THERE ARE MANY SLIMY and unappealing things in Washington, D.C.—politicians, attorneys, lobbyists—but flyfisher Austin Murphy is interested in just one: the northern snakehead, also known as the Potomac Pike or the fearsome-sounding Frankenfish, named for its seemingly unnatural ability to move on land, live for days out of water breathing air, secrete mucus from its…
The flashing freeway sign reminded us that high winds had closed I-25 to light and/or high-profile vehicles. This wasn’t a problem for Clyde. Ford built him in 1974 weighing just under 5,000 pounds. Its big-block 460 engine alone weighs more than 700. We weren’t getting blown anywhere. Instead, we were comfortably cruising north riding low…
When Malheur Wildlife Refuge militants in January made the decidedly un-Boy Scout move of announcing their lack of long-range plans by calling for snacks, perhaps they didn’t recognize the plethora of protein swimming just out their adopted back door: a millions-strong armada of carp, so many that their protruding backs can give off the illusion…
THOUGH HE’S LOGGED some incognito years on the shaded two-lane roads of the Pacific Northwest, and rolled many an empty highway undercover in Montana and Wyoming, I can tell that, in the city, Clyde commands the attention he deserves. The turnpikes of Colorado’s Front Range are crowded with blue-collar sorts who appreciate Detroit craftsmanship and…
THE DONNER PARTY MEMORIAL in Truckee, Calif., stands 22 feet tall, indicating the depth of the snow during the fateful winter of 1846-47. The snowstorms began in early November, trapping the Donners and other families near a frozen lake, deep in the high Sierra Nevada, until rescuers were able to reach them in March. Of…
Most ski tourists don’t think of flyfishing as a legitimate resort-town option in the wintertime. And why would they, as long as the snow and skiing is good? But say you’re on day six of a weeklong ski trip and fresh snow has failed to fall. Or your legs are tired from fighting moguls for…
NO FRESHWATER FISH swimming the American West is more badass than the bull trout (Salvelinus confluentus). Like Mongolian taimen, bulls are the undisputed apex predators of their watersheds, and they know it. A mature bull swims with the élan of a gangsta in his lifted Cadillac; when he rolls by, the little fish dart for…
ATLANTA, YOU NEED TO UNDERSTAND, is not a particularly good fishing town. We have a striped bass run, as well as some nearby mountain fisheries for brook trout, but on the whole, it’s tough being a flyfisher in the Dirty South. When I moved to the city a decade ago, I took a stab at…
AWHILE BACK, I had a brief visit with a sporadically retired commercial netter at the gas dock in Port Aransas, Texas. He had an unlit cigarette stuck to his bottom lip and his skin had the same color and texture as a relief map of Utah. He looked down at the pair of puppy drum…
LEAVE THE PASSPORT IN THE DRAWER, grab your rod, and head to sunny Florida for your springtime twofer. The combination of cozy Grapefruit League ballparks and hordes of saltwater game fish will cure your wintertime blues. First pitch for most games is on March 1, with the season going through April 4. Here’s your scouting…
MENTION THAT YOU’RE PLANNING A TRIP to Colorado’s Gunnison River, and a likely response will be something like, “Oh, cool—are you fishing Black Canyon or floating the Gorge?” Which makes perfect sense. After all, between the famed salmonfly hatch and national park status of Black Canyon, and the horse-pack/ rafting reputation of Gunny Gorge, it’s…
THE SUMMER OF 1998 was good to Lee Spencer. By fall he’d raised 77 steelhead to his fly on Oregon’s famed North Umpqua River, landing about half of them. (Spencer keeps meticulous notes.) Yet there was a problem. Of the fish he’d landed, three had died—two of them wild. He’d also once brought in a…
You go to florida to fish the salt. But if you also happen to love largemouth, as I do, and you live in a place that’s a mile high, with a nine-week window to fish for them, then you take advantage of every opportunity to chase them elsewhere. Attending this summer’s annual flyfishing trade show…
I wasn’t too concerned about the highway patrolman until I had to start digging under the seats for a piece of sharpened rebar. Then I thought I might go to jail. We were somewhere between Boise and Island Park, trying to get to Bozeman.
