10 Tips to Improve Your Fly Fishing Photography

Awesome article thanks to the collaboration of Austin Green, Bryan Gregson and Caleb from Flymen. You'll notice some familiar photos from our Beaver Island trip as well as other featured work from our friend Austin. Check it...

Via Flymen Blog:

This article is designed to be a quick-start guide for the beginner, a refresher course for the intermediate, and a checklist for the more experienced photographer.

Through filming and photographing fly fishing productions with The Uncommon Angler and environmentally concerned documentaries, I've racked up a great deal of experience in the field.

When approached by Flymen to create a post for their blog, I immediately knew I needed to share my photography experience with their readers.

After brainstorming an extensive list of the most crucial tips I could come up with and choosing 5 to elaborate on, I then asked Bryan Gregson, Director of Photography at Yellow Dog Fly Fishing Adventures, to read over my list and choose 5 more tips for me to write about.

I wish to see every hard-working outdoor photographer succeed in capturing his or her vision, and this is the best advice I can offer for getting started.

Read the tips and remainder of the article here...


Boom...Morgan

Daily Reel...'TENKARPA!'

I love this. We joked about it last year during carp week and now it's happened!

P.S. I'm totally down with the "Morning Ritual".

TENKARPA! from scumliner media on Vimeo.

Boom...Morgan

Dates Still Available for Beaver Island 2015

Unfortunately TLTFF/I won't be able to make the trek this year. But there are still plenty of open dates and trips! Head on over to CarpTrip.com for more info. I can't say enough about how generous, knowledgable, and overall awesome the guys at Indigo Guide Service are. All-around GREAT dudes. The trip is with every penny, and will easily make its way into a top stop on your list of fishing trips within the first few minutes of setting eyes on Beaver Island's natural beauty.

You can see the recap of our trip in 2014 by clicking here...sign up for 2015, you know you want to.

Boom...Morgan

"Great Big Minnows"

A phenomenal film put together by John Arnold of Scumliner Media and Headhunters Fly Shop, one of the gents on the media trip to Beaver Island right before us...check it...amazing.

GREAT BIG MINNOWS from scumliner media on Vimeo.

A few clips from a recent trip to Beaver Island, MI beaverisland.org. This is a premier Carp fly fishing destination, and the flats, fish and community of Beaver Island are incredible. When I asked the locals about some music, they all offered up Kung Fu Rodeoreverbnation.com/kungfurodeo which has roots on the island. Find them on iTunes at itunes.apple.com/bm/artist/kung-fu-rodeo/id574773084

We were hosted by Indigo Guide Service indigoguideservice.com a great group of very professional guides.

Others involved include:
Cameron Mortenson thefiberglassmanifesto.blogspot.com
Alex Landeen alexlandeen.com
Dan Frasier carppro.net
Matt Smythe fishingpoet.com

Read More…

Boom...Morgan

WORLD PREMIER...'Gold Rush on Beaver Island' Teaser

TLTFF X The Uncommon Angler X Indigo Guide Service X Beaver Island = "Gold Rush on Beaver Island"

"Gold Rush on Beaver Island" is the edit Austin Green of The Uncommon Angler threw together of our hosted Beaver Island trip with Indigo Guide Service back in June. Featuring the best fishing of our lives and some great local music, we hope this gives you as much stoke as it does us. With a day remaining in our 3rd Annual Carp Week, we thought this would be perfect to get you through your Friday and out on the water tomorrow to chase the elusive "golden bonefish". Enjoy and let us know what you think...

"Gold Rush" - Beaver Island Teaser from TLTFF on Vimeo.

"The world premier of The Uncommon Angler - TLTFF film Gold Rush On Beaver Island, produced by Austin Green Photography. The full length film is set to release this fall!" ​

Boom...Morgan

TFM - The Martinez Frankenstein Sculpin

This pattern has proven itself, not only to Cam of TFM but to many other anglers that have fished Beaver Island with Steve. Mario caught one of his first BI carp on this famed pattern and actually had the privilege of learning it from Steve himself at one of Schultz Outfitters tying nights. Check it...

Via TFM:

FRANKENSTEIN SCULPIN MATERIALS:
Daiichi 2151 - Size #1 - #4
Barred Marabou Tail - Olive or Brown
Yellow Mallard Flank
Senyo's Ice Dub
Small Sculpin Helmet

To see the rest of this awesome tutorial, click here to head on over to The Fiberglass Manifesto. Keep an eye out for the Indigo gents latest venture, their new fly shop, Twisted Hackle.

Check out the Indigo Guide Service website for more information on the flies used for Lake Michigan carp and follow along on the Third Coast Fly blog for the latest news.

Boom...Morgan

Carp Week Daily Dozen Fly Giveaway - Day 5

This giveaway has ended.

