Enduring Aspirations – Tom Morgan Rodsmiths
Walk into the Bozeman offices of Tom Morgan Rodsmiths and an immaculate bamboo rod greets you. Natural yellow. Maroon wrappings. Agate guides. Fluid action. It’s stunning.
Power to the Pound Net
Can commercial netting coexist with Columbia River salmon recovery? A Pound net is a wall of netting that stretches from the shoreline out into a river, funneling fish into a compartment called the “heart,” where fish are trapped but not killed. The nets were once common on the Columbia River, but were banned in Washington…
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Guide Error
From Alaska to the Keys, the on-the-water epidemic is real It all started several decades ago in Alaska. I was a newbie guide, hoping to land a nice tip. So, when my clients asked if they could spend the morning bonking sockeye spawners, completely ignoring the egg-crazed bows bouncing off their waders, I obliged. The…
DetailsVideo Daze: The African Tiger
As the calendar year comes to an end, the folks behind the 2018 Fly Fishing Film Tour is just getting into gear. In the past few weeks the F3T has released trailers for Dubai on the Fly, 100 Miles, and Beyond the Horizon. Today, we see a sneak peak into Jako Lucas’s latest adventure to the heart…
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The DrakeCast Episode #24 – Winter 2017 Mag Preview w/ Tom Bie & Friends
With the Winter 2017 issue of The Drake Magazine on its way to fly shops and mailboxes around the world, we figured we’d chat with Tom Bie about his favorite parts of the upcoming mag. We also hear from authors Dave Karczynski and Michael Graybrook about their recently published books, Smallmouth: Modern Fly Fishing Methods, Tactics…
DetailsSwinging for Spring on the Skagit
NOAA solicits public comment for steelhead fishery proposal Home to a revered population of ESA-listed wild winter steelhead, Washington’s Skagit River and its main tributary, the Sauk, have been closed to spring catch-and-release fishing since 2011. That could all change in early 2018, however, as NOAA is considering granting a harvest permit to the Washington…
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Rodmaking Rose
BEFORE APRIL ARCHER cofounded Denver-based SaraBella Fishing—makers of women-specific fly rods—she’d already noticed an influx of female flyfishers to the sport. But as an angler herself, fishing since she was a toddler and flyfishing for the past 16 years, she also recognized that there was a distinct lack of women-specific gear.
Unofficial Absaroka
A week from now the creek at our boots will be too thin to float. Fueled by the dregs of a heavy winter snowpack atop Wyoming’s Bighorn Range, its window is on the verge of being shuttered. “Hard to say how it’ll fish,” Clark Smyth says from under the brim of an oversized straw hat.…
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Stocking Stuffers – Fishing Books
Smallmouth: Modern Fly-fishing Methods, Tactics & Techniques Tim Landwehr & Dave Karczynski $29.95 Stackpole Books Most of the how-to flyfishing books at your local library come from accomplished anglers that aren’t very good at writing. This book isn’t one of them. Lifelong smallmouth guide Tim Landwehr of Tight Lines Fly Fishing Company in DePere, Wisconsin,…
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Jeans and a Feather – Trout Flies
Her hand, inches from my nose, is filled with a half dozen hooks in varying states of undress and oxidation. Reaching out, I choose a moderately rusty hook with a small clump of fur dangling from a bit of unraveling thread. “Just think of it like summer camp craft hour,” she says, holding up a…
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Second Helpings – Permit in Guanaja
I’d never been to Guanaja, Honduras, but I did my research and learned that we’d have our own little island surrounded by permit flats. I was even told of permit before breakfast—almost as great as waking up in that special way.
#hawgjohnson
Instead of dick pics, I send my girlfriend pictures of myself, naked, holding fish over my junk. Sometimes they’re full-body shots. Other times they’re close ups of just the fish covering my frank and beans, with a halo of manicured pubic hair surrounding it. #hottie #instawizard.
