Fly Fishing 101 (Intro)

Hello Everyone,

Periodically, throughout the summer season, I have the fortunate experience to meet many anglers who visit the area where I happen to call home. Coincidentally, home lies just to the north of Yellowstone National Park. Here, in rural Pray, Montana (population 300+-) I manage a small farm that has become an annual destination for many of the angling visitors to Montana's "Yellowstone Country". Besides providing anglers with genetic hackle, hand tied flies, fishing gear and fly tying supplies, we also provide fresh vegetables, flowers and foodstuffs for "local" markets, restaurants and the like. We call it a "growing" enterprise.

The Absaroka Knoll Farm, is the home to Knoll's Yellowstone Hackle and it is there that I raise the select feathers used by many fishermen and fly tiers hailing from all over the world. The uniqueness of this position also allows me to maintain contact with many of the innovators working within the fishing and fly fishing industries. Actually, it is a fun way to exist. However, my major vocation is in the education and indoctrination of novice fishermen and women into a sport which can be enjoyed either with a group or individually. So that is the basis of this article. I will now explain my position as well as the expected purpose of this continuing column.

Ian Scott, your About-FlyFishing.com Editor, had asked me if I would publish a column and "maybe provide some aid" to many novice anglers who visit this address. The thought of being able to reach out and "mold" new anglers into respectful sportsmen seemed to strike an exposed nerve. I quickly accepted his offer.

This column will serve a dual purpose. The first being be that I will write something which will inform anglers, who have the ability to travel, a bit of knowledge concerning what they might expect in a select area or situation. The second portion is even easier. I will field and answer whatever questions I believe are relevant to the majority of other readers to this column. Call it "site demographics." Specific and intricate questions, which may more or less bore the novice anglers and tiers, will be answered directly via e-mail.

Lastly, in the event I do not have anything asked of me, I will then create a topic and provide you, the very interested reader, with "something that should be checked out."

So. . . My first article will be entitled Fishing 101 - Doc's Way. I imagine that it will be an overview of the way I see present day anglers portraying themselves. It's guaranteed to raise an eyebrow. It may even infuriate a few of you. But then again, I will get your attention and hopefully help a few anglers pan fry or release some fish as they cast lines about the countryside.

Doc Knoll

Find out more about Knoll's Yellowstone Hackle as well as the Absaroka Knoll Farm- and if you want, feel free to ask Doc a question.