Our Carp Week Daily Dozen Fly Giveaway segment continues with Day 4. We had over 120 entries into Day 4!

Today's Carp Week Daily Dozen Fly Giveaway is brought to you by Water's Edge Fly Co. Jason H of Water's Edge has tied flies for us here in Annapolis for most species we've targeted, from Bonefish to Tarpon, Largemouth to Striped Bass, and Carp to Smallmouth...AND THEY ALL PRODUCE! Every trip we've taken Water's Edge flies on have caught us fish. Putting some of these bad boys in your box = good fish mojo.

  

RULES:

-To enter, you must shoot an email to TLTFFcarpweek@gmail.com with the subject line "Daily Dozen Fly Giveaway Day 5".

-'Like' and/or follow Water's Edge Fly Co. on Facebook. If you do not have a Facebook, you must copy and paste the Water;s Edge Fly Co. URL into the email once you've visited the site.

-Only ONE submission per email, duplicates will be deleted.

-Submissions will be accepted until TOMORROW MORNING at 6:00am.

-ONE winner will be selected by Random.org's random number generator.

A big thanks goes out to Jason for providing us with some awesome carp flies from his Carp Collection online. Like I said, these flies catch fish for sure. I caught my first Beaver Island carp on the Dirt Merchant.

*Don't forget about the week-long Photo Contest, click on the link on the top right sidebar for details!

And the winner is...Dean Wormell! 

Thank you to all 112 of you that entered, make sure you check out the current Daily Dozen Fly Giveaway, there is one a day through all of Carp Week! 

Boom...Morgan

Daily Reel...'Indigo Guide Service: Beaver Island Carp'

Setting the theme for today, this reel will have you wanting to head up to Beaver Island next summer for sure. Indigo Guide Service has been great to us at TLTFF this year by not only guiding us for some phenomenal fishing during our hosted trip, but also contributing to this year's Carp Week. Read today's other posts for more...

Indigo Guide Service: Beaver Island Carp from FP Media on Vimeo.

Boom...Morgan

Recap: TLTFF's Hosted Trip to Beaver Island 2014

So days one and two were pretty much travel days so I figured they'd be easiest to just pair together. I have to preface this strain of posts that will be coming out over the next few days to journal our trip with this...this was one of the best experiences of my life. Period. I don't write well, by any means, but I hope these posts help give you a taste of what we experienced on this trip, giving you an appetite for experiencing it for yourself one day.

A big thanks goes out to those of you who followed along via our social media outlets and through the hashtag #tltffbeaverisland14 we used to timeline and manifest the trip. An even bigger thanks goes out to Evan from Feather-Craft and CarpTrip.com for helping us get our ducks in a row and guiding us through the hosting process and Kevin Morlock, Steve Martinez, and Austin Adduci of Indigo Guide Service for giving us all a trip to remember forever and pass on stories of to our grandchildren. Thank you Bill and Tammy for opening up The Fisherman's House to us pilgrims and for making it so special, something that ties the entire trip together. Thank you to the people of Beaver Island for being so welcoming to us fisherman's antics and appreciating our overall love for what your home has to offer. Last but not least, thank you Austin Green for photographing and filming the trip, without you this trip would have been missing a certain little something...I hope all of our readers enjoy your images as much as we enjoyed your company.

Luis and I started to plan this hosted trip right after Luis returned from his trip last year and Evan from Feather-Craft and CarpTrip.com asked him if he would be interested in hosting a trip himself. After a few conversations and debates, the decision was made and it was time to put together logistics. Luis handled about 90% of it and deserves a large pat on the back for his planning genius (he does doit for a living though so there really was no better man for the job). Mario Garza, a long-time follower of the blog and one of our favorite fly tiers, was our first angler. It was all coming together. Two more anglers, Joel and Cheryl signed on filling two more spots and leaving one more to fill. We got into the 30 day countdown and there was still one spot left to fill and a lot of fine-tuning to do.

Austin Green of Austin Green Photography and The Uncommon Angler hopped on board as our last angler and a big weight was lifted off our shoulders. Over the course of a few more meetings and phone calls, planning was complete. June 19th couldn't have come soon enough as a long week of work seemed to be stuck on slow-mo speed. Launch day finally came and the car was packed.

Day 1 - June 19th

I picked up Luis around 10am and we headed up to Baltimore to pick up Austin. We quickly loaded up the car at Austin's place and started the 7 hour trek to Lorain, OH (right outside of Cleveland) where we would split the trip in half and spend the night with Luis' family.

Carp Week Daily Dozen Fly Giveaway - Day 3

This giveaway has ended.

Our Carp Week Daily Dozen Fly Giveaway segment continues with Day 3. We had over 150 entries into Day 2, amazing! Thank you!

