Joined: May 15, 2003 Posts: 824 Location: Portland, Maine
Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 12:25 pm Post subject: My Response
Here is my answer - Maine.
I don't just say this because I live here. I say this because it is, FOR ME, the best fly fishing place in the country. Why?
1. Phenomenal trout and salmon fly fishing in Fly Fishing Only Rivers.
2. More water than land I think - It would be a tough task to fly fish all of the rivers and streams in Maine in a lifetime. Just take a peak at a topo map of Maine - there is a lot of blue lines and circles (rivers and lakes)
3. The ocean. Ok - so you get tired of catching trout and salmon on the fly? Well, tie up some decievers and clousers or big mackerel patterns and fly fish for Striped Bass, Blue Fish, Tuna or shark.
4. Located on the border of Canada - So if you want to try your luck with Atlantic Salmon.
5. Great Lakes - Driving distance to Great Lakes fisheries
- So, again, this is just my opinion - and maybe it is a little biased since I live here - but that is ok - I truly love Maine - and no matter how far travel or how exotic of a fly fishing destination I visit - I am always glad to come home. Curious to see what others think.
Joined: Jan 21, 2005 Posts: 123 Location: Kodiak, Alaska in winter, bristol bay alaska in summer
Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 1:22 pm Post subject:
I don't think there is one best place because all fisherman are different. Some like fresh and other salt, cold for some otherw warmwater. For me i have to say the best place is where i live Kodiak Alaska or probably anywhere in alaska.
One reason is the multiple species you can catch on the fly, all 5 salmon in salt or fresh, dollies in salt or fresh, Cutthroats, huge bows, sheefish up to 50 pounds, pike that rival anywhere in canada, Big Artic Grayling and even halibut if the conditions are right.
Also the amount of land and people. Alaska and Wyoming are the least populated states in america and alaska is twice the size of texas. There is no other state with so much virgin land to explore. There are still plenty of places where pike, grayling and even steelhead have never seen a fly. My friend who is a float plane captain discovered a stream on kodiak no one knew even existed and proceeded to catch 20 steelhead in a day.
Joined: May 17, 2005 Posts: 96 Location: Medway, Massachusetts
Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 1:57 pm Post subject:
O'Hare airport Chicago. You can catch a flight to anywhere from that major hub. Honestly I love the north east. But I have those days I envy some of the folks out west and up in Alaska. I would also love to fish a lot of Canada. See why O'Hare is the best place now? To bad I hate flying with a passion.
Joined: May 15, 2003 Posts: 824 Location: Portland, Maine
Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 2:14 pm Post subject: well
well...those all sound like good reasons to me...and i am sure that not many people would argue the allure of alaska. but what i think you said about, "every fly fisherman is different" really makes the most sense.
let's take a saltwater guy from florida...he may not even like trout/salmon fishing --- so for him - being able to fly fish for tarpon in the keys or the everglades is the definition of the world's best fly fishing location.
i favor maine because of its well rounded nature and its unique ability to offer the fly fisherman a good taste of almost every flavor of fly fishing. so - maybe it is not the worlds best trout location, the worlds best salmon location or the worlds best saltwater location. but what makes it nice is they are certainly good locations and a fly fisherman can take advantage of the variety. to me, that is what makes it the best - in my opinion.
i could literally go within a half hour of my house and fly fish for
Joined: May 15, 2003 Posts: 824 Location: Portland, Maine
Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 2:16 pm Post subject: chris r
chris r.....you are VERY right - with the global economy and airfare being almost a cheap as a cab ride from the manhatten to queens...and considering that the circumference of the earth is a mere 26,000 miles. maybe its better to just think of things from a continental perspective. so...if we did that - arguing about what state has this and that would be a mute point
Joined: Dec 16, 2004 Posts: 172 Location: Syracuse, NY
Posted: Thu Sep 15, 2005 6:52 pm Post subject:
I'm going to go with Central Idaho on this one. There is just something about this place that tugs at my psyche since Kranefly and I returned from our last trip to the Sawtooths. You can cast to monster spring creek Browns and rainbows in the morning and chase monster Steelhead and Bull trout in the afternoon this place is just sensational. The only downside is that the season is rather limited due to the harsh weather. I have been looking for jobs out there for years. If anyone is reading this post from the Sun Valley or Boise area and has any employment opps I will move there tomorrow without hesitation
Joined: May 17, 2005 Posts: 96 Location: Medway, Massachusetts
Posted: Fri Sep 16, 2005 8:40 am Post subject:
Here's a link to a gentleman who has the right idea. He lives in Virginia in the Fall, Winter and Spring. Then lives in Montana during the Summer and Early Fall. I love checking out his photo journal.
http://www.performanceflyrods.com/journals.html
Jeremy not sure what your links policy is. If they aren't allowed I apologize in advance. Just figured I'd share the link since we're discussing the best location to live in regards to fishing. Mr. Lewis seems to have a good choice in my opinion.