DURING THE WANING DAYS OF SUMMER 2000, guide Dave Deardorff rowed his drift boat one stroke too far. Idaho’s lower South Fork of the Snake had fished well that afternoon. Cutthroat sipped BWOs under tormented skies, while Deardorff storm-jumped his way downstream. Finally, something angry surrounded him and his two clients. He sunk oar blades…
The state fish and game departments for Washington and Oregon both face a major dilemma: how to adequately protect what remains of their wild steelhead, while also continuing to produce hatchery steelhead for the many anglers who like to bring one home for dinner.
Back in January, NOAA meteorologists reported a brilliant haze-like anomaly ascending into the atmosphere high above Colorado’s famed 14ers. Dubbed the “Puffy Grail” it’s since been attributed to a mass exhale sparked by lawmakers legalizing in-state recreational marijuana sales. It’s now kosher to purchase and smoke pot in Colorado—where Johnny Law allows—and as anglers prepare…
Fishing is a fine way to gain insight into the true nature of water. Russian literature is an equally effective medium for getting a handle on the nature of corruption. In the 1842 novel Dead Souls, by Nikolai Gogol, the protagonist Chichikov connives to get rich off a bureaucratic loophole. Estates are taxed based on…
Years before I saw either a steelhead or the Quinault River, they were twin obsessions dominating my imagination. I would eventually come to meet both, but at different times in my life, and under very different circumstances.
Almost Every Northwest Angler living within 100 miles of the Columbia River or its tributaries has a weekly, if not daily, if not hourly, ritual this time of year: checking the salmon and steelhead counts passing over eight dams on the Columbia and lower Snake rivers—Bonneville, The Dalles, John Day, McNary, Ice Harbor, Lower Monumental,…
The browns had started to rise just as Sam Bush was taking center stage. Twenty yards of dimpled St. Vrain trout water was all that separated me from Planet Bluegrass amphitheater and a full night of music in Lyons, Colorado. The urge to tube my rod prematurely and forgo my well-designed plan was tempting, but…
IN MICHIGAN’S AU SABLE RIVER VALLEY — cultural hub of the Water Wonderland — summer’s Hexagenia hatch is the source of much anticipation among river families. This is not just a father-and-son ordeal; entire lineages come out of the woodwork to share one of the richest traditions in the Mitten. Generations of anglers are lured…
ABOARD THE MV MATANUSKA, on a 1,000-mile journey up the rainforest coast from Washington, a cross section of modern-day Alaska’s citizenry relaxed to a gentle January swell—old salts in halibut jackets bound for port towns; rotund men goat-t’d up, ball caps blazing with logos of off-road-vehicle brands; young hippies, all dreadlocks and skirts-over-pants, moving North…
BENEATH THE MAYO BRIDGE I share a small island with the homeless of Richmond. I return each year when the tiny buds of spring start to appear and warm weather kicks out the last frost. The folks on the island don’t seem to mind. They know why I’m here. There’s a small sandy shore on…
The wind blows in Wyoming. So much so that over much of its southern acreage, trees live in a constant state of sideways, bowing to the prevailing forces. Tumbleweed bounces through prairie sagebrush. The earth’s guts, buttes, and sawtooth ridgelines live outside its skin—exposed. There are rivers. And there are generally few roads and people…
“Perhaps the rebuilding of body and spirit is the greatest service derivable from our forests, for of what worth are material things if we lose the character and quality of people that are the soul of America?” Arthur Carhart—widely regarded as a pioneer in wilderness protection—posed that question more than 90 years ago after a…
Back in the fall, during the second presidential debate, President Obama and Mitt Romney got into a somewhat spirited exchange on the topic of energy. It began by Romney saying that “oil production is down 14 percent this year on federal land, and gas production is down nine percent. Why? Because the President cut in…