Outdoor Adventures with Tim Tipton

  © Tim Tipton 2020   Three Classic Bass Streamers and How to Tie Them By Tim Tipton     Fly-fishing for bass can be a relaxing time, a serious endeavor or something in between. How casual or serious a fly angler chooses to take it is up to the individual. What makes bass so entertaining is they are everywhere and easy to access. Bass live in every type of water body you can find. They inhabit small farm pounds, natural lakes, rivers, streams, and large impoundments. They will take a lot of different style flies and are often overly aggressive and are an especially good target species for beginning anglers.   Streamers are effective at catching all species of black bass. They are subsurface flies, so you can get down to the bass’s level and they can be retrieved in a variety of ways. While there is a huge selection of streamers, three have withstood the test of time and are a must have for both beginners and longtime anglers.   Woolly Bu...

© Tim Tipton 2020   Five knots Every Fly Fisherman Should Know By Tim Tipton     If you want to draw an angler into a heated debate, bring up the subject of knots. There are as many opinions about which knots are best, as there are anglers on your local stream. Everyone has their thoughts on the best knots to use. Below is my list of five knots that served me well in my years of fishing and guiding. I believe they can be used by most any angler. None of them are complicated to tie and each of them has exceptionally good knot strength.   Perfection Loop: A perfection loop is a remarkably simple, and very neat knot used to tie a loop in the end of tippet or a leader. Form a loop in the end of the line. Form a second loop and lay it on top of the first with the tag end under the standing end. Pass the tag end between the two loops. Pull the top loop through the bottom loop. Lubricate and tighten by pulling on the standing end and the new loop. Trim the e...

© Tim Tipton   10 Outdoor Books for Hunters and Anglers By Tim Tipton   It is officially winter and while hunting and fishing seasons are still going in much of the country, it is a time of year when many people spend more time indoors. For numerous people, if they can’t be outside enjoying their favorite pastime, they prefer to sit by a warm fire with a glass of their favorite beverage and enjoy reading about their favorite outdoor pursuits. Fortunately, there is fine outdoor literature to be had for consumption. Below, is a list of ten of some of the finest written words about hunting and fishing. This list was compiled by me after talking to many passionate outdoorsmen and women who are also avid readers. In the end, the one’s that made the list was simply my choice. Here is my top ten, in no particular order.   The Old Man and the Boy by Robert Ruark: This classic, first published in 1953, is a collection of short stories originally published in Field ...

A LOOK BACK AT THE BRONZEBACKS AND ANGLERS THAT MADE THIS LAKE LEGENDARY By Tim Tipton Straddling the border of Kentucky and Tennessee near the Cumberland Plateau, lies a body of water known for producing renowned smallmouth and legendary anglers. Dale Hollow Lake was created in 1943 when the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers built a dam on the Obey River in Celina, TN. The Obey, which empties into the Cumberland, and its largest tributary the Wolf River, were both quality smallmouth rivers before the impoundment. After the reservoir started to fill, the habitat and the quality genetics created a perfect storm. A storm that would catapult the lake into the record books. The reservoir has not only produced the world record smallmouth, but it also has numbers two and three on the list. In fact, the lake is home to 10 of the 25 largest bronzebacks on record. THE WORLD RECORD David L. Hayes is a quiet, unassuming man who loved to fish and was not interested in fame. The Leitchfield, KY ...

A Guiding Light By Tim Tipton   I was halfway across Illinois when I asked myself “Are you sure you want to do this?” I had been on the road alone for roughly five hours and was starting to feel some trepidation. I was traveling by car from my Shepherdsville, KY home, to Fort Smith Montana to chase a nearly 20-year dream, but now I was having second thoughts. It would be a long, lonely two-day drive, at the end of it would be the Big Horn Angler Lodge and Fly Shop near the famous trout river of the same name, and a week of learning the ins and outs of being a fly fishing guide. Allow me to backtrack to the mid-90’s. I was a married father of two young children, working as a sports editor for a small-town newspaper, taking a few college courses, trying to make a few dollars as a freelance writer and punishing my liver each day for some unknown crime. I had just officially “retired” from a mediocre career as a professional boxer, in which I took way too many punches, for way to...