Today's Carp Week Daily Dozen Fly Giveaway is brought to you by our great friend and regular on the blog, Mario Garza. He is going to send a lucky one of you a dozen tried and true carp patterns.

RULES:

-To enter, you must shoot an email to TLTFFcarpweek@gmail.com with the subject line "Daily Dozen Fly Giveaway Day 3" and breifly tell us where your home carp waters are to be entered.

-Only ONE submission per email, duplicates will be deleted.

-Submissions will be accepted until TOMORROW MORNING at 6:00am.

-ONE winner will be selected by Random.org's random number generator.

A huge thanks goes out to Mario for providing us with some of the best flies we've ever seen. Honestly, if you have an Instagram, check out and follow Mario on his Instagram by clicking here, his flies are tied with perfection. Mario was on our Beaver Island trip with us, stay tuned later this week for the trip report for those of you who missed it.

*Don't forget about the week-long Photo Contest, click on the link on the top right sidebar for details!

And the winner is...Erik Sanders! 

Thank you to all 156 of you that entered, make sure you check out the current Daily Dozen Fly Giveaway, there is one a day through all of Carp Week! 


Boom...Morgan

E-Zine...CarpPro #8

Boom...Morgan

Daily Reel...'Flats of the Third Coast'

You'll be hearing more about Indigo Guides, Beaver Island, and Third Coast in today's feature post with a recap of our Beaver Island trip as well as later this week.

Flats of the Third Coast from FP Media on Vimeo.

Boom...Morgan

TLTFF's 3rd Annual Carp Week

Some of you may have been following us for awhile and saw the promotions we've been doing for this year's Carp Week. The last two years have been a huge hit, thanks to you, so this year we thought we'd not only bring Carp Week back, but make it even bigger. This week has a lot of greatness packed into it, thanks to our awesome contributors and friends. Just to give you a breakdown of how the week will pan out, we wanted to give you a play-by-play as to what we have in store.

Everyday at 7am, like we've always done, 3-4 posts will go live. One is guaranteed to be a sick carp-related fishing video (Daily Reel). The rest will be either interviews with industry experts, reviews of carp-related gear, knowledge from the geniuses of the carp world, and info on how you can win free gear! Every day we will be giving away all kinds of fly gear! You have multiple ways of winning, please read carefully below...

The best part about Carp Week is not only that you can exponentially expand your knowledge of fly fishing for carp, but you can win awesome prizes. Just to give you an overview as well as a shoutout to our amazing Carp Week sponsors, here's who's on board this year for gear...

• CarpPro
• Allen Fly Fishing
• Bozeman Fly Goods
• 12wt
• Cheeky Fly Fishing
• Feather-Craft Fly Fishing
• Wetfly
• Nature Boy Designs
• The Uncommon Angler
• Goat Head Gear
• Risen Fly
• Vedavoo
• The Fly Trout
• Dizm Eco Eyewear
• WV Angler
• ScaleFish Studio
• BadAxe Design

And here are our featured fly tiers for our "Daily Dozen Fly Giveaway" where we will be giving a lucky one of you a dozen flies every day all week long. To enter into the daily fly giveaway, be sure you email TLTFFCarpWeek@gmail.com with the subject line "Daily Dozen Fly Giveaway Day ___" (the ___ corresponds with the day of Carp Week, tomorrow is Day 1).

• Day 1 - The Catcher and the Fly
• Day 2 - Rob Snowhite
• Day 3 - Mario Garza Flies
• Day 4 - FlyTimesDC
• Day 5 - Waters Edge Fly Co.
• Day 6 - Pat Cohen (R U Superfly)
• Day 7 - Roughfisher

The world-famous Carp Week Photo Contest is BACK!

Rules:

-Submit all photos to TLTFFCarpWeek@gmail.com with the subject line "Carp Week Photo Contest". 

-Max of 4 pictures per person (one per category).

-Picture must be in PNG or JPEG format.

-The categories will be as follows:

• Best Picture
• Biggest Carp
• Prettiest Carp
• Ugliest Carp

-One winner and one runner up will be selected for each category and will win some sick gear from the companies listed above.

-Submissions are due by August 24th, 2014 by 8am.

-Winners will be announced on (Sunday) August 24th through a blog post in the afternoon.

-Any questions can be directed to tightlinedtalesofaflyfisherman@gmail.com

-Contest begins now...GO!

I hope y'all are as syked as we are for a super-fun week. Make sure you spread the word by using the hashtag #CarpWeek and 'like' and follow @TLTFF on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter for exclusive content! 

For your chance to randomly win some gear, use the hashtag #CarpWeek on all posts, we will be selecting a random winner at some point that has used the hashtag during Carp Week.

During Carp Week, please send all contest entries, questions, or any correspondence to TLTFFcarpweek@gmail.com.

