An always-appreciated view. Photo by Jeremie Hollman

Salmonfly Questions

Conservation, Daily Drake, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content 2022, Flies, Hatches and Bugs, Homepage Content, Trout, U.S. places1 Comment

Living in Eastern Idaho allows me to fish some of the finest trout water in the country, from the South Fork of the Snake to the Madison in Montana. But lately, nostalgia has drawn me south, to northern Utah’s Logan and Blacksmith Fork rivers, both of which flow through the fifty-mile-long Cache Valley where I grew up. Each of these rivers had healthy salmonfly hatches when my grandpa was a kid, but now only the Blacksmith Fork does, and few people seem to know why.

Some GOAT flies for sure. Photo by Alex Cerveniak

Hex-Mania

Daily Drake, Drake Magazine Back Issue Content 2022, Flies, Freshwater Fly Fishing, Hatches and Bugs, Homepage Content, U.S. placesLeave a comment

If Hexagenia limbata isn’t the GOAT of all bugs, it’s at least squarely in the conversation, beginning with its sheer size and density. “Nothing in flyfishing even comes close to the spinner fall,” says the legendary Kelly Galloup in Chris Santella’s book, The Hatch is On! “I don’t care how big a salmonfly or Mother’s Day caddis or Hendrickson hatch you’ve seen, it doesn’t compare in pure biomass.”

Tarpon on the hunt during Palolo worm hatch.

PHOTO BY AUSTIN COIT

Once Upon a Tide

Drake Magazine Back Issue Content Spring 2019, Hatches and Bugs, The Put In, U.S. places4 Comments

Mystique, mayhem, and the palolo worm hatch Late May, Florida Keys. Four in the afternoon. Skiffs buzz back to docks with tired guides and sun-drunk clients. Thoughts of missed shots and cold beer. A dying easterly rustles palm fronds; thunderheads lurk like massive silver anvils. Oceanside, brown bonefish flats sport crisscrossing prop scars. Between the…