You can call it what you want, and there are all sorts of variations out there. But in Montana we called it the JJ-Special. This fly brings back so many good memories for me. It was always the first fly my dad would tie on his line at the boat ramp on the banks of

Last year around this time I wandered over to the Kinnickinnic River in Wisconsin to do a little exploring. It was -10 below zero when I left Saint Paul that morning, and I was really just curious what the Kinni looked like when the temps were so cold out. When I arrived at the Kinni,

Having been a guide in Montana, cranking out 100 days straight on the water was the norm, and I didn’t get too many personal days on the water. Every great once and a while I would have a day off in the summer, and of course I went fishing, but it was not enough to

As some of you may know, my amazing wife, Rhea, surprised me with a trip back to Montana for my 40th birthday. It was an amazing trip, and it was great to see family and friends. I ended up fishing the Gallatin River almost every day I was there, and the weather could not have

A good day of muskie fishing is just seeing a fish, usually in the form of a follow. An epic day of muskie fishing is actually being able to hook one and bring it to hand. My good friend Rich Hohne from Simms Fishing, Joe Cermele of Field and Stream, Gabe Schubert, Russ Gontarek and

It was Labor Day, so I needed to get in some fishing before a 4 day work week and it’s pent-up emails crushed me. I needed a quick and dirty excursion… something simple. I headed to my home lake, a scant 1.5 miles from my house. I live in St. Paul, like in St.Paul. The

Joey Paxman, a customer of Bob Mitchell’s Fly Shop, hooked up on this huge carp this summer in the Mississippi River near downtown Minneapolis. The Grain Belt sign in the background brings out the orange hues in the carp very nicely. Nice work Joey!

GROUND BREAKING NEWS: Bob Mitchell’s resident muskie guru, Gabe, was able to end Russ Gontarek’s new boat stink when he boated a nice muskie Sunday evening. Russ was beginning to worry that the new boat was the wrong color and the muskies were offended.