Cory Pratt published The Hatch, an iPhone/iTouch app that shows the month-by-month hatch charts for a couple hundred rivers.

The Hatch app

The app is 99 cents, and is definitely a better value than the Hanna Montana songs downloaded from iTunes.  Its fun and has a lot of rivers covered, but there are a few gaps in the app. Overall, its a great start and a good way to waste some time browsing the rivers.

The Hatch shows charts for about 200 rivers, in states from Maine to Montana, Connecticut to California, twelve months a year. The hatch chart will then list flies, organized by Nymphs, Emergers, and Adults. Drilling into a species, you’ll see a photo and a list of specific patterns & sizes.  About half of the insects actually have photos.

The Hatch Chart Selector

Check it out, its definitely worth 99 cents.  Thanks to Cory for alerting me to this app. He left a comment to an earlier post about using the iPod as a fly fishing tool. Great addition.

Its also makes for a pretty good addition to my collection of fly fishing gadgets. Here are several ways that my iPod enhances my fishing experiences. Add some comments with your ideas.

Getting there

The areas that I love to fish have a couple of things in common, they are beautiful and remote. Getting to my favorite streams involves lots of driving. Usually only one radio station is audible and invariably that one radio station plays both kinds of music: Country AND Western.

The iPod helps pass the time on those lonely stretches of road. I usually shuffle all the music to get some randomness, or listen to a particular artist.

Getting Information

There is a lot of great fly fishing information available as podcasts. Podcasts are generally audio files distributed over the internet, to be listened to on an iPod or other digital audio player. Some podcasts are videos.

I’ve taken to listening to these on my commute to and from work. Instead of being frustrated about traffic, I’m learning about fly fishing and day-dreaming of my next trip.

Many of these podcasts are available directly in iTunes, or are easily imported. Here is the list of podcasts that I know about:

Ask About Fly Fishing – This is an internet based live radio show, approximately 90 minutes long. The hosts, Rodger and Dave, interview a fly fishing expert, while live listeners participate via questions and comments passed through the web site. The past shows are archived and available through iTunes. I won’t bother listing the experts they’ve interviewed. Think of a name; their interview is included.

Fly Fish Radio – Wylie Thomas and Mike Overton host this podcast, and they bill themselves as the original fly fishing podcast. They also get great guests to interview. Both hosts have full time jobs in technology, which probably explains the frequency of podcasts (average every 6 weeks or so between episodes).

Fly Fishing Weekly – Todd and Jason are the newest podcast that I know about, and they are targeting people starting out in fly-fishing. Each Friday, a new hour long podcast is posted, with regular features like beginners corner, equipment picks of the week, listener emails, articles, and a discussion of one of the 50 places to fly fish before you die. This is the funniest of the podcasts, at least those that are intend to be funny. Jason and Todd laugh at themselves, pretensions in fly fishing, and frequently drop comedy movie references. Their sound quality is the best of the lot.

Global FlyFisher – Martin Joergensen is a Danish fly fisherman, giving us the northern European perspective on fly fishing. His podcasts are interesting stream of conscientious thinking, sharing his thoughts and experiences.

The Itinerant Angler – Zach Matthews is the Itinerant Angler, giving us podcasts that mix interviews of interesting fly fishing personalities with blue-grass music. The Itinerant Angler has featured several podcasts on improving fly fishing photography. Check it out.

Orvis Fly Fishing Guide – The author of The Orvis Fly-Fishing Guide, Tom Rosenbauer, is the host of the Orvis fly fishing podcast. These 10-minute podcasts are packed with instructional information – targeted for the beginner – but accomplished fly fishers can learn something from this expert.

Rise Form Studio Fly Fishing Video Podcast - These video podcasts are published every 2 weeks – and usually feature tying a new fly pattern.

The KFBK Outdoor Show – If you live in Northern California, or plan to visit for a fishing trip, you need to become familiar with Bob Simms. He hosts a 3-hour show on fishing and hunting each Saturday morning, starting at 5 AM. I don’t hear the entire show each week, so catching up via the podcast is a good way to fill in the gaps. His show is about fishing in general, though he does toss a fly on occasion. This is a good resource to find out about current conditions in a variety of fisheries in Northern California.

On Stream Refresher

Sometimes, you need an on stream refresher for some aspect of fly fishing. Last year, I took a Spey casting class prior to a week of steelhead fishing. Spey casting was brand new to me, and I needed a refresher on the second (and third, forth, and fifth) day. Luckily, my friend had a Spey casting DVD from the same instructor that taught the class. Also luckily, he copied the DVD to his iPod Nano prior to the trip. I was able to watch the segment on double spey casting and corrected my casting in time to catch a couple nice steelhead.

My friend also has a video for correcting common casting errors. I can really use that one.

Information about copying DVD to iPods can be found in wikiHow.

Afterwards

We love to take photographs while fly fishing. Hero shots, nature shots, pictures to document locations, etc. We often want to share these with our friends afterwards. I use Photoshop Elements to organize and edit my digital photos. Albums from this software can be automatically syncronized to my iPod. Besides showing off, here are several other ideas to have pictures in your iPod:

• Take picture of bugs you find, ask the guys at the flyshop to help identify the hatch and pattern
• Photograph landmarks to help you find fishing locations, copy these to your iPods. I used this to document a hole by aligning landmarks and using the camera/iPod as a memory guide.
• Take screenshots of maps or save to a picture format (eg. jpg), and copy these maps to you iPod.

Hopefully, you’ve taken an idea or two from this blog entry. Please leave a comment if you know of podcasts or radio shows that I didn’t list.