One of the only upsides to having a drought year out West is that we can backpack up to the high country a few weeks earlier than normal. And since it’s hard work getting up there, don’t shortchange your trip by bringing that broomstick of a six-weight or that noodley old fiberglass rod because “it…
Bamboo fly rods are a little like herpes. Both are achieved out of lust which, in the light of day, provokes a certain retrospective guilt. Both, once acquired, invoke the sort of awe that elicits careful handling, and—be it split-cane rod or irritated genitalia—the newfound host might find himself wondering “Damn… should I even touch…
I thought I was just sharing a lark—fine: I was bragging—when I posted a Facebook update a month after moving from Missoula, Montana, to Oberlin, Ohio: “Just caught a dozen bluegill on a fly rod in a light rain standing on the shore of Oberlin Reservoir. I think I’d forgot how much fun fishing could…
If you’ve fished out West for more than a little while chances are you’ve figured it out—Rafts rule. You jealously spy them drifting by the opposite bank, the one you can’t get to, past the “No Trespassing” sign and fence you can’t cross, into water you can’t fish. You wish you knew that guy on…
Cape Cod is a gnarly pine tree sandbar that sticks sixty miles out from Massachusetts into the north Atlantic. A fishing mecca from time immemorial—Vikings crossed the Atlantic in open boats called knarrs to fish the teeming offshore banks, and the native Wampanoag perfected clambakes there—up to today with one of the best bluefish and…
Think of Canadian delicacy “Poutine” much like you would a savory ice cream-Sunday—only substitute vanilla for French fries, chocolate for brown gravy, and nuts and a cherry on top for a heaping dollop of cheese curds. Sounds gnarly, but it’s actually quite brilliant… so long as you limit your intake in accordance with the Surgeon…
Severed by North Dakota, the Saskatchewan plains, Alberta tar-sands, and British Columbia’s snow-covered Coast Mountains, Gaylord, Minnesota, is far removed from a proposed large-scale Alaskan mining operation and the toll it would take on anadromous fish runs. But it’s in Gaylord that Sportsman’s Alliance of Alaska Director Scott Hed had lived a quintessential Midwestern life—playing…
“Mountains are giant, restful, absorbent. You can heave your spirit into a mountain and the mountain will keep it, folded, and not throw it back as some creeks will. The creeks are the world with all its stimulus and beauty.” – Annie Dillard I grew up in the Catholic Church where, by a certain age,…
Immediately institute “Finder’s Keeper’s” rule for all bales of pot that wash up in the Marquesas. Ditch Hemingway look-a-like contest and expand Fantasy Fest to the first Saturday of each month. Boobs and feather boas ring cash registers. Old fat white guys with beards, not so much. Student loan relief from Key West Community College,…
There aren’t many rivers in the Rockies more appealing in late September than Colorado’s lower Taylor, which sits halfway between Crested Butte and Gunnison and is known nationally for its monster, mysis-shrimp-filled rainbows that inhabit the short tailwater section below Taylor Park Reservoir. The river received national attention of a different sort in the spring…
Hello there! My name is Petulant Sciatica, and I am a symptom of significant time spent decaying within a steel and glass coffin on the 27th floor in downtown Denver. Each day I am indirectly exposed to vast amounts of bitter, charcoal-tainted java while my host—his name is Jack—exchanges voicemails and e-mails with others just like…
The water’s surface is oily and shiny and silver and orange. The outgoing tide is tepid, with the current passing between your legs being the only indication that you’re wading, because the water is the same temperature as your shaking, nervous body. “Remember to breathe.” Vision drifting in and out, eyes straining for focus. Legs…
It isn’t those first, crisp, mahogany-spinner mornings that get me, the ones ending with a warm afternoon and a few straggler hoppers still clicking. It’s the days that come a couple weeks later, after the onset of frost, when the first nasty cold front under low-lying clouds makes you hustle through the wadering process because…
