For fly-fishing veterans on this day: a red, white and blue ‘bow. One of my recent black and white photos of a Tennessee rainbow, tinted in Photoshop using red, white and blue “paint” (with some gold for the fin). Just a way to acknowledge sacrifice and to say “thanks.”

Drawing Flies 52 dorado (mahi-mahi). Had to go digital on this one, since it was the only way I could get the effects I was after quickly enough (and without splattering my office with paint). Notes: For this fish, I was working in Adobe Illustrator start-to-finish. To save myself some time, I grabbed a number [...]

DF52 snook. Decided to go for pure form this time. A few minutes in Illustrator and done. Not all DF52 fish need to go the full 30!

Drawing Flies 52 False Albacore (“Albie”). Wanted to stay with the East Coast fishing this week, and keep it in the salt, too. The colors and marking on Albies are well-suited to an artistic palette, in this case the digital CMYK palette in Adobe Illustrator. Update: I had pretty much this image in my head when [...]

DF52 Bluefish. Done raw, fast, and uncertain in form—sorta like the real thing in a blitz. I’m too worn down right now to worry about anatomical perfection, so I went for roughness of shape and boldness of color. Hope you like it (I actually do). Jeff’s cool blue is here.

I was gone most of last week, putting some dusty mileage on Oregon’s passes and backroads. One place I ended up was the Yamsi Ranch in southern Oregon. Some of my time was devoted to a fly-casting clinic, but the rest of my hours were spent exploring the section of the Williamson River that runs [...]

I’m on the road, I’m in a hotel, and I’m fried. This week’s DF52 bluefish is going to be delayed here at FF&W. In the meantime, go have a look at Jeff’s really nice blue here. I’ll get my drawing up as soon as I can….

I remember the first steelhead that I ever hooked. It was a Great Lakes fish, and it had taken a big, black stonefly nymph with a deep, leaden heaviness. I pulled back—several times—thinking that I had a branch or perhaps the bottom. The big trout popped out of the water in a purely vertical fashion, [...]

This week’s DF52 fish image (spotted gar) turned out to be a last-second type of drawing. Too many fits and starts to be able to properly dig into the details and the play of light. Last year’s week 40 DF52 drawing, however, was just the opposite. The Wickham’s Fancy had a good start and ended [...]

DF52 Spotted Gar. I like gar. Cool lookin’ and they bite big, flossy streamers pretty nicely, too (if they are in the mood). The gar was Jeff’s idea this week, and we’ve both veered away from the mainline lately. Liking some of this “alternate species” stuff, but I get to choose next week, so perhaps [...]

Everyone needs a good fishing name, a name that you can use in quotes between your real first and last names. It should be a name that rings of your angling/romantic prowess, or your favorite fish species, or even some locally/regionally/nationally known incident in which you were intimately involved. I have such a name. Actually [...]

DF52 Pacific lamprey. Perhaps not exactly what you expected? Think “koi” for now, and I’ll fill in the details (and why this image is so rough) later… Update: Okay, I’m back with some more info. I had a piece going last night, got 20+ minutes in and decided I really didn’t like it all—so much [...]

This week’s DF52 fish is going to be something a little different (stay tuned). In the meantime, above is the week 39 image from last year’s DF52 flies-only project: the Bunyan Bug. Drawn on a rock, with a rock, both of which came from the center of A River Runs Through It territory. You can [...]

  Drawing Fish 52 Atlantic salmon. I love Atlantics. Perhaps my favorite cold-water gamefish in terms of the “game” aspect. When they are hot, right out of the ocean, they fight precisely like what they are: ocean fish in a river. Love that. If you go to a place where are still a lot of them [...]