Tommy Robinson remembered his moment of enlightenment. It took place in the ’70s, back when nobody believed you could catch permit on a fly. Robinson grew up in Key West, and began guiding before he’d even graduated high school. But on this day he was an angler, fishing from the back of the boat while…
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IT’S 3:00 A.M. IN THE EVERGLADES AND TIM BORSKI IS LOOKING FOR SNAKES. I’m riding along with him as we drive very slowly down State Road 9336—the only four-digit road in Florida. It is 34 miles from Florida City to Flamingo, a distance we are currently covering at about 15 miles per hour. “Right up…
DetailsPresident Trump on Monday donated his first-quarter earnings as leader of the free world to the cash-strapped National Park Service—a total of $78,333. The check was presented to Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, who said, “I’m thrilled,” and noted that the wad would go toward maintaining historic battlefield sites under the NPS domain.
Simms Fishing Products‘ new Save Our Streams (SOS) campaign detonates this month with a focus on Montana’s Yellowstone River, where two foreign-backed gold mining companies (Lucky Minerals and Crevice Mining Group) are busy eyeing dig sites along the watershed’s upper tributaries.
SINCE THE 1930S, THE WORLD OF BIRDING HAS HELD AN INFORMAL contest to find out who can see or hear the largest number of species of birds within a calendar year. They call this contest The Big Year, and in 2014-2015 The Drake gave flyfishing its own Big Year. Now it’s time for Round 2. Our…
DetailsColumbia-Snake River salmon and steelhead, thanks to a ruling this week by U.S. District Court Judge Michael Simon, will see increased water releases over spillways at eight Columbia and Snake dams, helping ocean-migrating smolts navigate the concrete cluttered basin.
Redington’s Find Your Water series kicks off a new year with the short film Contradictions, introducing us to a Billings, MT-based angler who’s mastered both his mine and fishing crafts. From a mile underground, drilling and blasting, to miles of open water on the Bighorn River, drifting and casting, Rich Schwend navigates the contrasting elements…
DetailsThe Balance, a new film from Orvis, traverses the Everglades ecosystem and explains how increased storage, treatment, and conveyance of water south of Lake Okeechobee would benefit fisheries across southern Florida. Text WATER to 52866, and tell Florida’s leaders to support SB10 and HB761 and to build the EAA Reservoir, which would restore the flow…
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COMPARED TO THE INITIAL REPORT, our weather wasn’t looking so bad. Wind was steady at eight or nine knots out of the northwest, pushing temps down to the mid-forties. The water had cooled significantly over the last week, and reports of trout and reds still being around were spotty and unsubstantiated. Our odds weren’t good.…
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“Gaining a good network of supporters is critical to the life of any new NGO, and in this day and age people can be very leery of supporting any non-profit; not everyone out there is completely sincere in their fundraising efforts.” —Bucky Buchstaber, from the opening paragraph to his story, “Fly Fishing Collaborative in South…
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CHASING HATCHES IS STUPID and obnoxious. I know. I’ve tried. Pursuing particular insects insures that the potential for disappointment will dwarf the likelihood of success. If us fishing media folk are to be believed (also a bad idea), fishing is an appreciation of the moment, being present, or some other Baba Ram Das shit. Planning…
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The familiar tug, the comforting bend of the 7-weight, and another Michigan smallmouth—this one, 17 inches. Not a record, but it came to my net in a peculiar spot in an unaccustomed location; along a stretch of the Kalamazoo River west of Marshall, Michigan, where the tree-lined banks now give way to clear-cut fields and…
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Mid-June after a May-long drought and, weeks before we thought they would, the rivers had begun to “take shape,” an idiom I’ve always loved for its suggestions of primal formation and rebirth. What was just days prior a brown blob squirming primordially down from Rogers’ Pass is suddenly the jade-green Blackfoot, its boulders and riffly…
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“I got one once that had a spot shaped like Mickey Mouse ears— for real,” says Captain John Turcot, referring to one of the more memorable markings he’s encountered over his two decades of hunting reds in Florida’s Mosquito Lagoon.
“ARE YOU SURE that car’s gonna make it?” the gas station employee asked, without knowing our destination. Clyde was the only one who knew the answer. Instinct and lack of mechanical competence told me to trust him.
T-Motion theater’s latest vid fires up the chopper and points it toward the remote reaches of British Columbia’s Skeena River system to search for big kings (10 to 90+ pounds) on the swing. “Steelhead are the most sought-after fish in this province, but by far the chinook pull a lot harder.” Anglers on camera include…
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This week Bonefish & Tarpon Trust (BTT) shared the results from its two-year Tarpon Genetic Program that, thanks to the efforts of anglers, guides, lodges, and researchers, saw more than 23,000 scale samples collected from across the world. Nice work people.
How Washington’s Hoh River Steelhead Project could become the new Pacific Coast standard Wild steelhead management is one of the more volatile issues among anglers, guides, conservation groups, and fisheries managers in the Pacific Northwest. But on Washington’s Hoh River, a hallowed 300-square-mile Olympic Peninsula watershed, a diverse group of stakeholders has built an uncommon…
DetailsDismantling the water rule you (and your favorite fisheries) always wanted This week the Trump administration continued its undo-a-thon against all things labeled “Obama”, firing its latest rollback at the former president’s controversial 2015 Clean Water Rule.
DetailsFive years of California drought have been erased in a couple months as a conveyor belt of storms continues to punish the state. The wettest winter in decades is also piling snow in the Sierra Nevada, filling reservoirs, and thwarting anglers and fish.
Though separated by several hundred miles, the Ozark Mountains and Appalachia share a certain colloquial charm. Small wooden cabins with prison bars in the windows advertise cheap guns, rundown gas stations converted into liquor stores promise a sale on Sundays, and friendly folks serve barbecue on styrofoam plates. Additionally, each mountain chain sports an under-appreciated…
DetailsShot on location in Canada, Argentina, Montana, California, and Florida, Finding Fontinalis investigates the suspicious rumors of a world-record brookie said to be caught by John William Cook in 1915. That year Cook disappeared into the vast boreal forests of northern Ontario, eventually emerging with a 14.5-pound superlunker. A century later, three anglers descend upon the…
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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…
DetailsCorazón, 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:…
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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…
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Last we left you, Clyde was crashing shoddy motel rooms, pounding Coors Light silos, and scarfing large Hawaiians from Pizza Hut—clearly reveling in Peach State culture—as he meandered through Georgia’s Blue Ridge mountains. Where’ll Clyde curb-check next? Here, the Southern Revival Tour rolls on.
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…
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