The first fishing book I ever received was a mint copy of Roderick Haig-Brown’s Bright Waters Bright Fish. I was seven years old and instantly inspired to pick up a tweed jacket, bamboo rod, and a wicked pipe smoking habit. Six months later, and much to the chagrin of my non-anadromous parents, I left home,…
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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…
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GALLATIN COUNTY, MT—Alaskan fishing guide Michael P. Duby, 37, is a poacher of extraordinary photography skills—especially when it comes to taking self-incriminating images featuring a blood streak of illegal elk, deer, and antelope carcasses. For his efforts, Duby has received a suspended 20-year prison sentence, as well as $15,500 in fines and restitution. But wait,…
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For the record, this is a pretty badass classy tribute to firearm-toting women, highlighting Lindsay McCrum’s new book: Chicks With Guns. The ever-popular Women in Waders calendar series might have to step up its game. (Women in Yoga Pants, however, are totally unstoppable.)
My favorite time to fish Utah’s Provo River is February. This is mostly because it’s the only time I’ve fished it, there were midges everywhere, it was 60-degrees in the snow, and the fishing lit up. This was also before the HB-141 debacle, before landowner Steven Ault posted land that was owned by UDOT, and…
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What we know about Scandinavia is limited to: exceptional meatballs, mandatory mustaches and military service, Ikea, fjords, blah, blah, blah. (Thanks, Wikipedia.) But it’s also home to flyfishing, in addition to killer filmmaking and online content available at Frontsidefly.com.
If you didn’t catch my recent “Carp Slam V” recap, I described a pretty bizarre situation of running into a “gang” of rogue spear-netters on the South Platte River. Just the other day, I received the following e-mail (below). My take: rules are rules, and Denver South Platte street justice is well… justice.
Filmmaker R.A. Beattie takes the road less traveled in search of the elusive bull trout in this sick Simms edit.
Dear Honorable Civil Servants: You have officially been served notice. Earlier today, the Wild Fish Conservancy, The Conservation Angler, the Federation of Fly Fishers Steelhead Committee, and the Wild Steelhead Coalition served legal notice that they would file suit against the Olympic National Park, NOAA Fisheries Service, the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and the…
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There are those flyshops we find in pursuit of convenience: they either live close to home or en route to destinations that require localized beta and specific bugs. Then there are those—farther afield, in unlikely places you visit once but may never return—that find us. Rock Creek Anglers, located in Saddlesrting, Wyoming, falls into the…
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Finally a site highlighting those companies that are keeping it homegrown in the good ol’ U.S. of A. Fuck Yeah Made in USA has a segment on L.L. Bean’s in-house boot manufacturing process, in addition to clips from New Balance, Wilson Footballs, and many more. (Although there are several noteworthy examples within the flyfishing industry not…
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CORVALLIS, OR—Dwayne A. Henderson, 29, recently botched a break-in attempt at the BackCountry Fly Shop, but succeeded in getting his ass tased—twice—by police.
We’ve never heard of Emily Blunt, but according to this photo she’s pretty cool. Ms. Blunt is currently starring in the film adaptation of Paul Torday’s critically acclaimed bestseller, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen. And yes, she will be wielding a fly rod….
Doc of the Drakes After an intense week of online fish voyeurism, the votes have been tallied and Doc of the Drakes wins the 2011 Peoples’ Choice honors by a tidal wave. The film, which pits Parkinson’s inflicted flyfisher “The Doc”—with veteran guide Pete Wood—against Silver Creek’s Brown Drake mayhem, collected 520 of 1,280 total…
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Drake contributor Chris Santella recently reported on Washington State’s Elwha River (“Bye-Bye Elwha”) and the removal of its two dams slated for later this month. Additional plans for the river include nonnative fish planting in the middle and upper Elwha in conjunction with a $16 million hatchery funded by taxpayers for the Lower Elwha Klallam…
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There was a Western Governor’s Association annual meeting held on June 29, 2011, in Coeur d’ Alene, Idaho. And among the various sessions was one called “Restoring and Managing the Health of Forests in the West.” A worthwhile topic, right? I mean, who’s not for healthy forests? So I checked in via YouTube to see…
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We’re miles from the truck and 600 feet below the canyon rim when the first raindrops dimple Trout Creek. Charlie Card has spent his entire life in this country and guided it professionally since he was seventeen. I figure that makes pulling the plug his call. “What do you think, Charlie?”
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I smelled the tinge of burning gun powder and knew exactly what was going on. I didn’t even have to look. There was a F250 right in front of me so I ran around the hood, ducked for cover and set my beer down on the parking lot macadam. A few minutes before Scott Wells…
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Sunday, May 29, 2011 began as an ordinary day in the White Mountains of eastern Arizona. Memorial Day weekend draws large crowds from hot deserts to the high country to camp and fish. But at approximately 2 p.m. that afternoon, smoke began to rise from an abandoned campfire in the Bear Wallow Wilderness Area on…
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In the current issue of The Drake, contributor Bill Watt reports on the largest wildfire ever recorded in Arizona, which sparked in the Bear Wallow Wilderness Area on the Apache-Sitgreaves National Forest. “The East and West Forks of the Black River are popular with flyfishers and are two of the streams the state has focussed…
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New Orleans in August is a cacophony of brass horns, sweat, and an electric undercurrent of danger. As of last week, flyfishing joined the melee with the arrival of the 2012 International Fly Tackle Dealer (IFTD) show. Impressions of the event: Yes, Josh was robbed at gunpoint and proceeded to make his money back to the…
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DENVER—The Annual South Platte Pro-Am Carp Slam commences this Saturday on the metro-sensational section of the South Platte River. So far the tourney/fundraiser has raised more than $27,000 for Denver-area habitat improvement projects. Catch a carp, avoid E. coli infection, and support the cause.
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…
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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…
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Members of the Lower Elwha Klallam tribe will tell you that 100-pound Chinook salmon once returned to their namesake river on the northeastern tip of Washington’s Olympic Peninsula. While no one can substantiate the existence of these behemoths, one thing is certain: The construction of the Elwha and Glines Canyon dams between 1913 and 1927 cut…
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