Cause & Fx
2011 was quite a year. I’m thankful. Before I wax nostalgic and get sentimental, I want to close with one last field report from the South Platte River.
Obits—2011
Here lies: “Steve” the Great Lakes Steelhead, Flyfishing Badasses, Priests, and Public Access Another year of fishing is about to smash through the door. But before it does we take a moment to remember those who passed in 2011, while leaving indelible marks on our evolving flyfishing culture.
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North Santiam Steelhead Recovery
This week, Western Rivers Conservancy (WRC) purchased 160 acres of critical steelhead habitat along Oregon’s North Santiam River—a vital Willamette River tributary. Historically, the North Santiam was the largest producer of winter steelhead in the Willamette basin and is the source of approximately one-third of its spring Chinook salmon. Today, fish in the basin are…
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Darcy Bacha (Ski and Fly) Images
Oregon photog Darcy Bacha recently punctuated the cover of Powder Magazine’s Photo Annual issue with this sick shot—pretty much the pièce de résistance for any rising ski-industry shooter. (Bacha is only 23.) Turns out his flyfishing images are equally inspiring. Check ’em out.
Castro’s Salty Legacy
60 Minute’s Anderson Cooper recently traveled to Cuba’s The Gardens of the Queen (Jardines de la Reina), where he swims with socialist sharks, documents a global model for underwater habitat preservation, and briefly highlights Avalon’s flyfishing operation there. We imagine it’s worth watching… if you can stomach through Phil Mickelson’s minute-long psoriatic arthritis commercial.
Pegboy on Tour (Fly Fishing Film Tour)
“In every one of these valleys there’s some kind of crystal clear creek… and I think that’s what we go up there for. It’s to let go of everything and get into a different state of mind without taking a fist full of pills.” Chicago, Illinois, punk band Pegboy is slated to hit the 2012…
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Apostles : Scott Hed
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…
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Sunday School
“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,…
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Occupy Duval Street
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,…
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Living on Easement Street
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…
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Drake Fan Tattoos Face
Ever since we were birthed by an 8-pound Jackson Hole cutthroat named Stella back in the late ’90s we’ve been dreaming of this moment. Because nothing says “You have arrived!” like a wicked “DRAKE” tat right across your freakin face. Now that’s commitment right there friends. Who’s next?
Tebowing for Permit
Our father, who art in Denver. Tebow be thy name. Many people have experienced the joys of catching an important sporting event in Mexico—scrambling to find a TV at a small Mayan village or finding a radio at a bar in Baja. Like last spring, when several friends from Dallas were permit fishing at the Palometa…
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Trout is All
The music of moving water. Flying bugs. A rising trout. And a cast. In case you missed it. Or in case you have a case of the Mondays and need to see it again. Rolf Nylinder’s Trout is all captures the essence.
mit•i•ga•tion
[mit-i-gey-shuhn] noun 1. lessening the force or intensity of something unpleasant, as wrath, pain, grief, or extreme circumstances The situation down on the South Platte and Sand Creek continues to evolve. This river is near and dear to a lot of anglers here in Denver – I was happy to see continued mitigation work when…
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Michigan’s Public Land Problem
Drake contributor Alex Cerveniak tells us that some politicians in the State of Michigan feel there’s a problem with too much public land in places such as the U.P. And this epidemic has spiraled so far out of control they’ve proposed “land cap” legislation to strip the state of its right to acquire more public…
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The Angling Company
Long before Occupy Wall Street spawned from the gritty sidewalk cracks of Manhattan, back in the spring of 2009 when the U.S. economy capped its worst performance in 51 years, the sentiment around town—at least for those working in finance—was less about occupying anything and more about evacuating everything.
Daily Dockets: PPL MT vs. MT
This image shows Lewis and Clark fishing at Great Falls long before utilities company PPL built its Black Eagle Dam to pimp the Missouri River for hydroelectricity. Today, the case for who owns the land beneath Great Falls lands in U.S. Supreme Court, with arguments to be presented in the PPL Montana v. the state…
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Supreme Decision
Who Really Owns America’s Riverbeds? Tomorrow is a big day in Washington, D.C. for anyone who likes fishing, rafting, or canoeing public water in the United States. In what is likely the most meaningful river-access case ever heard before the U.S. Supreme Court, PPL Montana v Montana is seeking to answer the long-disputed question of…
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Finding Oregon Vs Tomato Time-Lapse
There are plenty of uninspired time-lapse videos making the rounds these days, including this rotten one: Tomato time-lapse. Filmmakers Ben Canales, John Waller, Steve Engman, and Blake Johnson of Uncage the Soul Productions, however, skip the low-hanging fruit and tackle a 1,600 mile road trip across Oregon—delivering the Columbia River Gorge, Mt Hood, Mt Jefferson, the…
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S. Platte Bitten by Benzene Attack
Denver carp community first on the scene When I was 13 years old my buddy Scott was attacked by a doberman. It was bad. The dog mauled him head on—Scott’s cheek was punctured, one eye was nicked and subsequently swollen shut, and he lost part of a finger trying to fend off the attack. It…
DetailsVideo Blitz: Striped Bass Gamefish
Stripers Forever is a non-profit internet-based conservation organization, seeking game fish status for wild striped bass on the Atlantic Coast, while optimizing sustainable public fishing opportunities for anglers from Maine to North Carolina. The org’s new video drives home compelling arguments for enhanced recreational, conservation-based measures along the Eastern Seaboard. If you’re a fan of…
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South Platte on Emergency Oil Spill Watch
DENVER, CO—First responders worked through the night to contain oil and possibly other materials at the confluence of Sand Creek and the South Platte River, north of Downtown Denver and about a mile west of the Suncor Energy refinery.
Art for Fishing Zombies
If you’re familiar with street art documentary Through the Gift Shop—and the work of underground graffiti legend Banksy—you might also want to keep a watch out for Tasso, whose freakish caricatures have been clawing up and out of rivers as of late.
The Haunted
Man and fish departed ways somewhere deep in eastern Washington on a tributary of the Columbia River. The water we fished ran from the granite cathedrals and frozen peaks of the north Cascade Mountain range.
Oil Spills in Real Time
BP’s Grand Oily Shitshow of 2010 may have lost its media legs, but spills on domestic turf are happening a lot more frequently than you might think. See all those little red dots on the blue and green map? Yep, right there. Right now. Over at Stop the Drill an online tool created by Oceana and Skytruth…
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Copi Vojta at Lo Fi Fly
Here’s a little tidbit of morning trivia for you: Who was the first and only photog to sail from Antarctica on a Viking ship for 99 days across a pitching Southern Ocean, landed in Jersey City, and then hitch-hiked across the country to find Tom Bie’s couch and intern at world famous Drake Enterprises before…
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Southern California Steelhead
Southern California is long past its steelhead prime, but a few intrepid fish still return to remote parts of the Santa Barbara backcountry and waters such as the catch-and-release only Sepse and Sisquoc creeks.