With all the talk of hooking mortality and how to properly handle fish, I thought I would share some of the best fish shots I’ve seen in awhile. With GoPros and every one having a personal camera, the amount of gratuitous fish porn on the inter web is border-line painful. Nick took these over his last couple of days out, and they blow any other fish-photo out of the water (punny). Yes, we are contributing to the onslaught of fish porn, but feel these showcase the safest way to remember your catch.
We have seen incredible advancements in point and shoot waterproof cameras, as well as waterproof housings for DSLRs. The Chum posts new cameras every few weeks, and it’s time anglers start to take note. In these photos, Nick is shooting with a DSLR and a very badass Outex waterproof case. They are pretty expensive, but the key to epic underwater photography with your big, fancy camera.
Side Bar: No one will every realize you are standing at the hatchery hole, or in your secret spot.
One thing I have often seen while guiding spey fisherman is that they just wont move. I’m not talking two-stepping here but simply working a run in a methodical and timely manner. Under most conditions I prefer to move three to four feet between casts which has several benefits.
By maximizing the amount of water you cover in a day you will swim your flies through more holding lies. When searching for winter steelhead covering water can make the difference, it only takes one fish to turn your day around.
Sinktips are a great way to stay fishing as waters cool into fall and winter. With just a few sinktips, an angler can dial their fishing depth to find that sweet spot where the fish are holding, but without dragging the fly across the stones. Anadromous fish sometimes hug the bottom when they’re cold, spooked, or stressed, but generally they won’t swim deeper down to take a fly below them – so choose a sinktip that will present the fly at the fish’s level or above them. 
MOW tips are a relatively new offering in the fly fishing world. They consist of a section of floating line welded to a section of sinking line. Most are ten feet long and come in a variety of styles with a popular choice being the “five- five” or five feet of floating and fivefeet of sinking line. From a casting perspective, these tips cast very similarly and enable the angler to change casting stroke little between tip changes. From a fishing standpoint, MOW tips allow the angler to change sink tips less often when fishing different water types throughout the day. They do this by reducing the amount of line in the water column and by creating a straighter, more vertical angle from the floating line to the fly. This means it is easier to keep your fly in the fish zone when there are boulders and other fish-holding structure in the way of a clean swing.