Nearly 30 years spent meticulously building bamboo fly rods has an impact. Bill Oyster鈥檚 dedication to precision craftsmanship has turned his workshop in downtown Blue Ridge, Georgia, into a bit of a pilgrimage site for a certain type of angler. Sure, the rods are some of the most sought-after in the industry, but the larger draw is Oyster鈥檚 passion in helping others build their own. He runs a popular workshop where anglers spend a week crafting their own fly rod with Oyster鈥檚 guidance.

鈥淢ost people never have the opportunity to make a functional thing from raw materials with their own hands,鈥� Oyster says. 鈥淭here will be no better rod to you than the one you built yourself.鈥�

And there鈥檚 also no better fish than the one you catch yourself鈥攅specially if you鈥檙e using a bamboo rod.

鈥淭here鈥檚 nothing practical about fly-fishing with bamboo,鈥� Oyster says. 鈥淚f you want to catch fish, get a net or a can of worms. The whole point of fly-fishing, especially with bamboo, is to do the thing in a more complex and satisfying way. It鈥檚 the doing of it that makes it special.鈥�

Here鈥檚 Oyster鈥檚 advice on how and where to start a style of fishing that favors craftsmanship plus time immersed in local waters, staying patient for a payoff moment. Go deeper with Oyster and the other Masters of Craft, a group of one-of-a-kind visionaries who transform nature鈥檚 purest elements with time-honored traditions and cultivated experiences.

Tie Your Fly

If you can鈥檛 spend a week building a bamboo fly rod, you can at least get a taste for crafting something from scratch by tying our own flies.

鈥淚t鈥檚 a great way for anyone to experience the satisfaction that comes from creating something, then using it in the water,鈥� Oyster says. 鈥淐atching a fish on a fly you tied yourself is an incredible feeling.鈥�

You only need a few tools to get started: a vise, scissors, hook, and superglue. The materials that form the fly鈥檚 body are common household items like yarn; Oyster used hair from his cat for the first fly he tied himself.

Orvis makes fly-tying kits with materials to create several common fly patterns that have been proven to fool fish. Choose large fly patterns (size #10 or #12) first, as they鈥檙e easier to complete.

Clamp the curved end of the hook into the mouth of the vise, then start winding yarn around the long arm of the hook to mimic the body of the insect you鈥檙e creating. If you want professional help, most specialty shops offer hands-on courses in building and tying flies to match the hatch of your local waters.

Catch Your First Fish (or Master the Cast)

Hone the fundamentals of fly-fishing in some of the most scenic destinations in the country.

Madison River, Montana听
Float or fish from the wide banks of the iconic Madison River, which runs from Yellowstone National Park to the mighty Missouri, through vast valleys flanked by the often snow-capped Rockies. Learn from the best at the luxe-lodge experience of Orvis鈥檚 Trout School.

Lake Rabun, Georgia听
Tucked in north Georgia鈥檚 mountains, Lake Rabun is an ideal fishery鈥攕tocked with largemouth bass, walleye, and bream鈥攆or anglers to learn casting without swift currents to manage. A campground, beach, and hiking trails all offer easy access to 25 miles of public shoreline.

White River, Arkansas听
The target 100-mile tailwater section below Bull Shoals Dam will showcase the species diversity of the White River. Fish the same hole and you鈥檒l have a chance to catch the grand slam of freshwater trout: brook, rainbow, brown, and cutthroat.

Crystal River, Florida
What鈥檚 the best reason to explore the spring-fed Crystal River (pictured above), which runs clear year-round? It鈥檚 sight-fishing: scanning flats and creeks from a boat, targeting healthy schools of popular saltwater species. Reel Florida can take you from first cast to landing your first redfish.

Beaver Creek, Colorado听
Beyond fast access to the high-quality trout waters of the Vail Valley, plus the legendary resort infrastructure of lodging, guides, and restaurants, Orvis offers an affordable one-day fly-fishing school on Beaver Creek to get the whole family hooked.

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Ewan McGregor and Charley Boorman are back on bikes for the fourth series in their epic motorcycle saga around the world. Over twenty years ago they filmed their first series, Long Way Round (2004), which followed the duo, still in their thirties, riding from London to New York鈥攚hat McGregor calls 鈥渙ne of the highlights of my life.鈥�

From his breakthrough role in Trainspotting to playing Star Wars鈥� legendary Obi-Wan Kenobi, McGregor鈥檚 star factor surely has skyrocketed since that first series. But in Long Way Home he鈥檚 still playing himself, riding along with his best friend Boorman as they film each other from cameras mounted on their crash helmets.

鈥淏ecause of the shared experience of doing these journeys together there鈥檚 this bond that we have that I don鈥檛 share with anyone else,鈥� shares the Scottish actor. In Long Way Down (2007), the two rode from Scotland through 18 countries down to Cape Town, South Africa. And in the last installment, Long Way Up (2020), McGregor and Boorman rode on prototype electric Harleys from the southernmost tip of South America through Central America to McGregor鈥檚 home in L.A.

A lot has changed since filming their first Long Way series two decades ago, but you wouldn鈥檛 know it from their bikes: McGregor rides a 1974 Moto Guzzi Eldorado while Boorman chooses a rusty BMW R75/5. After riding into the future on electric bikes that they had to plug-in along remote stretches of Patagonia, McGregor said “the only way to go this time was back.”

