If you linger around a fly shop long enough on a slow day, you’ll eventually hear some crazy and creative fishing plans. My shop—Arbor Anglers in Golden, Colorado—is no exception, and on a recent afternoon in late October, the fishing plans got a little nuts. What started with: “We should find a big-ass shark-mount somewhere…
Booze consumed me as I sat listless in the upper bar of the Dogwood; a restored Mississippi riverboat docked a few hundred yards east of the Hopedale, Louisiana, boat launch. For the next two days and nights, the Dogwood would serve as home and headquarters to anglers competing in the 2017 Sheepy tournament—a tongue-in-cheek backcountry…
AWHILE BACK, I had a brief visit with a sporadically retired commercial netter at the gas dock in Port Aransas, Texas. He had an unlit cigarette stuck to his bottom lip and his skin had the same color and texture as a relief map of Utah. He looked down at the pair of puppy drum…
The browns had started to rise just as Sam Bush was taking center stage. Twenty yards of dimpled St. Vrain trout water was all that separated me from Planet Bluegrass amphitheater and a full night of music in Lyons, Colorado. The urge to tube my rod prematurely and forgo my well-designed plan was tempting, but…
This issue of The Drake went to press on May 20, exactly one month after the disastrous oil rig explosion off the Louisiana coast. With 24-hour news coverage providing in-depth, up-to-the-minute details on containment efforts, and with many “experts” sharing their thoughts on television and message boards, we went to the source, and asked for…
The ancient Mako 17 lounged beside an Indian River fishing camp. Amid the rusted trailer and decaying leafy interior clutter was her magical and somehow readable stern message merrily announcing, “Reds R Us.” I chuckled at the irony of that sun-bleached clunker’s name as I wheeled a friend’s sleek, carbon-and-fiberglass Maverick down the ramp. Almost…