Drake Magazine Back Issue Content: 2015
Spring – The Transfer, Prince and Preacher, Christmas Island Comeback, On the Peninsula.
Summer – I Love Laxa, Chasing Natives, Patches, Post-Inferno Flyfishing
Fall – Western Remembrance, Ahead of the Flood, The Wind at Montauk, Return of Wild Abundance.
Winter – On the Mend, Derailed, Minnesota Musky, Pancora Holiday.
Jim Lichatowich is as happy as anyone that the Elwha dams on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula came down. But a recent attempt to witness the biological recovery
there reminds him that there are equally stubborn obstacles to steelhead and salmon recovery that unfortunately can’t be removed with dynamite or heavy equipment. “A
former colleague of mine organized a trip to Elwha after the dams were out,” Lichatowich says. “He called me and said, ‘the trip is still on but you’re not on it. The guy
from National Marine Fisheries Service that was gonna show us around mentioned your name to his supervisor and was told you couldn’t come.’ So I was uninvited. But that was the week that Republicans shut the government down, so no one got to go anyway.”
In 2015, the Park Service opened all of what were once known as “red line” brookie streams in Great Smoky Mountains National Park. In doing so, it endorsed both anglers and trout. It is now the official policy of the United States to let these Appalachian natives be their own brookie selves. Contributor Zach Matthews…
THE DONNER PARTY MEMORIAL in Truckee, Calif., stands 22 feet tall, indicating the depth of the snow during the fateful winter of 1846-47. The snowstorms began in early November, trapping the Donners and other families near a frozen lake, deep in the high Sierra Nevada, until rescuers were able to reach them in March. Of…
THE ROCKS ON THIS JETTY were all once uniform and composed. They say that, long ago, you could drive a car on them, all the way out to the tower, where the greasy cormorants preen their feathers. This is no longer possible. The Long Island Express hit it with 100 mile-an-hour winds and 15-foot swells…
LAST JANUARY, researchers from the University Health Network in Toronto, Canada, published the results of its study on the effects of long-term inactivity. In a word, the scientists who conducted the study found that sitting around all day can kill you.
I HATE FLYFISHING FILMS. I watch them religiously, but I hate them. Every time a new one comes out, I pay to go see it, I’ll even pay to rent Fly Fishing Film Tour films from years past, on Amazon at home. I pay to torture myself repeatedly, and each time I’m left thinking the…
I’M NOT MUCH A HORSEPOWER GUY—I don’t lust after motorcycles or muscle cars—but I am a sucker for a skiff on plane. Back from the ramp, turn toward the fish, and lean into the throttle. Wind in the face never gets old. Just yesterday, I ran several miles up a narrow tidal channel here in…
I STOOD AT ATTENTION in front of my Colonel after a firm and deliberate salute: “Captain Church reporting as ordered Ma’am.” “Yes, Captain Church, why did I just find out during my executive staff meeting that you were detained in a Qatari jail?” Her look said that she demanded more of the story than the…
IN JULY, the Bahamian government and the Bahamas Fly Fishing Industry Association (BFFIA) announced proposed changes to laws governing bonefishing in the Bahamas. Some of the proposals—like requiring visiting anglers to hire a guide—created public outcry, private controversy, and several scintillating blogfights. But our own investigative reporting uncovered a few lesser-known proposals:
LET’S GET THIS OUT OF THE WAY: I’m not going to win any casting competitions. As a self-taught angler, my poor habits are deeply ingrained, the result of years spent with mismanaged routines and questionable form. My tailing loops have tailing loops. I’ll often find my backcast hurtling toward something behind me because I’ve managed…
MY FLYFISHING HABIT has led me to believe that I should buy land on a trout stream. I first thought of this plan a few years ago, when my day job was going well enough to allow me to entertain such a potential folly. And so it went, a dedication to the idyllic concept that…
The problem was simple: We were thirsty and couldn’t find beer. Barreling north out of Little Rock, we careened through Ozark mountain highways, pushing that little rented Ford like we were competing in some sort of Redneck Indy Invitational. K.V. must have been as thirsty as I was, because he took the corners fast enough…
How to enjoy them; how to avoid them THE YAKIMA Central Washington Enjoy it: Central Washington University is why Four Loko was banned. Coeds in Ellensburg like to party next-level, and when they want to get blacked out on an inner tube, the Yakima River is their venue of choice. Hoppers and summer stones pop…
IT’S EASY TO CAST A FLY IN ICELAND. No trees get in the way. The country never had much timber to begin with, and what trees there were got cut down long ago because burning wood keeps you warmer than not burning wood. Only 20 percent of the Kentucky-sized country can support vegetation anyway, so…
NO FRESHWATER FISH swimming the American West is more badass than the bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus). Like Mongolian taimen, bulls are the undisputed apex predators of their watersheds, and they know it. A mature bull swims with the élan of a gangsta in his lifted Cadillac; when he rolls by, the little fish dart for…
WITH ALL THE TALK I HEAR THESE DAYS about flat-brims, ironic trucker hats, and hipsters, I’ve been thinking about baseball caps and how they function as extensions of identity. A crisp New Era cap with a glittering sticker on the bill is separated from my sweat-stained fishing-logo lid by a cultural gulf as big as…
ATLANTA, YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND, is not a particularly good fishing town. We have a striped bass run, as well as some nearby mountain fisheries for brook trout, but on the whole, it’s tough being a flyfisher in the Dirty South. When I moved to the city a decade ago, I took a stab at…
More than thirty years after hosting its first fishermen, Kiritimati is hotter than ever. I heard them before I saw them. When giant trevally are chasing bait in shallow water, the frantic reaction produces a distinct spraying sound, like the inside of your vehicle as you pass through the power-rinse of a car wash. The…
AWHILE BACK, I had a brief visit with a sporadically retired commercial netter at the gas dock in Port Aransas, Texas. He had an unlit cigarette stuck to his bottom lip and his skin had the same color and texture as a relief map of Utah. He looked down at the pair of puppy drum…
Five on six, from sockeye to smallmouth. HANNA PERKINS, BROWN TROUT, BIG HOLE RIVER,MT. PHOTO: AUSTIN TRAYSER KATHRYN HICKMAN, SUMMER STEELHEAD, DEAN RIVER,B.C. PHOTO: JEFF HICKMAN
“Everybody’s got a plan until I hit ’em in the mouth.” — Mike Tyson “THIS IS GONNA HAPPEN FAST, OKAY?” I say to my angler, whose lips have curled into a half-smile. “The line is gonna burn your hand if you do it right.” He continues to search my face as I explain the violent…
LEAVE THE PASSPORT IN THE DRAWER, grab your rod, and head to sunny Florida for your springtime twofer. The combination of cozy Grapefruit League ballparks and hordes of saltwater game fish will cure your wintertime blues. First pitch for most games is on March 1, with the season going through April 4. Here’s your scouting…
IN THE SHOWTIME SERIES HOMELAND, Carrie Mathison, played by actress Claire Danes, leads drone strikes against terrorists from the comfort of her CIA station. But the same technology that makes drones—also known as unmanned aerial vehicles, or UAVs—convenient military weapons, has also helped advance the careers of real-world civilians, including a growing list of flyfishing…