Howdy!
Yep, maine rocks! Jeremy tells it right, where else can you fish for stripers and bluefish and all the trout species 15 minutes from home???
Take this month for example....jeremy and I had fished for trout all summer and finnaly got the saltwater bug. After a 10 minute drive we were into nice fat stripers. Now since we have done the salt, it is getting old and soon back to freshwater!
I rest my case Tight lines
Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 4:40 pm Post subject: Where to live
I used to think Alaska would be the place to live, but with the long winters with little daylight I am not so sure. On the plus side the govt. pays you to live there. I think upstate New York would suit me. You don't just have the variety of fish but the size is awesome too. You can catch world class browns and steelhead in the same stream on the same day. Throw in some kings and coho and possible atlantic salmon for good measure...You can get them all on a flyrod. Crowds can be a problem, but hiking helps to alleviate the problem. If you like stillwater there is a big pond also (lake Ontario).
Joined: Jan 21, 2005 Posts: 123 Location: Kodiak, Alaska in winter, bristol bay alaska in summer
Posted: Sat Sep 17, 2005 11:51 pm Post subject:
Yeah the winters are pretty long here but the summers make up for it in my opinion. Plus there is fly fishing year round in some places and if you hunt you will have plenty to do in the winter. I would have to say though if i coulnd't live in alaska i would also choose somewhere in montana because there is so many great trout fishing locations in all directions. I don't think i could ever see me living on the east coast because of all the people. Alaska has it's crowds but not as bad as people think.
Joined: Dec 27, 2004 Posts: 49 Location: New York, NY
Posted: Tue Sep 20, 2005 4:13 pm Post subject:
Way too late to this discussion. I could say that here in NYC is a great place b/c you have short drives to great coldwater angling--Delaware, Beaverkill, Housatonic--Salmon River is four hours away--you've got Montauk in your backyard and tremendous striper, bluefish, weakfish, and albies right in the New York Bight. And you can get offshore for bluefin, mahi, mako, and what have you. Plus, you have three major airports to get you fly-fishing anywhere in the world.
But to be even further biased, I'd say my old home state of Florida. The fishing up and down both coasts is insane...reds, snook, tarpon, jacks, speckled trout, ladyfish, mangrove snapper, pompano, permit, bonefish, cuda, cobia, triple tail, shad runs in certain places...the list seems endless. Then you can run offshore and fish for sails, mahi, spinner sharks, blackfin tuna, amberjack, albies, kingfish, spanish macks...
And then if you go fresh you've got lunker largemouth bass in seemingly every little pond you flip a popper (catch a 6 1/2 pounder in OKeechobee and the guide calls it a puppy) plus panfish. And if you go to the right places in South Florida, you can tangle with one of my favorite freshwater fly fishing targets, peacock bass. The canals west of Miami are rife with them and they blast the hell out of poppers and anything chartreuse. Of course, if you like the coldwater species, you're SOL.
Joined: Jan 19, 2006 Posts: 30 Location: capital district NY
Posted: Sun Jan 22, 2006 10:48 am Post subject:
Well, I'm new to the forum, late to the discussion, but happened to be thinking about this topic this morning. I live in upstate ny and I think that it is a great place to live and it happens to have some excellent fishing. here's why. locally we have excellent smallmouth fishing, decent trout fishing and some landlocks in lake champlain tribs, shad and stripers in the hudson ( I haven't fished for them but many people do). within a days trip i can hit the lake ontario tribs for silvers, kings, browns and steelhead from late aug- may, the housatonic in Ct, the delaware and other catskill rivers, numerous adirondack lakes and ponds with smallmouth, brookies, browns and lakers and then there is the saltwater of CT, Ma, RI, NY and NJ all within 3 hours. Having said all that, the basis of my opinion stems from my fishing experiences. I have guided in AK for several summers, fished in montana numerous times, BC and oregon for steelhead, nova scotia for salmon, New zealand and Argentina. while each area has it's special qualities and it's own awesome fishing, the variety and the quality of the variety here is remarkable. I have only scratched the surface of it as I have lived here for 5 years and have job, family including a young child and this limits my fishing time, not that I'm complaining. There is year round fishing here. yes, it is a populated area, but there are some fisheries that get little pressure and some that get tons, but if yuo're willing to walk you can often get away from the crowds and get a very high quality experience with world class fishing. just my .02.
