We’ve hit the end of April and it’s been feeling like spring for about a week – finally! Things are starting to heat up here with the fishing as well, so I would suggest that you potentially savor these articles after some time on the water.

Unless you’re at work, in which case you can savor these with your morning coffee or your lunch break and think about the next time you’ll be out. Enjoy!

Never Underestimate the Town Dock (Hatch Magazine)

Chris Hunt writes about not overlooking docks when fishing saltwater. This advice is also good for anglers in freshwater areas as well, because you just never know what you might catch from such a public place.

Five Spring Must-Have Patterns (Fly Fish Food)

Admittedly, I’m a sucker for these kinds of lists. The folks at Fly Fish Food have put together their “top 5” for spring fishing, and all of these patterns would work well around here.

Instagram is Killing Fish (Weekly Standard)

Matt Labash writes a response to last week’s article in the New York Times (featured in last week’s Friday Five) about social media and fishing. It’s an interesting read to add to the fly fishing/social media, if nothing else.

How to Tie and Fish Soft Hackles for More Trout (Orvis Fly Fishing)

Andrew Grillos gives a broad overview on soft hackle patterns: materials to use, techniques on fishing them, the whole bit. These are really effective patterns that you shouldn’t be without – one of my favorite patterns to fish when Blue Winged Olives are coming off is a size 18 partridge and olive soft hackle with a bit of olive Hare’e Ice Dub for the thorax.

Deerhair Dun (Frankenfly)

The Frankenfly site highlights this pattern by Michael Jensen, which is a good imitation of a mayfly dun emerging in the surface film.