Tom Bie is the founder, editor, and publisher of The Drake. He started the magazine in 1998 as an annual newsprint publication based in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. He then moved it to Steamboat, Colorado (1999), Boulder, Colorado (2001), and San Clemente, California (2004), as he took jobs as managing editor at Paddler, Senior Editor at Skiing, and Editor-in-Chief at Powder, respectively. Tom and The Drake are now both based in Denver, Colorado, where The Drake is finally all grows up(Swingers, 1996) to a quarterly magazine.

Questionable Collections

Launch ramp on Idaho’s Middle Fork of the Salmon   Questionable Collections Where are our recreation.gov fees actually going? By Tom Bie Type “fly fishing” into the recreation.gov search window, and 260 results appear, allowing bookings for anything from a campsite on Oregon’s Umpqua River ($28) to the “Sunrise House” on Cape Cod ($6,600 for…

Community Justice--Or the Result of Competition?

Firestorm

The first email arrived on July 14. “Reaching out to pass along some fresh ‘industry happenings’ from the heart of Bolivia’s golden dorado region,” it began. “I figured the Drake might be interested in looking into it, as it seems on par with the prior articles investigating Deneki.”

Late summer over the Patoka River near the Patoka River National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Indiana, USA. Photo by Brent Waltermire

Op Ed: Questionable Criticism

In the fall of 1993, then-President Bill Clinton signed Executive Order 12866, requiring all Federal regulatory agencies to publish a list of anticipated rulemaking actions for the upcoming twelve-month period. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service (USFWS) is such an agency, and its rulemaking process requires four steps: Publishing a proposed rule in the Federal Register; Inviting public comment; Considering the public comments received, and Publishing a final rule in the Federal Register.

Stream Access

Photo by Corey Kruitbosch

Public Mistrust Doctrine

“The topic of stream access illustrates one of the most perplexing types of legal conflicts that can arise… Indeed, it is difficult to find a legal issue that is more tangled and uncertain.” —A Wildlife Primer (2009), by Eric Freyfogle and Dale Goble

Colorado’s river laws might be in trouble. Roger Hill, the octogenarian trying to fulfill his dream of legally wade-fishing the Arkansas River, was at the Colorado Court of Appeals on January 27 and got good news about his case—Hill v Warsewa. 

Bimini guide Ansil Saunders appreciating the Super Bowl I game ball

Ballin’ in Bimini

Mighty Waters, a wonderful movie released last year by Austin-based filmmaker Shannon Vandivier, tells the story of beloved Bimini-based guide and boat-builder Ansil Saunders, in particular how Saunders had taken Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. out for a peaceful day on Bahamian waters just four days before King was assassinated in Memphis on April 4, 1968. The fascinating story was part of the 2021 Fly Fishing Film Tour and was broadly shared with the public in early February by two of its sponsors, Simms and Costa.

Bass Fy Fishing

Let’s Go Bass’n

Let’s Go Bass’nIt’s time to test the warmwaters By Beau Davis and Tom Bie Photo by Jeremiah Watt Want to avoid bumping elbows with ten million new trout-chasers this summer? Then consider a guided day on some warmwater. You’ll surely face a less-pressured fishery, and if the trip includes kicking around in a float-tube, you…

Image by Hogan Brown

The Life of Ryan. California fly angler wins conventional bass tourney.

Until January 4, I’d never even heard the term “float-n-fly.” It sounded like a kid’s ride at the fairground, or the street name for some illicit new drug. But I Googled it that day—the same day Oroville, California-based flyfishing guide Ryan Williams, and his partner, Logan McDaniel, won the Shasta Lake Wild West Bass Trail tournament.

Photo Courtesy Rep. Simpson's Office. Idaho's 2nd District G.O.P. Rep. Mike Simpson, at the ribbon-cutting ceremony for the Stanley-to-Redfish Lake Trail. 

The Bold Effort. An Idaho Congressman shares his thoughts.

In April 2019, Congressman Mike Simpson, R-Idaho, gave a somewhat stunning keynote address at an environmental conference hosted by Boise State’s Andrus Center for Public Policy. His comments were thoughtful, educated, and encouraging. But mostly, they were surprising, particularly his thoughts about what might be necessary to save Idaho salmon. Rep. Simpson and I discussed the topic in mid-December, and his quotes below come from his keynote and our conversation. Can Idaho salmon truly be saved? No one knows. But the Congressman has been down a similarly daunting path. In 2015, Mr. Simpson’s 15-year effort to broker a seemingly impossible deal resulted in the creation of Idaho’s Boulder-White Clouds Wilderness. (Which Mark Menlove covered in his 2014 feature, “A Fisherman’s Monument.”) If wild salmon and steelhead can indeed be saved, then Rep. Simpson is providing these essential fish the best shot they’ve had in decades.

Alaska West Lodge

Photo: Tosh Brown

American Greed, Inc.

riter and historian David T. Courtwright calls them “limbic capitalists”—people or companies that target our limbic system, the part of our brains primarily responsible for emotion, especially as it relates to pleasure, motivation, and survival. Courtwright is author of The Age of Addiction: How Bad Habits Became Big Business. “Biological evolution shaped the limbic system,…

ANDREW UCLES (FRONT), AND BRIAN GROSSENBACHER, ON THE SET IN MYANMAR. COURTESY HOT SNAKES MEDIA/ HISTORY CHANNEL

A Star is Born

Facing the Beast with Brian Grossenbacher If you’ve paid even the slightest attention to flyfishing media over the past two decades, then you’ve seen plenty of shots taken by Bozeman, Montana-based photographer Brian Grossenbacher. Whether shooting commercially for clients like Simms, Orvis, and Yeti, or editorially for this magazine and many others, Grossenbacher has made…

Osprey Journal on the Rise

The Osprey journal teams with US and Canadian conservation groups to expand its wild salmon and steelhead advocacy For more than 30 years, The Osprey journal has dug its talons into wild Pacific salmon and steelhead advocacy by promoting the best science and policies to restore and conserve native fish populations.

Mile-High 25 — Enter Today

Colorado’s Anglers All fly shop is getting set to detonate its annual Mile-High 25 showdown — the world’s premier “Catch, Photo, Release” tourney. For 2019, more than 50 teams will test skills against 25 eligible species on the fly. From muskie to wiper to bluegill to splake, last season’s attendees landed 24 out of 25…

Video Daze: Live More Now

“A flyfishing guide based in Colorado, Maddie Brenneman has followed her heart right into the life she’s designed for herself, but not without some trial and error. Constantly taking a long look at her own motivations and desires, she’s made sure that she’ll never look back and wonder, ‘What if?’” Via the “Live More Now”…

Video Daze: Alignment (Full Feature)

Shot entirely in northern British Columbia, Alignment brings the worlds of steelheading and snowboarding together across a wintry season of discovery. The full-length film, below, features Eric Jackson, John Jackson, Curtis Ciszek, Darcy Bacha, and friends as they ride B.C.’s breathtaking mountains and swing its wild rivers in search of balance. Three months in the woods…

Video Daze: Alignment

Alignment is a story about finding balance during a winter-long season that teeters between going big in the Coast Mountains and going remote on steelhead rivers fed by those same peaks. Set in Terrace, British Columbia, and using Skeena Spey Lodge as a basecamp, the film features professional snowboarders (and feral anglers) Eric Jackson, John…

Free the Snake Flotilla is Back

Last year more than 400 people came together and paddled six miles in support of the return of a free-flowing lower Snake River. This year the Flotilla will focus on tribal land and tradition. Canoe families from sovereign tribes across the Northwest will gather on the Clearwater River, and paddle downstream through the heart of…