My local flyshop is now an empty space with a “For Lease” sign in the window, closed due to competing Internet sales, Wally World, Cabela’s, and a Dick’s. It was the only local place where I could actually talk to someone who fished, fly fished, and gave a damn about the state of fishing in…
After eighteen hours of travel I arrive on the shaky, sweaty downside of an extended coffee and doughnut binge. I love travel, the lure of the exotic, broadening your perspective. But sometimes, instead of a welcome transportation to an easy, distant place, where you step off the plane and a bronzed beauty places a lei…
For every good shot at a tarpon, permit, or bonefish, there’s a cast-per-hour-of-effort ratio that on most days looks like a line graph of the U.S. economy. Then there are those days that you instantly know you’re losing, like a cold February morning when even the boxfish are lurking deep and you’re just hoping for…
Matt Schliske isn’t 90 years old. He does not have a scraggly beard or a cabin in the woods. His driveway shows no signs of potholes and decrepit pickup trucks. And from what I can tell, the 37-year-old does not fit many of the clichés associated with “bamboo rod maker,” other than one: the pursuit…
It takes a certain swagger to pull off a good mustache. Some guys just have it: Jimi Hendrix, Frank Zappa, Jose Wejebe. And ’staches on Norris, Bronson, Chuck Furimsky, and the Marlboro Man say “badass” like no others. Hall-of-fame pitcher and fisher “Goose” Gossage carries an enviable upper-lip umbrella, as does Dr. Phil—meaty enough to…
We’d just smashed into a Kangaroo with our camper and decided it was time for a drink. We were tired of driving anyway, and those damn kangaroos were just too hard to see in the dark. We saw a sign near the road, tacked to the side of a rickety shed: “Kalbarri Pub.”
To understand John Gierach the writer, you need only look in his fly boxes, where you’ll find row upon row of meticulously tied flies sorted by purpose, size, and species. At first glance they’re the standard patterns we all carry, but start poking around and you’ll note an unexpected rib on the BWOs, an arced…
1. The OCD The OCD boat gets washed at the end of every day, and is always trailered with a cover on. The OCD gets an even more thorough power-washing on days off. The OCD owner will frequently make clients stand around at the takeout ramp while he gives the boat “just a quick sponge…
John Jackson began snowboarding as a preteen on the powder-strewn spines of the Eastern Sierras, near his hometown in Crowley Lake, California. Soon after, he cast his first flies in that same backyard—in places with legendary names like Inyo, Sierra, Yosemite, and King’s. Fifteen years later and the basic ingredients haven’t changed, just the stakes.…
Stiff keys moved toward the carriage like an old man lifting his arthritic knees up a flight of stairs. They rose once, twice and, with effort, three times. A weathered and worn ribbon, now more leather than cloth, slowly began to cough up faint traces of ink with each succeeding stroke. And with each erratic…
I’m sitting now, on one of the first mornings of the New Year, in a messy, stinky pile of marabou feathers and raccoon skins that nearly canvas the frigid wood floor of my tying room. It’s only ten a.m., and I’ve sneezed at least a couple dozen times by now, and my fleecy home office…
The Been-There-Done-That Guy He is a walking, yammering Wikipedia of guides, lodges, rivers, oceans, lakes and fish. He’s the best caster he’s ever met. He sets up his vise on the bar during happy hour and forces you to notice his extraordinary tying skills. He owns three obscure IGFA records and is working on six…
The view from between my wading boots couldn’t be better: a good-looking drift boat anchored in the eddy, a cooler full of barley pops sitting nearby on the gravel bar, the river burbling beyond. Hell, I think I just saw a rise on the far side. But there is very little that could motivate me…
When you first climb up there, scrambling over the bait well to your perch above the Baja blue, the bow of a panga feels like love itself beneath the soles of your naked feet—warm, slippery, perilous, unstable. The sea, you sense, lies at your command; the authority seems daunting, then reckless, even appalling. For at…