Drake Magazine Daily Fly Fishing News and Blog
Alejandro Vega Cruz, better known as “Sandflea”, was introduced to the greater flyfishing community in Beattie Outdoor Productions’ film The Scorpion Expedition, which toured in 2013. Sandflea, based out of Isla Holbox, Mexico, helped organize the colorful mission that took a group of anglers to five remote atolls located due north of Progreso, in the Gulf…
Steelhead want to swim up Oregon’s Crooked River. But they only make it about a half mile before hitting their heads on the Opal Springs Hydro Project, a diversion dam impeding migration. Half of the fish are captured and trucked over, while the other half turn around and get lost. Fish passage over the dam…
Sometimes it’s more than fish we’re seeking. Backcountry Solitude follows angler Maddie Brenneman, a friend of Redington, as she camps out in New Mexico’s canyon country.
Native Americans, fishermen, and environmental groups in Southeast Alaska continue to criticize British Columbia mining projects, decrying the potential to destroy downstream fisheries. At least five of these mineral holds are located in “transboundary” watersheds of key salmon rivers—the Taku, Stikine, and Unuk—that originate in BC and flow into AK.
Guyana lives next door to Venezuela on the Caribbean coast of South America, where the flyfishing frontier is defined by rainforest rivers and donkey-sized arapaima. In GEOBASS’s latest epsiode the band reunites to battle debilitating illness, ticks in unsavory places, and a mixed bag of Guyana’s underwater goodies.
Last month, the Utah Stream Access Coalition (USAC) announced it had won its longstanding Weber River case. Judge Keith Kelly of Utah’s 3rd District Court confirmed that the Weber was navigable where it crosses over the landowner defendant’s properties. That ruling has led to many questions over the past couple of weeks, and USAC has prepared…
California’s Bay Delta Conservation Plan includes an ambitious scheme to build massive twin tunnels through the California Delta. The idea is to transport—or steal, depending on your viewpoint—water from the Sacramento River to Central Valley farmers and thirsty cities in SoCal. Estimates for the plan range from $15 billion to over $60 billion. Until now, included…
Arizona is all about the carp in the latest Find Your Water vid from Redington. Here, ambassador KC Badger lives far from trout country, so he chases “trash fish” across urban Phoenix. Get ready to start tying dog food flies.
In 1992 Idaho’s Bucktail and Blackbird creeks looked like bad acid trips, running shades of neon blue and green. Neighboring Panther Creek had formed a lethal “chemical dam” and all three streams were devoid of salmon, trout, and insects. Regional biologist Chris Mebane says, “It was about as lifeless as you can get outside of…
In the latest installment of Find Your Water, Redington taps Jackson, Wyoming, for springtime couloir skiing and cutthroat trout fishing—introducing the emerging sport of flyfishski to the non-Siberian masses.
Last fall the Big Hole River, in southwestern Montana, experienced an outbreak of Saprolignia fungus that put a big dent in its brown trout population. The naturally occurring fungus that usually attacks weaker, older and otherwise unhealthy fish, this time struck primarily larger, spawning fish.
Two more deadbeat dams are slated for demolition, beginning this summer. Fielder and Wimer dams on Evans Creek, a key spawning tributary in the Rogue River basin, have inhibited fish passage for over 100 years. Sitting derelict the last four decades, breeching both dams will open 70 miles of steelhead and salmon spawning grounds. Federally…
America’s National Park System includes more than 400 areas covering approximately 84 million acres. Hundreds of millions of visitors enjoy these protected lands annually, and within their borders development ends, species like buffalo roam, and native trout live free and prosper. National parks are awesome that way and they are not limited to the U.S. NP…
Golden dorado are streamer junkies feared by skittish baitfish everywhere. In the Salta Region of northern Argentina, they are also threatened by overharvest, habitat degradation, and poorly understood ecological factors. A new study led by a team from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst Department of Environmental Conservation, aims to address those concerns in order to preserve the species…
Good news arrived last night when Utah Stream Access Coalition (USAC) announced it won its longstanding Weber River case. Judge Keith Kelly of Utah’s 3rd District Court confirmed that the Weber is navigable where it crosses over the landowner defendant’s properties, which means that the resource BELONGS TO ALL OF US. “In the 26-page decision, the…
In the first episode of Find Your Water, follow along with Redington employees as they stomp through the rainforest “test facility” located in their backyard—the Washington Coast. Steelhead season (and swinging in the rain) is something we’re sick for, and this vid makes it easy to see why.
A new study by stream ecosystem scientists concludes that the average cost to produce a juvenile coho salmon through habitat restoration in British Columbia is about the same as producing a hatchery salmon. But when the variables turn to “value,” stream enhancement has a healthier outlook. “With costs being equal, the study concludes that wild…
The town of St. Helena, CA is seeking an additional $800,000 to remove the Upper York Creek Dam, which has been blocking steelhead migration for more than a hundred years. In 2000, NOAA determined that the dam violated the Endangered Species Act and earlier in 1993 a court ordered the dam be removed. In 2010…
In 1974, Montana killed the hatchery machine and curbed trout stocking. Thanks to trailblazing efforts of steadfast biologists like Richard Vincent, wild fish, on rivers like the Madison, have since flourished. In the Montana Story: 40 Years of Success, filmmaker Shane Anderson details how going wild works and raises the question: Why not? Stay tuned…
Pebble Limited Partnership (PLP) has played another card from its ever-thinning deck. It has retained the services of Clintonian Secretary of Defense William Cohen (who worked with Bill from 1997-2001) and his company the Cohen Group, which, “assists multinational clients from all sectors to pursue business opportunities and overcome problems in quickly changing markets around…
Meet Keys’ captain, Derek Rust, in the latest flats-fishing edit from Dan Decibel. Says the filmmaker, “Every time we fish, we always have an awesome time on his boat. We look for bonefish, permit and tarpon when the weather allows. Whether we catch fish or not, you can always bet on some crap talking during…
A measure designed to allow New Mexico landowners to restrict angler access cleared the House by a slim 32-31 margin last week, sending Senate Bill 226 to Gov. Susana Martinez’s desk for consideration. “In the final minutes before the New Mexico legislative session adjourned, in an all-too-familiar fashion, stream access there was stripped from the…
Facing glassy conditions, Key West-based angler Nathaniel Linville—guided by Capt. John O’Hearn of Big Pine Key—caught and released four permit to win last week’s March Merkin tournament. Linville, who was also victorious at the Del Brown tourney back in July, landed one permit on day one followed by three the second day for a total…
Redington’s new video series “Find Your Water” goes city limits to deep woods, proving that good fishing can be found anywhere. Now go get some.
In another “screw you” to congress, the Obama administration recently approved a massive expansion of two marine sanctuaries off the California Coast. In the works for over a decade—and with overwhelming local support—the Gulf of the Farallones and Cordell Bank national marine sanctuaries will more than double to become an area nearly the size of…
Unlike New York’s Wall Street, Washington’s Skagit River is unpaved, graft free, and doesn’t have a namesake movie starring ’80s-era Michael Douglas. It does, however, have a steelhead population that’s doing better than it was following ESA listings that led to closures more than 5 years ago. Now, grassroots groups like Occupy Skagit are calling…
Uncooperative forecasts, shit light, and rising rivers? Leave it to the Man in Black and a single brown to save the shoot.