Drake Magazine Daily Fly Fishing News and Blog
For those following the High Park wildfire outside of Fort Collins, containment is coming full circle and looks like our backyard Poudre River is—at least for now—back in business. According to Forest Service officials, Highway 14 has been reopened. Big thanks to our local fire crews and Red Cross workers who’ve had their hands full…
That’s a big “Hell yeah!” from our friends at Save Our Wild Salmon, who tell us the threat from Exxon to the lower Snake River and Idaho/Montana Highway 12 is over, at least for now. Imperial Oil, owned by Exxon, has withdrawn its application to the Montana Department of Transportation to transport massive tar sands…
The mystery 20-foot fiberglass boat that recently washed ashore at Cape Disappointment State Park on Washington’s Long Beach Peninsula has been linked back to Japan’s March, 2011, tsunami. The long migrating, barnacled vessel spent 15 months in the Pacific Ocean before it hit the beach for a much needed breather.
Last year we were introduced to some wicked Bighorn Lake carping thanks to The Bighorn River Alliance’s annual carp tourney in Fort Smith, MT. Carp patrol consisted of 25 teams, launching en masse from the Ok-A-Beh Marina, and sourcing big lips hoovering down dry flies—cicada style. The 2012 “Big Lips International Carp Tournament” takes place…
The California Public Utilities Commission has approved the largest dam demolition project in California history, calling for removal of the aging San Clemente Dam from the Carmel River on the Monterey Peninsula. Removing the dam will restore access to 25 miles of critical steelhead habitat, in addition to reestablishing ecological connectivity for other threatened species…
COLORADO—For those unfamiliar with Louis Bacon—no relation to Kevin—he is a billionaire New York hedge-fund manager with buckets of land in Colorado’s southern Rockies. He has also pledged to protect 90,000 acres of his ranch properties from future in-state development (read: eminent domain) as part of federal conservation easements, the largest to date in the…
Outside Magazine has evidently found its flyfishing equivalent of Lance Armstrong in the form of April Vokey. And it paints a dire straights image of the current state of flyfishing in this recent blog post, highlighting Vokey’s “crusade to save a foundering sport.” Does flyfishing need a savior a al Joan of Ark? Not so…
Northern British Columbia is about to get ultra-gassy thanks to a recent find by Apache Corp. in the remote and largely unexplored Liard Basin area. The company is calling it the “best and highest quality” shale gas reservoir in North America, with enough volume to justify doubling the size of the Kitimat terminal it’s proposing with partners…
RENO, NV—Dear aspiring showgirls and filmmakers… the 7th Annual Flyfishing Video Awards showdown, presented by Simms and The Drake, is slated for Thursday, August 16 at the Atlantis Casino in Reno. The official call-out for entries has been served, with movies due by Wednesday, August 1.
OLYMPIC PENINSULA, WA—Good news streaming in from the Elwha River restoration project team. After dam removals commenced last fall, scientists recently discovered the first wild, adult male steelhead—about 35 inches long—arriving to spawn in a tributary upstream from the old Elwha Dam site, where the river now flows free. The $325 million federal project has…
FORT COLLINS, CO—As a massive plume of smoke billowed behind Drake HQ yesterday morning, what was first reported as a 2-acre wildfire has since engulfed more than 14,000 acres and torched 18 structures in the Poudre Canyon area. This is the second wildfire in two weeks to hit one of the few floatable rivers left in…
APALACHICOLA, FL—Partnered with The Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, and Dr. Jerry Ault, Director of the Tarpon and Bonefish research center, the Forgotten Coast tarpon tagging tournament is a first of its kind, fly-only event aimed at science and conservation. The placement of state-of-the-art SPOT and PAT satellite tags is the contest’s main objective.
DENVER, CO—The Drake is proud to support the Colorado Water Trust’s 4th Annual RiverBank Auction and Fundraiser. If you’re in the Denver area tonight come check out the live and silent auctions, appetizers, an open bar, and the inaugural presentation of The David Getches Flowing Waters Award.
