Pheasant Tail Simplicity

Whether you know it yet or not, I’m guessing the landslide of “fly fishing press” will be coming in short order regarding Yvon Chouinard, Craig Mathews, and Mauro Mazzo’s latest book, “Pheasant Tail Simplicity: Recipes and Techniques for Successful Fly Fishing.” So folks at Patagonia, consider this some additional free advertising you didn’t even ask for.

See, Yvon Chouinard is a huge proponent of the pheasant tail pattern, with stories being that he successfully used it as his only fly for an entire season of fishing, regardless of location or species. Personally, as a tenkara guy I can appreciate the “one fly” approach as a way to really hone your technique as opposed to trying to always match the hatch as a solve to catch fish. Although I’ll admit to not being overly dogmatic when it comes to my personal fly selection.

Anyway, as I was scrolling my YouTube subscriptions yesterday, I couldn’t help but notice all the new “pheasant tail” content being dropped all in one shot on the Patagonia feed. Like a LOT of it. Like a double or triple shot. Maybe 20 or so videos, including fly recipes and how to fish them, with possibly more to come.

(I believe they were all dumped at once because they tie back to QR codes printed in the book itself, video reference material to the content on the pages. I put together two playlists, this one, and this one with the videos I’ve seen published to date.)

And then sure enough, a quick Instagram scroll later, there was a post advertising the new book. Algorithm at work? Possibly, but not a coincidence I’m sure.

And fear not, if you don’t tie your own flies, looks like Patagonia has also taken this opportunity to not only offer the book, but a companion assortment of pheasant tail flies as well. I mean, how could they not?

While you might interpret some of the commentary above to be a bit snarky towards Patagonia, it’s actually the opposite. I love this style of deeply immersive content, and they are very good at it. I’m one of those people who prefers to hyperfocus and do deep dives into subjects, rather than simply graze. So Patagonia’s pheasant tail opus is right up my alley. I’ll probably end up buying the book, but I’m definitely going to watch the video content too. Check it out yourself!

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