Clyde arrived in the southernmost tip of the continental United States this November. His first few months in the Keys were spent on a lift in a local shop where a generous mechanic glued, zip-tied, and hammered parts back on him. Eventually, I ran into his caretakers at a party. Keys were exchanged and I…
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Each year in May, The River’s Edge and Simms Fishing Products host a women’s flyfishing event in Bozeman, MT—Chica de Mayo. The gathering has evolved into the largest women’s flyfishing event in Montana, the United States, and well, probably in the world. This year’s event celebrates women in flyfishing and offers educational clinics, phenomenal female…
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While the Spring 2018 issue of The Drake Magazine is on its way to fly shops and mailboxes across the country, we figured we’d give you eager readers a taste of what to expect. In this episode of The DrakeCast, we chat with editor Tom Bie about the stories covered in the most recent issue,…
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Roughly six years ago, Hank Patterson was born. He exited the womb as a physically grown, mentally stymied flyfishing expert and guide. But before there was Hank, there was a Shakespearean actor turned video producer named Travis Swartz. This is their story.
“Hey, Lucky,” Scott asks, “I can’t get this Chuggernaut to chug. What am I doing wrong?” My friend Scott Noble has traveled from Spokane, Washington, to Hayward, Wisconsin, with the singular goal of catching a musky on a fly. And now, finally here in the bow of the boat, being guided by Brian “Lucky” Porter…
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Past the Far East Restaurant, and Big Daddy’s Buff n’ Wax, we turn left at the Mexico Congregational Church and find the boat launch empty. This is normal in the mill town of fewer than 3,000 residents, but surprises me on a spring morning: the Androscoggin is at its most fishable (around 4,500 cfs); it’s…
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The status of wild winter-steelhead populations can drive the most committed steelheaders to seek refuge near the fringes of Salmo Mykiss’ geographical range—fewer anglers can mean a few more fish. So, after 19 hours of driving, I pull my truck into the dark driveway descending to a rustic lakefront cabin. Towering cedars block what scant…
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Once upon a time, Utah’s Green River below Flaming Gorge was the only tailwater in the state that anglers knew or cared about. Sure, the Green was, and is, one of the most famous in the country, but beyond that, or wading the Middle Provo if the snow sucked in Park City, the Beehive State…
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If My cats were talking cats they would ask me the same question my father does: why don’t you keep the fish you catch. Why are you so spineless, so un-hungry, so thoughtless as to our longsuffering? I’ve released countless fish, many which could have turned a day into legend for my dad. We didn’t…
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PIPELINES GET A BAD RAP, which they often deserve. Last November, the Keystone Pipeline—of Standing Rock protest fame—leaked more than 200,000 gallons of oil from a below-ground crack, adjacent to Sioux lands near the Lake Traverse reservation. The irony was lost on no one, least of all the protesters who were forcibly evicted from their…
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It’s 1 a.m. and we’ve just shuffled out of the Sheridan Opera House, halfway through The Travelin’ McCoury’s NightGrass after-show. Not because they weren’t fantastic. Fronted by the sons of bluegrass legend Del McCoury, they lived up to their pedigree. But we’re exhausted. Ignoring the advice of experienced Festivarians, we have not paced ourselves. It’s…
DetailsThe worst dates I’ve ever been on have all been with my husband, but last year he really outdid himself. It began one day after work, when he announced that his schedule had finally allowed him to attend the Fly Fishing Film Tour. He told me we’d get a nice hotel, go to dinner, and…
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Cheeky’s 7th annual Schoolie Tournament starts on May 19, in Cape Cod, MA. With more than 400 registered striper fiends, the catch-and-release event has evolved into one of the largest of its kind in the country. And as part of the American Fly Fishing Trade Association’s (AFFTA) sponsorship deal, the organization is donating $1 for every…
DetailsMidwest summers—despite what you may have seen in Ozark—are all about working streamers and popping surface patterns for oversized bronzebacks and ornery musky and pike. Third Year Fly Fisher’s new teaser for “Summer Haze” captures the essence of both the region and the season. Shooting is scheduled to continue through 2018. Stay tuned for more.