Take your favorite wild, pristine river. Kick in a few barrels of malted barley, a couple of bushels of hops, yeast for fermentation… and there you have it. Delicious, nutritious beer. A whole river full of it! Sierra Nevada knows what’s good, and that’s why it’s donating a portion of proceeds from every 12-pack of…
SEATTLE, WA—The Environmental Protection Agency just added a public hearing for tomorrow (Thursday, May 31) on its watershed assessment of Bristol Bay. If you’re in the Seattle area, rally the brass-knuckled troops and stand up for one of the planet’s best remaining salmon strongholds. Why? Because the “brains” behind Pebble Mine need to be served…
Livingston-based artist Derek DeYoung has translated many a fish face to canvas, including the mayfly-munching Bighorn brown on the Fall/Winter 2010 cover of The Drake. Simms recently sat down with Derek to discuss the business of progression and the balancing act between creating commercial appeal and maintaining artistic integrity. Good read.
Hat Creek is the home of California’s first Wild Trout designated water. In the early ’80s the river boasted trout counts of 6,800 fish per river mile. That was before a major plug of sediment moved in, choking aquatic vegetation, hindering bug populations, and speeding the flow. The good news, according to CalTrout, is the…
Port Angeles-based fish biologist John McMillan has dunked his head below more than 2,500 miles of Pacific Northwest river in the name of salmon and steelhead research. We had the pleasure of steelheading with him in April. Believe me, dude knows where to find the fish. Leaping Frog Films (leapingfrogfilms.com) is producing a pilot showcasing…
MANITOBA, CANADA—If you ever had a hankering to fish Manitoba—or better yet, the “Fly Fishing Capital of Manitoba”—there’s never been a better time to depart chesterfield and dust off your stick. Next weekend marks the inaugural Bug Chucker Cup Stillwater tournament in the Roblin and Duck Mountain Provincial Park areas. The region was home to…
The Big Bugs have arrived preseason to the West, instigating a riverbank rush to the Henry’s Fork and other prime locales over the past couple of weeks. Always in the thick of it, Drake contributor Bryan Gregson snapped this pic of a cute cuddly gosling being mauled by a big, mean salmonfly. (Hank’s Fork browns eat…
In today’s nonfishing news, 29-year-old Olympic hurdler Lolo Jones says virginity is “hard.” So far her plight is much more intriguing than Tim Tebow’s….
For flyfishers following the marathon back-and-forth court battles over river access rights in the State of Utah, Monday marked a collective sigh of relief. At least temporarily. Judge Derek Pullan of Utah’s 4th District Court has ruled to uphold Utah public access rights, issuing a much-anticipated decision in the Utah Stream Access Coalition’s constitutional challenge…
Guyana is a heart of jungle habitat clutched between Venezuela and Suriname on the north coast of South America. Its tannin-tinted rivers are home to arapaima, which happen to be the largest freshwater fish in the world. Thanks to Costa sunglasses and crew, these tarpon-like behemoths have become the new posterchild for a project aimed…
The roadblocks to salmon and steelhead recovery are myriad—from commercial harvest to hatcheries to regulatory red tape and everything in between. Now NOAA Fisheries is requesting your review and comment on its proposed Endangered Species Act recovery plan for Lower Columbia River salmon and steelhead. The plan addresses recovery of chinook, coho, and steelhead, and Columbia…
Beastie Boy Adam Yauch was many things to many people. Musician. Buddhist. Filmmaker. Activist. Nathanial Hörnblowér. An integral part of the soundtrack to my teenage angst years. To writer Melissa Larsen, he was a snowboarder, friend, and will be sorely missed.
Pure Michigan is the state slogan that includes boasts to the most publicly accessible freshwater coastline in the world. But those shores you fish may be closed under a new bill being considered in the Senate Natural Resources committee.
Filmmakers Rolf Nylinder and the frontsidefly crew are on a dry or die mission this spring. Channeling their inner Justin Biebers, Hallelujah gets remixed for the topwater masses. I heard there was a sinking fly that Peter used and it made me cry. Check it.