Flats fishing was born in the Florida Keys, with roots dating back to the first ’poon caught on a hook and line in the 1880s. Today tarpon and bonefish are vital components of a recreational fishery that bolsters the state’s bottom line with annual cash infusions of more than $6 billion. In order to maintain…
From the Colorado to the Henry’s Fork high water and big bug season is upon us. The crew over at Henry’s Fork Anglers go slammin’ for salmonflies. Check out the invasion. “This is a short film of the epic salmonfly fishing on the Henry’s Fork River in Idaho. A few of the guides hit the…
The neighbor’s randy Chihuahua, Sven, with a hankering for your lower leg? Doesn’t really count. BUT interspecies liaisons are the real deal, with real-world repercussions. Think ligers, zonkeys, pizzly bears, and Donald Trump. In the underwater world, Atlantic salmon will mate with browns. And the frankenfish Cinderella story of the future, according to scientists, could…
Thinking about New Zealand makes us miserable. Mostly because it seems so far away. And we’re not there fishing it. Watch the video and prepare to ache. Via Frontsidefly: This video is made of scraps from a trip in 2011/12 to New Zealand. I’ve felt so depressed over the winter that edits such as this…
One hundred miles from Dillingham, Alaska. One hundred hours of filming during the summer of 2012. Camille Egdorf delivers a short film spanning a trout- and salmon-rich season on the Nushagak River. “The summer of 2012, I dedicated over 100 hours to filming and documenting the experiences that not only I had but also of…
The can-of-worms transactions and transitions between former Snake River Float Trips/ Jack Dennis Fishing Trips and the new Grand Teton Fly Fishing shop in Jackson has finally come full circle in the form of a new website, guiding business, and miniature retail outlet in the Dave Hansen Whitewater building at Broadway and Milward. Paul Bruun details the saga…
Guido Rahr was raised from smolt to adult by flyfishing-obsessed family members in Portland, OR. Tying flies and fishing were his passions. He went on to work for the Nature Conservancy, completed grad school, and eventually migrated back to his homewater on the Deschutes. At that time, in the early ’90s, salmon faced hard times.…
What’s a Florida Keys flat worth? Or how about healthy populations of tarpon, permit, and bonefish that frequent its shallow-water habitats? The answer is big bucks, according to a new study from the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust. BTT states that flats-fishing is a significant money generator in the Keys, contributing more than $249 million to local…
Alaska-based scientists come closer to curing grizzly bear halitosis thanks to the recent introduction of mint-flavored GoPro cameras. Via Brad Josephs: “When using a GoPro to capture unusually close footage of grizzly bears for the Great Bear Stakeout for BBC, I had a young bear actually chew on the camera. Amazingly there was no damage…
Replace Tony Montana’s coke smeared machine gun with a big brown. Substitute a Big Lebowski pistol grip with fish slime and fins. And swap Eastwood’s smoking barrels with a ballistic redfish and you have a good sense of fishing artist Paul Puckett’s mindset. Puckett recently moved from Atlanta, where he was working at The Fish…
Clinching second place next to Beer Pong HD at the esteemed “2013 Drake App Awards” the FishHead Mobile App ($6.99) delivers real-time beta on tides, moon phases, and weather, as well as river flows, gauge heights, and water temps. Points off for not vibrating when you catch a fish. You’ll need to download Koi Pond for…
Via filmmaker Ryan Peterson: “The Clean Water Act grants the EPA authority to protect these salmon and the 14,000 jobs that depend on them, by disallowing the Pebble Mine to go forward. You can help give voice to Bristol Bay, Alaska by submitting a comment in SUPPORT of the US EPA’s Bristol Bay Watershed Assessment.…
Bruce C. Switzer is the former head of environmental affairs for Cominco Ltd.—the company that sold Pebble Mine to Northern Dynasty for “peanuts” in 2001, citing environmental worries and the low-quality ore available at the site. In his column “Compass: Pebble Can’t Work for Alaska” he details a bogus permitting process and the risks associated with this…
