Drake Magazine Daily Fly Fishing News and Blog
With Bristol Bay sockeye salmon stocks on the upswing, the mining company that would potentially be their demise took a stock-market thrashing this week. Canadian firm Northern Dynasty Minerals saw its value skyrocket after Trump’s victory thanks to frothing investors championing the company’s prospects under the new regime. On Tuesday, however, New York-based Kerrisdale Capital Management…
Corazón, from filmmaker R.A. Beattie, starts with Mike Dawes telling the story of donating half his liver to save his father’s life. But mostly it’s about Mike’s friend—well-known Mexican flats guide Sandflea—a man whose physical heart is damaged, but whose symbolic heart is flawless. Through Mike and Sandflea, we get a glimpse into the best parts of friendship:…
Amid November’s national display of democracy California passed Prop. 64, joining the brotherhood of states legalizing recreational marijuana use. Humboldt Nation, on the North Coast, is the crossroads of both Cali weed and steelhead culture. It’s no secret that illegal weed grows have dewatered and poisoned key steelhead and salmon spawning tributaries. But soon skunked…
Meet America’s—and a flyfisher’s—best conservation weapon Last Friday the Utah State Senate joined the House to approve a resolution asking President Trump to abolish the Bears Ears National Monument. In December, former president Obama used the Antiquities Act to convey protected status on 1.35 million acres in southeastern Utah, a move that prompted fierce opposition…
Seeking a trout-y timeout without a single reference to presidential apocalypse? Look no further. The Western Native Trout Initiative has been going to bat for native trout since inception, and in doing so has poured its stories into a frothy, seemingly bottomless interactive storymap now available for general consumption.
Breaking News: Senator Ron Wyden (D-OR) introduces bill to sell off excess Utah congressmen Responding to public outcry from millions of American hunters and anglers over an endless stream of Utah-spawned public-land transfer bills, Oregon Senator Ron Wyden this morning introduced legislation that calls for the responsible disposal of five Utah Congressmen “deemed to serve…
For millennia, the Deschutes sent cold, clear flows through central Oregon’s parched high-desert expanses. That changed in 2009, when Portland General Electric (PGE) began dumping vile bile-green surface water from Lake Billy Chinook into the lower D. The results have been murderous for trout and steelhead, marvelous for smallies. The Deschutes River Alliance last year…
Bristol Bay, Alaska, is counting on an explosive year. At least when it comes to fish, with more than 40 million returning sockeye salmon in the 2017 forecast. But it could also be a big year for dusting off backhoes thanks to a new administration that, according to Northern Dynasty Minerals Ltd., now has “a…
David Mangum likes tarpon. So much so that he built himself a paraglider to scout new locations. And so much that he deploys a skull for a buoy to mess with interloping boats. Keep your distance, he’s earned that spot. 120 Days from Felt Soul Media and YETI succinctly captures the dedication it takes to…
As inauguration day looms (tweet, you’re it Trump), the Obama admin has been blazing toward its finish line signing into effect an ambitious list of environmental protections. The latest pen stroke is being hailed as a win for Oregon and California salmon and steelhead, cementing a 20-year ban on any new mining across more than…
Once upon a time, northwestern California’s Eel River was a heavy-hitter when it came to wild salmon and steelhead production. Today, it’s been heavily hit by a thirsty marijuana industry and usual suspects including logging, mining, damming and more. Despite the damage, experts believe the Eel represents the best opportunity to restore historic fish abundance in…
Tallahassee, FL—Hustling in the shadows of top fly tyers like Charlie Barr, Stevie Ray Merkin, and that guy who made worms sparkle isn’t easy. So when 42-year-old vise jockey Jimmy Proctor exchanged his bobbin for an embroidery hoop, no one was too surprised.
Central Oregon’s Crooked River has all the trappings of a flyfishing utopia, complete with a rugged Wild and Scenic stretch that back in 2013 held as many as 4,000 redband rainbows per kilometer. As of today, however, its booming trout population has gone bust. Biologists are also saying ‘goodbye’ to its once prolific whities.
