In Episode 178 we WadeOutThere with Rick Hafele, from Salem, Oregon. Rick grew up on a farm, with a fascination for the outdoors and his surroundings, including bugs. He began fly fishing in Missouri at the age of twelve, and fell in love with the trout he caught in the Ozarks.
When the time for college came, Rick headed west and to Western Washington and later Oregon State where he earned a masters degree in aquatic entomology. He is the author of several fly fishing books, including The Complete Book of Western Hatches, which he co-authored with Dave Hughes.
We discuss how understanding the stages of life of aquatic insects can help you catch fish, the timeline of fishing a hatch, and some of Ricks favorite flies for fishing around his home waters in Oregon.
A lot of little things add up to big things in the fly fishing world. - Pat Dorsey
It’s not the most famous rivers or biggest fish that fill up my mind and make me smile when I think back on all the places I have gone and people I have met while fly fishing. It is all the things I wasn’t counting on, but was hoping for. We go to where the fish are, cast out, and never know what we will find.
We oversimplify the pursuit of trout when we think changing flies will result in more fish caught. Surely fly fishing can be a simple endeavor if we let it be. Carry a fly rod and some flies to the river. Wade through its currents and cast flies to where the trout swim below. Wade and cast. Wade and cast. If the fish do not reward you, the overutilized solution is often to change flies and continue on.