This past June I found myself walking the high-desert banks of Oregon’s Deschutes River, searching for rising, thick-bodied redside trout. After a flurry of mid-day salmonfly activity, we grabbed a streamside bite washed down with local craft brews and settled in for the much-anticipated evening rise. We’d enjoyed relative solitude most of the day but…
DetailsThe mighty chinook salmon, the largest of the Pacific salmon species, is shrinking, which is scary news for Southeast Alaska’s already-imperiled king stocks. Fisheries researchers from Alaska and Washington recently summarized 40 years of data taken from 85 king salmon populations from California to Alaska. The results show that the fish are both decreasing in size and…
DetailsEndorsed by Gov. Jay Inslee, a bill to phase out net-pen farming of Atlantic salmon in Washington waters made it through the state senate earlier this month. It’s now headed to the House, where the state legislature will cast a final vote to potentially nix the nets via a phase-out period.
Portland General Electric in 2010 began operating a “Selective Water Withdrawal” tower above Round Butte Dam on central Oregon’s Deschutes River. The ecology of the lower Deschutes, one of the West’s premier flyfishing destinations, has suffered ever since. These ecological impacts, in turn, have negatively affected businesses and communities in north Central Oregon that rely…
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“In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.”—Franklin D. Roosevelt What a difference a year makes. Just over a year ago, the proposed Pebble Mine at the headwaters of the world’s largest wild salmon run located in Bristol Bay, Alaska was on its deathbed. Then the…
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The crew at Howler Bros. recently took its Spring 2018 collection (which drops today) down to Abaco, Bahamas. “We found beautiful water, beautiful people and many days filled with lobster diving, blue hole finding, bonefish chasing and wave discovering. Come along for the journey.”
Cocaine smuggler’s former Clarks Fork property returns to the spotlight for a public lands squabble Boat captain Stewart Allen Bost and his pals almost slipped into obscurity after they smuggled more than 3,000 kilos of Columbian cocaine from the Bahamas to South Florida in 1986. With approximately $1.35 million lining his pockets, Bost sought early…
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With less than three months remaining, competition is fierce Goatfish, grayling, giant trevally, brown trout, one “huuuuge sunfish,” and many, many more, this edition of the #DrakeMagBigYear has anglers around North America chasing an incredible diversity of fish species on the fly. Which as it were, is pretty much the point of the contest—explore beyond…
DetailsIn 2008, the feds introduced a new flow-management regime at Yellowtail Dam designed to increase water levels at the Horseshoe Bend boat ramp in Wyoming. Since then eastern Montana’s Bighorn River, on the downstream side, has been gushing—experiencing more days above 8,000 cfs than during the previous 40 years combined. A new report from the…
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Montana’s Bighorn River is known throughout the world as a premier, blue-ribbon trout stream. The fishery below Yellowtail Dam holds some of the most robust tour-per-mile numbers in the nation. But in the last decade, the river has changed. There’s more water, the fish are skinnier, and some say it’s just not the way it…
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Cooke Aquaculture found to be at fault for Puget Sound net-pen failure Washington State just closed its investigation of the Cypress Island net-pen failure that caused hundreds of thousands of farmed Atlantic salmon to pour into Puget Sound last August. It found that Cooke’s gross negligence of the net pens caused their collapse and the…
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THE YELLOWSTONE RIVER’S pristine headwaters are tucked into some of the most remote land in the Lower 48, draining roughly 70,000 square miles across Wyoming and Montana. These wild waters serve as a stronghold for native Yellowstone cutthroat, and, combined with Yellowstone Lake, make up the largest inland population of cutthroat in the world.
Last year Sunshine State Gov. Rick Scott signed landmark legislation that called for a catch-all reservoir to be built below Lake Okeechobee in order to improve the spiraling health of the Everglades. Unfortunately, designs for the project recently submitted by the Water Management District don’t do enough. And in short, experts say we need a lot…
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