Happy New Year
It starts in early Spring when the water is cold and flinty, the wind an unceasing bully. Sure, there may be a schoolie here or there, a member of the Hudson River group that’s opted out of the migration. But the great fish are still south. I don’t care, though. I just need to reacquaint…
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After the Storm
God promised Noah that He’d never again destroy every living creature on earth by a flood, and God put rainbows in the sky as a sign of this promise. (Genesis 9, Chapter 10, verses 9-13). But God never said He wouldn’t have Mother Nature occasionally kick us in the crotch as a reminder of what…
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Bird Eaters – Giant Trevally in the Seychelles
Unless you’ve been living under a triggerfish for the past few months, you’re likely one of the millions of viewers who’ve watched those incredible teasers of bird-eating giant trevally in the Seychelles, which hit the Interwebs on Oct. 26. The footage was captured by a four-person crew from the BBC’s Natural History Unit during fall…
DetailsVideo Daze: Perfect Your Forward Cast
Even if you’ve been flyfishing for many years, it’s good to occasionally go back and re-visit the basics–both for our own imperfect casting, and for your ability to articulate it to friends who may be asking for advice. If videos like this were available 20 or 30 years ago, maybe many of us would never…
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The DrakeCast Episode #23 – Musky with a Y
A few weeks ago I found myself in a boat with fishing guide Stephen Wisner. Before we even shoved off, he reached into the cooler and sternly told me, “These fish are the working man’s trophy; this is the fish that your grandpa fished for. There’s no fancy-pants beer allowed while fishing for these fish.…
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Texas Trouts
Texans tend to claim that things are bigger in the Lone Star State. That claim seems to hold true when it comes to trout. Starting in November of each year, the Texas Parks & Wildlife Department begin dumping some 300,000+ rainbow trout into waters around the state as part of their annual Winter Trout Stocking…
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Bonefish, Best Practices
Did you know that a bonefish’s chance of living to inhale another Borski slider or EP shrimp decreases by as much as sixfold when it’s been overly fondled or gill-fingered by an angler? True story, says the Bonefish & Tarpon Trust, which hopes to increase fish survival odds with its latest series of Bahamas-based educational…
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Utah’s Monument Problem
IN THE SPRING OF 1996, President Bill Clinton created the 1.8-million-acre Grand Staircase-Escalante National Monument, encircling a swath of twisted canyon country in southern Utah. Using the Antiquities Act, he sidestepped Congress—as 16 presidents have done, creating 157 national monuments—and delivered the proclamation in a ceremony on the rim of the Grand Canyon.
Holes in Their Heads, Eggs in Their Bellies
New regulations for Florida Keys permit would heighten protections during the spring-spawn timeframe To ramp up safeguards for spawning permit on the prowl, Florida Fish and Wildlife commissioners will consider adding the month of April to the preexisting no-take closure inside the state’s Special Permit Zone (SPZ)—the waters south of Cape Florida in the Atlantic…
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The DrakeCast Episode #22 – A River Runs Near It
In the early 1970s, Don Wisner learned how to flyfish. It was around this time that his life began to parallel a certain flyfishing story. When Don’s son, Stephen, came of age, the two spent hours together fishing the brook trout streams of Western Wisconsin. As the men grew in both age and skill, their…
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The DrakeCast Episode #21 – Armistice Day
77 years ago, November 11th started out as a perfect day for migrating waterfowl. Thousands of birds filled the sky along the Mississippi River corridor, propelled by strong winds. The journeying ducks brought hunters to the river by the hundreds. Unfortunately, the weather continued to go south. By the end of the next day, 149…
DetailsBoggan’s Oasis Burns
Grande Ronde River institution has been a steelheaders’ hub since the 1940s Boggan’s Oasis, home base for anglers fishing Washington’s Grande Ronde River, burned to the ground last Saturday night. Situated at the bottom of the circuitous Rattlesnake Grade along Highway 129, Boggan’s is the only semblance of civilization for miles. It’s been a hub of…
DetailsVideo Daze: Fat Tires, Fly Rods, Float Tubes
Though mountain bikers and flyfishers often overlap in their choice of craft beers and flannelwear, for the most part these two subcultures have adopted a “separate but equal” mantra. Salsa Cycles aims to bridge that gap with their new Blackmorow Fat Bike. In their video, “Touching The Sun,” Hansi Johnson and Mike Reimer load their…
DetailsWhy “250” is the Worst Number You’ll Hear All Day
British Columbia’s Thompson River has this fall seen steelhead trickle in at the lowest numbers ever recorded. With roughly 250 spawners projected for 2018, the fishery is on the brink. That’s why four groups—B.C. Wildlife Federation, Steelhead Society of B.C., B.C. Federation of Fly Fishers, and B.C. Federation of Drift Fishers—are calling on Fisheries and Oceans…
DetailsVideo Daze: The Slow Down
Our good friend Gray Struznik—this guy—is more than just a fisherman, he’s also an unbelievable mathemagician. He’s been crunching numbers and has come up with a solution to limit his and his clients’ footprint on Olympic Peninsula steelhead rivers: something called the Slow Down. Check out what Struznik’s been up to, and don’t forget to…
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