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Hiking the Skye Trail was the entire reason for our trip to Ireland and the UK. All I can say is that this was one of the best backpacking trips We have ever done! EVER!! Spectacular is an understatement! The trail is broken up into 7 stages. The few photos attached are of the first 3, and cover over 56 km (with the 2nd being a whopping 28.5 km, the longest single day Deb and I have ever done). When you look at them, every ridge you see in the photos, we either came from or hiked to (Yes even those ones you see in the very distance)! They seemed to never end, but were so incredibly beautiful!

I occasionally receive a fishing book that really strikes my fancy as being totally original, and last winter I was lucky enough to get an advance copy of The Feather Thief by Kirk Wallace Johnson. Much more than a fishing book, it’s the story of a young Atlantic salmon fly tier who stole priceless bird skins from a British museum and then used them for his own tying and sold them on the internet. Kirk researched the story thoroughly and even tried to trace some of the feathers that were purchased to get them back to the museum. The book truly reads like a whodunnit and I found it fascinating reading. To use a well-worn cliché I literally could not put it down. Some of you fly tiers may be not agree with the stance he takes on tiers obsessing over rare and unusual materials so I think it may create some lively discussions. Regardless, I think you’ll find our discussion fascinating. In the Fly Box this week, we get into more conventional and non-controversial questions, such as these: Why do two dry flies work better than one? How do you fish a Sneaky Pete for smallmouths in fast water? What size and color Woolly Bugger is best? What does the Woolly Bugger imitate? What color polarized sunglasses are best and what are some good brands? Why can I land 18-inch fish but not the ones that are over 24 inches? Are grayling selective? Is it normal to tie a Clouser Minnow with a red head? Is it normal to reel all of your line in before playing a fish? Why am I not catching bigger brook trout on streamers? View the full article