quite comfortable with.

Hair Nation Track 5 ties back to Monday's adventure in a roundabout way. During the long drive to our destination stream, Anthony was playing the "Hair Nation" satellite radio channel on his Subaru's stereo pretty much the entire way. That sparked conversations about how Jon Bon Jovi screwed over Sebastian Bach & Skid Row, Cinderella sang a jingle for a local hot dog stand, and how awesome it would have been to see Van Halen live at their early 80s peak, well before "Van Hagar." Anthony & I enjoyed the flashback, Dave seemed none too impressed.

A Special Stream I have a favorite stream in the Driftless. I enjoy all it's bends and bows, nooks and crannies. Home to browns, brookies, and the occasional chub. While I find it an ideal creek to fish alone, it can easily accommodate two anglers. However, three's probably a crowd. I only introduce it to close friends. It's special to me. One might even call it Paradise. A Tag Team Trip It was now Sunday, Day 4 of our Driftless adventure. I decided to take Dave to my special stream.

Prologue Despite the title of this track, we didn't fish in a park on Saturday, May 1st. Instead, we fished off a highway. But I'll get to the significance of the titular song later in this entry. For now, just press "play" and enjoy Richard Harris belting out this gem as some background music while you read today's post. Oh no, the Russkies... The numerous options of waters to fish in the Driftless are practically uncountable. That's why I like it so much. Today, Saturday, Anthony offered the idea that we go fish a stream that was a little over an hour away.

On to Day (I mean Track) 2! After a good night's sleep, we took our time on Friday morning before heading out. With more than a little chill in the morning air, the fish weren't going to get moving until the sun got a little higher in the sky. One Creek on the Agenda Most days in the Driftless mean hitting a creek in the morning, taking a little siesta, and then possibly a second stream in the afternoon. It didn't quite play out that way today. With our bit of a delayed start, paired with a promise to meet up in the evening with the larger tenkara group that was assembling over at the Esofea Campground for the…

Okay, let's start the Driftless 2026 recap posts. Last year's were Hobbit themed, but instead of the Shire, this year I'm making an album playlist. Music always seemed to be part of the conversation, especially during drives from stream to stream. So most of these posts will derive their titles from songs that came up in the context of that banter. Maybe consider hitting "play" below and listen along to get in the mood as you read this first installment. Early Morning Travel The first day was quite the epic adventure.

Oh, I'm back. Back from the Driftless, back home in Florida, and for better or worse, back to reality. But I'm armed with a fair amount of material to write about. I'm looking forward to sharing a few trip reports over the next few days (I fished for six) and getting everyone caught up, whether you like it or not... Will it be another Hobbit-inspired series of posts? Unlikely, but should be fun to write nonetheless. In the meantime, here's a few photos from the trip, with several more to come.

Some fun news to share. Both on the Lilly (& maybe fishing) fronts... After several rounds of interviews with multiple companies, Lilly was able to get a position this summer to work in wardrobe at the Bard College SummerScape. This is kind of a big deal, as I'm learning lots of Broadway and adjacent talent also work these shows, so it's a great opportunity for her not only get high end experience, but also build connections and (hopefully) do a bit of networking. Lilly also gets to stay on campus with free room and board…

While I highlighted Season 4 of the Flylords Fly Shop Tour Midwest in general in a recent T! F5 post, the most recent stop along the way was a "must watch" as soon as it popped up in my YouTube feed. The crew ends up in Minnesota, and while they fish the Mighty Mississippi, as well as some stellar ponds, lakes, and the Boundary Waters, the section that focused on the Driftless area's spring creek brown trout fishing is what hit home to me.

Since my fly rods mostly sit in their tubes, and my fly reels in their pouches in the corner of my home office, I tend to forget exactly what I have. But I also like to catalog stuff. So to remedy that, I keep a Google Sheet of all the fly rods I own, along with all the reels, and the lines that happen to be loaded on them.

Time to award(?) another ASTTDSC mention. Today, it goes to friend of Troutrageous! and one of the most interesting anglers I know, Jonathan Antunez. To put it simply, Jonathan is a student of the game. And when I mean student, I mean someone who kind of zigs while others zag. While everyone's all about euronymphing and tossing streamers these days, Jonathan's pouring hours into reading books from the 17 & 1800s to gather nuggets of information that can help his fishing today.

While I embed videos here all the freakin' time, it's rare that I post a fishing video of my own... or at least a video that I took more than 30 seconds to edit. Why?  Well, first, I mostly fish alone and I don't have the patience to set up the camera to get all cinematogramatic... second, editing video sucks... and three,  I'm not 

Let's ring in the weekend with a T! Friday Fishing Film Festival. I think we all deserve some escape from what was certainly a heavy week. But before we do, it would be great if you'd take in this video on a subject that impacts us all. The government recently announced plans to reorganize the US Forest Service that have sparked some serious concerns for the future of our public lands.

My friend Bill has a way of sending emails and texts completely out of nowhere. His most recent dispatch arrived with the subject line "Sasquatch of Sorts in Laos," and it did not disappoint. Bill (Right) in the field / Photo: Isthmus Bill has spent quite a bit of time doing fieldwork in Laos and apparently somewhere wedged in his notes from the late 1990s is this gem: a set of instructions from local Lao villagers on how to attract a…

In addition to real estate listings, I also look at job boards for "dream jobs" that involve fly fishing. My job can be stressful, but I like it. However, it's unfortunately far away from trout water. Indeed had a job posting that popped up over the weekend that wasn't a guide job, rather a supply chain listing for Cortland Line…

You know the drill by now. First it was a Scottish salmon river, then a Catskills trout headquarters, even a tiny chunk of Wisconsin Driftless. it's fun to daydream about owning fishing real estate. Yesterday, Gray's Sporting Journal sent an email blast out with something extremely daydream worthy: The Salinas. Located on the southern tip of Long Island in the Bahamas, not the one with the traffic and the strip malls, the one surrounded by turquoise water.

I spend a decent amount of time crawling around the corners of the internet looking for fly fishing content worth sharing, and every now and then something lands in my feed that really draws me down a rabbit hole. Box of Rain, a Substack from someone who goes by CosmicJohn, was one of those finds, and has become a favorite read over the past year.

This is not an April Fools' joke. If you fish Valley Creek or Little Valley Creek in Pennsylvania, or if you care about clean water in the Delaware River watershed, I need a few minutes of your time. Sound good? Here's the sorta short version... Bishop Tube, a former industrial site in Chester County, has been contaminating Little Valley Creek with toxic pollutants for roughly 50 years.

"The First Open Source Click Pawl Reel Ever Made" That's a bold marketing statement, right? Bro, check out my new reel... I love a nice click & pawl reel. Ross Reels just came out with a new model, the Cimarron Creek, which is fully machined in the USA and has a relatively low price of $249. Whether or not you like the aesthetics of the Cimarron Creek, that's a pretty nice product/price value proposition.

Thank you for allowing me to vent about McDonald's yesterday. Now back to regularly scheduled programming. I was so behind on my email inbox. Just tons of emails backing up my "fly fishing specific" account. You can tell it's spring and all the manufacturers are sending out some of their best offers to anglers across the internet. Both on new gear, and perhaps some deals on last year's gear that just didn't move to their liking.

A few weeks ago, a brand new McDonald's restaurant opened no more than a few miles from my front door. There are other McDonald's locations in the general area, but this is now the closest one, and the one I figured I'd frequent if so inclined. Now, yes, I know McDonald's isn't necessarily the healthiest dietary choice, just like most other fast foods, but I'm not above it.