The Hackle Box: Quill Gordon

The creek is calling- you’ve got a heart full of hope and a face full of pollen. Spring has, in fact, sprung. So dry your eyes and stretch that new line because this is the year we finally match the hatch.

Art by Ryan McArthur

I’ve watched enough sitcom television to know that fisher people don’t have a reputation for being the sexiest subculture out there. We’ve been trolled on dating apps across the country for displaying what our buddies agreed was a heck of a catch, mocked by our white-collar colleagues for our, in their eyes, bumpkin-like pass time, and we smell like fish. Well, the joke’s on them because, in a climate full of filters and swiping, we’ve come up with a double down they never saw coming. In this new segment: we’re getting really into bugs.

The mayfly nymph can be considered the dinner bell for fly fishers who either have no desire to stick it out all winter and freeze their doo-dads off or those who believe that if you’re trout fishing with a submerged fly, you might as well have a button on your reel. The most likely scenario is you’ve probably been spot-fishing the warmish stretches through this peculiar winter we’ve had, wrestling with tangled double nymph rigs and maybe even trying one of those new Oros bobbers that are trying to put Air-Locks out of business, extra credit to Oros for having the backbone to make them in red and white like they were always intended.

Read the rest at Chasing Tides Co.

Clinger mayfly nymph