In addition to riding vintage bikes, this time the two also are adventuring closer to home, from the rolling hills around McGregor鈥檚 childhood home in Scotland to Boorman鈥檚 home in England. But as always, they’re taking the scenic route. Zipping along a 17-hairpin pass in Norway up to the Arctic Circle, and then down to the Baltics and through the Alps they clock 7500 miles through 17 countries in 63 days. But they still manage to dive into different cultures and take on challenges along the way, including picking themselves up after a few hairy stretches and falling off the bike.

OUTSIDE: So why Long Way Home now? It鈥檚 been 20 years since your first Long Way motorcycle road trip.听

Ewan McGregor: We did our last trip, Long Way Up, just before the world was locked down with the terrible pandemic. It was in sort of a lucky accident that it happened, when it happened.

It had been a long time since we did Long Way Down. We got this very strong sense that it had meant a lot, to a lot of people who had been stuck inside, who hadn’t been able to travel for two years. And just by sheer luck or whatever Long Way Up came out when people were still sort of struggling to get back into coming out of their homes. It meant a lot to people, and it meant a lot to us doing it.

Long Way Up had its own complications鈥攚e did the trip on electric bikes which were quite difficult to find a plug for in Patagonia and such places [a fast charger would have been nice too, laughs Boorman]. But we did it, and we just love being back on the road together basically.

On that trip, when we were in Bolivia, we started daydreaming about another one. We came up with the Scandinavian idea; 鈥淟ong Way Scandi鈥澨齱e used to call it in our helmets as we were chatting to each other. I suppose after we’d been on the cutting-edge-of-technology motorcycles, the only way to go was to go back the other way.

Last time you were riding on super fast electric Harleys, now you鈥檙e riding a bit slower on old temperamental bikes. Why old bikes this time around?听

McGregor: Oh, I’ve always loved old bikes, and I always fancy doing a trip in old classic bikes. We just wanted to do one that was less stressful, more fun. More chance for us just to f***听around and have a laugh. And this sort of loop came out of that idea where we weren’t going to be. We’re not going to have to rush to get a boat from Egypt to Sudan on this one day, or else we wouldn’t be able to do it for another week. So we took the stress out of it, and we just had such a great time.

There were some intense moments when the power went out in Long Way Up and you needed to charge your bikes in the middle of Patagonia. What were the challenges this time?听

Charley Boorman: I don’t want to point any fingers [points to Ewan in the chair beside him]. With the high-tech bikes you can’t really fix them if they go wrong. But old bikes you can. There’s always somebody somewhere that you bump into who can help you, who has a little workshop in the garage. So the breakdown becomes part of the adventure. The times you get stressed because your bike is broken, you end up meeting all these extraordinary people that can help you, and then that becomes one of the highlights of the journey meeting these interesting, like-minded people. That bumping into strangers is part of it.

McGregor: No computers involved. There’s no chip. There’s not a chip on that bike, except for the occasional french fry that’s falling out of my pannier. They鈥檙e mechanical and therefore fixable, and on an adventure that’s quite a good idea. You don’t want something that can catastrophically fail.

So Ewan, you’re in all these films now, what do you like about working on something were it鈥檚 unscripted; you’re yourself?听

McGregor: I’ve always made documentaries. I did one about polar bears a long, long time ago up in Churchill, Canada.听I’ve made three different movies with my brother about the Royal Air Force because he was a pilot in the Royal Air Force. I’ve always enjoyed them because I don’t have the pressure of playing somebody. It’s just me.

I suppose it鈥檚 like a busman’s holiday in a way. We are filming, and we are filmmakers. Charley and I were thinking about getting things across for an audience while we’re doing these trips, but also at the same time, we’ve got an amazing, talented cameraman, Claudio von Planta, and Max Curtis who we picked up in Chile as our fixer there. And he’s such a great addition to the filming team that we had him come on all of this trip. So Claudio and Max sit on the same motorbike, and it’s just the three bikes for most of the time.

And because they’re so skilled we don’t really have to worry too much, just about being ourselves and meeting people and appreciating what we see, recording it, talking about it, and then hopefully inspiring people to look at this world that we鈥檙e lucky to live on. And if we can inspire some people to get out there and travel and experience the world, then we’d be very proud.

Charley, you’ve been in some serious motorcycle accidents over the years…What keeps you getting back on the bike鈥攅specially with the camera on you?

Boorman: Ah, there鈥檚 been a lot of crashes, and 2016 was a bad one, lots of operations to get back together. And then 2018 [crash] was much worse. But all my life, I’ve ridden motorcycles, I’ve ridden horses and stuff like that, and you tend to fall off, and you get back on again. The first one with the broken legs I woke up the next morning having gone through a lot of surgery. I’d broken three limbs, and I’d broken my left hand as well as my right hand.听 I was starting to go down into a into a very deep, dark hole.听

Then I realized there was someone in the room with me, and I looked over and there was a guy in the other bed, and he was in a much, much worse place than I was. And I remember looking at him, and I remember looking down at myself, and I remember thinking it’s not that bad actually. So from then on I was lucky enough to be able to sort of jump out of that hole and start to look at wanting to ride a bike again and wanting to have more adventures.

Somehow the motorbike was my therapy to get back on it. It鈥檚 very easy to get stuck in a trauma and let that trauma dictate your life and it’s a real rabbit hole. There is nothing you can do about what’s happened, so you may as well look forward.

And having friends like Ewan and knowing that people are around you to help but it’s taken a long time, 30 odd operations to get back and be walking again properly.

So I’m happy to be here with Ewan.

So what鈥檚 next? Will there be any more Long Way adventures?

McGregor: Well, you just have to wait and see. Who knows? We’re planning a big luxury RV trip.

Boorman: With helicopters.

Long Way Home premieres on May 9, exclusively on Apple TV+.

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