Living the dream has become a Big Apple nightmare for us snakeheads. Just yesterday I scooted my torpedo-shaped torso up the bank to maul a mallard with my morning espresso and was affronted by a gaggle of screaming children. No shit. It’s true we like to eat—a lot—and we breed with more gusto than a Kardashian…
Peep the upcoming film project from Lowcountry Journal for tails in the grass and the people and places that bind us. Watch it Via Lowcountry Journal: “Over a little Hometeam BBQ what slowly began to materialize was a story I could begin to see in my minds eye. It looked amazing, and even better it…
PENNSYLVANIA—In an exclusive first-person account in the April-May issue of Fly Fisherman magazine, former Spring Ridge Club employee Karl Weixlmann became the first flyfishing guide to come out as an openly apologetic pimp of privatized public water. “I slept in posh surroundings, had my face plastered on advertisements, and had access to a streamside cabin…
On Monday, anglers and access stakeholders packed MSU Bozeman’s Strand Union building for Montana’s High Court hearing on the James Cox Kennedy v. State Stream Access Law snafu that will play a precedent setting role for future recreational river use across the state and beyond. In a nutshell: Kennedy’s lawyer, Peter Coffman, argued that Montana…
The Ferine Strain, a potent short from filmmaker and photographer Bobby Foster, delivers untamed Idaho via feral flyfishing, archery, elk, and steelhead addicts. Life is better outside. Nuff said. Watch it theferinestrain.com
Drake contributor John Larison, see “American Muddler” in the Spring 2013 issue, travels to the Oregon coast for a swing down memory lane in this short clip from Shane Anderson’s documentary River of Hope. Logging interests have slashed the once lush forest that lined the banks of this unnamed river. In the aftermath: spiked water…
This smiley guy again? You bet. The obese-pocketed Montana stream access nemesis, James Cox Kennedy, is back with his Supreme Court case waddling into a Bozeman courtroom next week. Kennedy’s Ruby River swath is set up like a Fort Knox of good trout fishing and the Atlanta media mogul doesn’t like to share, despite laws…
The Colorado River isn’t our biggest, but it’s one of the hardest working in the country. It flows more than 1,400 miles. Through seven states. And its dammed, diverted, and heavily siphoned flows sustain tens of millions of people, as well as fish and wildlife. It’s also in a world of hurt. As of this…
I first met Frank Moore at his Oregon home, while steelheading on the North Umpqua River a couple of years back. As we went in for introductions, the harmless looking old-timer proceeded to grip and shake my puny hand with the crushing power of a gorilla. To say Moore is tough, is an understatement. As…
If you’re looking for a way to help save Alaska’s Bristol Bay, you likely aren’t googling “bear attack fatalities,” but if you’re the guy planning to float more than 100 river miles through the Bristol Bay region it’s probably worth a look.
This June the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) is slated to reach a decision regarding stricter catch-and-release regulations for tarpon. And as hurricane season descends upon the State of Florida, a new storm’s a brewing.
In addition to coaxing Bo into his daily dump on the White House lawn, Obama has been busy declaring national monuments this week. Awesomely, and thanks the Antiquities Act, a President can protect public land through these designations—effectively bypassing Congressional holdups in the process. Theodore Roosevelt did it first when he protected Wyoming’s Devils tower back…
Media baron James Cox Kennedy, already owner of more than 3,000 acres in Montana, including both sides of an eight-mile stretch of the Ruby River, has filed a lawsuit this morning claiming that, in fact, he owns all of Montana.
Steelhead and ‘squatch have something in common. They range in areas dry of major development and soaked in mystique. And those pursuing both have appetites that go way, way beyond scientific benchmarks for sanity. Sasquatch occupies wide spaces in the imagination department. Steelhead, too… but at least we’ve got more than a couple grainy old…