Joined: Feb 04, 2005 Posts: 10 Location: New Zealand
Posted: Thu Feb 16, 2006 12:53 am Post subject:
I think that an answer such as "anywhere close to a major hub" isn't really relevent. It strikes me that you're spoiled by cheap airfares, and cheap Gas.
Imagine for one moment that Gas prices became so high that airlines put prices up to levels of the 70's in proportion to wages. At the same time filling up the SUV to go fishing would be costly. Bring back the saddle and horse trails. It would mean less fishing pressure on those lovely places that now are off the track but not too far to meet a few fellows in the day. People would make a trip of it, camping etc. In someway the well to do fashion fisher would drop away because he simply wouldn't want the hassle.
In such circumstances, locals would get the best fishing. In this case "where would YOU want to LIVE?" so that you wouldn't have to travel to fish. I think that is the question.
For me, New Zealand is pretty close, but since the best rivers in the South Island are far from populations and require 4x4 going literally up gravel river beds I think the North Island might be better, esp since the maount of fish per km in the SI is pretty poor. Somewhere like Croatia with it's freestone rivers, Soco trout and Grayling might be better. Most likely Scotland or Ireland in the UK. You can spend a whole evening fishing and lose count the number of fish albeit about 1lb in size but more fun overall.
Not having been to the US of A I can't comment on it.
Posted: Tue Jul 11, 2006 10:51 am Post subject: Any of us bitten by the salt water bug would be remiss not
mentioning some gems. If I had my way, I'd live in Belize in November and December (after the hurrican season) and mid-May to Mid-June.
The rest of the year, I'd live in Bozeman or Missoula.....
Aside from the incredible fishing from Mid-June-October, you have some pretty sick pow-pow at either Bridger Bowl or Montana Snow Bowl....And the early fishing prior to run-off, while inconsistent, can be the best of the year. If you haven't fished spring BWOs in MT, you need to before you die.
I'd also concur that Ireland is a very special place.
well for me i only fished socal because iam still in high school, so iam for socal.
1. theres mammoth lakes or hot creek native trout fly fish only river
2. various lakes and streams
3. urban city park lakes stocked with trout
4. inshore halibut, bonito, mackerel, barred surf perch, etc
5. offshore catalina yellowtail,bluefin,yellowfin,wsb,calico,ocasional sailfish, and tons of other fish.
Kodiak Commando has eloquently stated my positiion that Alaska is the best place in the WORLD for flyfisherman to live so i wont be redundant. But i will add that i not only live an hours drive from a world famous fishery (the Mighty Kenai River) which is fishable year round (i'll post a report on monday from my trip tomorrow!) and regularly produces some of the largest salmonids in the world, i also live 15 minutes from a small stream that can produce 30 fish days with many bows in the 15-20 inch range.
Joined: Feb 14, 2007 Posts: 20 Location: Lincoln Maine
Posted: Sat Feb 24, 2007 4:25 pm Post subject:
I'm with Jeremy...Maine rocks. I feel incredibly blessed to live here. I'm more northern than Jeremy, but I still get to hit all the brookies, browns and landlocks a man could dream of. Not to mention that I can take a trip to visit friends in southern Maine and hit the surf for stripers, blues, shad, sea run browns and the head inland a bit for good bows. Sea run brookies up in the way north. And Atlantics as well as other scale busting fish up in Canada. Maine's got it all and more. I have a new list of waters to hit every year, and I think the list will be updated until the day I die. Its a new adventure figuring out another river starting every spring, and I am loving every minute of it. I'll still travel and hit foreign waters like Alaska just to mix it up a little, but what a place to come back to.
Alaska is a great place to visit. I go there every year in September to fish for big 'bows (this will be year 2 on the Alagnak.) But Alaska really lacks the diversity that some other places have.` I am a dry fly junkie, and to me the ultimate in fly fishing is hunting selective fish on big western rivers. Its a blast to cat 23"-28" bows all day long and get ripped up on every fish, but I would prefer to hook 17"-22" fish on say a 22 Trico on 6X. Its all about the chase. Another problem with Alaska is its sheer sizes really lacks access to a vast majority of the state unless you have your own float plane. I like being able to drive to the river after work and fish the evening caddis, or PMDs on your lunch break. For trout, I could never leave the rockies!
