Doug & Carl

Back in the late 1960’s and 70’s two very well-known anglers not only brought the world of fly-fishing fresh new strategies and presentation casts that helped solve difficult situations. These new strategies, approaches and presentation casts also caught more and larger selective trout. They also launched anglers into the modern age of recognizing the super hatches (most important aquatic insect hatches throughout Noth America) and how to match these aquatic insect hatches with more sparsely dressed accurate representations that caught more trout. 

They popularized fly patterns that more closely imitated the vulnerable stages of the many aquatic insect lifecycles that large trout really key to. They departed from the current trend of the 1970’s which were overdressed heavily hackled patterns and introduced sleek emerger, cripple, para drake, spent spinner and no hackle patterns.

The no hackle fly pattern is the one single pattern most anglers recognize as Mr. Swishers and Mr. Richards single most effective pattern to imitate the Drunella Flavilinea, the Callibaetis Mayfly, Pale Morning Dun Mayfly Hatch, Trico Mayfly and Baetis Mayfly Hatches. The no hackle pattern is most effective from sizes 14- 18 to match the adult stage of these mayflies. The no hackle will also work great for the larger green Drake and Brown Drake Mayflies up to size 8-10 and all the way down to the tiniest Baetis Mayfly down to size 24.

These two anglers Mr. Doug Swisher and Mr. Carl Richards also penned the top two selling fly fishing books of all time “Selective Trout” and “Strategies for Selective Trout”. Mr. Swisher also starred in the most thorough, informative and entertaining set of 6 fly-casting, fly fishing and fly-tying videos of our time. He was selected to star in these videos by Howard West an executive at 3M Scientific Anglers who selected Mr. Doug Swisher out of six other leading names in fly fishing. Simply because Doug Swisher had the best program, and was by far the smoothest presenter and the most talented caster and complete angler.

Mr. Swisher is most likely the best caster of our time, which he complements with masterful line control and concludes with a superb ability to manipulate the line in a spectacular fashion. He is probably the greatest fly fisherman of our time along with Mr. Carl Richards.

When talking with Darryl Osborne the original owner of a company called “Water Otter” which manufactured pontoon boats, Darryl stated Doug Swisher could catch a trout in a mud puddle he is that good. These six videos were not only the most popular set of videos ever done but are arguably the highest selling ever as well.

In my opinion Mr. Doug Swisher and Mr. Carl Richards are the two greatest fly fishermen of all time and have never really been fully recognized for both their achievements and instructional abilities. 

The best way we can honour Mr. Swisher and Mr. Richards is to base our programs on what Mr. Swisher and Mr. Richards demonstrated and advocated thereby providing the most value to our participants in our programs.

Mr. Swisher has probably fostered and advanced more anglers ability and enjoyment levels than any other single fly-fishing instructor/icon “of our time”.

Hopefully we can keep their efforts and names alive through our schools by passing on who and how important they will always be in the fly-fishing world.

In September 1994 Bob Edens took the F.F.F. (Federation of Fly Fisherman) casting instructor certification test and was passed by “Mr. Doug Swisher” Himself. So, your instructor and guide has not only ran a fly shop, guided, fished and held courses for the last forty years. He is also a well accredited instructor certified by the best angler of all time.