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Sam and Paul take Cooper fishing! They have a blast casting dry flies at rising Brown Trout.

Sam and Paul hang on the water and test prototype rods.

If you’re a fly tier, chances are you’ve been curious enough to check out your local craft stores in search of the next best material that hopefully no one else has figured out yet. This is not really that.

First off, let me explain how this came about; last week a few of us got together for a short day on the water and on the way we had met up at a local gas station. We packed into one vehicle and the conversation got interesting, for most of us. The topic of discussion was cheeseburgers; gas station cheeseburgers.

But a while back, Austin, the newest member of the TFP crew showed us a fly he’d been using on the Missouri River here in Montana during one of our fly tying design sessions. He only had one, and it had obviously been used a lot and the dubbing on the back was barely intact.

I believe that if you really care about your favorite water way that keeping it a secret is not going to protect it for very long. In fact, I believe that when many anglers try to keep a river a secret it actually becomes more desirable to try to get to.

The Missouri River is one of the premier tailwater fisheries in the world. If you are on your way up here, this is a list of the best fly shops on the Mo.