Joined: Jan 21, 2005 Posts: 123 Location: Kodiak, Alaska in winter, bristol bay alaska in summer
Posted: Fri Mar 02, 2007 2:40 pm Post subject:
Quote:
Alaska is a great place to visit. I go there every year in September to fish for big 'bows (this will be year 2 on the Alagnak.) But Alaska really lacks the diversity that some other places have.` I am a dry fly junkie, and to me the ultimate in fly fishing is hunting selective fish on big western rivers. Its a blast to cat 23"-28" bows all day long and get ripped up on every fish, but I would prefer to hook 17"-22" fish on say a 22 Trico on 6X. Its all about the chase. Another problem with Alaska is its sheer sizes really lacks access to a vast majority of the state unless you have your own float plane. I like being able to drive to the river after work and fish the evening caddis, or PMDs on your lunch break. For trout, I could never leave the rockies!
This thread proves that there is no best place to live for a fly fisherman because people have differnt requirements and see things diffently
For example while lunchbox alaska lack diversity i think it has more diversity than the rockies ( I used to live in Utah and fished all over the rockies with my dad) The rockies has more diversity in terms of species of trout but we have rainbows, Dolly varden, Grayling, Lake Trout as well as all 5 species of salmon, Pike fishing that rivals anywhere in Canada. I think we have more diversity in types of fishing too since we have saltwater.
I also like the fact that there is so much wilderness, it's the last frontier for a reason. That being said I can drive 5 minutes during my lunch break to catch 25 inch trout on dry flies. One of the most underated parts of alaska is dry fly fishing, people think it's non existent but i Have had some great days on all sorts of rivers using elk hair caddissis or mayfly patterns during a hatch.
Joined: Mar 07, 2007 Posts: 8 Location: Hayward, CA
Posted: Sat Mar 10, 2007 7:18 pm Post subject: best place in the country for a fly fisherman to live?
That's the question which has brought me to this forum as well as been checking over other sites on the internet.
I've fished Alaska, Belize, Mexico (both sides and Sea of Cortez), Florida (lived there for 10 years) The pacific from Washington to Southern CA , Sacramento Delta and the Sierras. I have a place up at Lake Davis (Hour and half north east of Tahoe) and live in the east bay area (SF Bay Area).
My father/best fiend has a house on the water in the delta. Way cool was when strippers are in he'd give me a call, 90 minuets later we would be on the water.
Politics and cost have put a major damper on just about everything here in Nor CA. 1980's to early 90's I had some most excellent days steel heading on coastal rivers, stripper fishing in the delta was great. Fishing in the mountains is still very good but the days of 12/15 pound browns is far and few now. Development on the coast has ruined one of my favorite rivers, not enough water during summer to keep it cool for baby steel head so the numbers have dropped dramatically. Delta ecosystem has literally collapsed from both the state and federal gov sending the water south. You may have heard about what happened to the Klammath River and it's not just limited to that one. Ocean fishing has been totally $crewed.
I could go on and on but above is what’s been keying my interest to find a new home, close to acceptable fly fishing. Unfortunately for me is that I like it all but in the next year or two want to move and can no longer afford to fly out to where ever I would like to go.
Been leaning towards Florida, specifically Fort Myers or Marco.
Year round fly fishing, and close to the keys. Will be keeping my place in the Sierras for when the mountain craving gets me....
Posted: Tue Mar 27, 2007 6:51 am Post subject: Airport
I live in Maine and really enjoy our fishery. That said, living near an airport is a big plus for those times of year that its cold and frozen, hot and low water. Sometimes you just need that adventure you can't get at home. OH! and living 2 hours from Canada doesn't hurt either. My point is if you live near an airport it's time to hook up somewhere.
I'm still pondering this one because I haven't fished everywhere yet.
15" to 18" of snow April 5 near my home in Central Maine with sparse fly fishing opportunities from December til Mid May....while here in Naples, Florida yesterday, my friend Roger hooked and landed a 120 pound Tarpon on the fly. There's Snook on the beach. I have fishing all winter here, Bass, Snook, Reds, Tarpon, Sea Trout, ...The Keys are 4 hour drive....Bahamas are 3 hrs. away....
Maine represents work guiding for me and yes, the fishing is good at times, but often the drive is a long one. GLS, WB, even EO and Bingham are costly rides....and often cr
Search
Profile
Log in to check your private messages
Log in
- It would be a tough task to fly fish all of the rivers and streams in Maine in a lifetime. Just take a peak at a topo map of Maine - there is a lot of blue lines and circles (rivers and lakes)
Tight lines
)