Drake Magazine Back Issue Content
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.
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…
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…
From pupae to pike to perfectionist A FEW MONTHS AFTER I’D MOVED to southwest Colorado to start my first guiding season, I was introduced to Mark Engler. My boss and head guide, Andy Lee, described him as the best trout angler he’d ever met. Coming from the best trout angler I’d ever met, this was…
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…
The act of walking across a white-sand flat, knee-deep in endless shades of blue, is made much more interesting by bonefish. Especially if you’ve never caught one. After a few days spent searching empty water on the Bahamian island of Exuma, we drove down a twisted dirt road, past rotting cars and abandoned dishwashers, and…
Standing in the Wally Dog parking lot in Greenville, South Carolina, I swear I can hear the ocean. The coast is at least three hours away, yet the sound of surf fills my ears. I glance over my shoulder: nothing but cars and trucks along Poinsett Highway.
The Alaska Railroad winter train runs 360 miles between Anchorage and Fairbanks on the weekends, and it will drop you off anywhere along the track, much of it otherwise inaccessible wilderness. My fishing partner, Dan, and I used to work for the railroad in Anchorage, me as a PR flack and he as the chief…
Rogelio Velasco has owned Yucatan-based Pesca Maya fishing resort for 19 years, so he knows the challenge of producing off-the-grid electricity, especially for power-hungry air conditioners. Pesca Maya, like all Ascension Bay resorts, sits inside the Sian Ka’an biosphere reserve, where power lines don’t exist and aren’t forthcoming. So instead, most lodges rely on diesel…
MENTION THAT YOU’RE PLANNING A TRIP to Colorado’s Gunnison River, and a likely response will be something like, “Oh, cool—are you fishing Black Canyon or floating the Gorge?” Which makes perfect sense. After all, between the famed salmonfly hatch and national park status of Black Canyon, and the horse-pack/ rafting reputation of Gunny Gorge, it’s…
“As with rush-hour driving or the public use of cell phones, everyone believes we need a code of etiquette, but no one can agree on what it would be, and some couldn’t bring themselves to observe it regardless.” —Ted Leeson, Inventing Montana Friday I’ve seen this before. It starts as a spark, then a faint…
In March and April, depending on where you live on the East Coast, the first broods of monarch butterflies hatch from their chrysalis (a cocoon to you and I) and enjoy a short two- to six-week life span. They do what butterflies are best at: they flit around, eat flowers, look pretty, avoid elementary schoolers…