The tempestuous case for public stream access in Utah is headed back to the state Supreme Court on Monday. And following a multi-year long battle between the Utah Stream Access Coalition (USAC) and private entities, a finish line now appears to be within reach.
In 2005 Ilya Sherbovich, owner of Russia’s Ponoi River Co., assembled a tight-knit crew to investigate Siberia’s untouched taimen fisheries, including remote rivers in Yakutia province. Eleven years later, he came back. This time with a yacht, helicopter, and better music. In Yakutia Capt Jack Productions chronicles that ten-river search for taimen, lenok, grayling, monster pike, and…
Alaska’s proposed Pebble mine hit a last-minute hiccup heading into the New Year as permits that were set to expire and be redrawn have instead been extended for ninety days—leaving the future of the project in limbo. The state Department of Natural Resources (DNR) called for the delay in order to field a flood of…
This much is for certain. Flats fishing in the Bahamas is relatively big business. A recreational fishery with an annual economic impact exceeding $140 million. (About what “Rogue One: A Star Wars Story” pocketed during its opening weekend.) How that business is conducted, however, will soon change thanks to new flats-fishing regulations that have been on…
The U.S. Forest Service this month finalized an amendment to its Tongass Land and Resource Management plan that will help conserve more than 70 salmon and trout streams within Southeast Alaska’s 17-million-acre Tongass National Forest. The decision helps safeguard fish thanks to provisions that transition the Tongass timber program from old-growth logging to one based on…
At the end of a Kamchatka rainbow? Trout eating magically delicious mice for breakfast and salmon running in the hundreds of thousands. Here, the latest pro-Russia trailer from dynamic filmmaking duo Peter Christensen and Rolf Nylinder. At the End of a Rainbow is one of several new films set to headline the 2017 Fly Fishing Film Tour, which…
About two million coho salmon once stormed the rivers of the Oregon Coast. Industrial-strength fishing and leave-nothing-behind logging through the 1900s would be their downfall, underscored by dismal returns in the 1980s—with total numbers of spawning adults dropping below 15,000 fish. NOAA Fisheries listed the lingering coho as threatened in 1998. Last week the same…
Directed by Alaska filmmaker Ryan Peterson, The Super Salmon is a super-inspiring film chronicling what could have been something super-shitty: the proposed Susitna-Watana dam on Alaska’s Susitna River. The 300-mile river is home to all five species of pacific salmon, including the state’s fourth largest chinook run. The latest concrete threat called for erecting the country’s second tallest…
Another water rights battle rages on in Colorado. As the Front Range’s population grows, it is Denver Water’s responsibility to make sure residents have enough flow to run their dishwashers. To satisfy the demand, Denver Water is looking at the threatened Fraser River, sixty percent of which is already diverted to the Front Range. The…
The God Squad isn’t a new Marvel spinoff. Nor is it the latest chart-topping Christian rock band. But it just might be another nightmare for ESA-listed salmon and steelhead on the Snake River.
People of Zwolle, a Netherlands municipality located east of the Amsterdam haze, are known as Blauwvingers (blue fingers). Story goes, way back when cash-strapped citizens sold church bells to a neighboring town for a pile of worthless coins. Counting the copper turned their fingers a unique shade of North Sea indigo. LOOP’s predator team may have…
This winter, Alyssa Halls of Owl Creek Flies is gathering a group of aspiring steelheaders for an inspiring sesh on Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. The Ladies Winter Steelhead Fishing Retreat & Workshop is a hands-on clinic hosted in conjunction with Brazda’s Fly Fishing that includes Skagit-style casting, steelhead fly-tying, wade fishing and swung-fly presentations—plus plenty of time…
National Park Service (NPS) killed a record 366,000 cutthroat-gobbling, nonnative lake trout in Yellowstone Lake this year. Part of the park’s desperate effort to restore tanking native cutthroat populations, the program has dispatched about 1.5 million lakers in the last five years.
More than a month has passed since work on a decrepit diversion dam sent a trout-killing mud slurry into Wyoming’s Shoshone River. And so far, the lethal discharge is still flowing strong.