Boom...Morgan

The Uncommon Angler's 'Beaver Island Film Giveaway'

As some of you may have seen during our Beaver Island posts, Austin Green of The Uncommon Angler, was filming non-stop while we were on the trip. With all the fpm he gathered and put together, we has made a dope edit. Theres only one thing missing from the film...a title. So Austin is asking for your help, and in return, he's giving away some swag you'll definitely want to get your hands on...

Via The Uncommon Angler:

Copyright 2014. Austin Green Weinstein. All Rights Reserved.

NAME OUR FILM GIVEAWAY! Our film about fly fishing for HUGE CARP on Beaver Island with “Indigo Guide Service – Third Coast Fly,” Grab Your Fly Charters with Captain Austin Adduci, Tight Lined Tales of a Fly Fisherman, and “CarpTrip.com” is in its final stages! It was an amazing adventure and we are so excited to share our journey with you, but first we need your help! We are asking The Uncommon Angler followers to help NAME THIS FILM! We are GIVING AWAY a huge AFTCO – American Fishing Tackle Co. – Guy Harvey T-Shirt/Sticker package to the person that can come up with the best title for our film! The winner’s title will be used to name our film! 

To enter, Like The Uncommon Angler Facebook page (if you haven’t already) and leave your film title as a comment on the giveaway post pinned to the top of the page (please make sure it on the original post on The Uncommon Angler's page). Make sure your film title is one that captures the essence of sight fishing for huge carp on the fly rod! -Austin Green

Boom...Morgan

TLTFF Beaver Island '14 - Days 6 & 7

Recap: 

Days 1 & 2

Day 3

Day 4

Day 5

An absolutely awesome final day on the island that transitioned over to an easy final day full of travel. A lot was in store for the next two days despite only having a half day of fishing left.

Day 6 - June 24th

No alarms again today, the excitement of knowing we still had a half day of guided fishing ahead of us was enough to have everyone up early around 7am. The house buzzed with cleaning and packing to prepare everything for the cleaning service so we wouldn't have to rush and stress while we were fishing and later, once we got off the boats.

We packed our bags and threw everything on the day room/porch before heading through the overcast morning weather towards McDonough's Deli for our final breakfast on the island. After polishing off a delicious plate of grub and a cup of joe, we headed back to the house and prep our gear. Since today was a half day we only brought the bare bone necessities for the flats. Today, I was paired up with Luis again on Austin Adduci's boat. Mario and Austin were on Kevin Morlock's boat and Joel and Cheryl were on Steve Martinez's boat. 

As the guides pulled up and we loaded the gear, it began to sprinkle a little. The breeze was pretty steady with slight gusts of wind that probably topped out at 5kts. That wasn't going to stop us or keep us off the Lake. As Luis and I loaded up Austin's truck, we were both pretty excited to (hopefully) finish off the last guided day with a bang.

Alex's Six Takes on Beaver Island

The media crew visited Beaver Island and fished with the Indigo gang about a week before us and had as amazing of a time as we did. Here's a pretty good write up from Cam Mortenson of TFM and one of the photographers on the trip, Alex Landeen.

Via TFM:

There are a couple things that you should know about Alex Landeen.  First, the guy is a serious shooter and he came to Beaver Bash with a Pelican box that was filled with digital camera bodies, lenses, and lights.  He was ready to put a lot of time behind the camera lens and the images that he captured from the trip are already being used by several media outlets.  Second, he's a lot of damn fun to have around and always kept the mood light at the house and on the water breaking into song, an impromptu dance, or tossing out some obscure movie quote.  I mentioned to him that he had a "beautiful mind" which I hope he took as a compliment...

Once Alex was back from Beaver Island, he broke down the week with a series of six posts on his website and did a really stellar job of highlighting all the different angles from the trip.  Take a few minutes and visit each of these posts by clicking through the highlighted title over each image of Alex's below.  I don't think this will be the last time he makes it over to Beaver Island. 

DAY ONE:  OUR PEOPLE

DAY TWO:  THE ISLAND

DAY THREE:  NIGHT MOVES

DAY FOUR:  THE FISHES

DAY FIVE:  THE GEAR

DAY SIX:  THE END OF THE BEGINNING

The last thing that I'll mention in this post is that if you want to feel like a total photog hack than hang out with a someone with real skills behind the lens.  I learned a few things from Alex, listened to a few conversations he and John Arnold had on what makes "good photos", and you know, will likely will go lighter on the filters I use on photos from here on out.  It can be a hard habit to break.

Visit the Alex Landeen website for more awesomeness of all sorts.

We watched as the posts went live via Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter accounts of the media crew as they were up in Beaver prior to our visit and even during to add to the stoke, well done by all! Our final post goes live on Thursday, be on the lookup for the final guided day and trip wrap up.


Boom...Morgan